19/07/2023
You Will Be Eaten by Cannibals
“You will be eaten by cannibals," was the warning an elderly church leader gave Scottish missionary John G. Paton before he and his wife Mary left for the mission field.
To which Paton responded, “Mr. Dickson, you are advanced in years now, and your own prospect is soon to be laid in the grave, there to be eaten by worms; I confess to you, that if I can but live and die serving and honoring the Lord Jesus, it will make no difference to me whether I am eaten by Cannibals or by worms; and in the Great Day my Resurrection body will rise as fair as yours in the likeness of our risen Redeemer.”
They arrived in 1858 to a small group of Islands east of Australia called New Hebrides. Not long after arriving, Paton’s wife died from pneumonia. He was alone on a small island called Tanna and in constant danger.
Paton had many perilous encounters with the cannibals. But he felt secure in his protection; death would not come until Jesus had finished His task through him. “I assured them that I was not afraid to die, for at death my Savior would take me to be with Himself in Heaven, and to be far happier than I had ever been on Earth.”
After four years, Paton had some converts and a church of about 40 natives, but because of the dangers he was forced to leave Tanna. He explained, “To have remained longer would have been to incur the guilt of self-murder in the sight of God….I left with a clear conscience.”
When attempting to leave, he and his native friend were encircled by the cannibals. A killing stone was thrown and grazed his friend’s cheek. “A club was also raised to follow the blow of the killing stone, but God baffled the aim," he wrote. "They encircled us in a deadly ring and one kept urging another to strike the first blow. My heart rose up to the Lord Jesus; I saw Him watching all the scene. My peace came back to me like a wave from God. I realized that my life was immortal till my Master’s work with me is done. The assurance came to me, as if a voice out of Heaven had spoken.” Years later his son, Frank Paton, went to Tanna, and the whole population of Tanna turned to Christ.
In 1866, Paton and his new wife, Margaret, went back to New Hebrides to the smaller island of Aniwa. The Aniwa people were friendlier than the Tanna people, but they were also cannibals and were not particularly receptive to the gospel. The turning point was “Jehovah’s rain.”
Aniwa was a small island, it had no streams or creeks, so they were dependent on rainwater and often had a shortage of fresh water. One day Paton declared he would dig a hole and find fresh water. They truly thought Paton had lost it. Water comes from above not from the ground-- “O Missi (the chief called him), your head is going wrong!” Paton offered a fishhook to all who would help. Several days went by--ten feet, fifteen feet--nothing. One night part of the hole caved in. He reinforced the walls with wood and continued. It was looking bad for Paton. The natives were certain he had lost his sanity,
They were not only concerned for his sanity but rightfully afraid for his life. The deeper he got the fewer men who would help, and he was running out of fishhooks. Finally, no one would help. He said, “At the moment I knew I was risking much, and probably incurring sorrowful consequences, had no water been given: but I had faith that the Lord was leading me on, and I knew that I sought His glory, not my own.”
At 34 feet water gushed in. It was fresh! The islanders were astonished; they called it “Jehovah’s rain.” The old chief said, “Missi, wonderful is the work of your Jehovah God! No god of Aniwa ever helped us in this way. The world is turned upside down since Jehovah came to Aniwa.” This broke the back of heathenism in Antiwa as the islanders en masse burned their idols and sunk their stone gods in the ocean and attended the church services.
The whole island turned to Christ. Paton wrote, “I claimed Aniwa for Jesus, and by the grace of God Aniwa now worships at the Savior’s feet.”
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