A Rich Young Man - Peter Waldo
Most of you probably know the story of the Rich Young Ruler who came to Jesus once and asked Him what he must do so as to have "eternal life." Our Lord told him the particular thing that He wanted him to do: "If you would be perfect," said the Lord, "go and sell what you have, and give to the poor." The Bible tells us that the young Ruler "turned away sorrowful." He was very rich, and he did not want to give up his riches in order to follow Jesus.
In this letter I want to tell you of another young rich man who heard these words that Jesus spoke, but who did what Jesus said in His Word, as he heard that word in the Bible.
The young man's name was Peter Waldo, and he lived in the city of Lyons, in France. About the year 1170 – that's more than nine hundred years ago – Peter Waldo called to see a priest in a church in Lyons. "Sir Priest," he said, "I have a question to ask. The other day a friend of mine died. Men will die, I suppose; I will die. But my friend was not ready to die. Sir Priest," he said, "tell me, what is the surest way to heaven?" the priest took down a copy of the Bible, which was written in Latin, and read some words. He then put the words into Peter Waldo's own language, and they were the words that our Lord Jesus Christ had spoken to the Rich Young Ruler many years before: "If you would be perfect, go and sell what you have, and give it to the poor, and you shall have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me." Peter Waldo thought on these words; day after day he thought on them. At last he said to the Lord, "I will do it.".
"Soon Lyons was ringing with the news," we read, "that rich Peter Waldo the merchant had sold everything he possessed and had given the money to the poor." He wasn't sad, or sorry, for now he knew that he had that "treasure in heaven" that Jesus spoke about. Like most people in his day, he wasn't able to read or write, but he began to learn, so that he could read the Bible for himself. He was disappointed, however, for he soon discovered that all the Bibles were like the one the priest had read from and written in Latin, or some difficult language. But Peter refused to be beaten, and in a little time he persuaded two of his friends, who were great scholars, to translate the Bible into the people's own language.
As Peter Waldo now began to read the words of Jesus for himself, he was struck by another saying of the Saviour's; "Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature." Gathering his friends around him, he read these words and said, "Then we must go." They had very little money, or even none at all; but they each had a copy of the words of Christ, and off they went. Some of them carried a pack on their backs which was full of items they could sell in order to buy some bread and things to live on. As they went to the lonely farms and houses they used to call out their "wares," and once the people had bought what they wanted, Peter Waldo and his friends would say, "But I have a treasure much more rare and precious than these." Then, out would come the words of the Lord, and soon the gospel was being told to people who had never heard it before.
After a time, however, the priests began to forbid the people to listen to these Waldensians, as Peter Waldo and his friends were now called. They were greatly persecuted because they believed that they must preach the gospel to everyone. Many hundreds were put to death by the priests and their armies; sometimes whole villages were burned, and every person killed or taken prisoner to the dungeons. Some of them were frozen to death in the winter snows, and some others, who had hidden in caves, were suffocated as the priests lit fires at the mouth of the caves to try and smoke them out.
In spite of all this, however the Waldensians refused to deny the Lord Jesus Christ, or to give up His Word – the Bible. We promise, "they vowed, "to maintain the Bible without admixture ... persevering in this holy religion, though it be at peril of our own life, in order that we might transmit it to our children, intact and pure, as we received it from our fathers."
Peter Waldo has now long-since died, boys and girls; but now that he has died he has gone to be with Christ in heaven because of his faith in Him; and there, of course, he will have that "treasure in heaven" that our Lord Jesus spoke about in His words. I trust that you have faith in Christ and that you serve Him in the way He asks you to.