Are You Sacrificing In Ministry?

Rev. Irving Hetherington (1809 - 1875)
Missionary to Australia. Though he was four years the senior of Robert M'Cheyne, they were great friends, and were much in each other's company while little boys. Licensed to preach at Lochmaben 1835, and ordained 1837. Called to Australia in December 1836.

Just before Hetherington and his wife set out for Australia in response to the call from Dr Lang, they went to St Peter's to hear M'Cheyne preach. He preached from a text which Mr & Mrs Hetherington felt to be very appropriate to them. It seemed as if God had directed them there to hear the Saviour's last command: 'Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature'. They boarded a ship bound for Australia at Portobello on 24 March 1837. He died in Melbourne 10 July 1875.
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A (HT) to my friend Milton at Transforming Sermons, for directing me to this article in Preaching.

Are you sacrificing in ministry?
In his book... A Godward Life (Multnomah), John Piper writes about the life of Irving Hetherington — born in Scotland in 1809, called to preach in 1835, then called to go to Australia as a missionary. When he asked his fiancée, Jessie Carr, if she would go with him to the mission field, she replied, "Where you wish to take me, there I wish to go." And so in March 1837 they set sail for Sydney.

The first week en route, Jessie came down with a sore throat and fever. She told Irving she had no fear of death, because, "I have long taken Christ for my portion and set my hopes on Him." As Irving wept, Jessie died that same night.

Alone in Sydney, Irving was assigned a territory 50 miles long by 30 miles wide. Piper writes: "He rode a horse to his little groups of believers in rain and heat. When a drought weakened the horse, he walked. He tried to study on the way and get his sermons ready.

His biographer tells the following story: 'One Saturday night he had to walk thirty miles; and, after climbing a hill, and while resting on a log at the summit, the idea of ministers in Scotland complaining of being Mondayish after two services, and without other fatigue, struck him as so ludicrous that he could not help bursting out into a loud 'guffaw' of laughter, which sounded so strange in the darkness and loneliness of the bush.'

Piper continues: "What this powerful story did for me was to put the pressures of my ministry into missionary — and biblical — perspective. How easy it is to begin to assume that I should be comfortable. How quickly I can start to expect an easy and hassle-free ministry. . . .

"Here in America, where everybody speaks English and eats pizza, I bellyache over an extra meeting, an ill-timed hospital call, and too many choices. Then I read of Irving Hetherington, and I think of 'normal' missionary life. I see my 'sacrifices' in a new way."