“Therefore let us go to him outside the camp and bear the reproach he endured. For here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come."  Hebrews 13:13-14

A higher calling drives out lesser fear.

Charlotte (Lottie) Diggs Moon
December 12, 1840 - December 24th, 1912

Lottie Moon Timeline

• 1840: Born into a family of privilege and wealth in Virginia. (The fourth child born into a family of 5 girls and 2 boys).
• 1853: Her father died when she was 13 years old.
• 1854-1861: Educated at Virginia Female Seminary and Albemarle Female Institute. John Broads referred to her as the most educated woman in the South.
• 1858: Became a believer at the age of 18 on December 12, after anonymously going to a prayer meeting and being kept awake by a barking dog after hearing the gospel.
• 1861-1865: Civil War.
• 1865 -1873: Teacher in Danville, Kentucky and Cartersville, Georgia (Mother dies in 1870).
• 1872: Sister Edmonia goes to China as a missionary.
• 1873: Lottie Moon goes to China as a missionary.
• 1861 & 1880: Rejects marriage proposal from C.H. Toy.
• 1912: Dies en route to the U.S. in Kobe, Japan on December 24th.

Lessons from the Life of Lottie Moon:

1. Do not grow weary or disparage contending with feisty/spirited children! (Such as Lottie Moon).

“Please say to the new missionaries that they are coming to a life of hardship, responsibility, and constant self-denial. They must live, the greater part of the time, in Chinese houses, in close contact with the people. They will be alone in the interior and will need to be strong and courageous. If ‘the joy of the Lord’ be ‘their strength’, the blessedness of the work will more than compensate for its hardships. Let them come ‘rejoicing to suffer’ for the sake of that Lord and Master who freely gave his life for them.”  Lottie Moon

2. She saw “sacrifice” as the biblical norm for all Christians. 

"With respect to this they are surprised when you do not join them in the same flood of debauchery, and they malign you."  1 Peter 4:4

"Then they left the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer dishonor for the name."  Acts 5:41

3. Doctrine defined and informed her life.

“So, in the last resort, we must turn down or disqualify our nearest and dearest when they come between us and our obedience to God. Heaven knows, it will seem to them sufficiently like hatred. We must not act on the pity we feel; we must be blind to tears and deaf to pleadings…it is too late, when the crisis comes to begin telling a wife or husband or mother or friend that your love all along had a secret reservation - 'under God'. They ought to have been warned; not, to be sure, explicitly, but by the implication of a thousand talks, by the principle revealed in a hundred decisions upon small matters.”  C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves, p. 124-125

Example of breaking off her engagement with C.H. Toy in 1980 over his lack of biblical theology. She would go on and serve as a single missionary for 32 more years.

4. She embraced the precious biblical balance of the Word of God as energized by and taught by the Holy Spirit. 

“Words fail to express my love for this Holy Book, my gratitude for its author, for his love and goodness. How shall I thank him for it?”  Lottie Moon

“I feel my weakness and inability to accomplish anything without aid of the Holy Spirit… Please make special prayer for the outpouring of the Holy Spirit in Pingtu, that I may be clothed with power from on high by the indwelling of the Spirit in my heart.”  Lottie Moon 

5. She exhibited great energy and endurance in her calling.

A high calling drives out all fears.

6. She grew in her love for the Chinese people and her commitment to them.

7. She ended her life by conspicuous humility in the things of the Lord.

“The needs of these people press upon my soul, and I cannot be silent. It is grievous to think of these human souls going down to death without even one opportunity of hearing the name of Jesus. Once more I urge upon the consciences of my Christian brethren and sisters the claims of these people among whom I dwell. Here I am working alone in a city of many thousand inhabitants, with numberless villages clustered around stretching away in the illuminate distance: how many can I reach? Why are the laborers so few? WHere we have four, we should have not less than one hundred. Are these wild words? THey would not seem so were the church of God awake to her high privilege and her weighty responsibilities.”  Lottie Moon

QUESTIONS:

1. What impacted Lottie Moon as she came to faith in Christ at the age of 18?

2. She was referred to on numerous occasions as someone with a “feisty personality.” How did her feistiness serve her during almost 38 years in China?

3. How did Lottie Moon handle the inevitable sorrows and heartbreaks of life?