Battle Axe Series 2

Jonathan Goforth

One of God’s battle axe in the 19^th Century was Jonathan Goforth. The measure of his faithfulness can be deduced from the message he preached shortly before he was called home to glory on October 2, 1936. He said, “I love those that thunder out the Word. The Christian world is in a dead sleep. Nothing but a loud voice can awaken them out of it”.

Goforth was born in London, Ontario, Canada on February 10, 1859, the seventh of eleven children of Francis and Jane Bates Goforth. His parents emigrated from Yorkshire, England to Canada in 1840. The family engaged in farming in Canada, which did not yield much income. Consequently, it faced a lot of physical hardship and had to practice the utmost economy.

This did not stop Goforth’s mother from taking good care of her children and training them in the way and nurture of the Lord. Although her husband was not very religious, she taught the children Scriptures from the earliest age. Jonathan in particular could read the Psalms aloud when he was just five years old. When he was seven years old, he received a Bible from a neighbour. At ten, he came under deep conviction of sin and the need of salvation; but no one asked him to make a decision for Christ.

Opportunity for Jonathan to meet Jesus Christ came when a Presbyterian Pastor named Lachlan Cameron visited the community. During the church service, Jonathan, aged eighteen at this time, made the most important decision in his life by surrendering everything to Jesus. He reminisced with his daughter Mary on his 77^th birthday about that important transaction:  

My conversion at eighteen was simple but so complete that ever onward I could say with Paul, I am crucified with Christ; nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me (Galatians 2:20). Hence my life belonged to Him who had given His life for me.

Through much hardship and noble effort, Jonathan obtained his grammar and high school education. During the years of his youth, he often debated within himself whether he should be a teacher or a politician. His Pastor, Cameron later invited him to his home for instruction in Scriptures, as well as Latin and Greek. This intervention helped him to prepare to enter Knox College, Toronto.

One day while in College, he heard a missionary, George Leslie Mackay of Formosa, China present the claims of Christ for that mission field in a most forceful way. Jonathan described that meeting in a few words: “I heard the voice of the Lord saying: ‘Who will go for us and whom shall we send?’ and I answered: ‘Here am I, send me’. From that hour I became a foreign missionary”. Jonathan lost no opportunity to prepare himself for the mission field and to declare the claims of Christ and the needs of unsaved souls.

In 1885, Jonathan received a copy of Hudson Taylor’s book, China’s Spiritual Need and Claims. He was deeply impressed and from that time on, he began to pray that a door would be opened to him to go to China. The open door came at the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church of Canada held in June 1887. In the course of deliberation, a new missionary vision was birthed and Jonathan Goforth was appointed the Presbyterian Church’s pioneer missionary to China.

 He was ordained on October 25 of the same year, and the same month, married Florence Rosalind Bell-Smith. Rosalind was born in London, England on May 6, 1864, and moved to Canada with her parents when she was three years old. She had become a Christian at the age of twelve and had grown steadily in her faith. At age twenty, she had prayed that if the Lord wanted her to marry, He would lead her to a man who was “wholly given up to Christ and His service”. During their short courtship, Jonathan asked her, “Will you give me your promise that you will always allow me to put my Lord and His work first, even before you?” Rosalind gave a little gasp before replying, “Yes, I will, always.” Wasn’t this the kind of man she had prayed for?

The Goforths sailed for China on February 4, 1888 and established a mission field at Linching in Honan Province. It was soon evident that Goforth was a man sent from God. He was untiring in his evangelistic services and efficient in the training of the national workers. He eventually established many churches in the Province under the leadership of Chinese Christians. It was there that the grace of God was revealed in a special way, as the Lord sustained and comforted Jonathan Goforth and his family in their many trials, sufferings and sorrows.

 As was the case with other missionaries of that period, the price of ministry in foreign lands was often at great personal cost. While building the mission house in Linching, the hired workers, instead of using fresh water to make their mortar, had been filling their pails from an indescribably filthy pool nearby. The Goforths did not realise that this was happening. As a result, dysentery broke out, first among the workmen; then a Chinese teacher contracted it, dying days later. Tragically, Goforth’s daughter, Gertrude succumbed to the disease.

 In 1894, the Goforths took their first furlough to Canada. The year before, Rosalind had given birth to a beautiful blonde girl, Florence Elizabeth. While in Canada, she gave birth to their fifth child, a baby girl named Helen. Just before they returned to Canada, they received the distressful news that the Chuwang region had been hit by great floods, as had been the case in Chefoo where they also ministered, and that all their personal possessions were destroyed. But Rosalind’s faith in God to meet their needs was growing deeper with each passing year.

When they returned from Canada, they received permission from the Chinese authorities to establish another mission at Changte, a city of more than 100,000 people. Six years earlier, Jonathan had visited the town and claimed it for Christ. From the first day, the Chinese residents flocked to see Jonathan and his team. “I am delighted with the attitude of the people towards us”, Jonathan recorded. “The Master is working in the hearts of men”.

 In fact, the Changte Chinese were so happy to have the Gorforths there that they began to visit the mission compound in their thousands. God supplied all their needs, both physical and spiritual; as the Chinese were very hungry for the word of God and fellowship with the missionaries. As the Changte mission grew, so did the Goforth family, doubling in four years with the addition of Gracie, Ruth and Wallace. Then, suddenly, after five years of great blessings in Changte, the Goforths entered into a time of agonizing trials.

In the fall of 1899, their three-year-old daughter, Gracie, contracted cholera and died. Eight months later, seven-year-old Florence was stricken with a raging fever. She was diagnosed with spinal meningitis, and in just a few days, passed into glory. Rosalind held her remaining four children close to her heart and prayed for God’s comfort and strength as the dark clouds of persecution loomed in the horizon.

In 1900, the Goforths received a telegram from Chefoo warning them to “flee south”. This was in the heat of the Boxers rebellion, a violent anti-Christian and anti-imperialist insurrection in China between 1899 and 1901. Without delay, Jonathan and his family set out on ten heavily packed carts, along with other missionaries. They left Changte at daybreak on June 28, 1900, never dreaming that many of their fellow missionaries and personal friends had been killed by the rebels.

 Through God’s intervention, they reached the city of Nang Yang Fu a few days later. One of their cart drivers later overhead a sinister plot being devised by Chinese soldiers assigned as their escort team, to kill them through an ambush by their peers as the missionaries travelled along the way. Before dawn the next morning, the missionaries left accompanied by the Chinese soldiers.

Barely out of the city, the group realised that one of the Goforth children, Paul was missing along with a missionary named Mr. Griffith. For over an hour, the Goforths searched on foot for their eldest child and his companion. Jonathan eventually left a wagon behind along with a trusted servant to continue the search while he, Rosalind and the rest of the party continued on their journey to join up with the soldiers.

When they made their way back to the other carts, the Goforths beheld an amazing sight! While they had been searching for Paul, the soldiers had climbed into the back of the carts and fallen fast asleep. They were unaware as the cart drivers left the village on secondary roads leading far away from the site of the intended ambush. When the soldiers woke up miles later in the jungle, they were infuriated; but after shouts and threats, they left the missionaries and returned to the city. Within a day, Paul and Griffith were safely located and the missionary party reached the city of Fancheng, modern-day Xiangfan.

After the rebellion was quelled, Jonathan returned to Changte in 1902 and was later joined by his family. When he turned forty-five, he had a strange restlessness. His heart prayer was, “I want to see more of God”. In the summer of 1904, a small booklet on the Welch revival arrived from a supporter in England. The Holy Spirit was sweeping through Wales, bringing tens of thousands of people to Christ. Thrilled with what he read, Jonathan seriously considered the role the Holy Spirit played in Christian conversion. “And when he (the Holy Spirit) is come, he will reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment” (John 16:8).

 Not long after, a missionary friend in India sent him a book entitled, Great Awakening, which contains excerpts of Charles Finney’s Lectures on Revival. After reading Finney’s words over and over, Jonathan explained to Rosalind, “Revival simply means this: The spiritual laws governing spiritual harvest are as real and tangible as the laws governing the natural harvest. If Finney is right, and I believe he is, I am going to find out what those laws are and obey them, no matter what the cost may be”.

 Immediately, Goforth began an in-depth study of the Holy Spirit in the Scriptures, taking notes in the margin of his Chinese Bible. He also wrote home requesting copies of Finney’s autobiography and Lectures on Revival. He spent so many hours studying that Rosalind became concerned. Placing his hands on his wife’s shoulders, Jonathan exclaimed, “Oh Rose, even you do not understand! I feel like one who has tapped a mine of wealth. It is so wonderful! If only I could get others to see it! Jonathan Goforth was discovering the personal power of the Holy Spirit in the life of a believer in Jesus Christ.

 In cooperation with the Holy Spirit, Jonathan preached the gospel to Chinese pilgrims attending a Buddhist festival at Hsunhsien in 1906. He played a prominent role in the Korean revival which occurred same year, in collaboration with a group of Presbyterian and Methodist Christians who had been praying together for months in Pyongyang. The revival later spread to Seoul and other cities, with more than 50,000 conversions in the first year alone. The revival was still ongoing in 1910, with 4,000 Koreans baptised in October of that year.

 Jonathan’s ministry in the power of the Holy Spirit also triggered revival in Manchuria Province of China. As he travelled, the revival enveloped town after town. In Shinminfu where fifty-four Chinese Christians had been martyred during the Boxer Rebellion, many of the grieving family members still lived in the bondage of forgiveness. As they confessed the anguish in their hearts, they were set free from their sins, such as acts of vengeance, even murder.

 In each mission station, great waves of prayer would sweep the congregation, and lives were changed: Christians were cleansed, opium addicts were set free, and new believers were won to Christ. Canadian and British missionaries sent exciting letters home, celebrating the glorious revival; before long, the movement had gained worldwide attention.

 In the summer of 1919, Jonathan received an unexpected invitation from General Feng Yu Hsiang of the Chinese Army to hold revival meetings for thousands of his officers and soldiers. This led to one of the most fruitful ministries of Jonathan’s life. At one of the sessions, General Feng broke down in front of his officers, crying for his beloved country and the Communist threat that was so close at hand. He pleaded with his men to join him in prayer for the fortunes of their nation. From this point on, General Feng was known as the “Christian General” throughout China

 Goforth was known among other missionaries as well as the Chinese workers for his detailed knowledge of the Scriptures. Concerning the importance of memorizing the Bible, he wrote: “It is well to be able to repeat Scripture, but it is of very great importance to remember where it is in the Bible.

My ideal has been (though I cannot say I have always attained unto it), that it would be a shame for me, a missionary, to have to go to a concordance to find a portion of Scripture that a Chinese brother might ask me for. My wife seems to regard me as her walking concordance and my Chinese fellow-workers seem to think that I know everything in the Bible, but I am ever wishing I could spend several hundred years at the Bible”.

Jonathan continued to preach Christ’s salvation to eager men and women in China until November 1934 when Rosalind became seriously ill. He could no longer ignore the inevitable- it was time to go home. Jonathan’s final missionary report for Manchuria was full of good news; in 1934, he listed 966 adult baptisms. As the train carrying the Goforths pulled out of the Szepingkai station, a banner flew above them that read, “Faithful Servant of Jesus Christ”. Hundreds of Chinese Christians saddened by their loss, crowded the platform for one last glimpse of their beloved pastor.

 As soon as he reached Canada, Goforth was overwhelmed with requests to speak at churches and at meetings of mission organisations. His schedule included ten meetings a week. More doors opened throughout Canada and the United States than he could possibly enter. In 1936, Jonathan, then aged seventy-seven, gave twenty-two addresses in seventeen days in Toronto, never willing to pass up the opportunity to preach on “aggressive evangelism led by the Holy Spirit” – the most important part of mission work.

He had written earlier “that God would give me an opportunity before I pass on to demonstrate to missionaries and to the home church what results would follow if we but gave God a chance by broadcasting this wonderful message of salvation by every possible means in our power”.

In early October, the Gorforths stayed at the home of their son Fredrick, then an ordained Presbyterian minister. When Jonathan gave an address at Fredrick’s church on how the Spirit’s fire swept through Korea, the audience described his face as “radiant…..aglow with the love of Christ”. He was unusually quiet after the meeting, declining to eat supper because he was experiencing indigestion.

The following morning, October 8, 1936, Rosalind rose to get ready for the day. She saw that Jonathan was sleeping peacefully, his right cheek resting on his hand. After dressing and walking to his bedside, she realized he was no longer asleep but had graduated to glory. Just weeks earlier, he had told her, “I rejoice to know that the next face I see will be my Saviour’s!”

 There are too many lessons to learn from the life of Jonathan Goforth. Personally, I believe that our generation of Christians do God a great disservice by presenting Him as a genie whose sole responsibility is to meet our needs. Revelation 4:11 declares: “Thou are worthy O LORD, to receive glory, honour and power: for Thou hast created all things, and for Thy pleasure they are and were created”. We have fed from polluted gospel springs that create the impression that Christ died to bring us personal happiness; that His sufferings on the Cross were meant to provide us with all the good things of life – houses, cars, children, social capital, wives, husbands etc.

We are made to believe that we cannot see adversity in any form or shape once we ‘give our lives to Christ”. Were the Goforths not walking in the will of God in China? They served God faithfully despite persecution, sorrows and hardships. We need to repent of our idolatry and ask for forgiveness from Almighty God whose name we have invoked to promote our fake gospel.

Culled from an article, Jonathan Goforth, Radiant Soul-Winner of North China by Thomas John Bach, https://www.wholesomewords.org and Jonathan Goforth: China’s Revival Carrier in God’s Generals by Roberts Liardon, Whitaker House.