World Evangelisation — Peter Maiden

Well, this is the national dress of a Cumbrian farmer. Well, what do you want to know about me? I'm married with three children, as you've been told. I live in Cumbria, which is eight miles south of the Scottish border.

I have a fellow called Hadrian, who built a wall across the country. And I've worked with Operation Mobilization for, I think, about ten, twelve, maybe thirteen years, full time. And since 1967, I've been going on summer campaigns.

I managed to resist the year program for many years. And eventually, about twelve years ago, I was asked to come in for a year to help out. And I've been totally unable to get out since. Can I just say a couple of things before we have a look at a few books?

Can I just underline the importance of that announcement about volunteer help for the September conference? If you can spend a week with us at the end of your summer commitment, that will be a tremendous help indeed.

So don't forget to sign up either at the back or at Eugene's house, if that's a possibility. Now, on the renegade book stall at the back there, we found some of George's books in other languages, one in French and one in Dutch.

Also, there are some copies of Ralph Schalles' great book, From Now On. Ralph has been a guest speaker at these conferences on a number of occasions. And he went to be with the Lord during this past year.

But his ministry and his message will live on, I'm sure, for many years through writings like this. If this conference has inspired you to go on with God, this is a very, very practical handbook to take that commitment further.

The Call to World Mission

But our subject tonight is world mission, world evangelization. And I hope at the end of this meeting, some of you are going to be asking, well, what do I do next to get involved in world mission? If that is your response, this little booklet, Going Places, which is on the main book table here, should be your first move.

Purchase this book. It's only got three chapters. Chapter one, On Your Mark. Chapter two, Get Set. Chapter three, Go. That's how you start going places in God's work. This book, The Great Omission, by Robertson McQuilkin, is a tremendous book if you want to go into the biblical basis for world evangelism.

I read it about six months ago, and I really found it both a help and a challenge to me. Missionary biography and history is often a tremendous inspiration and motivation for us. The Costly Harvest is a very incredible story of evangelism in South America.

And another book, Giving the Biblical Foundations Permission, is this book by Martin Goldsmith, Don't Just Stand There. Probably one of the most popular books on missions, amongst British young people at least, in the last decade.

And then if you haven't got your world map, there's still a few left. Very soon now, there'll be a brand new publication of Operation World. Look out for that in your bookshops. All going to be updated.

The biggest publishing project that Operation Mobilization has ever been involved in. So we're wanting to get that book into many parts of the world. So why are you involved with us in OM this summer?

What's it all about? Why is Operation Mobilization working in over 30 different countries on our year program? Why do I believe that every one of you should seriously consider the possibility of giving your life to the cause of world missions?

You have to face it that many people, even within the church, feel that what you are doing this summer is quite wrong. So-called Christians are increasingly opposed to the missionary enterprise. They say politically it's a very disruptive thing to get involved in missions.

It's religiously extremely narrow-minded to go, for example, to a Muslim land with the Christian gospel. And those of us who are involved in that are considered to be suffering from arrogant imperialism.

We are now assured by many so-called Christian theologians that God is speaking through all the religions of the world. And our responsibility as Christians is no longer to evangelize. That was a past age.

So you don't go to India with your Bible. You go to India with your notebook. And you find out the strong points, the good points, the worthy points of Hinduism. And if you find a few communists out there as well, you find the strong points of communism.

You bring them back with you and your friend will bring his findings from Islam and Buddhism back. And we'll mix it all together and we'll have the great world religion. Your friend and mine, the Archbishop of Canterbury, visited India just a few weeks ago.

And on his visit to India he made that very point. India, he said, no longer needs Christian missionaries. We have to learn the best from Hinduism because God is speaking through all the religions and philosophies of the world.

So it's very, very important for you and I to know Biblically why we are doing what we're doing. And I want to give you five reasons why I have committed my life to Christian mission. And the first reason is the character of God.

The Character of God and the Uniqueness of Christ

Christian mission begins with this fact that there is only one God. There's a very popular British comedian called Dave Allen. I'm sure you British people are all too spiritual to ever watch his program.

But no doubt some of you have just turned on as he finishes his program. And you'll know how he finishes. Always the same. Good night. And may your gods go with you. You pick up a religious textbook in many schools today.

One of the chapter headings will be something like, The Christian's Gods. And there's this general idea that we have a God. The Christians have a God. But there's many, many other gods as well. This book says absolutely not.

There's only one God. And what's more, there's only one mediator between God and man and he is Jesus Christ. And then there's a second thing about God which should make us all involved in mission. And that is the character of this God.

Our God is not a God of wood. He's not a God of stone. He's not a God who can only be worshipped on one mountain as that dear woman in John chapter 4, which we thought was the case. Our God is a personal, living God who can be known by men.

It's something wonderful, almost unique to the Christian faith. Our God can be known. Men and women can enjoy a relationship with him. He's not some far off supreme power, untouchable and untouched by the needs of human beings.

God's Missionary Heart in Genesis 12

And the third thing about God. And that is that our God has a missionary heart. I want you to turn to Genesis chapter 12. Some of the most important verses in the whole of your Bible. In fact, I would suggest if you don't understand these verses, it's very, very hard to understand your Bible at all.

You know, many people think that the Great Commission began in Matthew chapter 28. They think that's when God got interested in the world. Up until then, he was only interested in one nation. But here in Genesis chapter 12, we see how wrong that concept is.

We're told that God chooses a man, Abraham. Promises in verse 2, I'm going to make you into a great nation. And in verse 3, he's going to bless Abraham. And make Abraham a blessing. Look at how that third verse ends.

All peoples on earth will be blessed through you. God has never just been interested in one nation. He's never just been interested in one family. God's concern has always been his world. And you look through the Old Testament.

You'll find that whenever the children of Israel stopped witnessing, stopped testifying to the surrounding nations, God came against them. Here's the first reason I'm a missionary tonight. It's because of the kind of God I worship.

I believe if you've had a real vision of God, I believe if you know what real worship is, then one result of that must be involvement in world missions. Now let me give you a second reason why I'm involved in missions.

The Great Commission and Obedient Evangelism

And that's the commands of Jesus Christ. If you can't be a true worshipper without being a missionary, if you can't be a true worshipper without being a missionary, then I don't think you can be an obedient Christian without being a missionary either.

You must have read the 28th chapter of Matthew many, many times before. But I just want you to turn to it once more. The last few verses, beginning at verse 16. You see first of all in verse 16 that Jesus very carefully prepared this meeting with his disciples.

He says in verse 10, Go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee where they will see me. You can see in verse 16 he told them to go to a particular mountain. Jesus is carefully arranging a meeting. He has something very important to communicate to his disciples.

The last message of our Lord to his disciples. And all the gospel writers are agreed as to what his last message was. Matthew, Mark, Luke and John tell us his last message was go and reach the world. Now look at verse 17.

You see that this call to evangelize the world came when they were in a position of worship. One or two of you have been coming to me today and saying, Boy I wish this conference was ended. I just want to get out on my knees.

I can't wait to start evangelizing in Paris. But you know true evangelism must proceed from worship. What we try to do in these days of conference is to give you a vision of God, a vision of Christ which will sow through you that you will want to move out in evangelism.

Notice thirdly that this call came to people who you could hardly describe as spiritual giants. Here they are meeting the Lord on the mountain. You read at the end of verse 17, some dented. Isn't that incredible?

They stood at a distance and seen the Lord Jesus dying on the cross. They knew about him being placed in the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea. Here he is standing alive before them. And yet some of them are still doubting.

It was to those fearful, doubting, timid people that Jesus said go and conquer the world for me. And the history of mission is the history of God using weak, weak people for his glory. I could keep you here a long time telling you about the weaknesses, the doubts, the fears, the depressions in the life of William Carey, the father of modern mission.

I could upset some of you Scots by telling you some of the hard facts about David Livingston. He was a giant of a man spiritually in many ways. And yet he had some awesome problems in his own life and his family life.

God can use you. God can use me, he can use you. Here are these men standing before the risen Christ and they can't take it in. They can't believe it. And Jesus says go, conquer the world for me. Then fourthly, Jesus said,.

And you notice the encouragement which surrounds this promise. What a terrible thing it would have been if Jesus had just said to these disciples go and conquer the world for me. He didn't say that, did he?

He said all authority in heaven and on the earth is invested in me. Now go. And I'll be with you to the very end. Now the context of that promise is evangelism. As you move out for God tomorrow or the day after you can particularly and specifically claim that promise by faith.

The risen Jesus who has all authority stands with you as you move forth in his name. Now I want you to notice one more thing about this commandment. You don't see it when you first read the passage. But the common text of this commandment will tell you that the emphasis in verse 19 is not on going.

We should really read as you go or wherever you go makes disciples. Now there are other verses in the Bible which tell us we must go to the whole world. But not the emphasis of this verse. The emphasis is wherever you go whether it's a summer in France or whether you're home in Germany or France or Britain.

Wherever you go I want you to be making disciples. Jesus is talking about a mentality. I wonder how much this mentality is being taken over by you. I wonder if wherever you are whatever you're doing you're thinking disciples.

Lord are you going to lead me to someone today who will become a disciple for you? Evangelism isn't something you do twice a week. Evangelism isn't something you do for a month in the year. We sometimes get people coming back from OM and they say I've done it.

I've done it. I've done it. The attitude is I'll never do it again either but I've done it. Don't think of evangelism like that. Wherever you go whatever you're doing think disciples. So there's a second reason why I'm in mission.

The Second Coming and the Urgency of Mission

I can't look at God his character without being motivated to mission. I can't look into his infallible word without being motivated to mission. And then thirdly I can't look to the future without being motivated to mission.

Because the third great motivation is the coming of Jesus Christ. I wonder if you do believe in the coming, the second coming of Jesus Christ. I wonder if it's part of your theology or something that affects your daily life.

I've been talking in a seminar for the last two days about lifestyle simple lifestyle. How this doctrine of the second coming affects the style of life we choose to live. If Jesus Christ is going to return to this world very soon what is the point of stashing money away in a bank?

You know there are some doctrines we say we believe but the way we live proves that we don't. Somebody once approached John Wesley as he went around England preaching in the open air. He often used to preach on the second coming of Christ.

One dear lady got a bit upset with him and she came to him and she said Mr. Wesley if you knew Jesus was going to come at 11 o 'clock tomorrow morning what would you do? I wonder why you would do? If you knew divine revolution it won't happen by the way but if you did know Jesus is coming 11 tomorrow morning what would you do?

Do you know what Wesley did? He took out his diary and he said well 10 o 'clock tonight I'd be doing such and such. 4 o 'clock in the morning I'd be in that field preaching the gospel. 6 o 'clock I'd be in the next village 8 o 'clock I'd be in the next village 11 o 'clock I'd be ready for my Lord.

In other words he wouldn't have changed his life one iota if he knew Jesus was coming. You living like that? That's how the bible says I should live. I must live my life in the light of the second coming of Jesus Christ.

The bible makes it clear that before that can happen the world must know about Jesus Christ. It's all the people from every tribe and from every tongue and from every nation will gather with us around the throne of Jesus in heaven.

And I want to tell you tonight there's a long long long way to go before that can be reality. There are thousands of peoples who cannot join us around the throne of the Lamb because the gospel has not penetrated.

If you and I really believe in the second coming of Jesus Christ it's going to affect how we view world missions. Now let me give you the fourth reason why I'm involved in missions. We look at God we're motivated.

We look at the bible we're motivated. We look forward to the future the second coming and we're motivated. As I look back as I think back I'm also motivated. As I think back how God has chosen me from before the foundations of the earth I'm absolutely staggered by it.

The Privilege of Being Entrusted With the Gospel

Here are billions of people and just a few hundred million who know the Lord Jesus and I'm one of them. God has chosen me and he's not only chosen me he's given me opportunity to be involved in his service.

I'm honestly absolutely thrilled by the life that God has called me to. Thrilled that I have the privilege to spend my hours and my days helping other people to hear about Jesus Christ. C .H. Spurgeon once wrote this the smallest work you can do for Jesus is a greater thing than any task you can do for any other king.

Do you have a sense of privilege as you go out on Friday morning? Are you going with a sense of privilege in your heart? Imagine you were a cancer specialist you're sitting in your laboratory one day and you'd been experimenting with certain chemicals over a number of months and one day you found the cure for a cancer and you knew the cure would save the lives of hundreds of thousands of people.

How would you feel? Would you fold your formula up and put it in your inside pocket and leave it there for the rest of your life? Would you go nervously diffidently to the medical society and you know nervously show them this cure?

Now you'd rush out into the world wouldn't you? You'd want television you'd want the media to say the cure is found. You know Paul had that kind of sense of privilege. He said I've been entrusted with the gospel of Christ.

This body this mind it might be an earthen vessel but there's a treasure in it. William Carey wrote to his father from India. Dear father I hope you can surrender me to the Lord for the most difficult but honorable and important work that any of the sons of men were ever called to do.

That's what you've been called to do. The most honorable work any man or woman has ever been given. Making the gospel known. Let me give you the last reason why I'm involved in missions. And that's the condition of lost men and women.

Human Sin, Spiritual Death, and Divine Wrath

You know I believe in the fall of men and I believe man's position is desperate. And nowhere in the bible is this desperate position more clearly shown than in Ephesians chapter 2. You might like just to turn to these verses and ask the Lord to imprint them upon your mind.

Paul is describing people who are outside of the salvation of Jesus Christ. And he says two things about them. First of all in verse 1 he says they're dead in their transgressions and sins. Paul could not have chosen a more graphic phrase to describe the helplessness of men.

Paul could not have chosen a more graphic phrase to show how the situation really is. I was taking a mission at a British university a few years ago now. And I was eating lunch with a couple of students.

They were not converted. And they had many doubts and many intellectual difficulties with the Christian faith. And lunch carried on into afternoon coffee and into tea as well. And eventually about 5 o 'clock in the afternoon I'll never forget one of these students clicking his fingers like that.

He said I've got it now I understand. And I thought the moment had come I thought he was going to accept the Lord. I looked at him I said what are you going to do then? And it was almost as though there was a glaze over his eyes.

He wasn't at all interested in becoming a Christian. I'd won some battle in his mind. But he was spiritually dead. He didn't feel a thing. There was no sense of conviction. There was no conception of the majesty of God.

Where does that come from? Does it come from your brilliant evangelistic techniques? You know even the five spiritual laws doesn't produce it. Unless God works in the lives of men and women they'll never see it.

That's why prayer is the top of our agenda. Crying out to God to open blind eyes to unstop deaf ears. Because man outside of Christ is dead. But it's more serious than that. The end of verse three tells us that by nature he's an object of wrath.

It's a very important biblical phrase. Man by nature is under the wrath of God. Not just because of what he's done but because of what he is. You see he's born in sin. He's shapen in iniquity. He's a sinner by nature and he's a sinner by practice.

And I believe in the wrath of God. I believe in hell. Now I know these are unpopular concepts in the 20th century. A far more popular idea is the idea of universalism. All men and women will eventually end up in heaven somehow.

Some people say well human beings aren't that bad after all, are they? They'll make their way to heaven eventually. Other people, theologians, they'll tell you if people don't accept Christ in this life, there'll be many other opportunities in the next world.

Other people say if you believe and you preach about a God of love, how can you talk about hell at the same time? People come to this universalist position from many different tracks, from many different roads.

And universalism is very, very attractive. That's 500 young people here. If you're an average group, I'm sure you're not of course, but if you're an average group of young people, some of you will fall to the era of universalism in the next ten years.

You see, it's so very attractive. It appears to be very kind and tolerant. It seems to show deep compassion for men. What is the problem with universalism? There's only one. There's only one. It's not contained in this book.

This book doesn't teach universalism. It teaches the exact opposite. Now the Bible does teach that God loves the world. It does say that God desires that all men should be saved. But you know, you can't stop that.

You notice how some people treat the Bible rather like they treat a buffet meal. When you have a buffet meal, you take your plates, you go to the table. And you take some things, you leave other things.

Now many people have that cavalier attitude towards the Bible. They'll believe what they want to believe. Oh, they like Psalm 23, that's lovely, we'll have that. John 3, 16, that's great, the first half at least, we'll have that.

What's this about a God of wrath and a lake of fire and an eternal hell? I'm not having that. But you cannot pick and choose with the Bible like that. You have a row of dominoes standing and you knock one domino down, what happens?

They all fall. That's the problem when you start picking and choosing with this book. You say, well, I'm going to accept the Bible, but not all this about hell, I won't accept it. What we accept and what we don't accept.

It's either the inspired, breathed out Word of God or it isn't. I'm a missionary because I believe men and women who don't know Christ are eternally lost. They might be very devout Muslims or very devout nominal Christians.

But I don't believe there's any other way to heaven but through salvation in the name of Jesus Christ. The most challenging missionary verse in the Bible is John 14 verse 6. Jesus said, I am the way. No man comes to the Father but by me.

If you believe that you should be motivated to tell men and women who don't know about Jesus Christ. Let me finish with a very well known illustration. Comes from the pen of that marvelous female missionary to India, Amy Carmichael.

Amy Carmichael's Illustration of the Gospel Gap

One day she had a vision, a dream. She was sitting on a plane. Not an aeroplane but a large grass plane. And at the edge of the plane there was a deep gulf, a deep chasm. And she saw herself making daisy chains with her fellow Christians.

And across the plane she saw thousands of people walking. She was convinced to begin with that they were tourists coming to look at the depths and so on. And as she watched she saw one person fall to destruction.

Followed by a second and a third and they were going over at a tremendous rate. And then she looked very closely and she saw that every one of them was blind. And looking even more closely she saw just a few people walking up and down the edge of the chasm.

They were crying out to these people, blind people, this is the way to safety. Walk in it! But actually look, there were great gaps between those people. And thousands were falling to destruction. And she said to her fellow Christians, look I've got to leave, I've got to go and fill the gap.

But they said, who's going to help us finish the daisy chain? I'm in missions because I believe that man is lost. As I travel around I like to challenge young people to make a commitment before the Lord.

A Five-Fold Commitment to World Evangelization

It's a very specific and clear commitment. It's a five-fold commitment. I want to read it out to you and then I want you to think about it. And then we'll have an opportunity to make a decision about this commitment before God.

The commitment I challenge young people to make and many of you will already have made it is this. Number one, to pray at least once a day for the work of world evangelisation. Number two, to give sacrificially for the work of evangelisation.

Number three, to consistently share your faith where you are with non-Christians. Number four, to seek to influence other Christians to become global Christians. In other words, to share your new-found missionary concern with other Christians.

And number five, and often this is the crunch. To say to God, I'll go anywhere and I'll do anything that you desire. Very specific, isn't it? It's very clear. It's no light thing. It's no small thing to make that commitment before God.

To pray every day for his work. To give sacrificially towards it. To consistently share your faith with non-Christians wherever you are. To seek to influence others to become global Christians. And to be willing to go anywhere and do anything that God desires.

Remember, you can't look at God. You can't look into his word. You can't look forward to his coming. You can't look back to his choice of you. And you can't look around you at the condition of lost men and women without being challenged to mission.

In the light of this and in the light of all you've heard so far at this conference, I believe God may want some of you to make this commitment in this tent tonight. I want to give you just one minute to think about those five things quietly.

And then I'm going to ask you to stand to your feet after a minute if you want to make that pledge before God. Let me just remind you of it once more. To pray every day for the work of evangelization.

To give sacrificially for that cause. To consistently share your faith with non-Christians. To seek to influence others to become global Christians. And to say to God, I'm willing to go anywhere and do whatever you desire.

Let's just have a minute to prayerfully think about that.