Elisabeth Elliot: Trusting and Obeying (Episode 6)

well if you were familiar with the life and the work the ministry of elizabeth elliot if you read her books heard her speak listen to her radio broadcast gateway to joy then you will probably identify with what i'm about to say which is when i received the news that elizabeth elliott age 88 had gone home to be with the lord i can remember where i was and it really hit me like a ton of bricks it wasn't that it was unexpected she hadn't been well for a number of years and it was probably a welcome transition to heaven i wasn't close enough to her to know that but it had to be she had physical challenges and challenges with her memory and so to be welcomed into the presence of the lord had to be an amazing thing but for those of us left down here on earth who had been so marked by her life so influenced by her teaching and ministry well it was just a very emotional thing for me in fact i was with robert and we were engaged at the time and i went into the room where he was in the next room and i just said honey elizabeth elliott is gone and then i just broke down this was such a moving thing to me and i almost couldn't unpack why it hit me so hard but so much of my life had been shaped by the things that i had learned from her by her journey that had inspired me to press on through hard times in faith the things i had learned about obedience and trust in christ she just epitomized that song trust and obey and i had grown up reading her books reading the stories of of how god had worked through her life and jim elliott and the other missionaries as well and it just felt like here was the end of an era and who was there to carry that torch anymore in fact i can remember years ago in her last years as i realized she was not going to be doing the gateway to joy ministry for much longer i can remember looking around and thinking who is god going to raise up to carry this message to women of the next generation and i would talk with women and i would say i had my eyes peeled for who god might raise up to follow in elizabeth's steps not to have her same story but to take that message to women of our generation and the next and the next well i had no idea at when i was asking those questions that the lord would raise up in his time revive our hearts and that we would carry some of that baton but i still felt at her death in 2015 such a sense of loss such a sense of the greatness of this message that she had stewarded so well across the span of a fruitful lifetime it was a sadness for me and yet a joy that she was now with the lord that faith had become sight prayer had become praise and over those next days is robert and i had the privilege of attending both of her memorial services one in boston the other in wheaton i found myself just being inspired afresh to say yes lord i want to be obedient to you i don't want to live my life based on my feelings i want to walk one step at a time doing the next thing in obedience to you and trusting you with the outcome well i hope that whether you were very familiar with elizabeth or not at all as you've heard elizabeth elliot's biographer tells some of the stories about her life that you have gotten a glimpse of who she is but also that you've gotten more of a glimpse of who god is so i want to welcome again to revive our hearts this week ellen vaughn you've written the newly released authorized biography called becoming elizabeth elliott and he called it that because it's about her early years lord willing there will be a second volume yet to come that will be about her later years but you've helped us catch a vision of why the early years of elizabeth elliott were important and why they and how they contributed to the elizabeth elliot she became that we knew and loved and who ministered to us so deeply right and nancy i so appreciate hearing your story about how she affected your life and clearly that has borne fruit in your own ministry i had read a number of her books and been aware of her and heard her speak and she came and worshiped at my church in washington d.c occasionally if she was in town but i she wasn't so much on my radar and then to my surprise when i was approached by her daughter and her best friend to to write this authorized biography i found myself swept into the life story of this sister in christ and i had a moment probably a couple years after her death when i went up to new england and on a sunny day i found her grave which is a rough hewn stone and it was in the sunshine it had been warmed by the sun and i just sat down this was early on in the writing of this book and put my back against the warm stone and i thought about the verse that was inscribed on the stone about when you pass through the waters i will be with you declares the lord and i thought about the life as i was now becoming more and more of aware of it as her biographer that i had been entrusted to stuart and that was heavy yeah and at the same time i felt like she would not want to be held up right as a model she would i can tell you that for sure a year some years ago and i've never told this publicly but i will now uh at true woman con at one of the true woman conferences that we do regularly we wanted to give to elizabeth the first true woman award and we ended up giving the first one to johnny erickson tada because elizabeth and lars declined the honor and we weren't you know we knew it was about jesus but they didn't want to be but she didn't want to be made much of and so that was really characteristic of her and i don't know if she mind that we're doing this now talking about her life but only in so much as it points us she would be happy that it was all about christ yes exactly she would not be happy that we were even looking at her life and it's funny and i have her journals from her whole life from age eight onward and in some of the later journals after she became well known around the world occasionally there will be scribbles in her her handwriting saying oh my poor biographer or oh i feel bad for the person who has to write my story and i'd be reading along and saying that's me sister i'm here i'm here for you but um certainly for for elizabeth elliot it was all about jesus and she saw herself as a comic figure as a person who had so many insecurities and issues and and she saw herself how many how we see ourselves as very conscious of our deficits but the thing that i took away you look at the whole of this woman's life or you look at the whole that that i wrote about in this first volume of her life story and it is a story and you can see god's faithfulness in how he leads human beings she had a very dramatic life story especially these early years god's faithfulness and then her own determination that no matter what happened she would follow jesus she was not concerned with how does this make me feel she was not concerned with what will other people think she was not constrained by some of the things that can us if we look to ourselves or we look to other people and in the most painful moments of her life she looked to jesus and said lord what would you have me do not why did you allow this to happen to me or what does it mean it was lord what would you have me do how do i walk the way of obedience and elizabeth elliot had been greatly shaped in that kind of mindset early on when she was just 14 15 16 years old by the writings of amy carmichael yes and in fact she was the biographer one of the biographers of amy carmichael a chance to die yes a chance to die now there's a title right marketers would not like that today who's going to buy that book but but amy carmichael famously saw missionary life as quote a chance to die elizabeth elliott really picked up on that she loved amy carmichael because there was a mystical sense within amy of following a god whose ways are often mysterious they can't be neatly explained they can't be diagrammed and also that there was a practical outworking of serving that god amy carmichael worked with the the the dispossessed the poor and uh young girls who were being abused in india in her day yes so i did it for a lifetime a lifetime of of service in that arena and so elizabeth elliott a chance to die was part of her thinking from her youngest years and as we've discussed uh earlier last week we talked about how she was not that surprised if if we can say that when jim elliott was killed she expected some degree of martyrdom if it would be a physical martyrdom like he endured so be it if that be god's will but really in in writing or story the most dramatic moments of a story certainly those usually get the attention but i think the most profound work in a human life is in the ordinary mundane day in and day out following of jesus and that's what i took away from elizabeth elliott both in the the most excruciating tragedies she went through as well as in getting up every monday morning and doing what god was calling her to do she sought to be faithful and she didn't depend on what do other people think or how do i feel in fact she was kind of legendary for putting people in their place if she felt that they were giving too much way to feelings like she didn't like people talking about i struggle with this or i struggle with that it's not struggle this is obedience well and she could have perhaps been more kind in some of her analysis but you know i think a lot of us and you don't see this so much in this generation today it was bracing it was good for us to have her kind of be that she was stern at times or felt that way but people that they loved her because she was speaking truth and the truth sets you free in fact it was interesting that i know you've picked up on this that in her later ministry here she was a a a woman in her 60s 70s and even a little bit into her 80s who was still speaking and she could mesmerize a crowd of college students she had no cool factor she in fact john piper in a tribute he wrote to her talked about how he loved the gap in her front teeth and she never got fixed or straightened and it mattered not at all to her i'm sure but she was she was prim she was proper she didn't use slang she didn't tolerate much of those who did but these she would sit and she would talk to these college students and she would be so direct and she would say you know stay out of bed i mean she was just very direct very plain spoken but they ate it up because she didn't coddle them she didn't coddle us she called us to something that is greater and more lasting and secure than our own frail emotions or feelings and that was to obedience to christ well and that's what was fascinating for me in trying to discover what's the story here in these early years because many of us are familiar with elizabeth elliott who you just described but how does a person become that right and there are plenty of stories within the pages of these of this book about the young elizabeth weeping in tears her emotions all over the place and yet because she had a very strong foundation because she was founded on the rock of who christ was and she possessed an unusual commitment to christ that kept her steady and the habit she developed early on made her into the godly old lady she later became one of those she learned from amy carmichael he just referenced who said famously in acceptance peace peace so if we fight and resist and resent the circumstances god has brought into our lives we're going to find ourselves frustrated and angry and resentful but in acceptance lord this is the path you have chosen for me it's jesus saying i delight to do your will he knew the will of god was going to mean a cross but he said i've come to do your will and elizabeth learned as a young woman and then modeled for us later in her life this truth that if i will accept what god chooses for me what he orders for me that inexplicably i will have peace and and the richness of that peace and we'll talk about this later but as i explored elizabeth's thinking i found that i could do the same yeah because of the grace of jesus and one thing that's related to that what i loved about this unfolding story is elizabeth in her younger years was like many of us in our younger years i grew up in a christian home i knew i grew up knowing all the right answers in my head right and and i had strong theology i had good training but my faith as a young person and then going into college and graduate school was not necessarily a faith of realizing the grace of god poured out for me it was more of faith that was based in performance or knowing the right answers some degree of legalism and so a lot of us can relate to elizabeth's story because in her younger years she her christianity her faith was a bit allied with convention with the culture in which she had grown up and what i found when she was in the amazon jungle with snakes and frogs and poisonous caterpillars and and threats of all kind living with naked people in a tribal setting among the people who had killed her husband in that unlikely setting i felt like elizabeth began to divest herself of some of the cultural entrapments that were clinging to her christian faith i'm talking about christian culture yes things that pick up in the church even yes yes and so some of that came in the aftermath of her husband's death there were people around the world who rallied who who sent so many wonderful messages of support and financial support and and yet there were many who took the story of of the five men's deaths and presented it as if it was now something that could be used maybe to advance a certain cause and they were heroes yeah and they were heroes but they were elizabeth felt like there was some machine at work almost like creating something rather than just sort of sitting in what god had done and then figuring out how do we keep serving him and moving forward so in the aftermath of their husband's death elizabeth and the other four widows got letters from men they had never matched proposing marriage to them they had uh people who helpfully said why didn't you just drop new testaments down to the wadani people never mind that these were illiterate people who had no language they had all kinds of invitations to speak all over the world or people who had advice that was not very helpful that they were freely offering elizabeth's favorite letter she got was from a farmer in iowa i think who wrote that he and his wife had named their five cows after elizabeth and the other four women perfect and he said and we pray for you girls every day when we milk those cows i have not said that one yeah so she loved that but in the aftermath of of jim's death i think she began to strip away what was enculturation and what really was the the the path of faith that jesus established with his gospel in the early days of the church well her christian life really matured so that it it became not some things you do correct to be a good christian right boxes you check off which was a lot of the part of her early years the upbringing lent itself to that and i think a lot of that was that era as well that's true but it seems as i read this biography becoming elizabeth elliott that for her more and more that got stripped away that that christianity is not a performance it's not something you do it is christ and that the preciousness and the dearness of christ being my life became more her her reality right and that is an organic thing that's not something that is reached through three easy steps or uh through some technique and what i found also and and what i tried to include in the book that enriched me and i hope it will enrich readers is elizabeth read widely yes she did and so she loved 17th century french mystics and she loved c.s lewis and she loved secular writers who evoked truth uh perhaps through common grace without even knowing it and i found in her literary world and her devotional readings a wealth of saints who had gone before whose whose words were bracing they were strengthening they were timeless and so that plus of course elizabeth's immersion and great knowledge of the scriptures served her well and i think i'm hoping that that will be a draw for readers who have never heard of elizabeth elliot here was a woman who had determined to follow jesus even to death if it meant so and it didn't happen to mean her physical death but she died daily in so many different ways of denying self and following jesus and it was like a pilgrimage almost a journey that was authentic and she didn't care what other people thought and she also when her feelings were rising up inside of her and threatening to overwhelm her or cause her to just get in a cul-de-sac of self-contemplation she would in fact continue what is the next step what is the next step and i find that very useful as we've been talking ellen i'm thinking about that passage in hebrews chapter 13 where the writer to the hebrew says remember your leaders now keep in mind just two chapters earlier is that great hall of faith men and women who've gone before us who have not flawlessly but with determination followed the lord by faith when they could not see the outcome many of them perished for that faith none of them in this lifetime received all that god had promised to them but they're held up to us not because they're perfect not because they're paragons of virtue but because they point us to the lord they point us to christ and so here we come to the end of the book of hebrews and written to a a group of dispersed and persecuted believers in you know in the first century after the life death resurrection of christ many were being persecuted for their faith and they were and they could have thought what am i going to get out of this where is this going to end where is this going to go and they they could have pulled back but the scripture points us to those who are examples and says remember your leaders those who spoke to you the word of god consider the outcome of their way of life and imitate their faith jesus christ is the same yesterday and today and forever so we remember the abrahams and moses and david and joshua and deborah and these other leaders but we also remember the elizabeth elliotts the jim elliotts but we don't remember them as the it's not the end of the road the end of the road is jesus jesus christ is the same yesterday and today and forever as betty howard was becoming elizabeth elliott that we knew and loved in her later years and which i hope you will write about someday she was growing to see that christ is the outcome christ is the journey christ is the reason christ is your life it's not successfully reaching a tribe that needs the gospel it's not writing books or telling your story in amazing ways those were byproducts in at the end of the day those were byproducts of a woman who from childhood through her college years her young adult years her marriage to jim elliott her early years as a widow as a mom with a young child day after day put one foot in front of the other said i'm going to press on to know christ i'm going to trust him i'm going to obey him when i can't see where he's leading i'm going to accept the circumstances he brings into my life as it's up to him i'm not writing the story i'm going to let him do that and as i've read becoming elizabeth elliott i found myself as much as i thought i knew about her being freshly inspired to trust and pursue christ who is the same yesterday and today and forever the thing i love about the hebrew sections that you quoted and certainly the whole gamut of scripture is it is so clear that the people god chooses and and and uses for his purposes are flawed yes and the story of scripture old testament new testament throughout is really full of characters that we can relate with and elizabeth elliott would certainly say the same about herself at during her time for which she is best known you know this missionary who went and served among the tribal people who killed her husband she was not thinking glorious missionary thought she was thinking i have never felt so useless in my entire life she wrote that in her journal in her journal and and if i were running my own life i'd quit now i love that yes it's because you've been there yeah and she goes on in that same journal selection which i quote in the book and brings up great missionary heroes from the past who felt the same thing were it not for the presence of christ i would have lost my mind and quit long ago yeah those kinds of quotes from the great great saints of of the modern church but she didn't quit and she didn't run not because she was extraordinary no but because christ in her right and that's the takeaway sometimes someone like and elizabeth elliot because of her later stature can seem in a class by herself and i think what i gained from this book is that oh my goodness we are all jars of clay which we know theologically but it's true and the lord somehow puts up with us and loves us and and showers his grace on us and uses us for his purposes sometimes we get to see wonderful quote results other times we see nothing it seems like futility that's how elizabeth elliot felt a lot of the time yeah what i'm doing is futile but she knew it wasn't up to her to determine or give judgments on what god was doing or not doing and you may be feeling that very way today as a mom with little kids or teenage kids or grown kids who've walked away from the lord and you feel everything i poured into them what it's gone up in smoke it's been futile or maybe in with those littles in the season with those littles you feel like if it were up to me i'd run away i would quit if i were running my own life i would quit uh so you have those feelings maybe as a single woman feeling like my life is going nowhere it's drifting it's not making it's not purposeful that what i got my degree in i'm not being able to use or i had these dreams of serving christ and being useful to him and i feel so useless elizabeth elliott felt useless at times now we look back and we say how did she feel that but we're looking back in retrospect what she did in the moment was not let those feelings control her life she stared them in the face she acknowledged them she wrote them in her journal she acknowledged them but then she put the next foot down and the next one and said i'm going to do the next thing i'm going to accept where god has put me i'm going to trust that he's writing this story that i can't see and it's this long obedience in the same direction that god honored now that doesn't mean the fruit of our lives is going to be that we've written all these many books or done a radio ministry like elizabeth ellie did or been a great celebrated conference speaker that's not the point the point is she pursued christ and in pursuing him she found him and introduced us to him and god wants to do the same through your life as you pursue him today

Channel: Revive Our Hearts

Views: 6,863

Rating: 4.9240508 out of 5

Keywords: Elisabeth Elliot, Ellen Vaughn, Revive Our Hearts, Nancy Leigh DeMoss, Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth, Jim Elliot

Id: Z-MirNE_53M

Length: 27min 32sec (1652 seconds)

Published: Mon Sep 21 2020