The Amazing Results of Salvation (Romans 5:1-5)

In 1858, a very successful preacher in Scotland by the name of John G Paton, left his ministry and comfort of home to become a missionary in the islands of the New Hebrides. At this time the Islands were populated by very aggressive cannibals who would eat foreigners and natives alike at a moment’s notice. When John Paton announced his decision, he received very vocal opposition to this call from God. John Paton wrote this account in his biography, “Among many who sought to deter me was one dear, old Christian gentleman, whose crowning argument always was, ‘The cannibals, you will be eaten by cannibals.’ At last I replied, ‘ Mr Dickson, you are advanced in years now, and your own prospect is soon to be laid in the grave, there to be eaten by worms; I confess to you that if I can but live and die serving and honoring the Lord Jesus, it will make no difference to me whether I am eaten by cannibals or by worms; and in the great day, my resurrection body will arise as fair as yours in the likeness of our risen redeemer. John Paton went on to spend many years sharing the gospel in New Hebrides. He saw many of those cannibals won to the gospel.

One hundred years later, the United States was rocked with the news that 5 young missionary men had been brutally killed in the jungles of Ecuador seeking to share the gospel with an unreached people group, the Auca Indians. Jim Elliot, Nate Saint, Ed McCully, Roger Youderian, and Pete Fleming sacrificed their lives.

Why would these Christian risk so much for so little? For the sake of the Gospel. So we must ask, what is so great about the Gospel?