FOR HIS SAKE
Adoniram Judson took the gospel to Burma, which was a land full of spiritual darkness, idolatry and cruelty. The hilltops were covered with Buddhist and pagodas. A savage King ruled with an iron fist. Judson challenged this citadel of satanic darkness and Buddhism and laboured to win the whole country for Christ. He translated the Bible into Burmese amid persecution, cholera and smallpox. He worked seven years before he one convert brought to Christ. For 21 months he was in prison with a hundred fierce criminals in a small room of 20 by40 feet where there was no ventilation or sanitation.
Judson lived on a starvation-ration of food with 14-pound chains on his arms and legs. Everyday, he anticipated death. At night his feet were tied together and he was hung upside down on a bamboo pole with a raging fever and thousands of mosquitoes sucking the blood out of his bleeding feet. The pain was too much for rest and not enough for death. His wife who was crushed in spirit and broken in health died leaving her husband with two children without friend and support.
Judson endured the discomfort of rats, snakes, cockroaches, scorpions, bats and tigers under the burning ray of a tropical sun. Like Paul, he suffered for Christ. No man of his age suffered so much. For 30 years he literally gave his life to preach Christ and to win the lost. Before he left Boston in USA he had been offered a pastorate of 100members but he declined and instead chose to follow the blood-marked pathway of suffering to Burma.
He had no regrets. At his death he had oversight of 163 missionaries and nationals, and a Church of 7000 members and 30,000 Burmese Christians believers.
What have you suffered or sacrificed for Christ?