Lord God, we thank you for this time, the 16th of November. We thank you, Lord God, for this place, the city named Livingston, and for this Victoria Falls, which was named and mapped and made known to the world from this date, from the 16th of November, 1855. Thank you, Lord God, for the 200th anniversary of the birth of Dr. David Livingston. Thank you, Lord, for this bicentennial year. as we remember 200 years of this great servant of yours this humble servant, soldier and son of yours and we pray Lord God that you would make us more faithful to your word the Bible and more effective in your service to fulfill the Great Commission for we pray it in Jesus precious and holy name Amen in the book of Romans chapter 15 We read that the Apostle Paul said that he had made it his aim to preach the Gospel, not where Christ was named, lest I should build on another man's foundation. The Apostle Paul said he wanted to preach the Gospel where Christ was not yet known. He didn't want to build on another man's foundation. He wanted to pioneer new fields. Well, if that was true of the Apostle Paul, it was even more true for David Livingston. Even less people had known where he went. Dr. David Livingston is an example of excellence. He is, to us, an example of what a dedicated Christian should be. His life, his legacy, and his literature continue to speak to us today. The challenge of Dr. David Livingston is most relevant for our times. Now if Dr. David Livingston was here today, on this historic date, the 16th of November, as we remember the naming and founding of Victoria Falls, and even more importantly than that, the 200th anniversary of the birth of Dr. David Livingston, what would David Livingston say to us today? Well, I don't think we need to guess. We have his writings. We have his published statements available to us. We know exactly what Dr. David Livingston would say today. It's what he said to the people of his generation. The salvation of men ought to be the chief desire and aim of every Christian. All men have the right to hear God's word. No nation ought to hard the gospel like a miser. Can the love of Christ not carry the missionary where the slave trade carries the trader? If you have men who will come only if they know that there's a good road, I don't want them. I want men who will come even if there's no road at all. We must be uncommon Christians, that is, eminently holy and devoted servants of the Most High. Let us seek that selfishness be wiped out, pride banished, unbelief driven from the mind, every idol dethroned, everything hostile to holiness and opposed to God's will crucified, that holiness to the Lord may be engraved on the heart and evermore characterize the whole conduct. We still have a debt of gratitude to our Lord Jesus Christ. There is no greater privilege on earth than after having our own chains broken off to go forth and proclaim liberty to the captives, the opening of prison to them that are bound. These are the words of Dr. David Livingston. That is what he said in his day, and I believe that is what he would want to say to us today. Dr. David Livingston was inspired by a great vision of victory. He had an optimistic view of the future. He was not negative and pessimistic about the future, even though the time in which he lived was far darker than we have. First of all, there were no streetlights. There were no flashlights. There were no batteries. There was no electricity. He did not wait for motor cars to be invented or four-wheel drives to be invented before coming to Africa. He didn't wait for the roads to be tarred and the bridges to be built. He didn't wait for GPS systems and for maps to be made. He made the maps. He made the first maps of Zambia, the first maps of Zimbabwe, the first maps of the Zambezi River. He didn't wait for the technology to make his work easier. He went out and blazed a trail for others to follow. David Livingstone said, discoveries and inventions are culminative, filling the earth with the glory of the Lord. All nations will sing His glory. All kings will bow down before Christ. Our work and its fruits are culminative. We are working towards a future set of things. Future missionaries will be rewarded with converts for every sermon. We are their pioneers and their helpers. Let them not forget the watchmen of the night, who worked when all was gloom and no evidence in the way of conversions shared our path. They will doubt us at more light than we, but we serve our master earnestly, and we proclaim the same gospel if they will do." He spoke of a quiet audience. He spoke of little response, but then he said, We are sowing a seed. It is a gospel seed. It is like the smallest of seeds, like the mustard seed. But it will grow to be a great, mighty tree that will fill the whole earth. It is as if it were the stone that was cut out without hands, that grew to be a mountain that filled the whole earth in Daniel's vision. He said, we are working for a glorious future when the glory of the Lord will fill the earth as the waters cover the sea. When every knee will bow, when every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. He was encouraged by these biblical visions, these prophecies, these promises of the scripture. He was not allowing months and even years of disease and sickness and affliction and opposition and problems to discourage him because he knew that the scriptures were God's sure word, and they would be fulfilled. And he looked forward to the day when there would be millions of Christians in Central Africa, in what is today Zambia, and Zimbabwe, and Tanzania, and Malawi, and the Congo. He walked across these countries. He walked across 12 African countries. He walked, 26 years he walked across Africa, proclaiming the gospel, healing bodies. This man had a vision that there one day there would be tens of thousands of churches and millions of Christians in these countries. And has that not come true? His faith was not in vain. His labors were not in vain. None of our labors are in vain. Because God's word never returns void, it always accomplishes what he has sent it out to accomplish. Today there are 60 million Pentecostals in Africa, 140 million Charismatics, 182 who call themselves Evangelicals or would define themselves as born again. This includes many of the 50 million Anglicans. A hundred million independents, a hundred and fifty say they are Protestants. We're talking about five hundred million people who named the name of Christ in Africa today. That is almost half of the total population. It's extraordinary. There were barely a few hundred thousand when he came to the continent. And today there are five hundred million who say Jesus is Lord. Is that not incredible? Is that not the fruit of incredible faith? Do you know today There are vastly more, about 20 times more Anglicans in church every Sunday in Nigeria than there are in Great Britain and North America combined. All the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the Lord. And all the families of the nations shall worship before you. For the kingdom is the Lord's and He rules over the nations. Now I must say, David Livingstone changed my life. As a new Christian, I am by much of the spirits of the time, much of the presuppositions and the tendencies of the churches in the 1970s. I read Hal Lindsey's Late Great Planned Earth, There's a New World Coming, Safeness Alive and Well on Planet Earth. And I was involved in date setting, end times, rapture fever type of activities. I was convinced the Lord was going to come back before the end of that year and the next year. And I couldn't think more than a few months ahead because the Lord was going to come back. before the end of the year anyway. So why plan long term? I couldn't think of family. I couldn't think of marriage. I couldn't think of children. Those are worldly things. There's no time. Jesus is coming back before the end of the year. Now I remind you, I was converted in 1977. My father-in-law who was converted in 1940 says, oh, we were like that in 1940s too. In fact, people have been like this for quite a long time. The Lord's coming back in our generation. But unfortunately, while I was saved, I was not very deep. I loved the Lord and I was enthusiastically involved in evangelism, but my understanding of biblical doctrine was quite shallow and certainly I didn't have a great vision, a multi-generational vision. I didn't have the vision like David Livingstone had, of course. I had imbibed also the prevailing prejudice against Calvinism, what people often call the reformed faith. I was really negative about John Calvin and the reformers and I had a lot of very dishonest and false views about them. The rapture is coming. I couldn't consider theological college. I couldn't consider Bible college. What's the point? The Lord will return before I can complete my studies. Better to stand a field, winning souls, snatching a few souls in the fire, than to waste my time, the last few days remaining on earth, in a theological college. Then I read The Puritan Hope, Revival and the Interpretation of Prophecy by Iain Murray, published by Banner of Truth. And this book informed me that all of the pioneer missionaries of the 19th century, William Carey, the father of modern missions, the best friend I've ever had, Dr. David Livingstone, Robert Moffat, C.T. Studd, Mary Slessor, Robert Morrison, Hudson Taylor, we can keep going on all the big names you know, they were all post-millennial. They believed that the Great Commission would be fulfilled before the Lord returned. Now, earlier I'd read some thin popular summaries of David Livingstone's life, little modern biographies, and he didn't seem too extraordinary, because like many other modern books, it had been sanitized, it had been censored, it had been abridged. And this modern version didn't mention David Livingstone's confrontation with Islamic slave trade, or his fighting to set captives free, or his breaking the chains literally from people's ankles and necks and setting them free, burning the gourds on the shores of Lake Malawi that were used to tie up the slaves, setting them on fire and setting the captives free. It didn't mention his six-barreled revolver, his double-barreled rifle. It didn't mention his Calvinism or his post-millennialism, because these modern books have often been dumbed down. They were just giving us a very shallow and superficial view. And as I have always been a bookworm and I've always loved history, I started to hunt in second-hand bookshops to find original books on David Livingston and William Carey. And what I found out was absolutely extraordinary. I was reading Livingston's Mishmi Travels as I was following in many of his footsteps in the Thet Province and Zambesia Province and the Zambezi Valley and Shire Valley of Mozambique and Malawi. Back in 1989 when I was captured by Russian troops put into MR8 helicopters, taken off to Thet for interrogation, then off to Meshava security prison and I was made a guest of the communists as one of their prisoners and I've just been reading Livingston's travels about Thet as he's speaking about the slave raiders and the burning of villages and the bodies floating down the river and I was seeing the same thing in the 1980s except now it wasn't the Muslims it was the communists doing the same thing in Thet Well, I learned quite a lot from the writings and from the exemplary and extraordinary legacy of David Livingston. And what did I learn from David Livingston? Well, first of all, I learned the importance of discipline. He was disciplined. He was disciplined in reading and he was disciplined in exercise. He was self-controlled. David Livingston abstained from alcohol for life. He was temperate. He was work-orientated. He was duty-oriented. He was hard-working. He had a work ethic. Livingston's work ethic is actually a rebuke to all of us. He worked from age 10. He was working 14 hours a day, six days a week, walking an average of 34 kilometers a day, much of it in the crawling and stooping position, in and under and amongst the machinery or bouncing over it. Imagine the tremendous physical training this was for his later transcontinental explorations across Africa. He did this also in steamed heat because humidity and high temperatures was considered essential for the production of thread. And he's working in a cotton factory. What was David's first priority with his money? When he earned his first week's salary at age 10, what did he spend it on? Rudiments, rudiments of Latin. He bought a Latin book, for goodness sakes. That's how highly he prized education. A 10 year old Each night after work he would attend night school from 8pm to 10pm. Then he would read until about midnight. And his work day would begin at 5.30 in the morning as the bell rang. Work started promptly at 6. And he'd carry on 6 days a week for 13 years without a holiday. The only holiday was Sunday. That was it. And then when he studied theology and medicine he would walk from Blantyne to Glasgow. refusing every offer of a ride with a horse-drawn cart. He preferred a four-hour walk, often in the snow. Hard for us to imagine snow on a day like this. He preferred the four-hour walk each way. He wanted to strengthen his muscles for missions. He didn't want to get lazy and slack and get his muscles getting soft sitting in the desks of college, and there's so much studying and lectures needed. He wanted to at least get his exercise in walking between Blantyne and Glasgow. Livingston not only was disciplined in his hunger for knowledge and his work ethic and in his study, but he overcame his disadvantaged background. He was brought up in the poorest of circumstances. His parents were the poorest of the poor. They were a family of seven living in a home 10 feet by 15 feet. One room. No plumbing, no electricity obviously, no running water, no hot or cold water. They had to walk down three flights of stairs to the one pump in the yard which the 24 families sharing this one block shared and heave up the water that they would need. Nobody gave him a bursary, nobody gave him charity, nobody supported him through college. He earned the money, he saved the money, he put himself through medical school and through theological college. Wow! And in 1840 he was ordained as a missionary of the Congregational Church of the London Missionary Society He received his doctorate with high honors from the Royal Faculty of Physicians and Surgeons. Against all odds, David Livingston had achieved far more than would have been humanly thought possible. Less than 10% of the children who worked in the cotton mills ever learned to read or write. Livingston didn't just learn to read and write. He learned and taught himself Hebrew, Greek, and Latin. He was the first boy from the cotton mills to ever get a university education, and he put himself through it totally. David Livingston achieved against all odds. And he did this to someone born in the most poverty stricken background. How did he do it? To achieve what he did, Livingston was goal-oriented. He was inflexible. He was decisive. The Reformed theology put doctrinal spiel in his backbone. He had a backbone of steel when it came to his doctrine. And he had Holy Spirit fire in his heart and mind. He was a man of integrity. He was a man of his word. He meant what he said and he said what he meant. He walked two years across the continent just to honour his word. To return his men to the village where he had first recruited them. David Livingstone understood the power of prayer. He had Holy Spirit fire in his heart and in his soul and in his mind. And what fuelled his fire? When he was asked he said, I pray the Psalms. In fact he sang the Psalms and a Psalter is one of the things you can see in the Livingston Museum. The little Psalm book that he carried with him and he sang the Psalms daily. He prayed the Psalms daily. He said the Psalms gave him fuel. And he had a great love for creation. When you read through Livingston's travels and his Zambezi expedition, you can see observation, details of the most minute details about all the little, from insects to the big animals. The birds, the fish, everything. There was nothing he wasn't interested in. He was interested in every aspect of culture, of agriculture. He was interested in every aspect of flora and fauna. And he recorded these details for the benefit of all of us. Because he loved God's creation. David Livingstone had a vision. Without a vision the people perish. He had a vision. A kingdom vision. Some people I think are trying to build their own empires. But David Livingstone was busy about the kingdom of God and his righteousness. He ministered to body, mind and spirit. He understood the greatness of the Great Commission. Dr. David Livingstone worked to minister to body, mind and spirit. As a medical doctor he ministered to the body. As a teacher he ministered to the mind. As a gospel preacher, a missionary, he ministered to the Spirit. Wherever he went he used his medical knowledge and his training, his breadth of reasoning, his learning and his deep faith and his knowledge of the Holy Scripture to enrich and to empower the people of Africa. He brought Africa the key to where we want to be. The Word of God is the greatest treasure ever. In fact, when an African prince came to Queen Victoria and said, what is the secret of Britain's greatness? Now Britain was great back in the 19th century. Unfortunately, it's not listened to what David Livingstone said or Queen Victoria at that time either, so I wouldn't call it great now. But Britain was great in the 19th century and what they did in missions and civilising and ending the slave trade. Queen Victoria put a Bible in this prince's hand and said, the Bible is the secret of our greatness. And it's true. And since they've left the word of God, they have lost all those blessings. David Livingston teaches us that actions speak louder than words. Fire, stone wall, water would not stop Livingston in the performance of any recognized duty. He was a man of resolute courage. He believed his actions spoke the loudest. He was determined to make a difference. The Great Commission was his supreme ambition. Christ's last command was his first concern. He wrote, I hope to be permitted to work as long as I live beyond other men's line of things. To plant the seed of the gospel where others have not planted. Just as Paul wrote. in Romans 15. I am a mishly heart and soul he wrote. God had an only son and he was a physician and a mishly. Jesus was sent by the father and he healed people. A poor poor imitation of him I am or ever wish to be but in his service I hope to live and in it I wish to die. I shall open up a path to the interior or I will perish he said. May God bless us and make us blessings unto others, even unto death. Shame upon us missionaries if we are to be outdone by slave traders. He battled rains, chronic discomfort, illness, mildew, rot, fatigue. Nothing stopped him. He just kept going. He persevered across the continent. What tenacity! Even though he was so often lack of funds prevented him the luxury of affording to rent a canoe and he had to hack his way through the jungle on the side of the river rather than travelling on the river. But then he said, these privations I beg you to observe are not sacrifices. I think that word ought never to be mentioned in regard to anything we can do for him. Though he was rich yet for our sakes he became poor. The challenge of Livingston rings out to us today. Can that be called a sacrifice, which is simply a small part paid back of the great debt that is owing to our God, which we can never repay? It is emphatically no sacrifice. Say rather it is a privilege. David Livingston emphasized that sacrificial service is more powerful than eloquent sermons. Action is eloquence. We need to put feet to our faith. And David Livingston also alerted the world to the cancerous sore of the Islamic slave trade. It was missionary explorer David Livingston whose graphic descriptions brought the ravages of the slave trade in East Africa to light. His missionary travels and his narrative of an expedition to the Etembezi first exposed the horrific nature of the Islamic slave trade. And I will spare you the horrors of the quotes from Livingston's books, but it's there in the Livingston Turned Admissions Manual. David Livingston taught you cannot be neutral in the battlefields of life. He had the courage to confront evil. His fearless faith fought the good fight of faith and he set many thousands of captives free. Tens of thousands from spiritual slavery and ultimately millions have benefited and been blessed. David Livingston is not only an example of courage to confront evil but of patience and perseverance. He is an example of extraordinary persistence and perseverance. He overcame every obstacle. He walked across all the length and breadth of Africa. He walked from Delgoa Bay, present-day Port Elizabeth, up through Kuruman, through what today is Botswana, all the way down to Cape Town, all the way through the Cape and Botswana, through what today is the Caprivi Strip, across Zambia, Angola to the Atlantic, from Luanda, all the way across Angola, across Zambia, across Zimbabwe, and through Mozambique to the Indian Ocean. He walked up through Malawi, he walked through Tanzania, he walked into the Congo and Burundi. David Livingstone walked across 12 countries in Africa, one of today's 12 countries. But then were many, many hundreds of tribal boundaries. And in his 30 years of dedicated missionary service, he said, I try to hold myself in readiness to go anywhere, provided it be forwards. And let me remind you, he walked across a continent that didn't yet have roads, or bridges, or purified water. Livingston also teaches us the power of the printed page. It was books that he read, like Practical Christianity, by William Wilberforce, that channeled much of his life and dedicated labours against the slave trade. And Livingston wrote Missionary Travels and the Zambezi Expedition and his journals and inspired and multiplied thousands of others to dedicate their life to missions in Africa. He understood the power of the printed page. And Livingston's steadfast example inspired Mary Schlesser, the mother of all the people, to go to Calabar, what today is Nigeria. It inspired Peter Cameron to launch what is the biggest mission in East Africa, the African Land Mission. Livingston knew the power of the printed page and he knew the power of public speaking to us. He also focused on the universities as strategic resources for mobilizing missionaries. Livingston saw rivers as God's highway to reach Africa for Christ. As all communities need to live close to a water source, he saw rivers as the strategic artery that we should utilize for fulfilling the Great Commission. David Livingston believed in leadership training. His vision was for Barber Colleges to train Africans as evangelists, as pastors, as teachers, to disciple the nations. The life and legacy of David Livingstone have taught me many things. It has taught me the discipline of reading and exercise, a Christian work ethic, temperance, self-control, self-denial, to be duty-oriented. His reformed theology has put doctrinal steel into my backbone. He has taught me the importance of being a man of my word, a person of integrity, and most important, a student of God's word. That is what David Livingstone is first and foremost, a man of God's word, not only a man of his word. The post-millennial eschatology of Dr. David Livingstone has inspired me that we're not working for uncertainty. The Lord who gave us the Great Commission also gave us promises and power to fulfill that Great Commission. And so because of that, I could invest in children and family and the next generation. Because we need to, we worship in the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, multi-generations. Paul said to Timothy, take these teachings I've entrusted to you and entrust them to reliable men who can entrust them to other reliable men. There's four generations, Paul, Timothy, Timothy, reliable men, reliable men to other reliable men. Are you investing in the future? Are you investing multi-generationally? Think of the cathedrals. The cathedrals in Europe often took three generations to build. Some of them have been up for a thousand years. The people who started to build them didn't see the completion. But they built for future generations. Many people today can go and worship in magnificent churches that other people built for our benefit. And we don't even have to pay for a building fund to build it. It showed that we're investing in the future. Actions speak louder than words. David Livingston's comprehensive vision of ministering to body, mind and spirit raises the standard for all of us. I believe missionary work and pastoral work has fallen to a low ebb. We need to raise the standard by lifting up these examples of excellence. Sacrificial service is more eloquent than many sermons. We must put feet to our faith. We must recognize that we are on a world war of worldviews. Islam is a threat to our faith and to our freedom. We cannot be neutral. We must confront evil. We must fight the good fight of faith. We must be bold. We must be brave. We must be patient and steadfast. Persevere and overcome every obstacle. The obstacles are only put there for you to overcome them, not to stop you. Go forward in your faith. Never forget the power of the printed page. Readers make leaders. Teach your people to love reading. Invest in books, invest in your mind. Some people spend more time and money on their shoes, on their feet, than they do on their mind. Our mind is more valuable than our feet. But some people invest more in shoes than they will in books. Do not forget the schools, the colleges, or the universities. They are strategic. We must disciple the next generation to be faithful to God's word and to be effective in God's service. We need to think strategically as to how to disciple the nations of Christ. Make your life count for eternity. What would David Livingstone say to us today? I beg to direct your attention to Africa. I know that in a few short years I shall be cut off in that country, which is now open. Do not let it be closed again. I go back to Africa to try to make an open path for commerce and Christianity. Will you carry out the work which I have begun? I leave it with you. Africa for Christ. Let us pray. Lord God, we want to thank you and praise you for the life, the legacy, the message, the mission of Dr. David Livingston. Thank you for such a son, for such a soldier, for such a servant of yours. Thank you, Lord God, for all those invested in his life to make him the person he became, that he could be a blessing to all of us here. Lord God, we pray that there would be missionaries from Zambia that would go back to Scotland and England to call those people back to Christ. Lord, we pray that your blessings may wash through this land like the mighty Zambezi River. We pray, Lord God, that rivers of living water would flow out of our innermost beings. That we could be a blessing to others. Lord, we are saved to serve and we are blessed in order to be a blessing. Make us more faithful to your word. Make us more effective in your service of fulfilling the Great Commission. We pray it in the matchless name of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Saviour. Amen.