Matthew-018

I will put today’s message under a Biblical text, but with translation, I have to shorten my message, so it’s not really an exposition of Scripture as it usually is. All I can do within the time limitation is to give some testimony based on this passage. Let us commit the remaining time to God in prayer.

We will read these two verses in Matthew 9:37-38.

A great work is to be accomplished by a very small force

Now this is a very simple statement and easy to remember. If you read on, you will come to Matthew Chapter 10 where we read that the Lord Jesus sends out his apostles on their mission to preach the gospel. The parallel passage to this is in Luke 10:2, and there you will also find that the Lord Jesus sends out the disciples to preach the gospel. Another similar passage is in John 4:35, where the Lord Jesus is preaching the gospel to the Samaritans.

The Chinese text says the harvest is ripe, but the English text says that “the harvest is plentiful.” It is a very big harvest but the laborers are very few. First, what is the harvest? The harvest is people. There is a great multitude of people waiting to be brought into eternal life. Do you know what happens to a harvest if you don’t bring it in? You cannot just leave the harvest when it is ripe because the animals will tread it down, the birds will eat it, and the rain will rot it. There is a great harvest.

As most of you know, within the last few months, we have established churches in Penang, Manila, Hong Kong, Sydney and Vancouver. Is it because our work is so effective? I don’t think so. In my judgment, the effectiveness of our work is still quite low. So why is the church growing so fast? I think the answer is quite simple. It is because the harvest is so great, therefore the people are hungry for the Word, and are waiting to be brought in. We have requests to start new work in Perth, Australia, and New York for example. I have to tell them we don’t have enough co-workers. Some people said, “You have ten or more laborers in China.” I said, “We have more than a billion people in China, so consider the proportion of ten laborers to that number!

Now think of another aspect: What will happen to the laborers if the harvest is very great, and the laborers are very few? They will work themselves to exhaustion, but they still won’t be able to bring in the harvest. How is this job going to be done? The Lord Jesus says, “Pray therefore the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.” Who is the Lord Jesus speaking to? He is speaking to his disciples. Are you his disciple? Is he speaking to you? Are you praying that the Lord Jesus will send someone out? If you are con­cerned enough to pray for anyone to go, you might be considering whether you should be going. But for those of us who labor in the field, I think we’ve also got very tired of pious words: “We are waiting. One day, when the Lord leads us, we will go.” Certainly, we need to wait on God. There is no doubt about that. But the Lord Jesus has already said, pray to God to send laborers out. It’s important to notice that it is not we who send people out. It is we who pray that God will send them out.

What does God have to do with you and me before we are ready to go? I have often wondered whether Canadians make good soldiers. I think that if you have stayed in Canada or Australia too long, I don’t know if you can fight God’s battles. If you live in this kind of comfort, who wants to go to the harvest field?

Consider this: If the harvest is great, and the laborers are few, and you’re a businessman, then you would say, “Since there is such a big harvest and few laborers, I can have a monopoly! The fewer laborers the better! If there are too many laborers, there’s too much competition.” So why aren’t you out there when you have such a business opportunity to bring in the harvest which has few laborers? There must be some problem here. Clearly, this harvest is not a money-making proposition, because if it is, you don’t need to ask God to send the laborers. You will all be racing to go, like people rushed to the Gold Coast to dig up the gold!

 Another factor also emerges from this verse. If the harvest is so great and the laborers are so “few,” then this is a David-and-Goliath situation. It means that our work force is very small, so we have to draw strength in a position of weakness. If the Lord Jesus’ statement is saying anything, he is saying that this great harvest has to be brought in by a few. A great work is to be accomplished by a very small force.

God’s reality and Christ’s love compel workers to his harvest

I shared with the co-workers, that some two years ago, while a co-worker was preaching at a Sunday service, suddenly, I saw the whole of China spread out before me in a vision. It seems I was in the position where Hong Kong is and looking northwards to the rest of China, and the whole of China seemed to be covered in a golden light. I was pondering, what is this golden light? It seemed to me the mes­sage is, now is the day for the light of God’s salvation. God is already shining his light. This is the age of salvation for China.

That experience of a vision right in the middle of a service was very unique for me. I have never had such an experience before. In fact, I didn’t even know what exactly is a vision in the Biblical sense, until it happened to me that time. We all use the word “vision” in a vague sense to mean “I have a great idea about something,” but that is not the Biblical meaning.

Then my heart cried out and said, “O God, where are the co-workers to bring the gospel to China?” And as some of you may remember, I pleaded to God for ten workers from China because most of our co-workers cannot really function in Mandarin. Where are the co-workers? Yes, we may have some co-workers, but how is this harvest going to be brought in if the Lord Jesus’ Coming is very, very soon, unless there is total mobilization of the churches? Even then our workers would be very few.

When I look around at our churches, I see that people are much more preoccupied with themselves, their needs, problems, prospects, careers and futures. Some are still struggling with the spiritual problems they had five years ago, going around the same circles in the wilderness. There isn’t a vision of the harvest before us.

Why would anybody want to go into such work as this? The Sixth Team had their practical work period during the month of September. A large group of them went into different parts of China, and on the way here, I was listening to their report of their trip in China on tape. Some were talking about how they spent the night fighting bed bugs which were eating them up through the night, and praying that God would save them from these bugs. One sister thought, “What am I going to do? I’m going to ask God to drive all these bugs out of the bed.” The problem was there were three other teammates sleeping there too. So she thought, “If I asked God to drive out the bugs they will just go and bite the other co-workers.” Finally, she said, “God, You’ve got to do something otherwise, I wouldn’t be able to sleep all night. Lord, please stop these bugs from biting me. They can stay in the bed but don’t let them bite me.” Amazingly, the bugs stopped biting her! She slept all through the night and no bugs bit her anymore after the prayer. So they were experiencing God in very practical ways. Would you like to bring in the harvest at the risk of being chewed up by bed bugs?

One brother from Canada shared that he was on the train travelling up north to Hunan. He did not have a seat because his ticket only allowed him to stand. The train was full, and he had to stand for four hours, but that was not the biggest problem he had. He said the floor of the train was so disgustingly dirty that you could throw up. The garbage was floating on water! And since they were travelling with knapsacks and had no seats, it meant they could not even put their knapsacks on the floor. So they had to stand with their knapsacks on their backs for four hours. Do you think you will make good soldiers for God? Can you really go out to the harvest with the heat and the discomfort?

Some other co-workers were saying that they had to stay overnight in a sort of small motel. When they found the washroom, it was so dark they couldn’t see, so they nearly fell into the toilet, which was just a hole in the floor! They would shower in that same place by a hose attached to a pipe. The mission was a very good test to see whether those in the Sixth Team are really going to be good laborers to harvest what God wants us to bring in.

Now you can see why I was saying that if there is such a great harvest and the laborers are few, that should be a wonderful business op­portunity. However, if you see that this harvest is not going to bring a lot of money into your pocket, then that is a very different story.

So what motivates them to go? What motivates our co-workers who are actually stationed in China even to this day? For example, many of them are teaching in colleges or universities, and the salary they earn is a joke by Canadian standards! They get RMB600-700 yuan per month, so that would be about CDN$100. Now nobody with their kind of qualifications would do anything for $100 per month in Canada. You would be earning more than that working at McDonald’s for a few days. What keeps them there? There is only one thing that will drive us into this harvest. As Paul says in 2 Corinthians 5:14, “It is the love of Christ that compels us.” Do you experience this love of Christ?

The terrible heat, pollution and chaos in Manila should be a challenge to anyone. The co-workers still have not been able to get a telephone after having been there for two years. Then there is the lack of hygiene. One of our co-workers was very sick with hemor­rhagic fever, a fever that can cause bleeding and bring death. But by God’s grace, she has recovered without any signs of harm.

A co-worker was living comfortably in Australia, with the same standard as in Canada, but when I asked whether he would like to take up the work in Manila, he said without hesitation, “Certainly! I’ll go right away.” Where do we find this immediate readiness to go out into the harvest among most of our brothers and sisters? The co-worker in Manila was a bit concerned that this replacement couple may not realize what he is letting himself in for, so he said, “How about tell him that it will be only a 3-month trial term, and if he can’t take it, he can return to Australia or go somewhere else?” But the response was, “No, we’ll just go. There’s no need for a trial period.” They have this readiness because they are constrained by the love of Christ.

We now have one or two co-workers who are on permanent standby because of the need of the work. That means they are willing to go anywhere in the world to carry out any job for the Lord at a moment’s notice. Last year, we had a work that required attention in England, and this co-worker packed and left in three days. Again, I wonder how many of you could be ready to serve God in this way? Or would that give you a sense of insecurity? They can’t plan anything, but are given sudden and short notice to leave. The love of Christ constrains them.

The power of God’s love in Christ drives us into his harvest

When I was in Mexico about two or three years ago, I watched a craftsman using a very high-temperature torch with which he was able to melt and bend glass rods. And I stood there for a long time watching this Mexican at work to make a cross, and on the cross he made a figure of the crucified Jesus. His skill was amazing, and I was so fascinated! The figure of Christ was striking although the whole thing was only about one foot! He made a crown of thorns appear with one touch! The work has to be exact and perfect with glass. It was amazing to see the eyes, mouth, and the whole expression of suffering on Jesus’ face! The proportion of the whole body was perfect, with the arms stretched out on the cross. Each finger was perfectly crafted, and there was the nail right in the middle. On his body was rib after rib, right down to the detail of the nail going through his feet. Helen and I were both standing there, amazed at his skill. But more than that, it suddenly showed me Jesus crucified anew. The whole picture became so crystal clear in glass. And I thought of the words of Paul about the Lord Jesus, “the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me.” Does the love of Christ touch us at all?

Experience God’s love through the love of brothers and sisters

I want to close with a few brief testimonies about this power of God’s love in Christ. How do we experience it? If we don’t experience it, what will drive us into the harvest, ready to be bitten by bed bugs, and standing in a stream of floating garbage on a train? Certainly, one way to experience Christ’s love is the love that comes to us through other brothers and sisters.

When I was in Australia, I was so touched by the love of brothers and sisters. They were a channel of God’s love to me. For example, at one meeting, a brother, who was a doctor, was very concerned about my back pain. Without my knowing it, he was studying my condition during the service. Then he fixed his attention on my shoes, and immediately decided that my leather-soled shoes with leather heels are not shock-absorbing, and so were not suitable for my back condition. He immediately went out and bought a pair of shoes with special shock-absorbing soles, made in Italy, costing over A$100. So a few days later, I received a box with a new pair of shoes in it. It was anonymous. I was not supposed to know where it came from. But by a slip of the tongue, someone gave it away so I knew it came from him. I am wearing these shoes now. This is the love of God channeled through these dear ones.

Another family decided that I needed a lot of Ginseng. So they dug out of their treasure store, a bottle of Ginseng brandy that had been kept for over twelve years. It is treasured in their family, and they wanted me to have it. I am sure that you have experienced the love of brothers and sisters coming to you in this way, just as I have also experienced your love towards me through the various core groups. This love brings such refreshment and strength.

In Hong Kong for example, the bak mos (Cantonese for “aunties”) are always cooking me soup. I must be the most well-nourished in the whole world in terms of soup. When I first had this back trouble, there was an aunty who cooked shark’s fin soup for me every day for about three weeks! You can imagine how well cared for I was. Later, I realized that this is no old wives’ tale. Apparently, there is a substance in the shark’s fin that actually does help to restore the back condition. Maybe that was why I recovered quite well at that time.

This time, when we got back to Montreal, needless to say, I am hav­ing soup and lots of goodies every week-end. It is useless to persuade the aunties, “Please don’t cook any more soup or vegetables”! We get a supply of food every week. So we experience the love of Christ that compels us.

Experience God’s love directly

However, sometimes God cares for us in our needs even more directly. For example, before I left Hong Kong, I wanted to lead one last session to fellowship with the dear ones in the Sixth Team, but I was far too exhausted. Yet God knew that I was going to drive myself to teach another session even if I could hardly crawl out of bed. He knows us better than we know ourselves, and he stopped me. Just as we read in Acts16:6-7, the apostle Paul wanted to go in one direc­tion, and God’s Holy Spirit stopped him. He wanted to go in another direction and the Holy Spirit stopped him again. God stopped Paul on those two occasions although the passage does not mention how God did it.

That Wednesday, I went to sleep, ready to get up for teaching that session, and in the middle of my sleep, there was a power cut. A power cut in the middle of the night may not be a problem in Canada, but in Hong Kong, when the temperature is over 30 degrees Celsius, or over 90 degrees Fahrenheit, is a very different story. Suddenly, I woke up and I was all wet. Sweat was dripping off me, and I thought, “What’s happening here?” Then I realized there was no power. I couldn’t sleep. Soon, my whole bed was soaking wet. I was so tired from the lack of sleep and I was thinking, “How am I going to get on with the session?” In fact, we have never had a power cut in our district. Only later, I discovered that there was a power cut because a construction firm cut the power cables by accident while building the new airport. As a result, I was too exhausted. There was no way I could carry on with the session.

Immediately, I phoned Pastor Joe and asked if he would carry on with his regular sessions, and he said he was ready to do so. If God had not stopped me, I think I would have collapsed in Peng Chau because by the following day, I was even weaker, and I was feeling very, very unwell. There is no way to describe this kind of exhaustion unless you have experienced it. I had been going on with daily work for four weeks without a day’s break. Every day, I was working from morning to night non-stop, preparing and teaching sessions, phone calls, email replies, administration. It was just impossible even for the physically strong to take this kind of workload.

Helen was away in New Zealand visiting her mother, so I was alone. Consequently, I was getting even weaker as I was so tired I did not want to eat or do anything. Helen had arranged with me to phone at 8 o’clock that evening, and in my weakness I was crying out to God, “Lord, I’m supposed to go back to Canada, but I don’t have strength even to get on the airplane. I don’t know how I’m going to get through the next few days, never mind going back to Canada.” The harvest is great but the laborers are few and exhausted.

At that time, I opened the Bible and it opened to Psalm 27. There it says in verse 1,

Those were the words that suddenly hit me: The LORD is the strength of my life. I was kneeling in prayer, crying out to God because there was still so much work to do, and I couldn’t carry on anymore.

By quarter to eight, I went out to the front room to wait for Helen’s phone call. I knelt down again before God, facing the window, and prayed reading the next psalm, Psalm 28, which said, “Hear me, O LORD, when I cry. Answer me.” I said to God, “If you don’t answer me, I will be like those who go down to the pit, I will die.”

And it also crossed my mind that in my present condition, it would be so good if Helen could be back because I did not have the strength to look after myself anymore. But I did not tell any of the co-workers about my condition for fear they would be very alarmed. So I knelt in prayer at quarter to eight. I prayed that God would answer me according to Psalm 28.

Suddenly, there was a mighty wind, and the power of that wind was just remarkable! It came suddenly without a moment’s warning. It was a typhoon-force wind blowing suddenly, not just a soft wind. The wind was coming in, and I could hear the sound rushing through under the doors. It was making this kind of rushing sound, “shoo-oo-oo,” coming under the doors, through the windows, everywhere. You have to be there to experience the astonishment of all this. And the words in Acts came to my mind, “And when the Holy Spirit came down, there was a sound of a mighty, rushing wind” (Acts 2:2). It was as though God said, “You called me to answer. I’m going to answer you right now.” And what an answer it was!

This is not the first time I have heard the rushing sound of wind. Years ago, it also happened when we began the laying on of hands for the ordination of our co-workers. On that occasion, I heard very distinctly the sound of wind and I was trying to look out of the window to see if there was a storm outside. We were at another church in Toronto, which had stained glass windows everywhere, and I could not see outside. I asked those who were present if they had heard the sound of wind. Some of them also heard something, but some didn’t. This sound of the wind on that occasion was very important to me because God signified to me his own approval of the laying on of hands, not only for those who were receiving it at that time, but also for all future ordinations. If God does not approve of what we are doing, then all that we do is wasted effort. But on that occasion, I was not sure whether there was really a wind blowing outside, or it was only some of us who heard a kind of “spiritual wind.” I am a very realistic person, so I like to check all the evidence.

This time in Hong Kong, God answered me within two or three minutes of my kneeling down. The rushing wind came with such force it was remarkable! The bathroom door was half-open and the window was just a little open, but the power of the wind slammed the bathroom door with such force that it made me jump up. I realized this was a real wind. This was not just my imagination. Yet, when I looked out of the window, I didn’t see much movement of anything. I wondered why it was so still. The sky was bright. There were no storm clouds. There was no rain. I couldn’t understand why there was this strong wind from the point of view of natural observation. I got up at that stage just to check whether the wind was real. I opened one window and the wind just blew straight into my face. It was really a powerful wind! I was so convinced that this was God’s doing, so I went back to the front room and knelt before him to give thanks. In less than ten minutes, all movement ceased, leaving complete silence. It was as though God said, “You called on me to answer you. Here is my power in your weakness.” We experi­ence the direct love of God to us. As the psalmist so often said, “I called out unto the LORD, He heard my cry and answered me” (Psalms 3:4, 34:4, 40:1, 120:1) I continued in worship before God, praising him and thinking, “God, I am so weak but you are so powerful.”

Then the telephone rang, as Helen was calling from New Zealand from her mother’s home. I was not due to see her for another three weeks or so. When I picked up the phone, the first thing she said to me was, “I have a surprise for you!” I thought, surprise? What surprise? I just had a surprise. In fact, I was so amazed by the display of God’s power that I was speechless. Beyond saying, “Hello,” I couldn’t speak at all. So she continued, “I’ll be coming back in two days.” “Why?” I asked. She’s supposed to be visiting her mother for three weeks. And I never told her anything about my condition.

She had been trying to phone me the previous night, but the line was occupied all day and all night so she couldn’t get through. Finally, she gave up trying to phone me, and she called one of the co-workers. All the information she got from the co-worker was that I was too tired to lead the session the previous day, and God apparently used that to speak to her that something must be wrong. Knowing my charac­ter, I would still have dragged myself to the Sixth Team session even if I were exhausted and half sick. There must be something seriously wrong if I really could not make it. So her mother very graciously said, “You’d best leave quickly. It looks like he’s not well.” And amazingly, she managed to book a flight, and was to be back in two days’ time.

I can tell you that when I put the phone down, I was so moved by the love of God for me that I just wept. He answered my prayer so fast! First, he encouraged me by saying, “Don’t worry. You are weak, but look at the greatness of my power.” Then beyond my expectation, Helen was coming back in two days to look after me. It was amazing! We can experience God’s love in his daily practical concern for us, especially when we are fighting on the front lines of his battle. Those who stay at home seldom have the chance to experience what God can do. Is God real to you?

This is not the end of the story. I wanted to cancel my flight to Canada because I was so tired, but I was told that if I cancelled it, there would be no more seats for the month of August. I would have to wait until the beginning of September for the earliest seat. But I was unable to get on the plane, so I had to cancel my earlier flight. I couldn’t even get one ticket, not to mention two—for Helen and myself—on the same flight. In spite of all that, we got two seats at the time we wanted. God simply provided the seats we needed. We experience his loving-kindness everywhere.

Who will go for God, out of love for him?

I ask again, who is going to go forth to this harvest? Do you experi­ence God’s love? Is God real to you?

Today, we have the laying on of hands for our Brother Boo. I do appreciate that he too, has shown himself to be a good soldier of Christ. Living in that heat and pollution, he has served in Manila for two years under very difficult circumstances. And now a church is being established in Manila. The purpose of this laying on of hands is so that God will give him the strength and wisdom to shepherd this new flock that God is building up in the city of Manila. It would certainly be nice if I could have gone to Manila to be with the church and give him the laying on of hands there. But given the condition of my health and the workload I have, I won’t be able to go to Manila. So in God’s graciousness, this would be the best occasion for him to have the laying on of hands. We pray that God will use him mightily in the Philippines and wherever else God will lead him to bring in the harvest. A few months ago, I visited Manila twice, on the way to Australia and on the way back, and I was very encouraged to see God’s work in that city, done through Brother Boo and Brother Bentley and his wife, Sylvia.

In a way, today’s message can be summed up through the laying on of hands, so that you can see with your own eyes someone God has called and sent out to the field. And may you see that his life is an example to follow.

Let us close in prayer together:

Our dear heavenly Father, we praise and thank you with all our hearts. Thank you that you love us with a love that constrains us to go out to gather the harvest, and not only to receive your grace for ourselves. There are many souls throughout the world who need the gospel, and need us to lead them to yourself. Search our hearts today with your message in Matthew 9:37-38 to show us where we stand before you. Give us a heart that thirsts to experience you every day, O God. Amen.