Lessons to Missionaries to Resistant Peoples Part 3: There is a time to quit

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It is a natural thought, though not necessarily supernatural, to want to quit on after much sowing with no visible, immediate fruit. That urge in us to quit, however, is also resisted subconsciously by our training (think of Winston Churchhill’s “Never never never never quit.”) I for one was taught by my father to not quit.

So, how do we know what to do? This is something I have spent a lot of time dealing with over the last five years.

Should we follow our natural instinct to quit and just follow the path of least resistance?

  1. If that were the solution we should all go to the Philippines or some other third world Catholic country where we already agree on the Bible and 90% of it’s content. That wouldn’t be faithful to the command of the Great Commission “into all the world”.
  2. Another result of that would be that William Carey, Adoniram Judson, Henry Martyn, Samuel Zwimmer and others would have never went to Arabia, India, Burma, etc where the peoples were not receptive to the Gospel for years. There are now millions of believers in India and Burma after many years of fruitless sowing 150 years ago.
  3. Thirdly, if we did that, we would spend our lives following the apparent harvest and not the Lord. I know a missionary who left Iceland to go to Central African country because he heard of the big numbers he could gather there. When he got there he found that it came with it’s own challenges. First, it was blazing hot. Second, the numbers were in church (it’s not hard to get Africans to come to a church pastored by a foreigner, at least for a service or tw0 to see if he is going to get some help) but real conversion and life change of the people was just a grueling and difficult there as in Iceland. He returned to Iceland after a couple years letting his churches know that he had missed the will of God.

Ok. So maybe we should stick with it till death do us part? Here are two biblical reasons I have found when it is time to knock the dust off of our feet and move on:

  1. When you have been forced out of a city/country unable to return. Acts 13:50-51
  2. When everyone has heard (and understood) the Gospel in a given town or region and rejected it. Mark 6:11, Luke 9:5.

When one of these two things has happened then IT IS TIME TO QUIT. Until that time, IT IS TIME TO PREACH. Never, never, never, stay and be quite. That is something you’ll never find in the pattern of the apostles of the early church.

 

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North Africa and the Gospel at a Glance

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Using the most generous of numbers for Christians, here are some numbers for you to pray about:

Morocco

1:8,000

# of Christians per population

(using 4,000 Christians which is 1,000 more than I’ve ever heard and 32 million population)

 

1:800,000

# of Churches per population

(using 40 churches which is, again more than I’ve ever heard for 32 million people)

 

It is hard to put in a statistic but the desperateness of the situation is exasperated when you understand that the great majority of professing Christians are afraid to gather regularly with other believers or tell their family and friends about their faith. Also, the churches mentioned are house churches most that run less than 10 people and most that meet only occasionally.

 

Libya

There are reports that there may be less than 20 Christians and only one or two secret congregations.

Persecution is heavy. Believers can be killed for their faith. There are no publicly outspoken Christians in Libya that we know of.

 

Tunisia

1:23,000

# of Christians per population

Persecution is similar to Morocco. None in prison and none have been killed for their faith that we know of.

 

Algeria

1:680

# of Christians per population

The numbers in Algeria look much better because there is a great revival going on among a tribe of berbers in the mountains of the western side. Some reports have said there are 50,000 berber believers. In the capital and in the east the situation among Arabs and other Berber tribes is still as desperate as the rest of the region.

Persecution is mounting as the number of Christians grow. There are at least three pastors in prison after a new anti-proselitizing law came out three years ago. Churches in the villages where many have come to Christ have been burned and people beaten.

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Justification is at best an argument of logic…without Regeneration.

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Chase is an intern serving here with us and doing a great job. He is out on the town every day sharing Christ with Muslims with tireless exuberance. I love it. We review his discussions with Muslims about Christ each evening. One of his conversations is especially instructional for all of us who care about the lost understanding the Christian life. Here’s how the conversation went (putting two hours in just a few lines):

Chase: “Since we can’t work our way to God (human depravity) God put all our sin upon Christ (imputation) and offers us the free and total forgiveness of sin (justification)!

Ahmed: “But if God forgives all of our sin, past, present, and future, then we would live however we want! There would be no breaks on sin. Islam offers a solution. Man fears God and fears hell until the final judgement when God judges all men weighing their works!

Chase: “No! After God forgives sin we are so thankful that we want to obey God out of love and appreciation not fear of hell.”

Ahmed: “That is not how it works! God is merciful but we have to work to earn his mercy. That is why He sent us Mohammed and the Quran to teach us the straight path.” 

It was a stalemate. One, using logic, determined that one lives a moral life out of love and thankfulness. The other, using his own background of logic, argues that one serves God better when he is taking a test to prove himself. Both are right…using logic. How many of us can disagree with the Muslim that the unregenerate man works harder when he knows he is being tested? How many of you have found that your kid works harder the night before he has to cram for a test?

Really forgiveness of sin makes no sense without the twin doctrine of regeneration. What if God forgave man but did no regenerate him? It would be a free-for-all disaster of men who love to sin having a new license to sin! If we don’t preach regeneration in the same breath that we do justification, the Muslim will continue to reject an idea that seems so illogical. In fact, the sinfulness of Europe and America (the biggest producer of porn in the world) prove his point about Christians (since he assumes all the inhabitants of Europe and America are Christian).

The Muslim, like Nicodemus, needs to hear that God only promises not to remember our sin when he gives us a new heart, puts us in his family, and fills us with the Holy Spirit! That new heart now quickened by God has new desires that are not innate in man whether or not he is forgiven. This is a completely new person that does not resemble at all the man of sin of the old nature. That brings us to my favorite verses in the Old Testament: Jer. 31:31-34

31  Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, That I will make a new covenant 

With the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah: 

32  Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers 

In the day that I took them by the hand 

To bring them out of the land of Egypt; 

Which my covenant they brake, 

Although I was an husband unto them, saith the Lord: 

33  But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; 

After those days, saith the Lord, 

I will put my law in their inward parts, And write it in their hearts; 

And will be their God, And they shall be my people. 

34  And they shall teach no more every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, 

Know the Lord: For they shall all know me, 

From the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the Lord: 

For I will forgive their iniquity, And I will remember their sin no more. 

So when you preaching the forgiveness of the cross to the Muslims, don’t forget to mention the new life in the resurection to help your argument make any sense at all. Without both, there is no spiritual understanding because the Holy Spirit is not present. Without both, there is just a self centered desire to have sin forgiven, not a new and perfect relationship with Christ.

The Muslim will not have a logical response to the indwelling Spirit of God in the believer. Islam does not have a contradicting argument for that one. God with us (Immanuel) is fully explained by God in us (I Cor. 6:19).

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