Well, let's open in prayer. Our Father, as I talk about your servant Samuel Pierce tonight, we recognize that Samuel Pierce was a totally depraved sinner, just like we are. And that what made him what he was, was the grace of God in him. And so my aim tonight, as we learn from this saint of old, is not to glorify Samuel Pierce, but to glorify the God of Samuel Pierce. And we pray, Lord, that indeed you will teach us many things about what it is to be a Christ-like servant of God, and that you will exalt yourself in our midst. For we pray it in Jesus' name. Amen. Have you ever found yourself wishing that there really was such a thing as time travel? I have thought that many, many times. If you could just teleport yourself back into some significant period of history, very often to events that at the time didn't seem to be that big of a deal, but everything that happened afterwards was never the same. For example, tonight is November the 4th. of 2016. This past Monday was October 31st, 2016. I would love to be able to travel through time 499 years and go and stand in the street across from the castle church in Wittenberg, Germany and just stand there and watch as an obscure, unknown, little thought of Roman Catholic monk named Martin Luther walked up to the door and nailed 95 theses to that door. He was not trying to start a revolution. He just was trying to address the abuse of indulgences and he wanted to have an open dialogue with the church leaders. Unbeknownst to him, this was the beginnings of what would become the Protestant Reformation. Whitney would have loved to have been standing in the street just watching it happen. Or how about the Lord's Day evening, July the 8th, 1741, in Enfield, Connecticut. There was a man who had been invited to preach on a Sunday evening at the Congregational Meeting House. At the last moment, he was delayed from coming, he was providentially hindered, so the people scrambled to find someone else to preach for them. They found a local minister and said, can you come and preach tonight? He grabbed ahold of some sermon notes, an evangelistic sermon he had preached twice before, and he had preached it twice without seeing even a single convert. But this night, he stood in the pulpit and preached it for the third time. His name was Jonathan Edwards. The sermon was Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God. And that night an estimated 500 souls were added to the kingdom. It is said that the Spirit of God came with such power that there were people literally gripping the seats in front of them until their knuckles began to turn white. They were so afraid that literally the floor underneath them was going to open up and swallow them into hell. And yet, here it was at the last minute, and how God worked. Wouldn't you have loved just to have been a fly on the wall, to listen as he preached that message? But if I could travel in time, and I only had one place I could go, and one time I could go to, I know exactly where I'd want to go. I would want to go to Kettering, England, on Tuesday night, October 2nd, 1792. into a little tiny room, 10 foot by 12 foot, in which 14 men were packed like sardines. It was the parlor on the back of a widow's house, and these 14 men were gathered together for a very specific purpose. All of them were particular Baptists, what we would now call Reform Baptists, and they were obscure. Most of them, except for one, were relatively unknown. If you talked about the villages where they pastored, most people in London would have never even heard of those villages. They were impoverished. In fact, one of them was so impoverished that not only did he have to be a bivocational pastor, sometimes he had to be a tri-vocational pastor. And that particular pastor's name was William Carey. And the reason they had gathered there that night is they were gathered as the Northamptonshire Association of Baptist Churches. Earlier in the year, in May, Kerry had gotten up on a Wednesday morning, had preached before the assembly, and he preached a sermon that no one who heard it would ever forget. It was called the Deathless Sermon. And he called for something bold to be done. He said, let's not be content to win England for Christ, let's take on the world. And unfortunately the sermon has not survived. I'm still hoping, holding out hope that someday somebody is going to find a lost outline of his sermon somewhere. But the two things that have survived, the two phrases that have survived, are these words, expect great things, attempt great things. expect great things from God, attempt great things for God. And the reason they had gathered in this October was to form a missionary society for the propagation of the gospel among the heathen. They were small. They knew they were small. They were impoverished. They knew this. They knew they were small men, but they also knew they served a very big God who was not limited by their small resources. And so before the night was over, They passed the following resolution that said this, humbly desirous of making an effort for the propagation of the gospel among the heathen, we unanimously resolve to act in society together for the purpose, for this purpose we name this the particular society for the propagation of the gospel among the heathen. Andrew Fuller, who led the meeting, took his empty snuff box and passed it around, collecting paper pledges of financial support. It's always kind of cracked me up that it was an empty snuff box. It gives me the impression that they all had a pinch before they had the meeting. Okay. These are the jokes, people. All right. They passed it around for the paper pledges. Three months later, in January of 1793, the Society would appoint its first two missionaries. The first one was John Thomas, the second, of course, was William Carrier, who proposed to go to India, and they set sail that June, and of course the rest is history. Of the 14 men who were packed in that night, 10 of the men were pastors, Twelve of the men were pastors, particular Baptist pastors. One was a deacon and one was a ministerial student. Of the twelve pastors, eleven of those pastors were pastors of churches that were part of the Northamptonshire Association. But the twelfth pastor was not a part of the Northamptonshire Association. Instead, he was the pastor of Cannon Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, England. He was only 26 years old. But he was well known for his evangelistic zeal and his growing interest in world missions, and that had earned him an invitation to come that night. And so he was in the room with men like Andrew Fuller, William Carey, John Ryland, Jr., John Sutcliffe, and the 26-year-old pastor. His name was Samuel Pierce. Now, how many of you in this room have ever heard of Samuel Pierce? Okay. Most people today have not heard of him. And yet, when he died at the young age of 33 in 1799, most of his contemporaries knew him well. As we shall see, Pierce was a thoroughgoing Calvinist. He was unashamed at that point. But something about Pierce that we must realize is this. Pierce was not just a cerebral Calvinist. He was an experiential and evangelistic Calvinist. He saw Jesus Christ as the champion of his heart. He was deeply in love with the God who had saved him from his sins, and he expressed that love with animated zeal to advance his kingdom through the proclamation of the gospel. Though we don't know him much today, let me tell you some things about what his contemporaries said of him. William Ward became a missionary to India alongside of William Carey. You may have heard of Carey, Marshman, and Ward, the Serampore Trio. Ward was one of those. Ward actually spent several months preaching for Pierce when he was on his deathbed, and he said of him several things. He said, quote, Oh, how does personal religion shine in Brother Pierce? What a soul! What ardor for the glory of God! You see in him a mind wholly given up to God. A sacred luster shines in his whole conversation. It is impossible to doubt the truth of experimental religion if you are acquainted with Pierce. Another occasion he said of him, I have seen more of God in him than in any other person I ever knew. In 1800, the year after Pierce died, Andrew Fuller published the memoirs of Samuel Pierce. It became his most well-sold publication. It went through numerous printings. If you want to read it, it is still available today. Solid Ground Publishing published it just a few years ago under the editorship of Michael Hagen. It's called A Vision for Missions. Is that right? I don't believe that's right. It's like a passion for missions or a vision for missions, something like that, but the classic memoir of Samuel Pierce. A heart for missions, that's what it's called, a heart for missions. But it's worth reading, and it went through numerous printings in its own day. Fuller said of his friend, quote, he is another Brainerd. He's another David Brainerd. John Ryland, Jr. called him the serific Pierce. Joseph Belcher, a man who printed a handful of Pierce's sermons in his own lifetime, said this, who can read the lives of a Brainerd, a Whitefield, or a Pierce without feeling a desire at least to go and do likewise? Who was this man that we've never heard of who his contemporaries mention alongside of men like George Whitefield and David Brainerd? Well, I want to introduce Pierce to you tonight and hope that you will take the time to investigate him more. There's a forthcoming book, by the way, that you should look to buy. But I want to frame his life under four headings, and the headings are on page seven of your notebook. First of all, I want to tell you something about his times. Secondly, I want to tell you about his pastoral ministry. Third, I want to tell you about his missionary heart. And fourth, I want to talk to you about his death. And then we want to make some applications from his life at the end. First of all, his times. Samuel Pierce was born on July 20, 1766 in Plymouth, England. He died at the age of 33 on October 10, 1799 in Birmingham, England. In his all-too-brief life, he lived in times of revolution and of political upheaval. On July 4, 1776, something very momentous occurred. The 13 English colonies on the eastern seaboard of North America declared their independence from Great Britain. Just 16 days later, Samuel Pearce turned 10 years old. The Revolutionary War, our American Revolution, would continue until he was 17 years of age. In 1789, Pierce took on his pastorate, his one and only pastorate, 10 years he would serve at Cannes Street Baptist. That same year, the French Revolution began to take place. If you know anything about the French Revolution, it was very bloody, it was very violent. Tens of thousands of French citizens lost their heads at the guillotine, including their king, King Louis XVI, and his wife, Marie Antoinette. So these were obviously horrible times. It came to an end in 1799, the year that Pierce died, but the hard times for France were not over yet because that year also saw the rise of a dictator named Napoleon Bonaparte. But Pierce also lived in times of heightened sensitivity to the plight of black slaves. Do you realize that for four centuries, from the 15th century all the way through the 19th century, 12 million black men and women were forcibly removed against their will from Africa to be sold in the West Indies, Jamaica, the United States, and in Great Britain as slaves. It is the largest forced migration in history, the history of the world. Of those 12 million, an estimated 2 million died on the horrible conditions of the slave ship. This was a time, the time in which Pierce lived, was a time when their plight was being brought to the public eye. Because he was a contemporary of men like John Newton, William Wilberforce, and Equiano. How many of you know the name Equiano? Equiano was a young African who was kidnapped from Africa when he was a young man. He survived the trip on the slave ship and was sold as a slave, I believe, in South Carolina. Eventually he was given his freedom, he was brought to faith in Christ, and he wrote an autobiography detailing what he had experienced on the slave ship and bringing it to the attention of the people of England and of the United States. He traveled throughout England seeking to raise money for the publication of his forthcoming book, and along the way in the summer of 1790 he came to Birmingham, England. And there were some 65 people in the town who paid money to subscribe to his books, and when it was published, they would receive a copy. Those 65 names were publicly listed in the newspaper, and among them was the name of Samuel Pierce. It is entirely possible, in fact likely, that Pierce and Equiano met during this time. If you've seen the film Amazing Grace about William Wilberforce, Equiano is actually depicted. He's sitting across the table from Wilberforce. telling him about the way the slaves are treated. But Equiano and Pierce were contemporaries. Well, hopefully that gives you some sense of the times in which Pierce lived. So let's move on to our second heading, which is his pastoral ministry. Pierce was raised in a Christian home. As a matter of fact, he was raised in a Reformed Baptist home. His father was a deacon in the Plymouth Baptist Church. But Pierce himself would not be converted until his 16th year. According to Pierce's own testimony, he spurned his parents' faith and fell in with some evil companions so that he said, in his own words, his heart was filled with evil and wicked intentions. But all that changed in his 16th year. In the summer of 1782, a minister by the name of Isaiah Burt came to the Plymouth Meeting House and began to preach for several Lord's Days. And as he did so, the Holy Spirit fell upon his preaching, convicted Pierce of his sins, And he entered through the narrow gate of conversion and began to walk on the difficult path of discipleship. The following summer, he was baptized and added to the membership of the Plymouth Baptist Church. That was on July the 20th, 1783. The day of his baptism was also the day of his 17th birthday. So he was added to the church, and then very quickly, very soon, It was evident that God was fitting this young man with graces and gifts to serve in the pastoral ministry. So much so that in November of 1785, when he was only 19 years of age, the church officially called him to begin preaching in their midst. And they recommended to him a three-year course of study to prepare for the ministry at the Bristol Baptist Academy. You need to understand that the Bristol Baptist Academy at that time was the only Calvinistic Baptist training institution in the world. And so he was trained under this from the fall of 1786 to the summer of 1789. In his final year at the school, during his break, he interned at the Cannes Street Baptist Church. The people loved him so much that they asked him to come back after graduation. That summer he began what was called a one-year probation of basically being the pastor for one year, but we'll give you a final call after testing and examining your graces. The next year they made that call and he became their pastor. What was Pierce's ministry like? Well, I want to tell you three things about his ministry. First of all, I want to talk to you about his theology. Secondly, I want to talk to you about his preaching. And third, I want to talk to you about his evangelistic zeal. First of all, Pierce's theology. I mentioned to you that the Canestrian Baptist Church was a part of the Midlands Association of Churches, and Pierce himself wrote two circular letters during his ministry for that group. On the front cover of their circular letters, they had a brief statement of doctrine, and though it's a brief statement, It is a pungent mouthful of things. I mean, in just a short space, they say an awful lot. It says this quote, maintaining the important doctrines of three equal persons in the Godhead, eternal and personal election, original sin, particular redemption. free justification by the righteousness of Christ imputed, efficacious grace and regeneration, the final perseverance of the saints, the resurrection of the dead, the general judgment at the last day, the life everlasting, and the independence of their respective churches." Now that is quite the quote. First of all, it's explicitly Trinitarian. We believe that God is three persons in one God. That's the first thing. If you notice carefully, all five of the doctrines of free and sovereign grace are enumerated there. Furthermore, there are three imputations spoken of. We believe in original sin. That means Adam's original sin was imputed to all his posterity. But we also believe, in particular, redemption, that all the sins of all God's elect were put upon Christ. But furthermore, we believe in another imputation, all of Christ's righteousness is imputed to every sinner who believes in Him. And that's the gospel, isn't it? They were unashamed to say, we believe in a future resurrection, judgment, and the eternal state. We're not full preterists. They believed in those things. They believed in the autonomy of each local church. That's what they mean by independency. But this was on the cover of an association of churches, which means that independence did not translate into isolation. They believe we must work together. We need one another as churches. So that gives you some sense that obviously he was unashamed to be identified with those various doctrines. But I told you that Pierce wrote two different circular letters for the Association. One of them was on the subject of justification by faith. And the opening paragraphs of that letter are worth hearing. So let me read them to you. He said this, the point of difference between us and many other professing Christians lies in the doctrine of salvation entirely by grace. For while some assert that good works are the cause of justification, some that good works are united with the merits of Christ and so both contribute to our justification, and others that good works neither in whole nor in part justify but the act of faith. We renounce everything in point of our acceptance with God, but His free grace alone which justifies the ungodly, still treading the steps of our venerable forefathers, the compilers of the Baptist confession of faith, who thus express themselves respecting the doctrine of justification. And he begins quoting from chapter 11 of our confession. Those whom God effectually calls, He also freely justifies for Christ's sake alone, not by imputing faith itself, the act of believing or any other evangelical obedience to them as their righteousness, but by imputing Christ's act of obedience unto the whole law and passive obedience in his death for their whole and sole righteousness, they receiving and resting on him and his righteousness by faith, which is alone the instrument of justification." And then he begins to make commentary on that. In this point, do all the other lines of our confession meet? For if it be admitted that justification is an act of free grace in God without any respect to the merit or demerit of the person justified, then the doctrines of Jehovah's sovereign love in choosing to himself a people from before the foundation of the world, his sending his son to expiate their guilt, his effectual operations upon their hearts, and his perfecting the work he has begun in them until those whom he justifies, he also glorifies, will be embraced as necessary parts of the glorious scheme of our salvation. What I want you to notice is he quotes from the Baptist Confession of Faith and calls it our confession. To put it another way, Samuel Pierce was a confessional Reformed Baptist. That was his confession and he was unashamed to own it. Well, let's speak then of his preaching. What about his preaching? The people who heard Samuel Pierce preach did not soon forget it. He was known for his power and unction in the pulpit. Many of you have probably heard of the Congregationalist minister from Bath whose name was William Jay. William Jay was a contemporary of Samuel Pierce and heard him preach on many occasions. This is what William Jay had to say about Samuel Pierce's preaching. When I have endeavored to form an image of our Lord as a preacher, Pierce has oftener presented himself to my mind than any other." What's it like to hear Jesus preach? Listen to Samuel Pierce preach and maybe you'll get some kind of inkling of what that might have been like. That's quite the endorsement, isn't it? There are six extant sermons still in print from Samuel Pierce. What can we learn from them? Several things. First of all, his preaching was thoroughly Christ-centered. He wrote a letter of advice to a young minister and he said this to him, let your strength be employed in exalting the Savior. Aim at that and that only in your sermons. It will give us more pleasure one day that he was exalted by us than that we exalted ourselves. Look at Christ, point people to him. Secondly, Pierce preached in self-conscious dependence upon the power of the Holy Spirit. None of us have the ability to manipulate the Holy Spirit. All we can do is plead his mercies upon us. But Pierce once told a friend, an observation once made to me helps to support me above water. If you did not plow in your closet, you would not reap in the pulpit. I'm going to wrestle with God privately and trust Him then to give the harvest in the pulpit. A third thing that characterizes his preaching was that he preached with fervent love for never-dying souls. It's a sad contradiction of the human heart that it is entirely possible to love theology, to love Bible study, to love preaching, and not to love the people that you're preaching to. But such was not the case with Samuel Pierce. There's a touching example of his love for sinners that's found in May of 1794. A new meeting house had been constructed in Galesboro, North Amstenshire. And the people were so affected by Pierce's preaching on the Lord's Day that they said of him, hey, why don't you preach again tomorrow? on Monday morning. He said, Well, if you'll find a congregation, I'll find a sermon. So they did so and they met. They set the time for 5 a.m. It was a farming community. All the men had to get up and go out and harvest in their fields. So they wanted to be able to have preaching before they went out into the field. And so he preached. concluded the service, and he and Andrew Fuller and his friends sat down and ate breakfast afterwards. And Fuller commended his preaching, the content of it, but then he said, you know, at the end, let me give you a little constructive criticism. At the end, when I thought you were finished, you started over again and seemed to re-preach your whole sermon for 10 or 15 minutes. Why did you do it? Pierce responded, it was so, but I had my reasons. Fuller looked at him and said, out with it. What was it? This was his response. Well, my brother, you shall have the secret if it must be so. Just at the moment I was about to resume my seat, thinking I had finished, the door opened and I saw a poor man enter of the working class. And from the sweat on his brow and the symptoms of his fatigue, I conjectured that he had walked some miles to this early service, but that he had been unable to reach the place until the close. A momentary thought glanced through my mind. Here may be a man who never heard the gospel. Or maybe he is one that regards it as a feast of fat things. In either case, the effort on his part demands one on mine. So with the hope of doing him good, I resolve at once to forget all else, and despite of criticism and apprehension of being thought tedious, to give him a quarter of an hour." In other words, feed him. He came here for his soul to be fed, so I'm going to feed him. Even if people criticize me for my homiletics, I'm going to feed this man's soul. Pierce's evangelism is the next thing I want to tell you about. It's amazing how God used this brother. In his short 10-year ministry at the Can Street Church, 335 members were added to the church, not by transfer of letter from another church, by conversion and baptism. And that doesn't even include others who, for whatever reason, were converted but didn't wind up joining the church. And that's not the limit of his labors. The men who were the particular Baptists of that day engaged in what they called village preaching. Pierce would preach three times every Lord's Day. Three sermons every single Lord's Day. And then throughout the week, two or three times, he would go to the surrounding villages, their Judea, as it were, and preach there wherever he could find a place. Dr. Michael Haken documents five different towns and villages surrounding Birmingham where churches sprang up from the preaching that Pierce did. He planted the seed and God raised up churches. So clearly he had a great heart for evangelism. I want to read you just one quote from one of his sermons. It was a sermon called An Early Acquaintance with the Holy Scriptures Recommended. You'll get a sense of the kind of fervor with which he called sinners to come to Christ. He said this, The Bible alone can make us wise to salvation. that man is a sinner, and that his sin diminishes his present enjoyment and endangers all his future happiness, every conscience witnesses. But whom did the light of nature ever instruct in the way of salvation?" In other words, creation is not sufficient to tell us how to find Christ. But from Revelation, from the Holy Scriptures, we obtain the amplest satisfaction on this important subject. Here, mercy. Heavenly mercy appears with pardons in her hands. Here, the God we have offended passes by us proclaiming His name, the Lord God, gracious and merciful, slow to anger, pardoning iniquity, transgression, and sin. Here, we see a thousand sinners like ourselves successfully pleading for forgiveness or rejoicing in the mercy they have found. In these sacred pages too, we find the God of mercy kindly inviting us, guilty as we are, to come boldly to a throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and obtain grace to help in time of need. He preached an irresistible Savior, and sinners were drawn to that Christ, because Christ was beautiful, and he preached Christ beautifully. So we've seen something of Pierce's times, some flavor of his pastoral ministry. Let's talk now about his missionary heart. As the days approached for William Carey and John Thomas to be sent out, these men, who realize we have no idea what we're about to get ourselves into. And they're starting to shake and tremble and realize, what have we gotten ourselves into? My goodness, this is an expensive undertaking, et cetera. And Fuller famously said this. He described it this way. He said, our undertaking in India really appeared to me at its commencement to be somewhat like penetrating into a deep mine which had never before been explored. While we were thus deliberating, Cary, as it were, said, well, I will go down if you will hold the rope. But before he went down, he, as it seemed to me, took an oath from each of us at the mouth of the pit to this effect, that while we lived, we should never let go the rope. And this is exactly what Samuel Pierce became. He became a very faithful rope holder for Carrie and his friends. Four specific ways I want to highlight for you. The first was by fervent and effectual prayer. You may not have much money to give to missions. That's okay. You can pray. And you know what? That's more important than even the money. It really and truly is because of the spirit of God doesn't do the work. Nothing's going to happen. And our missionaries need our prayers. It's interesting how the Baptist mission was formed. I told you it was formed on October 2nd of 1792, but God had already been moving his people for eight years before that, preparing them for what was about to happen. What had happened was this. The Baptist minister by the name of John Sutcliffe, in Olden East, right down the street from John Newton, had received a packet of materials, of books, from a fellow minister who lived in Ireland. And among that packet of books was a book that was written, a little pamphlet that was written by Jonathan Edwards some 40 years earlier. Now, you have to understand that back in those days, when they wrote books, the books often had long titles. In fact, the titles were so long that the whole content of the book was explained by the title. So here was the name of the book, A Humble Attempt to Promote Explicit Agreement and Visible Union of God's People, an Extraordinary Prayer for the Revival of Religion and the Advancement of Christ's Kingdom on Earth, Pursuant to Scripture Promises and Prophecies Concerning the Last Time. Now see, you don't have to read the book now. And actually, believe it or not, that's the short title. There was actually a longer title than this. Now most people just use the three-word title, A Humble Attempt. So, A Humble Attempt. But this book was in the packet of materials that Sutcliffe received. And what it was, was a call for churches to begin monthly concerts of prayer asking for God to pour out revival upon His church so that His kingdom would advance. Well, Sutcliffe reads it, and he is so amazed by it that he gets up in the year 1784, before the Northamptonshire Association of Churches says, Brothers, you've got to read this book, and we need to start doing this. In addition to all the normal weekly prayer meetings we have, let's agree that as churches, the first Monday of every single month, we're going to gather together for a special prayer meeting to have just a concert of prayer every month and to pray, God avenge your kingdom. God bring revival to us. And the church has agreed to this, and this happened for eight years. This is where the mission was born, was in the prayers of God's people. Two years after this, in 1786, the Midlands Association adopted the same practice. Canon Street Baptist was a part of the Midlands Association. 1789, Pierce comes, and to the Cannon Street Baptist Church, and he sees that this prayer meeting is going on. And he was very excited about it. So this is what he said about it. He said, I had observed that our monthly meetings for prayer had been better attended than the other prayer meetings. In other words, it was more well attended than even the normal weekly prayer meetings. From the first time that I knew the people in Cannon Street. But I thought a more general attention to them was desirable. I therefore preach on the Sabbath day evening preceding the next monthly prayer meeting from Matthew 6 10, thy kingdom come. In other words, our monthly prayer meeting is tomorrow. Let me preach tonight on the urgency and need of prayer. He says, I urge with ardor and affection a universal union of the serious part of the congregation in this exercise. It rejoiced me to see three times as many the next night as usual. And from that time to this, they have discovered so much concern for the more extensive spread of the gospel, that at our monthly prayer meetings, both stated and occasional, I should be as much surprised at the case of the heathen being omitted in any prayer as at an omission of the name and merits of Jesus. You cannot hear people in this church pray without talking about missions. And I would be as surprised as to hear a moment in Jesus name as I would to hear them omit the cause of world missions when they're praying. That's what God was doing in their church. Now, don't you want that to be in our churches too? What if God would do that among us? What an incredible thing. So he led in prayer. The second thing is financial support. It costs money to go overseas. It costs money to be sustained. I told you already that Andrew Fuller's empty snuff box was passed around on April 2, 1792, and that paper pledges of future financial support were given. This was supposed to be the seedbed of the mission. Well, they have their next meeting at the end of the month on October the 31st on a Wednesday. Pierce showed up late to the meeting. He wasn't yet a part of the executive committee, but they were all kind of down. Okay, we agreed to do this thing and now we don't have any money. We're broke. Okay. Well, Pierce then shows up a little bit late to the meeting and he says, brothers, after we formed the mission on October 2nd, we went back, I went back to our church that very weekend. We formed a auxiliary to raise money for the mission and here's 70 pounds British to contribute to it. He'd raised in one month. They all said, this put new spirits in us all. And then they wisely said, we think Pierce should be on our committee. So they added him to that committee. It is said by Andrew Fuller's grandson that both Pierce and Fuller traveled all through the villages and hamlets and places in London to collect money for the mission so fervently that they knew the towns and villages better than the postman did. because they were constantly gathering funds for the mission. A third vital way that he held the ropes was in correspondence. We've talked about this some in our conference. When missionaries go overseas, they are isolated from their culture. They have left friends and family. They're in a culture that's unfamiliar to them. They have to be living among people who speak a language they don't know. And the culture shock they're feeling is awful. They're trying to adapt to a new culture, and when they come back off the field, they come to our culture, but they've adapted to their new culture enough that our culture then looks foreign. They're in between two cultures and yet not really a part of either one. And the loneliness and the sense of isolation is extremely unbearable, particularly for the first several years on the field. Now today we have some technologies that help us with that. Phones, Skyping, emails, and that does help relieve some of the burden. But can you imagine being someone who had none of those technologies? It took five months in a ship for Kerry and his family to get all the way from Great Britain to India. So it wasn't like an overnight flight or a red-eye flight. It took five months on the sea, seasickness and dysentery and all the stuff that goes with being on a ship. That's what it took. And then the only way you could get correspondence was your correspondence and letters would travel on a ship, but they might get lost in transit. So you might not hear from anybody for months. Well, it's very important then, and one of the things you and I can practically do, is correspond with our missionaries. Even if it's just to give them a few sentences just to say, we're praying for you, we're thinking about you. And just letting them know we care, because they get to think and nobody cares. Because they just don't hear from us. We just assume, okay, they're the big shots, they're going to go up there and do great things, and we'd rather say, does anybody care? Does anybody even know? Well, constantly, Samuel Pierce would, every time he could, put pen to paper and write long letters to William Carey, telling him the news about what's going on at home, telling him how they're praying for them. In fact, one of his letters to Carey, he said this, I am really mistaken if I have not been your most voluminous correspondent. The fourth thing he did, Pierce became the first editor of the Society's periodical accounts. ARBCA has something very similar to this. Every three months we have our ARBCA update. And if you read it, and read it over the years, you get a sense and a feel for who our chaplains are, who our missionaries are, who our national pastors are, because they write letters and updates. Well, how would we know what's going on in the field if we don't have someone to print something to tell us about it? And so the periodical accounts were used and circulated to keep people aware of what was happening. According to his great-grandson Samuel Pierce invested about 25% of his pastoral labors in serving the mission. He said this to Kerry in a letter, he said, there is no part of my life which I reflect on with so much pleasure as that which has been spent in behalf of the society. In other words, this is torture chained me to the wall because I love working for the mission. Well, given his fervor and ardor for missions, it's not surprising that Pierce himself would begin to have desires to go and be sent as a missionary himself. He wanted to go to William Carey and serve alongside of him in India. He wrote a letter to Carey, which never arrived, actually, on August the 9th of 1794, making his intentions known. And as he worked through this, he said to one brother, He says, I have made it a constant matter of prayer, often begging God, either that He would take away the desire or open a door for its fulfillment. And the result has uniformly been that the more spiritual I have been in the frame of my mind, the more love I have felt for God and the more communion I have enjoyed with Him, so much the more disposed have I been to engage as a missionary among the heathen. And so as he wrestled with this call, he decided that he would take a month. and that he would spend every Friday for four consecutive Fridays fasting and praying and coming before God, crying out to him, wrestling with him as to whether or not this was his desire. That happened from October the 8th to November the 7th of 1794. As he prayed, he kept a journal that he wrote in, giving his thoughts and putting pen to paper and thinking about it. The book I mentioned, The Memoirs of Samuel Pierce, actually contains the majority of that diary if you want to read it. But he finally wrote and said to the society, he says, brothers, can we meet because I believe God is calling me to the mission field. And could we meet together and talk about it? On November 3rd, he wrote in his diary, if my brethren knew how earnestly I pant for the work, they could not withhold their ready acquiescence. The day came on Wednesday, November the 12th of 1794, that the committee met together. Pierce came before them to plead with them to send him to the mission field. Two of his deacons also came with him to plead with him not to send their pastor to the mission field because they loved him and didn't want to lose him. They spent the morning fasting and praying and talking about it. Pierce did not make his journal available. He read just a few slight excerpts from it, but he did not make it available to them. And finally, he and the two deacons withdrew so that the committee could deliberate and talk, and they deliberated for two or three hours. Finally they came out and they handed a sheet of paper that they had unanimously adopted and put it into Pierce's hands. And it said this, The brethren at this meeting are fully satisfied of the fitness of Brother Pierce's qualifications and greatly approve of the disinterestedness of his motives and the ardor of his mind. But another missionary not having been requested and not being, in our view, immediately necessary, and Brother Pierce occupying already a post very important to the prosperity of the mission itself, we are unanimously of opinion that at present, however, he should continue in the situation which he now occupies. They said no. What would most men do if they were told no? Hey, I've been praying about it. I have earnest desires about it. You won't send me, I'll find somebody else who will. That's what would happen today. He wrote to his wife the very next day and he said this, I am disappointed. but not dismayed. I ever wish to make my Savior's will my own. I am more satisfied than ever I expected I should be with a negative upon my earnest desires, because the business has been so conducted that I think if by any means such an issue can be insured, the mind of Christ has been obtained." And then he wrote a letter to William Carey. He did not know that Carey had not gotten his first letter saying, hey, I'm going to show up in India with you. And he said this, instead of a letter you perhaps expected to have seen the writer, And had the will of God been so, he would by this time have been on his way to you. But upon receiving the committee's decision, I was enabled cheerfully to reply, the will of the Lord be done. And receiving this answer as the voice of God, I have, for the most part, been easy since. Now the question is, did the committee make the wrong judgment? Well, it's interesting that after Pierce's death, they finally were able to look at his journal. And they read through it. And he said, man, if we had gotten this, we would have sent him, if we had been able to read this. But why did they not send him? Well, first of all, they realized that if they sent out all their best pastors, to the mission field, their congregations were going to lose their excitement for missions because they wouldn't want to lose their pastors all the time. So that was one concern. But there was another practical concern as well, and that is Andrew Fuller had suffered a mini-stroke, probably what's called Bell's Palsy. Half of his face was paralyzed. He was the president of the society. It was entirely possible he was going to have to step down. And if he stepped down, and here's Samuel Pierce, who is next to him, the most diligent man working on behalf of the society, holding the ropes, they would have a crisis of leadership on the home side. And so they felt it was important for Pierce to stay at his post for that reason. But then the other question comes, should Pierce have just done his own thing anyway? They said, well, I'll just go, because I know God's calling me, and you guys are a bunch of chowderheads, and I'm just going to do what I want to do, as so many would do today. Well, you know, brothers, Part of the qualifications of being a pastor is that you cannot be self-willed. That means you have to be willing to submit to the judgment of others. James tells us the character of godly wisdom and contrasts it with sensual or earthly wisdom. And you know what's interesting? That one of the first characteristics of godly wisdom is that a man who's godly wise is willing to yield. The truly wise man is the man who understands that the sum total of all wisdom is not found in his own brain. This man was a team player and he was willing to submit to the judgment of his peers and take it as the mind of Christ and submit to it. Now I'm going to tell you something. The reason Samuel Pierce is my hero is because of this very thing. This is the thing, when I co-authored a book with Michael Haken on biography of Peirce, I said, whatever else you let me say about Peirce, whatever chapters I get to write, I want to talk about Peirce and his missions. Because I'm going to tell you something, a man who's in authority and had the kind of gifts he had, who was willing to submit to the judgment of others, I'm going to tell you something, I'd follow that man blindfolded. Because he's not only in authority, he's under authority. And he knows how to submit to those around him. We'll have more to say about that at the end, in the applications. But I believe he did exactly the right thing. Now you may think, okay, he lived five more years after he was told he couldn't go. Surely what he did is, well, okay, I can't go. I'll take my little red ball and go home. I'm not going to help the mission anymore, right? Well, actually, what Pierce said was this, if I cannot go abroad, I will do all I can to serve the mission at home. And Fuller said this of him, he said, the decision of the committee did not in the least abate his zeal for the object. As he could not promote it abroad, he seemed resolved to lay himself out for it even more at home. So he got even more diligent in holding the ropes here. So we've seen Pierce's times, his pastoral ministry and his heart for missions. Finally, let's talk about his death. One of Newton's hymns has a great line that says this, let me live a life of faith. Let me die thy people's death. Let me die like a Christian, because for the Christian, we may be concerned about the manner of our death. But death is no longer our enemy. Someone has said that death becomes, for the Christian, our butler. It wears a bow tie and a cummerbund. And when death comes, it opens the door and says, this way to the master. Because it no longer, as the Bible says, O death, where is thy sting? O Hades, where is thy victory? What were the circumstances of Pierce's death? When you read the literature about Pierce, there's no complaints about him except for one thing. He worked too hard and rested too little and neglected his own health. And he preached at the commissioning of William Ward. When William Ward was going to be sent to India, they had a commissioning service on October the 16th in 1798 in Kettering. He went there and he preached, and he preached the stars right out of the sky. Fuller said of it, he preached like an apostle. And William Ward himself wrote to William Carey to talk about Pierce's preaching. He said this about him. He said, Pierce set the whole meeting in a flame. Had missionaries been needed, we might have had a cargo immediately. That's the kind of preaching that was going on. Well, he traveled back from Kettering to go back to Birmingham, and as he did so, he was caught in a torrential downpour, and it soaked him to the bone. And he developed a severe chill. But when he got home, rather than resting as he should have, he said, well, I'll just overcome it by preaching more vigorously, and he tried to do what he called pulpit sweats to overcome the problem. Well, of course, it just made things worse. Six weeks after all this happened, on the Lord's Day, December the 2nd of 1798, He preached what proved to be his last sermon to the Cannon Street Baptist Church. He came down with probably what was pulmonary tuberculosis. It would take him 10 months to die. 33 years old, young man. His condition was so bad, his stomach was weak. If he would speak above a whisper while he was convalescing on his bed, he would say that his entire chest and his lungs would feel like they had been scraped with glass. That's how bad things were. William Ward came and preached for him for several months during that time to fill the pulpit on his behalf. But what was his attitude towards death? What can we learn from Pierce? It really will make you weep as you read the things that he wrote to others. I'll give you just a few small anecdotes that might help you. He said this to one brother, I would not have been without this trial for the Indies. It has taught me more of my Bible and my God than seven years mere study could have done. He wrote to a brother on July the 20th, 1799. That was his 33rd birthday. He wrote to John Ryland Jr. He said, I find myself getting weaker and weaker. And so my Lord instructs me in his pleasure to remove me soon. In other words, I'm about to die. You say, well, my dear brother, that it's such a prospect I cannot complain. No, blessed be his dear name who shed his blood for me. He helps me to rejoice at times with joy unspeakable. Now I see the value of the religion of the cross. It is a religion for a dying sinner. It was never till today that I got any personal instruction from our Lord's telling Peter by what death he should glorify God. Oh, what a satisfying thought it is that God appoints those means of disillusion whereby he gets most glory to himself. It was the very thing I needed, for of all the ways of dying, that which I most dreaded was by a consumption, in which it is now highly probable my disorder will issue." In other words, this was the way I feared dying more than any other. And he says this, but oh my dear Lord, if by this death I can most glorify Thee, I prefer it to all others. Three weeks later he wrote again to John Ryland, and he says this, and here you see the struggle of a godly man. He says, the thought is my constant burden that the being I love best always sees something in me which he infinitely hates. Oh, wretched, wretched man that I am. The thought even now makes me weep. And who can help it? That seriously reflects he never comes to God to pray or praise, but he brings what his God detests along with him. That is my remaining sin. He carries it with him wherever he goes and can never be rid of it so long as he lives. Come, my dear brother, will you not share my joy and help my praise that soon I shall leave this body of sin and death behind to enter on the perfection of my spiritual nature and patiently to wait till this natural body shall become a spiritual body and so be a fit vehicle for my immortal and happy spirit. Samuel Pierce fell asleep in Jesus on October the 10th, 1799. He was 33 years old, the same age as his Lord. A few months before he died, Andrew Fuller gave what probably is the most, the best praise that you could ever give to a godly man. He was making a 70-mile journey home by horseback from London to his hometown of Kettering, and as he did so, he said that he was thinking of that dear man Pierce wasting away in Plymouth, And he was overcome for miles together with weeping. But then as he wept over his friend, he said, he looked up to heaven with tears streaming down his face. And he said, let the God of Samuel Pierce be my God. There is no greater thing than a godly man would want. Then not for himself to be glorified, but the God he served to be honored. And I would say to you, brothers and sisters, may the God of Samuel Pierce be our God too. Three applications I want to make of his life, and then we'll be done. First of all, men who cannot submit to authority have no business being in authority. If you're a self-willed man, if you have a problem submitting to pastoral authority now, by all means do not go into the ministry. Pierce was a man passionate with fervent desires to go to the mission field. He wrote about it. prayed about it. There's one point at which he literally dreamed about it. He was in his dreams. He wrote in his diary, I dreamed that I was in India and I saw one of these Indian men and share the gospel with him. One man commented about that and says, that's the kind of spirit we need right there. Men who dream about the mission field, literally. His fervor was great and yet his comrades said no. You know, William Herrick Carey is my hero because he did go to the mission field and Samuel Pierce is my hero because he didn't. He submitted to his peers. Brothers and sisters, tell me, how many self-willed men does it take to disrupt the unity of a local church? How many insubordinate, rebellious, self-willed men does it take to disrupt the unity of an eldership? For that matter, in an association of churches, how many self-willed messengers does it take to disrupt the unity of an association? It only takes one. A man who is in authority but who is not under authority is by definition a dictator. And none of us need a dictator ruling over us. And we don't need dictators filling our pulpits. We need authoritative men, but we don't need authoritarian men. We need men who can yield to others because they're humble enough to recognize they don't have the sum total of all wisdom in their own heads. Pierce was a man like that, and we need men like that today, don't we? Those who send out missionaries are as important to the work of world missions as those who are sent. When I was in Bible college, I was in a Bible college that was very missions-minded, and I thank God for that. But sometimes you would hear some of the students who were going to go to the mission field themselves in chapel, they'd get real fervent and say, if you can't go to the mission field, at least you can be a sender. But what are the implications of the word, at least? Well, if you're not going to be quite as spiritual as we are, you can stay back and be a sender. We know, the truth is, Paul doesn't view those who send as somehow less spiritual than those who are sent out. The truth is, we all have a place to play in world missions. I hope that's what you've gotten out of this entire conference, because that's been the point. Missiology isn't just for missionaries, it's for all of God's people. If I'm to hold the ropes in missions, then I've got to have some strong missiology because I want to have some strong spiritual biceps to know how to hold the ropes. I want to know how to think about missions and how to pray about missions and how I can be the most help to those who are sent out. I'm just called to be a Georgia Baptist pastor. That's all I'm called to be. But I want to be proactive in holding the ropes for those who are sent out. We find in Samuel Pierce an example of a man who was called to stay in his own homeland and yet who effectively handled and held those ropes. And again, we want to be like that as well. Third and finally, We are seeing a great recovery of the theology believed and preached by our forefathers today, and we thank God for it. To be in Georgia and to have numerous churches that are holding to this old confession when 20 years ago there was one holding to our old confession, men who are recovering the old paths, and to be a part of different associations where we learn more about what our forefathers believed and preached, it's great, and I'm thankful for that. But you know something, we don't just need the right theology. We need right hearts. We need the kind of hearts that God gives to his men. You look at the qualifications of an elder. It's not primarily the skill set that's emphasized. It's primarily what kind of man is he? What kind of husband is he? What kind of father is he? What kind of man is he in his community? What kind of man is he in the workplace? What kind of man is he in the church? There are men who are angels in the pulpit and devils in their own home. But what kind of man is he? Is he a Christ-like man? Does he love the Lord? Does he love never-dying souls? Does he have a passion for souls? You know, you read about William Carey. William Carey fashioned in his shoe shop a glove, a leather glove. And he would use it to teach geography lessons to children. And man, I wish I had taken geography from William Carey, because here is his burden is for the world is growing. And he would say, children, here's the island of Tahiti, and it's this big and it's this wide and there are this many people on it. And then he would burst into tears and say, and they're all pagans and they've never heard of Jesus. And someone's got to tell them about Jesus. Those are the kind of men that we need raised up in our generation. Spirit-filled men who love the Lord and love his truth, but love people and love the lost. May God raise up Samuel Pierce's in our own day. May he raise up William Carey's in our own day. That's the need of the hour, isn't it? May God be pleased to grant these kind of gifts to his church. Let's pray. Lord, we thank you for giving us spiritual heroes. We thank you for men of old that we can look at and they were imperfect and they made mistakes and they sin. But nonetheless, they were used in your hand as mighty men and they were small men, but they had a big God. Lord, would you raise up Samuel Pierce's in our own day and William Carey's in our own day? We're not called to be William Carey. We're not called to be Samuel Pierce. But Lord, we can't imitate their holiness and be like them. So grant us grace to be found faithful. Help us to, we pray for all the things that we've learned during these past two days. Lord, let them not be in vain. Let us go back to our churches and put them into practice and to live them out either as those who are sent to go to the mission field or those who are called to stay behind to hold the ropes for those that are. Grant us grace to be found faithful to the end for in Jesus name we ask it. Amen.