In this sermon, the speaker shares a personal testimony of how he was living a sinful life on an Australian warship until a colleague led him to Jesus Christ. He made a promise to share Jesus with at least 10 people a day, and despite some obstacles, he remained committed to this mission. The speaker challenges the audience to examine their own actions and asks why they are studying and what their purpose is. He emphasizes the importance of having a passion for the lost world and urges the listeners to carry gospel tracks with them and share the message of Jesus wherever they go.

And tonight, you and I are here, and I pray that this will not be another evening, oh my goodness, today is prayer meeting night, but rather I hope you will cease this evening and say, oh God, how grateful I am that you are providing my needs, comfortable place to stay, people that care for me, I have clothes to wear, health and strength, while half of India and Bhutan and Nepal have never heard the name of Christ, 80,000 dying every single day and plunging into hell. Lord, give me energy to stay up late tonight if need be, and give me the burden to pray for the lost world. Is that not Christ all about? When we read the Gospel of Mark, the very beginning of Christ's mission on earth, one of the first things he did is to call those disciples. We read in the Gospel of Mark, chapter 1, this statement, verse 17, come, follow me, Jesus said, and I will make you fishers of men. At once they left their nets and followed him. Isn't this interesting? The very first call Christ gave to these men, it was not for them to come and learn theology. It was not for them to be educated and be smart, because even after spending those years with him, people said, these are unlearned people. They come from the bad part of town, from the poorest of community, but they recognized one thing, that they were with Christ. It was not that they recognized they were more refined and cultured. It was not that they recognized they could speak very well and have a good argument and convince the people they're talking to. It was not that they became rich and famous. It was not that they built something externally to show how spiritual or famous they were. Nothing. They recognized that they were with Christ. What was it? What was it that we read in Acts 17, people saying, these, those who have turned the world upside down, they have come here also. In Philip's translation, these world revolutionaries have come here also. To understand the meaning, go back and read the earlier chapters. They were arrested, they were abused, they were spat upon, they were beaten, they were imprisoned, and they were told, absolutely you cannot open your mouth and utter the name Jesus. Stop doing it. But then they will respond, beat us all you want, whatever you want, we will face it, but we'll walk out with a smile on our face, counting it a privilege to suffer for the name of our Lord, and we'll keep on preaching the gospel. What is it these people recognized that they were with Christ? I think those who witnessed the life of Christ on earth, they saw Him as a man who was so deeply committed with passion, like a wounded animal walking the trail and leaving the bloody trail that Christ wept all night long, preached all day long, healed all day long, and gave Himself continually, even to the extent of walking 80 some kilometers, ministering to one little woman, explained to her the way of salvation and the love of the Father. My brothers and sisters, if there's anything, anything tonight I want to communicate with you, it is not anything else other than one thing, be more like Christ. Tonight God is looking, not for you and I to come and submit to Him a long list of prayer and say a bunch of words and then go back to our room and act as though nothing happened, it's just one of those things we do, but I hope tonight that somehow you and I will be changed a little more, that our hearts will ache and weep for those that are dying without the Lord Jesus Christ, and that is what Christ is all about. I'm telling you, if the house is on fire, you are not going to stand around and discuss the signs of how to put out the fire. We are going to agonize over whose responsibility this is to do this. We are not going to worry about who is the fireman, are they trained well, do they have the water, the right kind of water, and none of those things. We are going to be people with such absolute desperation, we will do everything in our power to shout on the top of our lungs and scream as loud as we can, walk into the building and whatever we do and get a bunch of people saying, please come and help, there are people in this house, they are dying, but for 80,000 people dying every single day and plunging into hell, it is a billion times worse than somebody getting burned in a house. It is eternal, so Christ said, don't worry so much about those who can kill your body, don't worry about all that can happen to you, to your external, your life on earth, the loss, the pain, whatever, fear Him who has the power over your eternal destiny. And that is what this is all about. And tonight, I hope and pray it will not be just tonight time of prayer, rather it will be something the Lord will take us further into the days to come with this burden for people that are around us. You know, for me, the whole reason for this seminary and the campus, I must tell you, I've always been against seminary. In the early days of my life, people quoted me in articles that KPO9 was against seminaries, in Christian magazines. For one reason, 98 percent of the graduates from seminaries never go to the mission field, never get beaten up, never planned a church, and I said, dear God, I do not want to be one who will spend crores of rupees to build a campus and a building to train people, get a PhD or MTH or degree to make a living as a profession. I want to do something to see people become more like you who will go to the end of the world to preach the gospel and reach the lost and see people come to know you, Lord. And it took a lot of courage, a lot of agony, a lot of deliberation finally to decide, yes, we can have a seminary where we can train students that will go to the mission field. Thank God for those young people in Nepal, those in Bhutan, those in Arunachal Pradesh, those in West Bengal, those in Assam, those in UP, those who are giving their lives to serve Christ and reach the lost world, graduates of the seminary. But the question is this, is it about them or is it about you and me that we should be concerned about? I do not know about you tonight, but these days I'm deeply concerned about the lost and dying millions around me. Maybe one of the reasons I'm getting older, maybe one of the reasons I realized the life on earth is very brief, that even the rich, the famous, and the poor, and the beggar, all must die, and we take nothing with us except the lives of people that we can win to the Lord. For Christ came saying, my home is not this world. This is not my home. I'm not of the world. Don't try to make me the king. This is not where I belong to. I have somewhere else to go. But I came for one purpose, to seek and save that which was lost. And if you and I are following Christ, I cannot tell you there's no clearer evidence and something that is so tangible and touchable than what you and I do, not to talk about, actually do in terms of giving a gospel tract, sharing the gospel with someone, or praying over a photograph of a missionary, or a child in one of those Bridge of Hope Sundays, or some pastor, or some graduate, or somebody out there, because we know our lives are linked directly with reaching the lost. I want to read to you a story which I said, I read this several times before, but I say this to you because I think this is a classic illustration that would help us, that we don't have to be so popular or famous to make a difference in our generation. And as I read this story to you, I want you to listen, and I want you to be thinking and praying, Lord, what is it that you want me to do with my time, even while I'm going through my school? It is not later, but today. This I say to you because many years ago, I was in Calcutta visiting one of my nephews who was doing his MTH at Serampore College. He was smart, and he is brilliant, and this was years of years of seminary training. And finally, he is going to finish his MTH with a dream for his PhD later. And I happened to be in Calcutta, and I walked out of the building that he was staying at, right there in front of the college. Even in time, I saw people. You hardly can drive a bicycle through the street. People everywhere, packed, hundreds of thousands of people literally flowing on the streets, and my heart began to pound, saying, what about these people? Do they know the Lord? Obviously, they don't. And I reached for all my tracks, and I ran out of my tracks, and I ran back to the building where he was staying, and I said, do you have any gospel tracks? He said, gospel tracks? He said, I got none. I said, is there anyone in this building that has some gospel tracks? He said, I don't know. He said, you have missions. You have missions course here, and you're doing studies, and what about your professor, and what about your teacher? Is there anything here? Well, the long shorty, short is a story to cut short. In the end, to find out, two years he lived there on the campus. Doing his postgraduate study in Bible, in missions. Never one time did he go on the street to distribute even one gospel track, for there was none. I asked him, what about have you tried to witness to anyone during the weekend? Your students, your friends, do they do anything? He said, no. I asked several questions. In the end, I found myself alone trying to agonize and think, what in the name of God are we doing teaching Bible, giving such degrees, when there could not be one gospel track found in the entire campus? This all started a number of years ago in a Baptist church in Crystal Palace in South London. This is a story from South London. The Sunday morning service was closing as a man stood up at the back and raised his hand and said, excuse me pastor, can I share a short testimony? The pastor looked at his watch and said, you have three minutes. Then the man proceeded with his story. Quote, I have just moved into this area, and I used to live in Sydney, Australia. I was there, by the way, a while ago. Just a few months back, I was visiting some relatives and was walking down George Street, that is the name of the street. A strange little white-haired man stepped out of a shop, put a pamphlet in my hand and said, excuse me sir, are you saved? If you die tonight, are you going to heaven? I was astounded by these words. No one had ever asked me that. I thanked him, and all the way home to London, this puzzled me. I called a friend and thanked God he was a Christian, he was a believer, and that friend led me to Christ. Now this man is giving his testimony, how he came to know the Lord. Now this is about the Baptist pastor. This Baptist pastor flew to Australia to a place called Adelaide, and in the middle of a three-day series of meeting at a Baptist church, that's when it happened. A woman came up to him for some counseling. He wanted to establish as to where she stood with Christ, so the pastor is not talking to this woman that came up wanting to talk to him. To his question, she responded, I used to live in Sydney, and just a couple of months back, I was visiting some friends in Sydney doing some last minute shopping down George Street. A strange little white-haired man stepped out of a shop doorway and offered me a tract and said, excuse me madam, are you saved? If you die tonight, are you going to heaven? I was disturbed by those words. When I got home, I knew this Baptist church was on the next block from me. I sought out the pastor and he led me to Christ. So I'm telling you that I'm a born-again Christian. The story continues. The London pastor, now going back to the same old pastor that heard that story of that man who raised his hand, the London pastor was now very puzzled. Twice in two weeks, he heard the same testimony. He then flew to preach in Mount Pleasant Church in Perth. That's in Australia too. When his teaching series was over, the senior elder of the church took him out for a meal and he asked this elder how he got saved. He said, oh, I grew up in this church from the age 15. I never made commitment to Jesus. Just hopped on the bandwagon like everyone else. Because of my business ability, I grew up in my business and had great influence. I was on a business trip to Sydney just three years ago and obnoxious, spiteful little man stepped out of a doorway, offered me a religious pamphlet. Cheap junk. He asked me this question. Excuse me, sir, are you saved? If you die tonight, are you going to heaven? I tried to tell him I was a Baptist elder and he wouldn't listen. I was seething with anger all the way home from Sydney to Perth. I told the pastor thinking that he would sympathize with me, but the pastor said he had been disturbed for years knowing that I didn't have a relationship with Jesus and he was right. My pastor then led me to the Lord Jesus Christ three years ago. The London pastor flew home and soon he was speaking at the Keswick Convention in the Lake District and he threw some of these testimonies about these people getting these tracts, these tracts. They're in Australia, I'm coming to Christ. Now this is in England, the Keswick, you know, the place and I was there also a few years ago. And after him saying this, four elderly pastors came up and explained that they too had been saved between 25 and 30 years earlier through the same little man on George Street who offered them this gospel tract and asked them same old question. Are you getting the story? You understand what's going on? Yes? All right. The following week, now the story continues about the Baptist pastor, the following week this Baptist pastor flew to a similar Keswick Convention in the Caribbean to the missionaries. He shared the same testimonies at the close of his teaching. Three missionaries came forward and said they too had been saved 15-25 years ago from the little man's tract and his testimony. The Baptist pastor next went to Atlanta, Georgia in the United States to speak at an American Naval Chaplains Convention. Here for three days he spoke to over 1,000 chaplains. Afterward, the chaplain general, the guy who is head of the whole thing, took him out for a meal. He asked the chaplain how he became a Christian. It was miraculous, he said. I was on a naval battleship and lived a reprobate life. We were doing exercise in the South Pacific and we docked at Sydney Harbor for supply. Then he explained about the drunkenness and all these different things and talked about the same old thing. As he was going through the street, a little man just stepped out and said, sailor, are you saved? If you die tonight, are you going to heaven? The fear of God hit me immediately, he said. I was shocked, sober, ran back to the ship and sought out the Christian chaplain. He led me to Christ. I soon began to prepare for the ministry under his guidance. I am now in charge of 1,000 chaplains, pastors who are bent on soul winning. Story continues. Six months later, that London pastor flew to a conference for 5,000 Indian missionaries in the remote part of northeast India. At the end, the head missionary took this Baptist pastor to his humble little home for a simple meal. He asked how he as a Hindu came to Christ. The Indian missionary replied, I grew up in a very privileged position. I worked for the Indian diplomatic mission and I traveled world over. I am so glad for the forgiveness of Christ and the blood washing my sins away. I would be very embarrassed if people found out the kind of life I lived. One period of diplomatic service took me to Sydney. I was doing some last-minute shopping, laden with toys and clothing for my children when a little white-haired little man stepped out in front of me and offered me a gospel tract and said, excuse me, sir, are you saved? If you die tonight, are you going to heaven? I thanked him very much, but this disturbed me greatly. I got back to my town, sought out a Hindu priest, but he couldn't help me, but he advised me that to satisfy my curious mind, I should go and talk to the missionary in the mission home at the end of the road. That was good advice because that day the missionary led me to the Lord Jesus Christ. I quit Hinduism immediately and began to prepare for the ministry. I left the diplomatic service and here I am today serving my Lord. Eight months later, our London pastor was preaching in Sydney again. He's back in Sydney, Australia. He asked the local Baptist minister if he knew of a little elderly white-haired man who handed out gospel tracts on George Street. He replied, oh yeah, I do. His name is Mr. Gunner, although I don't think he does it anymore because he's so frail and so old. Now listen carefully. Two nights later, they went to meet him in his little apartment. They knocked on the door and this little frail old man greeted them. He sat them down and made them tea. He was so frail that he was slurping the tea into the saucer as his hands shook. The London preacher sat there and told him all these accounts from the previous years of the so many people that he met that had come to Christ through the gospel tracts that he gave out on George Street. The little man sat with tears running down his cheeks. He told them his story. You see, I was on an Australian warship. I was living a reprobate life. In crisis, I really hit the wall. One of my colleagues, my friends, whom I gave literally hell, was there to help me. He led me to Jesus Christ and Jesus changed my life that very night. I was so grateful to God, I promised that I would share Jesus in simple witness with at least 10 people a day as God gave me strength, and I did that. Sometimes I was ill and I couldn't do it, but I made up for those days. I missed it by doing more on other days. I wasn't paranoid about it. I have done this for 40 years. In my retirement years, the best place was on George Street where I saw hundreds of people a day. I got lots of rejections, but a lot of people heard what I said and got my gospel tract. Finally, he said, you know what? I have never, never heard of one person come to Jesus Christ until this day. That simple little Baptist man witnessed to some 147,000 people in his lifetime. Two weeks after the visit of the London pastor, Mr. Gunnar died. I doubt his face ever would have appeared on the cover of any Christian magazine. I doubt there ever would have been a photograph and a writer writing about him in any article. No one except a little group of Baptists in Sydney knew about Mr. Gunnar, but I tell you, his name was famous in heaven. Heaven knew him, and you can imagine the welcome and the red carpet and the fanfare they received when he went home to glory. I really do not believe or like using manipulation or guilt trip to make people do anything. I don't. Personally, I refuse to listen to people or do anything when I think they are forcing me to do anything, because Christ never did, and I don't like that either. You know, my brothers and sisters, it is good for you to read the book of Ecclesiastics. Last night, I sat up and read the whole Ecclesiastics. I encourage you sometime, for your sake, the decisions you make for your life and how you spend your time and what your aspirations are, to read the book of Ecclesiastics. You know what that's all about? Everything under the sun is vanity of vanities. The degrees, the money, the honor, all the stupid stuff that you and I think are important is chasing the wind. It has no meaning. The only thing that matters is how you long and strive and do everything in your power to become more like Christ and to obey him in everything, and if that is the case, I cannot imagine you can go on the street out of these gates without thinking, what about this auto man? What about this driver? What about this beggar? What about the shopkeeper? What about this man who just gave me the parotta or a cup of tea? What about this man who is giving me the ticket in the bus? What about the passenger sitting next to me in the train? You cannot help but start thinking, I am assigned by the Lord to tell him about Jesus and give him the opportunity to reject or see Christ. I cannot make him to follow Christ, but I am here in the place of Christ. I don't want you to raise your hand or anything like that, because I don't want to break down and weep before you out of pain, but when was the last time you left this campus and you had 10 gospel tracts in your pocket saying that, before I come back to the campus, I want to give 10 gospel tracts to 10 people that they will, for the first time or second time or fifth time, they will read about my Jesus one more time or they hear about him? When was the last time you said, I wish I could go and get my ice cream or a glass of milk, but I don't have the tracts, so I'm going to give my money to buy tracts because I need to distribute it. I need to do this. How many times you travel by train from your home to here, from here to your home or wherever? How many people have you, in the last 12 months, that you can say, I talked to them about Jesus? I did something, even though I couldn't do much, but I gave at least 10 gospel tracts. Think about it. If this is making you uncomfortable, I pray and hope you will not take this, anything other than Jesus standing beside you and saying to you, I died for you, I died for the whole world and you are my only hope to tell someone I died for them. Would you do it for me? Not for any other reason. Can you imagine if 500 students made a pledge that they will distribute 10 gospel tracts a day? Can you imagine there will be 5,000 gospel tracts and booklets distributed in a day? We will have more than 1.5 million, 15 lakhs people receive the news about Jesus in one month. Maybe tonight the prayer ought to be for you. One of my prayers often, because even in the work that I'm involved with, missions work and preaching and baptizing and ordaining people and all these things, I get so busy with my responsibilities, I forget the man sitting next to me in the airplane did not know Jesus. The man at the tollway giving me the ticket while the driver is taking it, I'm sitting in the back of the car, maybe that man did not know Jesus, I must give him a gospel tract, I forget that. I ask you, what on earth are you doing here? Why are you studying? What is this all about? It's all about the cross, the blood and the redemption. If your studying and my reading and studying is not making us to have tears and broken heart for the lost world, what ever happened to us? So, here's a conclusion. Often I pray this prayer and I still do, Lord, baptize me with the passion for the lost world and Lord, break my heart with the things that break your heart and I plead with you as a brother, an older brother to you, please stop, stop, stop looking at someone else and please you make a decision that from tomorrow on you will never leave this campus or anywhere you go without a few gospel tracts in your hand and as God give you the grace, would you make a decision before him that from this day forward, every single day you will give out certain number of gospel tracts to people. Remember Mr. Gunner, he never met one individual that said, I became a missionary, a believer through your gospel tracts, he never. Two weeks before he would die, the Lord gave him the privilege to hear the stories from a Baptist pastor of all that God did through his simple obedience. He was not a preacher, he didn't have BTH, he didn't have theological degrees, a simple individual who said, Lord Jesus, you saved me from such sin, I want to be faithful to tell at least 10 people a day about you. What about all the people come to our campus to work in the garden, laborers, lorry drivers, people bringing stuff, do you see them? You think about them? I pray that we will no more be superficial, phony, plastic, self-centered individuals. If you are one, tonight is the time for you to pray for yourself and let's pray for all of us that Lord make us people who are real like you. This year happened to be the year of evangelism reaching the lost for our fellowship and our movement and what a beautiful thing it will be if when 2007 ends, our seminary leaders and the students will be able to say by the grace of God we gave out so many millions of gospel tracts that we decided we are going to take off a whole day, we are not going to classroom anymore, we are going to study with this whole day, we are going to go, you know, buses and trains to all the four winds carrying book bags and tracts and we'll spend all day long everywhere we go, we'll get in a bus with 50 people with one intention, we'll buy a 10 rupee ticket or 5 rupee ticket so we just can have the opportunity to be in the bus to give our gospel tract to everybody else, then we get down, then catch another bus going that way. What a beautiful testimony it will be for me to hear 2007 the seminary was canceled half a dozen times just for the sake of going on the streets and witnessing and evangelizing, just taking a whole day to find the street people, the beggars, the lepers, witnessing to them, sitting with them and sharing the gospel. How I wish that would be the testimony of our seminary and I pray that will be so. Would you stand with me for prayer? Lord Jesus, I come before you as Nehemiah did, as Daniel did, and honestly I ask for forgiveness. I join with my brothers and sisters and repent and we truly repent and ask you God that you'll forgive us for all the privilege you gave us, the freedom, the liberty, taking care of all our needs, the books we read and all the stuff we learn, yet Lord our hearts are so often cold, our eyes are dry, how little time we spend before you on the behalf of those that do not know you, how little do we fast for people that are going to hell. Lord, forgive us and change us. I pray God that you will send a true revival of godliness and authenticity and brokenness to our campus. Lord, I pray especially for those young people that are preparing to leave the campus soon after graduation. Oh Lord God, I pray that even these remaining weeks of their life here on the campus, Lord Jesus, help them to see you clearly and know your heartbeat for the lost ones. Lord, and tonight as we go into this time of prayer, dear Lord, I pray that you will touch our hearts and move upon us tonight. In Jesus' precious name, Amen.