No doubt many of you are
familiar with the heroic story of missionary Jim Elliot who was speared to
death in 1956 while trying to reach the hostile Huaorani Indians of Ecuador.
What isn’t well remembered about those events is that four other missionaries
died with Elliot, one of which was a pilot, Nate Saint.
Nate Saint left behind a
son, Steve Saint, who followed in his father’s footsteps giving his life to
Christ as a young man and committing to the mission field. Even though he
possessed the same strength and faith as his father, Steve Saint wrote that the
martyrdom of his father left him with many nagging, unanswered questions. Steve
confessed in a Guideposts article:
“For decades, the questions lingered in my mind: Did my
father have to die? All my life, people had spoken of dad with respect; he was
a man willing to die for his faith. But at the time I couldn’t help but think
the murders were capricious, an accident of bad timing. Dad and his colleagues
landed just as a small band of Auca men were in a bad mood for reasons that had
nothing to do with faith or Americans. If dad’s plane had landed one day later,
the massacre might not have happened. “Couldn’t there have been another way?” I
asked God over-and-over again, but with no clear answers. Dad’s death made
little impact on the Aucas that I could see. To them it was just one more killing
in a history of killings. Thirty years later my dad’s untimely death still had
a haunting impact on me.”[i]
Steve would find answers
to his unsolved mysteries nearly 30 years after his father’s death in 1986
while on the mission field in the African country of Mali. Steve’s truck had broken down on the outskirts
of the city of Timbuktu, which was an unfriendly place for Westerners,
especially Christians since this was a predominantly Muslim country. But,
Steve’s options were limited; he was surrounded by blazing Sahara Desert for
miles and his only recourse was to go into the city to find help.
After wandering through
the city Steve asked a group of kids for directions to any church and instead
the children led him to a tiny mud-brick house. Steve knocked on the door and
man introduced himself as Noah, the pastor of Timbuktu’s only church. Steve
told Noah of his plight and he agreed to help him find transportation.
As the two talked, Steve
asked Noah to share how he came to faith in Christ. Noah said that he’d got
caught stealing vegetables from a missionary’s garden. The missionary gave Noah
an ultimatum—he wouldn’t tell if Noah agreed to memorize some verses from the
Bible and even promised him more vegetables. Through the witness of this
missionary Noah gave his life to Christ.
As a result of his
conversion from Islam to Christ, Noah was disowned by his parents. But he
remained true to Jesus despite great persecution. Steve asked, “Where do you
get your courage?” Noah answered, “The missionary gave me some books about
other Christians who had suffered for their faith. My favorite was about five
young men who willingly risked their lives to take God’s good news to stone age
Indians in the jungles of South America.”
Stunned, Steve said, “One
of those men was my father, I’m Steve Saint” while pulling out a picture of his
father that Steve had in his wallet. In an amazing way God, had providentially
led Steve to Noah, who both shared something—the martyrdom of Nate Saint. Some
30 years later, Nate’s death had brought inspiration to a converted Muslim
halfway around the world.
Steve
wrote, “As Noah and I hugged each other, it seemed incredible that God loved us
so much that He’d arranged for us to meet “at the ends of the earth.” Noah and
I had gifts for each other that no one else could give. I gave him the
assurance that the story which had given him courage was true. He gave me the
assurance that God had used Dad’s death for good. Dad, by dying, had helped
give Noah a faith worth dying for. And Noah, in return had helped give Dad’s
faith back to me.”
That incredible story of God’s
providence reminds me of what the Lord said to the prophet Habakkuk, “the just
shall live by faith” (Hab. 2:4). By the way, you’ll find Habakkuk 2:4 quoted three times
in the New Testament (Rom. 1:17, Gal. 3:11, Heb. 10:38). This is the single verse that
captivated the mind of Martin Luther and sparked the Protestant Reformation.
Not only is this the bedrock principle of the Gospel, but it’s also the
survival kit for enduring tough times. When God’s answers don’t make sense we
have to trust Him as difficult as that might be. As Philip Yancey said, “Faith
is believing God in advance, for what will only make sense in reverse.” -DM
[i]
Steve Saint, “To the Ends of the Earth,” Guideposts,
11 January 1991. Cited by Randy Alcorn, If
God is Good? (Colorado Springs, Multnomah, 2009), 400-401.
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