David Livingstone

At the risk of being over-saturated by references this monthto one of our national heroes (he is buried in Westminster Abbey), I want to make some comments about the life and work of David Livingstone. March 2013 is the 200th anniversary of his birth.

As most of us will know, Livingstone was born into a poor family in Blantyre, into a situation that was little better than slavery. Along with everyone else in his social class, he had to endure from a young age appalling working conditions for a very meagre salary (from the age of ten, he worked in a cotton mill from 6am to 8pm six days a week – he then went to school for two hours every day, after which he continued to educate himself until midnight). He lived with his parents and six siblings in one room. It is not surprising that such areas became hotbeds for socialism, and Livingstone could easily have gone down such a road in order to improve society. Instead he chose to work for social progress through the gospel and to do so in the continent of Africa where even worse forms of slavery existed. Livingstone’s commitment to the gospel did not blind him to the physical needs of his fellowmen and he was prepared to do something about it.

Converted about the age of twenty, Livingstone sensed a call to missionary work abroad and initially thought that God was calling him to China. Despite the difficulties of his education and long hours of work he managed to train as a doctor in order to serve in the Far East as a medical missionary (he also did theological studies). So he applied for service in China, but discovered the doors were closed due to the Opium Wars (another disgraceful episode in British history when we fought with China in order to retain the opium trade). He could have assumed that God wanted him to stay at home, which would have been a mistake, and we can imagine what would not have happened through him in Africa had he returned to Scotland. Instead he accepted the fact that the Lord who had closed one door would soon open another one. The doors that God closes in our lives may not seem as big as going to China, but Livingstone reminds us that a closed door does not usually mean that God will not use us. The closed door is only a test to see if we will look for the open door and get involved in his service.

His decision to go to Africa was guided by a comment he heard from Robert Moffat, a serving missionary in Africa and Livingstone’s future father-in-law. Moffat said to an audience in England, ‘There is a vast plain to the north where I have sometimes seen, in the morning sun, the smoke of a thousand villages where no missionary has ever been.’ His words – ‘the smoke of a thousand villages’ – spoke very powerfully to Livingstone, and so he went to Africa. Each day, I see the lights of a thousand houses where Christ is not known, and so do all of us.

Apparently Livingstone was only aware of a small number of converts through his missionary work. But his work as an explorer opened up large areas of the continent for large numbers of missionaries to follow the paths he trailblazed (in Malawi, Tanzania, Uganda and Zaire, and who can count the number of Christians there today, with some of the strongest churches in the world?). What made him persist, although so little initial fruit? Perhaps these words, written in 1852, tell us why: ‘O Jesus, fill me with thy love now, and I beseech thee, accept me, and use me a little for thy glory. I have done nothing for thee yet, and I would like to do something.’ Or perhaps these words, also from 1852, tell us why: ‘I will place no value on anything I have or may possess, except in relation to the kingdom of Christ. If anything will advance the interests of that kingdom, it shall be given away or kept only as by giving or keeping of it I shall most promote the glory of him to whom I owe all my hopes in time and eternity.’ Twenty years later, in 1872, he wrote in his diary, ‘My Jesus, my King, my Life, my All; again I dedicate my whole self to thee.’ The value of persistence for Jesus is never to be measured merely in terms of visible success. 

It is ironic that Livingstone has been and is analysed negatively by many academics, most of whom spend their lives in comfortable situations and earning high salaries, writing articles and books that shortly will be consigned to the dustbin of history, and whose mission in life is not to promote the Christian faith. I have heard Christians repeat some of these negativisms as if they were all one can say about Livingstone. Of course, no one is perfect and Livingstone had his flaws. But I wonder what Jesus said to him when he arrived in heaven. I suspect it was, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant. Enter into the joy of your Lord.’ With that commendation, what does it matter now to Livingstone in heaven that people on earth misrepresent him? And that is the commendation we should be looking for as well.

Livingstone died kneeling in prayer beside his bed. As one biographer put it, Livingstone ‘had died in the act of prayer – prayer offered in that reverential attitude about which he was always so particular; commending his own spirit, with all his dear ones, as was his wont, into the hands of his Saviour; and commending AFRICA – his own dear Africa – with all her woes and sins and wrongs, to the Avenger of the oppressed and the Redeemer of the lost.’ I suspect his prayers are still being answered.

Perhaps it is best to let an African have the last word. A missionary once met an old African man who as a child had seen Livingstone. She asked the old man what he recalled about Livingstone. He replied: ‘He laughed, there was love in his eyes, he was not fierce.’ Then he added, ‘He made a path through our land, and you his followers have come, God’s Light-bringers, and more come today.’

Mary Slessor

The modern missionary movement, which had its origins in the late eighteenth century, continued to make advances during the nineteenth, often with great cost to the missionaries involved. Initially the missionaries were men and the only women to be seen in missionary work were the wives of married missionaries. This outlook began to change during the nineteenth century and eventually single women were accepted by missionary societies. One such single woman was Mary Slessor.

Mary was born in Aberdeen in 1848. Her family were very poor and circumstances forced them to move to Dundee. There the whole family lived in one room and slept on a mattress on the floor. She was often hungry. When she was fourteen, after a rudimentary education, she started to work full-time in a mill, with her weekly hours numbering almost sixty.

Despite their poverty, Mary’s mother had taken her family to church and Mary developed an interest in missionary work at a young age. After she was converted in her teens she began to prepare herself for possible missionary work. One reason behind her thinking was the sad fact that her elder brother, who had intended to be a missionary, had died and she wondered if she should become a missionary instead of him. The area of Africa that she felt burdened over was Calabar in south-east Nigeria and eventually she arrived there as a missionary of the Calabar Mission in 1876.

Her first period there lasted less than three years. Initially she worked among women and also taught in the school. She quickly learned the local language (Efik) and became a fluent speaker of it. Unfortunately she contracted malaria and had to return to Scotland to recover. When she returned to Calabar she was allowed to work by herself and to live where she wanted. She chose to live with the local people who were very poor. Her upbringing in a poor home in Scotland had prepared her for such a lifestyle in Africa.

Mary became aware of some of the horrible practices that existed among the local people. One was the murder of twins (the locals regarded the birth of twins as a curse) and Mary determined to rescue as many as she could as well as to take care of the mothers who were shunned by society for giving birth to them. On her next trip home to Scotland she took a rescued six-month old baby girl with her. She took the baby with her whenever she was on a speaking engagement and the presence of the infant was a living example of Mary’s work.

She then returned to Africa determined to push further inland. Inevitably she became involved in many local situations. In addition to rescuing children, she acted as a peacemaker between warring tribes and told the local people about the love of God for sinners. When she heard about the death of her mother and sister, she realised that she was free to focus on travelling even further inland. So she journeyed to Okojong and continued her manner of work there, living in a mud hut.

When she was fifty-five, she moved on again and worked among other people groups for over a decade. She died in 1915 in a mud hut after a painful illness, having given forty years of her life to serving Christ among the poor people in Nigeria. Her method of doing mission, which we would describe as incarnational and sacrificial, worked in that it enabled her to draw near to the people she wanted to tell about Jesus.

What was the secret of her commitment? She had learned tenacity in her childhood situation, but it required more than that to keep her serving the Lord in difficult circumstances as an adult. Perhaps the secret is found in words she wrote about herself: ‘If I am seldom in a triumphant or ecstatic mood, Christ is here and the Holy Spirit. I am always satisfied and happy in his love.’

D. L. Moody

While in Chicago recently we worshipped in the Moody Church in Chicago. It is a very imposing building capable of seating 4000 people. There were probably about 2500 in the morning service. The Lord's Supper was held during it and although the congregation was large, it only took about ten minutes for the bread and wine to be passed round the rows of seats.

We heard an excellent sermon on the differences between a Christian and every other type of person. A Christian travels via the cross of Calvary, and because he has been there he has different values (coming from his new heart) and a different destination (heaven). The preacher stressed the necessity of a changed life before a person can be regarded as a true Christian.

After the morning service, one of the staff introduced visitors to some of the features of Moody Church. It is not the building in which D. L. Moody preached, but was built about twenty-five years after he died. Because it was constructed before the age of microphones, it had to be designed in such a way that every word from the preacher could be heard in every inch of the building. The member of staff illustrated that this was the case with the building, although now they use microphones.

Our guide told us several stories about D. L. Moody. It is reckoned that he preached to twenty million people all over the world; on one occasion he preached to a crowd of over 15000 in Glasgow. Although he preached several times a day at times, and was often exhausted by the evening, Moody resolved never to let a day pass in which he did not speak personally to a new individual about Jesus. So if he did not manage to do so during the day, he would not go to bed until he had found a new individual to tell about Jesus.

On one occasion, Moody preached a two-part sermon. He planned to use the first sermon to explain the gospel and to use the second sermon to apply it. So at the end of the first sermon, after he had explained the gospel, Moody told his congregation to go home and think about the gospel, expecting to see them the following Sunday. Yet many of them did not live to hear the next sermon because shortly after the first sermon was over, a fire began which burned the entire city to the ground. Some of Moody's hearers perished. His response was to insist from then on in every sermon that his hearers make an immediate response to the gospel offer. And he was right to do so. Nobody knows what lies between one sermon and the next.

Moody had a great love for young people. He held special services for the many who had been left to wander the streets. Some of his methods were regarded as unbecoming by some of the more snooty churchgoers and they looked down upon his efforts, calling him Crazy Moody. The Lord arranged for Moody to be vindicated however. Shortly afterwards, a visitor to Chicago insisted on being introduced to Moody because he had heard about his methods. The visitor was Abraham Lincoln, who was on his way to Washington to become President. He did not ask to see the critics, but he did want to see the man who was trying to do something about the spiritual needs of the lost.

What was the secret of Moody's power? He had little education, was devoid of grammar (his wife had to write letters for him), and did not plan to be a preacher. One day he heard a preacher say, 'The world has yet to see what God can do with a man who is totally devoted to him.' Moody said in his heart, 'I would like to be that man.' So he devoted himself to serving God and little by little God opened doors for him to serve. Beginning with the young people and the down and outs in Chicago, eventually he found himself preaching all over the world. Through Moody's influence, God led countless others to serve him in an incredible number of ways. But the secret was that Moody was willing to serve God in places that others refused to go to. And he now has his reward.

I know that we have problems with some aspects of Moody's theology and evangelistic methods. I have been reading again the estimations expressed of Moody by Spurgeon and Andrew Bonar. No doubt, they could see flaws because no-one is perfect. Yet they rejoiced to see his zeal for Jesus.