TITLE: A Symphony of Miracles Book 2 Chapter 17 Mission Fields are Everywhere 8/24/14 By Richard McCaw 08/25/14 |
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Chapter 17
Mission fields are Everywhere!
Imagine a famine in Africa, many swept to their deaths by starvation and disease, while food, water and medical supplies are locked up in storehouses. Two workers and a few doctors lie fast asleep outside. Multitudes stand outside with swollen bellies, covered with moth-eaten blankets in the scorching sun!
The preaching of the gospel is much the same: abundant life is available within easy reach, for God’s people have the answers! However, the Church is like a sleeping giant that must be awakened to deal with the crisis!
Ken Fullerton, the director of Christian Publications Bookstore in Kingston, Jamaica, overturned a large box of letters, and with a voice breaking with emotion, declared, “Many are seeking salvation, but we’re short of hands to answer letters!”
Ken was the special speaker that year when I attended a Brethren Young People’s conference at Inswood Estate, near Spanish Town. His challenging message rang out across the crowds of young people scattered across the stands, many standing in the field. I too was standing in the large open field before the grandstand, listening. Deeply touched, tears washed down my cheeks.
I knew that God was calling me to go out where lost souls were. From my study of the New Testament, especially the Acts of the Apostles, I discovered that the biblical concept was to introduce men to Christ first, then afterwards to lead them into a community where they could be properly discipled. The scriptures emphasized bringing people to Christ!
One estimate reports that less than 5% of Christians have ever led anyone to Christ. In so-called Christian nations only 10% of the public attend church at some point in their lives.
In many churches I had visited it was clear that most programs recommended bringing people to a church building! However, that program was not winning people to Christ fast enough, but was a great hindrance to world evangelization. Jesus Christ encouraged His disciples to engage in an active approach to evangelism: “GO OUT into the highways and hedges, and compel them to come in, that my house may be filled.”
In that same year, when G. Christian Weiss, of Back to the Bible broadcast, arrived in Jamaica I went to hear him speak at the St. Andrew High School auditorium on ‘Missions.’ As a young man, I could not get the image of Jesus weeping over the multitudes out of my mind. Most of my peers were pursuing marriage, or partying or a life of worldly pleasure. I was moving in the opposite direction! God was at work deep in my heart stirring me to greater things! When the invitation was given to serve Christ fully I went forward. “How can I live for myself” I thought, “while many are dying without Christ? Lord, I offer myself to You once more to serve if You need me as a missionary!”
That was the beginning of a series of events that would eventually lead me out into the world of lost men and women, boys and girls. I soon found myself talking to people wherever I went. I would take every opportunity to present Christ as the answer to every human need. Although I had never experienced physical healing at the time, I even proclaimed that Christ was a Healer. I never knew anything about deliverance from demons, but I was sure that anyone afflicted in that way, could be liberated, just as Jesus Christ had set free a demon-possessed man living in a cemetery.
With that confidence I boldly approached anyone willing to listen. Mission fields were not in far off countries only, but I saw them at bus stops, in hospitals, on the streets, after church services, and everywhere!
If we are believers, let s pray that our eyes be opened. Let us lift Christ up before the lost, the backslider, the believer who has lost the passion for souls. He promises to draw all men to Himself.
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