Psalm 89:15 Blessed is the people that know the joyful sound: They shall walk, O Lord, in the light of thy countenance. 

II Samuel 7:22 Wherefore thou art great, O Lord God: for there is none like thee, neither is there any God beside thee, according to all that we have heard with our ears. 

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A. W. Tozer warned, “The neglected heart will soon be a heart overrun with worldly thoughts; the neglected life will soon become a moral chaos.”

 Mary A. Kassian, Girls Gone Wise in a World Gone Wild (Chicago, IL: Moody Publishers, 2010).

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In the autumn of that same year word came from Wesley authorizing him to act as superintendent, and straightway the young leader set out from New York, where he was at the time, preaching as he went. In Baltimore he arranged a circuit of two hundred miles with twenty-four appointments, which was covered by him every three weeks. 

 Ezra Tipple, Francis Asbury


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Before she sailed back to her childhood home Betty wrote,

I want something really worthwhile to live for. I want to invest this one life of mine as wisely as possible, in the place that yields the richest profits to the world and me…wherever it is, I want it to be God’s choice for me and not my own…. Christ said, “He that would find his life shall lose it” and proved the truth of this divine paradox at Calvary. I want Him to lead me and His Holy Spirit to fill me.

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In the Gospels, Jesus never sent His disciples out alone. Personally, I don’t believe that even married couples should go into the mission field without another Christian couple for spiritual and physical support. God provided that for John and Betty Stam. When they were in Suangcheng it was the Birches. As they got closer to the mission station in Tsingteh, God brought an older Chinese couple, the Wangs and a Chinese evangelist, Pastor Lo, into their lives for spiritual support.

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When John was permitted to return to their house to collect some clothing and supplies for Helen, he spoke quiet words of faith to the Chinese women, “Don’t be afraid; God is on the throne. These things do not matter—our heavenly Father knows.”

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That afternoon, John had the chance to scribble a hasty letter to the CIM superintendent, not knowing whether it would reach anyone. He closed the letter with these words:

Things happened so quickly this a.m. They were in the city just a few hours after the ever-persistent rumors really became alarming, so that we could not prepare to leave in time. We were just too late.

The Lord bless and guide you, and as for us, may God be glorified whether by life or by death.

In Him,
John C. Stam

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As the rebel guards stopped at the foot of the pine trees, John asked once for the release of the medical worker. The only reply was a brusque Chinese command for John to kneel. As he dropped to his knees, the townspeople marveled that the missionary had such a look of joy on his face as though gazing at “an unseen Presence.”²⁰⁴ Seconds later a sword slashed through the air and John’s head was severed. Trembling slightly, Betty dropped to her knees as well and lay across her beloved husband’s body. Another swipe of the sword and her body draped lifeless at his side.

Nothing brings us comfort like the Word of God. Paul reminded the Corinthian Christians centuries earlier, “We are…well pleased rather to be absent from the body and to be present with the Lord” (2 Corinthians 5:8). In mere seconds, John and Betty left the hostility of Chinese rebellion and hatred for the sweet presence and majesty of the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. But this was not the end of their story. God intended to use John and Betty Stam to further His kingdom throughout the world in ways they could not have foreseen.

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John and Betty Stam were buried in Miaosheo, China, near the pine trees where they had given their lives for Jesus. Today, their gravestones still bear their life verses: on John’s, “That Christ may be magnified whether by life or by death” (see Philippians 1:20); on Betty’s: “For me to live is Christ and to die is gain” (see Philippians 1:21).

 Roberts Liardon and Daniel Kolenda, God’s Generals: The Martyrs (New Kensington, PA: Whitaker House, 2016).

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I have been musing lately on the extremely dangerous cumulative effects of earthly things. One may have good reason, for example, to want a wife, and he may have one legitimately. But with a wife comes Peter’s (the pumpkin eater’s) proverbial dilemma—he must find a place to keep her, and most wives will not stay on such terms as Peter proposed. So a wife demands a house; a house, in turn, requires curtains, rugs, washing machines, and so on; a house with these things must soon become a home, and children are the intended outcome. The needs multiply as they are met: a car demands a garage; a garage, land; land, a garden; a garden, tools; tools need sharpening! Woe, woe, woe to the man who would live a disentangled life in my century. Second Timothy 2:4 is impossible in the United States, if one insists on a wife. I learn from this that the wisest life is the simplest one, lived in the fulfillment of only the basic requirements of life: shelter, food, covering, and a bed. And even these can become productive of other needs if one does not heed. Be on guard, my soul, of complicating your environment so that you have neither time nor room for growth!

I must not think it strange if God takes in youth those whom I should have kept on earth till they were older. God is peopling eternity, and I must not restrict Him to old men and women.

 Elisabeth Elliot, The Journals of Jim Elliot: Missionary, Martyr, Man of God (Grand Rapids, MI: Revell, 2021), 204–205.

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Felt like I wandered and joked overmuch. I must learn to be more sober, Lord, in such serious matters. How carelessly I handle the Holy Word—how dangerously offhandedly! Help, Lord, let my ministry be Spirit empowered, not put over by my personality. Feel I failed the Lord in too much digging for sermon thoughts and not enough time in letting the Scripture speak to me.

 Elisabeth Elliot, The Journals of Jim Elliot: Missionary, Martyr, Man of God (Grand Rapids, MI: Revell, 2021), 209.

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we cannot experience a victorious Christian life without being willing to openly confess our faith in Christ. A public confession of Christ is critical to a walk of sanctification before God, but not to receiving eternal life.

 R. Larry Moyer, Show Me How to Preach Evangelistic Sermons, Show Me How Series (Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Academic & Professional, 2012), 193.

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We cannot be controlled by that fear. We have to expect God to work. A student of Charles Spurgeon once came to him complaining that he wasn’t seeing conversions as a result of his preaching. Spurgeon asked, “Surely you don’t expect conversions every time you preach, do you?” The young man answered, “Well, I suppose not.” Spurgeon then said, “That’s precisely why you’re not having them.”

 R. Larry Moyer, Show Me How to Preach Evangelistic Sermons, Show Me How Series (Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Academic & Professional, 2012), 194.

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Years ago, when I was a teenager, Dr. Torrey M. Johnson, one of the founders of Youth for Christ, said to me, “Son, find that one thing you do that God blesses, and stick with it!” That was wise counsel, and I recommend it to you.

 Warren W. Wiersbe, Be What You Are: 12 Intriguing Pictures of the Christian from the New Testament (Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House, 1988), 132.

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“Paul attracted friends around him as a magnet attracts iron filings,” wrote Dr. F. F. Bruce. “There are about seventy people mentioned by name in the New Testament of whom we should never have heard were it not for their association with Paul”

 Warren W. Wiersbe, Be What You Are: 12 Intriguing Pictures of the Christian from the New Testament (Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House, 1988), 135.