Abram, a senior adult at age 75, heard God’s audible direction to “Leave your country, your people and your father’s household, and go to a land where I will show you” (Genesis 12:1). Moses saw a burning bush and heard audible commands to leave Midian and go to Egypt for God’s purposes (Exodus 3). Jonah at first refused to go, but a submarine ride in a fish’s belly for three days can change anyone’s mind. He went, with reluctance, to take God’s word to Israel’s enemy (Jonah 3:1-3).

These three are a few of many Old Testament examples of God’s call to carry out his mission. Consider Isaiah. After he confessed and received God’s cleansing Isaiah heard God say, “Who will go for us?” Unlike Moses who asked, “Why me?” and unlike Jonah who said, “Not me,” Isaiah said, “Here am I, send me” (Isaiah 6:8). And God did.

In the New Testament Jesus called some fishermen to “fish for men” (Matthew 4:18-22). Tradition tells us that casting nets for people eventually led Thomas to present-day India, John to present-day Greece and Turkey, and Simon to present-day Italy.

The Bible is a missionary book. God is a missionary Father, as he sent his Son and his Spirit. Jesus is a missionary because he left Heaven to incarnate the gospel on earth. The Holy Spirit is a missionary Spirit who, as he did for Paul and Barnabas (Acts 13:1-3), sends out missionaries today.

God wanted me to be a missionary. I knew that by prayer.

I had read about missions. I learned that every hour about 7,200 people die, most without Christ. Hundreds of people groups have practically no gospel exposure. I knew a great need existed. But does need alone constitute a call? Jesus, for instance, restored sight to many blind people but not to every blind person he encountered. He healed many lepers but not every leper in Israel. He did his Father’s will.

As a college student I had heard God’s call, “I want you to be my minister.” As I learned about the great movement of God in South Korea and the need for missionaries there, I prayed, asking God, “Do you want my family and me to go?” To my surprise I sensed his answer was, “Yes.”

I was stunned. Often I had read about God’s work in one place or another. Often I had paused to ask God if he wanted me to take my family there. Never before had I sensed his leadership outside the United States. After all, except for India and China, there are more lost people in the United States than in any other country in the world.

To make sure it was God calling and not just an inner compulsion, I continued to pray. My wife and I asked God to close the doors if he didn’t want us to go and open them if he did. He continued to open the doors.

At the time I ministered to a church in Louisiana. I felt a distinct impression to ask Dr. Bryant Hicks, a former missionary to the Philippines and a professor of missions, to preach our annual revival. During that week Dr. Hicks talked with me about missions. I explained to him that God hadn’t given me a Macedonian call like Paul received. Dr. Hicks reminded me that Paul had already been a missionary for several years and was then in the middle of a missionary journey when God directed his steps through the Macedonian vision.

We serve a big God. To him, moving my family and me from the United States to South Korea was no bigger a deal than moving us from a church in one state to a church in another state.

Debbie and I began planning our move to South Korea. The process included meetings with a candidate consultant, background checks, writing 10-page biographies, taking spiritual inventories, and undergoing psychological tests. At each step we asked God to close the door if he didn’t want us to go. (Okay, I didn’t pray that about the psychological tests!)

After approval, we invested 12 weeks in a Missionary Learning Center where we studied the strategy of missions, the history and customs of our assigned country, and a few Korean words and phrases. Later we spent nearly two years in language school in Seoul, South Korea, during which time I conducted a daily Bible study in the language institute. We also helped a Korean minister start a new church in Seoul. In addition, we made occasional trips to Korean military bases since my work would be evangelizing Korean military personnel.

The first baptism service I participated in was on a major induction center (boot camp) where 686 men were baptized in a Korean bathhouse. A number of local ministers assisted in the service. The men had great joy, not because it was a day off from boot camp, but because they now knew Christ.

Each year thousands of men and women came to Christ through the highly-effective Korean military evangelists with whom I worked. We also began a similar work in the nation’s police academy. Hundreds of men became Christians there as well. Today almost every church in South Korea includes several people who came to know the Lord during their service in the military or police forces.

The same God who led us to Korea led us back to the States to resume ministry here. We came back for a year’s study but felt led to accept the call to serve a church. The Korean fellowship with whom I worked had nearly doubled in size in the four years we lived in South Korea and now assumed the work of police and military evangelism. If we had not gone five years earlier, however, the work may have folded due to lack of funding.

Why did I go? The same reason one of the first missionaries to Korea went. Canadian Malcolm Fenwick journeyed to Korea in the late 1800s in answer to prayer. His father was a wealthy merchant and wanted Malcolm to take the family mercantile store. Malcolm heard a revival speaker tell about the darkness of people in Asia and particularly of Korea (then spelled Corea). The revivalist asked Fenwick if he were willing to go. He answered, “No.”

The evangelist asked Fenwick if he were willing to ask God to be made willing to go. Fenwick again replied, “No.”

The evangelist asked Fenwick one more question: “Are you willing to ask God to be made willing to be willing to ask him to go?” This time Fenwick answered “Yes.”

The rest is history. God made Fenwick willing to ask. Soon he felt led to go. Fenwick began dozens of churches in what is now North Korea. Out of them came many who migrated south half a century later when the Communists took over the area. The descendants of these early Christians began hundreds of churches in South Korea.

Fenwick’s reluctance came, in part, due to his limited education. He didn’t feel qualified to go. Fenwick told the Lord he couldn’t be a silver chalice but if he could use a rusty cup, then he would go. The Lord showed Fenwick that a man dying of thirst doesn’t care if the water pours from a silver chalice or a rusty cup; it is the water he craves. Fenwick faithfully poured the gospel water for decades.

The Bible never records that Jesus told his disciples to pray for lost people. I believe he did so, but it is not recorded in the Bible. Obviously Jesus came to “seek and save the lost,” prayed over the lostness of Jerusalem, taught that the angels of Heaven rejoice over one who comes into the fold, and sent laborers out to witness. Yet his request for prayer centered not on the lost but on the laborers. He said, “Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field” (Matthew 9:38). The words of Jesus indicate a great concern for sending witnesses to the lost. The Lord’s harvest remains partially ungathered due to the lack of laborers.

The disciples Jesus instructed to pray for the harvest were the same disciples who later went into those harvest fields (Luke 10). They “put feet to their prayers.” Are you willing to ask God to be made willing? A lost world awaits a witness. C. H. Spurgeon wrote to his son, “If God made you a missionary, don’t stoop to be a king.” |L