Transcription
[Music] Good morning. Romans chapter 15. So today is Reformation Sunday, and every year on this Sunday, we're reminded of how the Lord Jesus Christ blessed the spreading of His Word and gospel across the world. And if you're a guest today with us, uh, the sermon on Reformation Sunday is always a little bit different than our normal message. Yes, we're still going to be in the Bible, as we always would be. And yes, we are going to make much of Jesus Christ. But I also like to tell a story of how God has faithfully worked in the history of the church around the world. And so, the last month or so, I have been reading outside of scripture heavily on the life of a man by the name of John G. Paton. And I've entitled this sermon today, "Carrying Jesus to Cannibals." John Paton, "Carrying Jesus to Cannibals." So please turn to Romans chapter 15. We are going to hear today a story of faithfulness, a story of courage, and the transforming power of the gospel. We are going to see a story of cannibals, of the South Seas, man-eaters, if you will. But also a story about an island that the Lord led out of darkness into His light. This story has been called by one writer, "The Indiana Jones of missionary stories." Charles Spurgeon called John Paton, "The King of Cannibals." The King of Cannibals. It's a gripping and amazing and inspirational story we will consider today. So, here with me, the Lord's Word as we begin Romans chapter 15, verses 18 to 21.
"For I will not dare to speak of any of those things which Christ has not accomplished through me in word and deed to make the Gentiles obedient in mighty signs and wonders by the power of the Spirit of God, so that from Jerusalem and round about to Illyricum I have fully preached the gospel of Christ. And so Paul says, I have made it my aim to preach the gospel not where Christ was named, lest I should build on another man's foundations. But as it is written, 'To whom he was not announced, they shall see, and those who have not heard shall understand.'"
This is the Word of the Lord. Paul here, as he's concluding his great magnus opus, the book of Romans, his great letter of theology and truth, gives us his very heart when it comes to his service to God. In verses 20 and 21, he reminds us that his goal, his burden from God, was not simply to spend time in established churches, not simply to spend time in established works of God in the world. Now, we need established churches, but established churches don't exist for themselves. They don't exist for their own comfort and for their own security. They exist for God's agenda, for God's kingdom. The church is not supposed to be a country club, nor is it supposed to be a cruise ship. It should be something more like a battleship out on the sea, doing God's work in the world, changing lives and nations by the power of the gospel.
So, Paul says, "My life was not about going where Christ was already named." So many people, so many churches today, spend the bulk of their time trying to offer people something that will bring them convenience and comfort, but not something that will last forever, something eternal. We have traded the eternal for the temporary. And Paul says here, "I didn't come to swap sheep between First Presbyterian and First Baptist Church. I didn't come where to go to where there's a faithful church one block down the road and to start, you know, go from Harmony Baptist to Second Harmony Baptist Church right down the road." That was not his goal or intention. He says, "I came, and my life was all about making Jesus known where He was not known." He desired to go where people were not aware of the gospel message. He desired to bring light where only the light of nature was, to bring the shining, blazing light of the gospel that transforms hearts and nations where the sound of the gospel had not reached the ears of the people.
I want to say to you today that there are so many people in this world, and even in our very city, who simply do not know the name of Jesus Christ. Now, that might be shocking when it seems like there are churches on every corner. The reality is, according to our latest, uh, census, there are 137,000 people that are members of the "none" religion. Now, I don't mean by this they are cloistered and a part of the Roman Church at all. The "nones" are people who have no religion at all in our community. Meaning they're not Buddhists, they're not Mormon, they're not Muslim, they're not Jehovah's Witnesses, they're not Baptists, they're not Presbyterians, they're not Lutheran. They are absolutely nothing. They identify with no faith tradition at all. 137,000 souls out of over 300,000-plus people. And then, if you go a step further, 231,000 people probably are spiritually lost, according to what you read in our census records today.
So, what is Paul's heart here? His heart is, he doesn't have church events where he says, "Invite the lost," and then the church members go and invite people from other churches to come and hear how much better our church is than your church. Which, by the way, that should be repugnant to our very senses and sensibility, okay? We're not in a competition with faithful churches that love Jesus Christ. His goal was not simply to start churches of people that look like us, people that talk like us. Maybe find and plant churches where only the rich are, or where only the poor are. Our goal is not simply to make a better church. Our goal should be, according to this passage, that the name of Jesus would change every life we find that doesn't have His light already, trying to tell everybody about somebody who can change anybody who trusts in Him.
Friends, we are surrounded by people that don't know Christ. Christ has not been named as Lord of their home, as Lord of their family, or as Lord of their heart. Kids in schools today, everywhere you heard a prayer about pro-life, classical school, God made it happen, right? Our desire to have a place where Jesus Christ is glorified daily. People in our neighborhoods with no knowledge of Jesus and no hope. I hate to admit the truth, but the truth is, there were about 1,500 more people pouring into this parking lot last night than there are this morning. And if you happen to be one of them, we're glad you're here, by the way, very glad. There are co-workers we all have who are ignorant. Christ has not been named in them. I don't mean ignorant book learning. I mean they don't know the name of Jesus. We need to be a people of this true news of the Lordship of Jesus to the poorest of the poor, the richest of the rich, the rest of us in the middle, from busy families toting kids to soccer games or ball games and karate classes and birthday parties, to weary, tired souls that have no hope of eternal life, but everything looks good on the outside.
Paul's life was about breaking up stony ground, herding hearts, laying seeds in places where the name of Jesus had never been laid before. We're nothing but sinful idolatry, witchcraft, brokenness, and nothingness has been noticed. In verse 21, Paul based this on the Old Testament. Paul wasn't like trying to be creative in his job as a Christian and as an apostle and as a servant of Jesus. He says, "As it is written." This is a quote from Isaiah 52:15, where the prophet said, "To whom the Messiah would not be announced, they shall see Him one day. Those who have not heard about Jesus, they will understand." The point is, the gospel will be victorious. Every tribe, tongue, people, and nation will one day have this good news. This was the heart of the Apostle Paul, and this is the heart of the man that we consider today, the missionary John Paton.
Now, I have before you a map of what was in earlier days called the New Hebrides Islands, also called today Vanuatu. Now, in 1606, about 80 islands were discovered in the South Seas in the South Pacific by a man from Spain. And by the years 1773, 1774, the very famous Captain James Cook again came to these islands, about 80 of them. And because of the similarities between them and the Hebrides Islands on the northwest coast of Scotland, he named them the New Hebrides Islands. If you look them up today, Vanuatu is the name of them. You fast forward to 1980, these islands gained independence from Britain and France, and they are the Republic of Vanuatu with a population of about 190,000 people.
Now, to the best of our knowledge, these islands had no Christian influence on them at all. There was no church on a corner. There was no Bible on the island. There was no trunk or treat with happy Christians trying to share Jesus. In fact, there was no name of Jesus there, as far as we know, until the year 1839, when the London Missionary Society sent a man named John Williams and a man named James Harris there. Now, John Paton, who we consider today, was only 15 years old at that time. But both of these missionaries, within minutes of stepping on the island, were attacked by the natives. They were killed and then they were eaten by them. Because these were not just any tribes, these were cannibalistic tribes. And so many years later, 48 years later, John Paton said about that moment that the New Hebrides, Vanuatu, were baptized with the blood of martyrs, and Christ thereby told the whole Christian world He had claimed these islands as His own. Now, by the way, that's a pretty bold statement of faith, isn't it? So that's how it begins. That's how the gospel begins to go there.
Now, what's amazing as we end the story today, John Paton will be able to say near the end of his life, "On our New Hebrides Islands, more than 12,000 cannibals have been brought to sit at the feet of Christ." And of the 133 of the natives have been trained and sent forth as teachers and preachers of the gospel. How did Vanuatu go from killing missionaries, cannibalistic, to sending out preachers and teachers of the gospel? Well, that's what we want to answer today, as we've heard Paul's words about having this heart to make Christ known where He has never been known.
So, John Paton was born near Dumfries, Southwest Scotland, on the 24th of May, 1824. He was the eldest of 11 children of James and Janet Paton. His parents had very little. His father was a weaver who struggled to support his five sons and six daughters by producing woolen socks in their small cottage. But here's the thing: while the father didn't have a lot of money, he had the gospel of Jesus Christ. He was not a minister, but he loved God and he served his family. James Paton, the father, had a strong desire to become a minister as a young man, but he realized pretty soon this was not God's calling for his life. So instead of that, while he could not be a minister to his community, it did not stop him from being a minister to his own family. He was a man who's faithful in teaching his own children the Bible and prayed over them. He looked at them as his mission field. He was steadfast every day before the morning started to lead his family in prayer, and that evening to pray with his family and read the Bible to them and do catechism questions and sing with them.
The family. Now, kids, you've heard your parents, some of your older parents, grumble, "I used to have to walk two miles to church or two miles to school," right? Well, this actually really did used to happen. And what he said in his autobiography is, they had to walk four miles to church every Sunday. And his mother, Mrs. Paton, was kind of ill throughout most of his childhood. She was not able to come often to church with the family. But imagine the dad with these 11 children marching to church. And then Paton writes, "Each of us, from our very early days, we did not consider it a penalty, but a great joy to go with our father to the church. The four miles were a treat to our young spirits." And then they would come home, and John's father would then begin to re-preach the sermon to the best of his ability with the kids gathered in the living room to his frail wife. And he would have the kids, it was part of the fun, to recount what the sermon was about so Mrs. Paton could hear the message. They would pray together often. And I want to include this quote: "He said, as we would rise from her knees, I used to look at the light on my father's face, and I wish I were like him in spirit, hoping that in answer to his prayers, I might be privileged and prepared to carry the blessed gospel to some portion of the heathen world."
John's mother was also a great woman of faith. And parents, I'm sharing this because I want you to hear how important those seeds you invest in your children are. In one particular year, there was a severe crop failure, and the family had literally run out of food. Now, being a parent with 11 children, that would be slightly concerning. Now, amidst all of their struggles, this was the hardest time they had ever had as a family. And seeing there was no food, John's mother encouraged all the children to rest, telling them that God had everything under control and He would send them food in the morning. The next day, being moved by God and not knowing anything about the family's circumstances, John's grandfather had sent a present. He sent a bag of new potatoes, ground meal, handmade cheese, plenty of food to keep the family from starving. John's mother, seeing this surprise show up that morning, just began to kneel on the ground with her family, giving thanks to the goodness of God. And she said, "Oh, my children, love your Heavenly Father. Tell Him in faith, in prayer, all your needs, and He will supply all your wants, so far as that shall be for your good and His glory."
I add all of these biographical details to remind you that homes full of worship and prayer and spiritual life invigorate children's souls and change people in ways we never realize. These are seeds sown that will not die. They will bear fruit. Deuteronomy 6 calls on us who are parents in the room not just to love God with all of our being, but then the Lord says in verse 7, "We should teach what we know, what's in here, diligently to our children and talk of them when you sit in the house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise up." In other words, the point is, you don't need a seminary degree. You don't need to be an expert in biblical information to be able to read the Bible and pray and have great faith that God is who He says He is. Those seeds will not be wasted if you sow them.
By the time John was 12 years old, he said, "I had given my soul to God and was resolved to Him, to being a missionary of the cross, or a missionary of the gospel." His young, tender heart was so sensitive and desirous of sharing this good news. Now, John Paton's church was a part of the Reformed Presbyterian Church of Scotland. It was a small but very historic Protestant denomination. And there are so many missionaries that were sent out over a hundred-year period. You think of a man like David Livingstone, sent to Africa, involved in stopping the slave trade, exploring the whole coast of Africa and mapping it out, and being used greatly of God for the spread of the gospel. You think of Mary Slessor, the missionary who went to Nigeria, and Robert Morrison, and Eric Liddell, and William Burns in China, and so many others, Alexander Duff in India, and Robert Moffat in South Africa. This little denomination, because of the trust in the gospel, because they believed in the worship of God and in homes, was used amazingly to see the world transformed.
This Reformed denomination, of course, had a robust trust in the sovereignty of God and Reformed theology and the doctrines often called Calvinism. Paton said, "I am by conviction a strong Calvinist." For this, it meant that he had a strong confidence in God that God can save anybody. The hardest and most unlikely person can be changed by the power of the gospel. Later in his life, when he commented on the salvation of one of the people in the New Hebrides, this is what he said. He said, "Regeneration is the sole work of the Holy Spirit in the human heart and soul." Regeneration means when you get a new heart, the new birth. He says, "In every one case, the same conversion. On the other hand, what we experience on the outside, bringing into play the action of the human will, is never absolutely the same, perhaps, in every two souls. We're saved at different times, different places, we're saved, uh, different sermons, right? Different people. It's not always the same on the outside, but it's always the same on the inside. Oh, Jesus," he says, "to Thee alone be all the glory. You have the key to unlock every heart You have created." It's beautiful. He believed these doctrines because he was taught them as a kid. He believed these doctrines because these are biblical doctrines. Jesus said in John 6, "I say to you, you have seen Me and yet you do not believe," to a crowd that was rejecting Him. But then He said this beautiful promise, "All that the Father gives to Me will come to Me, and whoever comes to Me, I will never cast out." Amen and amen to that. We're going to see that in work in the New Hebrides Islands in the sermon. Reformed theology, God's sovereignty, was the absolute hope of missions. A big God and a powerful gospel is what led John Paton to be used in such an incredible way.
So, as a young man, he found a day job in a rough area of Glasgow, teaching school to young people in the evenings. He taught other students who had just finished their day's work at the mill, in coal mines. And then he feels called of God to become a part of the Glasgow City Mission. For 10 years, he's a city missionary, and hundreds of unchurched people, he shares the gospel with them. He would preach to the poor wherever he could find them on the cobbled streets of the city. He would find them in hovels and he would share the good news of Jesus. He saw alcoholics turn from sin and lives changed forever. He visited the beds of dying men and women and children and led them to Jesus Christ. His Sunday morning Bible classes led to grow to five to 600 people attending every single week. All the while, during those 10 years, he was going to the university there and the Reformed Presbyterian Divinity Hall and taking medical classes. He was definitely an underachiever, right? I mean, this guy was passionate because he knew God had called him to something amazing.
By the time he had reached his early 30s, he concluded the time was right to volunteer to go to the South Seas where the name of Jesus had not yet taken hold. He said, "I saw the people there perishing for the lack of knowledge of the one true God and His Son, Jesus Christ, while my people, the Green Street people at the mission, had the open Bible and all the means of grace with an easy reach. And if they rejected, they did it willfully, at their own peril." Does that not sound like the Apostle Paul in Romans 15? "I made it my ambition to preach the gospel not where Christ has already been named." He had a burden, like we should have, a burning desire in our very bones to see our children and our families and our neighbors and Escambia County, Pensacola, and the nations of the world come to Jesus Christ. There are so many that are in darkness and need His love and light.
Now, the thing is, not everyone was on board with him going to such a dangerous place, as you can imagine. Many respected church leaders criticized him. One of his professors at the seminary reportedly had tried to persuade him to stay where he was. "God was blessing your church work, why leave something that God is blessing?" he said to Paton. "You are leaving certainty for uncertainty, work in which God has made you greatly useful. You'll be throwing your life away to go to cannibals who will just martyr you and kill you." The church even tried to keep him there by increasing his salary. In fact, they offered to increase it as much as he wanted so he would not leave them. In a famous conversation, a Mr. Dixon grabbed John Paton and said to him, "The cannibals! You will be eaten by cannibals if you go." And this was John Paton's response, recorded for us: "Mr. Dixon, you are advanced in years now, and your own prospect is soon to be laid in the grave and there to be eaten by worms. I confess to you that if I can but live and die serving and honoring the Lord Jesus, it will make no difference to me whether I'm eaten by cannibals or by worms. And in the great day, my resurrection body will rise as fair as yours in the likeness of our risen Redeemer." Unquote. Beautiful, huh?
You see, today we live in this age of evolutionary thinking. You know, the sad thing is, in that day, evolutionary teaching was just beginning to grow, and people thought of those who were in Africa and in some of these islands, Australia, South Pacific, as being lesser evolved. What a blasphemous, evil teaching of that era. And in fact, they taught that maybe some of the people that did not look like the so-called civilized Europeans were not image bearers of God, created in His image, beautiful, and needing the gospel. And godly church members like Paton fought against this with their all. They knew that these people had eternal souls, that Jesus Christ's blood was shed to save them, and that the gospel can change any heart.
So, in the year 1858, he married a young woman named Mary Robson. He was 33 years old, she was 18 years old. Not so unheard of back in those days as it would be today. In the month of April, one month before his 34th birthday, John Paton and Mary sailed from Scotland, leaving their beautiful homeland for an island of spears and an island of blood. Paton went with her from Scotland to Australia, and then thousands of miles out into the South Pacific. A five-hour and 35-minute flight today from Australia to Vanuatu, okay? Today, five hours and 35 minutes to fly by airplane. Long distance on boat. Now, there had been some attempts to stay on the island. They were going to the island of Tanna before, but no one had ever succeeded. So, John Paton and Mary, a Canadian family named the Mathisons, and a man named Joseph Caplan were assigned to go to this island together. It was an island about 40 miles in circumference, of populations of about 3,500 people there.
So, after the four-month voyage, they finally arrived. And the Paton family found the inhabitants of the island of Tanna, short, less than five feet tall, painted faces, earlobes with tortoise shell rings and wooden sticks. They thought the wearing of clothes to be effeminate, so there was not much clothing found on the island. The practices of the New Hebrides could only be described as what we read in the first chapter of the book of Romans. According to Paton, fathers practiced the act of infanticide on their babies. Girls often abandoning the girls in the bush or leaving them on the shore at low tide to drown. They would often lock their daughters in cages for long periods of time. They were constantly fighting and violent. They practiced revenge killings. War parties were often seen on the island. One seaman described Tanna as, quote, "the ugliest, most indecent, grotesque, and utterly barbarous, both in appearance and fact, of any people whom that captain had ever seen." Unquote.
The natives were cannibals and often ate the flesh of their defeated foes. They practiced the killing of the widows of deceased men so that they would serve their husbands in the next world. So, if your husband died, there was a good chance you would be murdered so that you would serve your husband in the afterlife. This reminds me of the words of Psalm 74:20, "For the dark places of the land are full of the habitations of violence." Where the gospel light has not shined, violence controls the land. This is why the gospel must spread. One chief told John Paton that if we did not beat our women, they would never work. They would not fear and obey us. But when we have beaten and killed and feasted on two or three of them, the rest are all very quiet and good for a long time to come. Wowsers, right? You can only imagine they'd be a little afraid of you after that. This is the kind of darkness spiritually we're talking about. This kind of stuff really happened, and in fact, still does happen in very small, remote places in the world. John Paton's son later wrote, "One has to live amongst savages to realize how much the womanhood of our race owes to Jesus Christ."
The people practiced polytheism, that included the worship of trees and stones and streams and insects and animals, the dead, the dead volcanoes, and many other things. No infrastructure on the island, no written language, no access to the outside world. So, the three men decided it might be wise for us to go to the island first, and they did. They landed, and as they came on shore, a war was literally going on in the island at the moment they arrived. They heard the discharge of muskets that the natives had killed from trade and taken from traders on earlier days. Half a dozen men were killed less than a mile from where they were about to start building their first mission home, and the bodies of the men were cooked and eaten that very evening. On their arrival, including the wife of one of the deceased, who was strangled to join her husband in the afterlife.
Soon after establishing a connection with a few of the natives and starting to build a home there, John Paton and the other two men brought their families and moved to the island. They were constantly surrounded by those worshipping and fearing the numerous gods, living in the dread of evil spirits, constantly fighting among themselves. The natives had no language that was written. The Patons couldn't study and prepare. So, John started by literally communicating with a type of sign language with them. That's the only way they could communicate. They brought them gifts, they brought them clothing and food and medical supplies, which is what kept them from being killed, and of course, the care of God. And they would communicate by sign language. After a while, they began to learn a few of the native words and and they just continued working at learning the language.
Now, the sad thing is, they arrived during the rainy season. They were all very strong and healthy. John's wife, Mary, now 19 years old, through the journey arrived very pregnant, and she gave birth to their first son and only son, Peter. Sadly, she contracted pneumonia and malaria and died on March 3rd of that year. Three weeks later, John's little son, his little boy Peter, on March the 20th, also died of sickness. John recorded his wife's last words as she was dying. She cried out, "Oh, that my dear mother were here." And then she saw someone in the room, one of the other missionaries, and she said to him out loud, he wrote these words down, "You must not think that I regret coming here and leaving my mother. If I had to do the same thing over again, I would do it with far more pleasure, yes, with all my heart. Oh, no, I do not regret leaving home and friends, though at the time I felt it keenly." And then, as she was falling asleep in Jesus, they recorded her last words, "Not lost, only gone before to be forever with the Lord." Wow.
John Paton dug the two graves with his own hands. In fact, there is a picture of the graves on the island still today. Later, that monument was added many years later. He buried them by the house he had built. Church leaders soon came to the islands to comfort him and encourage him to leave the island, but he said he could not go. He knew God wanted him there. He served alone on the island for the next four years under incredible circumstances of danger, suffering malaria, the disease that took his wife, more than a dozen times. His main work was three-fold: learn the language, teach the Bible to anyone who would listen, and medically treat and bind up the wounds of the sick, whether from war and violence or from natural causes. He gave food, medicine, and God's Word to all who needed help. There were boats that would arrive, they wouldn't even come on the island, they would send the supplies to him. They were afraid to come on, and he would give these supplies out, and this was how he built relationships.
The worship on that island was very dark. Their worship, he says, was a service of fear. They were trying to propitiate evil spirits, prevent calamities, or secure revenge. Their worship was all dark about the worship of departed ancestors, or about seeking judgment on other peoples. The islanders practiced a typical, a, unique, excuse me, kind of black magic called Nahak, and their sacred men, what we might call witch doctors, would use it to kill their enemies. They would enchant incantations over a scrap of food their victims had discarded, and people would die. I mean, these were dark, demonic arts that were going on. So, John Paton, kind of like Elijah the prophet in the Old Testament, watching them do this practice of Nahak, went and bit into three pieces of fruit, and then he handed them to all the sorcerers, and he said, "I dare you to kill me by your gods with Nahak, like Elijah on Mount Carmel." He ridiculed them as they were doing this. By the way, I don't recommend you to do this unless the Holy Spirit's leading you to do this. "Be quick," he said, "stir up your gods to help you. I am not killed yet. I am perfectly well." A week later, John Paton was still breathing and doing just fine, and he said, "Yes, truly, my Jehovah God is stronger than your gods. He protected me and helped me. He is the only living and true God, the only God that can hear or answer prayer from the children of men. Your gods cannot hear prayer, but my God can and will hear and answer you if you will give your heart and life to Him and love and serve Him only. This is my God, and He is also your friend, if you will hear and follow His voice." Amazing boldness of the proclamation of the gospel.
There were many missionaries killed on the New Hebrides Islands, those 80 islands, during this time. Paton was one of the first ones to get there, and then others started following him onto the islands. And Paton was not without constant threat. He actually slept with his clothes on each night because there were many nights he had to make a run when he heard the war chants and go and hide throughout the night. He said that God often used his little dog named Kula to save his life. You see, the neighbors were afraid of this little dog he had brought with him, and he said, "God made them fear this precious creature and often used her in the saving of our lives," which is a pretty cool thing indeed.
There is one account in his autobiography of Paton and his friend being surrounded by raging natives who were urging each other to strike the first blow and kill him. He wrote in his journal these words: "My heart rose up to the Lord Jesus. I saw Him watching the scene." He could like just see Jesus up in heaven watching as these natives were around them threatening to kill them. He said, "All of a sudden, my peace came to me like a wave from God. I realized I was immortal till my Master's work with me was done. The assurance came to me as if a voice out of heaven had spoken that not a musket would be fired to wound us, not a club would prevail to strike us, not a spear leave the hand in which it was held vibrating to be thrown, not an arrow leave the bow or a killing stone the fingers without the permission of Jesus Christ, who has all power in heaven on earth. He rules all nature, animate and inanimate, and even restrains the savages of the South Seas." That takes faith, brothers and sisters. It reminds me of the story of 2 Kings 6. If you want some homework today, go read 2 Kings 6. Later, when the armies of Syria had surrounded the city of Samaria, and the prophet Elijah's life was on the line, as well as the capital city, they could have crushed the city. And in 2 Kings 6, Elijah prayed that God would open the eyes of his servant to see what was really going on. And surrounding this darkness and evil were the bands of angels and fiery chariots, supernaturally holding at bay the hands of the enemies of the people of God, keeping them from striking. There is no doubt God was restraining the enemies of John Paton on that day and many others.
I have so many stories I could tell, but because of time, at the end of four years, a major civil war broke out again on the island of Tanna. One chief named Noah was very sympathetic to John Paton. Paton had built a good relationship with him, and he warned him. He came to his home and warned him. Angry tribesmen were coming to kill him. So, Paton literally had to climb up a chestnut tree, and he had to hide all night, holding on for his life in a tree. He said these words: "I heard the frequent discharging of muskets and the yells of the savages, yet I sat there among the branches as safe in the arms of Jesus. In all my sorrows, did my Lord draw nearer to me and speak more soothingly in my soul than the moonlight flickered among the chestnut leaves and the night air played on my throbbing brow, as I told all my heart to Jesus alone, yet not alone." Amazing faith. His last night on the island, natives arrived again, and they started to burn the church building that he had built right next to his home. They were literally burning it down. He's in the house, his dog's barking. Then they begin to light on fire the fence that connected the church building to Paton's house. The fire is starting to spread down the fence. He is sure that the house is going to catch on fire and he's going to die. He's praying, looking to God, crying out to God. All of a sudden, he hears a noise. Guess what it was? God began to send the rain. All of a sudden, a cyclone came crashing on the island of Tanna, pouring rain, but not just rain, lightning came crashing down, and the warriors that surrounded this hut to kill John Paton fled, crying out these words, "This is Jehovah's rain! Truly their God is fighting for them!" He had to leave the island that night. I'm sure he thought, "My wife is gone, my child is gone, they've burned the church." As he got on a boat and he left for his life, the last time to be on Tanna for many, many years.
But friends, here's the thing: God was not done. I think of the words of 1 Corinthians 15:58, that says, "Beloved brethren, be steadfast and immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, for as in the Lord your labor is not in vain." Four years of sowing seeds in probably one of the hardest mission fields in the world, but it was not in vain. So, after this, for the next four years, he spends time traveling around Australia, closest place, and then going back to Great Britain for a brief reprieve, telling people about the New Hebrides Islands, telling about his experiences, calling on people, "We need more missionaries, we need more money, we need more supplies. These people need Jesus." He didn't leave angry and hateful at how they treated him. He left loving them more and wanting to see their souls saved.
So, as he's in Great Britain, meets another Christian woman named Margaret Whitecross. They married June 17th, 1864. He goes to visit his parents. It'll be the last time he ever lays eyes physically on his parents. His father prays over this couple one last time, and they say their farewell. John says, "I believe the next time I will see you in the body like this, it will be on the resurrection day." And those words were true. So, after four years of the hardest of ministries, seemed to accomplish nothing but losing his first, first wife and child, his new wife, Margaret, and John head back to the New Hebrides Islands. But this time, it's not to the island of Tanna. They wouldn't let them go back there. The mission board said, "You may not go back there." Instead, they go to a smaller island called Aniwa. Now, this island was nine miles wide by three miles long. They labored together on that island for 41 more years of their life until Margaret went home to be with the Lord in 1905, when Paton was 81.
When he began, when he arrived on this new island of Aniwa, he begins to dig the foundations of the home that Margaret and him would live in. And as he's digging, he notices that he hits a bunch of bones. This is the plot of land that the natives had given him. He finds out that it was a cemetery from one of their former wars on the island. He asked the natives where the bones had come from, and their answer was, "We are not like the Tanna men. We don't eat the bones." Imagine that, hearing that as you enter this island. Only later did he learn that they had deliberately given him this site to build his house because they thought their gods would be disturbed for him building on a sacred site, and that Paton would die quickly because of the gods' judgment, and then they could come take all of the missionaries' belongings after his death. Well, their ministry was very similar to Tanna, but the work of the Holy Spirit was so different.
Friends, he goes there, he works hard during the next years of his life, doing just what he did before: learning the language, helping the sick with medical supplies and food, and trying to bring peace among the people. He says, "I went amongst the people every day on Aniwa. I did my utmost to stop hostilities, setting the evil of war behind them, pleading with the men to renounce it." Sounds kind of like what Jesus said in the Beatitudes, right? "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the sons of God." He tried to end the violence on the land. He would go to visit his enemies when they were sick and wanted his help, never knowing whether an ambush was set or not. Once a native called Ian called Paton to his sick bed. Someone went and got him, and he came to visit this native named Ian, and his pain led over to him. The man pulled out a dagger secretly and held it to Paton's chest, right at his heart. Paton wrote, "I did not move nor speak, except at my heart, praying to the Lord in the depths of it to spare me, or if my time had come for God to take me to glory with Himself." There passed a few moments of awful suspense. My sight literally went and came. The shock of it. Not a word had been spoken except to Jesus. And then Ian laid down the knife he had wielded. He thrust it into a sugar cane leaf next to him, and he said to me, "Go, go quickly." He said, "I ran for my life, a weary four miles until I reached the mission house, faint, yet praising God for such a deliverance."
Now, I want you to hear this: three years. Three years of Paton living on this island, loving these people, sharing the name of Jesus Christ, three years before he had his first converts to faith in Christianity. Be encouraged if you're praying for your husband or wife who doesn't know Jesus. Be encouraged if you're praying for your children that don't know Jesus. Be encouraged if you've shown love to your neighbors and they keep rejecting that love, or your co-workers who make you want to quit every Monday morning. Be encouraged. It is not our way, it is God's way. It is not our timetable, it is God's timetable. It is our job to be faithful. It is God's job to open the heart in His time.
So, the first convert on Aniwa was the chief Mamoki. He was the brother of a man who had tried to shoot Paton earlier. He often came to drink tea with the missionary family. They just simple hospitality, and afterward brought with him Chief Naswai and his wife. All of them were soon converted. Mamoki brought his little daughter to be educated in Paton's mission school, and the Lord blessed the preaching quickly. After these three were saved, soon there were 20 to 30 people attending the church services. A year later, after their conversion, 120 on Sundays and 60 on Wednesdays. We're about to take the Lord's Supper, and I want you to hear this from his journal: "At the moment when I put the bread and the wine in those dark hands of those first three converts, once stained with the blood of cannibalism, but now stretched out to receive and partake the emblems and seals of the Redeemer's love, I had a foretaste of the joy of glory that well-nigh broke my heart to pieces. I will never taste a deeper bliss till I gaze on the glorified face of Jesus Himself." Beautiful.
They started schools, they dispensed medicine. The mission bell would ring after each dinner, signaling if anyone needed medical assistance, they could come to John and Margaret's home. The most destitute would be given food if they were hungry and needed it. Margaret taught the ladies of the island how to sew and how to read. She taught them music and how to sing. They started an orphanage on the island. They began raising the children of those whose parents had been killed in war. It all sounds to me like Joel 2, where God said, "Because of His new covenant through Jesus, He will pour out His Spirit on all flesh." That's what was happening. A nation was being taken over with the gospel of Jesus Christ. Mrs. Paton faithfully taught a class of about 50 women and girls. They became experts at singing and sewing and plaiting hats and reading. And most importantly of all, Paton began working to print the scriptures. He literally worked to teach them how to use physical tools in their gardening. There's this beautiful story about him digging up a well, and the natives were so scared because he was digging the ground, and they were afraid that the South Sea, the Pacific Ocean, was going to come up and overwhelm the island because they had never heard of a well before. But he showed them how to have a well in the island.
But friends, his heart was most about the gospel, learning the language, printing the language in written form so they could have the Bible. During these years, Mrs. Paton bore ten children on the island. They sent a family portrait there. Four of them died in infancy. Later, two of his sons became missionaries in the New Hebrides, just like them, and one daughter married a missionary that returned there. Paton said, "God gave His best, His Son, to me, and I give back my best, my all, to Him." In the next 15 years, John and Margaret saw the entire island of Aniwa turn to Jesus Christ. Years later, he wrote, "I claim honor for Jesus, and by the grace of God, Aniwa now worships at the Savior's feet." By the year 1897, he had a completed copy of the Aniwa New Testament in their own language for them to read. Even to his death, he was translating hymns and catechisms and creating a dictionary for his people when he couldn't even be with them anymore.
If you want to learn more about this man, I encourage you, rather than reading the next novel that's out on the bestseller list, go read Margaret Paton's letters and sketches and John Paton's autobiographies. The last 17 years of his life, he spent on that island and traveling, spreading the news and raising support for the gospel of Jesus Christ to spread. I need to end with this last quote here at the end of Paton's life. He said these words: "Let me record my immovable conviction that it is the noblest service in which any human being can spend or be spent, and that if God gave me back my life to be lived over again, I would without one quiver of hesitation lay it on the altar to Christ that He might use it as before in similar ministries of love, especially among those who have never yet heard the name of Jesus. Nothing that has been endured and nothing that can now be befall me makes me tremble. On the contrary, I deeply rejoice when I breathe the prayer that it may please the blessed Lord to turn the hearts of all my children to the mission field, and that He may open up their way and make it their pride and joy to live and die in carrying Jesus and His gospel to the heart of the heathen world."
Paton lived to be 83 years old, and the Lord's promises never failed Him, and he died on January 28th, 1907, home with Jesus. Aniwa reached for Jesus Christ. Who in your life does not know the name of Jesus? Who in your workplace and your family has not yet met the Lord Jesus Christ? May it be our aim not to be comfortable, cruise ship Christianity. May we be a battleship. May we be a people that takes the good news where Christ is not named. This is the Word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. Let's pray.
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