Good morning. Good morning. Good morning. Thank you. Oh, well. If you're sitting comfortably. That's why we're here today. That was the King of Portugal, 1597 or thereabouts. Do you know what I was now? Tom Ellis. It's amazing what friends can get away with. Oh, come all you faithful. We'll be singing it later. It just sounds very much nicer, doesn't it, in Latin? Well, it's always, and I do mean that, a pleasure and a privilege to be here with you, to look out, to see dear friends, and very thankful that your kind pastor keeps inviting me. The day will come. when he'll say enough of the Scotsman. Let me pray, and then we'll launch into John Gibson Payton. We bless you, our great, our gracious, and our glorious God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. We praise you this new Lord's Day morning that we can gather as your children to call upon you, to lift up our hearts and voices to you. We pray that you would meet with us, Lord. You know each one of us. You know us right well. And we pray the Holy Spirit will effectively take your truth, write it upon our hearts. and make us that little bit more like Your Son, our Savior, the Word made flesh, Jesus Christ. Forgive our sins, we pray, our Heavenly Father. We ask it in Jesus' name. Amen. Are any of you here this morning 19 or 20 years of age? Around about then, 19 or 20. Goodness, no? Oh, is that Joey? You're not 19 or 20, though. Well, I was about 19 or 20 when I stumbled across a biography, really an autobiography, by someone I'd never heard of, John Gibson Peyton. I'd not long been a Christian, I'd always been a keen reader, even an avid reader, and I picked up the autobiography of John Gibson Payton. I remember vividly the effect it had on me. I couldn't put the book down. I couldn't believe that people like that were actually still walking the face of the earth after the days of the apostles. It was a gripping story. It's literally like a boy's own adventure. You young boys, girls here this morning, Insist that your mum and dad or anyone else, insist that they read to you the life of John Gibson Payton. You'll be enthralled by it. You'll be excited by it. You'll be saying, no, stop, don't stop, keep going on. He was a remarkable man. I'd like to just, first of all, sketch really very briefly his life. and then draw some conclusions and applications for us from his life. John Gibson Peyton was a Scot. He was brought up in the southwest of Scotland near the town of Dumfries and was born in the year 1824. He attended a parish school until the age of 12 His father was a stocking maker, had about six looms, and he would make these stockings that men and women wore in those days. From the age of 12 to the age of 24, he worked with his father as a stocking maker. He started work at six o'clock in the morning, finished at eight o'clock in the evening, and between those 14 hours, He had two hours of breaks, a half hour in the morning, one hour for lunch, and a half hour in the evening. What do you think he did during the two hours out of the 14 hours he was working as a stocking maker? He taught himself Latin and Greek. He used all his time to acquaint himself With the scriptures, he would have known the shorter catechism. He would have known that, the whole 107 question and answers, probably from the age of seven. He would memorize the larger catechism. He avidly read the scriptures, and he taught himself Latin and Greek. His parents were godly. Every day, they would gather for family worship. And John grew up hearing his father plead with God to raise up missionaries to go to the ends of the earth. His mother was a godly woman. She also prayed that her children, John was one of 11, so the Vanduud words are really small beer compared to the Patons, She prayed that all her children would know the Lord, love the Lord, and serve the Lord. And they did. At the age of 24, John decided it was time to leave the little family home in the little village outside the town of Dumfries and go to Glasgow. He had set his heart on being a missionary to the ends of the earth. He didn't know quite where God would send him, but he knew that God would send him to the unreached peoples of this world. But he didn't actually go for another number of years. So he's born in 1824. and at 24 years of age, so in 1848, he leaves his little village, walks the 65 miles to Glasgow, and his father walked with him the first seven or eight miles. Tears streaming down his face, as Peyton records in his autobiography, praying that God would keep his hand on his son. and use him for his glory. His father's prayers and his father's example made a huge impact on John Payton's life. For the next 10 or so years, he lived in Glasgow. Why didn't he go immediately to the ends of the earth? Well, obviously, because it wasn't yet God's time. But Peyton knew he needed to be well prepared. He was a member of the small reformed Presbyterian Church in Scotland. Scotland was dominated by the Church of Scotland. 1843, there was a disruption, a secession in the Church of Scotland. 474 ministers left the Church of Scotland to form the Church of Scotland Three. But Paton's little denomination was tiny. It had left the Church of Scotland about 150 years before. They were psalm singing Sabbatarians. And even though he went to the ends of the earth, he goes to the South Seas, as we'll see in a moment, he goes to the New Hebrides, Vanuatu, he never stopped being a passionate, committed, unreconstructed Sabbatarian Christian. He wouldn't let the natives do any work on the Sabbath. The influence of those early years, you parents listen to this, the influence of those early years at home indelibly shaped him for the life that God had called him to. And it wasn't just what his parents taught him. It was what they showed Him by their lives. Your children will be far more impacted by what they see in you, than by what they hear from you. Now you can't separate the two. But children see. They're not stupid. They may act stupid at times, absolutely. But they're not stupid. They see. They take note. And especially fathers. Does what my father say to me match his life? So he goes to Glasgow and he trains as a teacher and he learns about medical work as much as he could in those days. And God richly blessed his time in Glasgow. He worked as an evangelist in an area of Glasgow that I know very, very well. It's somewhat gentrified now, not overly so, but in his day, in the 1840s, it was an area of poverty. And Peyton saw scores and scores of young people come to faith in Jesus Christ. God richly blessed his ministry amongst the poor, the indigent, the unchurched, the unbelieving, and it was such a fruitful ministry. But one day, Paton said to the elders of his church, I believe God has called me to go to the New Hebrides. They said, but John, God is blessing. Wonderfully, your ministry in Glasgow. Why would you leave a sphere of great blessing and usefulness for the New Hebrides? Now they knew about the New Hebrides because about 10 years previous to that, the London Missionary Society had sent out two men. And the moment they stepped foot on the island of Tanna, they were murdered and eaten by the cannibals. And one old minister, as the presbytery discussed and debated whether it was right to send Peyton to this place at the ends of the earth, one old minister got up and said, Mr. Peyton, if you go there, they will eat you. And Peyton replied, sir, it matters little to me whether the worms eat me or the cannibals eat me. On the day of Jesus Christ, I will rise with as fair a body as you. Now, that's a man God can use. He's ordained by the Reformed Presbyterian Church, March 23rd, 1858. He marries, and he and his wife, Mary, set sail for the New Hebrides. It takes about five months or so on a sailing schooner to go from Glasgow to the South Pacific. They arrive. A few weeks later, his wife dies. Three weeks later, The son who was six weeks old dies. The first thing Peyton does on Tanna is to bury his wife and his infant son. He said, feeling immovably assured that my God and Father was too wise and loving to err in anything that he does or permits, I looked up to the Lord for help and struggled on in his work. It's those last words I love. Yes, he looked up to the Lord, but I struggled on. It wasn't easy. 1862, Peyton has to flee from Tanna. The natives, who are hostile to anything Western, mainly because the only Western influence they'd encountered were sandalwood traders, who would often come and brutalize them, brutalize their women. steal some of them into slavery. He leaves Tanna. It's actually a pivotal moment in his life. He's going to go back to Tanna and see a remarkable work. Ultimately, it was said of him and an earlier missionary, John Geddy, when they arrived, they were only heathen. in the New Hebrides, and when they died, there were only Christians. Joan's niece has been in Vanuatu, New Hebrides. She's almost finished her medical training, University of Scotland. And I've got friends who have just returned from preparing a documentary. on Peyton, you'll hear my voice in it somewhere at some time, and they said everybody they met, everyone they met, knew about John Peyton. So if you don't know about John Peyton, find out about John Peyton. Leaving Tanna the first time is pivotal, because what he does is, he goes to Australia, so if you can picture I've got a map of the world in my head. I'm one of these odd people. My wife says there's something nerdish about me. So I can picture the Hebrides, and it's in Australia's backyard. And he goes to Australia, and he walks into a church. He'd never been there before. They didn't know who he was. He said, excuse me, can I speak about the cause of the kingdom of God? Yes. From that moment on, Peyton realized that God had given him a gift, an ability to bring before churches the cause of mission, and especially mission to the unreached people groups and language groups. Do you know how many unreached language groups there are in the world today? About 3,200. Now the book of Revelation says that from every tribe, every language, every people, God will call out a people to His praise. So who's going to go to the 3,200? Do you think you might go? Will your parents encourage you to go? What about you? Would you go and tell people, yeah, I'm not looking around, I'm looking right at you, Will you go and tell people who've never heard about Jesus, never heard about the God of heaven who made all things? Will you go and tell them that God so loved the world, he gave his only begotten son? So what Peyton does is that he decides to go back for a short time to Scotland to raise money for a ship. He realizes that if he's going to effectively bring the gospel to these dispersed islands, he needs to be able to travel between them and not just wait for sandalwood traders to give him a berth. He goes to Scotland. And he knows it will cost about 6,000 pounds. Now, how you translate that into today's money, I don't know, some millions. He knows it would take 6,000 pounds to have a ship built and taken out to the South Seas. 9,000 pounds is raised, and the vast majority of it from children with penny boxes. You don't need to be wealthy. He would travel round church after church after church after church, and word would get round. Now in Scotland in those days, it was all Presbyterian. There were one or two tiny little Baptist churches, but we don't talk about that. There were a few Episcopalians. We certainly don't talk about that. So there were hundreds. There'd be about, I think, if I can work it out in my head, there'd be about 1,600 Presbyterian churches. And little children would get boxes, and they'd put their pennies in. and a ship is commissioned called the Dayspring. He returns to the New Hebrides with a new wife, Margaret Whitecross. They will have 10 children. Four will die in infancy. And he brings with him seven new missionaries. He returns to Anetium, first of all, and then to Aniwa. These are different islands. You can read about it. In 1869, so he's now back four years, 1869, the first communion service is held. 20 natives apply to come to the Lord's Supper. 12 are admitted. And Peyton wrote, I shall Never taste a deeper bliss until I gaze on the glorified face of Jesus himself." During that time, he had learned the language of the natives. You need to learn the language. There are people today who think, well, let's just go and we'll use pidgin this and pidgin that, and the Holy Spirit will bless us. The history of missions tells us you need to prepare hard, labor hard, learn the language well, and communicate in a way that people can understand what you're saying to them, not just in pigeon-broken Yembe Yembe or Etedi or BM. These are tribal groups in Papua New Guinea. They need to know that you can speak to them fluently and freely in a language that they know and understand. He learns the language. He reduces it to writing. He builds orphanages and establishes schools. His wife, Margaret, the Banner have also published her book. She teaches the girls, the ladies, sewing, singing, plaiting hats, reading. They did everything. They realized their mission was holistic. They cared for the poor and the dying. They wouldn't leave when disease and influenza, influenza devastated these islands. They had no immunity to these diseases brought from the West. They wouldn't leave the people held worship services every Lord's Day, sent native teachers to all the villages. Very, very Pauline. You go to these centers, you see people come to faith, and you train and equip them, and you send them out into the villages. 1884, he returns to Scotland a second time. Why? Because the first ship has sunk. And he needs another ship. And the money is raised. 1899, his Aniwa translation of the New Testament is printed. And by that time, so he's arrived late 1858. So 40 years later, there are missionaries on 25 of the 30 islands in the New Hebrides. 1891, Cambridge University confer on him a Doctor of Divinity degree. Why would they do that? Well, people had encouraged him to publish his autobiography, and he thought, well, if it helps the cause of missions, and people began to read it, and the news spread, and Cambridge University wanted to honor this man, and they presented him with the degree of Doctor of Divinity. He dies at the age of 83 in 1907. He's buried in Borundara Cemetery near Melbourne in Australia. And there is a text on his headstone that overshadowed everything that John Peyton was and did. It was a text his mother gave to him. Lo, I am with you always. The first time I read the biography, I remember being stunned at one point. There was a native chief standing over him with a spear, ready to plunge it into his heart. And Peyton said, wrote later, God gave me tranquility of mind and heart because I knew I was a mortal until God decreed otherwise. John Gibson Payton, plenty of time. Let me draw some lessons from his life, because I really want to apply some of these lessons, especially to you parents, you younger parents. Number one, Peyton never thought he was an extraordinary Christian. If you'd asked him, but look what you've done, his answer almost certainly would have been, I'm only doing what God has called me to do. There's nothing extraordinary in that. I'm only doing what every Christian is called to do, to serve the Lord, to give ourselves undividedly and devotedly to Him first and to the service of His kingdom in this world. Secondly, parents listen to this. His parents loved him, but let him go. I want to ask you a question, parents. I want you to think about this. Do you love God more than you love your children? It's really not a fair question. I understand that. Except, it's a Bible question, isn't it? Do you love me more than these? Do you believe the best you can ever do for your children is to encourage them to obey the Lord, come what may? Third application, he was 34 when he left Scotland for the New Hebrides. So he's been in Glasgow 10 years. As I said earlier, he had a blessed sphere of ministry, 10 years of preparing and equipping. He's 34. I have a friend who ministered in Cambridge in 1936. probably the largest or second largest congregation, Eden Chapel Baptist Church. Lovely congregation. Would sometimes preach there. We would have Julian Hardiman preach at CPC. He had spent 25 years in Cambridge. Cambridge, this iconic city, university. People would often say to me, you minister in Cambridge? 25 years, God richly blessed his ministry. At the age of 60, last year, he and his wife left to go as missionaries to Madagascar. 60. Hands up if you're between 55 and 65. A few. Never too late. Are you open? Are you willing? A fourth application. If you had asked Peyton, what makes you the man that you are? Well, obviously, I don't know, but my guess is he would say, because I'm sure he's read the sermon, the expulsive power of a new affection. Thomas Chalmers' great sermon, thought to be the greatest sermon preached in Scotland in the 19th century. The expulsive power of a new affection. What gives men and women the devoted drive It's not that they are constitutionally stronger or braver or bolder or better than others. What gives them the drive is the expulsive power of a new affection, a new power, a new wonder has captivated them. You know, in the reformed tradition, we've been guilty at times about talking too much about being captured by the truth and not captivated by the God of truth. Now you can't separate the two. Of course we're to be kept, but I think we talk too much about the doctrines of grace and not about the God of grace, the God of all grace. Again, don't misunderstand me. The expulsive power of a new affection. Another point of application is Peyton was a very ordinary Scotsman. Now every nation has its own peculiarities, idiosyncrasies. The Scots, constitutionally by divine providence, are often noted for doggedness. We just keep at things. And Peyton prized doggedness above giftedness. Now again, you can't bifurcate the two. God gives gifts. But we underestimate the grace and giftedness of sheer doggedness. William Carey called himself God's plodder. I used to say, people would say to me, how do you think about yourself? I said, well, I really think I'm just a plodder. I just put one foot in front of the other. And then I discovered one day that Cary called himself God's plodder, and he had mastered 19 Indian dialects, translated the Bible into various dialects and languages. And I thought, if he's a plodder, what on earth am I? Prize doggedness, resolve, determination. Another thing to know about Peyton was he was not universally liked. The Bible never hides from us the sins of God's eminent saints, does it? We do that. Reformed and evangelical churches in our day are lamentable at covering over sins. The Bible never does. You read parts of the Bible and you say, Lord, did we need to know that in such detail? Yes, you do. Did we need to really know about it? Yes, you do. wasn't universally liked. There was an incident in 1865, the natives in the island had been behaving badly, burning the mission house and various other things were going on, and Peyton called in the help of the British Navy. Now the British Navy in the mid-19th century ruled the waves, rule Britannia, Britannia rules the waves, Britons never, never, never shall be slaves, that was then. He called in a gunboat. And the gunboat said to the villagers, stop what you're doing or we'll attack you. And they didn't stop. And Peyton supported the bombardment of the village. Now other missionaries were appalled. One of the great men of the time, John Geddy, said this was the greatest blot on modern missionary work. Whether it was or not, I don't know, but Peyton was a Scot, remember? High view of the civil magistrate. Civil magistrates there to defend the cause of true religion. He argued that this was biblical and righteous and godly, but he divided missionaries. I simply raise that to make the point that when you read Peyton's autobiography, you can end up just lionizing him. You just think there's nobody who's ever walked the face of this earth, humanly speaking, like John G. Peyton, but he was a man with feet of clay. Two other things and I'll finish. He believed in the power of the Word of God. John Peyton was a supernaturalist. but a supernaturalist who believed that without the work of the Holy Spirit, the ministry of the Word would fall on deaf ears. The Word of God and the Spirit of God are what together make the people of God. He had unbounded confidence in the authority, the truthfulness, the sufficiency of Holy Scripture, But he knew without the Holy Spirit, his empowering, his anointing, his enabling, his quickening, all the teaching in the world would just fall on deaf ears. And so he's one of these true Calvinists. I mean, I don't particularly like the word. Calvin would hate it. But he exemplified what biblical Calvinism is. Passionate God, glorifying Christ, exalting, obedient, living, independence of the Holy Spirit. And the last thing I would say is this. There were other missionaries who gave their lives serving the Lord in the New Hebrides, probably John Geddy, born in Scotland but went to Canada. He was nine years older than Peyton, arrived in the New Hebrides 12 years before Peyton. He's not as well known. He didn't write a derring-do autobiography, although I've got a very large book given to me about Geddy's ministry. There were other men and women. Unknown. If I said to you, do you know about the warts who served 40 years on the island of Tanna? Probably not one of you think, never heard of them. 40 years of sacrificial service. Heaven knows them. So Peyton was one of a kind. You know, he's sui generis. He's a unique individual. God raises up unique men and women for unique times. Read the autobiography. There's a much smaller book by Paul Schliethein, which is good, on Peyton. There's a recent book being published on the work of the gospel at that time in the island of Anitium by, he writes, he's a friend of mine, his name's been written, Australian, Presbyterian minister, writes every two or three months a one-page letter in the Banner Magazine, dear, compliment it, Find out about John Payton. Get the book, read it to your children. Leave them with cliffhangers. They'll plead with you, more, more, tomorrow, tomorrow. And brothers and sisters, love your children, but let them go. Don't hold them back. It may tear you asunder. but if unreached peoples, through your children, can hear about a Savior, you will please the Heavenly Father. Well, is that timing okay? You might have questioned. I wasn't sure how long you'd go on for. Oh, well, maybe some people here know a lot more about Peyton than I do, but maybe not. I tell my students, I don't know a lot, I just know a little bit more than you. And sometimes I think when I'm marking exams, I know a lot more than you. You know that experience, Ryan? Any questions, yes? I thought it was interesting how jargon was about raising money and how wanted him to do, but he didn't press people for money. He always said, send it to this place, or don't give it to me, send it to this place. But I loved how the children felt like they had a portion of the ship. I thought that was really nice. I felt like I got part of the ship, and it really spurred them on to giving. So you've obviously read a bit about John Payton, good for you. We're often embarrassed to talk about money. Whereas there are two whole chapters in 2 Corinthians where Paul talks about money. In fact, says, you know, I think you should be giving. You know, people in Macedonia, they give. We're a bit embarrassed. Peyton and others were not embarrassed. It's God's work. Now, it can be done crassly. America's the worst example and the best example. It is. The best example, I think, that I've ever come across, but also the worst example. We should be very upfront. This is God's work. Why are we not giving more? I personally am not convinced Christians should tithe. I think Christians should give sacrificially. Tithing may be a good, helpful barometer. You can correct me if you think I'm crazy. I think, you know, when I read 2 Corinthians 8 and 9, I think the Lord is saying, you have to give till it hurts. The widow gave all that she had I don't mean we're to disdain nice things, you know I don't mean that, but we're to give not just of our excess, but as Calvin puts it, but of our patrimony. Give generously, sacrificially, because it's the Lord's work, and who's going to You know, England, Scotland's not great. England's awful in this regard. I teach at a seminary. We have churches that want us to train men. They won't give us a penny. I just feel like saying at times, no, we're not going to take him. We believe we are the best option for him, but you want us to train him. And at the most, you might give us a little missionary offering once a year of a hundred dollars or something, a hundred pounds. It's shameful, actually. If you're going to send someone into the gospel ministry or mission field, you're responsible for them. I don't mean they shouldn't go around other places. That's a debatable question. We're closely connected with a church in California who have sent out 17 missionaries. They support every one of them to the full. How do you do that? You give generously. You give sacrificially. Not quite sure how we got onto that, but anyway. Thank you. That was good. Yeah, children, invest. Teacher, read good, wholesome, missionary biographies, Sunday afternoons or whatever, to your children at night. Cultivate in them the longing for good reading and read them stories that will whet their spiritual appetites. Anything else? Ryan McGraw, Professor McGraw. I hope this is a question I can answer. Do we know why that didn't happen to John King? And I guess I'm asking more of Jim's thoughts. There were missionaries, very few, in the New Hebrides. The two men, John Williams and another fellow, they went to a notorious island where cannibalism was still the order of the day. Probably the influence of other missionaries had begun slowly to permeate its way into the New Hebrides. But according to Peyton's account, there were times when it seemed his life was just about to end. A chief followed him for a day with a loaded musket. Someone sprung up out of a sick bed with a dagger and held it at his throat. And I think on both those occasions, Peyton writes in his autobiography, manifestly God restrained their hands that would have taken my life. He lived in an atmosphere of the supernatural, which we all do. We just don't see it as much as perhaps we should. Other than that, I don't know. It's a good question. I remember the first time I read him saying, I'm immortal until God decrees otherwise. I thought, my, oh. Tom. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I should have mentioned that, yeah. It's a bit like, is it Second King Six, you know, Dehesi, and yeah. Sometimes when I meet charismatic brothers, I had some years ago a debate with Wayne Grudem in London on spiritual gifts, and I felt like saying, you know, I could take you to people in Scotland who have stories that would actually make your stories seem small beer and their Westminster Calvinist to the core of their being. So I looked at me. I could tell you one or two stories about that. I've met people, and I just, Someone said, well, what do you make of that? I said, I don't need to make anything of it. God does what he does, because he is who he is. And I refuse to put him in a box. Well, stupidly, I can't put God in a box, but you can try. That's a great, yeah. Read that to your children this afternoon. Find it on the internet, I'm sure. Yes, the way at the back. So I'm going to watch you today. It tells people that if you go there on a Sunday, that there might be anything open and that people will be stressed. That's a great, great point to make. We have friends who spent 13 to 20 years in Papua New Guinea amongst people who were cannibals, 1970s, 80s, 90s. And one of the things I never forget, he said, when they were converted, they started dressing modestly. You know, we live in a pagan society here in your country and in my country. The immodesty of dress, mainly with women, but not just with women, with men also. The immodesty of dress and the coloring of people's arms and legs and faces, looking for identity. When people in animistic cultures come to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, The transformation is initially inward, but it manifests itself outwardly. Decorum isn't a Western imposition. It's a biblical truth. And people that say today, well, you're going and you're imposing Western values. If those Western values are biblical values, good for the West. Good for the West. Pathetic in many ways, but we still have the remnants of Judeo-Christian thinking in society. One more, and then anything else? Yes? How can you tell, like, talking about barriers, how can you tell when barriers or trials in your life, if God's touching you, What a wonderful, thoughtful question. How can you tell? Well, often you can't. And you don't need to. The Christian life is actually very simple. I don't mean it's easy, but it's very simple. Love God and keep his commandments. So in the midst of uncertainty, because we don't know how to read Providence, I'm trying to write a couple of chapters for a book on Providence at the moment, we are incapable of rightly discerning providence. We think at times we can sense what the Lord is about, and we might be right, but other times we don't, and what we think is happening isn't really happening. I'm simply making this point. In the midst of uncertainty, keep God's commandments. Leave God to work out the providence, keep his commandment. When providence and commandment keeping seem to conflict, keep the commandment and leave God to work out the providence. I remember years ago, I was a young Christian, a girl I knew, nice Christian girl, started dating this non-Christian boy, nice fellow, never came to faith as far as I know, and I said, you really can't do that. He says, well, but the Lord brought him into my life. I said, well, the Lord may have brought him into your life. He ordains all that comes to pass, but his commandment is clear. How can two walk together except to be agreed? So, he might be all that you hoped for in a man. You know, he might have the looks of Tom Cruise and the whatever of whoever. If he doesn't have a godly heart, he's not for you, and you'll ruin your life, and you'll never become what God wanted you to be, if I can use that kind of language. That's a great question. I'll pray, and then we'll finish. We thank you, Lord, that you bring into our lives examples to humble us, to challenge us, to encourage us, Help us to take those examples to heart, and to rise to the calling we all have in Christ, to seek first your kingdom and your righteousness. And we ask it in our Savior's name. Amen. Thank you.