This short, free ebook is a converted transcript of one of John Piper's biographical sermons that he gave for many years at the annual Desiring God Pastor's Conference.
Though it is short, it packs a punch. I was expecting more biography and less exhortation, but I was pleasantly surprised and challenged. Piper weaves in glimpses of Judson's life, suffering, and fruitful death to his call for followers of Jesus to embrace suffering as the God ordained means of bringing the lost nations into the joy of glorifying Christ. A great read. I will be handing this out to anyone interested in joining us on the field.
"My question is, if Christ delays his return another two hundred years - a mere fraction of a day in his reckoning - which of you will have suffered and died so that the triumphs of grace will be told about one or two of those 3,500 [unreached groups of] peoples who are in the same condition today that the Karen and Chin and Kachins and Burmese were in 1813?...Most of these hopeless peoples do not want you to come. At least they think they don't. They are hostile to Christian missions. Today this is the final frontier"
"Judson wrote to missionary candidates in 1832:
Remember, a large proportion of those who come out on a mission to the East die within five years after leaving their native land. Walk softly, therefore; death is narrowly watching your steps.
The question for us is not whether we will die, but whether we will die in a way that bears much fruit."
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