Chapter 19: Surging Ahead

The final reward

When eight Englishmen left for Africa in 1876, they warned their supporters that the death rate amongst missionaries made it statistically inevitable that at least one of them would be dead within six months. All they asked was that others be sent out immediately to replace the dead. Within a year five had died. By the end of the second year only one remained. It is a painful fact that missionary histories are filled with short stories.

Does death mean the death of ministry opportunities? If you spent years learning Cantonese and Jesus returned before you reached the mission field, would all that effort be in vain? Allowed to prowl unchallenged through our cerebral control room, such questions can sabotage a commitment to long-term ministry goals.

We don't know a lot about the next life. Perhaps Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego provide a clue. Faithful unto what seemed certain death, they emerged from Nebuchadnezzar's 'crematorium' with a greater ministry than ever before. (Daniel 3:28-30) I suggest this parallels the experience of all who die, faithful to the end.

My conviction is founded on the belief that, in every sense, we are Christ's followers. (1 John 3:2; Romans 8:29) Our Forerunner received a ministry after death far superior to his earthly one. (Eg, Acts 2:33; 1 Corinthians 15:20, 23-26; Ephesians 1:20-22; 4:8; Philippians 2:8-11; Hebrews 7:24-27; 9:28) If after death we will receive a superior body like his, and a superior holiness like his, will we not also receive a superior ministry?

Several servants faithfully served their master, says Jesus' parable. Given some of their master's wealth, they increased it for him. Suddenly, their lord returned as king. (No prizes for guessing what this symbolises.) he praised their efforts.

Can you imagine being praised by the highest authority, the Source of all wisdom and moral excellence, the King of glory? The very thought makes my mind cartwheel. It's the ultimate. Words of commendation from the Perfect One should keep me in bliss for all eternity. I can conceive no greater honour.

Yet, continues the parable, these dependable custodians received a further reward. And it was not a retirement plan. They had proved they could handle responsibility. Putting them to pasture, even a paradisiacal one, would be a waste.

In this new era, with their lord now ruling the land, they were promoted from controlling money to controlling entire cities. (Luke 19:11-19) Found faithful with a little, they were given much. The king's return had signalled not the end but the commencement of service even more significant than their previous duties.

Not so the one who hid his gift. He lost everything. (Luke 19:20-27)

Another line of thought also suggests that death opens wider opportunities than it closes. Cleansed of its sweat and drudgery, work is sheer joy. It's divine. From Day One God has been at work. (John 5:17; Matthew 10:29; 1 Corinthians 12:6) Can we enter the Master's joy, or became more God-like in the age to come, without being immersed in magnificent assignments?

A teacher asked her class to write about weddings. According to one child, after the celebrations the happy couple go home to eat wedding cake. I suspect we are equally naive about our heavenly honeymoon. Awaiting us in the next life are areas of fulfilment beyond our dreams.

Heaven is not a celestial retirement village, it's ministry headquarters. The risen Lord rules from its throne. (Hebrews 7:25; 9:24) Heaven's angels are 'ministering spirits'. (Hebrews 1:14) Heaven throbs with activity. Isn't this a glimpse at our future?

I confess confusion over the myriad interpretations of the end part of the Bible. It is noteworthy, however, that martyrs - who of all people seem to have had their earthly ministries cut short - will apparently have unique ministries after death. (Revelation 20:4-6) 'They shall be priests [a ministry word] of God and of Christ, and shall reign with him [what a way to serve!] a thousand years'. (Revelation 20:6)

Those who triumph over the tribulation will 'serve him day and night in his temple'. (Revelation 7:15) 'Serve' implies ministry. 'Day and night' suggests a crammed agenda. The 144,000, says another passage, will 'follow the Lamb wherever he goes', (Revelation 14:4 (emphasis mine)) suggesting service that is far from static.

We will all have ministries in the age to come. This will include inconceivable heights of ecstatic worship, probably linked with music ministries. 'His servants shall serve him ... and they shall reign for ever and ever.' (Revelation 22:3,5) Worship is ministry, but surely reigning is also. Revelation implies (Eg, Revelation 2:26-27; 3:22) and Corinthians confirms (Corinthians 6:2-3) that we will have a role in judging the world and even in judging angels. (See also 2 Timothy 2:12; Luke 22:29-30; Daniel 7:22) (Renown Nineteenth Century theologian, Charles Hodge, believes 'judge' is used here in the sense of rulership, (Eg, Ruth 1:1) ie we will rule the angels - an eternal ministry.)

Yielded to God, our life's work is the unfinished symphony of an eternal Creator. Death marks the point where the divinely orchestrated score crescendos through the clouds, bursting into ethereal, endless stains. We will one day rest from the wearying aspects of service, but the fulfilling aspects will escalate. So pity not the missionary candidate who dies before reaching the field. Like the patriarchs acclaimed in Hebrews, she 'died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off.' (Hebrews 11:13) She enters her new life with proven faithfulness - a flying start to a celestial ministry.

David's mind danced with a glorious plan. He would build a temple to honour the God he loved. God turned him down, but study the Lord's reply. First he commended David for his noble desire. (1 Kings 8:18) (Esteemed nineteenth century preacher and Bible scholar, F. B. Meyer, goes as far as concluding from this that our Lord credits to us the goals we would have achieved had we been permitted the opportunity.) Then God promised David a future glory beyond what he had dared hope for. King David was stunned. He had been seeking to bless the One who had lavished blessings upon him and in a stoke God had reversed the scene and was promising David even richer blessings. (2 Samuel chapter 7) God's commendation for the desire and a future beyond what one dared hope - declined ministry offers might not be so bad after all.

Even before he gained the throne David had uncovered a divine principle pertinent to this discussion. With his men, he had set off at a furious pace in pursuit of the Amalekites who had decimated their village and taken their wives and children captive. By the time they reached the ravine, a third were too exhausted to continue. The rest pushed on, overtook the Amalekites, and somehow mustered the strength to defeat them. As the victors returned, the baser ones began murmuring, 'Why should the wimps who stayed behind share the booty? They've been holidaying while we've been spilling our blood. Let's return their families but keep the plunder to ourselves.' The man after God's heart - the one chosen as living proof that God does not look upon outward appearance - rebuked them. It is God, not human strength, that brings victory and those who missed the battle were just as keen as those who fought. It became a permanent ordinance for the people of God that those staying behind with the supplies be rewarded as handsomely as those who enter the battle. (1 Samuel 30:23-25)

It's our passion, not our achievement, that counts with God. So nothing, not even the thought that Christ could return tomorrow, should hinder our quest for ministry. (Luke 12:35-48)

'Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, for you know your labour in the Lord is not in vain.' (1 Corinthians 15:58)

Wedding bells

Jamie Buckingham describes the great love Kathryn Kuhlman had for the sick - a love intensified to almost tangible radiance whenever she pressed an ailing babe to her bosom, or tearfully hugged an alcoholic. The love of God, caught by a heart that could know no lover but the Holy Spirit and rainbowed through an empty womb, became a distinctly feminine love; love of a hue so special that it could only shine from an unfulfilled woman who had brought her pain to Jesus. 'No man could have ever loved like that,' writes Buckingham. 'It took a woman, bereft of the love of a man, her womb barren, to love as she loved.' In her younger days, however, she came within a hair's breadth of losing her ministry by marrying a divorced preacher.

In the South Sea Islands - where beautiful, highly promiscuous, nude women mobbed unmarried men fresh from conservative Britain - tragedy struck. Marriage might have rendered them less vulnerable. On most mission fields, however, the greatest danger fell on married women. Had early missionaries treated New Testament teaching on singleness less as a Pauline eccentricity and more as a manifestation of God's benevolent wisdom, (1 Corinthians 7) an appalling amount of death and suffering would have been averted. In harsh, disease-riddled environments and an era when little was known about birth-control, child-bearing killed vast numbers of female missionaries. And the infant mortality rate was horrific. The dangers were great for all missionaries, but so many married women died that it was not too unusual for male missionaries to marry three times. One buried seven wives. I can only admire the enormous sacrifices godly women made for Christ in foreign lands, but I wonder whether they all died solely for Christ or whether some died because they preferred marriage to the solitude of singleness - a solitude tortuously accentuated by living in a foreign culture.

Today - though it's marriages, not women, that face a frightening mortality rate - high stakes and powerful forces still rule the marriage game.

More than almost any other decision, our resolution of the marriage issue shapes our lives and shrinks or expands our life's work. 'Family problems,' wrote Harold J. Westing, 'are the number one cause on the missionary casualty list.' Remain single, and some ministry opportunities remain closed. Marry a divorcee, and in some circles various ministry possibilities evaporate.

Baptist Billy Graham married a Presbyterian who refused to accept Baptist beliefs. Perhaps it helped in the long term, but in the early days it threatened his ministry.

If the decision is still within your grasp, prayerfully consider the ministry implications before acting as if you were a slave to passion, rather than a slave of Christ. If you are already married, do everything to nurture that union to make it the best possible instrument for the Lord to wield for his glory.

Tragically, the people most potentially worthy of heaven's thunderous applause sometimes forget that self-denial loses its virtue when it inflicts involuntary suffering on loved ones. Married men are particularly prone to the noble sacrifice that turns sour. Like a powerful missile seconds from blast off, our sights can be so mindlessly locked on to a worthy target that we are a danger to anyone near us.

A pastor who was spearheading a significant breakthrough in an ethnic community, confided that his marriage was floundering. Overcome by the need in the community, he would have a guilt attack whenever he spent time with his family. I thought afterwards (that's when most of my gems turn up) I should have reminded him, 'With millions of Christians at God's disposal, our Lord has only to whisper and suddenly your community would be the focus of more evangelistic effort than you could ever equal. No evangelist is indispensable. Your marriage role, however, is far more serious. God cannot give your wife another husband - unless he kills you.'

Tend the marriage garden; nurture its delicate joys, not to withdraw into hedonism, but to avoid the complacency that turns a work of God into a desert.

If anyone ever had cause for complacency it was Adam. His was a marriage made in heaven. Like no other romance it had all the ingredients for the endless bliss reserved for fairy-tales. Yet even Eve, literally made for Adam, led her God-given partner into a spiritual nightmare.

Whether you are single, married or whatever, your marital status is a bed of roses, complete with thorns. Cultivate this garden with tender, holy devotion and, in season, your life will fill with fragrant beauty. Treat it roughly, and you'll bleed.

Pure as the driven smog

It was the most thrilling moment of his life. Isaiah was about to receive his call. Suddenly he was seized by an overwhelming consciousness of his 'unclean lips'. (Isaiah 6:5-9)

Simon Peter fell before Jesus. 'Depart from me, I'm a sinner!' he blurted out. It was then that he received his call. (Luke 5:8-11)

Scripture outlines the qualities God looks for when choosing people for the ministries of elder, bishop, deacon and widow. (1 Timothy 3:1-13; 5:3-14; Titus 1:5-11) Prominence is given to moral attributes. The 'defiled and unbelieving', says Scripture, are unfit for any kind of service. (Titus 1:15-16) It is the person who walks in a manner 'worthy of the Lord' who is 'fruitful in every good work'. (Colossians 1:10) Everyone who cleanses himself 'will be a vessel for honour, sanctified and useful for the Master, prepared for every good work.' (2 Timothy 2:21)

Joseph was so straight God made him a ruler. As humour, that might be weak, but as a truth it is powerful.

If the stench of self is contaminating our efforts, it's no wonder success treats us as if we have B.O. Ministry without morality is ministry without God. It's as useless as a meal without food offered to a starving world.

Anyone unwilling to be rid of sin, has not only no ministry, but no place in the kingdom. (Matthew 7: 21-23; 1 Corinthians 6:9-11; Galatians 5:17-21; Ephesians 5:3-8; Colossians 3:5-9; Revelation 21:8) It is that serious. If you fail to grasp this, you fail.

We've felt the sickening thud as Christian superstars crash. If a man in the pew falls, few hear of it and the damage is contained. Satan gains more by bringing down key people. If we can barely survive on the fringe, dare we approach the vortex of Satan's fury? If our act is sometimes unseemly, dare we move into the spotlight?

Future service may bring us under the relentless eye of the public. Now is the time to shed ourselves of everything not Christlike. Any attempt to delay this purging may embarrass both us and the Lord. The time already past is more than sufficient for acting like the godless. (1 Peter 4:3)

Ministries wrecked on the rocks of greed and lust have sent shock waves around the globe. God has allowed ravaging publicity that the whole world may fear. And we dare not imagine there are only a few sins God hates. Any lack of self-control is likely to cause wait problems.

The following, though an arbitrary example in an ocean of possibilities, should suffice to warn us from the treacherous rocks lurking beneath the inviting waters of moral compromise.

Perhaps you have heard the expression, 'speaking evangelastically'. You know I love a laugh, but I can't smile at God's people telling lies in the name of Christ. This is serious. Dishonesty is sin.

Each time an exaggeration is brought to light, a cloud of scepticism darkens the real work of Christ. New Christians can be so shaken as to endanger their spiritual walk.

Christian exaggerators are under enormous pressure to protect their deception. With their every struggle they sink lower.

We all want to tell of our triumphs rather than our defeats. It is easy to imagine such selective truth-telling magnifies God. Yet even this distortion could have dire results, pushing sensitive believers into despair because their lives do not approach the synthetic success stories they hear.

But who has the courage to be totally honest? To bear the pain of righteous living requires divine strength. Now is the moment to seek it. Why not pray this instant?

After years of intense experience and prayer for young people dominated by powerful addictions, David Wilkerson found the three-pronged weapon for crushing the power of besetting sin. It is so thoroughly Scriptural and so workable that thousands, probably millions, of us have received this revelation independently. Not only does it work, it applies to every area of spiritual life I can think of. Here is my version:

1. Desperately want God's best (in this case, victory over temptation).

2. Be convinced that your resources are woefully inadequate. Recognise that if it were up to you, you would never make it. Cease struggling.

3. Know that because of his incomprehensible, unstoppable, Calvary-proven love, his rock-solid commitment to his word and his white hot yearning to be glorified in you, the Most High will miraculously intervene in your life, giving you total victory. Against this knowledge, Satan is helpless. He can do nothing but bluff. Giving in to temptation is like handing over your valuables to a fierce-looking weakling brandishing a cardboard gun. Christians are never overpowered by temptation, we simply surrender before discovering that temptation's pull is hopelessly out-matched by the power of the invincible God who dwells within us.

Reading about this weapon will deliver you no more than reading a cookbook will feed you. As God's gladiator you must clasp that weapon and do battle in the power of the risen Lord.

Every few years new movements sweep the Christian world, emphasising particular biblical truths. God may well be in many of these but, sadly, it seems that for every truth rediscovered, another slips from our grasp. When I compare myself and other present day Christians with past generations, what shames me most is that few of us ache for righteousness. We might fast for a supernatural experience, but for holiness ...? The power previous generations craved was power over sin - habits, selfishness, anger, covetousness, lust - not power over circumstances. For many of us, the miraculous - power over nature - is the ultimate. Power over our own nature languishes low on our priorities.

'It is not great talents God blesses, wrote Robert Murray McCheyne, so much as great likenesses to Jesus.' McCheyne spoke with authority. He lived just thirty years - only a dozen as a Christian - yet after more than a century this Scottish pastor is still revered. A holy minister, he believed, is an awesome weapon in the hand of God.

God has a goal for your life. It's bigger than ministry. It is a goal so vast that everything that touches you works toward it. (Romans 8:28-29) God's goal is that you become Christ-like. (1 Corinthians 15:49; 2 Corinthians 3:18; 1 John 3:2)




Don't miss the rest!   .    .    .    Chapter continued

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