Choose to Serve, Part Two — K.P. Yohannan

A door to reach millions in Asia, next on The Road to Reality with Brother K .P. Yohannan. Welcome to The Road to Reality with Brother K .P. Yohannan, the President of Gospel for Asia. Today, we bring you the second part of a message entitled, Choose to Serve Jesus.

Brother K .P. will challenge us to consider eternity and what a blessing it is to serve the Lord Jesus. Now, if you're not aware of the mission of Gospel for Asia, it's to take the gospel into all parts of India and Asia.

And then coming up on June 27th through the 29th, Gospel for Asia is sponsoring a missions conference at their headquarters near Dallas. You can find out more through our website at gospelforasia .org.

Now, here's Brother K .P. to speak about the harvest that is now ready to reach the poor in India.

The Harvest and the Eternal Perspective

My brothers and sisters, the poor, the downtrodden, the helpless, the rejected, always followed the Lord. The rich man who came to Jesus, he walked away sad because he didn't want to exchange everything for something Jesus offered.

We are living in the most incredible time in history where, when it comes to missions, the word harvest becomes the key word and the most amazing possibility for us to grab millions of souls with us and step into eternity and dance forever.

Everything makes sense when you begin to look at things from eternal perspective. For example, now, I carry a driver's license like you do. If you want to know how old I am, you can look at it. But some of you hide your driver's license.

Keep hiding it because you are 60 but you look 16. But I tell you a secret, 100 years from now, you will not be sitting here. 100 years from now, you will not be driving that car. You will not be sleeping on that nice, comfortable bed.

You will not be going to the closet to find the best of clothes and do the color coordination and look so beautiful and handsome. You will not be searching for the right color jewelry to match, whatever.

You will not be worrying about the checkbook and the deposit, all those things. Some of you look like you don't believe me. Oh, okay, okay. You wait, you wait. You'll find out. What am I saying to you?

We must live our life for the same thing Jesus lived for. What did he live for? Luke 19. Son of man came to seek and save that which was lost. And today, we have the opportunity to touch a world that is absolutely wide open before us.

Especially the suffering, needy children of the world. And particularly, the most amazing thing that we have today is, as we reach the suffering children, we are able to touch their parents and community and see churches planted everywhere and on a continuous basis.

The Plight of Exploited Children and the Dalit People

I will read some statistics for you that part of it I read this morning. The Asia-Pacific region harbors the largest absolute number of working children between the ages of 5 and 14. With some 127 million or 60 of the world total.

The studies done by International Labor Organization Global Report for 2002. Did you get that? For example, in some parts of India, you have this match factory, you know where they make match and firecrackers.

They employ up to 5000 little kids starting from the age of four. In Bihar, in northwest of India, 75 of the land, real estate owned by 7 of the upper caste, the Brahmins. You know what they have?

Bonded slaves to take care of their land and their estates. And who are these people? A man and his wife, they got four or five kids. They are the Dalit people, the untouchables, the low caste of India.

1 .2 billion people live in India. Out of that, 300 million are known as the untouchables. These are the illiterates. These are the people who even by accident, if you touch upper caste, you can be murdered.

In Delhi, shame. For that nation. In Delhi, the capital of India last year, daylight, they lynched five untouchable men, Dalits, grown men, because they killed a cow. You talk about darkness of a nation.

India has enough beef to make hamburger for 10 years for the whole population. But they will not kill that animal. This is God's. And you know what this landlord does? He gets 100 families, 50 families, and give them $10, $20, $50.

He loans them. Then he makes them sign an affidavit. Next five years, you and your wife and your kids, you're going to labor for me in my field. And these people are illiterate. They cannot write. They call untouchable in the native language, in the colloquial language.

He makes them put the ink and make a stamp out of that. They cannot escape. If you go to the web and look for this, you will be shocked. A young little boy and girl, four or five year old girl, spend 10, 15 years of their life not knowing what they're doing, working from sunrise to sunset.

Barely able to find enough to fill their stomach. Young people, you know, I look at many of you here and I have two children that are born and raised in the United States. They both are now my son is 28 and my daughter is 24.

They both finished their school and they went on to India and Nepal. They're serving God there. But I tell you, you young people and parents, we have no clue if there's a heaven on earth. It is United States of America.

You do not know how blessed we are. And this is where the Lord began to grip our hearts some years ago and spoke to us, don't you care about what's happening to these people? And Gospel of Asia as a mission, we got a radical commitment to preach the gospel, get churches planted and that's what we've been doing.

We will keep on doing 100 ,000 missionaries we want to send out. But you know what happened? Some place our missionaries used to go to plant a church. They never get welcome. They get booted out. Eight village chiefs, they're called serpents.

These are men who are like mayors, you know, in the community. Came to one of our native missionaries, Suresh, and said, we want to talk to you. Can we talk to you? And he was really scared because this Suresh, our brother missionary, sent some missionaries to work in these people's villages and they were beaten and abused.

And later they heard the temple priest was called. They mixed cow dung with water and cleansed the whole eight villages and said, if you ever come back, we will kill you. Don't ever come back to our village.

Schools as a Doorway for Gospel Outreach

And now these eight village chiefs come to this, our missionary leader, saying, I want to talk to you. And he says, I really got scared. I would too. But he said, well, you know, who knows? So he said, I'll talk to you.

OK, come and gave them a cup of tea and start talking. And they said, you know, we understand you don't like us because what we did to you people. But we heard some kilometers away from their particular community, our missionary started some little schools for the untouchable children.

That don't make sense to you. We have 19 ,000 little children in 370 schools scattered in these nations. But oh, if only you can come and see their faces now. They smile, they sing, they clap their hands, they recite Bible verses and they are brilliant, they are studying.

But many of them, when they came, they came without a stitch of cloth on their body. Five year old, six year old, seven year old boys and girls from abject poverty and from the streets. And we clothed them, we feed them, we give them books, we wash them up.

First time in many of their lives, they're using a deodorant soap to take a bath. They never seen a toothbrush until they began to get this from us. It just don't know how this kid's so amazing, the transformation.

And their lives are changed forever. Forever. And this village chief heard about what's happening far away from their village. And they now come to our missionary and say, we want you to come and start these kind of schools for us.

And our missionary, Suresh said, I don't think we want to do that. He said, please, won't you help us? He said, no, because we came there, you beat us up and you abused us. And we don't start schools, just schools.

We do this because we want to tell them about Jesus also. We will give them Bible. We preach about Jesus. We'll teach them sing. We teach them Bible verses. Are you willing for all that? He said, no problem.

You please come do whatever you want to do. Hallelujah. And you know, the story is a church in every one of those villages today, worshiping the living God. Hallelujah. That all began with these little children coming to Northern North.

You've been listening to Brother K .P. Yohanan from Gospel for Asia. You know, there is a great need, but also a great opportunity to reach millions of children in India who don't know the Lord. That's why Gospel for Asia has a special children's outreach program.

It's called Bridge of Hope. It's designed to rescue thousands of children in Asia from a life of poverty and hopelessness. Give them an education and introduce them to the love of God. You can learn more about Bridge of Hope at our website.

The address is gospelforasia .org. And you're invited also to come to Dallas and take part in the Gospel for Asia Missions Conference. It takes place June 27th through the 29th. Featured speakers will be Brother K .P., Danny Lehman, Director of Youth with a Mission, and leaders from Gospel for Asia in India and Nepal.

For more information, again, head to our website at gospelforasia .org. As we return to Brother K .P. Yohanan, he'll discuss how open children are to the gospel. Here's Brother K .P.

Children and the Openness of the Gospel

Once again. You know, McDonald's, hamburger place? I don't like McDonald's much. I like In-N-Out. I am mad at In-N-Out people. Why? Because they don't have those In-N-Out place in Dallas and Carleton.

But do you know corporations, music industry, are spending billions of dollars for research? For what? How to get the little kids to come into their shop? How to let the little kids buy the stuff? You get them and the parents comes with them.

Now you know. There's a fantastic prophecy, the little children will lead them and show the way. Oh, I repent so many times saying, Lord, if only I knew this 25 years ago, I will spend my entire life only for children.

Only for children. That's all. Because so far, every child we took into our school, every one of them opened their heart to the Lord Jesus Christ. Oh, and pray to Jesus. And I used to think, dear Lord, two billion people in the subcontinent.

How on earth are we going to evangelize all the way? Where are the missionaries? And the Lord began to speak to me. What is wrong with you? You only want one million. You can have 10 million missionaries if you want.

I said, Lord, where? 90 million children just in India alone that would flood into our schools if we had them. We can take them and teach them, love them, give them hope. And how many of them will serve the Lord Jesus Christ?

A Mission Born from One Child

I was eight years old. A skinny, little, shy, withdrawn little boy. Barefooted. Didn't speak any English. Walked around in a wraparound, little clothes in my little village. At the age of eight, I heard, Jesus loved me.

At the age of eight, I gave my heart to Jesus. That was the beginning of a journey. Today, a mission scattered throughout 10 nations with 21 ,000 churches, 92 radio broadcasts in 92 languages, a Bible society, 54 Bible colleges with 8 ,000 students, 300 million pieces of literature produced in all the major languages.

The list goes on and on and on. Every day, 16 churches planted, 370 schools. It all began with one little boy that heard Jesus loved him. And my brothers and sister, when you talk about missions, we think about massive moving 18 wheeler, getting the airplane and this and that, big buildings.

Hey, listen, God work with little things. Two little piece of fish, little bread or whatever, and he takes it and he can't even see it. And then he breaks it and he bless it. And the miracle take place.

Start where you are. Do what you can. Don't wait for you to retire. Don't wait until you have a fantastic job. Don't wait until you are married. Don't wait for next year. Now is the time for us to act.

Nagpur: A Church Emerging from One School

And, you know, I have a dream. I said, Lord, wouldn't it be wonderful if Gospel of Asia, we could have a million children eventually in all these schools where they will find you, Jesus. And then the community will be impacted and churches planted everywhere.

This morning I talked about one place. We had 50 schools established in 11 months time. We had 37 churches planted in that community. In Nagpur, one school resulted in a church with today or 400 baptized believers in one church.

You cannot resist the gospel when they see the love of the Lord. And the children come home and telling parents from this poor, rejected, untouchable community, they hear about Jesus and their lives are changed.

What a joy. As I conclude, how do you respond to something like this when it comes to mission? Well, I think there's a lot of ways to do that. But one of the most practical way you can join in is saying, Lord, I'm blessed more than words can describe for the privilege you gave me to be born and be in a circumstance I am in.

When we began to encounter this situation, one thing I said to myself, which the Lord spoke to my heart, He said, you have two children. They grew up in the United States. They lacked nothing. What about these hundreds of thousands of little children living on the streets, dying?

I care about them. Will you care about them and walk into their life and touch them and embrace them and pick them up and hold them up? He said, if you do that, you are doing it for me and for my father.

And I said, yes, Lord, I can do something. And this is how our journey began. Right now, several thousand children that desperately, underline the word desperately, need someone to love them. Someone who is willing to give up chewing gum and one CD and movie ticket or a cake or whatever else they're worried about so that they can be rescued and give them hope and life.

Bearing Christ's Shame Among the Suffering

And early morning hours and we're sleeping in a hotel and about 2 .30 I woke up and just worrying about this whole situation saying, I mean, I didn't want to talk about it. I mean, this is, this is, I don't know what to do.

And I just got nervous about it. And I said, Lord, would you please help me? And the Lord just amazing reminded me of a verse from Hebrews. Therefore, let us go outside the gates bearing his shame. And he said, these kids are lost, undone.

Nobody cares. They are full of shame and rejection. And I am there. Will you bear my shame and share in my suffering? You say, well, that all sounds so strange. Why is that all about? You see, I know unless the Lord touches some hearts, we cannot do something for him.

But as a brother, as a sister, I will say this to you. Be willing to come down and walk into the slum into their lives tonight about missionaries. I don't say this much because one time when I walked in the slums of Bombay, I saw little kids running around in the sewage, dark murky waters, washing themselves.

And I said, would I let my children do that? I won't. I would rather go and beg on the streets. But then I realized it is not one or two children. There are millions. But I tell you something, I'm looking forward to the day when I see my Lord face to face and oh, maybe a few million people that came to know our Lord from all these nations.

And by the way, it happened because of these children the Lord used and I want a part in it. And you will not do it without some pain, some inconvenience, some calculated risk. Jesus did that for us. May we do that.

You've been listening to Brother K .P. Johannan from Gospel for Asia. You know, there is a great need, but also a great opportunity to reach millions of children in India who don't know the Lord. That's why Gospel for Asia has a special children's outreach program.

It's called Bridge of Hope. It's designed to rescue thousands of children in Asia from a life of poverty and hopelessness, give them an education and introduce them to the love of God. You can learn more about Bridge of Hope at our website.

The address is gospelforasia .org. And you're invited also to come to Dallas and take part in the Gospel for Asia Missions Conference. It takes place June 27th through the 29th. Featured speakers will be Brother K .P., Danny Lehman, Director of Youth with a Mission and leaders from Gospel for Asia in India and Nepal.

For more information, again, head to our website at gospelforasia .org. Again, gospelforasia .org. Or if you're in the U .S., you can call us toll free 866-WIN-ASIA. And then join us next time, won't you?

For more teaching and updates from Brother K .P. here on the road to reality. Sponsored by Gospel for Asia.