How much do you know about great Christian leaders like John Knox, William Carey, David Livingstone, John Bunyan, and Johann Sebastian Bach?
If you’re like most Christians, probably not much. But these men – and their wives – paved the way for evangelical Christianity to make significant inroads into their cultures … and our world.
I just finished reading all 502 pages of William J. Petersen’s book 25 Surprising Marriages: How Great Christians Struggled to Make Their Marriages Work by reading a mere 6 pages per day … and I didn’t want the book to end.
In fact, when I was done, I immediately wrote a glowing review of the book on Amazon:
Why did this book resonate with me so much?
First, I learned so much about the accomplishments of these impactful Christian leaders. For example, did you know that:
*Hudson Taylor shocked his missionary colleagues in China by dressing like a Chinese teacher … complete with shaved head and pigtails?
*John Knox laid the groundwork for modern democracy by challenging Scotland to fight against unjust rulers?
- John Knox House, Royal Mile, Edinburgh, Scotland
*George Muller built orphanages in England by faith and prayer … and without asking for either public or private funds?
*William Carey – British missionary to India – learned foreign languages like Greek, Latin, Hebrew, French, Dutch and Italian in his spare time?
*David Livingstone sought to explore the interior of Africa because he believed that if slave traders got there first, Africans would never be open to the gospel?
*John Bunyan used to play tipcat – an early form of baseball – on Sunday afternoons? (Had to throw that one in.)
*Francis Schaeffer was unknown outside his small denomination until he was in his fifties?
*When Johann Sebastian Bach was offered the job of music director in Leipzig, a councilman mumbled, “Since we cannot get the best, we will have to be satisfied with a mediocre one?”
*The great Jonathan Edwards – one of America’s premier thinkers – was forced out of his first pastorate?
*Adoniram Judson – an American – was imprisoned and tortured because the Burmese couldn’t distinguish Americans from Brits?
*John Calvin made so many enemies in Geneva that people used to name their dogs “Calvin?”
The Christian faith didn’t start the day you were born. Our faith largely comes from Europe – especially Germany – through England and Scotland to the US. The story of how it came to us is fascinating.
Second, I learned that getting and being married can be agonizing!
Did you know that:
*Hudson Taylor wrote Maria’s uncle in England to request her hand in marriage, unaware that Miss Addersley (Maria’s guardian and employer) had written to ask the uncle to turn down the proposal?
*Martin Luther married a runaway nun? (Luther said that his marriage would “please his father, rile the pope, make angels laugh and devils weep, and would seal his testimony.”)
- Castle Church in Wittenberg, Germany
- Place where Luther posted his 95 Theses, Castle Church
*C.S. Lewis married a former avowed atheist and Communist who had been divorced … and when he finally married Joy, they hid it from almost everybody?
*John Wesley did not marry Grace – the woman he really loved – because his brother Charles (the great hymn writer) arranged for Grace to be married to another man?
- John Wesley Statue in front of Wesley Chapel, London
*John Wesley then married Molly, and that their marriage was “a miserable failure,” causing Wesley to write later in life, “Love is rot?”
*William Carey’s wife Dorothy became severely depressed in India … and never really came out of it? (Some think she went insane.)
*David Livingstone disappeared for 4 1/2 years while exploring the interior of Africa … and that his wife assumed that she would never see him again? (She did. When I saw his memorial in Westminster Abbey, I was so moved that I burst into tears.)
*Billy Graham’s wife Ruth once dug her shoes into Billy’s shins (so he would avoid discussing politics) when US President LBJ asked Billy who his running mate should be before the 1964 election?
*John Bunyan was 31 when he married his second wife Elizabeth … and that she was only 16 or 17?
- Tomb of John Bunyan, Bunhill Fields, London
*Francis Schaeffer first met Edith by ordering her to break a date with another guy?
*Jonathan Edwards and his wife Sarah lived in a state of siege and rarely left their house for three years during the French and Indian War?
*Adoniram Judson’s wife Nancy developed a liver ailment in Burma and sailed to America for treatment … returning 28 months later?
*John Calvin put together a search team to find him a wife … and after three recommendations, was still a bachelor?
Third, I learned that these leaders willingly suffered for their faith in Christ.
Compared to these men and women, Hollywood knows little about love … and we Christians know little about suffering.
So many of these great leaders lost infants in childbirth and lost children to diseases.
They worried about finances … endured incredible hardships … and did it all because they believed God had called them to their particular ministry.
Missionaries like Hudson Taylor, William Carey, and Adoniram Judson and their wives sailed for months before arriving at their destinations. Once they arrived in Asia, they not only faced hardships from the native people, but also from fellow missionaries.
And these people gave up so much to serve Christ. For example, before Adoniram Judson sailed for Asia, he wrote the following letter to Nancy’s father:
“I have now to ask whether you can consent to part with your daughter early next spring to see her no more in this world; whether you can consent to her departure and her subjection to the hardships and sufferings of a missionary life; whether you can consent to her exposure to the dangers of the ocean; to the fatal influence of the southern climate of India; to every kind of want and distress; to degradation, insult, persecution, and perhaps a violent death.”
Surprisingly, both Nancy and her father agreed that she could marry Adoniram – who became the first American foreign missionary – even though she never saw her family again.
Finally, I resonated with a few of these leaders more than others.
I love Charles Spurgeon’s command of the English language … Billy Sunday’s affinity for baseball … John Knox’s courage in preaching God’s Word … and the desire of Jonathan Edwards and John Calvin to study and write without messing with “people problems.”
I could also relate to the fact that some of these leaders – notably Luther, Bach, Schaeffer, and Calvin – struggled at times with their temper.
Out of them all, I was more amazed by the stories of the missionaries – the Careys, the Livingstones, and the Judsons – than any of the rest.
In fact, some were so moving and meaningful that somebody should turn them into films. We need to hear these stories … especially in our churches.
My prayer is that you will hear them too … by obtaining Petersen’s book and reading them for yourself.
Let me know what you think!
Restoring Kingdom Builders 
The Forgotten Enemy
Posted in Church Conflict, Church Coup Excerpts, Conflict with the Pastor, Fighting Evil, Personal Stories, Please Comment!, tagged Attacks against pastors, Church Coup, Dr. Ed Murphy, Satan's strategy against pastors, spiritual curses, spiritual warfare on October 30, 2013| 1 Comment »
Tomorrow is Halloween. I loved Halloween as a kid. I don’t love it anymore.
Why not? As I described in my book Church Coup, events occurred on Halloween four years ago that changed the way I view the day forever.
Simply put, in the midst of a church conflict, my family was spiritually attacked on October 31. I witnessed the attack, along with several others. It was frightening … custom-designed … and very, very real.
The intent? To destroy my family and my ministry.
In the book, I chose not to reveal the details of the attack which did not originate from humans, but from the enemy of our souls.
Satan is real. He hates God the Father … Jesus Christ … Jesus’ church and followers … and even you. If the devil and his hordes cannot keep a person from following Jesus, they will seek to neutralize or even eliminate that believer’s impact so that Christ’s kingdom cannot advance through them.
If you’re courageous enough to keep reading, let me share a story that I left out of my book.
__________
Kim and I had seen Satan at work in Silicon Valley nearly twenty years before. Santa Clara County has a much larger array of agnostics and atheists than almost anywhere in the United States, so it’s a spiritually resistant area. We were launching a new church in a warehouse located at a busy intersection when our family suddenly began to receive obscene phone calls at home. An anonymous caller continually left menacing messages taken from a Three Stooges short or a movie.
One time, the caller left a message taken from the soundtrack to the film The Poseidon Adventure. Gene Hackman plays a minister trying to lead survivors out of a large ship that had capsized. Ernest Borgnine’s character says to him at one point, “I’ve had just about enough out of you, preacher.” That very quotation from the lips of Borgnine’s character was left on our machine! When I consulted with Dr. Ed Murphy, a worldwide expert in spiritual warfare, he surmised that someone had put a curse on our church.
Dr. Murphy writes about this issue in The Handbook of Spiritual Warfare:
“Cursing is not used in the Old Testament with the Western idea of swearing or speaking dirty words. Cursing in the Old Testament is a power concept meant to release negative spiritual power against the object, person, or place being cursed. This is true even when God does the cursing. In fact, most curse expressions in Scripture refer to God’s action or the action of His servants in accordance with His will. It is God releasing His power or judgment. That is why I call it negative spirit power even when activated by God.”[1]
Dr. Murphy continues:
“Many believers have been victims of the curses of the Enemy pronounced by the Enemy’s power workers…. Such curses, to be most powerful, are ‘worked up’ by invocations to the spirits and satanic magic. They are overcome only by the greater power of God. Sometimes God does not automatically overcome those curses on our behalf, however. We are to learn the world of spirit power curses and break them ourselves. Thus the importance of group spiritual warfare praying.”[2]
After our grand opening, our church quickly became the second largest Protestant church in our city, but we constantly sensed there were strong spiritual forces working against us. When our warehouse church found itself between leases, the owner forced us to move out, and in the process, we lost one-third of our attendees overnight. It was only then that I discovered that some illicit activities had been occurring at the intersection where our church was located. The massage parlor diagonally across the intersection from us was the scene of a host of immoral sexual activity, and our immediate area had become a haven for drug dealers. When our church moved into that warehouse, we were invading Satan’s territory. No wonder he fought us so hard the whole time we were there!
Our church moved to a high school five miles away and I eventually scheduled a series of messages on controversial issues. The night before I was scheduled to speak on A Christian View of Homosexuality, all hell broke loose in our home and church. Without going into detail, the spiritual warfare I experienced before I gave that message was so real that I could almost smell sulfur – and I did give the message. But I was so attacked the night before that I felt compelled to write a resignation letter because I sensed that my wife and I had become special targets of Satan. While I never submitted the letter to the board, I resigned a few months later because, for the first and only time in our lives, our marriage had become severely strained due to events at church.
__________
There are several more stories in the book that discuss the spiritual warfare that new church experienced. It was like nothing I had ever experienced before. While I’ve sensed the influence of Satan at various junctures during my 36-year church career, the occasions I’ve just described represent the two worst attacks I’ve experienced. Satan and his minions tend to leave pastors and churches alone when the mission is muddled, few people are converted, and the church fails to make inroads into the community. But when a church penetrates the spiritual Red Zone – to use a football analogy – the evil one begins to target the quarterback (pastor) with blitzes and cheap shots designed to knock him out of the game … all the more reason why the quarterback needs a skilled and determined line to protect him.
This is a good time of year to remember that while Satan is real and powerful … our God is more powerful still.
Jesus gave Paul a mission in Acts 26:17-18. It’s ours as well: “I am sending you to them to open their eyes and turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, so that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me.”
Our Lord and Savior told Paul that Satan is real … that he has power … that he wants people to remain in spiritual darkness … that he wants people to wallow in an unforgiven state … but that he has already been defeated at the cross.
But we cannot defeat Satan by fighting each other. Fellow believers are not the enemy. The enemy is the enemy.
Let’s unite together and fight him instead.
[1] Dr. Ed Murphy, Handbook of Spiritual Warfare (Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1992), 442.
[2] Ibid, 444.
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