I want to take this opportunity to thank all of you in this church, Bethlehem Baptist Church, for all that you’ve done for the rest of us. In Hebrews 6:10, we read these words:

For God is not unjust so as to overlook your work and the love that you have shown for his name in serving the saints, as you still do.

I know God is going to bless you for all that you’ve done. We’re especially grateful for Dr. and Mrs. Piper and their pastoral staff and all the members of the church who have risen to the occasion and really shown the love of Christ in action through their hospitality and we’re very grateful. Also, another thing that has impressed me so much is the way this church is modeling what all of our churches should do. And that is to be a launching pad for God’s work all around the world. And how I thank God for the mission-vision, and also the concern and participation of this church in worldwide evangelization for the glory of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

And if it weren’t enough for them to be doing that themselves, how marvelous for them to reach out to other churches that you represent and have been in this conference for 10 years. Because Jesus said, and quoting the Old Testament, “That we should love our neighbors ourselves.” And that’s what your church is doing. You’re loving other churches as yourselves. And you are helping other churches to catch the vision of God’s glory around the world even as this church has done so. We see the blessing of this outreach to other churches in this conference, and I am thrilled that all of you have come may God bless each of your churches even as he has blessed this church.

Christ, Our Pilot

One time in Afghanistan, some of you have heard me tell this story, I got on a DC-3 airplane and we thought we were ready for takeoff. Our seat belts were fastened, and then I looked out of the window and saw a man rushing toward the airplane. I thought maybe a passenger was late and wondered whether they’d let him on. And sure enough, he came and started knocking at the door of the airplane. The flight attendant looked at his watch and it was time we were taking off. The man was late so he wasn’t going to open the door. But the man knocked louder and louder until finally the flight attendant went back and opened the door a crack to see who it was. And there to our amazement was our pilot. We had locked the pilot out of the airplane. The ramp had already been pulled away, so they had to lean down, grab him by his elbows, and help him climb in. And as he went up the aisle to the cockpit, the Afghans who have a wonderful sense of humor were just roaring with laughter.

He then got in the plane in the cockpit and started it and we took off. When this happened I thought, “How much like our lives. We think we’re in the right place taking off for heaven, but the question is, have we left the pilot out?” Jesus in Revelation 3:20 says these familiar words:

Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears me and opens the door, I’ll come in.

And when Christ comes in he wants to be the pilot of our lives and of our church because these words were spoken to the church in Laodicea. Often we quote them to an individual to open his or her heart and receive Jesus as Savior, but in this context Christ is talking to a church. He says, “Behold, I stand at the door of the church and knock. If anyone hears me and opens the door of the church, I’ll come in.” Christ wants to be the pilot of our churches, but what does this mean? It means he has a flight plan for our church. And what is that flight plan? It’s the Great Commission. Because our Lord, just before he ascended to heaven after his resurrection, gave the Great Commission many times.

One of them is recorded in Matthew 28:18–20 where he said:

All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.

The Revolution of William Carey

I’m sure all of you know the story of William Carey when he was a pastor. He was at a meeting of pastors like this and he stood up in the back row and said, “What are we going to do about the hundreds of millions of people that haven’t heard the gospel of Jesus Christ?” The moderator said, “Young man, sit down. When God wants to save them he’ll do it in his own time, in his own way, without your help or mine.” And this was the false theological basis that hindered missions, because at that time they thought that the Great Commission was only given to the 12 apostles (or the 11 apostles by then), and therefore it didn’t apply to Christians after that time.

But William Carey wrote that wonderful little booklet, it’s only 87 pages long — An Enquiry into the Obligations of Christians to Use Means for the Conversion of the Heathens. It has 16 words in the title. Today they say, “Oh, you must only have a short title for a book,” but William Carey wanted people to know what his book was about. In that book, he takes the Great Commission and shows that it applies to every Christian. He said, “If it only applied to the apostles, we don’t have the right to baptize anybody. Because the command to baptize goes right along with the command to evangelize and if the command to evangelize was just for the apostles, therefore the command to baptize was just for them.”

But then he went on to say, “Jesus continued by giving this promise and lo I’ll be with you always, even to the end of the age.” William Carey said, “The apostles, even though they’re in heaven, are not living now to the end of the age in this world. And therefore, Christ was not only talking to the apostles, he was talking to all Christians down through the church age.” And therefore William Carey started a revolution and that’s why called the father of the modern missionary movement. Because he showed that every Christian is responsible for the Great Commission. 
The Apostle Paul in 2 Corinthians 5:10 says, “We must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ.” It’s a final examination, and he’s talking about Christians because he includes himself (we) in his writing to the Corinthian Christians. We must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ. Why? To receive the things in our body, this body. Whatever we’ve done, whether it be good or whether it be bad, the Lord is going to ask you what you did in relation to his clear revelation of the Great Commission. And what is your answer going to be? William Carey showed that it applied to every Christian, every pastor, and everyone in the whole world who believes in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.


The Legacy of John Ockenga

Dr. Piper shared with me how he was called into the ministry through Dr. Harold John Ockenga. When Dr. Ockenga was giving the spiritual life lectures at Wheaton College, John was sick in the infirmary. I don’t know what illness he had. He tuned into the local little radio station and listened to Dr. Ockenga’s messages on the radio, and it was those messages that God used to call John into the ministry. Look at what Dr. Ockenga did. And Dr. Ockenga used to speak. I would have him come to my introductory missions course every year and speak on the same text, Matthew 6:33, where our Lord said:

Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things will be added unto you.”

Now, Dr. Ockenga used to say that God’s kingdom was missions. Now, of course, we realize that there is a kingdom now with missions. People who receive Jesus around the world become members of God’s eternal kingdom. But also, there is the kingdom not yet, the kingdom in heaven. And that’s why Jesus in the Lord’s Prayer taught us to pray, “Hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” And therefore we need to realize that the Kingdom of God is both now. And it’s also to come. I’ve heard Christians argue, “Oh no, it’s to come.” Others say, “No, it’s not.” It’s both. And we see that in the Scriptures. And therefore Dr. Ockenga used to say that seeking first the kingdom of God was seeking first missions. Because missions is the Kingdom of God. It’s the extension of the kingdom of God throughout the world to all the people groups. This is people coming into eternal life, into the kingdom of God becoming citizens of heaven.

Dr. Ockenga used to say, “Wherever a church puts God’s priorities in their right order, first of all, missions — not only seeking the Kingdom of God but also his righteousness — that was evangelism.” When people receive Jesus Christ as savior, repent of their sins, they receive the righteousness of God imputed to them through God’s wonderful grace. And therefore missions and evangelism are the priorities for our churches. And Dr. Ockenga said, “When a church does that, then God adds all the other blessings.”

He would use the Park Street Church that he pastored for many years as an example. When he came there they were giving less than $2,000 a year to missions. One year that church gave 75 percent of their whole income to missions and evangelism. And look at what God has done. That church, a downtown church like this church, has been used in a mighty way for God. And look at what God did through Dr. Ockenga in his ministry in the life of John Piper. Dr. Ockenga invited Billy Graham to come to that church. He was the only pastor in New England who’d have Billy Graham in 1950. Other pastors said, “Billy Graham’s neck ties are too brightly colored.” But Dr. Ockenga had him come and Billy Graham not only filled the church, but then they had to move to the Boston Garden, and then that was packed out and they finally had to move to the Boston Common into the open air as thousands came to hear Billy Graham, and that was the beginning of a wonderful revival that has continued in New England through Dr. Ockenga.

Stirring the Missions Movement

Also, we know he had a lot to do with radio, including the National Religious Broadcasters and the National Association of Evangelicals. He was chairman of the Board of “Christianity Today.” He was in the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association for many years. He came to Afghanistan and preached in our church there. While he was a student he was head of the student volunteer movement group at Princeton Seminary. Then with the break off he went to Westminster and graduated from Westminster, but at that time he had a heart for missions. But God kept him in this country and he became a pastor of a missions minded church that sent many missionaries and also that trained many missionaries.

God used him to start Fuller Theological Seminary when Charles E. Fuller invited him to do that. The people in his church in New England were so afraid that they were going to lose their pastor and that he’d go to California, they had four different days of prayer and fasting that Dr. Ockenga would stay in New England. So the Lord overruled. He used to commute from Boston to Los Angeles every week. And his library, which he’s given to Gordon Conwell, in the back he would read books on the plane and write notes in the back about the books that he’d read.

He redeemed the time because he had to fly back and forth every week so he could be in his pulpit on Sunday and then be president and founder of Fuller Seminary. For 11 years he did that. And then, he started with Billy Graham, Gordon Conwell as Gordon Divinity School merged with Conwell School of Theology in Philadelphia. So Dr. Ockenga then became president of that for 10 years as he trained missionaries, trained pastors, trained Christian leaders. Because God had blessed him so much in that he put missions and evangelism in their prior position.

A Missionary Prayer

I want to read just a short note from Dr. John Piper’s book, Let the Nations Be Glad. We had that in our Scripture reading Psalm 67, which is the Great Commission in the Old Testament, or one of the Great Commissions in the Old Testament. Here Dr. Piper says this about the Lord’s Prayer in Matthew 6 as we are looking at that chapter this morning:

The first two petitions of the Lord’s Prayer are perhaps the clearest statement of all in the teaching of Jesus that missions is driven by the passion of God to be glorified among the nations.

I heard one of you pastors asking another pastor this morning, “What do you mean by the glory of God?” I had a wonderful Bible teacher, Dr. Charles E. Erdman, and he used to say, “The glory of God is manifesting his excellence.” Now, that’s what it is. We manifest God’s excellence when we glorify him, and that’s what missions is: manifesting God’s excellence all around the world. It’s not only in our own home congregation, not only in our own community, not only in our own country, but around the world. It’s manifesting the excellence of God. That’s to glorify him, and that’s why Dr. Piper says, “Missions is driven by the passion of God to be glorified among nations.”

Matthew 6:9–10 says:

Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.

Here Jesus teaches us to ask God to hallow his name and make his kingdom come. This is a missionary prayer.

Jesus’s primary concern, the very first petition of the prayer he teaches is that more and more people, and more and more peoples, come to hallow God’s name. This is the reason the universe exists. Missions exist because this hallowing doesn’t. I’ve been blessed so much by this book, by Dr. Piper, as he brings out the real purpose of missions to glorify God. It’s to exalt his name, to bring others out of death and to eternal life, that they might worship him, that they might be with him throughout all eternity. The first question of the Westminster Confession is, “What is man’s chief end or purpose?” It answers, “Man’s chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy him forever.” We could add to that and say our chief purpose is to glorify God and also to bring others into the knowledge of Christ so that they can glorify God and together we all can enjoy him forever. Because that is the purpose of missions.

True Revival

Now, how is that to be accomplished? How do we put our priorities as pastors in the right order, world evangelization and also evangelism? It’s through prayer.

Dr. Ockenga one time was leading a chapel. It was 1976. Billy Graham had just gone to Hungary, the first communist country to open its doors to his ministry. And as Dr. Ockenga was leading chapel, he told about how when he invited Billy Graham to New England in 1950, 26 years earlier. He and Billy knelt in his pastor’s study in Boston in the Park Street Church and they prayed that God would open all the capitals of the world to Jesus and to crusades for the gospel. And they said in their prayer, “Not only the free world, but also the communist world ending in Moscow.” Dr. Ockenga said, “I’ve prayed that prayer every day for 26 years and God has just heard and answered.” And when he said that, I wanted to find out about his prayer journal. So I asked him, I said, “Tell me about your prayer journal.” I knew he was a great preacher, but I didn’t realize he was such a great man of prayer.

He told me that he had over 600 prayer requests that he prayed every day, and then as the Lord would answer, he’d put the date when the answer came, cross it out, make room for other requests. Reuben A Torrey said that Dwight L. Moody was a far greater prayer than he was a preacher. The secret of power in your church is prayer. Because you move almighty God and you pray according to his will, and God hears and answers and works and does exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or even imagine. But so often we try everything else.

J. Edwin Orr said that, “Every true revival awakening in history has come from prayer.” And it starts with God’s people who pray, who make things right with each other, who confess their sins to each other as they have offended each other, just as has happened in so many college campuses recently. And that’s the first level revival.

“The second level of revival,” Dr. Orr said, “is evangelism.” Other people come to Christ. At Pentecost the church prayed for 10 days and then the Holy Spirit fell with a sound of a mighty rushing wind and with fire, and they were able to lead over 3,000 to Christ in one day. Baptism followed. So, the first is prayer, the second is evangelism, and the third is missions. They were scattered and they went everywhere preaching the gospel. And that’s true revival. “And then the fourth level,” Dr. Orr said, “is showing the love of Christ in action.” Taking care of those who have AIDS, taking care of the poor who are hungry. It’s starting schools to train Christian leaders, starting medical work, and missions around the world. It’s showing people the love of Christ in action.

That’s true awakening. That’s true revival. But it all begins with prayer. And I can’t tell you how thrilled I am to see there’s more prayer today than ever before in history. And that’s why we’re seeing great things happening, because people are praying. That’s what Jesus in the Theophany when he appeared to Solomon in 2 Chronicles 7:14 said:

if my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land.

Therefore, the way to put missions and evangelism in their proper positions in our churches is through prayer.

Called to Afghanistan

But also, when I went to Afghanistan, I had the idea that “nation” meant “country.” As Tom mentioned, I was born of missionary parents in Iran and I remember them praying for this country to the east, which was Afghanistan, that didn’t have one Christian. It’s the size of Texas or five times larger than New England. And it didn’t have one Christian.

So I felt as a little boy that God wanted me to go there. Our Iranian evangelical pastor asked me when I was a little boy what I wanted to do when I grew up. I don’t remember this, but my mother told me. He asked me that — you know how you ask a little kid what he or she wants to do when he or she grows up — and I said, “I wanted to be a missionary to Afghanistan.” Well, the pastor said, “Oh, but missionaries aren’t allowed in Afghanistan.” I said, “That’s why I want to be one there.” And the Lord led. I came back to the States, finished my training, and when Betty and I went in 1951, Afghanistan still didn’t allow missionaries, but they wanted English teachers. And therefore we went to Afghanistan.

After I got there I was reading my Greek New Testament and saw that the word for “nations” is ta ethne. And Dr. Piper has the best description, exegesis of the passages dealing with this word ethnos and then also goyim in the Old Testament for peoples. It’s the best I’ve seen. He has done a wonderful study of this. When I came to see that Christ’s Great Commission was to train disciples from among all people groups, I realized the job was a lot bigger. In Afghanistan we found they speak 52 different languages. They have over a hundred different people groups, and that’s what Jesus is talking about. It’s not countries, but people groups. Even as Dr. Piper brings out so well in Let the Nations Be Glad. And for that reason we see that it’s ethnic groups that the Lord wants to come to himself, and the apostle John has that prophetic vision of heaven in Revelation where he sees people from every tribe, every nation, every language, and every race, because God loves everybody.

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son . . . ( John 3:16).

Our Responsibility Among the Nations

I don’t know if you’ve seen the recent studies that have been reported in Time Magazine and also US News and World Report about the studies of DNA in blood. And just as we’ve heard that many in the OJ Simpson case were interested in DNA in blood. Studies of DNA in blood have shown conclusively that every man, every woman in the whole world — they’ve taken blood samples from people in all tribes, all nations around the world — comes from the same father and the same mother. It’s proved by the DNA in blood. Well, the Bible says that. But so many people don’t realize it.

Hitler didn’t realize it. He tried ethnic cleansing, but that’s a sin. You’re killing your own brothers and sisters. The only ethnic cleansing is the blood of Jesus Christ, which is for all the ethnic groups of the world. And that’s why we need to love our neighbors as ourselves because we are brothers and sisters created by God in his image to be with him forever, to glorify him and to enjoy him throughout eternity.

But not only are we to be concerned about ethnic groups, and it’s thrilling to see how individual church congregations are adopting ethnic groups and are sending different ones there to study them, do research, and are praying for laborers to go there, are sending different missionaries there or tent makers in order to establish a church in that ethnic group which then can reach its own people very quickly. It’s thrilling to see what’s happening because this is the fastest way to evangelize the world.

Dr. A.J. Gordon, that great pastor in Boston, had a heart for missions. And he explained world evangelization in a very interesting way. He said:

It’s not bringing everybody to Christ. The Bible doesn’t say that’ll happen. Christ said, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature, and those who believe and are baptized will be saved. Those who don’t believe will be lost, will be condemned.”

So Christ said that many would not believe. In fact, he said, “Gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few (Matthew 7:13–14). So our Lord talked about a minority, a remnant that is saved, but he said that we’re to take the gospel to everybody. And that’s what Dr. A.J. Gordon said. It’s not a matter of bringing the whole world to Christ. It’s a matter of taking Christ to the whole world.

That’s what it is, and we can do that. We’re not responsible whether people believe or not, that’s their responsibility. Our responsibility is to take Christ’s gospel to them in a way that they can understand, in Scriptures that they can understand, so that then it’s their decision whether they reject or receive the Lord. That is our responsibility and that can be done.

Strategic Tentmakers

I mentioned going to Afghanistan as an English teacher. I went to Washington D.C. and signed a contract with the Afghan ambassador, and I told him that I was a Christian minister. Now, he didn’t know what that was, even though he was in Washington. But his answer was, “Well, most of our teachers in Afghanistan are Muslim priests, so we’ll be glad to have a Christian priest teaching our young people.”

But with him understanding and agreeing I signed the contract and they paid my way and gave me a small salary. After I got there, as Tom mentioned, I was again reading my Bible and saw that this was what the apostle Paul did. He was a self-supporting missionary as a tent maker. I was a self-supporting missionary as an English teacher. And the whole idea of tent making began to take shape in my mind. It’s nothing new. It’s all through the Bible. Most of the men and women in the Bible who were believers were self-supporting witnesses. But it was new to me. And then I came to see that this was the way God, along with fully supported missionaries, would do it. We in no way want to detract from what they’ve done. My parents are fully supported missionaries. They’ve done a great job, but over 80 percent of unreached people groups are in areas that don’t allow missionaries and don’t allow passports with missionary visas, and therefore to reach them, we need to encourage tent makers who are self-supporting witnesses.

It was interesting to see the Metrodome near us here. Dr. Trueblood said this. There were 75,000 in the Metrodome that broke all records as to the number. And Dr. Trueblood said that, “Christians are like a football game. You have thousands in the stands, desperately in need of exercise and 22 on the field desperately in need of rest.” And that’s what it is. Do you see the Christians want the pastors and the missionaries to do it all while they are observers. They need to come down out of the stands and become participants in order for the world to be evangelized.

When Christians catch a vision that they’re all tent makers, witnesses for Christ, all of them ambassadors for Christ, the world will be evangelized. Nothing can stop it, not even Satan and all of his forces. Because that’s what God wants. But this is why Satan is so afraid of this idea of tent making because he realizes that this is the way the world’s going to be evangelized. I’ve seen all kinds of satanic attacks on those that get involved in tent making. He’s scared to death, and he has a right to be because this is the way God is going to help complete the Great Commission. It’s through tent makers.

Every Christian in the Work of Ministry

Dr. Trueblood also said:

We need a second Reformation. In the first Reformation the people of God were given the Word of God, and as they were given the Word of God they saw the truth of the Scriptures, of the priesthood, of the believers.

But it hasn’t been put into practice. Our Protestant churches still have the false dichotomy of the division between laity and clergy. That is a heresy. The clergy, the pastors, are to be the facilitators so that the church members do the work of the ministry. That’s what Paul says in Ephesians 4:11–12. Also, missionaries can’t do the whole job of evangelizing the world. They’re not allowed in most of the world, like Muslim countries and communist countries. China doesn’t allow them, nor do Hindu countries. And therefore they need to work with tent makers in order to evangelize the world. And so we need a second Reformation where the people of God are not only given the Word of God but are given the work of God.

They can’t think that all they need to do is to come to church on Sunday, give to missions, pray for missions, and that’s it. No, every Christian is a missionary in the sense that we are responsible to be witnesses for Jesus. And you pastors are the facilitators. You are the ones who have the glorious privilege of training them so that they’ll do this.

Fishers of Men

I came to Minneapolis in 1969 when I brought our oldest daughter to enter her in Wheaton College, and I had a round world ticket, and so I could come from Chicago to Minneapolis at no extra charge. I was invited to come to the Billy Graham Congress on evangelism here in 1969. Since I was a pastor of the International Church in Kabul, I went to a pastor’s workshop that Dr. James Kennedy was leading. I had never heard of him or met him before. He asked how many of us pastors — there were over 600 pastors in the workshop — who had gone to seminary, a Christian college, or a Bible school had ever had a course to teach us how to lead someone to Christ? Out of over 600 pastors three hands went up, less than one in 200 had had a course in a seminary or a Bible college or a Christian college in how to lead someone to Christ.

I thought back, “Yeah, I never had that in seminary. I had to learn how to lead people to Christ from a Christian layman who was in the tool business.” Then I was planning to spend the rest of my life in Afghanistan, but I said, “Lord, if you ever call me to a seminary, I’m going to teach a course on personal evangelism.” That’s what I did at Gordon Conwell. I’d put all of my students on the Billy Graham telephones so that as people called in with the crusades that were televised, they would lead them to Christ.

One of my students was scared to death to do that. He said, “Look, I’ll do any other assignment but that.” I said, “All right, you get zero for that assignment.” So, under protest he went and he loved it so much as he was leading people to Christ that he went the next night. He wasn’t even required to do that, and he had 23 calls in one night and led 11 people to Jesus. And now he has a church in Maine and is doing the same thing, because he learned how to lead people to Christ through the Billy Graham telephone ministry.

One young woman went and she did. It was just like Billy Graham hooking a fish and giving her the rod and reel to pull it in. But see, our people need to be taught how to lead others to Christ. Jesus, when he started his seminary and called his disciples, he said, “Follow me and I’ll make you to be fishers of men.” That was his main purpose, and he taught Peter how to be a fisher. And look at Peter on that day of Pentecost, 3,000 fish were caught for eternity. That’s what God wants us to train our people to do, to be fishers at home and abroad for the Lord Jesus Christ as tent makers for him.

The Gift of Suffering

Dr. MacArthur and also John Piper and others have mentioned suffering. And those of us who have been pastors have gone through suffering. But so often we look at it in the wrong way. Paul wrote from prison to the Philippians. He was in jail when he wrote this. Philippians 1:29 says:

For it has been granted to you that for the sake of Christ you should not only believe in him but also suffer for his sake . . .

It’s a gift from God to suffer for Jesus. Peter writes about this in his first letter. In 1 Peter 4:12–13, he says:

Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice insofar as you share Christ’s sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed.

But so often we have the wrong attitude. When we’re suffering, we think, “Lord, have you forsaken me?” But it’s a gift. And that’s why I’m thrilled at the theme of the conference: “Triumphantly Encouraged.” You can’t have a victory or a triumph without a battle or an engagement. And that’s what we’re called to do, to be warriors for Jesus against the powers of evil.

Gospel Work Among International Students

I met a man recently, Prem Pradhan from Nepal. He had been an officer in the British army during World War II, in the Gurkha Regiment. The British loved to have Gurkhas in their army because they were such brave soldiers. He was an officer but was wounded in Germany. He was in the tank corps and was shot in the leg, so he limps now. After he was discharged he went back to India. He was a Hindu, and was on his way to Nepal, his home. He stopped in Darjeeling and there a convert of Bakht Singh was preaching on the street. Now, Bakht Singh came to Christ not far from here in Winnipeg, Manitoba as an international student. He was a Sikh, and he heard a young man singing in the shower in the YMCA, and he said, “That man is happy. I’m sad. I wonder why.” And he decided after he finished his shower he’d ask him why he was so happy. And the young man said, “I’m happy because I know Jesus as my Savior. He has forgiven all my sins. I have everlasting life.” Bakht Singh said, “What do you mean?” And he said, “Well, if you want to learn what I mean, here’s my New Testament. You read it and you’ll find out.”

Bakht Singh was so hungry. He read that New Testament — Matthew, Mark, Luke, and into John — in one night. And when he got into the first part of John, he thought this was a Christian’s holy book. He didn’t realize it applied to him, but then he read about how John the Baptist pointed to Jesus and said, “Behold the lamb of God who takes away the sin — not of the West — of the world.” And he suddenly realized this was for him. And then in John 3:16–17, he read:

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.

And he knelt beside his bed and received Jesus as his Savior. Since going back to India, he knows the Bible better than anyone I’ve ever met. He spent three years doing nothing but reading the Bible. He read the whole Bible over a 100 times, and as a result, he’s planted over a 1,000 self-supporting self-governing, self-propagating churches in the Indian subcontinent.

Hardships and Joy in Nepal

Well, he led this young man to Christ who was preaching on the street. Do you see how important international student work is? And that’s why I’m so thrilled this church has a ministry among international students here too. This young man was preaching the gospel on the street in Darjeeling and Prem Pradhan listened and received Jesus as his Savior.

Prem Pradhan went into Nepal probably as the first Nepalese Christian to live in that country. He led eight people to Christ and baptized them in a little house fellowship. But it was against the law for anyone in Nepal to change religion. So they arrested him and his whole congregation and put him in jail. The members of his congregation had a one year sentence each for being baptized. He was put in six years for baptizing them. They were in just a small room, but they had a 24 hour church. They were praying, singing, reading the Bible, and encouraging one another. They had a great time, but it was difficult. One of the young women was pregnant and the prison authorities wouldn’t allow a doctor, a nurse to help her, and she had to give birth to a little boy in that room with all the others.

Finally, the congregation spent their year, went home as Christians because they’d paid the price. But he had five more years. He started a church in that prison. Well, the government was so upset, they moved him to another prison and told the jailer that this was a dangerous criminal. And the jailer put him in stocks just like Saul and Paul and Silas. And the other prisoners said, “You must be a terrible criminal. What did you do?” And he said, “Oh, I believed in Jesus Christ.” They said, “Who’s he?” And so he told them who Jesus was and the whole gospel, and from the stocks, he started a church in that prison. They moved him to 14 different prisons and he started 14 different churches. And there were people from all of the different people groups in Nepal in the jails because you have bad people in all groups. So he was able to lead people to Christ from all the different people groups.

Finally, the government in desperation came up with this plan. They didn’t have a mental hospital, but they had an insane asylum attached to one of the prisons. And they said, “Well, put him in the insane asylum because he’s crazy for having left the Hindu religion and he won’t be able to start a church there.” When he got into the insane asylum, he prayed, “Lord, what do I do now? All these people around me are nuts.” Then the Holy Spirit gave him discernment to see that many of them were demon possessed. It was the way the Gadarene demoniac was that Jesus delivered. He would command these spirits in the name of Jesus Christ to reveal their names, and they did. And then in the name of Jesus Christ, he ordered them out and they came out and the people were in their right mind like the demoniac, and then they received Jesus as their Savior, and he started a church in the insane asylum.

Well, the government authorities said, “Look, these people didn’t do anything wrong. We just put them into the insane asylum to protect the public from hurting them. Now that they’re well, they can go home.” So they went home as missionaries to their own people.

An Unstoppable Gospel

Finally he had served his six-year sentence. They released him. He went back home, and there was a law in Nepal that children had to be the religion of their parents. Now he was able to be a Christian openly, so he and his wife adopted over a 100 Nepalese children. They didn’t say they were orphans, they said, “No, they’re our children.” So they started a wonderful school. They led them all to Christ and Christian churches here in the States helped so that they could have uniforms for the children, pencils and crayons and pads. And the government was so upset, they rearrested Prem Pradhan. And this time they put him in jail for 60 years instead of six in solitary confinement so that he couldn’t start any churches.

The queen heard about this school of Nepalese children. She came to visit and she was so impressed that the children were so polite and had learned so much. She went and sang his praises to the king. The king said, “Who’s responsible?” She said, “Prem Pradhan.” He said, “Where is he?” She said, “He’s in jail.” He said, “Why?” She said, “I don’t know.” So the king investigated, and just like Pharaoh bringing Joseph out of prison the king ordered them to release Prem Pradhan, and he had him in the palace for an audience and gave him a big medal for social work for Nepalese children.

In 1992, the laws of Nepal changed. Today I’ve heard there are over 300,000 Christians in Nepal, starting from nothing in 1950. You see what God is doing and Prem Pradhan in telling me his story quoted Philippians 1:29, which says:

For it has been granted to you that for the sake of Christ you should not only believe in him but also suffer for his sake . . .

He said, “It’s because I suffered in prison that God worked.”

Using the Weak to Shame the Wise

Finally, I want to end with this story, and as Tom mentioned, it’s at the end of the book More to be Desired Than Gold. God used Betty, my wife, to start work with the blind in Afghanistan. They didn’t have any braille. And probably the brightest person that I ever met was a blind boy. He came to the Institute for the Blind when he was 14 years old, and at 14 years of age he knew the whole Quran by heart in Arabic. Now, Arabic wasn’t his mother tongue. His mother tongue was a dialect of Persian, Dari. But he knew every verse of every surah of the whole Quran. The Quran is almost as long as a New Testament. So it’d be like us learning the whole New Testament in Greek.

He learned English very quickly. He had a transistor radio and would tune in programs that came into the country, and they were gospel programs from Africa. And the fastest way to learn any language is to listen and repeat. That’s the way we learned English. Listen and repeat. And so that’s what he did to these programs. And then he got to understand what they were saying, and then he started asking Betty questions. He said, “What do you mean by substitutionary atonement?” Betty wondered where he was getting it. He was getting it from the radio. And then one day he said, “In listening to these radio programs, I’ve asked Jesus to come into my heart and forgive my sins and he’s given me everlasting life.” Betty said, “Do you realize you could be killed for that?” He said, “Yes, I realize that, but Jesus died for me. I’ll gladly die for him.”

After that, even though he was a teenager, he became the leader of the Christians in Afghanistan. He came to me one time and wanted to borrow the Gospel of John in braille, and I handed it to him. He opened it and read with his fingers and then handed it back and said, “Thank you very much. My question has been answered.” I said, “Do you mind telling me what your question was?” He said, “Yes. I couldn’t understand why in John 13:34, Jesus said, ‘A new commandment I give unto you, that you love one another.’ Because God said through Moses in Leviticus 19:18 that we should love our neighbor as ourselves. So I couldn’t understand why Jesus called it a new commandment because it’s in the Old Testament.” But he said, “Now I understand.”

I said, “Would you please tell me?” He said, “Yes. Jesus said, ‘A new commandment I give unto you, that you love one another as I have loved you.’ Before Jesus came the world had never seen love perfectly personified, but God is love and in the incarnation the world for the first time saw love perfectly personified. And this has changed the command because now we have a model to follow. Jesus said, ‘A new command I give unto you that you love one another as I have loved you.’ And furthermore, through the Holy Spirit Jesus indwells our hearts and the fruit of the Spirit is love, and therefore Christ gives us the power to love others as he loved them because he indwells us.” Wasn’t that thrilling?

A Tremendous Gifting and Intellect

He was the first blind student to go to school after he finished the Blind Institute in the sixth grade, he went to the seventh grade. He had a little tape recorder and taped everything his teacher said and then would play it over. And as a result he was the top student in the seventh grade. And then they had a system whereby the students who failed could study during a three month vacation and take the examinations again. So he studied the eighth grade with the students who had failed and took the examinations after three months and passed them all. He went through high school two years every year.

Besides that, a mission in Germany gave us a whole library of Braille books. But they were all in German braille. He wanted to read them so long with his other work, he went to the Goethe Institute and learned German and read all those hundreds of books with his fingers. And in the Goethe Institute he was the number one student. Well, the Goethe Institutes around the world have a system whereby the top student gets a scholarship to go to Germany for advanced German. So he won that scholarship. But they didn’t realize he was blind. And when they found that out, they said, “We’re sorry. We don’t have accommodations for a blind students. We’ll have to give it to the number two student.” And he said, “Well, what would I have to do?” They said, “Oh, you’d have to travel alone and take care of yourself.” He said, “I can do that.” So finally they accepted him.

He went to Germany and out of all the top students from the Goethe Institute around the world he was number one in advanced German. Then Saudi Arabia offered a worldwide contest in the memory of the Quran. They didn’t think any Christians would apply. He went to Mecca as a Christian, and he won the worldwide contest on the memory of the Quran in Arabic. Well, this created a difficulty for the Saudi judges because they would lose face if they gave the gold medal to a non-Arab speaker because he had beaten the Arab speakers. So they had a consultation as to what to do to save face. And finally they decided they’d give two gold medals, one to the best Arab speaker and the other to the best non-Arab speaker. But he really beat them all.

Exiled for the Sake of Christ

Then he translated the whole New Testament into his own language, even though he was blind, he had someone read verse by verse and he told them what to write. And his New Testament in Dari Persian has been printed by Cambridge University Press and now is being read by thousands around the world.

Then he told me that he wanted to study law in order to be able to defend Christians in Muslim law courts. So he went to Kabul University and got his law degree and then got a master’s degree in linguistics as he developed a system of shorthand of braille for his own language. And furthermore, he led many to the Lord. He was a pastor of the believers in Afghanistan. But because of him and others like him coming to the Lord, the police arrived at our home one day and told us we had to leave the country that day. We’d been there 22 years, and I said, “Well, it’s impossible. I have to get a reservation on the airplane. I have to pay my taxes before I can get my exit visa.” And they said, “All right, you have three days.” Betty and I prayed and we left all our things except just 44 pounds of our clothes, the 20 kilos that we were allowed to take on the plane.

We did what Jesus said. We shook the dust off our feet at the airport because we were being exiled for his sake and the gospel. And after we had left, Tom mentioned how through President Eisenhower we were able to build a church. They wanted to destroy the church, so they asked the congregation to give the church to the government for destruction. And the congregation wrote a wonderful letter back. They said, “We can’t give the church to anybody, because it doesn’t belong to us. It’s been dedicated to God, and if you take it and destroy it, you’ll be answerable to God.” And a German member of our congregation went to the mayor of Kabul when they started to destroy the wall, and he said, “If your government touches that house of God, God will overthrow your government.”

Well, the mayor got up and was angry and said, “Nothing of the kind will happen. We Muslims are the true people of God. You Christians are heretics.” And Hans Moore said, “You mind my words, if your government touches that house of God, God will overthrow your government.” Well, that’s what happened. They brought in bulldozers and knocked the building down. As Tom mentioned, they dug up the foundation looking for the underground church. The very night they finished destroying the church, the Muslim government responsible was overthrown in a coup. It had been a monarchy for 227 years, longer than the United States has been a country. And that night the 17th of July 1973, the monarchy was overthrown. It became a republic for five years. Then there was the communist coup and then there was a Russian invasion. Since then there has been fighting between various Muslim parties.

Selfless Love and a Redirected Mission

People in Afghanistan who are quick to see omens and events say that Jesus Christ came down from heaven and overthrew the government because they overthrew his church. One Afghan said something to me when she came to the States as a refugee. She didn’t know English. She spoke in her own language and said to me, “I want to apologize for what our government did to that Christian Church.” She said, “Ever since that happened, God has been judging our country.” But we don’t understand these things. They’re in the hands of God, but God is going to overrule. He wants his glory in that land.

Finally, after the communists took over, they opened the blind school again that the Muslims had closed. And they put Zia in charge and he did a wonderful job. But then they brought pressure on him to join the Communist Party and he refused. And they said, “If you don’t join the Communist Party you might be killed.” And he said, “Well, I’m ready to die. Are you ready to die?” The Communists couldn’t answer that one. But finally they did falsely accuse him. They arrested him and put him in the Pul-e-Charkhi Prison, which is the political prison. Tens of thousands were shot in that prison by the communists. There was no heat in that prison. The temperature in Kabul gets below zero in winter, because it’s over 6,000 feet high. And so he and thousands of other prisoners were just sleeping on the frozen ground. But there was a prisoner next to him that didn’t have an overcoat. Zia was sleeping in his overcoat, and this other prisoner was just freezing and shaking. John the Baptist said, “If you have two coats, give one to someone who doesn’t have one.” But Zia took his one coat off and gave it to this other prisoner. He loved that other prisoner more than himself.

After that the Lord miraculously kept him warm. He said every night he felt he had a comforter put over him and he kept warm and slept like a baby. Then they gave him shock treatments to try to brainwash him, which left scars and burns on his head, but they couldn’t break him. And then they gave him an opportunity to study Russian. So he mastered the Russian language in prison, as well as German and English and the other languages that he knew. And then finally they released him. He was reading this braille Bible. He came to Genesis 12:1–3 where God called Abraham to leave his country and to go to a place God would show him and that God would bless him in making him a blessing. He felt God wanted him to go as a missionary from Afghanistan to Pakistan, but the Russians had the road closed between Kabul and Khyber with checkpoints.

So what he did was to dress as a beggar with old patched clothes and get in with another friend who was a blind beggar, and he acted as if he were not only blind, but also deaf and dumb. He didn’t say a word. He didn’t want them to see he was educated. And the other blind beggar talked their way through the checkpoints. The Russians and the communist soldiers said, “Oh, we have so many blind, good riddance, let them go through.” It took him 12 days to get 150 miles at Khyber pass. After he got through he typed me a beautiful letter. He could type beautifully. He told me that he was out. And I invited him to come to the States to study Hebrew because then he was involved in translating the Old Testament.

But he wrote back and said he was sorry, that he’d love to come but had so much to do. He was starting schools for the blind in the refugee camps. He was translating a children’s New Testament. He was writing hymns for his own believers to sing with their own musical instruments. He was preaching in the churches of Pakistan. He said, “I’m sorry, I just can’t come even though I’d love to.”

Faithful Unto Death

In 1988, he was captured in Peshawar by a fanatical Muslim group and beaten for hours. And when you’re blind you can’t see the rod coming, it hits you with full force, just the way the Bible says that our Lord was blindfolded. And then they hit him with their fists and said, “Prophesy, who hit you?” You see, when Christ was blindfolded, he couldn’t see the fist coming and it hit with full force. And that’s the way it was with Zia because he was blind. But he wouldn’t deny Jesus. When I heard that he had been captured, I went to Pakistan to try to help with his release. But the fanatical Muslim group that had captured him took him across the border into Afghanistan.

Finally the leader, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar ordered him brought before him, and he asked him if he were a Christian, and Zia said, “Yes I am.” And the leader said, “Stick out your tongue.” And Zia did, and the leader took a sharp knife and cut his tongue off. He lived eight days without a tongue in terrible pain. Finally, they shot him to put him out of his misery. He’s buried in an unmarked grave just over the border from Pakistan in Afghanistan.

But you’re going to see the Bible says, “It does not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when he appears we’ll be like him because we’re going to see him as he is.” And Zia used to say to me, “The first person I’m going to see is the Lord Jesus Christ.” And Christ said, “Be faithful unto death and I’ll give you a crown of everlasting life.”

The Purpose of the Church

In closing, are you willing to die for Christ? Or more importantly, are you willing to live for Jesus? Are you willing to make Jesus the pilot of your life? The pilot, the leader of your church? He is the head of the church. He said, “I’ll build my church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it” (Matthew 16:18). Are you going to glorify God through your church by making it missionary minded? My father who used to teach missions after being a missionary for 20 years said, “A church that isn’t missionary minded will soon become a mission field.” Because missions is the purpose of the church. Worldwide evangelization is the purpose is the priority for pastors, for churches. And this is the way you can glorify God as many like Zia come to believe in him and are with him forever to glorify him, to enjoy him, to sing his praise. Will you make Jesus the pilot of your life and of your church?