Spurgeon on Missionaries Teaching Christ to the Natives!

I do not know whether all our missionaries have caught the idea of Christ — “Go ye and teach all nations,” but many of them have, and these have been honored with many conversions.

The more fully they have been simple teachers, not philosophers of the Western philosophy, not eager disputants concerning some English dogma, I say the more plainly they have gone forth as teachers sent from God to teach the world, the more successful have they been.

“Go ye, therefore, and teach.” Some may think, perhaps, there is less difficulty in teaching the learned than in teaching the uncivilized and barbarous. There is the same duty to the one as to the other: “Go and teach.”

“But they brandish the tomahawk.” Teach them, and lie down and sleep in their hut, and they shall marvel at your fearlessness and spare your life.

“But they feed on the blood of their fellows, they make a bloody feast about the cauldron in which a man’s body is the horrible viand.” Teach them and they shall empty their war-kettle, and they shall bury their swords, and bow before you, and acknowledge King Jesus.

“But they are brutalised, they have scarce a language — a few clicking sounds make up all that they can say.” Teach them, and they shall speak the language of Canaan, and sing the songs of heaven.

The fact has been proved, brethren, that there are no nations incapable of being taught, nay, that there are no nations incapable afterwards of teaching others. The Negro slave has perished under the lash, rather than dishonor his Master.

The Esquimaux has climbed his barren steeps, and borne his toil, while he has recollected the burden which Jesus bore. The Hindoo has patiently submitted to the loss of all things, because he loved Christ better than all. Feeble Malagasay women have been prepared to suffer and to die, and have taken joyfully suffering for Christ’s sake. There has been heroism in every land for Christ; men of every color and of every race have died for him; upon his altar has been found the blood of all kindreds that be upon the face of the earth.

Oh! tell me not they cannot be taught. Sirs, they can be taught to die for Christ; and this is more than some of you have learned. They can rehearse the very highest lesson of the Christian religion — that self sacrifice which knows not itself but gives up all for him.

At this day there are Karen missionaries preaching among the Karens with as fervid an eloquence as ever was known by Whitfield, there are Chinese teaching in Borneo, Sumatra, and Australia, with as much earnestness as Morison or Milne first taught in China. There are Hindoo evangelists who are not ashamed to have given up the Brahminical thread, and to eat with the Pariah, and to preach with him the riches of Christ. There have been men found of every class and kind, not only able to be taught, but able to become teachers themselves, and the most mighty teachers too, of the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Well was that command warranted by future facts, when Christ said, “Go ye, teach all nations.”


Excerpt from "NO. 383
A SERMON DELIVERED ON SUNDAY MORNING,
APRIL 21ST, 1861,
AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON"

A sermon preached by Charles Haddon Spurgeon 145 years ago tomorrow.