High Old Time This Christmas

I like putting quotes by missionaries at the end of my emails. The one I have now is a quote from one of my heroes, Nate Saint. Nate was one of the missionaries along with Jim Elliot and others who were speared to death in 1956 attempting to be the first to take the gospel to an unreached tribe in Ecuador. Their story is immortalized in Elizabeth Elliot's book, Through Gates of Splendor. In a month there will be a national release of a movie The End of the Spear which not only tells of Nate's life and tragic death but also of his son Steve and Mincayani , a tribesman who later comes to faith. I am pretty excited a movie about missionaries will be coming out. Every Christian should go see it!

Nate Saint wrote in his journal a few weeks before he died about why they were going to reach this tribe who lived in fear of any outsiders. He said it was not a call to go but a conviction of the prophetic word in Revelation 7 that someone from every tribe, tongue and nation would stand before the throne. Therefore he, Jim Elliot, Ed McCully, Pete Fleming, and Roger Youderian concluded that someone must go and tell them.

Here's what he also wrote a few days before Christmas, 50 years ago: "As we have a high old time this Christmas, may we who know Christ hear the cry of the damned as they hurtle headlong into the Christless night without ever having a chance. May we be moved with compassion as our Lord was. May we shed tears of repentance for these we have failed to bring out of the darkness. Beyond the smiling scenes of Bethlehem, may we see the crushing agony of Golgotha. May God give us a new vision of His will concerning the lost - and our responsibility."