Small Beginning Great Ending

  

A small village in 1881 Indiana held a revival service one weekend. The visiting preacher gave an “altar call,” numerous times, urging people to come forward and give their lives to Christ. Over the entire weekend, only a thirteen -year-old boy knelt at the altar seeking to follow God. Church members deemed the meetings a failure, because only one boy went forward. But how little they realized what the conversion of that lad of thirteen would mean to thousands of heathen. How little did any in the community dream that he would someday become a missionary and the founder of one of the greatest evangelizing force on earth.

Charles Cowman was born on March 13, 1868, in Toulon, Illinois, to David and Mary Cowman. At age 15, he was offered and accepted a summer job as a telegraph operator at a local railway station. Excelling at this new job, he chose not to return to school the following fall and continued with his new profession. Cowman practiced hard, and became known as a “brass pounder,” a telegrapher so fast others had trouble keeping up with him! Cowman loved the work. He soon earned a position running a telegraphy office in the town.

At 18, he was transferred to a station in Chicago and by the time he was 19, he earned a salary comparable to employees who had been working there for many years. On June 8, 1889, at 21 years old, he married his childhood friend, Lettie Burd. Charles moved on in the telegraphy world, quickly advancing through the Western Union company ranks. Finally, he could impress his in-laws by providing his wife with a glamorous life. The future looked bright. Who needed the God he had agreed to follow all those years before, anyway? Well, Cowman needed God; he just didn’t know it yet.

After a strong conviction, Cowman recommitted his life to God. The disciplined man poured over his Bible; he spent some time (though how long is not clear) at the Moody Bible Institute. He made it the first thing in his life to be a Christian, feeling he must concentrate all his energy upon it. One way in which he did this was by forming the “Telegraphers’ Mission Band" in Chicago with co-workers who had become Christians because of him. The Telegraphers’ Mission Band sent letters explaining the Gospel to telegraphers all over the United States, Great Britain and Australia.

One member of the Telegraphers’ Mission Band, Ernest A. Kilbourne, would later become a cofounder of the Oriental Missionary Society. In the late 1890s, Cowman met Juji Nakada, a new student at the Moody Bible Institute. He, too, would later become a cofounder of the Oriental Missionary Society.  Upon Nakada’s return to Japan, the Telegraphers’ Mission Band began financially supporting him as a missionary, thus continuing the connection they had made with him while he was in the states.

Cowman and his wife became convinced they needed to serve as overseas missionaries. That certainty only grew when Nakada, known as the D. L. Moody of Japan because of his evangelistic fervor, invited them to come to Japan. Charles and Lettie left America on February 1, 1901, to serve as missionaries in Japan. Cowman wrote “For all that has been –Thanks! To all that shall be –Yes!” These words convey their mood when they first set foot in Japan.  When asked about his credentials, Cowman told one woman his “college of missions had been the telegraph office in Chicago and his credentials–all that he possessed–were found in  2Corinthians 6:4-10” .

Cowman met his friend Juji Nakada in Japan three weeks after they left San Francisco. Within a short time, they found a building and transformed it into a Gospel Mission Hall. By faith, with no guarantee but God, Charles Cowman, Ernest Kilbourne and Juji Nakada embarked on an adventure with God that began a missionary organization in Japan in 1901, which today spans the globe. No one knows how many people have come to faith as a result of that one boy coming forward. The work the Cowman’s and the Oriental Missionary Society (OMS) began in 1901 is still going strong today ( In these mortal hands,Robert D Wood).

The ninth chapter of Acts is the story of the conversion of Saul of Tarsus who later became the mighty Apostle Paul. Saul became a Christian on the road to Damascus. Proverbs 21:1 reads: "The king's heart is in the hand of the LORD, like the rivers of water; he turns it wherever he wishes”. Jesus turned the heart of Saul like a river of water, so that the whole volume of his life thenceforth flowed in a new channel and to an opposite sea.

In Philippians 3:7-8 Paul reflects on his transformation, stating, “Whatever was gain to me I count as loss for the sake of Christ. More than that, I count all things as loss compared to the surpassing excellence of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord”. From then on his motto was “one thing I do: forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus” (Phil.3:13-14).

Saul spent several days with the disciples in Damascus. In Acts 9:20-22 we are told ‘at once he began to preach in the synagogues that Jesus is the Son of God. All those who heard him were astonished and asked, “Isn’t he the man who raised havoc in Jerusalem among those who call on this name? And hasn’t he come here to take them as prisoners to the chief priests?” Yet Saul grew more and more powerful and baffled the Jews living in Damascus by proving that Jesus is the Messiah’.

After drawing strength from the saints of God, Paul “immediately” started proclaiming Jesus in the synagogues. Because Saul was a skilled student of the great rabbi Gamaliel, he took advantage of the synagogue custom that invited any able Jewish man to speak from the Scriptures at synagogue meetings. He took advantage of this opportunity immediately. The message of Saul was all about Jesus. He knew they needed to know Jesus in truth, that He is the Son of God.

All those who heard him were astonished. Previously he had persecuted Christians in the synagogues and now he was preaching Christ there. The Jews were in dismay at Saul's radical reversal (conversion).  It was hard to believe just how powerfully Jesus could change a life. Years later, Paul would write, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold all things have become new” (2 Cor.5:17).) Paul lived that verse long before he wrote it.

Not only were the Jews surprised at Saul's conversion, but also amazed by his powerful preaching, clearly showing them that Jesus was the long expected Messiah. He was proving Jesus was the Messiah by using their own Scriptures. Saul had an exceptional knowledge of the Law of Moses and a profound understanding of the Psalms and the prophets. His natural abilities, great intellect and extensive knowledge equipped him to outwit the finest minds of his day.  Now filled with the Holy Spirit, Saul could easily see how Jesus was the Messiah promised in the Hebrew Scriptures.

Saul grew more and more powerful and baffled the Jews living in Damascus by proving that Jesus is the Messiah. Before ascension, Jesus opened the disciples’ minds so they could understand the Scriptures (Luke 24:45).  He also promised “when the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all truth ... and he will tell you what is yet to come” (John 16:13). After the conversion of Saul, Jesus opened his mind so he could clearly understand the Scriptures. The Holy Spirit started guiding him into all the truth and telling him what is yet to come.

Stephen was full of the Holy Spirit (Acts 7:55). In Acts 6, we are told that Jews tried to argue with him but could not stand up against the wisdom the Spirit gave him as he spoke (Acts 6:9-10). Saul had witnessed the argument and he must have known that a supernatural power was behind Stephen’s success. Years later Paul wrote to the Ephesians “ I keep asking that God ... may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance ... and his incomparably great power for us who believe (Eph.1:16-19).

Acts 9:23-26 says “after many days had gone by, there was a conspiracy among the Jews to kill him, but Saul learnt of their plan. Day and night they kept close watch on the city gates in order to kill him. But his followers took him by night and lowered him in a basket through an opening in the wall. When he came to Jerusalem, he tried to join the disciples, but they were all afraid of him, not believing that he really was a disciple”. In Galatians 1, Paul explained more about what happened during these many days.

Galatians 1:15-19 says “but when God, who set me apart from my mother’s womb and called me by his grace, was pleased to reveal his Son in me so that I might preach him among the Gentiles, my immediate response was not to consult any human being. I did not go up to Jerusalem to see those who were apostles before I was, but I went into Arabia. Later I returned to Damascus. Then after three years, I went up to Jerusalem to get acquainted with Cephas and stayed with him fifteen days. I saw none of the other apostles only James, the Lord’s brother” (Gal.1:15-19).

The purpose of God's calling Paul was to be on mission to the Gentiles as Jesus explained to Ananias. God supernaturally revealed the truth about His Son to Paul's heart and mind for the express purpose that he might preach Jesus among the Gentiles. As he later said he "had been entrusted with the Gospel to the uncircumcised (Gentiles), just as Peter had been to the circumcised"(Gal.2:7) and "to be a minister of Christ Jesus to the Gentiles, ministering as a priest the gospel of God" (Rom.15:16).  

It is important to remember that God does not call individuals to salvation just to keep them out of hell and get them into heaven, but to be useful in His service. Every believer has been "created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared (specific, special works for them), that (they) should walk in them" (Eph.2:10). Every believer is given the good work of proclaiming "the Excellencies of Him who has called (us) out of darkness into His marvelous light” (1 Pet.2:9). You were called out of darkness, that others in darkness may also be called out by your Gospel witness.

Paul did not start living the Christian life in all its fullness and potential power for quite a number of years after his conversion. He had many lessons to learn first. The revelation of Jesus had blasted away the foundations of the Pharisaic thought structure which he had been building up with such consummate skill and zeal, and it had come tumbling down in ruins. This revelation also furnished him with another foundation upon which to build a new theological structure. But the replacement of the ruined structure with a new one could not be the work of a day or a month.

He was in Damascus, then Arabia, and back in Damascus and this took a period of three years. There in Arabia, isolated from all human contact, alone with God, the great apostle restudied his Old Testament scriptures, not now with the Pharisaic traditions vitiating his thinking, but, led by the Holy Spirit. Saul needed to be alone with God. He went into Arabia because he needed its solitude for solemn meditation and communion with his divine Master. He got away from the voices of men to listen only to the voice of God.