Message of the Month by Pastor Paul    June 2021

There are songs that I used to sing as a little boy in Sunday school 60 years ago that I still remember today. They were what we called “choruses” they were short and easy to sing without being childish or untheological.  One such song came to mind the other day complete with the tune and all the words:

 

God is still on the throne and He will remember His own

 Though trials may press us and burdens distress us

 He never will leave us alone

 God is still on the throne and He will remember His own

 His promise is true He will not forget you

 God is still on the throne!

 

I just typed that out from memory with the tune as clear as a bell in my mind.  There are thousands of Christian songs today that will never be remembered in ten years’ time and certainly not in fifty, or in the case of some of the great hymns by Charles Wesley and others –300  years  or  more,  simply  because  they  are  too  long,  too  complicated,  too tuneless  and  not  very  theologically  sound  or  significant - worship  leaders  and  modern song writers – take note!

 

The reason the song came to mind was because when I started writing this article, I was praying very hard for a dear friend who has been going through the most horrendous time for  the  last  few  years  because  of  the  terrible  behaviour  of  someone  else (who  is  not suffering at all).

 

Also, just one day before, another dear friend who is a senior member of the Forum, drew my attention to the story which is floating around on Facebook about a missionary couple in the  Belgium  Congo   in   the   1920’s  who  went through  terrible  suffering and disappointment when they were faithfully serving God (full story below – it made me cry).

 

This raises the question: “why do bad  things  happen  to  good  people -God’s people?”  Here are a few thoughts –andI’m trying hard not to give neat packaged answers!

 

Like  most  people  I  want  a  comfortable  life, but I’m not so naïve as to think that life is always going to go my way.

 

There are many blessings and mercies but sometimes things don’t work out the way you want and sometimes things go terribly “wrong”.  There are many dangers and problems that God saves us from -but now and again God appears to stand back and let bad things happen even to His most faithful children.

 

We tend to think that we are in blessing when everything is going right but sometimes the blessing is in the thing that has gone “wrong.” God  allows  this  to  happen  for  a purpose.  As I’m writing this, I’m looking at a picture of Jesus with the crown of thorns on His head! – He said “In this world you will have tribulation but fear not I have overcome the world.” He went through the worst injustice from human beings to overcome the world the flesh and the devil for us.

 

There’s a reward in the tribulation – CHARACTER in this life and a CROWN in the next.

 

CHARACTER in this life:

“We also  glory  in tribulations,  

knowing  that tribulation produces  perseverance;  

and perseverance, character”.

Romans 3:3-5

 

Notice that character is produced as we go through the tribulation with perseverance!

 

A CROWN in the next: 

To him who overcomes I will grant to sit with Me on My throne,

as I also overcame and sat down with My Father on His throne.

Revelation 3:21

 

If we overcome by going through tribulations we will join Him in His throne!

 

Jesus is with us in our tribulations – we are not alone.

 

Goodness and mercy will follow us ALL the days of our lives.

 

However,for that to happen WE have to FOLLOW THESHEPHERD -all the days of our lives. The story below shows what happens when we give up. The suffering continues –but notice  in  this  story  how  the  end  of  it  is  glory  because  it’s not just goodness that follows us but MERCY too!

 

GOD IS STILL ON THE THRONE! 

 

APPENDIX

 

Back in 1921, a missionary couple named David and Svea Flood went with their two-year-old son from Sweden to the heart of Africa—to what was then called the Belgian Congo. They met up with another young Scandinavian couple, the Ericksons, and the four of them sought God for direction. In those days of much tenderness and devotion and sacrifice, they felt led of the Lord to go out from the main mission station and take the gospel to a remote area.

 

This was a huge step of faith. At the village of N’dolera they were rebuffed by the chief, who would not let them enter his town for fear of alienating the local gods. The two couples opted to go half a mile up the slope and build their own mud huts.

 

They prayed for a spiritual breakthrough, but there was none. The only contact with the villagers was a young boy, who was allowed to sell them chickens and eggs twice a week. Svea Flood—a tiny woman of only four feet, eight inches tall—decided that if this was the only African  she  could  talk  to,  she  would  try to  lead  the  boy  to  Jesus. And  in  fact,  she succeeded.

 

But  there  were  no  other  encouragements.  Meanwhile,  malaria  continued  to  strike  one member  of  the  little  band  after  another.  In  time  the  Ericksons  decided  they  had  had enough suffering and left to return to the central mission station. David and Svea Flood remained near N’dolera to go on alone.

 

Then, of all things, Svea found herself pregnant in the middle of the primitive wilderness. When  the  time  came  for  her  to  give  birth,  the  village  chief  softened  enough  to  allow  a midwife to help her. A little girl was born, whom they named Aina.

 

The delivery, however, was exhausting, and Svea Flood was already weak from bouts of malaria.  The  birth  process  was  a  heavy  blow  to  her  stamina.  She  lasted  only  another seventeen days.

 

Inside David Flood, something snapped in that moment. He dug a crude grave, buried his twenty-seven-year-old  wife,  and  then  took  his  children  back  down  the  mountain  to  the mission station. Giving his newborn daughter to the Ericksons, he snarled, “I’m going back to Sweden. I’ve lost my wife, and I obviously can’t take care of this baby. God has ruined my life.” With that, he headed for the port, rejecting not only his calling, but God himself.

 

Within eight months both the Ericksons were stricken with a mysterious malady and died within days of each other. The baby was then turned over to some American missionaries, who adjusted her Swedish name to “Aggie” and eventually brought her back to the United States at age three.

 

This family loved the little girl and wereafraid that if they tried to return to Africa, some legal  obstacle  might  separate  her  from  them.  So  they  decided  to  stay  in  their  home country and switch from missionary work to pastoral ministry. And that is how Aggie grew up  in  South  Dakota.  As  a  young  woman,  she  attended  North  Central  Bible  college  in Minneapolis. There she met and married a young man named Dewey Hurst.

 

Years passed. The Hursts enjoyed a fruitful ministry. Aggie gave birth first to a daughter, then a son. In time her husband became president of a Christian college in the Seattle area, and Aggie was intrigued to find so much Scandinavian heritage there.

 

One day a Swedish religious magazine appeared in her mailbox. She had no idea who had sent it, and of course she couldn’t read the words. But as she turned the pages, all of  a  sudden  a  photo  stopped  her  cold.  There  in  a  primitive setting  was  a  grave  with  a white cross-and on the cross were the words SVEA FLOOD.

 

Aggie jumped in her car and went straight to a college faculty member who, she knew, could translate the article. “What does this say?” she demanded.

 

The instructor summarized the story: It was about missionaries who had come to N’dolera long ago...the birth of a white baby...the death of the young mother...the one little African boy who had been led to Christ...and how, after the whites had all left, the boy had grown up and finally persuaded the chief to let him build a school in the village. The article said that gradually he won all his students to Christ...the children led their parents to Christ...even the chief had become a Christian. Today there were six hundred Christian believers in that one village...

 

All because of the sacrifice of David and Svea Flood.

 

For the Hursts’ twenty-fifth wedding anniversary, the college presented them with the gift of  a  vacation  to  Sweden. There,  Aggie  sought  to  find  her  real  father.  An  old  man  now, David Flood had remarried, fathered four more children, and generally dissipated his life with alcohol. He had recently suffered a stroke. Still bitter, he had one rule in his family: “Never mention the name of God-because God took everything from me.”

 

After  an  emotional  reunion  with  her  half-brothers  and  half-sister,  Aggie  brought  up  the subject of seeing her father. The others hesitated. “You can talk to him,” they replied, “even though he’s very ill now. But you need to know that whenever he hears the name of God, he flies into a rage.”

 

Aggie was not to be deterred. She walked into the squalid apartment, with liquor bottles everywhere, and approached the seventy-three-year-old man lying in a rumpled bed.

 

“Papa?” she said tentatively.

 

He turned and began to cry. “Aina,” he said, “I never meant to give you away.”

 

“It’s all right Papa,” she replied, taking him gently in her arms. “God took care of me.”

 

The man instantly stiffened. The tears stopped.

 

“God forgot all of us. Our lives have been like this because of Him.” He turned his face back to the wall.

 

Aggie stroked his face and then continued, undaunted.

 

“Papa, I’ve got a little story to tell you, andit’s a true one. You didn’t go to Africa in vain. Mama didn’t die in vain. The little boy you won to the Lord grew up to win that whole village to Jesus Christ. The one seed you planted just kept growing and growing. Today there are six hundred African people serving the Lord because you were faithful to the call of God in your life...

 

“Papa, Jesus loves you. He has never hated you.”

 

The old man turned back to look into his daughter’s eyes. His body relaxed. He began to talk. And by the end of the afternoon, he had come back to the God he had resented for so many decades.

 

Over the next few days, father and daughter enjoyed warm moments together. Aggie and her husband soon had to return to America—and within a few weeks, David Flood had gone into eternity.

 

A  few  years  later,  the  Hursts  were  attending  a  high-level  evangelism  conference  in London, England, where a report was given from the nation of Zaire (the former Belgian Congo). The superintendent of the national church, representing some 110,000 baptized believers, spoke eloquently of the gospel’s spread in his nation. Aggie could not help going to ask him afterward if he had ever heard of David and Svea Flood.

 

“Yes, madam,” the man replied in French, his words then being translated into English. “It was Svea Flood who led me to Jesus Christ. I was the boy who brought food to your parents before you were born. In fact, to this day your mother’s grave and her memory are honoured by all of us.”

 

He embraced her in a long, sobbing hug. Then hecontinued, “You must come to Africa to see, because your mother is the most famous person in our history.”

 

In time that is exactly what Aggie Hurst and her husband did. They were welcomed by cheering throngs of villagers. She even met the man who had been hired by her father many years before to carry her back down the mountain in a hammock-cradle.

 

The most dramatic moment, of course, was when the pastor escorted Aggie to see her mother’s white cross for herself. She knelt in the soil to pray and give thanks. Later that day, in the church, the pastor read from John 12:24: “I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of  wheat  falls  to  the  ground  and  dies,  it  remains  only  a  single  seed.  But  if  it  dies,  it produces many seeds.” He then followed with Psalm 126:5: “Those who sow in tears will reap with songs of joy.”

 

(An  excerpt  from  Aggie  Hurst,  Aggie:  The  Inspiring  Story  of  A  Girl  Without  A  Country [Springfield, MO: Gospel Publishing House, 1986].)

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