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Pastoral Exhortation

Articles on Godly Men

Pastoral Exhortation

Robert Moffat (Part III) - Scottish Missionary to South Africa -

Written by Rev E M Wee

06 May 2012

At first, Moffat’s efforts to evangelise the natives of Namaqualand met with apathy and scorn. However, he succeeded in winning to Christ, their outlaw chief, Africaner whose life was wholly transformed by God’s grace.

The Gospel’s transforming power

After three years, hoping to prove the success of his labours to the London Missionary Society, Moffat took the converted chief to Cape Town. Those who met Africaner “regarded it as a miracle of grace that this notorious outlaw, for whose head a reward of five hundred dollars was offered by the Government, had become a humble worshipper of Jesus Christ.”

One night, they stayed at the home of a Dutch farmer. When Moffat told his host that the dangerous outlaw Africaner had become a Christian, the farmer commented: “There are seven wonders in the world. The conversion of Africaner, were it to take place, would be the eighth!” Moffat then revealed that his servant (for in this guise this notorious outlaw had to travel) was none other than Africaner himself. Upon hearing this, the pious host exclaimed: “O God, what a miracle of Thy power! What cannot Thy grace accomplish?”

Robert Moffat (Part II) - Scottish Missionary to South Africa -

Written by Rev E M Wee

29 April 2012

With conversion, Moffat felt even more strongly, the need to evangelise the heathen. His mentor, Rev Roby, encouraged the new convert to wait upon the Lord for His will.

Engagement

In order to have his young friend nearer him for supervision and help, Rev Roby found him a position in the nursery garden of Mr James Smith at Dukinfield, near Manchester. Mr Smith and his wife were both keen supporters of missions. During his stay, Moffat became engaged to their only daughter, Mary, a pious young lady who “had the added charm of an interest in missions as deep as his own. Her education in a Moravian school had laid the foundations; and two years before, at a meeting in Manchester, she had been so deeply impressed with the needs of the heathen that she had sent up a silent petition to God that some time she might be permitted to work in South Africa” – “Christian Biographies”.

Separation

Under the guidance of his kind mentor, Moffat began to prepare himself for the mission field. The London Missionary Society finally gave their approval and told him to sail in a few months. “With dignified resignation” to God’s will, his parents gave their blessings - “… they dared not oppose his design, lest haply in so doing they should be found fighting with God.”

Last Updated: 29 April 2012

Robert Moffat (Part I) - Scottish Missionary to South Africa -

Written by Rev E M Wee

23 April 2012

For fifty years, Robert Moffat and his wife, Mary, served as pioneer missionaries in South Africa. In this distant land, Moffat set up mission stations in the interior and translated the Bible into the native language of the Bechuanas. Two books written by him - ‘Labours and scenes in South Africa’ and ‘Rivers of water in a dry place’ - describe his Gospel ministry in the Dark Continent.

Robert Moffat and David Livingstone

The Moffats’ eldest daughter, Mary, married David Livingstone, the great missionary explorer, who opened the great continent of Africa to civilization and Christianity.

His close friendship with his father-in-law was one of the great determining influences in the explorer’s life. It was Moffat’s stirring messages on Africa’s perishing millions that deeply convicted the heart of the young medical graduate. One statement burned in Livingstone’s soul and haunted him: Moffat had said: “I have sometimes seen, in the morning sun, the smoke of a thousand villages, where no missionary has ever been.” Those few incisive words “so captivated his entire being and fired his soul with a passion which only death could quench. He would go to Africa! He would be a forerunner for Christ in the Dark Continent! He would search out the thousand villages, and other thousands, where no missionary had ever been.” – “Christian Biographies”

Matthew Henry (Part III) Puritan Minister and Bible Commentator

Written by Rev E M Wee

20 November 2011

Exposition ministry and influence

Matthew Henry was the author of several publications, some of which were widely circulated in the years after his death. Two prominent titles were: A Communicant’s Companion - a treatise on the right frame of heart in which to receive the Lord’s Supper (1704); and Directions for Daily Communion with God (1712). But the work for which he is best known is undoubtedly, The Exposition of the Old and New Testaments or Complete Commentary, which he began in November 1704 when he was forty two years old.

“He began to collect together the vast amount of notes and writings which he had made on the Bible during his ministry. He had learned Latin, Greek and Hebrew as a child, and he also had a good knowledge of French, so that his reading had covered a wide field over many years. To this was added a keen spirit of inquiry, a profound knowledge and an ability to convey doctrinal matters in a simple yet clear form. From this emerged his ‘Commentary’ as he gradually completed the books of the Old and New Testament over the following ten years” (truthful words. org).

Matthew Henry (Part II) Puritan Minister and Bible Commentator

Written by Rev E M Wee

14 November 2011

With the call of the ministry constantly on his mind, Matthew Henry could hardly concentrate on his law studies at Gray’s Inn. He wrote thus to his father: “The more I see of the world and the various affairs of the children of men in it, the more I see of the vanity of it, and the more I would fain have my heart taken off from it, and fixed upon the invisible realities of the other world.”
Ordination

The following year, while on business in Chester, he was invited to take the pulpit at a house meeting. His preaching so impressed a group of Nonconformists that they invited him to pastor a Presbyterian church in the town.

Once again, Henry headed to London - this time for his ordination to the ministry. On the eve of this important event, the young ordinand spent much time in earnest self-examination after which he recorded the results:

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