12. Good Works and the Gospel
Twelve
To keep Christian missions off balance, Satan has woven a masterful web of deceit and lies. He has invented a whole system of appealing half-truths to confuse the Church and ensure that millions will go to hell without ever receiving the Gospel. Here are a few of his more common inventions:
One, how can we preach the Gospel to a man with an empty stomach? A man's stomach has nothing to do with his heart's condition of being a rebel against the holy God. A rich American on Fifth Avenue in New York City or a poor beggar on the streets of Mumbai (Bombay) are both rebels against God Almighty, according to the Bible. The result of this lie is the fact that, during the past 100 years, the majority of mission money has been invested in social work. I am not saying we should not care for the poor and needy. The issue I am taking to task is losing our primary focus of preaching the Gospel.
Two, social work—meeting only the physical needs of man—is mission work; in fact, it is equal to preaching. Luke 16:19-25 tells us the pitiful story of the rich man and Lazarus. Of what benefit were the possessions of the rich man? He could not pay his way out of hell. His riches could not comfort him. The rich man had lost everything, including his soul. What about Lazarus? He didn't have any possessions to lose, but he had made preparations for his soul. What was more important during their time on earth? Was it the care for the "body temple" or the immortal soul? "For what is a man advantaged, if he gain the whole world, and lose himself, or be cast away?" (Luke 9:25).
It is a crime against lost humanity to go in the name of Christ and missions just to do social work yet neglect calling men to repent—to give up their idols and rebellion—and follow Christ with all their hearts.
Three, they will not listen to the Gospel unless we offer them something else first. I have sat on the streets of Mumbai with beggars— poor men who very soon would die. In sharing the Gospel with many of them, I told them I had no material goods to give them, but I came to offer eternal life. I began to share the love of Jesus who died for their souls, about the many mansions in my Father's house (John 14:2) and the fact that they can go there to hunger and thirst no more. The Lord Jesus will wipe away every tear from their eyes, I said. They shall no longer be in any debt. There shall no longer be any mourning, crying or pain (Revelation 7:16, 21:4).
What a joy it was to see some of them opening their hearts after hearing about the forgiveness of sin they can find in Jesus! That is exactly what the Bible teaches in Romans 10:17, "So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God."
Substituting a bowl of rice for the Holy Spirit and the Word of God will never save a soul and will rarely change the attitude of a man's heart. We will not even begin to make a dent in the kingdom of darkness until we lift up Christ with all the authority, power and revelation that is given to us in the Bible.
In few countries is the failure of Christian humanism more apparent than in Thailand. There, after 150 years of missionaries showing marvelous social compassion, Christians still make up only two percent of the entire population.1
Self-sacrificing missionaries probably have done more to modernize the country than any other single force. Thailand owes to missionaries its widespread literacy, first printing press, first university, first hospital, first doctor and almost every other benefit of education and science. In every area, including trade and diplomacy, Christian missionaries put the needs of the host nation first and helped usher in the 20th century. Meanwhile, millions have slipped into eternity without the Lord. They died more educated, better governed and healthier—but they died without Christ and are bound for hell.
What went wrong? Were these missionaries not dedicated enough? Were their doctrines unscriptural? Perhaps they did not believe in eternal hell or eternal heaven. Did they lack Bible training, or did they just not go out to preach to the lost? Did they shift their priorities from being interested in saving souls to relieving human suffering? I know now it was probably a little of all of these things.
While I was seeking answers to these questions, I met poor, often minimally educated, native brothers involved in Gospel work in pioneer areas. They had nothing material to offer the people to whom they preached—no agricultural training and no medical relief or school program. But hundreds of souls were saved, and in a few years, a number of churches were established. What were these brothers doing right to achieve such results, while the others with many more advantages had failed?
The answer lies in our basic understanding of what mission work is all about. There is nothing wrong with charitable acts— but they are not to be confused with preaching the Gospel. Feeding programs can save a man dying from hunger. Medical aid can prolong life and fight disease. Housing projects can make this temporary life more comfortable—but only the Gospel of Jesus Christ can save a soul from a life of sin and an eternity in hell!
To look into the sad eyes of a hungry child or see the wasted life of a drug addict is to see the evidence of Satan's hold on this world. He is the ultimate enemy of mankind, and he will do everything within his considerable power to kill and destroy people. But to try to fight this terrible enemy with only physical weapons is like fighting tanks with stones.
When commerce had been established with the Fiji Islanders, a merchant who was an atheist and skeptic landed on the island to do business. He was talking to the Fijian chief and noticed a Bible and some other paraphernalia of religion around the house.
"What a shame," he said, "that you have listened to this foolish nonsense of the missionaries."
The chief replied, "Do you see the large white stone over there? That is a stone where just a few years ago we used to smash the heads of our victims to get at their brains. Do you see that large oven over there? That is the oven where just a few years ago we used to bake the bodies of our victims before we feasted upon them. Had we not listened to what you call the nonsense of those missionaries, I assure you that your head would already be smashed on that rock and your body would be baking in that oven."
There is no record of the merchant's response to that explanation of the importance of the Gospel of Christ.
When God changes the heart and spirit, the physical changes also. If you want to meet the needs of the poor in this world, there is no better place to start than by preaching the Gospel. It has done more to lift up the downtrodden, the hungry and the needy than all the social programs ever imagined by secular humanists.
These terrible words of Jesus should haunt our souls: "Ye compass sea and land to make one proselyte, and when he is made, ye make him twofold more the child of hell than yourselves" (Matthew 23:15). A.W. Tozer said it well in his book Of God and Man: "To spread an effete, degenerate brand of Christianity to pagan lands is not to fulfill the commandment of Christ or discharge our obligation to the heathen."2
Just before China was taken over by the communists, one communist officer made a revealing statement to a missionary, John Meadows: "You missionaries have been in China for over a hundred years, but you have not won China to your cause. You lament the fact that there are uncounted millions who have never heard the name of your God. Nor do they know anything of your Christianity. But we communists have been in China less than 10 years, and there is not a Chinese who does not know . . . has not heard the name of Stalin . . . or something of communism. . . . We have filled China with our doctrine.
"Now let me tell you why you have failed and we have succeeded," the officer continued. "You have tried to win the attention of masses by building churches, missions, mission hospitals, schools and what not. But we communists have printed our message and spread our literature all over China. Someday we will drive you missionaries out of our country, and we will do it by the means of the printed page."
Today, of course, John Meadows is out of China. The communists were true to their word. They won China and drove out the missionaries. Indeed, what missionaries failed to do in 100 years, the communists did in 10. One Christian leader said that if the Church had spent as much time on preaching the Gospel as it did on hospitals, orphanages, schools and rest homes— needful though they were—the Bamboo Curtain would never have existed.
The tragedy of China is being repeated today in other countries. When we allow a mission activity to focus only on the physical needs of man without the correct spiritual balance, we are participating in a program that ultimately will fail.
However, this does not mean that we must not be involved in compassion-type ministries that reach out to the poor, needy and hurting people all around us. In the next chapter, I will explain this further—our responsibility to the poor, suffering needy in our generation.