Lecture 12 The Song of God: The Myth of Christian Outreach

[Rebbe]

The Song of God

A Fresh Appraisal of the Christian Doctrine of the Ultimate Destiny of Humankind:
IMCF Lectures on God's Universal Salvation

by

Les Aron Gosling, Messianic Rebbe



Copyright © BRI, 1996
Lecture Format © 2016
All Rights Reserved Worldwide

Originally Produced as a BRI Study Manual




LECTURE 12

THE MYTH OF CHRISTIAN OUTREACH

The prime fundamental objection to the teaching these lectures espouse is that such a universal salvation -- as we interpret it -- would rob incentive and direct energy away from zealous missionary endeavours. Our reply is forthright and to the point: missionary zeal is a MYTH of grotesque proportions.

The Christian Church is not growing. This is a bold statement to make, but it is the truth of the matter. What we are witnessing if churches, denominations -- and especially the sects -- seem to be growing by leaps and bounds in popularity and numbers (as in certain assemblies of the Pentecostal persuasion) is not actual growth, but denominational transfer growth. The world remains as unevangelised as it ever was. Staggering as it may at first seem, the church universal stopped growing in a very significant year: 1967.

This was, of course, the very year the Jews retook Jerusalem!

Again, let us review the basics about the actual Gospel.

WHAT IS THE GOSPEL?

According to the New Testament corpus the Gospel is the good news about the Kingdom of God (Mark 1.14,15).

The Gospel is the Good News or Glad Tidings about God's Cosmic Son, Yeshua the Messiah, who is not only our Saviour and Christ of faith, but also our Lord (Romans 1.3,4; 2 Corinthians 4.3-6).

The Gospel is also about the historical Jew Yeshua, his death on the bloodied tree of Golgoleth for our sins, and his resurrection the third day (1 Corinthians 15.1-5).

And it is the Great News about a unique kind of community. This new kind of community is one of radical discipleship. It is formed of the people of the living God empowered by the very Holy Spirit (the Ruach HaKodesh), the Sovereign Triune Lord, to demonstrate the life of faith, not prevailing by the wisdom of this present world, but according to the unimpeachable standards of the Cosmic Christ's New Age (Ephesians 3.7).

Indeed, the Gospel committed to the students of Christ, is the Good News of God's immeasurable Grace (Acts 20.24).

After the resurrection, and just before the Lord leapt into the sky disappearing into the clouds above Mt Olivet, Yeshua commissioned his Messianic Community to perform a mighty task. They were to go into all the world, preaching the Gospel (Matthew 28.18-20; cf Acts 1.8).

This work of world evangelism, this witnessing of Yeshua the Messiah to the world, was to be the primary aim of the original Messianic Community. The Anglican Church has never been amiss in its understanding of the intent of Christ's commission to his universal Church. In its report on the evangelistic work of the Church in 1918, the Archbishop's Committee declared, "To evangelise is so to present Christ Jesus in the power of the Holy Spirit, that men shall come to put their trust in God through him, to accept him as their Saviour, and serve him as their King in the fellowship of his Church."

EVANGELISM -- A LOST CAUSE?

While we admit that there has been a flourish of activity amidst English-speaking Anglo-Saxon Christians toward the "lost," especially since the great 19th century missionary-awakening, modern believers should be cautioned in their excitement about this lest they labour under the very false delusion that the Church is actually making a marked impression in the market for souls. After all, Our Lord Yeshua gave us the Great Commission 2000 years ago and hardly any headway at all has been made in real terms. The world is just as lost, just as perishing, just as alienated from heavenly things today as it ever was. In the time it takes to read Romans 10.8-16 at an even speed 55 people will have entered eternity without ever having heard of that "One Name under heaven given among men by which we can be saved." Within the hour they will have been joined by 3333 others. In less than 24 hours that figure will have soared, depending on the incidence of natural disasters (and other "acts of God") to somewhere between 80 and 120,000 men, women and little children, hardly a pleasant thought to contemplate too deeply considering that we are assured that a judgment of everlasting hell-fire automatically awaits them.

If we are entirely honest with ourselves the Church in Australia as well as in other technocratic societies is suffering from a disease of spiritual paralysis and static inertia. Of course, many of us are economical with the truth. This can be seen clearly enough by a simple perusal of any Christian bookstore -- a staggering number of current books on techniques of evangelism in the growing Christian book market major on the worldwide accomplishment of missions and specialise on the manipulation of statistics every-which-way.

The world cries out for bread, and we have given them stones.

The world cries out for bread, and we over-evangelise America.

The world cries out for bread, and we erect crystal cathedrals and bloat our lives with saturated prayer meetings so that we can feel adequately spiritually nourished.

We ignore the hapless cries for bread because the universal church has lost the vision of the Great Commission.

While the world cries out for bread one of the major international missionary radio organisations on the planet with the enormous potential of saturating the Earth many times over with the Good News of God's Grace, spends widow's mites, not on essential services like new or updated transmitters in strategic locations around the world, but on more American personnel, on plusher offices, and on covert maneuvers aimed at overthrowing an "obstinate" and "uncooperative" dedicated Australian Executive Director. Somehow, as field workers of Christ, we cannot help but feel, in some respects, as "lost" as those we are trying to "save."

Particularly is this the case when we find ourselves surrounded by a faithful who, like the proverbial ostrich, content themselves to living much of their lives with heads buried safely in sweet ignorance and religious fantasy beneath the sands of the stark and oftentimes gruesome reality of the world in which they find themselves.

Certainly we shall all die. Unfortunately, most of us have never learned to live.

THE MOST IMPORTANT QUESTION I EVER ASKED CHURCHES IN PAST SERMONS

When I was active in ministerial work raising money for missions (and I was, I might add, a Universalist which should put the lie to the common belief that the doctrine of a universal salvation through Christ's saving Grace is a doctrine which stifles evangelism) it was my privilege to visit many churches of the Protestant faith, from Anglican to Brethren Assemblies, communicating to them what the Lord was accomplishing through human instrumentality in reaching the world with the Gospel through the unique means of radio. The organisation which I represented had well over thirty-three powerful transmitters capable of reaching into areas where missionaries were forbidden entry.

Invariably, in my sermons given in churches, the ultimate question would be put by the faithful thinking few: What is the most important thing, the most vital and urgent need existing, for which the church should be praying?

IT IS THIS: that the Sovereign Lord would pour out a Spirit of repentance upon a carnal universal church.

We are told in Proverbs 29.18, "Where there is no vision the people perish." Another translation says, "Where there is ignorance of God's Word the people will have no direction." The Bible is saying therefore, that ignorance of God's Word leads to a lack of vision. I have spoken in churches where some believers thought Daniel was an apostle of Christ and that the prophet Micah was the faithful lieutenant of Moses during the wilderness wanderings. I have also spoken at denominational nursing homes and retirement villages and found that some of the very elderly are the ones with a firm and formidable grasp of Scripture. At least they can still quote entire passages of the sacred text off by heart!

But God thunders through the prophet Hosea, "My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge." God lays the responsibility for a proper teaching ministry right where it belongs (Hosea 4.6). But the leadership of the church for 1600 years has rejected outright the Jewish thoughtforms. Thousands of differing denominations are a current witness to the religious confusion that exists. This lack of adequate knowledge of the first-century Jewish thoughtforms and Jewish culture into which the Word became flesh is having a crippling effect the results of which may already be irreversible.

I well recall one incident (from many I could describe) when I was scheduled to speak on missions when a mere few minutes before I took the pulpit the "minister" leaned across to me and suggested that if I was to mention the Second Coming of Christ that I should refrain from so doing. While I cannot say that he denied outright the resurrection of Christ (although he never made his belief clear on the subject) it was made very evident that he did not condone any acknowledgement of the doctrine of the coming eschatological Advent of the Messiah. He confessed that a majority of his congregation shared his views, and he wanted to keep them. With a cheesy grin he returned to his hymnal to sing the praises of the One who gave his life's blood for the sins of the world. This is why the Hebrew Lord cried aloud to Israel through his servant Hosea, "Because you have rejected knowledge I will also reject you, that you shall be no priest to me!"

Today there are some theologians and concerned pastors who recognise that we have a church that is largely ignorant of the Scriptures. We have lost our sense of direction as well as our purpose. We are no longer being fed a rich balanced diet of biblical knowledge, we are no longer being taught a healthy fear of God, our emphasis is on carnal fleshly "signs and wonders," and we certainly no longer tremble before his Word, the Word of the El Shaddai. In fact we no longer even feel his Word is relevant to us today.

LOSS OF SPIRITUAL VISION

Our loss of vision is seen in the shoddy numbers who grace the mission fields.

Many have said that as a church we have lost the vision of the world of humanity as the object of God's saving mission. We claim it is the church.

But not all have understood that the solution to correct this situation is to pray for a Spirit of repentance.

Many have said that as a church we have lost the vision of Jesus Christ (Yeshua the Messiah) as the centre of God's redemptive action and we have replaced him unceremoniously with a cheap counterfeit made in an American image in modern western cultural dress.

Not all have understood that the solution is to pray for a Spirit of repentance.

Many have said that as a church we have lost the vision of the Holy Spirit as the Executor of God's saving mission. We rely, instead, on TV programs caressed with the silken touch of smooth-tongued glamour.

Not all have understood that the solution is to pray for a Spirit of repentance.

Many have said that as a church we have lost the vision of what exactly constitutes our role in the church as the agent of God's mission and as channels of his Grace to the lost and the unsaved.

Not all have understood that the solution is to pray for a Spirit of repentance.

I well remember a story told by a missionary some years ago. He told of a day when a Luo tribesman and his wife came running to his hut very excitedly to show the missionary something they considered quite remarkable. Together they walked to a small clearing in the jungle. There just ahead of them sat a semi-circle of baboons. They had squatted about in a semi-circle looking very much like a council of natives engaged in decision making. In the midst of the semi-circle was a pile of sticks. They had arranged them as we would do for a fire, but the fire was noted for its absence. Obviously, these baboons had previously seen the tribesmen of the village sitting around a fire during their discussion groups. Many times they had silently watched men light their fires, and now at last they had prepared their own. They had everything, but no fire!

MANY CHRISTIANS SHALLOWLY ACCEPT CHRIST AS A DOCTRINE

There are churches and denominations around today that call themselves Christian, and that look from the outward appearance to be Christian. But they lack the vision, and they certainly lack the fire of God. It is biblical ignorance that is a root cause of the lack of power in witnessing, in our lack of burning fire within. With an appalling lack of familiarity with the contents of the Bible in our churches today it is a small wonder people see little, if any, relevance in that Word to the pressing problems of today's increasingly complex civilisation. We who carry the Name of Christ, no longer know Christ. Many who profess Christ have never known Christ. They most certainly have never met Yeshua haMashiach -- they have never experienced a "Damascus Road" like Paul the apostle. The Jews may have rejected "Jesus" -- but as a universal church Christians have rejected Christ.

"The Gospel," wrote Paul in Romans, "is the power of God unto salvation." We Christians are a powerful force in the world. We are 1.4 billion strong. By the year 2000 we shall be 2.1 billion. We occupy 223 nations and consist of 8990 ethnic groups. Each year we produce close to 23,000 new books for the religious market and publish close to the same number of Christian periodicals, 41% being in English. But we are a sorry lot, we Christians. We have lost sight of the awesome and terrible God, high and lifted up in his heavenly Temple who was seen by the Jewish prophet Isaiah, a man who in immediate rapture and dread cried aloud that he was of unclean lips. Our lips too are unclean yet few comprehend why.

We have rejected the Hebrew LORD. We have alienated the Jewish Nazarene King Yeshua. We have edited God. We have reduced his sovereignty. We have dwarfed him into a mere doctrine of the Christian Faith. We have fitted him snugly and smugly into our creeds. We have pummeled and crammed him into our neat and tidy theologies. And we no longer fervently pray. We are no longer prayer warriors of the Lord. We Christians could literally shake Satan's realm to its proverbial knees if we really believed in the power of the Gospel and if we urgently prayed for a Spirit of repentance to be poured out upon the church. Too many of us have prayed for the miraculous signs and gifts of the Holy Spirit with little cognisance that there can be no legitimate Pentecost unless or until we have first experientially understood our Calvary.

There are dedicated workers on the mission field, but they are invariably Christians who are working among people who have already heard the Good News of salvation through Christ. Over 2.7 billion people have never heard the Name of Yeshua (let alone "Jesus"), yet there are only about 7,000 missionaries out on the field working directly among these unsaved masses. In other words, one missionary for every 450,000 of these people. In America alone, according to the late Keith Green, there were at the time of his writing 435,000 Avon sales people (with 1.3 million worldwide) and over 750,000 Amway products distributors (with a million worldwide). These two companies combined had 14 times more representatives in the United States alone than the Church of Christ has in the whole world. While 9% of the earth's population speaks English, 94% of all ordained preachers in the world minister to the 9% who speak English.

This is not all.

Remember the Sunday School chant of years long gone,

"Hear the pennies dropping,
Listen as they fall,
Every one for Jesus,
He shall have them all."

Well, he doesn't get them!

For, 96% of all world Christian finances are spent in the United States on 6% of the world's population, while only 4% of all Christian money is spent to take the Gospel to the other 94% of the earth's population. One million full time Christian workers have outreach within the borders of the continental United States but fully one half of the earth's population, Moslem, Hindu and Chinese have a mere 2417 full time Christian workers. Until the fall of the Berlin Wall and the disintegration of the Soviet Union 47% of the world's population lived in politically closed countries, where literature was often confiscated at the borders. This still applies in Red China and throughout the Muslim world. Indeed, one fifth of the world is Muslim and stands opposed to any form of Christian witness or missionary presence among their faithful. International missionary radio organisations boast of up to 110 different languages and dialects on their broadcasts and in their literature. But even this fails to impress when we realise that the Christian community expresses itself in over 7010 distinct languages and dialects.

Can we grasp how effective the Church could be as servants of the living Messiah, if we were to experience collectively a Spirit of real repentance, and communicate the Gospel out of a rich awareness of fellow-feeling to a lost and separated brethren using the gift of tongues which we already possess?

The Anglican Prayer Book states categorically that "Christ has died, Christ has risen, Christ is coming again."

Christ is our vision, he is our fire, he is our Damascus Road.

Or at least he ought to be.

Back in 1934, on December 8th to be exact, Chinese bandits loyal to the dogma of Mao murdered two Presbyterian missionaries, John and Betty Stam, and then burned their home to the ground. Among the charred remains, some days later, friends discovered the flyleaf of Mrs Stam's treasured Bible. On it were written these words of dedication,

"Lord, I give up my purpose and my plans, all my desires, hopes, and ambitions, and accept thy will for my life. I give myself, my life, my all utterly to thee to be thine forever. I hand over to thy keeping all my friendship, my love. All the people whom I love are to take second place in my heart. Fill me and seal me with thy Holy Spirit. Work out thy whole life in my life at any cost now and forever. For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain."

Everything we have, and everything we are. Total commitment without any reservation. This is the price of power, the fire of God in the heart. Born of a Spirit of repentance. The Holy Spirit will refuse to function, refuse to possess, a divided Temple. We cannot serve both God and self indulgence, even if it is a calendar full of prayer meetings. If God be God, serve him. If Ba'al be Lord, then serve him.

And let us all pray that the Sovereign Hebrew Lord will continue to grant that we who have our eyes open will desire to be active according to the great vision that is set before us. And let us all make heartfelt request to that same Sovereign Hebrew Lord that a much needed Spirit of repentance will fall upon a church that thinks its eyes are open.


QUESTIONS & ANALYSIS OF LECTURE ELEVEN

A reminder that the statistics recorded in this lecture were extracted from sermons I preached in the late 1980s and incorporated into the original Song of God manual in 1996.

THIS CONCLUDES LECTURE TWELVE