REVOLUTION IN WORLD MISSIONS (PART III)

Wh y S h o u l d I Ma k e Wa v e s ?
R e v o l u t i o n i n Wo r l d Mi s s i o n s
not much importance was attached to the buildings, while considerable
emphasis was placed on the institutions’ role in the
proclamation of the Gospel. Ten or 15 years ago you could go
over the same ground and in many places find much larger and
finer institutions on those original sites, but compared with the
earlier years, far fewer converts. And by today many of those
splendid schools and colleges have become purely educational
centers, lacking in any truly evangelistic motive at all, while to
an almost equal extent, many of the hospitals exist now solely
as places merely of physical and no longer spiritual healing.
The men who initiated them had, by their close walk with God,
held those institutions steadfastly into His purpose; but when
they passed away, the institutions themselves quickly gravitated
toward worldly standards and goals, and in doing so classified
themselves as “things of the world.” We should not be surprised
that this is so.
Nee continues to expand on the theme, this time addressing
the problem of emergency relief efforts for the suffering:
In the early chapters of the Acts we read how a contingency arose
which led the Church to institute relief for the poorer saints. That
urgent institution of social service was clearly blessed of God,
but it was of a temporary nature. Do you exclaim, “How good if
it had continued?” Only one who does not know God would say
that. Had those relief measures been prolonged indefinitely they
would certainly have veered in the direction of the world, once
the spiritual influence at work in their inception was removed.
It is inevitable.
For there is a distinction between the Church of God’s building,
on the one hand, and on the other, those valuable social
and charitable by-products that are thrown off by it from time to
time through the faith and vision of its members. The latter, for
all their origin in spiritual vision, possess in themselves a power
of independent survival which the Church of God does not have.
They are works which the faith of God’s children may initiate
and pioneer, but which once the way has been shown and the
professional standard set, can be readily sustained or imitated by
men of the world quite apart from that faith.
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The Church of God, let me repeat, never ceases to be dependent
upon the life of God for its maintenance.2
The trouble with the social gospel, even when it is clothed
in religious garb and operating within Christian institutions, is
that it seeks to fight what is basically a spiritual warfare with
weapons of the flesh.
Our battle is not against flesh and blood or symptoms of
sin like poverty and sickness. It is against Lucifer and countless
demons who struggle day and night to take human souls into a
Christless eternity.
As much as we want to see hundreds and thousands of new
missionaries go into all the dark places, if they don’t know what
they are there to do, the result will be fatal. We must send soldiers
into battle with the right weapons and understanding of
the enemy’s tactics.
If we intend to answer man’s greatest problem—his separation
from the eternal God—with rice handouts, then we are
throwing a drowning man a board instead of helping him out
of the water.
A spiritual battle fought with spiritual weapons will produce
eternal victories. This is why we insist upon restoring a right balance
to Gospel outreach. The accent must first and always be on
evangelism and discipleship.
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Twelve
Good Works and the Gospel
To keep Christian missions off balance, Satan has woven a
masterful web of deceit and lies. He has invented a whole system
of appealing half-truths to confuse the Church and ensure
that millions will go to hell without ever receiving the Gospel.
Here are a few of his more common inventions:
One, how can we preach the Gospel to a man with an empty stomach?
A man’s stomach has nothing to do with his heart’s condition
of being a rebel against the holy God. A rich American on
Fifth Avenue in New York City or a poor beggar on the streets
of Mumbai (Bombay) are both rebels against God Almighty, according
to the Bible. The result of this lie is the fact that, during
the past 100 years, the majority of mission money has been
invested in social work. I am not saying we should not care for
the poor and needy. The issue I am taking to task is losing our
primary focus of preaching the Gospel.
Two, social work—meeting only the physical needs of man—is mission
work; in fact, it is equal to preaching. Luke 16:19–25 tells us
the pitiful story of the rich man and Lazarus. Of what benefit
were the possessions of the rich man? He could not pay his way
out of hell. His riches could not comfort him. The rich man
had lost everything, including his soul. What about Lazarus? He
didn’t have any possessions to lose, but he had made preparations
for his soul. What was more important during their time
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on earth? Was it the care for the “body temple” or the immortal
soul? “For what is a man advantaged, if he gain the whole world,
and lose himself, or be cast away?” (Luke 9:25).
It is a crime against lost humanity to go in the name of Christ
and missions just to do social work yet neglect calling men to
repent—to give up their idols and rebellion—and follow Christ
with all their hearts.
Three, they will not listen to the Gospel unless we offer them something
else first. I have sat on the streets of Mumbai with beggars—
poor men who very soon would die. In sharing the Gospel with
many of them, I told them I had no material goods to give them,
but I came to offer eternal life. I began to share the love of Jesus
who died for their souls, about the many mansions in my
Father’s house (John 14:2) and the fact that they can go there to
hunger and thirst no more. The Lord Jesus will wipe away every
tear from their eyes, I said. They shall no longer be in any debt.
There shall no longer be any mourning, crying or pain (Revelation
7:16, 21:4).
What a joy it was to see some of them opening their hearts
after hearing about the forgiveness of sin they can find in Jesus!
That is exactly what the Bible teaches in Romans 10:17, “So then
faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.”
Substituting a bowl of rice for the Holy Spirit and the Word
of God will never save a soul and will rarely change the attitude
of a man’s heart. We will not even begin to make a dent in the
kingdom of darkness until we lift up Christ with all the authority,
power and revelation that is given to us in the Bible.
In few countries is the failure of Christian humanism more
apparent than in Thailand. There, after 150 years of missionaries
showing marvelous social compassion, Christians still make up
only two percent of the entire population.1
Self-sacrificing missionaries probably have done more to
modernize the country than any other single force. Thailand
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owes to missionaries its widespread literacy, first printing press,
first university, first hospital, first doctor and almost every other
benefit of education and science. In every area, including trade
and diplomacy, Christian missionaries put the needs of the host
nation first and helped usher in the 20th century. Meanwhile,
millions have slipped into eternity without the Lord. They died
more educated, better governed and healthier—but they died
without Christ and are bound for hell.
What went wrong? Were these missionaries not dedicated
enough? Were their doctrines unscriptural? Perhaps they did
not believe in eternal hell or eternal heaven. Did they lack Bible
training, or did they just not go out to preach to the lost? Did
they shift their priorities from being interested in saving souls to
relieving human suffering? I know now it was probably a little
of all of these things.
While I was seeking answers to these questions, I met poor,
often minimally educated, native brothers involved in Gospel
work in pioneer areas. They had nothing material to offer the
people to whom they preached—no agricultural training and
no medical relief or school program. But hundreds of souls
were saved, and in a few years, a number of churches were established.
What were these brothers doing right to achieve such results,
while the others with many more advantages had failed?
The answer lies in our basic understanding of what mission
work is all about. There is nothing wrong with charitable acts—
but they are not to be confused with preaching the Gospel. Feeding
programs can save a man dying from hunger. Medical aid can
prolong life and fight disease. Housing projects can make this
temporary life more comfortable—but only the Gospel of Jesus
Christ can save a soul from a life of sin and an eternity in hell!
To look into the sad eyes of a hungry child or see the wasted
life of a drug addict is to see the evidence of Satan’s hold on
this world. He is the ultimate enemy of mankind, and he will
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do everything within his considerable power to kill and destroy
people. But to try to fight this terrible enemy with only physical
weapons is like fighting tanks with stones.
When commerce had been established with the Fiji Islanders, a
merchant who was an atheist and skeptic landed on the island to
do business. He was talking to the Fijian chief and noticed a Bible
and some other paraphernalia of religion around the house.
“What a shame,” he said, “that you have listened to this foolish
nonsense of the missionaries.”
The chief replied, “Do you see the large white stone over
there? That is a stone where just a few years ago we used to
smash the heads of our victims to get at their brains. Do you see
that large oven over there? That is the oven where just a few years
ago we used to bake the bodies of our victims before we feasted
upon them. Had we not listened to what you call the nonsense
of those missionaries, I assure you that your head would already
be smashed on that rock and your body would be baking in that
oven.”
There is no record of the merchant’s response to that explanation
of the importance of the Gospel of Christ.
When God changes the heart and spirit, the physical changes
also. If you want to meet the needs of the poor in this world,
there is no better place to start than by preaching the Gospel.
It has done more to lift up the downtrodden, the hungry and
the needy than all the social programs ever imagined by secular
humanists.
These terrible words of Jesus should haunt our souls: “Ye
compass sea and land to make one proselyte, and when he is
made, ye make him twofold more the child of hell than yourselves”
(Matthew 23:15). A.W. Tozer said it well in his book Of
God and Man: “To spread an effete, degenerate brand of Christianity
to pagan lands is not to fulfill the commandment of Christ
or discharge our obligation to the heathen.”2
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Just before China was taken over by the communists, one
communist officer made a revealing statement to a missionary,
John Meadows: “You missionaries have been in China for over
a hundred years, but you have not won China to your cause.
You lament the fact that there are uncounted millions who have
never heard the name of your God. Nor do they know anything
of your Christianity. But we communists have been in China
less than 10 years, and there is not a Chinese who does not
know . . . has not heard the name of Stalin . . . or something of
communism. . . . We have filled China with our doctrine.
“Now let me tell you why you have failed and we have
succeeded,” the officer continued. “You have tried to win the
attention of masses by building churches, missions, mission
hospitals, schools and what not. But we communists have
printed our message and spread our literature all over China.
Someday we will drive you missionaries out of our country, and
we will do it by the means of the printed page.”
Today, of course, John Meadows is out of China. The communists
were true to their word. They won China and drove out
the missionaries. Indeed, what missionaries failed to do in 100
years, the communists did in 10. One Christian leader said that
if the Church had spent as much time on preaching the Gospel
as it did on hospitals, orphanages, schools and rest homes—
needful though they were—the Bamboo Curtain would never
have existed.
The tragedy of China is being repeated today in other countries.
When we allow a mission activity to focus only on the
physical needs of man without the correct spiritual balance, we
are participating in a program that ultimately will fail.
However, this does not mean that we must not be involved
in compassion-type ministries that reach out to the poor, needy
and hurting people all around us. In the next chapter, I will
explain this further—our responsibility to the poor, suffering
needy in our generation.
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Thi r teen
Hope Has Many Names
The question is, what does the Bible say about social justice
and compassion? What is the Church’s role in these matters?
Clearly, by simply looking at Christ’s example of how He
lived on this earth, we are not to neglect the needs of suffering
humanity.
When Jesus came, He not only fed people’s souls with the
truths of heaven and Him as the Bread of Life, but He filled their
stomachs with fish and bread and wine as well.
He opened not only the eyes of people’s hearts to see the
truth, but also their physical eyes, restoring their sight so they
could see the world around them.
He strengthened the faith of the weak, while strengthening
the legs of the lame.
He who came to breathe eternal life into a valley of dry, dead
souls also breathed life into the widow’s son, raising him up
once more (see Luke 7:11–15).
It was not one or the other—it was both, and both for the
glory of God.
This example of ministry carries all throughout the Bible.
Look back through the Old Testament and you will see a strong
emphasis placed on compassion toward the needy and social
justice for the downtrodden and poor. God demanded the care
and protection of all those who were oppressed (see Leviticus
19:18; Isaiah 1:17, 58:10–11), and some of the most terrible
judgment fell upon the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah for the
way that they exploited the poor and needy.
In Matthew 22:38–40, Jesus clearly marked the Christian’s
social responsibility when He said that loving God is the first
and greatest commandment and “the second is like unto it,
Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments
hang all the law and the prophets” (emphasis mine).
All the Law and Prophets are summed up in both—loving
God and loving others. It was not one or the other—but again
both, for the glory of God.
We cannot say we love others if we ignore their spiritual
needs. Just the same, we cannot say we love others if we ignore
their physical needs. Jesus came for both.
Indeed, Jesus has shown how the physical suffering of
humanity brought many to call upon Him as the Savior of their
soul.
In John 20:30–31 we are told, “Many other signs truly did
Jesus in the presence of his disciples . . . that ye might believe
that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye
might have life through his name.” The Gospel shows that it
was the sick, the demon possessed, the hungry and the poor
who came to Jesus and whose lives were changed by His healing
touch. Jesus Himself declared that He had come to preach
the Good News to the poor, the prisoners, the blind and the
oppressed (see Luke 4:18).
Through the many who were healed from horrible diseases
and set free from satanic bondage, Jesus showed Himself as the
only One able to save their souls from sin and death. The mercy
ministries Jesus did were not an end in themselves, but were
rather a means. And it is the same today.
Yet as I mentioned in the previous chapter, we must not misunderstand
(or replace) evangelism for social action. The Great
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Commission is not a mandate for political liberation.
Many who are familiar with the ministry of Gospel for Asia
know that first and foremost we are committed to planting
churches and making new disciples. Our concern has always
been evangelism and church planting, never to be replaced by
social work alone.
The salvation of souls and making of disciples have been
our aim and goal in all things, the ruler by which all ministry
opportunities are measured. But this in no way means that we
do not care about the physical suffering of those to whom we
seek to minister.
Our spirits, which are eternal and infinitely more precious
than the whole physical world, are contained in perishable,
physical bodies. And throughout the Scripture, we see that God
used the felt needs of the body to draw people to Himself. Truly,
the needs of suffering men, women and children in this world
are great—especially in the 10/40 Window.
Calcutta alone is home to more than 100,000 street children
who know neither mother nor father, love nor care. They are
not just numbers or statistics—they are real children. Though
nameless and faceless on the streets where they live, each one
was created with love and is known by God.
It is doubtful they’ve ever held a toothbrush or a bar of soap;
they’ve never eaten an ice-cream cone or cradled a doll. The
child laborers of South Asia toil in fireworks, carpet and match
factories; quarries and coal mines; rice fields, tea plantations
and pastures. Because they are exposed to dust, toxic fumes
and pesticides, their health is compromised; their bodies are
crippled from carrying heavy weights. Some are bonded laborers,
enslaved to their tasks by family poverty.
According to the Human Rights Watch, this is life for 60 to
115 million children in South Asia. In the Indian state of Tamil
Nadu, nine-year-old Lakshmi works in a factory as a cigarette
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roller. She tells her sister’s story, giving us a glimpse into their
world:
My sister is ten years old. Every morning at seven she goes to the
bonded labor man, and every night at nine she comes home. He
treats her badly; he hits her if he thinks she is working slowly or
if she talks to the other children, he yells at her, he comes looking
for her if she is sick and cannot go to work. I feel this is very
difficult for her.
I don’t care about school or playing. I don’t care about any
of that. All I want is to bring my sister home from the bonded
labor man. For 600 rupees I can bring her home—that is our
only chance to get her back.
We don’t have 600 rupees . . . we will never have 600 rupees
[the equivalent of U.S.$14].1
These whom Christ thought of while dying on the cross must
not be forgotten by His Body today. These for whom Christ suffered
then must not be forsaken by us, His hands and feet, now.
In the midst of advancing world evangelism, we cannot hold
back the healing embrace with which to care and provide for
these who are precious in the sight of God.
I’m particularly talking about the Dalits, also known as the
“Untouchables”—
the lowest caste of Hinduism. For 3,000
years, hundreds of millions of India’s Untouchables have suffered
oppression, slavery and countless atrocities. They are
trapped in a caste system that denies them adequate education,
safe drinking water, decent-paying jobs and the right to own
land or a home. Segregated and oppressed, Dalits are frequently
the victims of violent crime.
And just as the need is great, so is the possibility for Christ’s
power and love to be known.
In recent years, the door to these possibilities has been flung
wide open. Among Dalits and other low-caste groups that face
similar repressive treatment, there has been a growing desire for
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freedom. Leaders representing approximately 700 million of
these people have come forth demanding justice and freedom
from caste slavery and persecution.
The turning point came on November 4, 2001, when tens of
thousands of Dalits gathered for one of the most historic meetings
of the 21st century, publicly declaring their desire to “quit
Hinduism” and follow a faith of their own choosing.
Since that event, the Lord has led Gospel for Asia to tangibly
express His love to Dalit, low-caste and tribal families in a
unique way: by reaching out to their children.
Bridge of Hope, our children’s outreach program, is designed
to rescue thousands of children in Asia from a life of poverty
and hopelessness by giving them an education and introducing
them to the love of God. Through this effort, entire communities
are transformed.
Today more than 45,000 children are enrolled in hundreds of
Bridge of Hope centers, and the program continues to grow. One
of these centers is located in the village of Pastor Samuel Jagat.
Samuel had no idea that the group of 35 Dalit and low-caste
children attending would make such a remarkable difference
in his ministry. But one little first-grade boy in his center was
about to show him otherwise.
Nibun’s mother had been ill with malaria for a long time.
Doctors, priests and sorcerers could not find a cure, and her
death seemed inevitable.
But Nibun had a little seed of hope in his heart—God’s Word.
Bible stories were a regular part of the Bridge of Hope curriculum
at the center, and like many other children, Nibun would
come home and narrate every story he had heard to his family.
One night, as Nibun and his family sat together beside his
mother’s bed, he told them how Jesus raised a widow’s son from
the dead. It became a turning point in all their lives.
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“That night, after hearing this story,” Nibun’s father later
shared, “I could not sleep. This story was burning in my heart
again and again.”
Nibun’s father sought out Samuel the next morning. After
hearing more about Jesus and His offer of salvation, the man
asked the pastor to come and pray for his wife. “I believe Jesus
will heal my wife just as He did the widow’s son,” he affirmed.
Nibun’s mother, though weak in body, shared the same confidence:
“My son talks about Jesus many times in our home. I
believe Jesus will heal me.”
Pastor Samuel laid hands on the dying woman and prayed
for the Lord to raise her up; then he returned to his home.
The next day he saw Nibun and asked how his mother was
doing.
“My mommy is walking around,” he reported happily, “and
this morning she prepared breakfast for us!”
When Samuel arrived at Nibun’s house, he found a family
transformed both physically and spiritually. They had all made
a decision to follow Christ.
This openness to the Gospel among the Dalit people and
other low-caste groups marks an unparalleled opportunity to
reach some of the most unreached on earth today—up to 700
million souls. Bridge of Hope provides the means by which we
can cross over to these millions and accomplish the task.
Nibun’s father expresses it this way: “I thank God for this
center and pray that He will use it to bring His light into many
homes, just as He has done in our family.”
From the beginning of our ministry, we always used every
opportunity to share the love and hope found in Jesus, especially
in the most poor and needy communities. This has not
changed. Since our beginning, we’ve had special ministries
among leper colonies and slums, with dozens of churches having
been planted among these needy people. So when we heard
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right: for too many Dalit
children in India, the innocence
of childhood is lost in poverty,
child labor and exploitation. The
problem of illiteracy—90 percent
in some areas—leaves little room
for hope.
below : eag er to learn and
full of spirit, Dalit children thrive
at GFA Bridge of Hope centers like
this one, where they get a good
education and come to know that
Jesus loves them.
above: Narayan Sharma (far right) is director of Gospel for Asia’s work in
Nepal. Over the years, GFA has trained dedicated Nepali brothers and sisters,
now winning the lost in some of the most difficult regions of this mountainous
kingdom.
White dots on the map represent churches they have planted.
Below : Our goal is to establish local churches in unreached regions of Asia.
This church is the fruit of one missionary’s labors and was planted within his first
year on the mission field. Depending upon the cost of land and its location, it takes
an average of $11,000 to build a church that can seat 300 people.
right: the majority of
yo ung people who attend
GFA’s Bible colleges come
with a commitment to go to
the most unreached areas to
preach the Gospel. Gospel for
Asia is committed to help these
young people become firmly
grounded in the Word of God
before they are sent out.
Below : their threeyear
intensive training
is over, and now these
young people are sent out to
plant churches in completely
unreached places. “If you are
given the privilege to be a
martyr for the Lord’s sake,”
they are told, “remember that
heaven is a much better place.
He has promised never to leave
or forsake you.”
Gospel for Asia’s burden is to train and equip young
people to go and plant churches among the unreached villages of
the Indian subcontinent. Eighty percent of the graduates pictured
here are on the mission field today, winning lost souls to Christ.
Every GFA Bible college
student learns the inductive
Bible study method. Before
graduation, students must
successfully demonstrate their
ability to study and communicate
God’s Word using this
method. This ensures that as
churches are planted, new believers
will be firmly grounded
in biblical truth.
the desperate cry for help from the Dalits, we were eager to
reach out to help them.
The most tangible way we saw to do this was to help provide
an education for their children, which often equals freedom in
many of these nations.
In fact, one of the reasons why so many children and their
families stay enslaved as bond-laborers is the simple fact that
they cannot read the contract made between them and their
loaner. Because of illiteracy, they are blindly taken advantage of
and cheated out of not just money and time, but their futures.
Yet Bridge of Hope is not just a social effort whose purpose
and end is education. Not at all. For it is the love of Christ that
constrains us to reach out in this way, knowing that each child
and his family are precious in the sight of God. Bridge of Hope
is the means by which we communicate the Gospel and see millions
cross over from death to life.
Let me tell you an experience I had in the beginning stages
of this potential ministry to the Dalits that changed my thinking
and propelled us to move forward with the Bridge of Hope
program.
It was while sleeping in the early hours of the morning that I
had a dream. I was standing in front of a vast wheat field, looking
out upon a harvest that was clearly ripe. I stood there for a
while, overwhelmed at the size of the harvest. The field continued
for what seemed like millions of endless acres for as far as
the eye could see.
As I stood there watching the golden wheat sway in the
breeze, I got this sudden understanding that I was looking out
upon the harvest that Jesus spoke of in John 4 and Matthew 9. It
was as though the Lord was telling me that this harvest was free
for the taking, much as Psalm 2 tells us to ask for the nations
and He will give them to us.
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Overcome with excitement at seeing so much harvest ready for
reaping and knowing that this represented millions upon millions
of souls being rescued from an eternity in hell, I began to
jump up and down. With all my might, I ran toward the field. But
as I drew nearer, I was stopped. I couldn’t go any farther. There
was a wide, gaping river in between the harvest and myself, a river
so deep and raging that I dared not step closer or try to cross. I
had not seen it from where I stood before, but now I did.
My heart broke. I was only able to look at the harvest, unable
to embrace it. I stood there weeping, feeling so helpless and full
of despair.
All of a sudden there appeared before me a bridge reaching
from one side of the vast river to the other. It was not a narrow
bridge but was very broad and so huge.
As I watched, the bridge became completely filled with little
children from all over Asia—poor, destitute Dalit children,
like those I’d seen on the streets of Bombay, Calcutta, Dakar,
Katmandu and other Asian cities.
Then it was as though someone spoke to me and said, “If you
want to have this harvest, it’s all yours. But this is the bridge that
you must walk on to get it.”
I woke up from my dream and realized that the Lord was
speaking to me about something so significant: that if we
follow His instruction, we will see these endless millions of
Untouchables come to know Him. And our ministry to the
children will be the bridge to reach them.
I shared this dream with my colleagues, and we realized that
God had given us this call to bring hope to the children of Asia.
Through Bridge of Hope, children would be taught about the Lord
Jesus Christ and experience His love, and as a result, their communities
and families would come to know the Lord.
Miraculously, this has been happening. God has been faithful
to carry out the plans that He placed in our hearts.
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When GFA missionaries first went into communities in one part
of North India to preach the Gospel, they were strongly opposed.
But when our brothers began to set up Bridge of Hope centers for
the children, they were welcomed in a new light.
Within time, 50 Bridge of Hope programs were started in that
region. Less than a year later, 37 churches were planted. And it all
began with the little children learning about Jesus, going home
and telling their parents; then miracle after miracle began to
transpire!
The Lord willing, as we move forward with a deep conviction
to see the Gospel preached and the Great Commission truly fulfilled,
we will see literally millions come to know the Lord. As we
respond to their physical needs and do what we can in the name
of Jesus, they will hear the Good News of forgiveness from sin and
redemption through the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus
Christ and entire communities will be blessed.
The true fulfillment of the Great Commission must be at the heart
of every endeavor that ministers to the felt needs of humanity. When
this remains the element carrying the work forward, the love of Christ
is shown in a tangible way that reaches down deep in the hearts of
men and women, drawing them to the Savior of their souls.
When all is said and done, the bottom line must be “the poor
have the gospel preached to them” (Matthew 11:5). If that is not
done, we have failed.
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Four teen
The Need for Revolution
If we could spend only one minute in the flames and torment
of hell, we would see how unloving the so-called “gospel” is
that prevails in much of missions today.
Theology, which is only a fancy word for what we believe,
makes all the difference on the mission field. When we go to
the book of Acts, we find the disciples totally convinced about
the lostness of man without Christ. Not even persecution could
stop them from calling people everywhere to repent and turn
to Christ.
Paul cries out in Romans 10:9–15 for the urgency of preaching
Christ. In his day, the social and economic problems in cities
like Corinth and Ephesus and other places were the same or
worse than those we face today. Yet the apostles did not set out
to establish social relief centers, hospitals or educational institutions.
Paul declared in 1 Corinthians 2:1–2, “When I came to
you, . . . I determined not to know any thing among you, save
Jesus Christ, and him crucified.”
Paul recognized that Jesus Christ was the ultimate answer to
all man’s problems. Although he was concerned about the poor
saints, you cannot miss the primary emphasis of his life and
message.
I have spoken in churches that had millions of dollars
invested in buildings—churches with pastors known as excellent
Bible teachers with a heart of love for people. Yet I have
discovered that many of them have absolutely no missionary
program of any kind.
In preaching to one of these churches, I made the following
statement: “While you claim to be evangelicals and pour time
and life into learning more and more biblical truths, in all honesty,
I do not think you believe the Bible.”
My listeners were shocked. But I continued.
“If you believed the Bible you say you believe, the very knowledge
there is a real place called hell—where millions will go
and spend eternity if they die without Christ—would make you
the most desperate people in the world to give up everything
you have to keep missions and reaching the lost as your top
priority.”
The problem with this congregation, as with many today, is
that they did not believe in hell.
C.S. Lewis, that great British defender of the faith, wrote,
“There is no doctrine which I would more willingly remove
from Christianity than this [hell]. I would pay any price to be
able to say truthfully, ‘All will be saved.’ ”1
But Lewis, like us, realized that was neither truthful nor
within his power to change.
Jesus Himself often spoke of hell and coming judgment. The
Bible calls it the place of unquenchable fire, where the worms
that eat the flesh don’t die—a place of outer darkness where
there is eternal weeping and gnashing of teeth. These and hundreds
of other verses tell of a real place where lost men will
spend eternity if they die without Jesus Christ.
Only a very few believers seem to have integrated the reality of
hell into their lifestyle. In fact, it is difficult to feel that our friends
who do not know Jesus really are destined to eternal hell.
Yet as I stressed in Chapter 12, many Christians hold within
their hearts the idea that, somehow or other, ways of redemp-
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tion are available to those who have not heard. The Bible does
not give us a shred of hope for such a belief. It states clearly that
it is “appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment”
(Hebrews 9:27). There is no way out of death, hell, sin
and the grave except Jesus Christ. He said, “I am the way, the
truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me”
(John 14:6).
How different our churches would be if we started to live by
the true revelation of the Word of God about hell. Instead, local
churches and missions, both in the West and in the East, have
been infected with death and continue to pass out death to the
millions of lost souls who surround us.
The Church Jesus called out of this world to be separated
unto Himself has, to a great extent, forgotten her reason for
existence. Her loss of balance is seen in the current absence of
holiness, spiritual reality and concern for the lost. Substituted
for the life she once knew are teaching and reaching for prosperity,
pleasure, politics and social involvement.
“Evangelical Christianity,” commented Tozer prophetically
before his death, “is now tragically below the New Testament
standard. Worldliness is an accepted fact of our way of life. Our
religious mood is social instead of spiritual.”
The further our leaders wander from the Lord, the more they
turn to the ways of the world. One church in Dallas spent several
million dollars to construct a gymnasium “to keep our young
people interested in church.” Many churches have become like
secular clubs with softball teams, golf lessons, schools and exercise
classes to keep people coming to their buildings and giving
them their tithes. Some churches have gone so far from the Lord
that they sponsor yoga and meditation courses—Western adaptations
of Hindu religious exercises.
If this is what is considered mission outreach at home, is
it any wonder the same churches fall prey to the seductive
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philosophy of Christian humanists when planning overseas
missionary work?
Real Christian missions always is aware there is eternal hell to
shun and heaven to gain. We need to restore the balanced vision
General William Booth had when he started the Salvation Army.
He had an unbelievable compassion for winning lost souls to
Christ. His own words tell the story of what he envisioned for the
movement: “Go for souls, and go for the worst.”
What would Jesus do if He walked into our churches today?
I am afraid He would not be able to say to us: “You have kept
the faith, you have run the race without turning left or right, and
you have obeyed My command to reach this world.” I believe
He would go out to look for a whip, because we have made His
Father’s house a den of robbers. If that is so, then we must recognize
that the hour is too desperate for us to continue to deceive
ourselves. We are past the point of revival or reformation. If this
Gospel is to be preached in all the world in our lifetime, we must
have a Christian, heaven-sent revolution.
But before revolution can come, we must recognize the need
for one. We are like a lost man looking at a road map. Before we
can choose the right road that takes us to our destination, we
must determine where we went wrong, go back to that point and
start over. So my cry to the Body of Christ is simple: Turn back to
the true Gospel road. We need to preach again the whole counsel
of God. Our priority must again be placed on calling men to
repentance and snatching them from hell-fire.
Time is short. If we are not willing to plead in prayer for a
mission revolution—and let it start in our own personal lives,
homes and churches—we will lose this generation to Satan.
We can go trading souls for bodies, or we can make a difference
by sponsoring Bible-believing native missionaries overseas.
Several years ago, 40 Indian villages, once considered
Christian, turned back to Hinduism. Could it be that whole vil-
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lages that had experienced the liberating Gospel of Jesus Christ
would turn back into the bondage of Satan?
No. These villages were called “Christian” only because they
had been “converted” by missionaries who used hospitals, material
goods and other incentives to attract them to Christianity.
But when the material rewards were reduced—or when other
competing movements offered similar benefits—these converts
reverted to their old cultural ways. In missionary terms, they
were “rice Christians.”
When “rice” was offered, they changed their names and their
religions, responding to the “rice.” But they never understood
the true Gospel of the Bible. After all the effort, these people
were as lost as ever. But now they were even worse off—they
were presented a completely wrong picture of what it means
and what it takes to follow Christ.
Could that be what we fear in North America: no gyms—no
softball teams—no converts?
The lesson from the mission field is that meeting physical
needs alone does not get people to follow God. Whether hungry
or full, rich or poor, human beings remain in rebellion against
God without the power of the Gospel.
Unless we return to the biblical balance—to the Gospel
of Jesus as He proclaimed it—we’ll never be able to put the
accent where it rightly belongs in the outreach mission of the
Church.
Jesus was compassionate to human beings as total persons.
He did all He could to help them, but He never forgot the main
purpose of His earthly mission: to reconcile men to God, to die
for sinners and redeem their souls from hell. Jesus cared for the
spiritual side of man first, then the body.
This is illustrated clearly in Matthew 9:2–7 when He first forgave
the sins of the paralytic, then healed his body.
In John 6:1–13, Jesus miraculously fed 5,000 hungry men
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plus women and children. He fed them after He preached, not
before to attract their attention.
Later, in verse 26, we find that these people followed Jesus not
because of His teachings or who He was, but because He had fed
them. They even tried to make Him king for the wrong reason.
Seeing the danger of their spiritual misunderstanding, Jesus withdrew
from them. He didn’t want fans but disciples.
The apostles did not fear to tell the beggar that “Silver and
gold have I none; but such as I have give I thee . . . ” (Acts
3:6). Then they preached the Gospel.
I have had similar experiences all across India. I have yet to
meet a person who was not willing to hear the wonderful news
of Jesus because of his or her physical condition.
As Christians, we must follow the example of Jesus. I do
believe we must do all we can to relieve the pain and suffering
around us. We must love our neighbors as ourselves in all areas
of life. But we must keep supreme the priority of sharing the
message of salvation with them—and we must never minister
to the physical needs at the expense of preaching Christ. This is
biblical balance, the true Gospel of Jesus.
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Fi f teen
The Real Culprit: Spiritual Darkness
My hosts in the southern U.S. city where I was preaching at
a mission conference had thoughtfully booked me into a motel
room. It was good to have a few minutes alone, and I looked
forward to having some time for prayer and Scripture meditation.
While settling in, I flipped on the big TV set that dominated
the room. What burst on the screen shocked me more than anything
I had ever seen in America. There in beautiful color was
an attractive woman seated in the lotus position teaching yoga.
I watched in horror and amazement as she praised the health
benefits of the breathing techniques and other exercises of this
Eastern religious practice. What her viewers did not know is that
yoga is designed for one purpose only—to open up the mind
and body to the false gods of the East.
Because this American yogi was dressed in a body suit,
claimed a Ph.D. degree and was on educational TV, I assume
many of the viewers were deceived into believing this was
just another harmless exercise show. But those of us born and
raised in nations dominated by the powers of darkness know
that hundreds of Eastern religions are marketing themselves
in the United States and Canada under innocuous—even
scientific-sounding—brand names.
Few Westerners, when they see news reports of the poverty,
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suffering and violence in Asia, take time to stop and ask why the
East is bound into an endless cycle of suffering while Western
nations are so blessed.
Secular humanists are quick to reel out many historic and
pseudoscientific reasons for the disparity, because they are
unwilling to face the truth. But the real reason is simple: The
Judeo-Christian heritage of Europe has brought the favor of
God, while false religions have brought the curse of Babylon on
other nations.
Mature Christians realize the Bible teaches there are only
two religions in this world. There is the worship of the one true
God, and there is a false system invented in ancient Persia. From
there, Persian armies and priests spread their faith to India,
where it took root. Its missionaries in turn spread it throughout
the rest of Asia. Animism and all other Asian religions have a
common heritage in this one religious system.
Because many Westerners are unaware of this fact, Eastern
mysticism is able to spread in the West through pop culture,
rock bands, singers and even university professors. The media
have become the new vehicle for the spread of spiritual darkness
by American gurus.
It is hard to blame average Christians for misunderstanding
what is happening to them and the Judeo-Christian heritage
that has brought such blessings on their land. Most have never
taken the time to study and discern the real situation in the
Orient. Few pastors or prophets are sounding the alarm.
In Asia, the religion of Babylon is woven into every waking
minute of the day. Without Christ, people live to serve religious
spirits. Religion relates to everything, including your name,
birth, education, marriage, business deals, contracts, travel and
death.
Because Oriental culture and religion are a mystery, many
people in the West are fascinated by it without knowing its
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power to enslave its followers. What routinely follows the mystery
religions of Babylon are degradation, humiliation, poverty
and suffering—even death.
Most believers in America, I find, are overwhelmed by the TV
and media news reports from Asia. The numbers reported are
beyond imagination, and the injustice, poverty, suffering and
violence appear to be unstoppable. All things Oriental appear to
be mysterious, and measured either on a grand scale or by one
so different that it cannot be compared to things familiar.
In all my travels, therefore, I have found it is extremely difficult
for most people to relate to Asia’s needs. Sometimes I wish I
could just scoop up my audience and take them on a six-month
tour of Asia. But because that is not possible, I must use words,
pictures, PowerPoint presentations and videos to paint a clearer
picture.
Asia is a wonderful place in many ways, as God has blessed
it with the awesome Himalayas, mighty rivers, tropical forests
and an exciting mix of beautiful peoples. Diverse cultures merge
in huge cities like Mumbai (Bombay), Bangkok and Kuala
Lumpur, and their corporations are among the world leaders in
fields as diverse as physics, computer technology, architecture
and film-making. People travel from around the world to visit
monuments like India’s Taj Mahal and Cambodia’s Angor Wat.
But since nearly two out of every three people in the world
live in Asia—more than the combined populations of Europe,
Africa, North America and South America—it is also important
that we take the time to understand the real needs of its precious
people.
From the standpoint of Christian missions, Asia is more than
just big numbers. Asia makes up the vast majority of the more
than 2 billion hidden people who are being missed by traditional
missionary efforts and mass media evangelism. They are
the most lost of the lost—trapped in utter spiritual darkness.
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What are the challenges facing native missions today? How
real are the needs? How can Christians best help the Asian
Church and its missionary efforts?
I am not trying to minimize the social and material needs
of the Asian nations, but it is important to reemphasize that
Asia’s basic problem is a spiritual one. When the Western media
focus almost entirely on its problems of hunger, for example,
showing pictures of starving children on TV, it is difficult for
Americans not to get the false impression that hunger is the
biggest problem.
But what causes the hunger? Asian Christians know these
horrible conditions are only symptoms of the real problem—
spiritual bondage. The key factor—and the most neglected—in
understanding India’s hunger problem is how its belief system
affects food production. Most people know of the “sacred cows”
that roam free, eating tons of grain while nearby people starve.
But a lesser-known and more sinister culprit is another animal
protected by religious belief—the rat.
According to those who believe in reincarnation, the rat must
be protected as a likely recipient for a reincarnated soul on its
way up the ladder of spiritual evolution to Nirvana. Although
many Asians reject this and seek to poison rats, large-scale efforts
of extermination have been thwarted by religious outcry.
Rats eat or spoil 20 percent of India’s food grain every year.
A recent survey in the wheat-growing district of Hapur in North
India revealed an average of 10 rats per house.
Of one harvest of cereals in India, including maize, wheat,
rice, millet and so on—a total of 134 million metric tons—the
20 percent loss from rats amounted to 26.8 million metric tons.
The picture becomes more comprehensible by imagining a train
of boxcars carrying that amount of grain. With each car holding
about 82 metric tons, the train would contain 327,000 cars
and stretch for 3,097 miles. The annual food grain loss in India
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would fill a train longer than the distance between New York
and Los Angeles.
The devastating effects of the rat in India should make it an
object of scorn. Instead, because of the spiritual blindness of the
people, the rat is protected and in some places, like a temple 30
miles south of Bikaner in North India, even worshipped.
According to an article in the India Express, “Hundreds of
rats, called ‘kabas’ by the devotees, scurry around merrily in the
large compound of the temple and sometimes even around the
image of the goddess Karni Devi situated in a cave. The rats are
fed on prasad offered by the devotee or by the temple management.
Legend has it that the fortunes of the community are
linked to that of the rats.
“One has to walk cautiously through the temple compound;
for if a rat is crushed to death, it is not only considered a bad
omen but may also invite severe punishment. One is considered
lucky if a rat climbs over one’s shoulder. Better still to see
a white rat.”
Clearly, the agony we see in the faces of those starving children
and beggars is actually caused by centuries of religious
slavery. In my own beloved homeland of India, thousands of
lives and billions of dollars go into social programs, education
and medical and relief efforts every year. Many of the crisis
problems that are considered disasters in the United States
would only be normal, everyday living conditions in most of
Asia. When we have disasters in the Orient, the death tolls read
like Vietnam War body counts. Asian governments struggle with
these tremendous social problems and limited resources.
Yet despite all these massive social programs, the problems
of hunger, population and poverty continue to grow. The real
culprit is not a person, lack of natural resources or a system of
government. It is spiritual darkness. It thwarts every effort to
make progress. It dooms our people to misery—both in this
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world and in the world to come. The single most important
social reform that can be brought to Asia is the Gospel of Jesus
Christ. More than 400 million of my people have never heard
the name of Jesus Christ. They need the hope and truth that
only the Lord Jesus can provide.
Recently, for instance, one native missionary, who serves the
Lord in Jammu, asked a shopkeeper at the market if he knew
Jesus. After thinking a moment, he said, “Sir, I know everyone in
our village. There is not one by that name who lives here. Why
don’t you go to the next village? He may live there.”
Frequently native missionary evangelists find people who ask
if Jesus is the brand name of a new soap or patent medicine.
In fact, in India proper there are more than 1 billion people—
four times the population of the United States. Only 2.4
percent of these call themselves Christians.1 Although this figure
reflects the official government census, other Christian sources
believe the number to be as high as 7.4 percent.2 Still, India,
with nearly 500,000 unevangelized villages, is undoubtedly one
of the greatest evangelistic challenges facing the world Christian
community today. If present trends continue, it will soon be the
world’s most populous nation. Many of India’s 29 states have
larger populations than whole nations in Europe and other
parts of the world.
Not only are their populations huge, but each state is usually
as distinctive as if it were another world. Most have completely
different cultures, dress, diet and languages. But few nations
in Asia are homogeneous. Most are like India to some extent,
nations that are patchwork quilts of many languages, peoples
and tribes. This diversity, in fact, is what makes Asia such a tremendous
challenge to missionary work.
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Sixteen
Enemies of the Cross
The native missionary movement, the only hope for these
unreached nations, is not going unchallenged by either Satan or
the world. Revivals of traditional religions, the growth of secular
materialism including communism, and the rise of cultural and
nationalist barriers are all united in opposition to Christian mission
activity.
Yet the love of God can penetrate even this host of barriers.
“I was brought up in a home where we worshipped many
gods,” says Masih, who for years sought spiritual peace through
self-discipline, yoga and meditation as required by his caste. “I
even became the priest in our village, but I couldn’t find the
peace and joy I wanted.
“One day I received a Gospel tract and read about the love
of Jesus Christ. I answered the offer on the leaflet and enrolled
in a correspondence course to learn more about Jesus. On
January 1, 1978, I gave my life to Jesus Christ. I was baptized
three months later and took the Christian name ‘Masih,’ which
means ‘Christ.’”
In Asia, baptism and the taking of a Christian name symbolize
a complete break with the past. To avoid the censure
that often comes with baptism, some new believers wait years
before they are baptized. But Masih didn’t wait. The reaction
was swift.
When his parents realized their son had rejected their gods,
they began a campaign of persecution. To escape, Masih went to
Kota in Rajasthan to search for a job. For six months he worked
in a factory and meanwhile joined a local group of believers.
Through their encouragement, he enrolled in a Bible institute
and began to master the Scriptures.
During his three years of study, he made his first trip home.
“My father sent a telegram asking me to come home,” Masih
recalls. “He said he was ‘terribly ill.’ When I arrived, my family
and friends asked me to renounce Christ. When I didn’t, much
persecution followed, and my life was in danger. I had to flee.”
Returning to school, Masih thought God would lead him to
minister to some other part of India. He was shocked at the
answer to his prayers.
“As I waited on the Lord, He guided me to go back and work
among my own people,” he says. “He wanted me to share the
love of God through Christ with them, like the healed demoniac
of Gadara whom He sent back to his own village.”
Today, Ramkumar Masih is involved in church planting in
his home city and surrounding villages, working among both
Hindus and Muslims in a basically hostile environment.
Although Masih has not had to pay the ultimate price to win
his people to Christ, every year a number of Christian missionaries
and ordinary believers are killed for their faith throughout
Asia. The total in the past century is estimated at 45 million,
undoubtedly more than the total killed during the preceding 19
centuries of Church history.1
What are these enemies of the cross that seek to oppose the
advance of the Gospel in the nations that need so much to hear
of its hope and salvation? They are nothing new—just reawakened
devices of the enemy, some of his final ploys to keep these
nations bound.
R e v o l u t i o n i n Wo r l d Mi s s i o n s
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Traditional Religions
Revivals of traditional religions are occurring all over Asia.
Although few countries have gone the route of Iran—where a
religious revival of Islam actually toppled the state—religious
factionalism is a major problem in many countries.
When government, media and educational institutions are
taken over by atheistic materialists, most nations experience a
great backlash. As traditional religious leaders are finding out, it
is not enough to drive Western nations out. Secular humanists
are in firm control of most Asian governments, and many traditional
religious leaders miss the power they once exercised.
At the grassroots level, traditional religion and nationalism
often are deliberately confused and exploited by political leaders
for short-term gain. In the villages, traditional religions still
have a powerful hold on the minds of most people. Almost
every village or community has a favorite idol or deity—there
are 330 million gods in the Hindu pantheon alone. In addition,
various animistic cults, which involve the worship of powerful
spirits, are openly practiced alongside Islam, Hinduism and
Buddhism.
In many areas, the village temple still is the center of informal
education, tourism and civic pride. Religion is big business, and
temples take in vast sums of money annually. Millions of priests
and amateur practitioners of the occult arts also are profiteering
from the continuation and expansion of traditional religions.
Like the silversmiths in Ephesus, they aren’t taking the spread
of Christianity lightly. Religion, nationalism and economic gain
mix as a volatile explosive that the enemy uses to blind the eyes
of millions.
But God is calling native missionaries to preach the Gospel
anyway, and many are taking the Good News into areas solidly
controlled by traditional religions.
E n e m i e s o f t h e C r o s s
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The Spirit of the Antichrist
But the enemies of the cross include more than just traditional
religionists. A new force, even more powerful, is now
sweeping across Asia. It is what the Bible calls the spirit of
the Antichrist—the new religion of secular materialism. Often
manifested as some form of communism, it has taken control
of governments in a number of countries, including Myanmar
(Burma), Cambodia, China, Laos, North Korea and Vietnam.
But even in those Asian nations with democracies like India and
Japan, it has gained tremendous political influence in various
noncommunist forms.
The temples of this new religion are atomic reactors, oil refineries,
hospitals and shopping malls. The priests are most often the
technicians, scientists and military generals who are impatiently
striving to rebuild the nations of Asia in the image of the industrial
West. The shift of political power in most of Asia has gone toward
these men and women who promise health, peace and prosperity
without a supernatural god—for man himself is their god.
In one sense, secular humanism and materialism correctly
diagnose traditional religion as a major source of oppression
and poverty throughout Asia. Humanism is a natural enemy of
theistic religion because it offers a worldly and scientific method
to solve the problems of mankind without God. As a result of
this growing, scientific materialism, strong secularist movements
exist in every Asian nation. They unite and seek to eliminate the
influence of all religion—including Christianity—from society.
Modern Asia, in the great cities and capitals where secular humanism
reigns supreme, is controlled by many of the same drives and
desires that have dominated the West for the past 100 years.
The Anti-Christian Pressure of the World—the Culture
If traditional Asian religions represent a spiritual attack on
Christianity, then secular humanism is an attack of the flesh.
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That leaves only one enemy to discuss, the anti-Christian pressure
of the world. This final barrier to Christ, and still probably
the strongest of all, is the culture itself.
When Mahatma Gandhi returned to India from years of living
in England and South Africa, he quickly realized the “Quit
India” movement was failing because its national leadership
was not willing to give up European ways. So even though he
was Indian, he had to renounce his Western dress and customs
or he would not have been able to lead his people out from
under the British yoke. He spent the rest of his life relearning
how to become an Indian again—in dress, food, culture
and lifestyle. Eventually he gained acceptance by the common
people of India. The rest is history. He became the father of my
nation, the George Washington of modern India.
The same principle holds true of evangelistic and churchplanting
efforts in all of Asia. We must learn to adapt to the
culture. This is why the native evangelist, who comes from the
native soil, is so effective. When Americans here in the United
States are approached by yellow-robed Krishna worshippers—
with their shaved heads and prayer beads—they reject Hinduism
immediately. In the same way, Hindus reject Christianity when
it comes in Western forms.
Have Asians rejected Christ? Not really. In most cases they
have rejected only the trappings of Western culture that have
fastened themselves onto the Gospel. This is what the apostle
Paul was referring to when he said he was willing to become “all
things to all men” in order that he might win some.
When Asians share Christ with other Asians in a culturally
acceptable way, the results are startling. One native missionary
we support in northwest India, Jager, has reached 60 villages
with the Good News and established 30 churches in a difficult
area of Punjab. He has led hundreds to find the joy of knowing
Christ. On one trip to India, I went out of my way to visit Jager
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and his wife. I had to see for myself what kind of program he
was using.
Imagine my surprise when I found Jager was not using any
special technology at all—unless you want to call the motor
scooter and tracts that we supplied “technology.” He was living
just like the people. He had only a one-room house made of
dung and mud. The kitchen was outside, also made of mud—
the same stuff with which everything else is constructed in that
region. To cook the food, his wife squatted in front of an open
fire just like the neighboring women. What was so remarkable
about this brother was that everything about him and his wife
was so truly Indian. There was absolutely nothing foreign.
I asked Jager what kept him going in the midst of such incredible
challenge and suffering. He said, “Waiting upon the Lord,
my brother.” I discovered he spent two to three hours daily in
prayer, reading and meditating on the Bible. This is what it takes
to win Asia for Christ. This is the kind of missionary for which
our nations cry out.
Jager was led to Christ by another native evangelist, who
explained the living God to Jager. He told of a God who hates
sin and became a man to die for sinners and set them free. This
was the first time the Gospel ever was preached in his village,
and Jager followed the man around for several days.
Finally, he received Jesus as his Lord and was disowned by his
family. Overjoyed and surprised by his newfound life, he went
about distributing tracts from village to village, telling about
Jesus. In the end, he sold his two shops. With the money he
earned, he conducted evangelistic meetings in local villages.
This is a man of the culture, bringing Christ to his own people
in culturally acceptable ways. The support Asians need from the
West, if we are to complete the work Christ has left us, must go
to recruit, equip and send out native missionary evangelists.
Native evangelists are prepared to meet the three big chal-
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lenges we are now facing in the Orient.
One, they often understand the culture, customs and lifestyle as
well as the language. They do not have to spend valuable time in
lengthy preparations.
Two, the most effective communication occurs between peers.
Although there still may be social barriers to overcome, they are
much smaller and more easily identified.
Three, it is a wise investment of our resources because the native
missionary works more economically than foreigners can.
One of the most basic laws of creation is that every living thing
reproduces after its own kind. This fact applies in evangelism and
discipleship, just as it does in other areas. If we are going to see
a mass people movement to Christ, it will be done only through
fielding many more thousands of native missionaries.
How many are needed? In India alone we still have 500,000
villages to reach. Looking at other nations, we realize thousands
more remain without a witness. If we are to reach all the other
hamlets open to us right now, Gospel for Asia will need additional
native missionary evangelists by the tens of thousands.
The cost to support this these workers will run into the millions
annually. But this is only a fraction of the $94 billion that the
North American Church lavished on other needs and desires in
2000.2 And the result will be a revolution of love that will bring
millions of Asians to Christ.
So, are native missionaries prepared to carry on cross-cultural
evangelism? The answer is yes, and with great effectiveness!
Most of the native missionaries we support, in fact, are involved
in some form of cross-cultural evangelism. Often, GFA evangelists
find they must learn a new language, plus adopt different
dress and dietary customs. However, because the cultures are
frequently neighbors or share a similar heritage, the transition
is much easier than it would be for someone coming from
the West.
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Even though my homeland has 18 major languages and
1,650 dialects3—each representing a different culture—it is
still relatively easy for an Indian to make a transition from one
culture to another. In fact, almost anyone in Pakistan, India,
Bangladesh, Myanmar, Nepal, Bhutan, Thailand and Sri Lanka
can relatively quickly cross-minister in a neighboring culture.
Native workers who seek to learn new languages and plant
churches in other cultures face special challenges. In this
particular endeavor, Gospel for Asia seeks to work with like-
minded
agencies that can help the native worker overcome
these challenges.
The challenge of Asia cries out to us. The enemies of the cross
abound, but none of them can stand against the power of Jesus’
love. The problems we face are indeed great, but they can be
overcome through the dedicated ministry of native missionary
evangelists.
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Seventeen
The Water of Life in a Foreign Cup
When we think about the awesome challenge of Asia, it is not
too much to ask for a new outpouring of missionaries to reach
these nations for Christ. And tens of thousands of native missionaries
are being raised up by the Lord in all these Two-Thirds
World nations right now. They are Asians, many of whom
already live in the nation they must reach or in nearby cultures
just a few hundred miles from the unevangelized villages to
which they will be sent by the Lord.
The situation in world missions is depressing only when you
think of it in terms of 19th-century Western colonialism. If the
actual task of world evangelization depends on the “sending
of the white missionary,” obeying the Great Commission truly
becomes more impossible every day. But, praise God, the native
missionary movement is growing, ready today to complete
the task.
The primary message I have for every Christian, pastor and
mission leader is that we are witnessing a new day in missions.
Just a few short years ago, no one dreamed the Asian Church
would be ready to take the lead. But dedicated native evangelists
are beginning to go out and reach their own.
Even more exciting: God is calling all of us to be part of what
He is doing.
We can help make it possible for millions of brown and
yellow
feet to move out with the liberating Gospel of Jesus. With
the prayer and support of believers around the world, they can
preach the Word to the lost multitudes. The whole family of
God is needed. Thousands of native missionaries will go to the
lost if Christians in the West will help.
This is why I believe God called me to the West. The only
reason I stay here is to help serve our Asian brethren by bringing
their needs before God’s people. A whole new generation of
Christians needs to know that this profound shift in the mission
task has taken place. Western believers need to know they are
needed as “senders” to pray and to help the native brothers go.
The waters of missions have been muddied. Today many
Christians are unable to think clearly about the real issues
because Satan has sent a deceiving spirit to blind their eyes. I do
not make this statement lightly. Satan knows that to stop world
evangelism he must confuse the minds of Western Christians.
This he has done quite effectively. The facts speak for themselves.
The average North American Christian gives only 50 cents a
week to global missions.1 Imagine what that means. Missions
is the primary task of the Church, our Lord’s final command
to us before His ascension. Jesus died on the cross to start a
missionary movement. He came to show God’s love, and we
are left here to continue that mission. Yet this most important
task of the Church is receiving less than one percent of all our
finances.
Remember, of the Western missionaries who are sent overseas,
many are not involved in the primary tasks of preaching
the Gospel and planting churches.
And approximately 85 percent of all missionary finances are
being used by Western missionaries who are working among
the established churches on the field—not for pioneer evangelism
to the lost.2
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Consequently, most of that 50 cents a week the average
American Christian has given to missions actually was spent
on projects or programs other than proclaiming the Gospel of
Christ.
But a shift has taken place in the past six decades or so. At
the end of World War II, almost the entire work of the Great
Commission was being done by a handful of white foreigners.
To these Christian mission leaders, it was impossible to even
imagine reaching all the thousands of distinct cultural groups in
the colonies. So they focused their attention on the major cultural
groups in easy-to-reach centers of trade and government.
In most of the Asian nations, nearly 200 years of mission
work had been accomplished under the watchful gaze of colonial
governors when the era finally ended in 1945. During that
time, Western missionaries appeared to be a vital part of the
fabric of Western colonial government. Even the few churches
that were established among the dominant cultural groups
appeared weak. Like the local government and economy, they
too were directly controlled by foreigners. Few were indigenous
or independent of Western missionaries. Not surprisingly, the
masses shunned these strange centers of alien religion, much as
most Americans avoid “Krishna missions” or “Islamic missions”
in the West today.
In this atmosphere, the thought of going beyond the major
cultural groups—reaching out to the unfinished task—was
naturally put off. Those masses of people in rural areas, ethnic
subcultures, tribal groups and minorities would have to wait.
Teaching them was still generations away—unless, of course,
more white foreign missionaries could be recruited to go to
them.
But this was not to be. When the colonial-era missionaries
returned to take control of “their” churches, hospitals and
schools, they found the political climate had changed radically.
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They met a new hostility from Asian governments. Something
radical had happened during World War II. The nationalists had
organized and were on the march.
Soon political revolution was sweeping the Two-Thirds
World. With the independence of one nation after another,
the missionaries lost their positions of power and privilege.
In the 25 years following World War II, 71 nations broke free
of Western domination. And with their new freedom, most
decided Western missionaries would be among the first symbols
of the West to go. Now 86 nations—with more than half
of the world’s population—forbid or seriously restrict foreign
missionaries.3
But there is a bright side to the story. The effect of all this
on the emerging churches of Asia has been electric. Far from
slowing the spread of the Gospel, the withdrawal of foreign missionaries
has freed the Gospel from the Western traditions that
foreign missionaries had unwittingly added to it.
Sadhu Sundar Singh, a pioneer native missionary evangelist,
used to tell a story that illustrates the importance of presenting
the Gospel in culturally acceptable terms.
A high-caste Hindu, he said, had fainted one day from the
summer heat while sitting on a train in a railway station. A
train employee ran to a water faucet, filled a cup with water and
brought it to the man in an attempt to revive him. But in spite
of his condition, the Hindu refused. He would rather die than
accept water in the cup of someone from another caste.
Then someone else noticed that the high-caste passenger had
left his own cup on the seat beside him. So he grabbed it, filled
it with water and returned to offer it to the panting heat victim
who immediately accepted the water with gratitude.
Then Sundar Singh would say to his hearers, “This is what I
have been trying to say to missionaries from abroad. You have
been offering the water of life to the people of India in a foreign
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cup, and we have been slow to receive it. If you will offer it in
our own cup—in an indigenous form—then we are much more
likely to accept it.”
Today, a whole new generation of Spirit-led young native
leaders is mapping strategies to complete the evangelization
of our Asian homelands. In almost every country of Asia, I
personally know local missionaries who are effectively winning
their people to Christ using culturally acceptable methods and
styles.
Although persecution in one form or another still exists in
most Asian nations, the postcolonial national governments
have guaranteed almost unlimited freedom to native missionaries.
Just because Westerners have been forbidden, the expansion
of the Church does not have to cease.
For some diabolical reason, news of this dramatic change has
not reached the ears of most believers in our churches. While
God by His Holy Spirit has been raising up a new host of missionaries
to carry on the work of the Great Commission, most
North American believers have sat unmoved. This, I have discovered,
is not because Christians here are lacking in generosity.
When they are told the need, they respond quickly. They are not
involved only because they do not know the real truth about
what is happening in Asia today.
I believe we are being called to be involved by sharing prayerfully
and financially in the great work that lies ahead. As we do
this, perhaps we will see together the fulfillment of that awesome
prophecy in Revelation 7:9–10:
And, lo, a great multitude, which no man could number, of all
nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues, stood before
the throne, and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes,
and palms in their hands; And cried with a loud voice, saying,
Salvation to our God which sitteth upon the throne, and unto
the Lamb.
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R e v o l u t i o n i n Wo r l d Mi s s i o n s
This prediction is about to come true. Now, for the first time
in history, we can see the final thrust taking place as God’s
people everywhere unite to make it possible.
What should intrigue us—especially here in the West—is the
way the native missionary movement is flourishing without the
help and genius of our Western planning. The Holy Spirit, when
we give Him the freedom to work, prompts spontaneous growth
and expansion. Until we recognize the native missionary movement
as the plan of God for this period in history, and until we
are willing to become servants to what He is doing, we are in
danger of frustrating the will of God.
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Eighteen
A Global Vision
Should all Western missionaries pull out of Asia forever? Of
course not. God still sovereignly calls Western missionaries to
do unique and special tasks in Asia, as He does in other locations.
But we must understand that when it comes to nations
in which Western missionaries are no longer able to do church
planting as past eras allowed, the priority must then be to support
efforts of indigenous mission works through financial aid
and intercessory prayer.
As gently as I can, I have to say to North Americans that anti-
American prejudice is running high in most of Asia. In fact, this
is a section I write with the greatest fear and trembling—but
these truths must be said if we are to accomplish the will of God
in the Asian mission fields today.
“There are times in history,” writes Dennis E. Clark in The
Third World and Mission, “when however gifted a person may
be, he can no longer effectively proclaim the Gospel to those of
another culture. A German could not have done so in Britain in
1941 nor could an Indian in Pakistan during the war of 1967,
and it will be extremely difficult for Americans to do so in the
Third World of the 1980s and 1990s.”1 This is much more
true—and the situation is even worse—today.
For the sake of Christ—because the love of Jesus constrains
us—we need to review the financial and mission policies of our
churches and North American missionary-sending agencies.
Every believer should reconsider his or her own stewardship
practices and submit to the Holy Spirit’s guidance in how best
to support the global outreach of the Church.
I am not calling for an end to denominational mission
programs or the closing down of the many hundreds of missions
here in North America—but I am asking us to reconsider
the missionary policies and practices that have guided us for
the past 200 years. It is time to make some basic changes and
launch the biggest missionary movement in history—one that
primarily helps send forth native missionary evangelists rather
than Western staff.
The principle I argue for is this: We believe the most effective
way now to win Asia for Christ is through prayer and financial
support for the native missionary force that God is raising up in
the Two-Thirds World. As a general rule, for the following reasons
I believe it is wiser to support native missionaries in their
own lands than to send Western missionaries.
One, it is wise stewardship. According to Bob Granholm, former
executive director of Frontiers in Canada, it costs between
$25,000 to $30,000 per year to support a missionary on the
mission field, and today that number is in excess of $40,000.
And even though these figures may be true for ministries like
Frontiers, Operation Mobilization, Youth With A Mission and
a few others, in my research with more traditional agencies, the
cost may be much higher. One mission organization estimates
it costs around $80,000 per year to keep a missionary couple in
India.2 With even a modest inflation rate of three percent, this
cost will exceed $100,000 in less than 10 years.
During a consultation on world evangelism in the 1990s,
Western missionary leaders called for 200,000 new missionaries
by the year 2000 in order to keep pace with their estimates
of population growth. The cost of even that modest missionary
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force would be a staggering $20 billion per year. When you
realize that in 2000 North American Christians contributed just
$5.5 billion for missions,3 we are facing an astronomical fundraising
effort. There has to be an alternative.
In India, for only the cost of flying an American from New
York to Mumbai (Bombay), a native missionary already on
the field can minister for years! Unless we take these facts into
account, we will lose the opportunity of our age to reach untold
millions with the Gospel. Today it is outrageously extravagant
to send North American missionaries overseas unless there are
compelling reasons to do so. From a strictly financial standpoint,
sending American missionaries overseas is one of the most
questionable investments we can make.
Two, in many places the presence of Western missionaries perpetuates
the myth that Christianity is the religion of the West. Bob
Granholm states, “While the current internationalization of the
missionary task force is a very encouraging development, it is
often wiser to not have a Western face on the efforts to extend
the Kingdom.”
Roland Allen says it better than I in his classic book The
Spontaneous Expansion of the Church:
Even if the supply of men and funds from Western sources was
unlimited and we could cover the whole globe with an army of
millions of foreign missionaries and establish stations thickly all
over the world, the method would speedily reveal its weakness,
as it is already beginning to reveal it.
The mere fact that Christianity was propagated by such an
army, established in foreign stations all over the world, would
inevitably alienate the native populations, who would see in it the
growth of the denomination of a foreign people. They would see
themselves robbed of their religious independence, and would
more and more fear the loss of their social independence.
Foreigners can never successfully direct the propagation of
any faith throughout a whole country. If the faith does not
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become naturalized and expand among the people by its own
vital power, it exercises an alarming and hateful influence, and
men fear and shun it as something alien. It is then obvious that
no sound missionary policy can be based upon multiplication
of missionaries and mission stations. A thousand would not suffice;
a dozen might be too many.4
A friend of mine who heads a missionary organization similar
to ours recently told me the story of a conversation he had
with some African church leaders.
“We want to evangelize our people,” they said, “but we can’t
do it so long as the white missionaries remain. Our people won’t
listen to us. The communists and the Muslims tell them all white
missionaries are spies sent out by their governments as agents for
the capitalistic imperialists. We know it isn’t true, but newspaper
reports tell of how some missionaries are getting funds from the
CIA. We love the American missionaries in the Lord. We wish
they could stay, but the only hope for us to evangelize our own
country is for all white missionaries to leave.”
Untold millions of dollars still are being wasted today by
our denominations and missions as they erect and protect
elaborate organizational frameworks overseas. There was a time
when Western missionaries needed to go into these countries
in which the Gospel was not preached. But now a new era has
begun, and it is important that we officially acknowledge this.
God has raised up indigenous leaders who are more capable
than outsiders to finish the job.
Now we must send the major portion of our funds to native
missionaries and church growth movements. But this does not
mean we do not appreciate the legacy left to us from Western
missionaries. Although I believe changes must be made in our
missionary methods, we praise God for the tremendous contribution
Western missionaries have made in many Two-Thirds
World countries where Christ was never before preached.
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Through their faithfulness, many were won to Jesus, churches
were started and the Scriptures were translated. These converts
are today’s native missionaries.
Silas Fox, a Canadian who served in South India, learned
to speak the local native language of Telugu and preached
the Word with such anointing that hundreds of present-day
Christian leaders in Andhra Pradesh can trace their spiritual
beginnings to his ministry.
I thank God for missionaries like Hudson Taylor, who against
all wishes of his foreign mission board became a Chinese in his
lifestyle and won many to Christ. I am not worthy to wipe the
dust from the feet of thousands of faithful men and women of
our Lord who went overseas during times like these.
Jesus set the example for native missionary work. “As my
Father hath sent me,” He said, “even so send I you” (John
20:21). The Lord became one of us in order to win us to the love
of God. He knew He could not be an alien from outer space so
He became incarnated into our bodies.
For any missionary to be successful he must identify
with the people he plans to reach. Because Westerners usually
cannot do this, they are ineffective. Anyone—Asian or
American—who insists on still going out as a representative of
Western missions and organizations will be ineffective today.
We cannot maintain a Western lifestyle or outlook and work
among the poor of Asia.
Three, Western missionaries, and the money they bring, compromise
the natural growth and independence of the national Church.
The economic power of Western currencies distorts the picture
as Western missionaries hire key national leaders to run their
organizations.
I once met with a missionary executive of one of the major
U.S. denominations. He is a loving man whom I deeply respect
as a brother in Christ, but he heads the colonial-style extension
A G l o b a l V i s i o n
161
of his denomination into Asia.
We talked about mutual friends and the exciting growth that
is occurring in the national churches of India. We shared much
in the Lord. I quickly found he had as much respect as I did for
the Indian brothers God is choosing to use in India today. Yet
he would not support these men who are so obviously anointed
by God.
I asked him why. His denomination is spending millions of
dollars annually to open up their churches in Asia—money I
felt could be far better used supporting native missionaries in
the churches the Holy Spirit is spontaneously birthing.
His answer shocked and saddened me.
“Our policy,” he admitted without shame, “is to use the
nationals only to expand churches with our denominational
distinctives.”
The words rolled around in my mind, “use the nationals.”
This is what colonialism was all about, and it is still what the
neocolonialism of most Western missions is all about. With
their money and technology, many organizations are simply
buying people to perpetuate their foreign denominations, ways
and beliefs.
In Thailand, a group of native missionaries was “bought
away” by a powerful American parachurch organization. Once
effectively winning their own people to Christ and planting
churches in the Thai way, their leaders were given scholarships
to train in the United States. The American organization provided
them with expense accounts, vehicles and posh offices in
Bangkok.
What price did the native missionary leader pay? He must
use foreign literature, films and the standard method of this
highly technical American organization. No consideration is
being made of how effective these tools and methods will be in
building the Thai Church. They will be used whether they are
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effective or not because they are written into the training manuals
and handbooks of this organization.
After all, the reasoning of this group goes, these programs
worked in Los Angeles and Dallas—they must work in Thailand
as well!
This kind of thinking is the worst neocolonialism. To use
God-given money to hire people to perpetuate our ways and
theories is a modern method of old-fashioned imperialism. No
method could be more unbiblical.
The sad fact is this: God already was doing a wonderful work
in Thailand by His Holy Spirit in a culturally acceptable way.
Why didn’t this American group have the humility to bow
before the Holy Spirit and say, “Have Thine own way, Lord”? If
they wanted to help, I think the best way would have been to
support what God already was doing by His Holy Spirit. By the
time this group finds out what a mistake it has made, the missionaries
who messed up the local church will be going home
for furlough—probably never to return.
At their rallies they will tell stories of victories in Thailand as
they evangelized the country American-style; but no one will
be asking the most important question, “Where is the fruit that
remains?”
Often we become so preoccupied with expanding our own
organizations that we do not comprehend the great sweep of
the Holy Spirit of God as He has moved upon the peoples of
the world. Intent upon building “our” churches, we have failed
to see how Christ is building “His” Church in every nation. We
must stop looking at the lost world through the eyes of our
particular denomination. Then we will be able to win the lost
souls to Jesus instead of trying to add more numbers to our
man-made organizations to please the headquarters that control
the funds.
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REVOLUTION IN WORLD MISSIONS (PART II)

Seven
“It Is a Privilege”
We began Gospel for Asia without any kind of plan for regular
involvement, but God soon gave us one. On one of my first
trips, I went to Wheaton, Illinois, where I called on almost all
the evangelical mission leaders. A few encouraged me—but not
one offered the money we then needed desperately to keep
going another day. The friend I stayed with, however, suggested
we start a sponsorship plan through which North American
families and individuals could support a native missionary
regularly. It turned out to be just what we needed.
The idea—to lay aside one dollar a day for a native evangelist—
gave us an instant handle for a program anyone could
understand. I asked everyone I met if he or she would help
sponsor a native missionary for one dollar a day. Some said yes,
and that is how the mission began to get regular donors.
Today, this pledge plan is still the heart of our fundraising
efforts. We send the money—100 percent of it—to the
field, sponsoring thousands of missionaries each month in
this way.
Because I was sending all the pledge money overseas, we
still were faced with the need to cover our overhead and living
expenses here in the United States. Time and time again—just
when we were at our lowest point—God miraculously intervened
to keep us and the ministry going.
One Sunday when we were down to our last dollar, I drove
our old $125 Nova to a nearby church for worship. I knew no
one and sat in the last row. When it came time to take the offering,
I quickly made an excuse to God and held on to that last
dollar.
“This is my last dollar,” I prayed desperately, “and I need to
buy gas to get back home.” But knowing God loves a cheerful
giver, I stopped fighting and sacrificed that last dollar to the
Lord.
As I left the church, an old man came up to me. I had never
seen him before and never have since. He shook my hand silently,
and I could feel a folded piece of paper in his palm. I knew
instinctively that it was money. In the car, I opened my hand to
find a neatly folded $10 bill.
Another afternoon, I sat grimly sulking on our sofa in Eufaula.
Gisela was busy in the kitchen, avoiding my eyes. She said nothing,
but both of us knew there wasn’t any food in the house.
“So,” said a coy voice from the enemy, “this is how you and
your God provide for the family, eh?” Up until that moment, I
don’t think I had ever felt such helplessness. Here we were, in
the middle of Oklahoma. Even if I had wanted to ask someone
for help, I didn’t know where to turn. Things had gotten so low
I had offered to get a job, but Gisela was the one who refused.
She was terrified that I would get into the world of business and
not have time to work for the native brethren. For her there was
no choice. It was to wait on the Lord. He would provide.
As the demonic voice continued to taunt me, I just sat still
under the abuse. I had used up my last bit of faith, declaring a
positive confession and praising God. Now I sat numb.
A knock came at the door. Gisela went to answer it. I was in
no mood to meet anyone. Someone brought two boxes of groceries
to our doorstep. These friends had no way of knowing our
need—but we knew the source was God.
R e v o l u t i o n i n Wo r l d Mi s s i o n s
68
During those days, our needs continued to be met on a dayto-
day basis, and I never had to borrow from the missionary
support funds. I am convinced now that God knew the many
trials ahead and wanted to teach us to have faith and trust in
Him alone—even when I could not see Him.
In some way, which I still do not really understand, the trying
of our faith works patience and hope into the fabric of our
Christian lives. No one, I am convinced, will follow Jesus very
long without tribulation. It is His way of demonstrating His
presence. Sufferings and trials—like persecution—are a normal
part of the Christian walk. We must learn to accept them joyfully
if we are to grow through them, and I think this is true for
ministries as well as individuals. Gospel for Asia was having its
first wilderness experience, and the Oklahoma days were characterized
by periods of the most painful waiting I had ever faced.
We were alone in a strange land, utterly at the end of our own
strength and desperately dependent on God.
Speaking engagements were hard to come by in the early days,
but they were the only way we could grow. Nobody knew my
name or the name of Gospel for Asia. I still was having a hard
time explaining what we were all about. I knew our mission in
my heart, but I hadn’t learned to articulate it yet for outsiders. In
a few short months, I had used up all the contacts I had.
Setting up a speaking tour took weeks of waiting, writing and
calling. By the winter of 1980, I was ready to start my first major
tour. I bought a budget air ticket that gave me unlimited travel
for 21 days—and somehow I managed to make appointments
in 18 cities. My itinerary would take me through the Southwest,
from Dallas to Los Angeles.
On the day of my departure, a terrible winter storm hit the
region. All the buses—including the one I planned to take from
Eufaula, Oklahoma, to Dallas—were cancelled.
Our old Nova had some engine problems, so a neighbor
“ I t I s a P r i v i l e g e ”
69
offered to let me use an old pickup truck without a heater. The
vehicle looked as if it could not make it to the next town, let
alone the six-hour drive to Dallas. But it was either the pickup
or nothing. If I missed my flight, the tightly packed schedule
would be ruined. I had to go now.
Doing the best I could to stay warm, I put on two pairs of
socks and all the clothing I could. But even with the extra protection,
I was on U.S. Highway 75 only a few minutes when it
appeared I had made a terrible mistake. A freezing snow covered
the windshield within minutes. After every mile I had to stop,
get out and scrape the windows again. Soon my feet and gloves
were soaked and frozen. I realized that the journey was going to
take a lot longer than the six hours I had left. In my worst scenario,
I saw the newspaper headlines reading “Preacher Freezes
to Death in Winter Storm.” My head dropped to the steering
wheel, and I cried out to God.
“Lord, if You want me to go—if You believe in this mission
and in my helping the native evangelists—please do something.”
As I looked up, I saw a miracle on the windshield. The ice
was melting rapidly before my eyes. Warmth flooded the truck.
I looked at the heater, but nothing was coming out. Outside, the
storm continued to rage. It kept up all the way to Dallas, but the
truck was always warm, and the windshield was always clear.
This miraculous start was only the beginning of blessings. For
the next 18 days, I gained new sponsors and donors in every
city. The Lord gave me favor in the eyes of all I met.
On the last day of the tour, a man in California came to the
pastor and said that God had told him to donate his second car
to me. I cancelled my airline reservation and drove all the way
home, rejoicing in the car God had provided. I received new
inspiration and instruction from God as I drove.
I followed this pattern for the next few years, surviving from
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one meeting to the next, living out of the trunk of the car and
speaking anywhere I could get an invitation. All our new donors
and sponsors came from one-on-one contacts and through
the meetings. I knew there were faster, more efficient ways to
acquire new donors. Many times I studied the mass mailings
and radio/TV broadcasts of other missions, but everything they
were doing required large sums of money, which I did not have
and did not know how to get.
Eventually, we moved back to Dallas. By now I was traveling
full-time for the ministry, and the strain was taking a heavy toll
both on my family and on me. I was starting to burn out—and
I almost hated the work.
Two factors were wearing me down.
First, I felt like a beggar. It is hard on the flesh to be traveling
and asking for money day after day and night after night. It was
almost becoming a sales operation for me, and I stopped feeling
good about myself.
Second, I was discouraged by the poor response—especially
from churches and pastors. Many times it seemed as if my presence
threatened them. Where, I wondered, was the fraternal fellowship
of working together in the extension of the kingdom?
Many days I called on people for hours to get only one or two
new sponsors. Pastors and mission committees listened to me
and promised to call back, but I never heard from them again.
It always seemed as though I was competing against the building
fund, new carpets for the fellowship hall or next Saturday
night’s Jesus rock concert.
Despite the solemn message of death, suffering and need I
was presenting, people still left the meetings with laughter and
gossip on their lips. I was offended at the spirit of jocularity in
the churches: It wounded me. So many times we went out to eat
after I had just shared the tragedy of the thousands who starve
to death daily or the millions of homeless people living on the
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“ I t I s a P r i v i l e g e ”
R e v o l u t i o n i n Wo r l d Mi s s i o n s
streets of Asia. Because of this, I was becoming angry and judgmental.
As I felt uglier and uglier inside, depression settled in.
Early in 1981—while driving alone between meetings in a
borrowed car near Greensboro, North Carolina—all the dark
feelings of psychological burn-out crept over me. I had a fullfledged
pity party, feeling sorry for myself and the hard life I
was leading.
With a start, I began to tremble with fear. Suddenly I felt the
presence of someone else. I realized that the Spirit of the Lord
was speaking.
“I am not in any trouble,” He chided, “that I need someone
to beg for Me or help Me out. I made no promises that I will not
keep. It is not the largeness of the work that matters, but only
doing what I command. All I ask of you is that you be a servant.
For all who join with you in the work, it will be a privilege—a
light burden for them.”
The words echoed in my mind. This is His work, I told
myself. Why am I making it mine? The burden is light. Why am
I making it heavy? The work is a privilege. Why am I making it
a chore?
I instantly repented of my sinful attitudes. God was sharing
His work with me, and He was speaking of others who would
join me. Although I still was doing the work alone, it was exciting
to think others would be joining with me and that they too
would find the burden to be light. From that moment until this,
I have not been overpowered by the burden of heading Gospel
for Asia. I find building this mission an exciting, joyful job.
Even my preaching has changed. My posture is different. Today
the pressure is gone. No more do I feel I have to beg audiences
or make them feel guilty.
Because the work of Gospel for Asia—and the whole native
missionary movement—is initiated by God, it does not need
the worries and guidance of man. Whether our goal is to sup-
72
port 10,000 or 10 million missionaries, whether it is working in
10 states or 100, or whether I must supervise a staff of 5 or 500, I
still can approach this work without stress. For this is His work,
and our burden is easy.
By now we had rented offices in Dallas, and the mission was
growing steadily. I sensed it was time for a big step forward and
waited upon God for a miracle breakthrough. By mid-1981 we
had hundreds of native missionaries waiting for support, and I
realized that we soon would have thousands more. I no longer
could communicate personally with every new sponsor. I knew
we had to use mass media. But I didn’t know where to begin.
Then I met Brother Lester Roloff.
Brother Roloff is now with the Lord, but during his life he
was a rugged individualist who preached his way across five
decades of outstanding Christian service. Near the end of his
life, I approached him for help in our ministry. His staff person,
in arranging the interview, said I would have only five minutes.
To his staff’s astonishment, he gave me two hours of his time.
When I told Brother Roloff about the native missionary
movement, he invited me to be his guest on Family Altar—his
daily radio broadcast. At that time we were helping only 100
native missionaries, and Brother Roloff announced over the air
that he personally was going to sponsor six more. He called me
one of the “greatest missionaries he had ever met” and urged his
listeners to sponsor native missionaries as well. Soon we were
getting letters from all over the country.
As I read the postmarks and the letters, I realized again just
how huge the United States and Canada really are. Brother
Roloff was the first Christian leader I had met who had done
what I knew we needed to do. He had learned how to speak
to the whole nation. For weeks I prayed for him, asking God
to show me how I could work with him and learn from his
example.
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R e v o l u t i o n i n Wo r l d Mi s s i o n s
When the answer came, it was quite different from anything
I had expected. The Lord gave me an idea that I now realize was
unusual, almost bizarre. I would ask Brother Roloff to loan me
his mailing list and let me ask his people to sponsor a native
missionary.
Trembling, I called his office and asked for another appointment.
He saw me again but was very surprised at my request,
telling me that he had never loaned his list to anyone—even
his best friends. Many agencies had asked to rent his list, but he
had always said no. I thought my cause was lost, but he said he
would pray about it.
The next day he called me back, saying that the Lord had
told him to give us his list. He also offered to write a letter of
endorsement and interview me again on the radio broadcast at
the same time the letter went out. Elated, I praised God. But I
soon learned that this was only the beginning of the miracle.
The list was a fairly large one, and printing a brochure, my
letter and his letter, together with the mailing, would cost more
money than we had. There seemed to be only one way to get it.
I would have to borrow—just this once—from the missionary
funds. I figured it out again and again. If I worked it just right,
I could get the money to the field with only a few weeks’ delay.
But I had no peace about the plan. I had always used the funds
exactly as designated.
When the time came to send the regular monies to the field,
I told our bookkeeper to hold the money for one day, and I
prayed. Still no peace. The next day I told her to hold the money
for another day, and I went back to prayer and fasting. Still no
peace. I delayed it for a third day—and still God would not
release me to use the missionary support funds.
I was miserable. Finally I decided I could not break the trust
of our donors—even for the Lord’s work. I told my secretary to
go ahead and send the missionary money.
74
I now realize we had gone through one of the greatest tests of
the ministry. This was it, my first chance to get a major increase
in donors and income—but it had to be done with integrity or
not at all.
A half hour after the check had gone to the field, the telephone
rang. It was from a couple whom I had met only once
before at our annual banquet in Dallas. They had been praying
about helping us, and God had laid me on their hearts. They
asked if they could come and talk to me, and they wanted to
know what I needed.
After I explained the cost involved for printing and putting
out the mailing, they agreed to pick up the entire amount—
nearly $20,000. Then the printer became so moved by the project
that he did it for free! Plainly God had been testing me, and
He miraculously showed that if we were obedient, He indeed
would provide.
The artwork went to the printers and soon printed letters
were sitting on skids, ready for the post office. I had prepared a
special radio broadcast to coincide with the arrival of the mailing—
and the broadcast tapes already had been shipped to stations
in many parts of the nation.
Timing was everything. The mail had to go on Monday. It was
Friday, and I had no undesignated money in the general fund
for the postage. This time there was no question of borrowing
the missionary money. It stayed right where it was.
I called a special prayer meeting, and we met that night in the
living room of our home. Finally the Lord gave me peace. Our
prayers of faith would be answered, I announced. After everyone
had gone home, the telephone rang. It was one of our sponsors
in Chicago. God had been speaking to her all day about giving
a $5,000 gift.
“Praise God,” I said.
That mailing incident proved to be another turning point in
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“ I t I s a P r i v i l e g e ”
R e v o l u t i o n i n Wo r l d Mi s s i o n s
the history of Gospel for Asia. We received many new sponsors—
a double increase in the number of evangelists we were
able to sponsor.
In later years, other Christian leaders, like Bob Walker of
Christian Life Missions and David Mains of Chapel of the Air,
would help us in similar ways. Many of the people who joined
our ministry through those several early mailings have since
helped expand the ministry even further, giving us a base of
contacts from every state in the Union.
God had given us a clear message for the Body of Christ—a
call to recover the Church’s missionary mandate. In every place,
I preached this same message—a prophetic cry to my brothers
and sisters in Christ on behalf of the lost millions in the
Two-Thirds World. Through it, thousands of believers started
to change their lifestyles and conform to the demands of the
Gospel.
76
Eight
A New Day in Missions
Several hundred dedicated believers now were supporting
native missionaries. But despite this aura of success, many things
broke my heart, especially the condition of American Christians.
What had happened to the zeal for missions and outreach that
made this nation so great? Night after night I stood before audiences,
trying my best to communicate the global realities of our
planet. But somehow I was not getting through. I could see their
unfulfilled destiny so clearly. Why couldn’t they?
Here were people of great privilege—a nation more able,
more affluent and more free to act on the Great Commission
than any other in all of history. Yet my audiences did not seem to
comprehend this. Even more confusing to me was the fact that
in personal dealings I found my hosts to be basically fair, often
generous and spiritually gifted. Like the church in first-century
Corinth, they appeared to excel in every spiritual blessing.
Why then, I asked the Lord, was I failing to get through? If the
native missionary movement was really the will of God—and I
knew it was—then why were the people so slow to respond?
Something obviously had gone wrong. Satan had sprung a
trap, or perhaps many traps, on the minds of Western Christians.
Plainly they had lost the Gospel mandate, abdicating the heritage
of missionary outreach, the call of God that still rests on
this nation.
In my prayers I began to seek a message from God that would
bring a change in lifestyle to the American Church. It came over
a period of weeks. And that message came loud and clear:
Unless there is repentance among Christians—individually and
in concert as a community of believers—an awesome judgment
will fall on America.
I was certain then, and still am today, that God’s loving
hands of grace and forgiveness remain extended to His people.
Two reasons, it appeared to me, were the cause for the current
malaise that has fastened like cancer on American believers.
The first is historical. The second is the unconfessed sins related
to three basic iniquities: pride, unbelief and worldliness.
Historically, the Western Church lost its grip on the challenge
for world missions at the end of World War II. Ever since that
time, its moral mandate and vision for global outreach have
continued to fade. Many average North American believers can
hardly pronounce the word missionary without having cartoon
caricatures of ridiculous little men in pith helmets pop into
mind—images of cannibals with spears and huge black pots of
boiling water.
Despite a valiant rear guard action by many outstanding
evangelical leaders and missions, it has been impossible for
the Western missionary movement to keep up with exploding
populations and the new political realities of nationalism
in the Two-Thirds World. Most Christians in North America
still conceive of missions in terms of blond-haired, blue-eyed
white people going to the dark-skinned Two-Thirds World
nations. In reality, all of that changed at the end of World
War II when the Western powers lost political and military control
of their former colonies.
When I stand before North American audiences in churches
and mission conferences, people are astonished to hear the real
facts of missions today. The frontline work of missions in Asia
R e v o l u t i o n i n Wo r l d Mi s s i o n s
78
has been taken over almost completely by indigenous missionaries.
And the results are outstanding. Believers are shocked
to learn that native missionaries are starting hundreds of new
churches every week in the Two-Thirds World, that thousands
of people a day are being converted to Christ, and that tens of
thousands of well-qualified, spiritually able men and women
now are ready to start more mission work if we can raise their
support.
In India, which no longer permits Western missionary evangelists,
more church growth and outreach are happening now than
at any point in our history. China is another good example of the
new realities. When the communists drove Western missionaries
out and closed the churches in 1950, it seemed that Christianity
was dead. In fact, most of the known leaders were imprisoned,
and a whole generation of Chinese pastors was killed or disappeared
in communist prisons and torture chambers.
But today communication is open again with China, and
over 500,000 underground churches reportedly have sprung up
during the communist persecution.1 Estimates of the number of
Christians today in China vary widely, but responsible authorities
place it around 50 million, compared to 1 million when
Western missionaries were driven out.2 Again, all this has happened
under the spiritual direction of the indigenous church
movement.
From a historical perspective, it is not difficult to trace how
Western thinking has been confused by the march of history.
In the early 1950s, the destruction of the colonial missionary
establishment was big news. As the doors of China, India,
Myanmar, North Korea, North Vietnam and many other newly
independent nations slammed shut on Western missionaries,
it was natural for the traditional churches and denominational
missions to assume that their day had ended.
That, of course, was in itself untrue, as evidenced by the
A N e w D a y i n Mi s s i o n s
79
growth of evangelical missions in the same period. But many
became convinced then that the age of missions had ended forever.
Except for the annual missions appeal in most churches,
many North American believers lost hope of seeing the Great
Commission of Christ fulfilled on a global scale. Although it
was rarely stated, the implication was this: If North American or
Western European-based mission boards were not leading the
way, then it could not happen.
Mission monies once used to proclaim the Gospel were
more and more sidetracked into the charitable social programs
toward which the new governments of the former colonies were
more sympathetic. A convenient theology of missions developed
that today sometimes equates social and political action
with evangelism.
Many of the Western missionaries who did stay on in Asia
also were deeply affected by the rise of nationalism. They began
a steady retreat from evangelism and discipleship, concentrating
for the most part on broadcasting, education, medical,
publishing, relief and social work. Missionaries, when home in
the West, continued to give the impression that indigenization
meant not only the pullout of Western personnel but also the
pullout of financial and other assistance.
In the meantime, the debate among Western leaders about
the future of missions has raged on, producing entire libraries
of books and some valuable research. Regrettably, however, the
overall result on the average Christian has been extremely negative.
Believers today have no idea that a new day in missions has
dawned or that their support of missions is more desperately
needed than ever before.
True, in many cases, it no longer is possible, for political
reasons, for Western missionaries to go overseas, but American
believers still have a vital role in helping us in the Two-Thirds
World finish the task. I praise God for the pioneer work done
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R e v o l u t i o n i n Wo r l d Mi s s i o n s
by Hudson Taylor and others like him who were sent by believers
at home in the past. Now, in countries like India, we need
instead to send financial and technical support to native evangelists
and Bible teachers.
Imagine the implications of being involved in the work of the
Great Commission, of getting your church and family to join
with you in supporting native missions.
Picture this very possible scene. You finish your life on this
earth. You arrive in heaven. There, enthroned in all His glory,
is our Lord Jesus Christ. The other saints and martyrs you have
read about are there: Abraham, Moses, Peter and Paul, plus great
leaders from more recent times. Your family and loved ones who
obeyed the Gospel are also there. They are all welcoming you into
heaven. You walk around in bliss, filled with joy and praises. All
the promises of the Bible are true. The streets really are gold, and
the glory of God shines brightly, replacing the sun, moon and
stars. It is beyond the power of any man to describe.
Then, scores of strangers whom you don’t recognize start to
gather around with happy smiles and outstretched hands. They
embrace you with affection and gratitude.
“Thank you. . . . Thank you. . . . Thank you,” they repeat in a
chorus. With great surprise you ask, “What did I do? I have never
seen you before.”
They tell you the story of how they came to be in heaven,
all because your love and concern reached out to them while
they were on earth. You see that these persons come from
“every tongue and tribe,” just as the Bible says—from India,
Bangladesh, Bhutan, Sri Lanka and Malaysia.
“But what exactly did I do?” you ask. Then, like a replay of a
videotape, your mind goes back to a day in your life on earth
when a local mission coordinator came to your church. He told
you about the lost millions of Asia—about the 400 million who
have never heard the Gospel in India alone.3 He told you about
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A N e w D a y i n Mi s s i o n s
R e v o l u t i o n i n Wo r l d Mi s s i o n s
the desperately poor native missionaries and challenged you to
support them.
“As a result of your support,” the crowd of Asians continues,
“one of our own—a native evangelist—came to us and preached
the Gospel of the kingdom. He lived simply, just like us, speaking
our language and dressed in our clothing. We were able to
accept his message easily. We learned for the first time about the
love of Jesus, who died on the cross for us, and how His blood
redeemed us from sin, Satan and death.”
As the crowd finishes, several whole families come up to you.
You can see the tenderness and gratefulness on their faces as
well. They join the others, taking you in their arms and thanking
you again.
“How can we ever express our appreciation for the love and
kindness you showed by supporting us on the earth as we struggled
in the service of the Lord? Often we went without food.
Our children cried for milk, but we had none to give. Unknown
and forsaken by our own people, we sought to witness to our
own people who had never heard the Gospel. Now they are here
in eternity with us.
“In the middle of our suffering, you came into our lives with
your prayers and financial support. Your help relieved us so
much—making it possible for us to carry on the work of the
Lord.
“We never had a chance to see you face-to-face in the world.
Now we can see you here and spend all eternity rejoicing with
you over the victories of the Lord.”
Now Jesus Himself appears. You bow as He quotes the familiar
Scripture verses to you: “I was an hungered, and ye gave me
meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye
took me in: naked, and ye clothed me. . . . Verily I say unto you,
Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my
brethren, ye have done it unto me” (Matthew 25:35–36, 40).
82
Is this just a fanciful story, or will it be reality for many thousands
of North American Christians? I believe it could happen
as Christians arrive in heaven and see how they have laid up
treasure where moth and rust cannot corrupt.
Every time I stand before an audience, I try early in my message
to ask two very important questions that every Christian
needs to ask himself:
• Why
do you think God has allowed you to be born in
North America or Europe rather than among the poor of
Africa and Asia and to be blessed with such material and
spiritual abundance?
• In
light of the superabundance you enjoy here, what do
you think is your minimal responsibility to the untold millions
of lost and suffering in the Two-Thirds World?
You have been born among the privileged elite of this world.
You have so much while others have so little. Think a moment
about the vast difference between your country and the nations
without a Christian heritage.
• One-
fourth of the world’s people lives on an income
of less than $1 a day—most of them in Asia.4 The gross
national income per person in South Asia is only $460 a year.
Americans earn an average of 77 times more5—and Christian
Americans, because they tend to live in the upper half of the
economy, earn even more. In most countries where Gospel
for Asia is serving the native missionary movement, a good
wage is $1 to $3 a day. While much of the world is concerned
mainly about where its next meal is coming from, affluent
North Americans spend most of their wages and waking
moments planning unnecessary purchases.
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R e v o l u t i o n i n Wo r l d Mi s s i o n s
• People
in the United States, Canada, Australia and Europe
enjoy freedom of choice. Political freedoms of speech,
press and assembly, freedom to worship and organize religious
ministries, freedom to choose where and how to live,
and freedom to organize themselves to correct injustices
and problems both at home and abroad are accepted as
normal.
• Leisure
time and disposable income, although not written
into law, free citizens of the Western world from the basic
wants that make living so difficult in many other parts of
the world.
• A
large number of service networks in communications,
education, finance, mass media and transportation are
available that make it easy to effect change. Not having
these services available is an enormous handicap to people
in most other parts of the world.
• Finally,
few domestic needs exist. Although unemployment
is a serious problem in some areas, it is many times
higher in nearly every country of the Two-Thirds World.
How many of us can comprehend the suffering of the
millions of homeless and starving people in nations like
Bangladesh? Overseas the problems are on a grand scale.
Some nations struggle to help themselves but still fail woefully.
This list is illustrative of the many advantages of living in the
Western world where benefits have come largely because of a
Christian heritage.
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Nine
Is Missions an Option?
If the apostle Paul had not brought the Gospel to Europe,
foundational principles such as freedom and human dignity
would not be part of the American heritage. Because the
Holy Spirit instructed him to turn away from Asia and go
West, America has been blessed with its systems of law and
economics—the principles that made it rich and free.
In addition, the United States is the only nation in the world
founded by believers in Christ who made a covenant with
God—dedicating a new nation to God.
Born into affluence, freedom and divine blessings, Americans
should be the most thankful people on earth.
But along with the privilege comes a responsibility. The
Christian must ask not only why, but also what he should do
with these unearned favors.
Throughout Scripture, we see only one correct response to
abundance: sharing.
God gives some people more than they need so that they can
be channels of blessing to others. God desires equity between
His people on a worldwide basis. That is why the early Church
had no poverty.
The apostle Paul wrote to the rich Christians in Corinth,
“For I mean not that other men be eased, and ye burdened:
But by an equality, that now at this time your abundance
may be a supply for their want, that their abundance also
may be a supply for your want: that there may be equality”
(2 Corinthians 8:13–14).
The Bible advocates and demands that we show love for the
needy brethren. Right now, because of historical and economic
factors that none of us can control, the needy brethren are in
Asia. The wealthy brethren are primarily in North America,
Europe, Australia and New Zealand. The conclusion is obvious:
These affluent believers must share with the poorer churches.
“We know that we have passed from death unto life, because
we love the brethren. . . . But whoso hath this world’s good,
and seeth his brother have need, and shutteth up his bowels of
compassion from him, how dwelleth the love of God in him?
My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue; but
in deed and in truth” (1 John 3:14, 17–18).
And, “What doth it profit, my brethren, though a man say he
hath faith, and have not works? can faith save him? If a brother
or sister be naked, and destitute of daily food, And one of you
say unto them, Depart in peace, be ye warmed and filled; notwithstanding
ye give them not those things which are needful to
the body; what doth it profit? Even so faith, if it hath not works,
is dead, being alone” (James 2:14–17).
Is missions an option—especially for super-wealthy countries
like America? The biblical answer is clear. Every Christian
in America has some minimal responsibility to get involved in
helping the poor brethren in the Church in other countries.
God has not given this superabundance of blessings to
Western Christians so we can sit back and enjoy the luxuries of
this society—or even in spiritual terms, so we can gorge ourselves
on books, teaching cassettes and deeper-life conferences. He has
left us on this earth to be stewards of these spiritual and material
blessings, learning how to share with others and administer our
wealth to accomplish the purposes of God.
R e v o l u t i o n i n Wo r l d Mi s s i o n s
86
What is the bottom line? God is calling us as Christians to
alter our lifestyles, to give up the nonessentials of our lives so we
can better invest our wealth in the kingdom of God.
To start, I challenge believers to lay aside at least $1 a day to
help support a native missionary in the Two-Thirds World. This,
of course, should be over and above our present commitments
to the local church and other ministries. I do not ask Christians
to redirect their giving away from other ministries for native
missions—but to expand their giving over and above current
levels. Most people can do this.
Millions of North American and European believers can
accomplish this easily by giving up cookies, cakes, sweets, coffee
and other beverages. These junk foods harm our bodies anyway,
and anyone can save enough in this way to help sponsor
one or even two missionaries a month. Many are going beyond
this and, without affecting health or happiness, are able to help
sponsor several missionaries every month.
There are, of course, many other ways to get involved. Some
cannot give more financially, but they can invest time in prayer
and help recruit more sponsors. And a few are called to go overseas
to become more directly involved.
But I would submit to you that the single most important
hindrance to world evangelization right now is the lack of total
involvement by the Body of Christ. I am convinced there are
enough potential sponsors to support all the native missionaries
needed to evangelize the Two-Thirds World.
The native missionary movement is relatively new, and many
Christians still have not been challenged to participate, but that
is superficial. The real truth is much more basic—and more
deadly. The three major reasons why the Body of Christ falls
short in facilitating world evangelization are the sins of pride,
unbelief and worldliness.
Ask the average Christian why the Lord destroyed Sodom,
I s Mi s s i o n s a n O p t i o n ?
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R e v o l u t i o n i n Wo r l d Mi s s i o n s
and he or she will cite the city’s gross immorality. Ezekiel, however,
reveals the real reason in chapter 16, verses 49 and 50:
“Behold, this was the iniquity of thy sister Sodom, pride, fulness
of bread, and abundance of idleness was in her and in her
daughters, neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and
needy. And they were haughty, and committed abomination
before me: therefore I took them away as I saw good.”
Sodom refused to aid the needy poor because of pride. We are
caught up in a national pride similar to Sodom’s. Yes, selfishness
and perversion come from that pride, but we need to see
that pride is the real root. Deal with that root and you cut off a
multitude of sins before they have a chance to grow.
One night while speaking at a church missionary conference,
I was asked to meet privately with the church council to give
my reaction to a new mission program they were considering. I
already had preached and was very tired. I did not feel like sitting
in a board meeting. The meeting, attended by 22 persons,
began in the usual way, more like a corporate board meeting at
IBM or General Motors than a church board.
The presenter made an impressive, business-like proposal. The
scheme involved shifting “third country nationals” from Asia
to a mission field in Latin America. It was very futuristic and
sounded like a major leap in missions, but warning lights and
bells were going off in my mind. To me it sounded like 19th-century
colonial missionary practice dressed in a different disguise.
The Lord spoke to me clearly: “Son, tonight you must speak
to people who are so self-sufficient they’ve never asked Me
about this plan. They think I’m helpless.”
When the chairman of the church council finally called on
me to respond with my opinion of the proposal, I stood and
read certain parts of Matthew 28:18–20: “All power is given
unto me in heaven and in earth. Go ye therefore, and teach all
nations . . . to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded
88
you: and, lo, I am with you alway. . . .”
Then I closed my Bible and paused, looking each one in the
eyes.
“If He is with you,” I said, “then you will represent Him—not
just be like Him—but you will exercise His authority. Where is
the power of God in this plan?”
I did not need to say much. The Holy Spirit anointed my
words, and everyone seemed to understand.
“How often have you met for prayer?” I asked rhetorically.
“How long since you have had an entire day of prayer to seek
God’s mind about your mission strategy?” From their eyes it was
easy to see they had prayed little about their mission budget,
which was then in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.
The discussion went on until 1:30 in the morning, but with a
new sense of repentance in the room.
“Brother K.P.,” said the leader to me afterward, “you have
destroyed everything we were trying to do tonight, but now
we’re ready to wait on God for His plan.”
That kind of humility will bring the Church back into the
center of God’s will and global plan. Churches today are not
experiencing the power and anointing of God in their ministries
because they do not have the humility to wait on Him. Because
of that sin, the world remains largely unreached.
So little of evangelical Christian work is done in total dependence
upon the living God. Like our brothers and sisters in that
big church, we have devised methods, plans and techniques to
“do” God’s work. Those involved apparently sense no need to
pray or be filled with the Holy Spirit to do the work of Jesus.
How far we have drifted from the faith of the apostles and the
prophets! What a tragedy when the techniques of the world and
its agents are brought into the sanctuary of God. Only when we
are emptied of our own self-sufficiency can God use us. When
a church or a mission board spends more time in consultation,
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planning and committee meetings than in prayer, it is a clear
indication the members have lost touch with the supernatural
and have ended up, in Watchman Nee’s words, “serving the
house of God and forgot the Lord Himself.”
Part of the sin of pride is a subtle but deep racism. As I travel,
I often hear innocent-sounding questions such as, “How do we
know that the native church is ready to handle the funds?” or
“What kind of training have the native missionaries had?”
So long as such questions are based on a sincere desire for
good stewardship, they are commendable, but in many cases I
have found the intent of the questions to be much less honorable.
Westerners refuse to trust Asians the way they trust their
own people. If we’re satisfied that a certain native missionary
is truly called to the Gospel, we have to trust God and turn
our stewardship over to him and his elders just as we would to
another brother in our own culture. To expect to continue controlling
the use of money and the ministry overseas from our
foreign-based mission board is an extension of colonialism. It
adds an unbiblical element, which only humiliates and weakens
the native missionaries in the long run.
Christians need to learn that they are not giving their money
to native workers, but God’s money to His work overseas.
Here are some further manifestations of pride: Instead
of glorifying two-fisted fighters in the John Wayne tradition
of American folk heroes, Christians would do well to sit
still until the power of God is manifested in their Christian
activities.
Churches need to develop the quiet disciplines they have
lost—practices such as contemplation, fasting, listening, meditation,
prayer, silence, Scripture memory, submission and reflection.
Many Christian leaders are caught up in secondary issues that
sap their time and energy. I will never forget preaching in one
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church where the pastor had turned defending the King James
translation of the Bible into a crusade. Not only does he spend
most of his pulpit time upholding it—but thousands of dollars
go to printing books, tracts and pamphlets advocating the exclusive
use of this one translation.
In the years I have lived and worked in the United States,
I have watched believers and whole congregations get caught
up in all kinds of similar crusades and causes that, while not
necessarily bad in themselves, end up taking our eyes off obedience
to Christ. And in this sense, they become anti-Christ.
Red-hot issues burning across the horizon—such as inerrancy,
charismatic gifts, the latest revelations of itinerant teachers or
secular humanism, or whatever new issue raises its head tomorrow—
need to be kept in their proper perspective. There always
will be new dragons to slay, but we must not let these side
battles keep us from our main task of building and expanding
the kingdom of God.
When I go to Asia, I see our churches and theologians there
being just as violently divided over a different set of issues, and
through this I have come to realize that many times these doctrinal
divisions are being used by the evil one to keep us preoccupied
with something other than the Gospel.
We are driven by powerful egos always to be right. We are
often slaves to a strong tendency to “have it our way.” All of
these are manifestations of pride. The opposite of that is the
servanthood and humble sacrifice commanded by Christ.
Making a sacrifice for one of the unknown brethren—supporting
his work to a strange people in a strange place, using
methods that are a mystery to you—does take humility. But
supporting the native brethren must begin with this kind
of commitment to humility and must continue in the same
spirit. Sadly, our pride all too often stands in the way of
progress.
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Ten
God Is Withholding Judgment
Beware of boasters. They are usually covering up something.
One of the great boasts of many Western evangelical Christians
is their devotion to the Scriptures. It is hard to find a church that
does not at one time or another brag about being “Bible believing.”
When I first came here, I made the mistake of taking that
description at face value.
But I have come to see that many evangelical Christians do
not really believe the Word of God, especially when it talks
about hell and judgment. Instead, they selectively accept only
the portions that allow them to continue living in their current
lifestyles.
It is painful to think about hell and judgment. I understand
why preachers do not like to talk about it, because I don’t either.
It is so much easier to preach that “God loves you and has a
wonderful plan for your life” or to focus on the many delightful
aspects of “possibility thinking” and the “word of faith”
that brings health, wealth and happiness. The grace and love of
God are pleasant subjects, and no one more beautifully demonstrated
them than our Lord Jesus. Yet in His earthly ministry,
He made more references to hell and judgment than He did
to heaven. Jesus lived with the reality of hell, and He died on
Calvary because He knew it was real and coming to everyone
who doesn’t turn to God in this life.
R e v o l u t i o n i n Wo r l d Mi s s i o n s
Believers are willing to accept the concept of heaven, but they
look the other way when they come to passages in the Bible
about hell. Very few seem to believe that those who die without
Christ are going to a place where they will be tormented forever
and ever in a bottomless pit where the fire is not quenched and
they are separated from God and His love for all eternity without
any chance of return.
If we knew the horrors of the potential judgment that hangs
over us—if we really believed in what is coming—how differently
we would live. Why aren’t Christians living in obedience
to God? Because of their unbelief.
Why did Eve fall into sin? Because she did not truly believe
in the judgment—that death really would come if she ate what
God forbade. This is the same reason many continue in lives of
sin and disobedience.
The Great Depression and recent recessions are only a slap on
the wrist compared to the poverty that lies ahead—let alone the
bombs, disease and natural calamities. But God is withholding
judgment now to give us time to repent.
Unfortunately for millions in the Two-Thirds World, it will be
too late unless we can reach them before they slip off the edge
into eternal darkness.
For years I have struggled with making this a reality in our
meetings. Finally I found a way.
I ask my listeners to hold their wrists and find their pulse.
Then I explain that every beat they feel represents the death of
someone in Asia who has died and gone to eternal hell without
ever hearing the Good News of Jesus Christ even once.
“What if one of those beats represented your own mother?” I
ask. “Your own father, your spouse, your child . . . you yourself?”
The millions of Asians who are dying and going to hell are
people for whom Christ died. We say we believe it—but what
are we doing to act on that faith? Without works, faith is dead.
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No one should go to hell today without hearing about the
Lord Jesus. To me this is an atrocity much worse than the death
camps of Hitler’s Germany or Stalin’s Russia. As horrible as the
1.3 million abortions are in the United States each year, the
eternal loss of multiplied millions of additional souls every year
is the greatest preventable tragedy of our times.
If only a small percentage of the 80 million people who claim
to be born-again Christians in this country were to sponsor a
native missionary, we could have literally hundreds of thousands
of evangelists reaching the lost villages of Asia. When we
look at the unfinished Great Commission and compare it to our
personal lifestyles—or to the activity calendars of our churches
and organizations—how can we explain our disobedience? We
must see a great repentance from the sin of our unbelief in
God’s judgment.
C.T. Studd, the famous British athlete and founder of
Worldwide Evangelization Crusade, was one who gave up all his
achievements in this life for Christ’s sake. He was challenged to
his commitment by an article written by an atheist. That article
in part said:
If I firmly believed, as millions say they do, that the knowledge
and practice of religion in this life influences destiny in another,
then religion would mean to me everything.
I would cast away earthly enjoyments as dross, earthly cares as
follies, and earthly thoughts and feelings as vanity. Religion would
be my first waking thought and my last image before sleep sank me
into unconsciousness. I should labor in its cause alone.
I would take thought for the morrow of eternity alone. I would
esteem one soul gained for heaven worth a life of suffering.
Earthly consequences would never stay my hand, or seal my
lips. Earth, its joys and its griefs, would occupy no moment of
my thoughts. I would strive to look upon eternity alone, and on
the immortal souls around me, soon to be everlastingly happy
or everlastingly miserable.
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I would go forth to the world and preach to it in season and
out of season, and my text would be:
“WHAT SHALL IT PROFIT A MAN IF HE GAIN THE WHOLE
WORLD AND LOSE HIS OWN SOUL?”1
Another iniquity plaguing the Western Church is worldliness.
Once, on a 2,000-mile auto trip across the American West, I
made it a point to listen to Christian radio all along the way.
What I heard revealed much about the secret motivations that
drive many Christians. Some of the broadcasts would have
been hilarious if they weren’t exploiting the gullible—hawking
health, wealth and success in the name of Christianity.
• Some
speakers offered holy oil and lucky charms to those
who sent in money and requested them.
• Some
speakers offered prayer cloths that had blessed
believers with $70,000 to $100,000, new cars, houses and
health.
• One
speaker said he would mail holy soap he had blessed.
If used with his instructions, it would wash away bad luck,
evil friends and sickness. Again he promised “plenty of
money” and everything else the user wanted.
Such con games bring a smile to our lips, but the same basic
package is marketed with more sophistication at every level of
this society. Christian magazines, TV shows and church services
often put the spotlight on famous athletes, beauty queens, businessmen
and politicians who “make it in the world and have
Jesus too!”
Today Christian values are defined almost totally by success
as it is promoted by Madison Avenue advertising. Even many
Christian ministries gauge their effectiveness by the standards
of Harvard MBAs.
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Jesus said the heart is where the treasures are kept. So what
can we say about many evangelical Christians? Getting into debt
for cars, homes and furnishings that probably are not needed
and sacrificing family, church and health for corporate promotions
and career advancement—I believe all this is deception,
engineered by the god of this world to ensnare and destroy
effective Christians and to keep them from sharing the Gospel
with those who need it.
“Love not the world,” says John in his first epistle, “neither
the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the
love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the
lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life,
is not of the Father, but is of the world. And the world passeth
away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God
abideth for ever” (1 John 2:15–17).
The typical media testimony goes something like this: “I was
sick and broke, a total failure. Then I met Jesus. Now everything
is fine; my business is booming, and I am a great success.”
It sounds wonderful. Be a Christian and get that bigger house
and a boat and vacation in the Holy Land.
But if that were really God’s way, it would put some believers
living in anti-Christian and in the Two-Thirds World in a pretty
bad light. Their testimonies often go something like this:
“I was happy. I had everything—prestige, recognition, a good
job, and a happy wife and children. Then I gave my life to Jesus
Christ. Now I am in Siberia, having lost my family, wealth, reputation,
job and health.
“Here I live, lonely, deserted by friends. I cannot see the face
of my wife and dear children. My crime is that I love Jesus.”
What about the heroes of the faith down through the ages?
The apostles laid down their lives for the Lord. Christian
martyrs have written their names on every page of history.
In the former Soviet Union, Ivan Moiseyev was tortured and
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killed within two years of meeting Jesus. In China, Watchman
Nee spent 20 years in prison and finally died in bondage.
When Sadhu Sundar Singh, born and raised in a rich Sikh’s
home in Punjab, became a Christian, his own family tried to
poison him and banished him from their home. He lost his
inheritance and walked away with one piece of clothing on his
body. Yet, following his Master, he made millions truly rich
through faith in Christ.
The native missionaries supported by Gospel for Asia often
suffer for their commitment also. Coming from non-Christian
backgrounds, they often are literally thrown out of their homes,
lose their jobs and are beaten and chased from their villages
when they accept Christ.
They faithfully serve Christ daily, suffering untold hardships
because Jesus promised His followers, “In the world ye shall have
tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world”
(John 16:33). What He promised were trials and tribulations.
But we can face them because we know He already has won
the battle. God does promise to meet our physical needs. And
He does, indeed, bless His children materially. But He blesses
us for a purpose—not so we can squander those resources on
ourselves but so we can be good stewards, using our resources
wisely to win the lost to God’s saving grace.
The Scripture tells us, “Whoso hath this world’s good, and
seeth his brother have need, and shutteth up his bowels of
compassion from him, how dwelleth the love of God in him?”
(1 John 3:17).
As A.W. Tozer, noted Christian and Missionary Alliance pastor
and author, once said,
There is no doubt that the possessive clinging to things is one of
the most harmful habits in life. Because it is so natural, it is rarely
recognized for the evil that it is. But its outworking is tragic. This
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ancient curse will not go out painlessly. The tough old miser
within us will not lie down and die obedient to our command.
He must be torn out, torn out of our hearts like a plant from the
soil; he must be extracted in blood and agony like a tooth from
the jaw. He must be expelled from our souls in violence as Christ
expelled the money changers from the temple.2
Many Western believers are the rich young rulers of our day.
Jesus is saying to them, “If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that
thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in
heaven: and come and follow me” (Matthew 19:21).
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Eleven
Why Should I Make Waves?
By the end of 1981, Gospel for Asia appeared to be gaining
acceptance; people from all over the United States and Canada
were beginning to share in the ministry of equipping native
missionaries to evangelize in their own countries.
As Gisela and our office staff in Dallas worked to assign our
new sponsors to native missionaries, I felt led of the Lord to
plan a road tour of 14 Texas towns to meet personally with new
supporters. Calling ahead, I introduced myself and thanked the
people for taking on the sponsorship of a native missionary.
I was stunned by the response. Most of the people had heard
me on the radio and appeared thrilled with the idea of meeting
me. In every town, someone offered me lodging and made
arrangements for me to speak in small house meetings and
churches. People were referring to me in a new way—as the
president and director of an important missionary organization.
Far from being pleased, I was more terrified than ever—afraid
that I would fail or be rejected.
But with the meetings booked solid and the publicity out,
an unreasonable fear took over. A weariness settled upon me.
As the day for my departure came closer, I looked for excuses to
cancel or postpone the whole venture.
“My family and the office need me more,” I argued. “Besides,
I’ll be driving alone. It’s dangerous and difficult—I should really
wait until someone can go with me.”
Just when I had almost talked myself out of going, the Lord
spoke to me in an unmistakable voice during my personal
morning devotion. As on other occasions, it was just as if He
were in the room with me.
“My sheep hear My voice,” said the Lord, using His words
from John 10, “and I know them and they follow Me: My sheep
follow Me because they know My voice.”
I did not need an interpretation; the message was clear. The
trip had been ordained by Him. He had arranged it and opened
the doors. I needed to picture myself as a little lamb and follow
my Shepherd over the miles. He would go ahead of me to every
church and every home in which I would stay.
It turned out to be a heavenly two weeks. In every home and
church, I had delightful fellowship with our new friends—and
we added a number of supporters as a result.
The church in Victoria, Texas, was almost my last stop, and
the Lord had a surprise waiting for me there. But He had to
prepare me first.
As I drove from town to town, I had time alone in the car for
the Lord to deal with me on several issues that would impact the
future of the mission and my own walk with Him.
One issue involved one of the most far-reaching policy decisions
I ever would make. For some years I had suffered deep
pain over what appeared to be massive imbalance between our
busyness with maintaining Christian institutions, like hospitals
and schools, and the proclamation of the Gospel. Both in India
and in my travels around Western countries, I constantly uncovered
a preoccupation with so-called “ministry” activities operated
by Christian workers, financed by church monies, but with
little else to distinguish them as Christian.
Far too much of the resources of North American missions
is spent on things not related to the primary goal of church
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planting. Wagner, in his book On the Crest of the Wave, says, “I
have before me a recent list of openings in a . . . mission agency
which will go unnamed. Of 50 different categories, only two
relate to evangelism, both focused on youth. The rest of the
categories include, among others, agronomists, music teachers,
nurses, automobile mechanics, secretaries, electronics professors,
and ecologists.”1
Social concern is a natural fruit of the Gospel. But to put it
first is to put the cart before the horse; and from experience,
we have seen it fail in India for more than 200 years. It was an
attempt to exclusively concentrate on people’s obvious social
needs.
Yet while I realized the intrinsic nature of the Gospel involved
caring for the poor, I knew the priority was giving them the
Gospel. Meeting their needs was a means to share the love of
Christ so they would be saved for eternity.
I did not go this route because I felt other Christian charities
and ministries of compassion were wrong in showing the love
of Christ. No, many were doing a wonderful job. But I felt the
local church should be the center for outreach, and we needed
to bring the balance back.
I did not publicly tell anyone about my decision. I knew this
subject would be controversial, and I was afraid others would
think I was being judgmental, a “fighting fundy” reactionary,
or a fanatic. I only wanted to help the native missionary movement,
and I reasoned that getting into arguments over mission
strategy would be counterproductive.
Then came Victoria, Texas.
My presentation went nicely. I showed the GFA slides and
made an impassioned plea for our work. I explained the philosophy
of our ministry, giving the biblical reasons why the people
of Asia are lost unless native missionaries go to them.
Suddenly, I felt the Spirit prompting me to talk about the
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dangers of the humanist social gospel. I paused for the briefest
moment, then went on without mentioning it. I just did not
have the courage. I might make enemies everywhere. People
would think I was an unloving fool, a spoiler of Christian work
who did not even care about the hungry, naked, needy and suffering.
Why should I make waves? I managed to get through my
presentation, and feeling relieved, I opened up the meeting to
questions.
But the Holy Spirit was not about to let me off the hook.
From far in the back of the room, a tall man—at least “six
foot three” as they say in Texas—came walking steadily up the
aisle, looking bigger and bigger as he came closer to me. I did
not know who he was or what he had to say, but I felt instinctively
that God had sent him. When he reached me, he wrapped
a huge arm around my skinny shoulders and said some words
I still can hear ringing today: “This man here, our brother, is
fearful and afraid to speak the truth . . . and he’s struggling with
it.” I felt my face and neck getting hot with guilt. How did this
big cowboy know that? But it got worse, and I was about to see
proof that the Spirit of the living God was really using this tall
Texan to deliver a powerful confirmation and rebuke to me.
“The Lord has led you in ways others have not walked and
shown you things others have not seen,” he went on. “The souls
of millions are at stake. You must speak the truth about the misplaced
priority on the mission field. You must call the Body of
Christ to return to the task of preaching salvation and snatching
souls from hell.”
I felt like a zero, yet this was undeniably a miraculous prophecy
inspired by God, confirming both my disobedience and the
very message God had called me to preach fearlessly. But my
humiliation and liberation were not over yet.
“The Lord has asked me,” the tall man said, “to call the elders
up here to pray for you that this fear of man will leave you.”
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Suddenly I felt like even less than a zero. I had been introduced
as a great mission leader; now I felt like a little lamb. I
wanted to defend myself. I did not feel as if I were being controlled
by a spirit of fear; I felt that I was just acting logically to
protect the interests of our mission. But I submitted anyway,
feeling a little ridiculous, as the elders crowded around me to
pray for an anointing of power on my preaching ministry.
Something happened. I felt the power of God envelop me.
A few minutes later I got up from my knees a changed man,
released from the bondage of fear that had gripped me. All
doubts were gone: God had placed a burden on my life to
deliver this message.
Since that day I have insisted we recover the genuine Gospel
of Jesus—that balanced New Testament message that begins not
with the fleshly needs of people, but with the plan and wisdom
of God—“born-again” conversion that leads to righteousness,
sanctification and redemption. Any “mission” that springs
from “the base things of the world” is a betrayal of Christ and is
what the Bible calls “another gospel.” It cannot save or redeem
people either as individuals or as a society. We preach a Gospel,
not for the years of time alone, but for eternity.
The only trouble with half-truths is that they contain within
them full lies. Such is the case with this declaration issued at
the 1928 Jerusalem Conference of the International Missionary
Council: “Our fathers were impressed with the horror that men
should die without Christ; we were equally impressed with the
horror that they should live without Christ.”
Out of such rhetoric—usually delivered passionately by
an ever-growing number of sincere humanists within our
churches—come myriads of worldly social programs. Such
efforts really snatch salvation and true redemption from the
poor—condemning them to eternity in hell.
Of course, there is a basic truth to the statement. Living this
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