George Muller grew in up Germany in the 1800’s. After a life-changing experience, he became a Christian, and decided to study to become a missionary. When George told his father, his father was very upset. He wanted George to have a high-paying job instead. He refused to support George’s decision or contribute financially to his studies. George knew he had to do what God was calling him to do even though his father didn’t support him, but he didn’t know how he would pay for his tuition. George knelt down and asked God to provide. An hour later, a professor knocked on his door. He offered George a paid tutoring job! George was amazed! This was the beginning of George Muller’s dependence on God’s faithfulness.
After finishing college, George sensed God’s call to serve in London. However, Germany legislated that all healthy men had to serve at least a year in the army. George desperately wanted to go to the London mission but couldn’t. Soon after, George fell ill—so severely that he almost died. But this was how God provided the way for George to go to England as a missionary—George’s sickness disqualified him for military service. In England George became the pastor of a small church. Each day as he walked the streets he saw children everywhere without a mother or father. George believed God was calling him to open an orphanage to take care of the children. George prayed, asking God to provide a building, and all that was needed to run it. And God provided everything that was needed.
One day the house lady reported to George: “The children are dressed and ready for school. But there is no food for them to eat.” George knew that God would provide. He asked her to take the 300 children into the dining room and have them sit at the tables. Even though they sat before empty plates, George thanked God for the food, then waited. Within minutes, a baker knocked on the door. “Mr. Mueller,” he said, “last night I could not sleep. Somehow I knew you would need bread this morning. I got up and baked three batches for you. I will bring it in.” Then came another knock at the door. It was the milkman, whose cart had broken down in front of the orphanage. The milk would spoil by the time the wheel was fixed. He asked George if he could make use of some free milk. The milkman brought in ten large cans of milk—just enough for the 300 children!
Over the years more than 10,000 children lived in the orphanage. When each child was old enough to live on their own, George would pray with them and put a Bible in their right hand and a coin in their left. He taught them that if they held onto what was in his right hand, God would always make sure there was something in their left hand as well[1].
What a lovely testament to God’s faithfulness! God’s unfolding of George Muller’s life and missionary career show us that when things don’t turn out as we would expect or hope, this does not show that God has abandoned us, but he is faithfully unfolding a plan bigger than our limited reason and awareness can fathom at the time. As Paul said in Romans 8:28: “…we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.” Often God puts us in situations where our best plans do not come to fruition and our resources fail, so that all we have to look to is God himself and depend on him. The Bible shows God working throughout history like this.
After Adam and Eve brought sin into the world, the Lord saw how greatly wickedness and corruption had escalated on the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time. God was grieved and concluded to bring an end to his creation by a flood. But God promised Noah and his family safety. He gave them specific instructions by which to build an ark large enough for them and two of every creature to be preserved for a new beginning. (Genesis 6:5-8ff). God saved them, just as he said.
When Abram was 75 years old, God told him to leave his country, to the land he would show them. (Genesis 12:1-3). Abram and his wife Sarai had never even seen this land, but they went anyway. And God promised Abram descendants as numerous as the dust. (Genesis 13:14-16). Abram thought a servant in his household would have to be his heir. But God said to him: “This man will not be your heir, but a son who is your own flesh and blood will be your heir.” God told Abram his descendants would be as numerous as the stars (Genesis 15:2-5). Abram believed the Lord, and he credited it to him as righteousness (Genesis 15:6).
When Abram was 99 years old the Lord told him Sarai would bear him a son, Isaac. When Sarai laughed at this, God said: “Is anything too hard for the Lord?” God did what he said. Sarah became pregnant and bore a son to Abraham in his old age, at the very time God had promised him. Abraham was a hundred years old when his son Isaac was born to him (Genesis 21:2-5).
When God’s people were under harsh slavery in Egypt, God’s promise to Abraham to give his descendants their own country seemed an impossibility while making bricks under the scorching sun in a foreign land. Weakened and despairing, Moses and the people had absolutely nothing within themselves to change their outlook of being slaves forever. Moses bears his sorrow to God. God said to Moses:
“…say to the Israelites: ‘I am the Lord, and I will bring you out from under the yoke of the Egyptians. I will free you from being slaves to them, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with mighty acts of judgment. I will take you as my own people, and I will be your God. Then you will know that I am the Lord your God, who brought you out from under the yoke of the Egyptians” (Exodus 6:1, 6-7). God had allowed them to be in this situation to show them that it was not by their might or power that they would be free, but only by his. Five times God declared what he would do as the initiator of their salvation—then he freed them and brought them to their land as he promised.
In that land God was faithful to what he first promised Abraham and Sarah—that kings would come from them. One such king was the unlikeliest of candidates in human eyes—a shepherd boy, David. Yet in today’s reading from 2 Samuel, God said: “I have been with you wherever you have gone, and I have cut off all your enemies from before you. Now I will make your name great, like the names of the greatest men on earth…When your days are over and you rest with your ancestors, I will raise up your offspring to succeed you, your own flesh and blood, and I will establish his kingdom. He is the one who will build a house for my Name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever” (2 Samuel 7:9, 12-13).
God’s promise of an eternal throne and king who will rule forever is a timely message of hope in view of international events this week. Whatever your political views on Donald Trump, the assassination attempt on his life this week was another attack on peace and good order, an attack on our common way of life; on the basic rights of all human beings to be valued, honoured, and protected. Attacks such as these are the very way of the flesh Paul speaks of in Galatians 5: selfish ambition that bears only the rotten fruit of hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, dissensions, factions and envy (vv20-21a). It is the same heart issue underlying Russia invading the Ukraine, the fighting and tension between Hmas and Israel, and so many other instances of murderous and exploitative dictators and terrorists, corrupt governments and military regimes throughout history.
Jesus said: “When you hear of wars and rumours of wars, do not be alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come” (Mark 13:7). “In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” (John 16:33b).
While we wait for the end to come, when Jesus will return to judge the living and the dead and set all things right, we are simply called to be faithful. Proverbs 3 says “let love and faithfulness never leave you” (Proverbs 3:3). For Christians, that does not just mean being trustworthy, but also faithful and trusting of God:
Trust in the Lord with all your heart
and lean not on your own understanding;
in all your ways submit to him,
and he will make your paths straight.
Do not be wise in your own eyes;
fear the Lord and shun evil.
This will bring health to your body
and nourishment to your bones.” (Proverbs 3:5-8).
Like the other fruits of the Holy Spirit, faithfulness does not come naturally. We like to put our trust and confidence in what we can see; what we can control. What we can see is trouble and disorder everywhere, and the wicked seeming to triumph. Faithfulness is hard. That is why it is so good that the source of faithfulness is God, whom the Psalmist praises: “For great is your love, reaching to the heavens; your faithfulness reaches to the skies” (Psalm 57:10). By nature we are not full of faith. True faith is a miracle wrought by the Holy Spirit who opens ears, hearts and minds to the truth of God’s trustworthy word (Psalm 119:86). As we keep on hearing and reading God’s word, the Holy Spirit keeps producing the fruit of faithfulness in our lives. This is to be faithful as Christ is faithful, who prayed to his Father: “Father…yet not my will, but yours be done.” (Luke 22:42).
From Abraham to George Muller, God has been faithful to his promises to his people throughout history. In Christ, God is faithful to his promises to you. Jesus is the One of whom it was promised their throne would endure forever, whose Kingdom will have no end. Even when the assassination attempt on Jesus’ life succeeded, and he was crucified, dead and buried, death did not defeat him. After the death he died for you, he rose to triumph over the grave and ascend into heaven, that through faith you might ascend into heaven the same way. Jesus says: I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me. And this is the will of him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all those he has given me but raise them up at the last day. For my Father’s will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day” (John 6:38-40).
Unlike the global technology outage this week, God is the operating system that cannot be disabled. He is always online. The writer to the Hebrews says: “Christ is faithful as the Son over God’s house. And we are his house, if indeed we hold firmly to our confidence and the hope in which we glory” (Hebrews 3:6). So let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful (Hebrews 10:23). May we always join with the Psalmist in praying: “Teach me your way, Lord, that I may rely on your faithfulness; give me an undivided heart, that I may fear your name” (Psalm 86:11). Amen.
Pastor Tim Ebbs
St Paul’s Lutheran Church, Glenelg
Ninth Sunday after Pentecost, 2024
[1] George Mueller, Orphanages Built by Prayer [author unknown] Updated Nov 08, 2023
https://www.christianity.com/church/church-history/church-history-for-kids/george-mueller-orphanages-built-by-prayer-11634869.html last accessed 20 July, 2024, 11:16am
