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World-Wide Evangelization
K.P. Yohannan

K.P. Yohannan (1950 - 2024). Indian-American missionary, author, and founder of GFA World, born in Niranam, Kerala, to a St. Thomas Syrian Christian family. Converted at eight, he joined Operation Mobilization at 16, serving eight years in India. In 1974, he moved to the U.S., graduating from Criswell College with a B.A. in Biblical Studies, and was ordained, pastoring a Native American church near Dallas. In 1979, he and his German-born wife, Gisela, founded Gospel for Asia (now GFA World), emphasizing native missionaries, growing to support thousands in the 10/40 Window. Yohannan authored over 250 books, including Revolution in World Missions, with 4 million copies printed, and broadcast Athmeeya Yathra in 113 Asian languages. In 1993, he founded Believers Eastern Church, becoming Metropolitan Bishop as Moran Mor Athanasius Yohan I in 2018. Married with two children, he faced controversies over financial transparency, including a 2015 Evangelical Council expulsion and 2020 Indian tax raids. His ministry impacted millions through Bible colleges, orphanages, and wells.
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Sermon Summary
In this sermon, the speaker emphasizes the importance of understanding the Bible as the map that guides our lives. He explains that the Old Testament talks about the creation of man and God's promise of a Messiah. The four gospels then show how Jesus fulfilled these prophecies and died on the cross. The speaker's main focus is on evangelism and reaching the lost world, stating that this should be the ultimate objective for all Christians.
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Sermon Transcription
The secret, if there is a secret of maintaining, maintaining our life in the long run for 50 years, 100 years, 200 years or 400 years, the secret is not set of doctrines. The secret and the formula is not money and establishment, no. The secret is what Paul said in 2 Timothy chapter 2, 2 Timothy, you hand over this to others, faithful men, faithful men who will find in turn others who are faithful to God and they will continue the journey. It is a race, it is, you run the race, then you hand over the baton to someone and they will keep running. And the person who take the baton, take that truth and run with it, it is not the truth or the doctrines or the establishment that will help them to continue and maintain the value that God looks for, actually it is going to be the inner life, the commitment and the passion of the individual. So this is an important fact that we need to keep in mind. That is the reason why people like us, individuals, you hold the future of the work in your hand. In your hand means not in the buildings you got, rather it is on the inside where you are. And the life of the pastor there at Ephesus determined the life of all the people in the church. The life of the leader and what he is determines the future. So my thinking constantly, the times I get this opportunity to talk to you, I am saying to myself, what can I do, what can I say to maintain this, the core reality. So when we say Lord revive us or rekindle, that help us to think about a time when there was an absolute, there was something that we can measure against. It is like the plumb line. If you see the masons who are building a wall, they have plumb line. And what happened? They put it so that you can see if it is absolutely level because there is an absolute to measure things against. So one of the thing I want to share with you is as far as our call is concerned, the church is concerned, there are not too many things that are what you call cracks of the matter. The core, you don't have too many things to say all these things are the core, not only it is one entity. What is the core of the core? What is the most important thing that we should hold on to as a church, as a movement? I think that will help us to stay focused. That as time goes by and so many things added to our life, we don't lose the focus. Like you left Calcutta or Nepal or wherever you traveled from, you had this intention, a focus, that is you are going to be somehow whatever train, plane, bus, auto rickshaw, taxi, whatever you were taking, all those stuff are there or stop in between to get some chai or some lunch or whatever. All those things actually had no significance in itself, it only had significance in this, that you had a focus, a purpose, objective where you are going, that is coming to the conference. The same way all that we do, we should have this understanding and my prayer is the Lord will renew our hearts and revive us and rekindle once again if we are losing this focus, that is evangelism and reaching the lost world. Now just to get us understand the basics of this, the premises from which we work, what is the Bible all about? I mean you think about all the work going on in the name of Christianity, it all has to do with this book, right? I mean you go to the library here, you got 150,000 books or so in the library, very large entity there. Then you talk about the Brijahob, you talk about the 103 language radio broadcast, you talk about producing literature and whatever else, we got a million things going on, I mean in our own little world. Then you talk about all the Christian denominations and work in all the countries, everything is going on. The question, why this is all done? What is the crux of the matter? It all comes from this. And what is this? It only has one subject, one word you can use, redemption. Redemption, that's all there is. If you want one word to summarize and explain this whole book, that is this. The entire Old Testament talks about creation of man, man's fall, Genesis 3.15, God promising the seed of the woman coming, which is the Messiah. Then Old Testament completely filled with types and shadows and prophecies about the Redeemer coming. And then the four Gospels talks about how he came, fulfilling the prophecies and what God said at the right time. He died on the cross. Then you find out Jesus speaking out why he came to this earth, to seek and to say that which was lost. Then at the end of the Gospels, you find these handful of disciples. He had a Bible school, obviously, and three years or more training in the end. So you finished your studies. Graduation has taken place. Now you'll go and preach the Gospel to the whole world, make disciples and baptize them. And then they did that. In the power of the Holy Spirit. Book of Acts is the church born. But then, what they have to do now? The church is born. Believers are there, but they need to be disciples. So all the letters are talking about they are growing into the full image of Christ. Redemption is a continuum. It is a process. And the full redemption only takes place when the rapture, the second coming of Christ. So Book of Revelation talks about the coming of the Lord. And then the purpose of God completes and eternity starts. That's the whole thing. So the question we can ask, why we are here, the church? And the simple answer is this. The church's supreme task, responsibility, is the evangelization of the world. C.S. Lewis in his writings brilliantly explained it. There's no other purpose for the church to exist in time except the fact that to enlist, to bring in the people that are not part of the kingdom into the kingdom. Our king left us here in the enemy's territory to represent him, to usher in the kingdom, to bring people into the kingdom. This is enemy's territory. We are actually not in the friendly territory. You hear about the Orissa. You hear about the opposition here and there and the problems, all those things. You think it just happens without any reason? I can assure you. You see, we sometimes forget the brilliance and the power of demons. If you think about it, as a matter of fact, the very moment you started your plan to come here, I imagine there must have been a conference call like we have a conference call. I'm sure the prince or the powers of darkness that reigns over India or Nepal or whatever, I imagine the head demon, a commander-in-chief assigned over maybe the city of Kathmandu immediately got the message from the subordinates, Bishop Narayan Sharma is preparing to go to India. And so why is he going to India? Well, I read the emails and I heard him talk on the telephone. He's going for a conference. All of a sudden, they call the demons in India and different places. You have any news? Yeah, there is a conference planned. These people are moving from all over the place. Okay, then they call for, I imagine, a consultation. Consultation. Because they are well-organized. But God actually causes confusion for them. So what is happening is that they are fairly well-organized. So I am not surprised if God were to open our eyes to see all the demons hanging all over the place. There must be maybe, I don't know, how many tens of thousands of demons hanging over the wall and sitting here on the bench and listening to me and hanging over your shoulder and whispering in your ear. You see, just a minute ago I was talking, I saw a brother looking that way. You think it happened just accidentally? No. Distractions take place and the thoughts are put in your head. You see, they will put thoughts in David's head to number the army. So what is happening is that all the distractions, all the ways in which he... I mean, have you tried this thing? You are praying with someone, okay? You are praying in a group and the prayer is very strong and you are so engaged in it, but all of a sudden you disappear. Your mind, your emotions, you disappear. You are traveling in Kathmandu, or that email, that problem, and your wife, your kids, and whatever else is going on, and then just before he says, in the name of Jesus Christ we pray, Amen, you come back. Did you ever notice that? I have. I am telling you the truth. I am not as spiritual as you are, but all of a sudden I say, what happened to me? I missed the five minutes or three minutes of that intense prayer time of that brother praying that I was not able to engage and say Amen to that and agree and put my faith with it. Who did it? How come my mind was not wandering for the next two hours? How come it came back the moment he was going to say Amen? How did I know that he was going to say Amen? I didn't even hear anything else. You see, I am not saying there is a demon sitting under every bench and sitting in your pocket. Maybe there is one. But the truth of the matter is the enemy is battling for one thing, that is to delay and sabotage the evangelization of the world. Why? Because this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached as a witness to the whole world, all the ethnos, people groups, and then the end will come. What do you mean end will come? Not only the end of time, but when Satan and his demons will be cast into the lake of fire. So, it is a matter of survival and living out their dreams, Satan, Lucifer, and the billions of demons, they are fighting for their survival. It is an instinct that they have to fight to have more time. They know the end will come because when Jesus was dealing with the demons, he said, Please, why are you tormenting us before time? We know a day is going to come we are going to be cast into the lake of fire and that will be the end of everything. But why are you doing it to us now? Don't torment us now. But what is it that the enemy hates the most? It is anything anyone does directly or indirectly that contributes to the proclamation, the announcing of the gospel so people will repent, turn away from their sins and come in faith of the Lord Jesus Christ and be saved and then be baptized and grow in Christ and be prepared for the coming of the Lord. This is what Satan hates the most. And this is the reason why a lot of denominations that began with this fire in their bones to see the Lord come to Christ, as time went by, they no more are an organism which is alive and well and moving and growing and expanding, they became an organization. They got bogged down into buildings, programs, universities, degrees, PhDs, MDH, this and that and all this stuff. And it's all important things maybe, nothing wrong with these things. But somehow the enemy take those things that are immediate and make it so important that the purpose for which God called his church and called us is no more the important thing. We are worried about so many other things. This happens to so many groups and happened all through the history. You study Methodism, John Wesley. I hope you are people who are, you know, that you are concerned about understanding and learning. Read the story of Martin Luther and John Wesley and the beginning of denomination churches. You will find they didn't have rules and regulations and plans and schemes and money and budgets and none of this. They had one thing, absolute passion to see others come to Christ. And their prayer meetings and fasting was not legislated. It was actually spontaneous. It was all miraculous. But then as things began to grow, they had to organize it, they had to bring structure and they have to have rules and regulations and everything was set. All of a sudden, they became an organization. Look around you. Denominations like that. And their meetings are always filled with discussions of agendas and businesses. It is not about how we are going to reach more people for Christ. Why is this happening like that? It is a master plan of the enemy. So Lord, revive us again. Change us for Lord. We will go back to the original purposes of your call upon our life. Now, it is good. You brothers and sisters who are in leadership, that you go back and reread the guiding principles of believers church. The beginning especially of that. Now I cannot emphasize enough and underline enough of that. You need to look at the map again and again and again. Otherwise, you will get lost. The map you need and the map tells us what it is. The reason I am doing what I am doing today and I will continue to do what I am doing because I know the most important, the only reason for me to be alive on earth is to see the lost people come to Christ and people be born again and saved. That the work Jesus began, I am called to continue. That is what Paul did. That is, seeking to save that which was lost. And you want to keep in mind, no matter what you do, no matter what area of ministry you have, no matter even if you are cutting grass or cleaning toilets or driving a vehicle or a Bible school or bridge your home, I want you to know, for me, there is one single absolute focus. It's a laser beam focus. There is no way to explain other than that. I only have one thing on my mind. That is, how can we see the lost come to Christ? This is very important. And so, everything you do, you have to ask the question and evaluate that with this criterion. This what I am doing. This what I am planning. This what I am about to undertake. Will this help reach more people for Jesus? Will this help me to establish another church? Will this help to get more workers recruited so they can go and preach the gospel? If the answer is not satisfactory, then you want to stop and ask the question, what is this? Why am I doing it? This is, let someone else do that. I'm not saying doing the other things are bad. No. But if this is not there, then why am I doing that? That is what you need to keep in mind. This I say to you because you are a responsible leader. The core objective, the one thing, there's no two things. The one thing, the reason we are is the so-called Great Commission. What is that? The Great Commission is all authorities given to me. I died on the cross, was buried and rose again. All authority is given to me. Now you go. That is the master's command. You preach, make disciples, you baptize them and establish a local church. What do you mean local church? Teaching them to obey everything I told you. That is the epistles. All the letters starting from Romans till Revelation, it all has to do with that. So this is all there, there's nothing else. Now, for the sake of getting some Bible references for your reading, the book of Ezekiel chapter 3, verse 17 through 19. In the Old Testament, book of Ezekiel chapter 3, verse 17 through 19 and Jeremiah chapter 8, verse 20. Now, you know, that is a familiar passage, by the way. I mean, you preach this, I am sure so many times, you know, when I say to the wicked, you will die in your sins and you don't want them. You understand that? And they will perish. They will die in their sin and I will require their blood from your hand. All that. Okay, I rewrote that and paraphrased it like this. Christian worker, child of God, I made you a watchman. Therefore, hear the word of my mouth and give a warning from me. When I say to the unsaved, you shall surely die and you give him no warning nor speak to warn the lost man from his sin and his sinful ways. To save his soul, the lost man and the lost woman shall die in their sin but his blood I will require at your hand. Yet, if you warn him and you warn her and they will not turn away from their sinful ways, they will die in their sin but you have delivered your soul from the guilt. Jeremiah 820, very, very famous verse. The harvest is past and the summer has ended and we are not saved. That is one of the saddest words in the entire Bible. The entire Bible. Every single day, just from our mission field area where we are, believer's church, 90,000 plus people die every single day. It is estimated 99% of them never had a chance to know Jesus died for them on the cross. And where are they going? Where are they going? The fate of people that die without Christ, it is frightening that after 10 billion trillion years, the cry of the lost soul is not for relief from hell but for death. But they will not find death in hell. And think about that. Think about that. Think about the people who are demon-possessed. The torment they live in. Have you ever watched it? I have. I have. Have you seen people possessed by demons wandering all over totally naked? Have you seen people locked up in rooms and tied to trees with chains? Some of you know. You know the torment they live with. I know our brother from Rajasthan, he can tell you. There is one of our pastors who prayed and set free some 17 or people who were demon-possessed. There's one woman who was tied to a post for years, the mother of a child, and his wife because of demon possession. Think about the torment of that woman. Can you imagine what happens to someone who goes to hell without Christ? It is not 70 demons. It is not 2 demons. It is not 10 demons. It is Lucifer, Satan, and billions of demons. You think about the pain, the anguish, the suffering. And that is described by Christ as a historical fact of the rich man who died and went to hell. And his lament, his desperation for a drop of water. But even today, I think he is crying not for water anymore, but for death. But he will find none. That is the reason why God Almighty who created the universe came to this earth as a man and lived here and died for that one human being. So he said, what shall profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul? If that much weight God places over one human being that he created in his own image, I ask you, my brother, I ask you, my sister, who is responsible for God's work, do you feel, do you understand what this is all about? Jesus did not go after to become the king when they wanted him. He didn't want anything of this world. When he died, there was no argument about his wealth, except one piece of rag, cloth he was wearing. Why he lived like that? Why he didn't seek anything else from anything? Only one purpose, that is to see people come to know the Father's love. This was Christ's life. And then, he paid the price that no one else can pay. All the angels in heaven could not do it. Only he could do it. God Almighty, the Everlasting Father, the King of Kings, the Lord of Lords, now walking as a man, sinless man, dying on the cross, and you are saved. You are born again. You are redeemed. Your name in the Lamb's Book of Life. But I'm asking you, what about the people around us? What about the 1.2 billion people in India? What about the people hidden away in the valleys, in the mountains of Nepal, and hidden away in the villages of Burma, or Sri Lanka? What about people who are still offering human sacrifice for salvation? What about parents sacrificing their children to be freed from the curse or demons that they fear? Think about the torment. Think about the agony. But what is to come for them? So I ask you the question, what is it what your life is all about? What are you living for? What is driving you? Why are you here? Why am I here? What is this all about? I can guarantee you, if time permits, if time permits, few hundred years from now, this campus will not be here. This will be maybe something else. That is a story of humanity. At this time, God has given us printing presses. At this time, He gave us a church to build. At this time, He gave us vehicles. At this time, He gave us Bible schools. At this time, He gave us bridge of hope centers. At this time, He gave us leaders. For what? Nothing is permanent here on earth. The only permanent thing in the world is the way in which we can get some people come to Christ. As Paul said, somehow, someway, whatever means, saving some as though from fire. That is the one single purpose for which we exist here on earth. And you are responsible for it. Now, this is a frightening prospect. You know, maybe 15 years ago, I would say something is much more harder and much more black and white. You know, but I no more like that. I basically, I'm one of the most peaceful human being on earth. You know why? Because I'm not trying to change anyone. I'm only trying to change me. Because I thought there was a time with my ability and understanding and learning and persuasion, I can change people. You know, what a fool I was. I wasted so much of my time. Now, I come to the place, I cannot change any human being. I can only share my thoughts. So, I'm not trying to intimidate you or make you a small person or accuse you because only God knows who you are on the inside. But I can tell you this much. You, being where you are today, you have to give an account someday for the seat you occupied, for the people that you were made responsible for. And in this, I think the most serious thing, it is not how you were able to handle money properly and faithfully. That is expected, normal thing. It is not that you were disciplined person. That is expected for any normal human being. But I think the most significant question, the most crucial question is going to be how you spend your life, your emotions, your energy, your facilities to see lost people come to Christ. How many people that you are responsible for them to find their way to heaven? That is a question. How did you use your money for the sake of seeing the lost people to come to Christ? It was not giving tithe. It was not some offering for some people. That is not the issue. The issue, what drove you to do what you did? How much you did it? See, that is fundamental question. So I am asking you to think these thoughts and if your heart is not burning with the passion for the lost, you know, I have a simple prayer. I don't pray every morning and night and evening but one of the consistent prayer, I have several things I pray for consistently. One is, Lord give me discernment in leadership because there is no way you can lead God without discernment. The second thing, I pray, Lord, please give me burden for the lost souls. And I tell my colleagues, my people everywhere, pray the Lord will baptize you with a passion for the lost world. Baptize you with a passion for the lost world. You see, you are not working for a believer's church. You are not working for an organization. You are driven by one thing, the love of Christ constrains you to work long hours, pray long hours, intercede long hours, and go out of way to encourage other people and witness. Nobody else. It is that life of yours that contributes to the overall this energetic, this movement that make this impact for this generation. Where are you? Maybe you are one that need to pray, Lord, revive me. Rekindle again, oh Lord, the fire that is slowly dying. For what? For the sake of rich and the lost. C.T. Studd, this famous missionary, said this statement, if Christ be God and died for me, then no sacrifice can be too great for me to make for him. C.T. Studd was born to a very rich, affluent family in England, and he was a famous cricketer. And he was reading one time a tract written by an atheist, someone who don't believe in God, and he said, if I believe, in other words, to make it more understanding, he was saying, C.T. Studd, if I believe what you say you believe, faith in Christ determines the destiny of human beings, then what I would do, I would give up all the hobbies and all the enjoyments and all the stuff that you are living for, and I will give my life completely for one thing, to preach the gospel. If need be, I will crawl on broken glass till the end of my life and cry out, what shall profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul. And reading that, C.T. Studd was so convicted, a born again believer, he was so convicted, he decided to take all his money, which is millions, and he gave it to God's work. And he kept this little money in bank so he can pay for expenses to get married to his fiancée. And his fiancée, the girl he was engaged to get married, asked him, Charlie, what is this that Jesus told you to do? He said, to forsake all and follow him. Then she said, why don't you take the money you kept in the bank for our wedding and give it to God's work and we will trust him to go to the mission field. And the last little money they had saved up, he gave it to William Booth of Salvation Army in London and they got married and went to the mission field and died early but made impact upon his generation. That was the story of C.T. Stead. Why? Because he believed finally for real. For real. That is the, that is the crucial thing. I have a dear brother trying to pray for me. I think, is my English okay? You understand? Yes, you understand brother? Yes, very good. Thank you. I'm going to make you stand up if you sleep anymore. So, this is the call of God upon your life. As a church, this is the call upon our life. The church which sees us to be evangelistic will soon cease to be evangelical. If believer church, if you don't understand the reason for our being is to evangelize by all means, then we will cease to become a biblical church. We will become like any other denomination. God had only one son. By the way, that was said by Alexander Duff, a great missionary that came to India long ago. John Wesley said this, you have one business. You have one business on earth. That is to save souls. So question, what is your business? I often say this. You see the seminary here? The day come, the purpose of the seminary is not to train people to be evangelists, save souls. It is better to shut down the seminary. I had a nephew, my own brother's son. I tell this story often because this is a classic story. You know, I spent quite a bit of money to help him go to Bible college. He went to BD and then he got MTH and all that and then he want to teach in our seminary. So I saw this young man. I said, look, you studied missions go to your MTH in missions. Why don't you go to the mission field and work a couple of years then you come back and then you can teach. Because I was in Calcutta when he was going to seminary there one time and I asked him if he had any gospel tracts because you know, right in front of William Carey college there, there are lakhs and lakhs of people flowing like an ocean in front of that in the evening time. So I want some tracts to distribute. I was there just for a day and he said, there's no tracts here. So look, I'm telling you the actual story. So I said, is there any tracts anywhere in this whole Sarambur, you know, theological institution, seminary, whatever. He said none. I said, any of your professors talk to anyone about Jesus? Then finally asked, you've been here two years. Did you ever go out to give gospel tracts or talk to anyone about Jesus? You know what he said? Never. This is a fellow who got his MDH degree and want to come here to train people to do missions work. This is called nonsense and stupidity. And you know what happened? He agreed and he went to Gorakhpur. And I came back from somewhere in Europe, whatever. So I want to call and talk to him. So I made telephone call to find out he escaped in the middle of the night. He packed his suitcase and left. And I said, brothers, where did he go? They said, we don't know. Because he was told to go to the mission field and work then part-time to teach at the Bible school. But he was not interested. He wanted to be a professor. So what happened? Then he married a nurse. Nurse what? So she can go and do medical missions? No. He married nurse so he can go overseas. Now what he's doing? Sitting in Australia. Struggling to make a living. His wife is working. And the whole life is like that. Now you add on the 50 years to his life, what happens? What is all it's all about? But then there was another Bible college would take him and pay him salary to come and teach and be a Bible college teacher. I'm not unhappy about them doing that. So the reason I'm telling the story, this is my own nephew, not a stranger. So this is what I live for. As a matter of fact, I must tell you, I often regret about seminaries and Bible college and all that. Because when you have 99% of the seminary graduates, not from our seminary, you should never go to the mission field, never witness, never lead anyone to Christ. Why you're studying all these things? Jesus trained his disciples for three and a half years in the best university seminary in the whole universe. Baba God himself is the professor. What more do you want? They lived with him 24 hours. In the end, what did he say? You go and read Matthew's gospel chapter 10. He said, I'm sending you a sheep among wolves. You go and preach the gospel and paraphrasing it. They'll kill you for doing it, but don't worry about it. You come to heaven. I'm waiting for you. That's what he said. Yeah. And what did they do? They said, Oh, Jesus, this is not possible. We got our best PhD from God Almighty. I am too good to go and get in trouble with wolves. No, they went. And Thomas came here. And he died in... They killed him in Chennai. You know, so be careful when you go to Chennai. But see, none of the disciples ran away. They gave their life. For what? For what? It was to see people come to Christ. A classic example of what their life was all about. Read the life of Paul in 2 Corinthians. Read the book of Acts. It is not a theology book. It is actually a practical book that tells how we must live our life. This is what the church is all about. And so, when you and I miss this one focus in life, we miss it all. God had only one son, David Livingstone said, and he made him a missionary. The send one. So are you better than Jesus? Can I say this is not my job? No. The first work of the whole church is to give the gospel to the whole world, someone else said. Now, I got 11 pages of notes. I finished. Three pages. What did I do? So, I should stop now, no? 10 to 11 is my time? Okay, 10 to 11. I will pick it up whenever I get the chance to talk. But this is what I wanted to keep in mind. I am not trying to impress you with some mega preaching outlines. I just want you to hear this very clearly. I am afraid some of you lost the focus. I am afraid in the midst of persecution, in the midst of misunderstanding, and physical illness, and family problems, and misunderstanding, and your personal suffering, whatever. Suffering often is not that you have no food, or somebody is beating you up physically, or rejecting you. No. Suffering is more crucial when you suffer on the inside. Inside. So, you can easily give up. As a matter of fact, Paul said this in 2 Corinthians. At our wit's end, if you analyze the scripture, he is saying, I was almost on the border of mental breakdown. I couldn't handle it. It was so tension-filled. Now, I say this very carefully. A few times, I thought I would lose my mind because of the amount of tension and stress I had to handle. God, in his mercy, spared me, I must tell you. Physically, I am doing very well. I have the energy, and I keep moving. But sometimes, the burden that you have to carry for a large ministry like this, it's not simple. It's not just India or one of the countries. It's quite complex. But God has been merciful to me. But what sustained me more than anything else, it is that verse in 2 Corinthians 4, verse 1. Seeing this ministry is given to me by the Lord, I do not lose heart. I don't give up. I have a thousand reasons to give up, but I don't. And what is a ministry? Ministry, calling people to reconcile to the Father because they are lost. We persuade every man with everything in us, repent and be reconciled to God. That is what the ministry is. And I ask you to search your heart. Whatever you are doing, if you are part of this movement, I can tell you I have no other agenda except one agenda to see this generation come to Christ. Just a few weeks ago one of my leaders came to me and said, you know, by the grace of God, we should be able to produce 35 million extra gospel tracts for 2008. Because somebody made a commitment to help us print gospel tracts. 38 million. 38 million is how many crores is that? That's about nearly 40. 4 crores. So, I quickly figured this out. There's no way we are going to be able to print this. I mean, there's no way. We got a few presses. It is running full time. But we know we can print that gospel tracts. But if somebody gave us money and want to get gospel tracts, as a matter of fact, when we have no money to print gospel tracts and print Bibles, you know what I like to do? I will sell all the properties. And take the money and print Bibles and gospel tracts. Because that is the number one thing. So, if you have any facilities, estate, whatever else, it's all going to be disposed. When the time comes, we need to have more money to do God's work. Publicly, I'm saying it so you can say He said it. This is true. This is the way I think. So, what I was talking to Erica and my son, you know, about this. And I said, you know, there's no way we can produce this many tracts in our press. So, what we must do, we will contact other godly organizations who are committed for world evangelism, reaching the lost. And we will find a way to give them the resources so they can print these gospels and booklets in all languages wherever. Make sure they're distributed. That's all. I don't care who does it. Even if it's a Catholic father, I'm very happy as long as he's going to give it to people and preach the gospel. Anyone. I have no problem. You know why? Because in the end, in heaven, there's no denomination, no name, no titles. It's only going to be the redeemed going to be before the throne. It's not going to be any labels on anybody's forehead. But I'm hoping the largest number of people there will be believers church. Yes. So we will welcome all the people and say, Jesus, these people also, we know them. Invite them in. See? Because you know, Bishop Narayan Sharma says, when Jesus comes, the first church will be raptured will be his church for Nepal because he got one in the foothills of Himalaya. So when when Jesus comes, they'll be going first. I think that's a good theory. So it is very, very significant that we keep this in mind. So when our theme for this leaders meeting, Lord, revive us, renew us. Don't say, you know, we have so many churches planted. We did so much last year. We suffered so much. The question is, but how many more people died that did not hear the gospel? After all these things we have done, we still remain unprofitable servants. Let us not pride in anything that we have done, but let us repent for missed opportunities. Missed opportunities in prayer, in giving, in sacrificing, in encouraging, in going, whatever. And I pray that this will be your decision. So, may God help us to leave this place with a burning, burning, undying passion that He will not leave here without a bag full of gospel tracts and booklets that by the time you get home, you will have led half a dozen people to the Lord. Father, we want to thank you for giving us the opportunity to be here like this, and once again, Lord, how we pray that you will renew and rekindle the passion that we once had for the lost and dying millions around us. Lord Jesus, no matter what we do, Lord, even the time, even if we are sneezing, or saying a word to someone, or writing an email, or Lord, whatever, we pray that as leaders, we'll be those people who will be leading others, so that they'll become more effective, more involved in witnessing evangelism, soul winning, distribution. Oh Lord, pray that through our feeble lives, you will accomplish your purposes in this generation. Bless, my brothers and sisters, in Jesus' name.
World-Wide Evangelization
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K.P. Yohannan (1950 - 2024). Indian-American missionary, author, and founder of GFA World, born in Niranam, Kerala, to a St. Thomas Syrian Christian family. Converted at eight, he joined Operation Mobilization at 16, serving eight years in India. In 1974, he moved to the U.S., graduating from Criswell College with a B.A. in Biblical Studies, and was ordained, pastoring a Native American church near Dallas. In 1979, he and his German-born wife, Gisela, founded Gospel for Asia (now GFA World), emphasizing native missionaries, growing to support thousands in the 10/40 Window. Yohannan authored over 250 books, including Revolution in World Missions, with 4 million copies printed, and broadcast Athmeeya Yathra in 113 Asian languages. In 1993, he founded Believers Eastern Church, becoming Metropolitan Bishop as Moran Mor Athanasius Yohan I in 2018. Married with two children, he faced controversies over financial transparency, including a 2015 Evangelical Council expulsion and 2020 Indian tax raids. His ministry impacted millions through Bible colleges, orphanages, and wells.