In this sermon, the speaker discusses the role of a missionary and the importance of preaching the word of God. He emphasizes the need to go deep into the word of God to find the essential requirements for a man or woman of God. The speaker also mentions the potential benefits and setbacks of modern communication techniques in spreading the message of Jesus Christ. He concludes by highlighting the exciting and revolutionary nature of the gospel and the unparalleled opportunities to witness for Christ in the fast-changing world we live in. The sermon references 2 Timothy 4:1-8, which urges believers to preach the word, be ready at all times, and patiently teach and correct others.

I want to speak on what really is a missionary, because we live in a fast-changing time in which words and expressions and values seem to change so much, in a world in which there is so much revolution on every side, a world in which we have so many surprises. It truly is an exciting time in which you live. There's no reason to be pessimistic about it. It's a terrific time, a time of great opportunity, a time of unparalleled opportunity. There are more people in the world today than ever before, so the opportunities to witness for Christ are proportionately far greater than ever before. And the Bible already said, He that winneth souls is wise. Well, there is a lot of unemployment, not in Western Europe, but for instance in the United States, I think it's about 60% now, extremely high. And if you are in the business of winning souls, there's absolutely no fear of unemployment ever. I think that's just what the Bible meant by He that winneth souls is wise. It's just smart. To be full-time in a business in which there's no fear of unemployment, the only unemployment will come the moment when everybody is saved, and that will take a while. By that time, Jesus is back, and there's no need for that big business competition anymore. So for the time being, this is the best business that we are in. I hope that it is clear that with the methods that we have followed so far in the denominational churches and mission societies, we just are not doing the task in the world. We do our best, no doubt about that, but we are not fulfilling or carrying out the Great Commission to every creature. It's for that reason that God has called into existence youth groups, progressive, aggressive, experimental youth movements to do something to awaken the churches and to reach multitudes with the gospel. I feel a great need in our time to define your terms when we say to reach the people with the gospel. We mean a little more than people who have just once heard a name, the name of Jesus. Last year was the commemoration of the 150th birthday of Lenin, and all over the world you saw articles in the newspapers. There were stamps, postage stamps. There were exhibitions and special meetings and rallies and what have you, everything. The whole world was commemorating this man, Lenin. The whole world last year has known about Lenin, I'm sure. Over 90% of the entire world population has heard about Lenin. But that did not make them communistic. And if by some clever means we would reach a point where everybody would have heard the name of Jesus, this is the name of Jesus or of his existence or something like that, that wouldn't make them Christians. When the Bible requires that every living being ought to have a chance to accept Christ, it means that the gospel must have been presented so clearly to every person that they had to make a moral choice for or against him. Now that's what I call that everybody must hear the gospel. It is not enough just to put a cheap gospel tract in the hands of everybody in the world and then say everybody has heard the gospel. It's not true, it's a lie. Just like a postage stamp on Lenin on your letter one day, then you have not heard the message of communism. You have not heard what they offer as opposed to the existing world order. You must hear the message of communism so clearly that you understand intellectually and that you are morally convinced this is right or this is wrong and then act upon it. And that's what I mean when I say that everybody must have a chance to hear the gospel. It must be presented so clearly that he has to make a moral choice. If he is for Jesus then he will accept him or if he is against Jesus then he will reject him. You agree with me that it may take a little time to get that job done and it really requires more than just the printing of three billion gospel tracts and throw them out of a high-flying plane. It's just a little more than that. A quotation I have here from a book The Living Christ in Modern China by George Young goes like this. The evangelism that we practice must be that healthy, balanced evangelism of Jesus which seeks the salvation of the whole man, mind, body and soul. The revival that we pray for must be spiritual and social. It must go deep in cleansing the moral life and wide in transforming the social and economic life of our nation. It must be a revival of apostolic preaching and of apostolic practicing of Christianity. It is my deep personal conviction that the answer to the challenge of communism is a rebirth of apostolic Christianity with a flaming evangelism and a kingdom of God community life which will be more revolutionary than that of the communists. That's quite a program. After all, the person that we present is far more exciting and revolutionary than the person of Lenin or Marx and the message of Jesus Christ goes far deeper and wider and is really life transforming. And you cannot possibly say that of the message of the communists. So we want to speak a little on what really is a missionary. And I suggest we read a few verses. 2 Timothy 4 verse 1 to 8 I charge thee therefore before God and the Lord Jesus Christ who shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and his kingdom preach the word, be instant, in season, out of season reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine for the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine but after their own lusts shall heap to themselves teachers having itching ears and they shall turn away their ears from the truth and shall be turned unto fables but watch thou in all things, endure afflictions do the work of an evangelist, make full proof of thy ministry for I am now ready to be offered and the time of my departure is at hand I have fought a good fight I have finished my course I have kept the faith henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day and not to me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing Today, when we mention the word mystery we probably mean something else than what our fathers meant by that word I would say rightly so because a mystery is not any longer a man who only preaches from the Bible and I just wonder by myself if tonight we could learn from people who were so ignorant they had never seen a bicycle or a radio or a TV set or a typewriter or a plane I wonder if we could learn anything from them I think of people like Paul and Barnabas and Silas and Luke and John You see what I mean? We are so linked in our thoughts with all those modern conveniences we think that we cannot do without them We think that the advance of the kingdom of God depends on all those technical things but I tell you tonight, not in the whole New Testament is any tool mentioned for evangelism except man and today if God can find a right man even without any equipment God can do a tremendous job If I think of Paul and the others Timothy as a president of a school or a director of a mission hospital a manager of a conference center in which they are of course very busy and then the hours in between they spend in their office working hard at a typewriter trying to catch up with the mail I wonder if on Sunday morning if they had a chance to stand up in the big gathering they would have that unction and anointing of the Spirit that they obviously did have when I read the Acts of the Apostles What a terrific danger that we have moved into and all our organizations I just warn you, I don't accuse because I'm in it myself Many a time I feel more like a manager than a missionary but it's of sheer necessity and I hate it I absolutely disagree What can you do when you have to lead teams? So I would suggest seven points of what a missionary is or ought to be and maybe we can learn something that will help us to correct ourselves or protect us from the tendency to over-organize that's a sign of our time all the hidden persuaders of advertisement try to brainwash us that we cannot possibly do without that and that and the other We must try through the Word of God by going deep into the Word of God to find the bare necessities and the absolute requirements things that God wants to be in a man or a woman of God and then of course modern technique can add to your communication possibility and it also may be a tremendous setback we have to find out A missionary, first of all, of course, is not a man who has a very specific position in the Church everybody ought to be a missionary or let's put it this way everybody is either a missionary or a mission field and there's no way in between if you are a missionary, you are a witness, you are a sent one a missionary really is exactly the same name as an apostle only comes from a different language and if you're not a missionary, you are a mission field you ought to be preached out, you ought to be challenged so either a missionary or a mission field and it's only obedience and faithfulness that makes any person a servant of God Now, first of all, a missionary is a disciple and in the very word disciple is the word discipline if there's any realm at all where you ought to discipline yourself it's in the realm of prayer because that's where nobody sees you, only God and we still have that silly attitude that we care more about what people see in us than what God sees in us it's very strange, but most people still use more time for their make-up than for their spiritual preparation am I wrong or right? A disciple is one who has been called to belong to Jesus to take his yoke upon him and to learn of him that he is meek and lowly in heart Matthew 11, 29 it's one who is disciplined in prayer and in the study of the word don't ever make the mistake of admiring Peter in Acts 2 when he was so full of the Spirit he could just quote Scripture he could not, he had learned them it had nothing to do with the fullness of the Spirit the fullness of the Spirit gave him the anointing and the result in the crowd that they cried out what must we do? but he was preaching the things he had learned in the Scripture nothing else Jesus says in John that the Holy Spirit will bring everything into remembrance he can only bring into remembrance what we have stored there before it's like a computer you put it there, the Holy Spirit will bring it out the moment you need it it's discipline in the study of the word of God a disciple is one who knows his Lord and of course there are thousands of ways of getting to know the Lord don't misunderstand me of experimenting with your Lord asking a sign or making a covenant with the Lord or promising something or anything there are so many ways in which you can get to know the Lord get to know his character the best way always is, again, the word of God know the Lord, know his word so that by knowing it by using this book as your personal mirror you can see that you're still far better off than all those guys that were pioneers and had to spend so much time in prison and endured such hardships as you can read particularly of Paul the whole secret is here of a disciple to get to know him because I want to know him I'm always challenged when I read that about Paul in Philippians 3.10 that I may know him and the power of his resurrection well, I know that that longing is in each of us the power of his resurrection, my word never sick again, always strong when the resurrection power of Jesus Christ flows through you body, soul, and spirit you're right on top of everything, anytime but Paul doesn't stop there he said, end the fellowship of his suffering and I tell you, that's not a popular message you seldom hear a message on that, on the fellowship of his suffering it hardly has any place in our theology if you talk about a suffering church and the need of identification with a suffering church and the fellowship of the suffering it's not popular with Paul it was because this was his only way of getting to know the Savior the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his suffering being made conformable unto his death in order to get the resurrection of the dead that is to truly follow Jesus as a disciple a disciple is one who steps in the footsteps of the master and let's see where he went study it for yourself when you read the Gospels that's what he calls us, as a disciple secondly, he is a witness not a witness of tradition and I tell you that it's the easiest thing to get into tradition even in revival circles and in the traditional churches there's a word again or in missionary societies or even in your own work I tell our teams time and time again that the fact that they have always made a successful trip to Russia that they were never caught does not mean that this time they will not be caught because everything that is past becomes tradition if you build upon past experiences every trip again must have a definite call of the Lord definite seal of the Lord definite confirmation of the Lord and a definite miracle of the Lord to get you through you can never lean on anything that happened in the past and here's a terrific danger even in our work of smuggling the word of God into the communist countries the danger of tradition we are a witness of Jesus Christ I like very much what Peter says about that in 1 Peter 5 verse 1 the elders which are among you I exhort who am also an elder and a witness of the sufferings of Christ he is a witness of the suffering of Christ and in 2 Peter 1 verse 16 he says we are eyewitnesses of his majesty I doubt if you can be a witness of his majesty if you are not a witness of his suffering because the whole victory and majesty of Jesus Christ is based upon his suffering as we saw this morning the whole process of identification even the very fact of being born as a baby in Bethlehem was a tremendous humiliation for the son of God who came from splendor to be born in a stable in Bethlehem there the suffering started as a baby and the authority of the witness of Christ Jesus is thus saith the Lord but again you've got to know your Bible in order to be able to say but this is what God says because once you know what God has said you don't care so much about what people say or even people today who say that God is dead well it's more important what God says about dead people than what dead people say about the living God and by the way if you ever want an argument with anybody who says God is dead it's a very easy one because you can kindly inquire as to the date when God died if you have an answer to that you see when they say God is dead it implies that he has been alive so it's a very very stupid remark to say God is dead it's extremely stupid because they are just witnessing the fact that God has been alive but they don't know the date when he died you ask them about it they can only blush people often misquote scripture if they argue with you especially people who have some traditional background of Christianity or liberal Christianity but I tell you this whenever they quote a text there's just no risk involved for you if you say where does it say that you look up your Bible you read that verse and two verses preceding the two verses following and I know you've got an answer to that argument it just doesn't work if unbelievers quote a scripture because we don't have to defend the Bible we just have to know what God says in that word then we can be witnesses because we are witnessing to what God has said not my opinion about the Bible but what does God say when I was in where was I? Tashkent yeah central Asia one of the largest cities there in east of Moscow I wanted to go to the church there and I had the address in my pocket on a piece of paper but I wanted to have some fun with the im-tourist group after all as a foreigner paying my trip in dollars I think they've got to give me some service or at least I should have a special kick out of it so I went to the office there was quite a group of people and I asked them where is the church and they said oh there's no church here I said I'm sure there's a church here I'm sure God has his people in this city and I want to know where they are I want to visit them and fellowship with them and they tried of course to ridicule me they thought it was rather funny and backward that I would ask about religion and God and church they said well why? so I tried to explain why I said well they are believers I am a believer we believe in God and so on and in the Bible they said oh the Bible is not true that's just all fairy tales and lies very bad mixture I said well it's a book that I believe because it's the truth I said I'll tell you something I'll prove to you that the Bible is truth because yesterday I was in Moscow and I went to visit the mausoleum where at that time only Lenin was left behind and I was there the first time I've even seen Stalin but he fell in disgrace after his death it's a very dangerous thing though to be a communist you can even sin after your death so they took him out now only Lenin was left and I said to those people I said you know what Lenin said I said to the millions of people that go and visit the mausoleum on the Red Square in Moscow on their pilgrimage I said Lenin was saying to everybody the Bible is true the Bible is true and they were looking at me with real big eyes and I saw they were really getting cross now I said yes I'll tell you why I said because the Bible says that the wages of sin is death I said well Lenin is dead and instead of hiding himself he's been put on display to show the whole world that the wages of sin is death and that means that the Bible is true well by that time it really was time I moved out of that office which I did I didn't want to go too far with them after all I had the address in my pocket I had no problem finding that place so I just quickly went to the church and had good fellowship with the saints there but I thought I've got to tell them that it doesn't work to say that the Bible is not true because the very facts around them and the very mausoleum in Moscow tells them that the wages of sin is death and the Bible is true so witness to the truth of the Bible and as a witness we don't have to say what people want to hear that's a real dangerous trick that the devil is playing on many servants of God to make them say what they want to hear those smooth preachers and pastors and ministers that are afraid of the church because the congregation pays them and they pay lip service, they say the things that people want to hear but we are not to do that as witnesses we've got to say what he has to hear, not what he wants to hear but what he's got to hear but God tells people that's not always pleasant I tell you, you read the gospels again and they must have missed those lessons in homiletics just to address the big congregation as a generation of vipers and so on and as a crooked generation, it's not what they wanted to hear but it was what they had to hear because this was the truth and John and Jesus, they were witnesses and you see the same line continuing in the Acts of the Apostles you see the apostles pointing their finger to the crowd and saying you have crucified him not the Roman soldiers, you have crucified him then they were pricked in their hearts and said what must we do then you can give an altar call that's exactly what they did they were witnesses of Jesus Christ and they just said what they had to hear and then of course lastly a witness is one who has been there not what he has heard or read about but a witness in court you're asked to witness about a car accident and the judge says now tell me who was coming from the right and you say well I think it was a red car and he says not what you think but what did you see and you say well I'm sorry I wasn't there but I think it was a red car and then the judge would say well please go, you're not a witness you have not been there now this is a basic requirement for a witness, you've got to have been there, there when Jesus saved your soul there when God healed you, there when he filled you with the Holy Spirit then you are a witness because you were there people may have tons of argument against your experience but one grain of experience still has more weight than a ton of argument because you speak as a witness I love that story about that blind born man in the gospel when he was taken before the scribes and the Pharisees and they were questioning him about the sinlessness of Jesus he said well I'm not a theologian I don't know anything about that but I only know one thing I was blind and now I can see nobody could deny that there was an argument that not all the clever people in Israel could withstand once I was blind now I can see well that's it, that settles it thirdly the missionary is a messenger because to the messenger has been entrusted a message which really is the answer to all the problems and ills of the world now think of it, it should make you feel real good because all the clever people, economists, planners and the United Nations and the medical top people in the world are all crushing their brains thinking about how they can solve the problems of the world and you and I know it, all we need is the guts and some knowledge to apply it but we know the answer, we know first of all the sickness of the world, it's only one word it's sin, sin is the only cause of all the trouble in the world and we know the cure is Jesus Christ and his shed blood, well then get on with the job, it's as simple as that and the more you learn of those two basic things cause and cure the better you can apply it to the world that's why we are a debtor, in Romans 1, verse 14, I am a debtor both to the Greeks and to the barbarians both to the wise and to the unwise so much as is in me, I am ready to preach the gospel to you that are in Rome also cause Paul has received something from God that he has to share with those that have not heard it, so he is in debt you don't need to buy a lot of stuff with a small down payment in order to get in debt you don't have to use your credit card extensively without anything on your bank before you can get into debt you can receive something from God eternal life that should go to the whole world and as long as you keep it, you are a debtor now I like that description because it's a very unusual one we prefer to speak about the divine call and divine commission and everything but we don't like the word debtor that's what Paul says and that was in him a strong urge to get rid of his debt to pay off his debt how could he do it? only by passing the gospel on to Greeks and Jews and the heathen that's a tremendous thing and in the next verse it says what the message is Romans 1 16 for I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ for it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believes to the Jew first and also to the Greek that means the heathen outsider this is the message that the messenger has to pass on gospel of Christ is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believes his message is that there is no other name Acts 4 12 no other name given under heaven by which we must be saved but that one name of Jesus gospel means good