Eyes to See (2 of 2) — Jackie Pullinger

Compassion for Prostitutes and a Working Miracle

Either with sewage or rats. So I began to walk another path, because I didn't want to pass her by. You see, one of the things I hate doing, I hate telling people about Jesus and not doing it. I hate it.

I didn't want to say Jesus loves you and walk past her. I couldn't do it. And because I didn't know where to put her, because I'd used up all my friends, I thought, I better not walk that street anymore.

I know that shocks you. You see, I don't want to lead prostitutes to Jesus and leave them in the streets. I know that shocks you. But one day we couldn't resist it. And I walked past her and I said, we'll take you.

And we found a cupboard, but she's very small. So she could fit in. She's only four foot something. And we prayed for her just like we pray for other guys. The Holy Spirit came upon her and we saw her back.

She had three large bruises on her back. And that was where she was injected with heroin. That was her payment for her work. Three bowls of rice, three injections of heroin a day. This lady had no identity card.

She didn't exist. She had been, her mother hanged herself when she was young. She watched her father having sex with various relations, male and female through a keyhole. She got engaged when she was about 18 and she slept with her boyfriend and her father.

Such a hypocrite threw her out. And then she became a prostitute. She, uh, she was born in Macau and then she came to Hong Kong. That's how she had no identity and had to sell her body for from the age of 18 to 60.

Pretty awful. She'd seen two murders in her brothel and she was so frightened. That's why she wanted to live in my house because they were unreported. One of them, one of the other prostitutes who was slightly pregnant, didn't want to sleep with a customer.

So the owners put a pipe down her throat and filled it with water and she died. And they made this lady take her to hospital. Fancy dying before you exist. Anyway, we prayed with her and she came to know Jesus.

We prayed in tongues and she prayed in tongues. When we say we see this miracle all the time, we do see this miracle all the time, but it's a working miracle. It isn't you lay hands, the power comes, they, uh, they fall down and that's it.

Uh, we, we work the miracle. If you have four hour duties, six people a day for 10 days, that's 60 duties. Imagine if we're doing 10 people a week, which we are at the minute, that's 600 people involved.

It's as much a miracle that people will do this as it is that God does the healing it's equal. And, uh, so she came off drugs and started a new life. And, uh, very funny. Later on, she got a suitor. Were you there?

Another old man who'd, uh, come off drugs and he wooed her. And she was so funny because, uh, she got married in this beautiful tin hut that we had. And she walked down the aisle in virginal white, so proud of herself.

And, uh, later on another older couple decided they would get married. And one of them said to this lady, whose name was Elfrida, please, can I borrow your wedding dress? And Elfrida said, yes. And then she came to me and she said, I said, yes, but of course she can't.

And I said, why can't she? Well, she said, it's a white wedding dress. And that lady's been married before picture of heaven. Here's Jesus with his bride and virginal white made pure and a new life. We began to see, actually see what I'd seen.

Open Eyes in the Streets and Conversion Through Worship

Another time we began to have teams that go into the streets and they pray before they go into the streets. God, show us, show us the people who are there. And, uh, they usually take rice boxes with them.

And we, we find these people that sleep under the flyovers and they found a couple with a young son who was, uh, three or four years old. And, uh, they shared about Jesus with this couple. They were both on heroin.

And a few days later, the couple came to the walled city where we had meetings and, uh, we worshiped. We love worshiping. We do more, more of worship than anything else. We were worshiping in this meeting and suddenly the spirit came on to other people.

And these two other people began to laugh. And this couple were looking at them. And I said, yeah, enjoy in a minute. The spirit's going to come on you. You can have a look at, see what Jesus is doing.

And a few minutes later, the lady of this couple, she was flat on the ground and she was weeping. And after the meeting, I asked her, what did you see? What did you see? And she said, well, we were, we were worshiping.

And she said, I suddenly saw a picture of Jesus on the cross. I knew I put him there and I could not stand before him anymore. I had to lie prostrate before him. By revelation, she understood that the Lord of heaven, the one who made the heavens on the earth died for her, the one that others despise.

And her husband fell into a puddle the next day and died. But he's gone to heaven and she came to live with us. And so did her son. Of course, that's why we got so many people in our house. She saw heaven.

She saw a Lord who loved her and gave her a new life. And so many people began to queue up to live with us that we ran out of spaces. We have now, not that that means we will stop, but we just have to look for more space.

BB's Glimpse of Heaven and the Christian's True Home

And there was a young guy called BB once who I'd known. I visited him in prison for something he hadn't done. And when he came out of prison, I said, now, um, would you like to come and get your life straight?

And you can come and live in one of our houses. But he went back to he used to make his living, um, putting his fingers through the sewer to see what things he could pick up that someone had dropped. And one day I had enough of this.

So, uh, we went for noodles and I said to him, um, this is enough. Uh, I, I cannot eat noodles with somebody who's going to hell. I love you very much and I will not eat with you anymore. You know, now that Jesus loves you, you know, now that I love you.

So I will not meet you anymore because it hurts me to look, to do that. When you're ready to come to Jesus, give me a call. Oh, he could only handle three days. There's the right time to do this, but they, they need to know you love them.

And, uh, he said, uh, now I've decided I'm ready to follow Jesus and I'm going to live in, in your house. And I said, well, just let me telephone the house and see. And they, they replied, sorry, no space.

And anyway, the house is all in a muddle, you know, and we can't receive new people. This always happens with people in Christian houses. You know, we're upset, you know, we've got to get things calm before we never anymore.

I'm always fighting with them. And, uh, one more piece, one more piece, one more piece, one more. And, uh, anyway, I had to go back to him and I said, BB, I'm, I'm so sorry. Our house is full. Um, you you'll have to wait.

He was furious. You don't have to heroin your fault. Arrest your fault. You don't love, you know, and I said, lay off BB just for a minute. I want you to do something else. Shut your eyes and look at heaven.

I know the Hong Kong sky is very dirty, but if you would look there to happen and see the one who made you so beautiful, so bright, so sweet, so warm, so loving, so uncondemning. Would you just look at him?

And I went off and he was sitting at the noodle store and I came back half an hour later and he was still looking at heaven with his eyes shut, smiling. And I said, BB no reply. And then I said, BB no reply, BB.

And he reluctantly opened his eyes. And I said, what did you see? And he said, Oh, so beautiful as a mountain. And, and there was the Lord was walking on the mountain and the word sweet flowers and they smelled so nice.

And he held up his hand and I took his hand and he led me up the mountain and he said, it was so beautiful. And then you call me. I didn't want to come back. He caught a glimpse of heaven and you must catch a glimpse of heaven and the Lord of glory, even the scarred load of glory.

Then you can live on earth. If we make heaven our home and we just passing through earth, we can handle whatever happens on earth. If we insist on earth being it, we're going to be dissatisfied the entire time because we're going to try and build things on earth, even churches, you know, and it didn't go the way I thought and I'm disappointed.

Well, how can you ever be disappointed if your hope is in heaven? It doesn't matter if everything goes wrong, everything goes wrong. As long as you've loved in his name, you won't be disappointed. People who are disappointed at disappointed because their hope was in men.

They didn't change. I'm disappointed. Well, why should you hope in them? I don't hope in people. I hope in God and I know what he can do in men and I will not give up on them because I know what God can do.

If they feel my disappointment, they can't live up to my expectation. I'm being a bad parent all again. I left them anyway. Well, once he caught a glimpse of heaven, of course the other happened. We found a place for him that day and he came to us and he had such a good time getting off heroin.

He could eat immediately and people visiting us thought he's not on drugs at all. He's just a boy in pajamas that he was a boy who'd seen another country. Let us go to him outside the camp bearing the disgrace he bore and what would be the disgrace that he bore our Lord Jesus.

Faithfulness Beyond Visible Ministry Success

Well, for those of you who are hoping for great ministries, his apparently failed. Imagine he'd had huge tent meetings and seen people healed, food multiplied multitudes. And when the crunch came, no one all abandoned him and his original cell group hadn't even multiplied once.

Failed ministry. And if you are counting in numbers, you are going to be disappointed. If you're counting on his heart, you never will be. And that's all that counts in whatever service we do. And that's all that lasts in whatever ministry do we do a little last forever.

And he said, whatever you do in my name will not be in vain. So why would you ever be disappointed? So he says, look for another country and look for another city. And the most strange thing has happened that the reason I'm telling you this story is that I'm calling this year.

The Walled City Rebuilt as a Picture of Redemption

The year I have seen twice, it is the strangest thing. You see, they pulled the walled city down when Britain returned Hong Kong to China. At last they could do something about this strange illegal place and they decided to pull it down and they resettled the people.

And we thought it was going to be a bus station or something. It's not a very big area, but they built the most beautiful park. It is the most beautiful place you have ever seen. And the extraordinary thing is they've got the same street names.

So the prostitutes street, which used to be called gongming guy, which means street of light now is a street of light. There are the most beautiful streets and there are waterfalls. There are seats for old men to sit on.

There are streets for children to play in. I, and the, the government had an opening ceremony and they invited me to go. Now the whole thing was government officials. I looked around for anyone who'd lived there, only me.

And throughout all this ceremony, I, I was weeping and weeping and weeping and weeping. I thought, God, I've spent half my life in this city and I'm, I'm the only one who knows. You see, I'm actually sitting in what I saw.

I saw this, I saw this 30 years before and I'm sitting in what I saw. God, you've let me see twice. I saw it in the spirit and for, for your, for your, for your own good purpose, you let me live long enough to see it.

In fact, a city rebuilt with beautiful streets and fountains. Everything that I saw in the spirit, I've seen him do. Oh God, thank you. I've seen it in the lives of the people who lived here. I've seen prostitutes lift their heads, get married in white.

I've seen children come into families. I've seen drug Lords change and the leader of the walled city is the gang boss is so changed. You'll, I hope you'll be impressed that he will never get on a platform and testify.

He will not use his old job to glorify his faith in Jesus. He says, I just want to get on quietly somewhere. I do not choose for anyone to know what I was. I just want to serve Jesus quietly. And I like that.

He walks around the wall city three times every night. And if you come to Hong Kong, I won't show you who he is. I promised him. I'll just say he walks around the city, praising God. Now, instead of teaching people how to fight and kill and steal, I've seen another city.

I've seen it twice. And the people that we have talked about before we began here, they've seen something else in the spirit that God has shown them. And whether or not things go well, because they've seen they can go on.

The Good Samaritan and Love as the Outworking of Faith

And just to help you. I want to share a parable quickly because I want to suggest to you how this might work out just in your own life. And this was the parable of the good Samaritan, because when a young man came to Jesus, he said, what must I do to inherit eternal life?

And it's interesting that this is in Luke 10. Jesus didn't say, well, you don't have to do anything. And nearly all of us would say, no, you don't have to do anything. You just believe in the Lord, believe he's the son of God and forgives your sins and you'll have eternal life.

But in this parable, Jesus talked about doing the interesting. Well, what are the commandments? Young man answered, love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength and with all your mind and love your neighbor as yourself.

Jesus said, do this and you will live. Believing is doing. And if we believe in the Lord Jesus, who has rescued us from slavery and fitted us for eternity, we will do something. And if we don't do something, we didn't know him.

That's just what scripture says. The doing is the outworking in gratitude of the relationship. And the young man then turned to Jesus and he said, well, what do you mean? Who is my neighbor? If I've got to love God and love my neighbor as myself, well, who is my neighbor?

And Jesus told him the parable of the good Samaritan, which is about seeing. And he talks about this man who has been waylaid by thieves and is cast in the street, his clothes torn and he's wounded. And it talks about people who passed by him.

It begins in verse 30 of Luke 10, and it talks about a Pharisee, a priest in verse 31, who saw the man, and this is the problem. The priest saw him, but he didn't see him. And I don't know why he passed by.

I don't know why he passed by. Maybe he was on his way to a, how shall we help the poor ministry meeting? I'm absolutely serious. You see, I we've got 300 people living with us and I do not think that's wonderful.

I just don't think it's wonderful. I think it's an aberration. It should be that each one of these people that lives with us is in a Christian family or with the rest of the church. Who's got the resources we haven't.

It's pretty sick to have all delinquents living together when the rest of the church has got families and a few normal people. We're all not normal. That's why last year I ran an alpha course to win some normal people to look after our poor.

I'm absolutely serious. And when we got, if you know what alpha is, when we got to the Holy Spirit weekend, I said, this is what the Holy Spirit sports for the poor. They all received the Holy Spirit.

And instead of the next alpha, we had how to minister to the poor. 100 of them who've come to Christ and are involved with the poor. Yeah, you could do that with your alpha. We had to win some people to Christ, to minister to the poor.

The Church's Responsibility to See and Serve the Poor

That's why I got Gong Jai to testify a few years ago. We thought now we've got all these old addicts. We've got, you know, we've got 15 or 16 who are between 50 and over 70 with one leg because the other one's been sort off after injections.

Well, wonderful. But they're hardly going to be our new missionaries in India, Cambodia, Vietnam, which is where we're going because you know, our job isn't Hong Kong. It's the lost wherever they are.

We can't send these old men with one leg. So we thought, well, we better get some of the next generation in. And that's why we got a dancing team that dances in schools and wins normal school kids, just like Gong Jai.

When they've won normal school kids, we say it's the poor and they come with us and their hearts are hooked forever. Get them involved quick. No, we don't just go after the poor, but we got too many poor.

You see, we got too many poor and too many delinquent. So we had to win some normal people in order to, to work it out a bit better. So now we've got more normal people. Of course, we've got more poor people again now.

So I'm going to have to do another alpha. I did tell Nikki Gumbel, but for whatever reason, the priest passed by. And just now, one of the people who's talking about this super work with unwed ladies in crisis said somehow the churches didn't see.

And for whatever reason, the priest passed by and he was the one that would have had the resources. He would have had the money, the tithes, the offerings and the buildings, and then the Levite. I don't know why he passed by, but maybe he said, well, my ministry is with young boys and I'm going to help them not become delinquent.

So we don't have people falling down in the street. It's not my problem. This is why I'm not sympathetic to people who separate themselves into ministries, because what this story is about, it's about normal people of God helping the person they see.

That's all. It's not about sending him off to another ministry. It's about the one you see. And you know, there are so many evangelism programs about reaching the world by the year. Well, I went to some, which said, reach the world by the year 2000.

And clearly we didn't because people are trying to find another method, which is quicker than love God and love your neighbor as yourself. And if everybody looked after the one they saw, I think we'd reach the world very quickly, probably a few weeks, very simple.

Compassion Requires Action, Not Mere Emotion

But the Samaritan in verse 30, 33, saw him. He had compassion on him and he went to him. We can pray for you for compassion in a minute, but I don't think you'll get it here. A doctor asked me to pray for him once and said, uh, Jackie, I don't have compassion.

Could you please pray for me? And I said, well, I don't think it really works in church. I don't think you get compassion for the lost in church. I think you get compassion as you go, you go to find the lost and the poor, because the Lord said, go and find the lost and the poor.

So I think you'll get it when you need it. But anyway, I will pray for you. And I prayed in the authorized version. I'll read the authorized version. This is how we know what love is. Jesus Christ laid down his life for us.

We ought to lay down our lives for our brothers. If anyone sees his brother in need and has no compassion on him, actually the authorized version says, does not open the bowels of compassion. How can the love of God be in him?

Dear children, let us not love with words or tongues, but with actions and in truth. So I laid my hands on this doctor and I said, dear Lord, open his bowels. It's a very good word because compassion is gutsy.

It's not, she likes the poor. It's not, it's gut wrenching. Jesus' gut was wrenched when he saw the lost, when he saw the leper. And compassion is not an emotion. It's a gut wrench and an action. He had compassion on Jerusalem and died on a cross.

It isn't pity from us who have on those who haven't. It's feeling it with them. So I prayed for the doctor, open his bowels and he got diarrhea the next day. Quite right. Too many constipated Christians.

One more meeting Lord, fill me, fill me, fill me. You know, we need a little bowel action. I'm serious. It's what the scripture says. The Samaritan had compassion on him. He went to him and that's all I'm asking you to do.

Seeing the Next Person and Responding With Practical Mercy

Just that the next person you see, and we're going to pray for eyes to see. I want you to do something. Now, if it's a frightening person, you don't have to go up and lead them to Jesus, but I don't want you to pass by.

I'd like you to go to him somehow. It may just be looking at him and saying, good morning. I see you. You don't have to tell him about Jesus. Or it may be you just look and you say in your heart, God, please reach him.

Just pray just that. That's all. That's all I did. You see, I did one thing and then the next, and it left led to the next and it led to the next. He bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. We have the Holy spirit.

We have the blood of Jesus. We Christians have got what no one else has got to heal this world's wounds. He put the man on his own donkey. Note this, please. He put the man on his own donkey, not the church donkey.

Your churches ministry to the poor will not substitute for you reaching your neighbor. We have outreach teams. We've got eight. They're mostly people who've come off drugs. We don't pay them. We don't finance them.

We share what we've got, but they have to feed the poor out of their own lunch. And their own lunch will bring the love of Christ better than the church lunch. You see, that's why Christian aid doesn't bring people to Christ.

It saves their life for today. Physically only when the people of God give their own blanket, their own home and their own lunch, something happens because the son of God gave his own life. He didn't send aid from heaven.

He came and gave himself. He took him to an inn. He took care of him. He made provision for him. And I always think about this Samaritan. I, I think maybe he was a traveling salesman. I at least I've got that in my head that, uh, he got an interrupted journey.

Having seen this man, look where it led him. And I don't know where this is going to lead you, but do something for the next poor person you meet. I'll just tell you one story about how this worked out.

And then I know we're late. We, then we're going to pray. We were in India and, uh, sharing on doing something for the person you see just a little act of kindness. And this lovely Indian pastor, he was such a sweet man.

He, uh, had a church in his home, which was only about 400 square feet. And he had about, he had me staying in his home when I went, but he had another job as well. He, he worked in a dockyard and in order to get to the dockyard, he had to take two trains.

Well, everyone in his church was thinking about what kind thing can I do to the next poor person I see. And in Mumbai, there are a lot of poor people. One lady was saying, I'm giving ice cream to prostitute.

So sweet. Another one says, I'm giving bolt of cloth to lepers children. So nice, not John's gospel, but a bolt of cloth. You understand better. And, uh, so this pastor was thinking, well, what can I do?

And he, he had to change trains and he just had five minutes and he started talking to some people who slept on the platform. And this lady kept saying to him, will you come and see my husband? Cause he's very sick.

He's very sick. And he said, well, I'm, I'm really sorry, but my, my train's coming. I don't have time. And one day he thought, well, I will this time I'll catch another train and I'll go to her and I'll go visit her husband.

And so he came to her and he said, well, I'm going to come and visit your husband now. And she said, you're too late. He's just died. And this Indian pastor sat down and he put his hands in his head and he wept and he wept.

And he cried for half an hour to late. When he opened his eyes, there was a circle of men sitting around him and they were all weeping. That's all he did. He worked with those who weep. Nobody had ever worked with them before.

It's all he did. And from that day onwards, that man could do anything for those people. Many came to believe in his Jesus. He visited the people that lived behind the platform. He took medicine to a child every day, even Sunday to a child who couldn't sit 18 months.

Couldn't even sit too weak. He took vitamins and medicine every day in case if he took a weak supply, it crumbled. He prayed for the child. And after a few weeks, the child could sit and now can walk so many wonderful miracles.

And he asked us to come and our guys came, our guys who speak no English and they worshiped on the platform. And as our guys worshiped on the platform with their guitar, some Hindu men walked by, they were addicts.

And as they walked by and our guys were worshiping, those two Hindu men had a vision of Jesus came to Christ, came to live with the pastor and came off drugs. You think, didn't our guys do great? No, it was easy.

We just went in what the pastor had done. It's all he'd done was to weep. You can do something for the next one you see, but maybe we need to ask God to open our eyes that we might see for it would be awful to pass by.

Christ Present in the Least and the Final Call to See

And on that day, when he comes back and we have to answer for our lives and he says, well done, you fed me and you clothed me. And the sheep say, when did we see you naked? When did we visit you? We didn't see you.

And he says, when you did it for the least, you did it for me. See, Jesus might be outside in one of the tents or Jesus might be in the gents crying. You don't know. You see, you better not pass by because it might be him.

And he said to the goats depart. I'm afraid he said depart to a terrible place because when I was hungry, you didn't feed me. When I was thirsty, you didn't give me to drink. You didn't visit me in prison.

We didn't see you Lord. If we'd known you were in prison, we'd have visited you Jesus. And he says, depart. I never knew you what you didn't do to the least. You didn't do to me. I'm just repeating scripture.

So shall we pray that we could do something for the next one? We see please stand worship leader. We're going to pray for eyes. We actually don't need the whole band. And this is how we're going to start the praying.

We'll start it in the worship. Lord open our eyes because the Lord said in revelation, if we claim to see, but we're blind, what a shame. And he said, ask therefore that he might put eye ointment. I salve that we may see.

It would be better to say, Lord, I'm, I have been blind. Many of us in the church have been blind. We haven't seen you. We haven't seen our neighbor. We haven't seen the lost. We've had our eyes in the wrong place.

Please open our eyes. And in the first instance, it's eyes to see him eyes to see heaven eyes, to see a better country, another city.