Pressing on Passing On — K.P. Yohannan

Thank you, you're very kind, thank you. The theme of the conference is Pressing On and Passing On. So I will show you a DVD which is just over a minute, has to do with how we can encourage the younger generation to go forward, carrying the burden to live and reach the lost world.

So if we can have somebody kill all the lights, if you do that here, and show that, please look at it. This is our School of Discipleship, it's a year-long program for young people that finish their high school, and if parents, you are trying to somehow get it off your kids, it's a good opportunity.

And we are even thinking about extending that, actually, six months to be overseas for these young people as part of the year. And now they're starting in our Canadian Gospel Fashion office in Toronto, the School of Discipleship.

We take, I think, 25, 30 young people a year. So if you're interested to find a way to invest your life, and when they finish, they go back to universities, their homes, and some go overseas to serve the Lord, and we have, right now, a couple of our young people serving the Lord in a foreign country.

So it's a huge possibility as we have this partnership with this fellowship to do something like that. So please think about, we are looking for you. All right, you understand my English? Thank you, Lord.

I don't want you to go home and say, you know, we are Indian-speaking, thanks to the whole service. That won't go very well. We do have lots of our materials in English and French, and of course, you know, we have a catalog that talks about how we can be involved in touching the lives of tens of thousands overseas through this Christmas season.

There's a free catalog, you can take that. Then, of course, the book, you heard about Revolutionary War Missions. These books cost just a few dollars. If you don't have, you can steal them also and repent later.

The Samaritan Woman and Christ’s Mission

If you'll turn your Bibles to the Gospel of John, chapter 4. Now, again, I wish these few minutes that we spend together will remain kind of a conversation in some ways. Of course, you know, you can say, how can that be?

You are standing there screaming at us. But I want you to think, while I'm talking, how you would respond to something like this, what your answer be, and how you translate that, interpret what I'm saying into your own life situation.

The story we have in John's Gospel, chapter 4, you know, the Samaritan woman, the famous Samaritan woman story. And it says Jesus had to go through, he didn't have to really, because there was a different route, but there was an assignment from the Father for him to do that.

That's the reason he would do that. Last night, I talked about the fact that the greatest need today to impact our world, it is people that know God. It's not the lack of missionaries or lack of funds that is causing us from making this impact here in Canada, or in America, or in Europe, or any country.

All it took was one Elijah to change the nation. And it's a horrible mistake we make that following the business model, or the athlete's model of leadership, and power, and money, and schemes, and, you know, bigness is what actually takes.

God is looking for just one individual, a few people that know him. And out of that knowledge of God comes the effectiveness in touching our world, our children, our families. And the three and a half years Christ spent after the assignment the Father gave him, 30 years do nothing, whatever idea we had, making benches, and tables, and chairs, then he said, son, it's time.

And he just had three and a half years. One of the first thing he would do is to spend all night praying to pick the missionaries, the young people that he will train, assigning them with the responsibility after he leave.

And of course, you know, the next day, he go and pick these disciples. But then he will spend the three and a half years actually doing everything such a way that it will help these disciples to know what he's like, what God wants, to abandon their life so completely, to love him more than father, mother, son, daughter, and even their own very life for his sake.

So when Thomas, Christ's disciple, left his hometown, traveled for months and end up in India in AD 52, did he ever ask the question, whatever happened to his wife and children? In this North American culture, you hardly can even talk about things like that, that loving Christ to the extent that you be willing to lose all and be willing to buy a one-way ticket knowing when you get there, you will be murdered.

This gospel is unknown to our culture because we have a perverted gospel that made us the center of the universe and Christianity, but it is not in the Bible. And that's the reason why your translations are the translations every month coming out, trying to make us feel comfortable with divorcing our wife or husband or whatever loose living we can embrace and feel not guilty about it.

But Christ's assignment to teach his disciples to conquer the world, be missionaries, it was basically by living a life that they will enter into the experience and become partakers of his very nature, not mimicking, not obeying some commandments, not saying, well, this is what Christ said, one, two, three, four, five.

No, he didn't do that. He said, follow me. Don't be like these Pharisees who know all the theology, but they do not know God. And so in this journey of training them, we find this particular passage, one of those passages where Jesus was hungry, and by the way, he was a man, 100 man, tempted with every imaginable temptations that you and I are tempted in.

And I go to the extent where people think, what is wrong with this guy? Was ever Christ tempted with sexual sins and temptations? You bet, but he never sinned. And he was tired and worn out and hungry and is weary, yet at the same time, 100 God walking on earth as a man.

So he come to this place and he sits down there and he tell the disciples, please go to Tim Hortons and buy some, now you know I like Tim Hortons, bring some food, and so they go off. And they buy the food and they come back and you can just picture this in your mind.

They saw Christ talking to a woman and they said, yeah. I mean, he's not supposed to do something like that. But he's the boss, so they didn't say much about it. But this is what they say, look, in verse 31, meanwhile his disciples urged him, Rabbi, eat something.

Christ’s Food Is Doing the Father’s Will

But he said to them, I have food to eat that you know nothing about. Then his disciples said to each other, could someone have brought in food? My food, said Jesus, is to do the will of him who sent me and finish his work.

Do you not say four months and then the harvest? I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields, they are ripe for harvest. Even now, the reaper draws wages, even now the reaper draws his wages, even now he harvests the crop for eternal life so that the sower and the reaper may be glad together.

That's the same, one sows and another reaps, it's true. I send you to reap what you have not worked for. Others have done the hard work and you have reaped the benefits of their labor. It's a conversation between Christ and his disciples, training them.

So, I don't know if he used the word bummer in Canada, but in America they do. He said, man, that's a real bummer. I mean, you go through the agony of walking to wherever he went, these disciples went and brought food and said, Jesus, would you please eat?

Because, you know, the culture dictates the master eat first, then the disciples. He said, don't worry, I already ate. They said, this is dumb. Did someone bring him something to eat? Then he says, no, my food is to do the will of him and finish.

That's even more crazy. He's so hungry, we thought he ate. He says, no, he ate God's will. Wait, you see, you don't need Greek and Hebrew and stuff to figure this out. It's very simple, plain hamburger and French fries and, you know, whatever drinks you have.

I mean, this is what it is. But he takes the rationale, the tangible in life when you are driving on the road, when you watch stuff on television, when you hear the teacher teach us and use illustration, and you watch something and the Lord is seeking to speak, sometimes we don't hear that.

So he says, well, I know you have trouble to figure this out, what I'm telling you, but I tell you, if you lift up your eyes and look, and you will understand what I'm saying. You say four months, one, two, three, four.

Four months, then the harvest will come. But I say to you, look, it is too late, right? It is too late for harvest. Now you must act. What Christ is saying, when you all went off to buy food, I happened to talk to this woman, but you see her face, her lostness without the Father's love, moving toward eternity in hell.

That face became a window for me to see multitudes like her that I lost forever, and that realization consumed, destroyed my very appetite, I can't eat. I'm too much concerned, I'm overcome by this burden.

Harvest is a fixed time. I come from a family background where my people are rice farmers. When I was growing up, when the harvest time comes, I saw my family members, my brothers and parents and others, like you say here, most probably, like the chicken with the head cut off.

They didn't take any vacation. They didn't say, oh, we'll do it later. No, it's a fixed time, and if they didn't bring in the harvest, the monsoon will start, the rain will come, and everything will be destroyed.

Christ is not talking about wheat and maize and corn and beans and all that. He's talking about people, people. A few years ago, there in Dallas, Texas, our home office for the United States, we got about 100 families that served the Lord with us on the staff there, and some of our Canadian staff, they're here today.

And one day, my wife came by my office and opened the door and handed a piece of paper to me. It actually is an aerogram. The letter came from the mission field in India, and she handed this to me and said, you want to read this.

And then she said, oh, by the way, please don't speed read. I got mad at her, what is wrong with you? Then she walked away, got scared. I was sitting on my very comfortable, nice chair. When I finished reading that, she gave it to me.

I was no more there sitting on my chair. I was on my face, weeping on the floor. No, it wasn't a letter she's saying that, you dirty dog, I'm gonna leave you, no. It was a letter that came from one of our missionaries that lived in Haridwar, by the River Ganges.

This is where, once in 10 years, the Kumbh Mela, the festival take place, where millions of people come from all over the country, going into the waters of River Ganges, washing themselves for forgiveness of sins.

And that particular week, when he wrote this letter, 35 million people came to the River Ganges to wash themselves in the dirty, polluted, stinking waters for the forgiveness of sins. That's what they believe in.

In the letter he writes, that evening when I was coming home after all day of witnessing and talking to people about Jesus, I saw this young woman sitting by the bank of the river, weeping uncontrollably and pounding upon a chest.

According to culture, when you see a woman does that, you know something happened worse than death itself. And he writes, I went to her and sat beside her and asked, what happened to you, what happened?

Why are you crying so much? She responded, you see, my husband is very ill, he's sick, and he cannot work. And we are so poor, and my sins are so many that nobody knows about. To find forgiveness for my sins, solution to the problems of my home, I have given the best offering I can give to God of Ganges.

I just took my six month old baby boy and threw him into the river. Paragraph. Then I explained to her, but your sins are forgiven 2 ,000 years ago. Jesus died on the cross. All you have to do is just to believe.

And God is not angry with you, he didn't make you poor. And he's explained the gospel to her. And finally, he writes, she wiped her tears and looked into my eyes and simply said, did you come to me a half hour sooner?

It is too late, isn't it? It is too late. And she went back crying again. And I said to my Lord, Jesus, let be that never again I will read another letter like this. I give my life, every drop of my blood, my wife, my kids, my clothes, my dreams and visions.

And one more time, whatever you do with me, Lord, I'm yours. Now, so that he will not misunderstand. Yeah, but the KP got definitely an agenda here to collect some money from, you know what? I really don't care.

If you know me enough, read my writings. There was a time somebody offered a million dollars and I said, please, you give it to somebody else. I don't think the Lord wants to take your money. We never, never ask people saying, please help us with the money.

We have a project, that's not the issue here. But I'm telling you, if you are charged, if you think giving some money or making some agenda, something work that you can do is the fundamental answer to change this world and make your life count, you're making a mistake.

What the Lord is looking for is not simply your money and your part time and this and that, like we say, but basically it's a surrender so that he can become once again that Christ who walked on earth through our earthen vessels.

Seeing the Lost With Christ’s Compassion

But this is true. Jesus said, as the Father sent me, so sent are you. But the disciples, they will have a long way to go before they'll understand it. If you don't believe me, go sometime today when you go home, read Gospel of Matthew chapter nine toward the end of the chapter.

When Jesus saw the multitude, he broke down emotionally, just weeping. And Matthew, after three decades, looking back over the incident, he says, when he saw the multitudes, people lost, abused, bruised, killed, like sheep without shepherd, he was moved with compassion, his heart broke.

But why he didn't say, man alive, we walked with Jesus, we saw all these lepers and crippled and blind and demon possessed and we were so overcome by pain, we couldn't do anything else but break up. No, it was very objective reporting.

I'm not trying to put you on a guilt trip or make you feel dumb and stupid and less spiritual, but this is mission conference. So please give me the permission to say some things to you that maybe will help to you.

At least in America, the study shows evangelical Christians, average Christian pray less than eight minutes a day and pastors pray less than 12 minutes a day. When was the last time you watched on television what's going on in Sudan, Iraq, Afghanistan, 17 million people with maybe less than 200 Christians that is not even public.

When was the last time when you saw what happened in some country and what's happening that your heart broke so much that you fasted for three days a week? You see, the problem is not that we don't know, you don't know that.

The problem is that we know so much that we have learned to pretend our way as spiritual godly people and not want to be real. You know what the problem is? I remember in California long ago and I was so blessed this morning to meet your senior pastor who said 14 years ago, I spoke at his church in California.

That made me feel comfortable that he still likes me. I think, and after the meeting, this lady came to me and said, pastor, would you please pray for me? I said, madam, what is it you want me to pray for?

She said, you see, I have a demon of smoke inside me. Would you please lay a hand on me and cast this demon out? I never heard anything like that in my life. And I said, you know what? I can cast out demons, but I cannot cast out the flesh.

The devil is bad, I agree, but the poor devil get blamed for everything under the sun. And the devil says, why are you blaming me for all this stuff? I didn't do it. You are the one doing all this stuff.

You see, the disciples' problem, they were too involved, consumed with their own selves and deadness. So Jesus says, if you want to understand me and be like me, lift up your eyes and see the field. It is white for harvest.

When 180 ,000 people die every day, especially from these unrich nations of the world, every single day and punch in eternity without Christ, that must crush our hearts, but often it won't because we are basically thinking about our own lives.

The Dangers of Comfort and Self-Centered Christianity

You know, America is an amazing place, especially for aliens, aliens like me. I came to America in 1974. When I first came to America, somebody asked, what is the name of this food? They said, hot dog.

I got a shock. I said, in America, you eat dog meat? I thought dog meat is like hot tea and hot rice and hot dog, but now I know better. I was going to Criswell College. You were in Dallas Seminary and two years of Greek and Hebrew and philosophy and all this stuff was going on.

I mean, I was ordained and was pastoring a Southern Baptist church, but so happened that I married a girl who was born and raised in Germany who was with us on the mission field, and her parents had quite a bit of resources, so when they found out this Indian married my daughter, we better give money so she will be taken care of.

So I didn't have to buy anything on credit or borrow from anyone. I began with Kmart, buying my clothes and ended up with Neiman Marcus. 70 neckties. I hate this thing, but I wear it for you to find out that nobody's wearing it.

All imported from Europe, and my suits, I'm ashamed to mention the kind of money I paid to have them. It took me some damn half hour to figure out what color suits me because I read the book Color Me Beautiful.

Now, some of you men look like you are lost. Ask your wife. I analyzed my skin. I found out I was a winder. What a big deal. I was not doing anything wrong. I was preaching four times a week, praying and baptizing people and going on with my studies, and you know, but about three years goes by like that.

Someone who spent eight years on the mission field weeping, being beaten up, suffering, having come to America within a short time, I was becoming normal. I had a library of my own with thousands of books that I may never read, many of them, but it looked wonderful.

Sports, I still don't understand what that's all about, but I had sports magazines. So when people come visit me, they see all this stuff on the coffee table. And I remember one day, it's grace and it's mercy.

I said, what's happening to me? I couldn't cry anymore. I talked about hell and heaven and missions and all the stuff, but it was so very objective. My eyes were dry and I realized I'm lost. And I remember looking at my library, seven most expensive leather-bound Bible sitting on the shelf.

Repentance, Eternity, and Simplifying Life

It's as though the Lord said, son, half of the world have never seen one page of the Bible with your life. Half of the world go to bed with empty stomach and naked bodies. Some two billion never heard my name and look at the time you spend to make your life normal like these people here.

13 Christian radio stations in Dallas, 24 hours, blaring every kind of music and teaching, but you are not satisfied with that. You have to have your own expensive stereo system. Son, it was not guilt trip and condemnation and I'm going to send you to hell, none of those.

It was very tender. And I said, Lord, all I can ask you is to forgive me. I'm lost. Change my heart. It was not sins that I was committing. It was good things, but all self-centered. And I borrowed this prayer from a missionary.

Father, take eternity and stamp on my eyes. Let me see my life, my future, everything that I'm about through the lens of eternity. It's neat when you pray like a child. Now I want no more praying like Peter Marshall's memorized prayers to impress my people.

No, I was a lost kid on the carpet weeping. And the Lord was gracious. That was 32 some years ago. And I said to my wife, Gisela, just want to keep a couple of jackets and a couple of ties and a few trousers and a couple of pair of shoes.

And all the rest must go. No, I'm not promoting go home and sell your house and cars and go pay close. But I'm asking you, when was the last time you could spend a day or two a week in prayer and waiting upon God on the behalf of the lost world, and even for your children.

You can't do it because you're too involved with the things of the world and opinions of people. And therefore, we give our lip service, a slice of our life like today, or whatever else you do, just to satisfy our conscience or be nice.

Listen, if you are like that, there is hope because I found hope. Well, I think the place we can start is coming back to the Lord. And to you, it may be something else than it was for me. But I think it'll be a good thing for us all to pray that prayer from Bob years long ago, when he was walking the streets of China, seeing the multitude so lost and helpless.

He prayed this prayer, oh Lord, take your burden and let my heart break with the things that break your heart and so today I want to encourage you to walk with these disciples and see how we can do it.

And I have come to the conclusion, now this is my own personal journey of 40 years with the Lord and all the failures and sins and repenting and running back to the cross, which is a daily thing for me, by the way.

I learned this one lesson, that is you never be able to do something that survive in eternity without suffering in the flesh. I don't mean the nails on the cross, no, I mean saying no to yourself and dying to self.

Suffering, Death to Self, and Missionary Courage

One of the first place I went to serve the Lord when I was a youngster, 17 years of age, it was in Rajasthan, northwest of India. And we all face persecution, being beaten up and whatever else we had to deal with.

Some years would go by, one of the students who graduated from our Bible school, we have 60 to some Bible schools and every year some 2 ,000 graduates, this young man felt that he should go to this particular place named Bundi where I was beaten up severely for preaching the gospel.

He went there and sure enough, a group of men came in the middle of the night and said, you young man, don't stay here, we're going to kill you. We don't need your God, we got our gods. And he knew they were serious about it because they already murdered another brother about 30 kilometers from there, from their place for being there as a missionary.

He got scared and ran back to the headquarters where he was sent from and told this to the leaders and they said, yeah, we told you to go there would be a risk, but you felt the Lord wanted to go to Bundi to serve the Lord and he said, I know the Lord told me to go there.

The senior, the elder said, son, are you sure Jesus told you to go there? He said, yeah, I know he did. He said, son, go back. They will come and cause you some troubles and maybe beat you up and all that.

There's a small chance they may kill you also. But son, if that happens, remember this, heaven is a much better place. You wait there for us and we'll come and see you later. He knelt down and they prayed for him and he went back weeping, thinking that he will never see them again.

Yes, these same men came back and said, why are you going to make us murderers? He said, I came here to die. What? Yeah, the sooner you do your job, it is better for me. I will not leave this place. Jesus sent me here.

Three years would go by, I get a telephone call in the United States. Hello? I said, yeah, it's me. Brother, we want you to come to Bundi. I said, what? The name Bundi scares me to death. He said, no, no, no, no, we just finished constructing our church.

We want you to come and inaugurate the church. The story changes. The following month, I flew to Delhi, took a train. When there, some 120, 130 adults, their children, wives, and all these people there worshiping the Lord.

I preached through, crying through the whole service. When the meeting was over, this brother took me and said, this is the man who said he's going to kill me and tear me up like a chicken. The very people that opposed him now are followers of Christ.

You know how that happened? Not because of great missionary burden and budget and money and challenges. He came to the place when he knelt down. Unless the seed falls into the ground and dies, it remains as it is.

Four Practices for Supporting the Mission of God

God is looking for us to be the answer to see this generation change. Well, the clock tells me you better sit down soon. So here's four applications, one-liners. One, take one day of the week for fasting and prayer.

Get Book Operation World, a world map you can get from us also. Be involved in praying for some country, some nation, some people, Canada, whatever else. And by the way, one day of fasting, if that kills you, please let me know.

You will not. Second, this mission conference, you have missionaries here who obeyed the Lord and went to places to serve the Lord. If the Lord has been calling you, talk to them, talk to others. Don't hold your life, even if it is for one year or two years, take the risk and young people, come to us and we'll figure this out and help you also.

Number three, simplify your life. Hey, you know what? You know what? 100 years from now, you will not be driving the car. You are making a list already for Christmas. A mountain of stuff. Hey, listen, this year, give just cards to family members and others.

Convert all that money, simplify your life. Walk away from all this stuff. You don't need another diamond ring. This guy loves you anyway. Keep your tie, fashion will always come back. Really. I drive a 1962 Volkswagen Bug.

I had it for 19 years. It drives faster than any car because I don't drive it very much. No, it runs good. Please, let the Lord give you understanding. I have a whole book about it, Road to Reality. It'll help you.

Number four, you know, 95 of you will never go to China, India, Bhutan, Albania, or any of these nations. But you can go by obeying one scripture. How will they go except they be sinned? There's a little card like this.

You can get it when you go out of the church. And it talks about how you can help a native missionary. Someone in Bangladesh or China or Bhutan, Burma. We see some 17 churches planted every single day among people that never heard the gospel as we trade and send out these national missionaries.

And about 30 or some dollars a month, if the Lord touches your heart, why don't you do that? We can maybe help 10 or 15 or two or one. And when you do that, they will give you actually the missionary that you are praying for and helping right today there at the table.

Well, may the Lord help all of us to love him more than life and fulfill his call. God bless you.