The Harvest Is Now (Dutch) — K.P. Yohannan

Okay, we've got two microphone systems this morning. If this doesn't work, this will work. Is it clear now? Good. But I'll still hang on this. Good morning, dear. Good morning, everyone. The question is not whether we should change that.

The question is not whether we should change that. He said, I'm a psychiatrist. Oh, that is your problem.

Likely, yes. But when a sick person comes to a medical doctor, the question is not if he needs to be healed.

The question is how. The question is always how he should be healed. Oh, he speaks Hindi. That is not to be translated for me. When you get to heaven, you are going to speak Hindi. And that applies to all of us.

Think about all the books out there. How many messages have you heard?

You know, we are in Dallas, Texas, in the United States.

There are 14 Christian radio stations.

24 hours they are preaching, singing, everything you want to hear.

24 hours a day they are preaching, singing, everything you want to hear. Very good Christian music. Like you heard this morning. And then there is sometimes faster music. And then there are old Christian songs.

And then you have Christian rock music. And that blows your whole head off. I don't know what they are doing. And then great preaching.

We lack no information.

For 1 .2 billion people in the country of India, there is not one Christian radio station. Half of the population has never seen one page of the Bible. In the country of Afghanistan, there are 17 million people.

That is half of the population of the Netherlands. What is the population here? 16, 17 million.

It is the same number of people. Oh, he was thinking of Nepal. But in the whole country of Afghanistan there may be less than 200 Christians. And we have some local missionaries who sneak into Afghanistan from Pakistan.

How much information do you need before you change? How many more books on the Bible do we need before we start obeying?

The problem is not that we do not know. The question is how we can change.

That is the question. And I am glad you are here at this conference. You could have done a thousand things with your time.

And you are a very special group of people. You know, Jesus only had twelve people.

And he turned the world upside down with the twelve. They became revolutionaries in the world. You are correct. I understand your language.

Following Jesus Through Practical Discipleship

And we from here can go and change the Netherlands. You can change Europe. You can change the world. We must believe it. That is the reason God brought us together. That is the reason Jesus took his disciples together.

And it is possible for God to do the impossible with our feeble lives.

I am so glad for this organization.

It is a strange name though, Hard Cry. But it is a good name.

And the picture, the logo, I like.

It is a good name. I like the logo too. It looks like the cross is stamped on a heart. Is that right? And that is what we need. In Dutch we also say Hallelujah. It is easy to translate. He thought we only ate pancakes.

I would like to say some tangible, practical things about our Christian life. And I would like to answer the question of how we can change.

And not to find some deep meaning about anything I am saying, but how I am going to do it. And the scripture I want to read again is in the Gospel according to St. Mark chapter 1. I think this morning our brother preached a fantastic message.

I wish he continued. I am only going to add a few things he already said. That scripture Jesus says to his disciples, come, come and follow me.

And in this scripture Jesus says to his disciples, come, come and follow me. And I will make you to fishers of people. Communists are very smart people. It started with a handful of people. And they took over one third of the world with this ideology.

They did not have great seminaries. No great conferences.

It was on the job training.

That is what Jesus did.

And on the way he explained to them stuff. And they learned along the way. And then he sent them out to do things. And on the job. We are all on the job. Christianity must never become a matter of information.

You can have information and go to hell.

And Pharisees went to hell. And a lot of preachers are going to hell.

But that is not what Jesus is calling you for.

It is to live his life. And that is what he did with his disciples. Three and a half years. They will live with him.

Learning Prayer and Humility by Example

This is what we have in our one school of discipleship in America.

And that is what we do in our one school of discipleship in America. We invite 50 to 60 young people to come and live with us. Of course we have books about prayer. A lot of them. But they learn to pray.

You know how? They watch others pray.

Oh yeah, we have books about fasting. But they watch all the brothers and sisters fasting. They learn about humility. Yeah, we have books about humility. But it is more about watching people like David and John and others.

But it is more about watching examples of humility, like Brother David and John. How can you be a godly wife? How can you be a godly husband? I am a husband. I am too young.

He thinks so. Loving their wife and their children. This is Christian community. I believe this is what God is doing among you.

And that is the invitation Jesus gave. Come and follow me. As we follow him. And while we are following him.

We are walking in his footsteps.

Just look at me. You don't have to do this yourself, but when I am walking like this. And I say to someone else, come follow me. And he follows me in my footsteps. According to his plan for your life.

He will take you to places you must go. Your focus is him. That is what you already heard. One to pray. One to go.

One to give. One to do nothing maybe. But the focus is Christ. Some years ago. My wife came to me with a letter in her hand. And she gave this to me. And said. You better sit down and read this. And then she said something else.

Don't speed read. Read carefully. No, no, no. It was not a letter about her leaving me. Or divorcing me. Or angry with me. None of those things. It was a letter that came from one of our native missionaries.

The Suffering of the Unreached in India

He was walking by the holy river. Known as Ganges. And once in ten years. They have a massive Hindu celebration. Called Kumbh Mela. He did a good job. At that time when he wrote the letter. 35 million people came.

From all over the country. To go into the river. And wash themselves. For the forgiveness of sin. They never heard. About the blood of Christ. That can wash their sins away. They're very sincere people.

They're crying out to a God. That will not answer their prayer. They're desperately longing for God. So this missionary who wrote this letter. He described this one story. This day from morning till evening.

He was talking to people. And explaining the gospel to them. And in the evening he was coming home. And he saw. A young woman. Sitting by the bank of the river.

And she was weeping. Not just weeping. She was pounding upon her chest. In India.

When you see something like that. Culturally it tells you something worse. Than death itself took place. And he writes in the letter. I went and sat beside her. And I asked her. What happened? Why are you crying?

What happened to you? She answered. My husband is so very ill. Very sick. We are very poor people.

He cannot work anymore. And my sins are so many. I don't know what to do.

To find a solution to the problems of my home. Forgiveness for my sins. I have given the best offering I can give. To mother goddess.

To the river god. I threw in my only baby boy in the river. Her six month old baby boy. She threw her in the river. Then he writes. I opened the bible. And explained to her.

That god did not make her poor. That god loves her. That Jesus died for her. Her sins are forgiven. All she must do is to believe in him. After hearing all the explanation. He writes in the letter. She wiped her tears.

Looked straight into my eyes. And said these words.

But how come you didn't come to me half hour sooner? I never heard this before. It is too late. And she went back crying again.

I was no more sitting on my comfortable leather chair.

I was on my face weeping.

And I said this to my Jesus. Every fiber of my being. Every second of my life.

Every penny I own. All that I have.

My dreams and ambitions. All I give to you.

That I may never read another letter again like that. That brought many changes in my own life. My brothers and sisters. What is Jesus all about? Did he come here to save his life? Did he come here like Americans say.

To have money and riches and fame? He said he came to seek. And to save. That which was lost. And he said. As you heard this morning. Go. And these disciples were asked. To forsake all and go. But they cannot go.

Until they understand his heart. Until they understand his longing. Have you ever read Gospel of Matthew chapter 10? Matthew chapter 10? I'm sure you have. And for you to come to this conference and not know the Bible.

That would be strange. This is a wonderful place to be. I'm surprised by the way you start your meeting by reading so many Bible verses. The emphasis you have on God's word. And all of you are carrying a book in your hand.

Even this daughter is carrying a Bible.

But there is no line in it. You read this thing? I have a different Bible.

He's a good brother. See Matthew 5, 6 and 7. Jesus talks about. How I must live this life. Who is with him? Who is with him? And he talked about that. A handful of his 12 disciples. It was not a big crowd.

It was you, your wife and your children. It is a father and son. It's a husband and wife. It's a very tiny little group. He says. Hey, don't worry about tomorrow. Don't store up treasures on this earth.

The Sermon on the Mount and the Inner Life

Don't dream to buy that car.

You don't need to live like other people. Don't be proud.

Humble yourself. Be always hungry after God.

And if somebody do wrong to you. Don't attack. When you are misunderstood. Quietly suffer.

And pray for your enemies. And don't judge. And be more concerned about the inside. They say don't commit adultery. But I tell you. Don't think bad. That is more dangerous. Your inner life is more important than your outer life.

He told them about the purity of inner life.

And he said your father is seeing you. Pray in secret. Don't tell anything that you shouldn't tell people about your spiritual journey with God. Give away things that others may not know. Give away your money and whatever.

Not for others to see. See, I understand your language.

I understand yours as well. See, I am teaching him. See, those are things Jesus, he was teaching. Then, he takes them on a journey. He says come and follow me.

Chapter 8. Chapter 9. You should read that to them sometime. It is a walk. And they are walking with him. If you turn to the passage you will see this. And they are stopping in many places.

One place is demon possessed people.

Another place lepers. Blind people. Hungry people. Weeping people.

Compassionate Ministry Among the Suffering

Gospel for Asia has ministries in 38 leper colonies in Asia. We have some 15 ,000 missionaries scattered in 14 different countries. These are missionaries from their own countries. 14 ,000. 1 -4 -000.

14 different countries. And they are people from their own countries. Because you and I, foreigners, cannot go and live among these countries. So we train these people to go among unrich people or the neighboring people to preach the gospel.

We have a movie called Wail of Tears. Have you seen that?

We have a movie called Wail of Tears. I don't know if you've seen it. It's about our missionaries who work on the leper colonies. They can watch those movies for free and you can watch them. Via their website.

And you will see in this picture, movie, thousands of precious people. Nose gone. Their fingers are gone.

And blood and pus oozing out of their body. In one area 2 ,000 families live. And nobody cares about them. The families disowned them. Their religion disowned them. Nobody owns them. Many of them go out to beg to make a living.

This is where our missionaries went. That place we built a hospital. And a factory to make shoes for people who have no way to wear anything on their feet. When there's a church also. And these missionaries, these sisters are washing the wounds of these people.

The sisters of these missionaries are washing the wounds of these people. And they connect them. And all these people want nothing more than to die. There are hundreds among them who commit suicide. But today, in many of these leper colonies,.

They have heard about the Lord Jesus Christ.

And they understood there's life beyond this life here on earth. They gave their heart to Christ. On Sunday morning, they gather for worship. They're clapping their hands. But their fingers are missing.

It's eaten away by leprosy. But they smile. And they cry. It's unbelievable to see what God is doing. This is what Satan has done to humanity. Then you find people demon possessed. In the state of Rajasthan.

Rajasthan is a state. India. We have hundreds of churches. There's one congregation. Right in front of the church. There's a tree. And on the tree, they put up a cross. And on the cross, there are 70 black threads hanging on it.

Each thread represents some individual who was demon possessed. Living without self-control in the community. Our missionaries went there. Started preaching the gospel. And they would pray for these people.

Do you have demons? Demon possessed people in this country? So these people believe. But the Netherlands demons are very clever. They hide very carefully. In America also like that. But in India. In Nepal.

And Pakistan.

And many parts of the world. When we have open preaching. And church meeting. Outside people come. When the Bible is taught. Somebody starts screaming. And they roll everywhere after they screamed.

See, I did that scared you. And what do you do? They stop the preaching. Go and pray for them. They are set free. And this one church. There are 70 baptized believers. All of them were freed from demon possession.

70 people. Through preaching the gospel. There is one lady. She was tied up in the house for 7 years. Think about the husband and the children. And she had some 80 some demons in her. Nothing, no one could deliver her.

It was the Lord Jesus Christ set her free. And she went out. 125 other families to the Lord Jesus Christ.

Walking in the Footsteps of Jesus

Now don't forget this. Jesus taught the disciples about the inner life.

Then chapter 8 and 9. In the gospel of Matthew. He is taking them on a journey. Come and follow me. What they are looking at. They are looking what Jesus is doing. They are seeing the suffering. They are seeing the pain.

They are seeing the agony. And they see the man Jesus. I want to ask you. Did you walk in the footsteps of Jesus?

Last week to Nepal. Did you see Him weep over the destruction of people made by His own hands? The other day on the telephone.

Our leader from Nepal said this to me. Bishop Naran said. He was talking to an older man. And this Hindu man said.

Is there any more suffering than this? Eight members of his family all dead.

He is the only one alive.

Is there any name for this kind of suffering?

Where is God? Where is Jesus?

Who will hear that question? Who will be the ear of Jesus?

Who will be the eyes of Jesus?

Who will be the knees of Jesus? Who will be the response of Jesus?

Who will represent the response of Jesus? Yesterday I showed a photo to my co-leader David Carroll. And that photo was sent to me on my iPhone. And that was from an older senior leader in Kathmandu, Nepal.

He takes a bag of rice.

And giving it to a woman. And I looked at the face of this Hindu woman. She looks like a movie star. Such an incredibly beautiful face. She must be maybe twenty.

On the street. Without any food to eat.

I said to myself, she must represent maybe twenty other people. She must represent another twenty people. So where is Jesus? He is not sitting in a fancy house. He is not looking to drive in the better cars.

He is not in another Bible study to find deeper truths.

He is walking on the streets. Among the subcultures. Among the red light district. Among the leper colonies. But who will do it?

You and I, we are the Jesus today. And brothers and sisters. Today he invites us to follow him. And you will find Jesus finally in chapter 9 in Matthew's Gospel. It says, he was moved with compassion.

And it explains why. Would you read that verse? From 27 to 33. No, no, no. Verse 35. Verse 35 to the end of the chapter.

Verse 35 to the end.

Matthew wrote that thirty years after the incident. And he is sitting down trying to figure out what to say about this Jesus. And he talked about the words of Christ, come and follow me.

And he himself left his money profession.

And he followed Jesus. And then he saw all these things. But he recalls. He remembers. Oh, that day. Oh, I can't forget that day. After just walking with him. One day we saw him. Just weeping. He was sobbing.

He just collapsed. And we just stood there. Trying to figure out what is happening with him. And then he said. Don't you understand? They are harassed. They are helpless. They are abused.

They are broken. Nobody cares. Everyone thinks about themselves. My heart is broken. And then he said. Would you go? The harvest is plenty. The harvest is plenty. You know, I come from a rice farmer family.

And in the southern part of India, my family is a farmer family. I have six brothers. I am the youngest in the family. And I remember. How it went during the harvest time.

Everything with the head cut off. Nobody is taking rest. Nobody is going on a vacation. Just get the job done right now, right now. The monsoon is coming. Rain is coming.

Everybody is working. 24 hours. Why? Harvest is going to be destroyed soon. What did Jesus talk about? The people. They are dying. Two billion people in our generation wait to hear the gospel.

180 ,000 die in that part of the world every single day.

And there are 180 ,000 people in that part of the world every single day who die and end up in hell without Christ. And in Matthew chapter 10. Jesus says. I send you out as sheep among wolves. Do you know?

Wolves among sheep. But Jesus did the opposite. We sent two Muslim converts to work in an area some years ago. Two native missionaries. Hussein and Salsul. They knew it is difficult. They knew it is difficult.

They won some people to Christ. One day these two brothers are walking to the mission place. A group of men met them. And they said very nice. Oh, you are Hussein and Salsul. You came to tell us about Jesus.

And our brothers thought. They were friends. They were smiling. But a man. One of these people. Pulled out a dagger. Did you say steak? Yeah, to stab. Oh, in America steak means you eat. No, it is not that.

It is about a knife. Which one of these men took out of his pocket. He took a long knife. And he stabbed in the heart of brother Hussein. And the blood just poured out. And they stabbed brother Salsul six times.

Brother Hussein died on the spot.

And people all around took Salsul to the hospital. These men ran away.

After a few weeks.

Hussein's wife's father-in-law came from a distant village. But now. Here is a young girl with a little child.

In a strange place. You mean his wife? And the husband is dead. And the father said. My daughter come home. He himself is a Muslim. Your husband is dead. Your God could not keep him. Come home. I will take care of you and my grandchild.

You women and sisters I want to ask you.

You claim to be a follower of Christ. And you are. But the question is what kind? This young Muslim convert, this young girl.

Now that her husband was murdered.

If you are in her place, what would you say? This young girl responded. Father, you do not understand. The Jesus my husband loved, I love him. The people he ministered to, they are my people.

I can not come home.

I will stay here and raise my son to take his place.

And she still lives there. What is her future? What is the future of her son? Only time will tell. And Jesus said. I send you as sheep among wolves.

It is as wolves devour, kill the sheep. They themselves become sheep. Today we are 14 sisters living in these nations. All of their husbands were killed for preaching the gospel. Follow me, Jesus said.

Four Applications for Missionary Discipleship

What does that mean? I must conclude with a few applications. One. You heard this morning, that means someone who is really praying. Get the book Oppression World. You have not heard Oppression World?

Patrick Johnstone's book. It is about all the countries of the world. Hard cry, he must get it done.

Because how do you pray for Afghanistan? How do you pray for Iran? How do you pray for India? The book explains it.

Every day he prays for some country. I pray for Albania for many years. For Bhutan, for Pakistan. You know what? I tell you a secret. You are saying, I am from the Netherlands.

I am a European. 100 years from now. Are you going to live in the Netherlands? I tell you a secret. No!

You are not going to be here. You will be with Jesus. Live today. Not as Netherlands people. Live as Jesus people. Look away to a different world. And pray earnestly. Another thing. Take one day of the week to fast and pray.

Fasting? If you die by fasting, let me know. I will fix your problem. It is a lost art of the church. That is what Jesus said. Be in earnest prayer for the lost world.

Living Simply for the Sake of the Gospel

Second application. Jesus said, follow me.

He did not offer his disciples wealth and riches. Like some Americans are preaching. He lived simple. Many, many years ago. When I was living in America. When I was living in America.

In a time of my life, I had 70 silk straps. And some of my suits.

Each suit cost more than 1000 US dollars. I had so many shirts. It took me half hour. Trying to figure out color coordination. The watch I was wearing. You could buy 200 watches like this one. With that money.

You are saying, what kind of Indian is this? I was a strange Indian. Evangelical and preaching.

But my heart was dying. That is when the Lord talked to my heart.

He said, son, half of the world go to bed. With empty stomach and naked bodies.

Why do you need all this stuff? Live a simple life.

That is when I gave up everything. I am not telling you to do that. You can give up everything and go to hell. Just like any poor people. I am not telling you to do that. Jesus didn't tell everybody to forsake everything.

But it was only to me.

I just got two jackets today. Very nice German shoes. Very simple. I look nice, no?

See, nobody worries about a lot of things.

But you just live simple. Give your resources. To preach the gospel. The third application. Especially young people.

Dedicating Your Life to Missions

If God is calling you. Give your life. Some of you. You can apply to our school in America. Come and spend one year with us. Then you can do the second year if you want.

Go to some place to serve God. Europe need to be evangelized. Netherlands need to be evangelized. But how? Through your revolutionized life. Number four.

Supporting Native Missionaries

This is one thing I ask you to do. You will not go to India. You are not going to Afghanistan. You will not go and live in Pakistan. You will not go and live in Nepal.

But. You can go. That's what Gospel for Asia does.

Today we have some 15 ,000 brothers and sisters in all these nations.

We had 15 ,000 local brothers and sisters. Romans 10 says. How will they go to preach? Unless we send them.

That's what you heard from my brother. You can pray. You can give your resources. That's what Jesus did. We have a table out there in the dining room I think.

We have a table somewhere here in the dining room. There are some cards like this. These are English cards. But you know English. By filling in the card you can support a local missionary. You can help with American money with about 30 dollars.

I am helping native missionaries through Gospel for Asia. You just fill this out. You can send it through bank. Credit cards. And when you sponsor a native missionary. You are praying for them. Your monthly support.

100 goes to them. You can get the profile of the missionary that you are praying and helping.

There you see a congregation with a pastor. Here you see this card.

I know this missionary. He started five churches in Punjab. When you fill this out. You don't need to give the money today. You can take the missionary profile with you. And every few months you will hear from the mission field.

And it will be nice from HeartCry. You can organize some mission tours to go to the mission field. Our hearts feel close with you. It is a real place.

And together we can win millions to Christ.

And we have some of my books. You can go to gfa .org and get everything free.

And there is a website gfa .org. It stands for Gospel for Asia. Gfa .org. And there is a lot of information.

All my books are free. I don't take any money out of it.

Everything goes to the Lord's work. Listen to this.

Today we have 2 .7 million believers throughout these countries. People who came to Christ through the native missionaries.

And when you get to heaven. When you stand by the throne.

It may be a thousand people from Nepal that came to Christ because you loved and helped those Nepali brothers to preach the gospel.

And from China and Bhutan. And I believe.

This is the reason I came here. I usually never spend more than one day.

In any one place. And somehow we felt I should come to this meeting.

David and I felt very strong God has a ministry to the body of Christ in Europe through Gospel for Asia. Not just take your money. No. But together. All of us. And I want to be a blessing to you. You know what?

I cannot wait for the day when we see Jesus face to face. Today I weep when I think about Nepal. Today I cry in my sleep when I think about the lost world.

When I see him I do not weep anymore. Today we have the privilege to live as Jesus lived. But it will come.

With a great price. Sacrificing and denying ourselves. Loving him more than life itself. And may the Lord give you the grace. Amen.