It was 70 years ago today that five missionaries went into the jungles of Ecuador to bring the gospel to an unreached group of indigenous people. Those five ended up sacrificing their very lives for that gospel. Months later, two of the wives, including Jim Elliot’s wife Elisabeth, went back to that very tribe that had murdered their husbands and led many of them to saving faith in Christ.

Jim is famous for saying, “He is no fool who gives up what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.”

Those are the words he and his friends lived by when they risked their lives to go to places where the name of Jesus had never been heard before. But in heaven’s eyes, the sacrifice was worth it. God honored the lives of those men and their wives, and their legacy still lives on.

Every time someone goes to a part of the world where the gospel has not gone before, we honor their legacy. Every time a missionary couple or family goes to a country where missionaries are not allowed, their legacy lives on. Whenever people are willing to risk everything to share the gospel where Christianity is illegal and converting means instant death, the legacy of the Elliots, the Flemings, The Saints, the McCullys, and Youderians is passed on to a new generation.

The goal is that everyone must know. Heaven will be filled with people from every tongue, tribe, and nation because people like Jim and Nate and the rest weren’t content to stay in this country and be comfortable but traded convenience for obedience and were able to hear the words of Jesus, “Well, done, good and faithful servants.”