Since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses (Hebrews 11:38 ) of whom the world was not worthy ( Hebrews 12:1 )

                                                             WHAT IS YOUR LEGACY?

Count Ludwig Von Zinzendorf and the Moravians: Part 4: " CROWNS OF GLORY "

"Revival is no more a miracle than a crop of wheat. Revival comes from heaven when heroic souls enter the conflict determined to win or die---or if need be, to WIN AND DIE !!! THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN SUFFERS VIOLENCE, AND THE VIOLENT TAKE IT BY FORCE."

                                                                                              -Charles G. Finney-

"From the day of Pentecost, there has been not one great spiritual awakening in any land which has not begun in a union of prayer, though only among two or three; no such outward,upward movement has continued after such prayer meetings declined."

                                                                                         -Dr. A.T. Pierson-

"No one is a firmer believer in the power of prayer than the devil; not that he practices it, but that he suffers from it."

                    -Guy H. King-

Prayer is a catalyst to revival  as gasoline is to fire. Unlike any other movement before or since, the Moravians never stopped pouring out their hearts before the Lord. They became literally captured by God Himself and never tired as His watchmen on the wall.

As they matured spiritually they became increasingly concerned about those who had never heard of the Savior. Six months after  the beginning of the prayer watch, Zinzendorf suggested the challenge of a bold evangelism aimed specifically to reach  those in the world " For whom no one cared." Before the Count could finish speaking, twenty-six Moravians stepped forward to go wherever the Lord led.

Linda Jacobs relates:

 "This was the beginning of an era of Moravian missionary work which would spread to Greenland, Lapland, Russia, Surinam, Guinea Coast, South Africa, Amsterdam, Algeria, North American Indians, Ceylon, India, Romania, Constantinople ( modern Istanbul)."

Their evangelistic efforts stretched even as far as the Artic Circle and the Islands in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.

According To Pastor Jim Goll:

"Organized missionary work and world evangelization as we know it today really did not exist in the western world until God lit a fire in the hearts of the Moravians through the ‘ Watch of the Lord'. It was no accident that God restored the fire on the altar first, and then ignited a passion for lost souls in the world through prayer."

The Moravians explained their motivation for missions in the following  1791 evangelical report:

"The simple motive of the brethren for sending missionaries to distant nations was and is an ardent desire to promote the salvation of their fellow man, by making known the gospel of our Savior Jesus Christ. It grieved them to hear of so many thousands and millions of the human race sitting in darkness and groaning beneath the yoke of....satan....they were not dismayed in reflecting on the smallness of their means and abilities....nor of the prospects of enduring hardships of every kind and even perhaps the loss of their lives in the attempt. They went forth in the strength of their God and He has wrought wonders in their behalf."

It was 3am on the morning of August 21, 1732, when Count Von Zinzendorf drove two men, in his own carriage, to the Copenhagen harbor. As they boarded a Dutch ship headed for the West Indies he blessed them and said, " Go and do all in the Spirit of Jesus Christ."  The men, John Leonard Dober, a potter, and David Nitschmann , a carpenter, were the first Moravian missionaries to go into the world. In less than a year 200 more would follow.

The Moravians had already been told by the government of St. Thomas  that they were forbidden to preach the gospel to the slaves. Dober and Nitschmann  had divested themselves of all that they had and would sell themselves into a lifetime of  slavery, on the island, in able to reach the slaves with the gospel. As the ship slipped out of the harbor, they lifted up a cry that would become the rallying call for all Moravian missionaries, " MAY THE LAMB THAT WAS SLAIN RECEIVE THE REWARD OF HIS SUFFERING." Their passion for souls was surpassed only by their passion for the Lamb of God, Jesus Christ. Soon many others followed. What lay ahead of them was prison, shipwrecks, persecution, ridicule, plague, abject poverty and death. These Soldiers of the Cross covered the earth like a flood while back in Herrnhutt  the "Hourly Intercession" gave them the strength to endure. 1732 to 1742 would become known as the "Golden Decade"  in so far as missionary expansion was concerned.

They were about to enter places that from the beginning of time were controlled by principalities and powers. These lords of darkness ruled unhindered for eons dragging millions of souls into a Christless eternity. Into this deep darkness the Moravians came shining the light of Salvation. Boldly declaring a name that never was heard of in those parts of the world before.  A name that reverberated from tree to tree, rock to rock, cavern to cavern, crevice to crevice, soul to soul....J E S U S ....! The enemy was not going to give up easy.......the death toll was staggering....In Africa, alone, the ratio of death to convert was one Moravian missionary death for every 10 converts. In New Guinea it was even more shocking....one for one! By 1734 every ship that was leaving the harbor with 3 missionaries would pass a ship with two Moravian bodies coming home .....to be buried. The life expectancy of those missionaries , especially those who went to the continent of Africa, was 2 years. Two years before they succumbed to the disease and the risk and the savageness of the inhabitants  they faced. It is a documented fact that the Moravians would pack their belongings in coffins and send them ahead so that they would have something  in which their bodies would be shipped back home in.

About three decades later as Count Von Zinzendorf was on his death bed gazing through the haze into eternity, he turned to the person beside his bed and said:

" What a formidable caravan from our church already stands around the Lamb!!!"

Now we must ask the question,"When did these missionaries die?" The answer is, they died when they gave their lives to Jesus. "....It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me...." (Galatians 2:20 ). To live is Christ, and to die is gain." (Philippians 1:21 ).

The memoirs of Robert Murry McCheyne talk about a scene in India that dealt with the Moravian missionaries and a Christian man who was traveling through the land. The man came across a high-walled city with only one huge door to get into the place and he inquired of McCheyne (who was traveling with him) "What is this city?" He was told that it was a leper's colony. In the area, when one was found to have leprosy they were taken to this city, the door of the city was opened, they were  THROWN  in, and the door was slammed shut, never, ever to be opened again. One day this man  was sitting on a little hill overlooking the city wall and on into the fields where the leper's planted the crop. He saw two men planting the crop and the one carrying the other on his back because the one had feet, but no hands. The other man had hands but no feet, and the two were planting a crop. The one would take a step forward and make an impression in the ground, and then step backwards so the one with hands could drop a seed into that impression. Then he would move forward and cover over the seed so it could take root. He saw these two men working together in this way and his heart was gripped with compassion and he cried out to the Lord,"Oh the misery, the misery. Will they ever get to know the love of Christ?" Mc Cheyne then went on to tell him of two Moravians missionaries  who committed themselves to go into this city and tell the lepers the good news of the Gospel. He went on to tell the man that just two weeks before the doors of this city were opened again just for the missionaries, and the two walked in and the doors were shut, never, ever to be opened again for them. The man then asked,"What will happen when these two fall to this disease?" McCheyne answered  that there were already others who have lined up to be next, just waiting for their opportunity to go in and preach the good news there.

 A New York newspaper reported was on a ship traveling back to the states after finishing an overseas assignment. On the same ship just happened to be five Moravians families. The ship then came to a stop off a secluded Island and he noticed a distress among the missionaries families. The wives were profusely crying and holding on tightly to their husbands. The men then began to knell and hug  and bless their children. The five male missionaries were then lowered  into a small boat and began rowing toward the Island. The reporter than understood that the confusion on board was just everyone saying goodbye for a while until the men would be picked up again on the ship's return. His heart soon sank  when using the Captains spyglass he read a sign on the beach of the Island....FORBIDDEN TO ENTER.....LEPER COLONY....ALL WHO ENTER THIS PLACE CANNOT RETURN......" And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or wife or children or lands, for My names sake, shall receive a hundredfold, and inherit eternal life." (Matthew 19:29 )

In 1741, Count Zinzendorf, himself, entered the mission field traveling to the North American continent. There he started a settlement in Pennsylvania named Bethlehem. This community was his base for missionary work among the Indians, later growing into a large city. Soon he was sending  for more brethren to come and help in these fields of golden harvest. It was around this time that John Wesley was introduced to the Moravians. He was on a ship bound for America that also carried a number of Moravian missionaries and their families. It was a stormy ocean voyage and their influence was destined to forever change his life and transform him into the evangelistic revivalist that would change Christianity worldwide. Wesley was an ordained minister, yet he hadn't received Christ as his savior. He knew, after meeting them, that he didn't have what the Moravians had, and he wanted it....whatever it was. Rick Joyner, published a booklet entitled, Three Witnesses, which describes the miraculous work of the Moravians along with their effect on Wesley in particular:

" Wesley was on a ship bound for America that also carried a number of Moravian missionaries. H e was challenged by their great seriousness and their humility in performing for other passengers the most servile tasks, which none of the English passengers would do. When they were offered pay for this, they refused, replying that ‘it was good for their proud hearts,' and ‘ their loving savior had done more for them.' Some of the passengers abused them terribly, even striking them or knocking them down, but they would never strike back or even take offense. Many perceived these German missionaries as cowards until a great storm broke over the ship. As the main sail split and the sea began to pour into the ship, the English panicked, their terrified screams rising even above the tumult of the storm. Yet the Moravians sat quietly, singing their hymns. Afterwards, when one of the Moravians was asked if he was afraid during the storm, he answered ,'I thank God, no.' Then he was asked if their women and children were afraid, and he replied,' No; our women and children are not afraid to die.' Wesley recorded this in his diary and added:' From them ( the Moravians ) I went to their crying trembling neighbors, and pointed out to them the difference in the hour of trial, between him that feareth God, and him that feareth not. At twelve the wind fell. This was the most glorious day which I have hitherto seen.' "

When Wesley returned to London he was again thrown into contact with some Moravians who were sent there by Zinzendorf as missionaries to that dark dying country. Among these was a Moravian by the name of Peter Bohler.  Wesley and his brother Charles quickly opened up a comradeship with Bohler  and traveled around the country together preaching.

" I traveled with two brothers, John and Charles Wesley," Bohler wrote to the Count," from London to Oxford. The elder, John, is a good-natured man; he knew he did not properly believe on the Saviour, and was willing to be taught....Our mode of believing in the Saviour is so easy to Englishmen that they cannot reconcile themselves to it....They justify themselves...and try to prove their faith by their works..."

Wesley entered into his journal under the date March 4, "I found my brother in Oxford and with him was Peter Bohler by whom I was on Sunday, the fifth, clearly convinced of my unbelief, of my want of faith whereby alone we are saved." The conversion of John Wesley is typical of the historic Moravian style of ministry.  They had such an impact on their times that it would be impossible to imagine what  Christian history, or the Church for that matter, would be like without them. Wesley went on to see thousands come to Christ in his meetings while far away on the Moravian outposts they were suffering the death of one missionary for every soul saved. They were preparing the way of the Lord cutting a difficult path inch-by-inch through underbrush, forest, desert, wilderness and mountains dying lonely deaths in the natural but in the spiritual surrounded by angels. The Moravians went where others were not willing to go so that others eventually would.

Rick Joyner writes:

"Without fanfare the Moravians possibly impacted history more during the past 500 years than any other single spiritual...force.

There are no memorials to the Moravians except an almost three hundred year old prayer tower that stands overlooking a much too filled cemetery at Herrnhut. Only Heaven knows the immeasurable fruit of their labors. One thing they did do was to spark a fire in the hearts of the then Christian Church to evangelize the world.  It would take about fifty years before other denominations would begin to travel the well worn paths that the Moravians had cleared, finally answering the call of the " GREAT COMMISSSION."

One hundred years after the first Moravian missionary went into the world, John Geddie, sparked by  their evangelistic fire became know as the "father" of Presbyterian Missions in the South Seas.  There is written on a tablet in a large church seating 1,000 people, this inscription to the memory of John Geddie:

" When he landed in 1848 there were no Christians here; when he left in 1872 there were no heathern."

                                                  Joshua 2:14 "....Our lives for yours."