Those That Came Before: Week 1

Amy Carmichael & William Tyndale

This summer we are going to highlight 4 men and 4 women who have come before us. They in many ways have done extraordinary things. But in many ways they are just normal people letting God use them however he can.

I want to give us some reminders before we get into this summer:

The bible is one big story of God redeeming a people for himself. Each character in that story plays a role in this redemption story.

From the end of the New Testament until now, every believer has played a part in the redemption story. The promises of the NT including that he will build his church (Matt 16:18), that the gospel will go forth (Matt 28:19-20), that the church would encouarage and edify each other (Hebrews 10:24-25) are being fulfilled in each generation that has come since the written story ended.

We know that Christ will return and that we are called to (Philippians 3:14 “14 I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.”) (Hebrews 10:25 “25 … but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.” )

History can be boring and just a list of facts about people that we have no connection with. We hear of these amazing people and think we can never do that. The goal for the summer is two-fold:

Be encouraged from the ordinary people God used for extraordinary things. We know about Moses, Abraham, David, Peter, James, Paul, etc. but God has used ordinary men and women over the last 2000 years to build his church and make His name known.

Be challenged to look for ways in your every day life to be used for the furterance of the gospel. We probably will never be called to live in another country, to start an oprhange, to stand trail for our faith or have to translate the word of God into another language under threat of death. But, we are called to walk in a manner worthy of which we have been called (Eph 4:1), to set an example in speech, conduct, love, faith, and purity (1 Tim 4:12), to care for widows and oprhans (James 1:27), and to preach the good news (Mark 16:15). We will probably never have a book written about us or study done on us—but how can we leave a legacy in our everyday actions?

Who is someone you would love to teach you a skill or trade?

Who is someone you have never met that you would want to have dinner with? (No one in your family has met them)

Who is the biggest influence on your life?

Why do we/should we care about those who came before us?

We are not alone. We are not the only ones to go through something. We can learn from their victories and defeats. We can be encouraged by how God used them.

Have you ever asked your mom or dad their story? Do you think you could learn anything from their story? What about your grandparents?

We already talked about these people are in many ways ordinary people being used by God for extraordinary things. I just want to say on the offset there are people in the world right now being used by God to do extraordinary things. The Shannon Hurleys of the world for sure have major gospel impact. But know that people like Ron Cox and Cindy Sober and so many others are doing the same thing in our local church right now.

Some of the characters are going to have a background you can relate to with schooling or education. Others are going to be schooled at the most elite level and we cannot relate to that. But they are all ordinary humans who are sinners in need of a Savior. They have bent the knee and put their faith and hope in Christ alone through faith alone by grace alone for the glory of God alone.

William Tyndale

How many of you have a physical copy of a bible? What language is it in? Did you know that as late as 500 years ago, it was illegal to possess an English bible in England? Not only was it illegal, there was no such thing as an English bible.

Bibles were written in Greek and Hebrew and had been translated to Latin. Those were only available to the clergy. Almost no one else spoke Latin and the law said only the clergy could read the word. Coming on the heels of the reformation heating up and the works of Luther in Germany (including translating the bible into German), William Tyndale entered the picture.

In 1401 Parliament passed de Haertico Comburendo “the burning of heretics” and anyone who owned or produced an English translation of the bible should be burned at the stake.

In 1519 seven men were burned at the stake for the crime of teaching their children the Lord’s Prayer in English.

William Tyndale grew up in Gloucertershire England and attended Oxford obtaining a bachlors and masters degree. He was proficient in Hebrew, Greek, Latin, Italian, Spanish, English, German, and French by the end of his life. So in many ways not like us.

But he heard of what was going on in Germany and knew the need of the gospel in English and took it upon himself to carry that cross. He began by meeting with a group of Cambridge scholars at the White Horse Inn to discuss this “new” theology of the reformers. That meeting included Robert Barnes, Nicholas Ridley, Hugh Latimer, Miles Coverdale, Thomas Cranmer and more. In total there were 2 archbishops, 7 bishops, and 9 Protestant martyrs that attended those meetings.

There was a particular event that set him over the edge—Catholic priests used to come to a restruant he would be at and he was taken back by how arrogant and mean they would be. He thought these are the people that are supposed to be teaching us? He got into it with one of the priests and made a statement, “If God spares my life more years, I will cause that a boy who drives the plow should know more of the Scripture than you.” I.e. if given enough time I will make sure that the common man can know the word of God of which you clearly know nothing.

And so he began. in 1524 at 30 years old he was forced to leave Englnd because it was illegal to translate something without the kinds authorization. He fled to Germany and began. In 1525 he completed his first translation and had set up for it to be copied in secret but one of the print workers got drunk and let it slip what they were doing and it shop was raied—only ten pages had been printed. In 1526 he completed another translation and had it printed and smuggled it into England in bales of cotton.

At one point the archbishop of Canterbury came up with a plan to stop him—he bought all the copies of translation and burned them—that will put an end to it! Except Tyndale used the money from the sale to fund a new translation and had more printed.

in 1528 Tyndale was being sought after by bounty hunters of the king. He went into hiding. While in hiding he took it upon himself to learn Hebrew and in 1519 he translated the Penateuch from Hebrew to English. When forced to flee again he boarded a ship that ended up shipwrecked and he lost all his works—he had to start again.

By the end he had translated the entire New Testament and half of the Old Testament.

An English worker was given a large sum of money from his father to pay someone in London. That man ended up gambling the money away. Someone how a high ranking church official found out about this and offered him the money to go and capture Tyndale. He found Tyndale and befriended him until one day leading him into a trap to be captured. Tyndale was jailed for a year and a half before being executed on October 6, 1536 for the crime of herecy.

I’ll read a short part of a book called Pillars of the Faith,

“A large crowd gathered at the southern gate of the town, held back by a barricade. in the circular space, two beams were raised in the form of a cross. At the top was a strong iron chain. Brush, straw, and logs were piled at the base. At a set time, the procurer-general, sat down with the other officials. The crowd parted as the guards brought Tyndale out. Tyndale was allowed a moment to pray and then was urged one last time to recant. When he refused, the guards tied his feet to the bottom of the cross and fastened the chain around his neck. The brush, straw and logs were packed around him and gunpowder was added. It probably at this moment that Tyndale cried his famous last words, “Lord, open the king of England’s eyes.”

He was choked with the chain and the gunpowder lit, blowing him up.

Tyndale died for the very bible we hold in our hands.

What is the significance of having a bible in the language we know?

Is there anything in your life you would be willing to fight for let alone die for?

Our second person is Amy Carmichael. Born in 1867 in Ireland, and raised in a bible-believing Presbyterian family, she loved Christ from an early age. She had began teaching the bible to poor girls in Belfast. She got connected to Hudson Taylor and the works of his ministry and spent time in Japan before going to India in 1895. She had been doing the work of the gospel before coming across a young girl named Preena that changed her life.

“It was March 1901. A seven year old Indian girl named Preena escaped a Hindu temple where she had been abandoned by her mother as a “devotion to the gods” (She was to serve as a temple prostitute for life.) It wasn’t the first time she had fled the temple. The first time, Preena had hoped her mother would rescue her. Sadly her mother renounced her again and the temple women punished Preena’s desertion with hot irons to the hands. Perhaps that would move her mother to see her desperation and keep her. Her second time on the run, Preena wandered across a large body of water and came in the dark upon a church in the village of Pannaivilai—hopefully this church was different than the “church” she had been living in. Was her mother close? Would he mother keep her this time? Providentially, yes. The next day, she embraced and kissed her Amma (mother). But it wasn’t her birth mother. It was thrity-four-year-old Irish Women named Amy Carmichael.”

This changed the aim of her life. Carmichael was made aware of the evils of the temple life and these poor and abandoned children with no hope. With the help of her companions she opened up her home to house, teach and quite literally save them from a life of misery. They started with 30 kids in 1904 then by 1907 she had 70 and by 1913 more than 130. By 1918 she had opened a home for boys and there were so many children people don’t even know how many there were.

Amy Carmichael devoted her life to taking in the lost and hopeless and just love them. She didn’t have lots of formal training—she didn’t set out to start this grand school or ministry. She let God use her in great ways in those areas of India.

Why is it some important that someone just love on those children? Is it wrong to focus on temporal needs and not just spiritual needs?

How can that be an avenue for the gospel?

What are ways in your life you can help love or minister to people that helps show them compassion?