Good men have commonly been attacked by other good men.
- George Whitefield was publicly attacked by John Wesley.
- Felix Manz was executed by Ulrich Zwingli his former teacher.
- Christopher Love, a godly Presbyterian pastor, lost his head while John Owen supported the men who swung the axe.
- David was attacked by Saul and Ahithophel (both Israelites who had sometimes been faithful).
- The missionaries and their supporters were being rejected and removed from the church by Diotrephes, another elder.
Jonathan Edwards
Though God used Edwards in the Great Awakening from 1739 onward in New England, many good pastors offered “a secret kind of opposition” to the revival (Edwards’ own words). He felt this stress keenly that while God was saving sinners, good men far away were doubtful, critical, and prayerless.
In 1751, about 8 years after the revival had subsided, church members in his own congregation stirred up opposition to his ministry. At 48 years old, he lost his job, his church, his house, and his salary. Three years later, the chief man who led the fight against Edwards repented to him privately. After Edwards’ death in 1760, this same man wrote an apology that was published in a Boston newspaper. In speaking about his fight with Edwards, he wrote, “I now see that I was very much influenced by vast pride, self-sufficiency, ambition, and vanity. I appear to myself vile, and doubtless much more so to others who are more impartial.”
When he becomes a missionary to the Indians, he is desperately poor, and opposed again by a powerful family in the area. “The family foible [is that they] were all too apt to be governed in conduct by an undue regard to self, in one shape or another” (Murray, 374). This family worked secretly and openly led by a powerful man to remove Edwards from among the Indians.
William Carey
After 20 years of service in India with hundreds of baptized Indians and mission stations slowly growing, Carey endured 16 years of attacks from fellow Christians.
Some in England complained that Carey was becoming rich. Carey wrote to them:
“Were I to die today, I should not leave property enough for the purchase of a coffin, and my wife would be entirely unprovided for.”
Carey himself gave a significant percentage of his own salary back to his own mission board to support other missionaries.
Though they had worked the longest, done the most, given the most money, and lost loved ones, the committee sided with the younger men. William Carey was removed from the mission board he founded after 35 years.
If he could revisit that time, he said he would
“scrupulously abstain from offering any reply… and would inform his opponents that they had his full permission to say whatever it would afford them pleasure… concerning him, provided that they did not encroach on his invaluable time.”
“The greatest trial of a missionary is often another missionary.” Forbes Jackson
These tensions came over a decade interspersed with deaths.
- 1821 His second wife Charlotte died and he wrote, “My loss is irreparable. … I am exceedingly lonely.”
- 1822 Krishna Pal (56) and his first son Felix (37), baptized on the same day, were buried in the same year.
- 1823 John Ryland the last of the Home Trio died and Carey was practically friendless in England during the last seven years of the fight with the mission.
- 1833 At 72, Carey and the other missionaries lose all their retirement savings as English banks fail.
Charles Spurgeon
In August 1887 at 53 years old, Spurgeon wrote against the false teaching that was growing in Britain’s Baptist Union. His powerful preaching had been one key reason that so many churches had joined the Union for the 33 years while he was a member.
But cowardly ministers after having told Spurgeon about the false doctrine, were not willing to be publicly named. So Spurgeon bore intense anger and unjust accusations in public for years.
In a public vote, even his brother James—the assistant pastor of the Tabernacle—chose to stand against the Prince of Preachers.
The stress of standing nearly alone against false doctrine in the face of otherwise good Christian men pressed him so heavily that his wife testified it led to an early grave for him. He died 4 ½ years after these good men publicly opposed him, and of course, we now know that Spurgeon was 100% right.
Observations
- We ought to expect tension with other good men throughout our entire lives. Jesus said, “It is inevitable that stumbling blocks come. … Be on your guard! If you brother sins…”
- Our confidence and faith in any good man should be measured since we all offend in many ways, and man is born for trouble.
- The first and best plan is to overlook, forbear, ignore, and pass over a great many faults.
- Keeping the final goal of Heaven and the great plan of the church in the front of our minds should help us to rise above these things or endure through them.
- Good judgment is required to evaluate the seriousness of each matter. Commonly Christians should not take sides.
- There are good Christians whose judgment is so blinded that they live in a habit of foolish and selfish tensions with other godly believers.
