With these words, John Piper begins his bio-sermon on Adoniram Judson, Jr. (9 August 1788 – 12 April 1850), the first significant missionary[2] to Burma. At the age of 25, Adoniram Judson became the first Protestant missionary sent from North America[3] to preach in Burma. In his sermon, Piper explores the sufferings and success in the life of Judson to show the cost he had to pay in bringing Christ to Burma.
Piper argues in his sermon, how this Calvinistic Baptist missionary’s death to his earthly life lead to much fruit. Piper notes, Our Lord Jesus said to us in very solemn words, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit" (John 12:24). Then he adds this: "Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life" (John 12:25). In other words, a fruitful life and an eternal life come from this: dying like a seed and hating your life in this world. What overwhelms me, as I ponder this and trace the life of Adoniram Judson, America's first foreign missionary, is how strategic it was that he died so many times and in so many ways.
Today the Myanmar Baptist Convention has 3,700 congregations with 617,781 members and 1,900,000 affiliates, which Piper calls is the fruit of this dead seed.
The outline of the sermon is as follows :
- God's purpose to spread the gospel to all peoples.
- God's plan to make suffering a crucial means to accomplish this purpose.
- The position we are now in with regard to world evangelization.
- The pain of Adoniram Judson as an illustration of the truth.
- A plea to you to be a part of what Judson and Christ died for.
In the first three sections, Piper lays down key principles to understand the design of God for missions. In his fourth section, he moves onto biography and uses the life and ministry of Judson as an illustration of all these principles. The final section is a plea on the basis of these biblical principles, seen in Judson’s life. The biography section is the lengthiest one and the most moving. If you are unfamiliar with the pain of Adoniram Judson, then you will be shocked to see how a man suffered so much in his earthly life. Here is an overview of his pain, from Piper’s sermon :
- They (Adoniram and Ann Judson) were married a year and a half later on February 5, 1812, and sailed for India 12 days later with two other couples and two single men divided among two ships in case one went down. After a time in India they chose to risk Rangoon and arrived there July 13, 1813. There began a life-long battle in the 108-degree heat with cholera, malaria, dysentery, and unknown miseries that would take two of Judson's wives and seven of his 13 children, and colleague after colleague in death.
- Eight years into their mission Ann was so ill that the only hope was a trip home. She sailed on August 21, 1821. She returned on December 5, 1823, two years and four months later. And when she arrived he had not heard from her for 10 months. If you are married and you love your wife, this is the way you die day after day for a greater good and a greater joy.
- In 1823 Adoniram and Ann moved from Rangoon to Ava, the capital, about 300 miles inland and further up the Irrawaddy River. It was risky to be that near the despotic emperor. In May of the next year the British fleet arrived in Rangoon and bombarded the harbor. All westerners were immediately viewed as spies, and Adoniram was dragged from his home and on June 8, 1824 and put in prison. His feet were fettered and at night a long horizontal bamboo pole was lowered and passed between the fettered legs and hoisted up till only the shoulder and heads of the prisoners rested on the ground. Ann was pregnant, but walked the two miles daily to the palace to plead that Judson was not a spy and that they should have mercy.
- The daughter, Maria, had been born.. and Ann was almost as sick and thin as Adoniram, but still pursued him with her baby to take care of him as she could. Her milk dried up, and the jailer had mercy on them and actually let Judson take the baby each evening into the village and beg for women to nurse his baby.
- On November 4, 1825 Judson was suddenly released. The government needed him as a translator in negotiations with Britain. The long ordeal was over - 17 months in prison and on the brink of death, with his wife sacrificing herself and her baby to care for him as she could. Ann's health was broken. Eleven months later she died (October 24, 1826). And six months later their daughter died (April 24, 1827).
- In July, three months after the death of his little girl, he got word that his father had died eight months earlier.
- The psychological effects of theses losses were devastating. Self-doubt overtook his mind, and he wondered if he had become a missionary for ambition and fame, not humility and self-denying love…. He wrote in one letter home to Ann's relatives: "My tears flow at the same time over the forsaken grave of my dear love and over the loathsome sepulcher of my own heart."
- He married Sarah Boardman, a missionary widow, on April 10, 1834, eight years after Ann died. They had eight children. Five survived childhood. She was a gifted partner and knew the language better than any but himself. But 11 years later she was so sick that they both set sail for America with the three oldest children. They left the three youngest behind, one of whom died before Judson returned. Judson had not been to America now for 33 years and was only returning for the sake of his wife. As they rounded the tip of Africa in September, 1845, Sarah died. The ship dropped anchor at St. Helena Island long enough to dig a grave and bury a wife and mother and then sail on.
- ...The old sicknesses attacked Adoniram one last time. The only hope was to send the desperately ill Judson on a voyage. On April 3, 1850 they carried Adoniram onto the Aristide Marie bound for the Isle of France with one friend, Thomas Ranney, to care for him. In his misery he would be roused from time to time by terrible pain ending in vomiting. One of his last sentences was: "How few there are who . . . who die so hard!" At 15 minutes after 4 on Friday afternoon April 12, 1850 Adoniram Judson died at sea, away from all his family and Burmese Church.
When he died, the ship that was carrying him had a pagan crew. No prayers were therefore offered for him, but they just dislodged the coffin to the port and moved on. It would take four more months for the news of his death to reach his family. Judson’s life was thus all about ‘falling into the ground and dying like a seed’ for the sake of Christ.
To our question on enduring such excruciating sufferings, Piper gives the answer by showing the Calvinistic roots of Judson and his family. Piper notes, Judson was a Calvinist, but did not wear his Calvinism on his sleeve… Adoniram inherited a deep belief in the sovereignty of God. The great importance this has for my purpose here is to stress that this deep confidence in God's overarching providence through all calamity and misery sustained him to the end. He said, "If I had not felt certain that every additional trial was ordered by infinite love and mercy, I could not have survived my accumulated sufferings." … When her second child died, Ann Judson wrote, "Our hearts were bound up with this child; we felt he was our earthly all, our only source of innocent recreation in this heathen land. But God saw it was necessary to remind us of our error, and to strip us of our only little all. O, may it not be vain that he has done it. May we so improve it that he will stay his hand and say 'It is enough.'" In other words, what sustained this man and his three wives was a rock-solid confidence that God is sovereign and God is good. And all things come from his hand for the good - the incredibly painful good - of his children.
A robust faith in the sovereignty of God was thus the source of sustaining grace in the life of Judson. In other words, for Adoniram Judson, Calvinism, contrary to all misrepresentation, was not a hindrance to missions but the source of hope for perseverance in missions. It is hoped that this will challenge pastors to see how a radical belief in the absolute sovereignty of God over all things including the salvation of sinners and the suffering of his ministers, is a fuel for missions and not something which kills it. The whole modern missionary movement was lead by men for whom the Reformed doctrines were central and nourishing to their preaching and missionary efforts.
Footnotes
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[1] All quotations of Piper from : John Piper, How Few There Are Who Die So Hard!, 2003 Bethlehem Conference for Pastors
[2] Adoniram Judson is sometimes mistakenly referred to as the first missionary to Burma, but he was actually preceded by James Chater and Richard Mardon who arrived in 1807. They were followed by Felix Carey. However, since those who came earlier did not remain very long, Judson is remembered as the first significant missionary there, as well as one of the group of the very first missionaries from America to travel overseas.
[3] Robert Torbet, Venture of Faith: The Story of the American Baptist Missionary Society
