It was 151 years ago this morning, that the traveling companions of David Livingstone entered his tent to find that Livingstone had knelt to pray never rise from his knees. Several years ago, Austin and I had the opportunity to visit the spot where David Livingstone died in 1873.
David Livingstone traversed Africa, preaching the gospel and documenting the interior of a continent virtually unknown to the outside world. Livingstone was deeply committed to the Lord Jesus Christ and thus to the proclamation of the glorious gospel of Christ.
“Remember us in your prayers that we grow not weary in well doing. It is hard to work for years with pure motives and all the time be looked upon by most of those to whom our lives are devoted as having some sinister object in view. Disinterested labor — benevolence — is so out of their line of thought that many look upon us as having some ulterior object in view, but He who died for us, and Whom we ought to copy, did more for us than we can do for anyone else. He endured the contradiction of sinners. We should have the grace to follow in His steps.”
Livingstone’s brother Charles wrote to him from America, urging him to come to that land of opportunity. David replied: “I am a missionary, heart and soul. God had an only Son, and He was a missionary and a physician. I am a poor, poor imitation of Him, or wish to be. In this service, I hope to live; in it, I wish to die!”
Though there were few conversions in direct response to his gospel ministry, Livingstone seemed never to tire of proclaiming the gospel from village to village.
“I am immortal till my work is accomplished,” he wrote. “And although I see few results, future missionaries will see conversions following every sermon. May they not forget the pioneers who worked in the thick gloom with few rays to cheer, except such as flow from faith in the precious promises of God’s Word.”
He brought to the outside world the wonders of places in Zambia, like Victoria Falls, Lake Tanganyika, and Lake Bangweulu.
On his 59th birthday, March 19, 1872, Livingstone wrote, “My birthday! My Jesus, my King, my Life, my All. I again dedicate my whole self to Thee.” A little over a year later, his body wracked with pain and constant fever, David Livingstone knelt in prayer beside his cot, placed his face in his hands, and entered into the presence of His Lord. The date was May 1, 1873, in Chief Chitambo’s Village on the southern shore of Lake Bangweulu in what is now Zambia.
Livingstone’s two friends, Chumi and Susa, entered the tent in the early morning to find that he had passed away. Livingstone’s heart was buried under a tree near the spot where he died. His body was carefully preserved and wrapped, then carried on a 1000-mile, seven-month journey to the east coast of Africa, where it was delivered to the British Consulate. Livingstone was buried in Westminster Abby, London, on April 18, 1874.
David Livingstone’s Philosophy of Life & Ministry:
- In relation to his family
On 5/51852 David Livingstone wrote to his wife Mary whom he had put on a ship to return to England. They agreed together that it would be best for David to penetrate the interior without his family and after two year he was to join them in England.
“Dearest Mary, How I miss you now, and the dear children! My heart yearns incessantly over you… I feel as if I would treat you all much more tenderly and lovingly than ever… Let us do our duty to our Saviour, and we shall meet again. I wish that time were now… I never show all my feelings; but I can say truly, my dearest, that I loved you when I married you, and the longer I lived with you, I loved you the better… Let us do our duty to Christ and He will bring us through the world with honour and usefulness. He is our refuge and high tower; let us trust in Him at all times, and in all circumstances. Love Him more and more, and diffuse His love among the children. Take them all round you, and kiss them for me. Tell them I have left them for the love of Jesus, and that they must love Him too, and to avoid sin, for that displeases Jesus.”
- In relation to his life
On 12/28/1852 David Livingstone wrote: “Am I on my way to die in Sibituane’s country? Have I seen the last of my wife and children? The breaking up of all my connections with earth, leaving this fair and beautiful world and yet knowing so little of it? O Jesus, fill me with Thy love now, and I beseech Thee accept me and use me a little for Thy glory. I have done nothing for Thee yet, and I would like to do something. O do, do I beseech Thee, accept me and my service and take Thou all the glory…”
On 4/4/1853: “If God has accepted my service then my life is charmed till my work is done. And though I pass through many dangers unscathed while working the work given me to do… Death is a glorious event to one going to Jesus… There is something sublime in passing into the second stage of our immortal lives if washed from our sins.”
- In relation to possessions
On 5/22/1853: “I will place no value on anything I have or may possess, except in relation to the Kingdom of Christ. If anything will advance the interests of that Kingdom, it shall be given away or kept only in reference to whether giving or keeping will most promote the glory of Him to whom I owe all my hopes in time and eternity. May the grace and strength sufficient to enable me to adhere faithfully to this resolution be imparted to me, so that in truth, not in name only, all my interests and those of my children may be identified with His cause.”
- On pioneer missions
On 6/18/1853: “Discoveries and inventions are cumulative. Another century must present a totally different aspect from the present. And when we view the state of the world and its advancing energies in the light afforded by childlike or call it childish faith, we see the earth filling with the knowledge of the Lord, aye all nations seeing His glory and bowing before Him whose right it is to reign. Our work and its fruits are cumulative. We work towards another state of things. Future missionaries will be rewarded by conversions for every sermon. We are their pioneers and helpers. Let them not forget the watchmen of the night, we how worked when all was gloom and no evidence of success in the way of conversion cheered our path. They will doubtless have more light than we, but we served our Master earnestly and proclaimed the same gospel as they will do.”
- On the lack of ministry results
On 9/25/1853: “A quiet audience today. The seed being sown, the least of all seeds now, but it will grow a mighty tree. It is as if it were a small stone cut out of a mountain, but it will fill the whole earth. He that believeth shall not make haste. Surely if God can bear with hardened impenitent sinners for 30, 30 or 50 years, waiting to be gracious, we may take it for granted that His is the best way. He could destroy His enemies, but He waits to be gracious. To become irritated with their stubbornness and hardness of heart is ungodlike.”
- On ill-health
9/24/1853: “I have not, I am sorry to confess, discovered a healthy locality. The whole of the country of Sebituane is unhealthy… I am at loss what to do, but will not give up the case as hopeless. Shame upon us, if we are to be outdone by slave traders.”
“We must brave the fever (malaria). It is God not the Devil, that rules our destiny.”
“The conversion of a few, however valuable their souls my be, cannot be put in the scale against the knowledge of the truth spread over the whole country. In this I do and will exult. As in India, we are doomed to perpetual disappointment, but the knowledge of Christ spreads over the masses. We are like voices crying in the wilderness. We prepare the way for a glorious future in which missionaries telling the same tale of love will convert by every sermon. I am trying now to establish the Lord’s Kingdom in a region wider by far than Scotland. Fever seems to forbid, but I shall work for the glory of Christ’s kingdom, fever or no fever.”
David Livingstone, like so many missionaries of his generation had a deep sense of God’s call upon his life to serve as a missionary. He believed in a sovereign God who would keep him, and would bring men to saving faith in Christ. May we follow his example of faith, sacrifice, and labor for the proclamation of the Gospel in Africa.
Zambia Hunt 
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