Growing up as the son of an SBC pastor, I can't begin to imagine the number of times I have sung that famous old invitation hymn, "Only Trust Him". Here I am now, almost 50 years old, and every day I learn to trust Him more and more. The older I become, the more He proves His providential care to me.
I am serving in a role now, as the director of maternity ministry where the needs are great, every single day. When you care for six to ten pregant teens in a residential setting and three times that many in other settings, when you understand that one in four teen girls has an std, when you realize that for the first time in a decade the teen pregancy rate is rising, when you see how human life is devalued in our culture...you understand just how great the needs really are....and when you look at the bank account, you realize how small the resources appear. Yet, the resources are not small. God is all over this ministry...He continues to bring young people to us that need hope. He continues to cause Godly men and women to suport this ministry with their time and treasure. And He continuly reveals that He is able to meet each and every need.
A week ago I had no idea how we were going to find the resources that we so desperatly needed. But God knew, and He provided. How alive we feel when we live by faith. Walking on the water, falling in, getting wet and being carried back to the boat by Jesus is a far better experience than just hangin' out in the boat. No doubt one of the weakness of the church in America today, is that with all of our resources, all of our wealth, we don't have to live by faith. What a loss.
Now back to Muller.
In recent days as I felt the pressure of meager resources combined with mega needs,I was drawn to the story of George Muller. His life is a powerful inspiration to me. The following is a portion of a message by John Piper concerning Muller.
"George Mueller was a native German (a Prussian). He was born in Kroppenstaedt on September 27, 1805 and lived almost the entire nineteenth century. He died March 10, 1898 at the age of 92. He saw the great awakening of 1859 which he said “led to the conversion of hundreds of thousands.” He did follow up work for D. L. Moody preached for Charles Spurgeon, and inspired the missionary faith of Hudson Taylor.
He spent most of his life in Bristol, England and pastored the same church there for over sixty-six years...
In 1834 (when he was 28) he founded The Scripture Knowledge Institute for Home and Abroad, ....Five branches of this Institute developed:
1) Schools for children and adults to teach Bible knowledge,
2) Bible distribution,
3) missionary support,
4) tract and book distribution, and
5) “to board, clothe and Scripturally educate destitute children who have lost both parents by death."
The accomplishments of all five branches were significant, but the one he was known for around the world in his own lifetime, and still today, was the orphan ministry. He built five large orphan houses and cared for 10,024 orphans in his life. When he started in 1834 there were accommodations for 3,600 orphans in all of England and twice that many children under eight were in prison. One of the great effects of Mueller's ministry was to inspire others so that “fifty years after Mr. Mueller began his work, at least one hundred thousand orphans were cared for in England alone.”
He did all this while he was preaching three times a week from 1830 to 1898, at least 10,000 times. And when he turned 70 he fulfilled a life-long dream of missionary work for the next 17 years until he was 87. He traveled to 42 countries, preaching on average of once a day, and addressing some three million people....
From the end of his travels in 1892 (when he was 87) until his death in March of 1898 he preached in his church and worked for the Scripture Knowledge Institute. At age 92, not long before he died, he wrote, “I have been able, every day and all the day to work, and that with ease, as seventy years since.” He led a prayer meeting at his church on the evening of Wednesday, March 9, 1898. The next day a cup of tea was taken to him at seven in the morning but no answer came to the knock on the door. He was found dead on the floor beside his bed.
The funeral was held the following Monday in Bristol, where he had served for sixty-six years. “Tens of thousands of people reverently stood along the route of the simple procession; men left their workshops and offices, women left their elegant homes or humble kitchens, all seeking to pay a last token of respect.” A thousand children gathered for a service at the Orphan House No. 3. They had now “for a second time lost a ‘father'.”
He had read his Bible from end to end almost 200 times. He had prayed in millions of dollars for the Orphans and never asked anyone directly for money. He never took a salary in the last 68 years of his ministry, but trusted God to put in people's hearts to send him what he needed."
You can find the entire message about Muller on Piper's web site at ww.desiringgod.org
No comments:
Post a Comment