Meditations on the Mountain

What would make five men risk their lives and eventually sacrifice themselves for people they had never met?  Why would five missionaries die on the beaches of South America without defending themselves against the hostile natives?  The natural mind says that they died a senseless death.  In our flesh we can only shake our head and scorn their "lack of judgment."  However fifty years ago, five missionaries gloriously entered heaven's glory for the gospel of Jesus Christ.  Jim Eliot, Nate Saint, Roger Youderian, Ed McCully, and Pete Flemming had landed their plane in a clearing and were standing near a river's edge when they were cruelly speared to death by the confused natives.  Jim Eliot was 28 years old when he was murdered as was Ed McCully; Pete Flemming was 27, and both Nate Saint and Roger Youderian were 32.  What was going through these young men's minds as they hugged their children and kissed their wives for the last time.  They did not know it would be the last time, they had spent weeks preparing for their beach landing; but each one understood the cost.  Consider what the youngest Pete Flemming wrote in his journal,  “I am longing now to reach the AUCUS if God gives me the honor of proclaiming the Name among them . . . I would gladly give my life for that tribe if only to see an assembly of those proud, clever, smart people gathering around a table to honor the Son—gladly, gladly, gladly! What more could be given to life?"  These men counted the cost and gave all, but for what?  Was it for social betterment, were they peace corps volunteers who wanted to protect the Ecuadorian landscape from oil drilling?  Were they concerned about the lack of good drinking water or the spread of infectious disease in the tribes?  

Something far greater would call these men to their eternal home in heaven.  Society will never understand, politicians will never be able to rationalize, and governments have no chance at legislating it.  These five men left all and "hated their father, mother, sons, and daughters, and their own lives too."  The love they had for their fellow man did not send these courageous young men to their grave.  It was a love for the Lord Jesus Christ and His message of salvation.  That message of the sacrificial, bloody sacrifice of Jesus Christ, the God/man.  We call that the gospel; the good news that Jesus Christ took our place on the cruel Roman cross and gave His life so that the penalty of our sin could be judged on Him.  He then rose again to secure us victory over death.  The message that proclaims that He took our hell on his own body so that we could be declared the righteousness of God.  They gave their lives so that the Wadoni tribes-people could have their sins forgiven and rejoice in the same grace that the missionaries understood.  Maybe Jim Elliot's journal entry that has been immortalized by missionaries, “He is no fool who gives up what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.”  These men gave their all for the precious, pure gospel of Jesus Christ.  "If any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed." (Galatians 1:9)