Recently I was deeply convicted and challenged by words that forcefully shook me. The words should shake us all: ‘If sinners must be damned I pray that they have to swim through the rivers of our tears to get there. So long as sins are sending souls to hell, our hearts should send tears to our eyes. It is far easier to complain that souls are going to hell than it is to have compassion on these very souls that are going there’. These words convey a powerful picture of a missionary who wept for souls and had deep compassion for the lost. Whether we are ministers in the pulpit or Christians in the pew, this kind of spirit is one we must all cultivate and wholeheartedly embrace; tears for the lost and a burden for souls. Our prayers must also be accompanied by our witnessing and evangelising. ‘A true witness delivereth souls’. True religion consists chiefly in our love to God and our love to man.

Paul’s Passion⤒🔗

The Bible assures us that this was what was uppermost in Paul’s heart and prayers in the work to which God had called him. On his missionary journeys we read that he served the Lord ‘with all humility of mind, and with many tears’. ‘I made myself’, he said, ‘servant unto all that I might gain the more’. In other words he became all that he could possibly become in this world to win souls for Christ. ‘I am made all things to all men, that I might by all means save some’.

It is a desperately sad statistic that Christian men and women in 2010 seem to have forgotten who saved them, why they were saved and what they were saved from. ‘Remember ye were once a bondsman in Egypt but the Lord redeemed thee’. Paul never forgot that he was a saved man – saved by the grace and mercy of God – saved by the love and salvation of the Lord Jesus Christ. And his greatest ambition in life was to win souls for His Master. ‘He that winneth souls is wise’. Christian friend, what is your greatest ambition?

We live in days when, sadly, the last thing many professing Christians want to do is win souls. They do not want to exchange their comfortable lifestyle, cosy surroundings or worldly security for anything that interferes with their ‘Christianity’. The world’s song seems to be the Christian’s song as well. ‘Let us eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we die’. The church is at ease in Zion – asleep in the wilderness and appearing to play out its easy part in religion, like actors on a stage. She no longer has an appetite for the salvation of souls or a vision for the cause of Christ, with the dire consequences that ‘without a vision the people perish’. You and I might rightly ask, What’s gone wrong? Who’s gone wrong? How have things gone wrong? Surely the words of Bonar ought to arrest, alarm and arouse us: ‘I looked’, he said, ‘for the church and I found it in the world; and I looked for the world and I found it in the church.’

My Hero←⤒🔗

A man with a great missionary vision once said that ‘the spirit of Christ is the spirit of missions, and the nearer we get to Him the more intensely missionary minded we become’. I am often carried away by the spirit of one man who was intensely missionary minded. The reason he was intensely missionary minded was because he was obsessed with this very spirit of Christ. In his life, in his heart and in his soul he lived for Christ and he worked for Christ. He had a heart-wrenching missionary spirit for the lost and he never lost it. To stir our hearts so that we might recapture our vision as a Church for the greatest and most noble cause on earth I want to reflect on the life of one man. We all have our heroes: Martin Luther, Thomas Chalmers, James Begg, John Knox, John Calvin. One of my heroes is David Brainerd. I love the man for who he was and what he did. I love the sacrificial spirit he had to win the unreached, the unchurched and the unsaved of his day. This godly and zealous man of God forsook all of life’s comforts to take the Gospel to the pagan Indians of North America. ‘Here am I’, he said, ‘send me; send me to the ends of the earth; send me to the rough, the savage pagans of the wilderness; send me from all that is called comfort on earth; send me even to death itself, if it be but Thy service, and to promote Thy Kingdom’.

This very spirit was, sadly, very different to the spirit of a minister I recently met in my work as an evangelist in Edinburgh. As I pressed him to give an explanation of what it means to be ‘born again’, he retorted, ‘That’s simple. It means moral uprightness!’

It is said of David Brainerd that he did his greatest work by praying and weeping in secret. He spent many days in the depths of the forests all alone, unable to speak the language of the pagan and savage Indians. He spent whole days in prayer, praying simply that the power of the Holy Spirit might come upon him so greatly that the Indians would not be able to refuse the Gospel message. On hearing, on one occasion, that the Indians were planning to hold an idolatrous feast and dance, he spent a day and night in prayer. He writes: ‘This morning about nine I withdrew to the woods for prayer. I wrestled for an ingathering of souls. I was in such anguish that when I arose from my knees I felt extremely weak and overcome. Sweat ran down my face and body ... I cared not how or where I lived, or what hardships I went through, so that I could but gain souls for Christ’. These were not empty words. He practised what he preached and he practised what he prayed.

He was frequently in distress for lack of food, was exposed to hunger and cold, was lost in the forests, caught in storms with no shelter available, spent nights in the woods, was constantly in danger from wild beasts and wild savages. He records one incident:

About six at night I lost my way in the wilderness, and wandered over rocks and mountains, through swamps and most dreadful places. I was pinched with cold and distressed with an extreme pain in my head and stomach, so that much blood came from me. But God preserved me, and blessed be His name, such fatigues and hardships as these seem to wean me more from the earth and I trust will make heaven the sweeter.

Many of the Indians would be in tears as they listened to him preach. After speaking for a short time to them about their souls and salvation, tears would flow among them producing many sobs and many groans. They would be in such great distress for their souls that some could neither leave the meeting not stand up on their feet. They would lie on the ground crying out in anguish to God for mercy. One of the Indians who had intended to murder said to his chief, ‘The paleface is a praying man. The Great Spirit is with him ... and he brings a wondrous sweet message’.

We continue to be reminded that significant financial sacrifices would inevitably have to be made if our church is going to survive. Whatever financial and administrative sacrifices are made the biggest and greatest sacrifice must be a spiritual one if we are to bring that same ‘wondrous sweet message’ of salvation to the perishing people of Scotland.

In his love for human souls Brainerd said: ‘I care not where I go, or how I live, or what I endure so that I may save souls. When I sleep I dream of them; when I awake they are first in my thoughts – no amount of scholastic attainment, of able and profound exposition, of brilliant and stirring eloquence can atone for the absence of a deep impassioned sympathetic love for human souls’.

An Example of Need←⤒🔗

As I travel across Scotland I see many things. One word sums up the scenes I often witness, both on the outside of houses and in the lives of those who live there – brokenness! As I see the social, moral and spiritual brokenness of the people I see the brokenness of human souls. Love for human souls is visibly absent. One incident, on the outskirts of Ayr, clearly reflected this. As I gave out tracts in a housing scheme there was brokenness everywhere: broken windows, broken doors, broken glass, broken homes, broken lives, broken hearts. I saw it all.

In one tenement block, as I was walking up the stair, I spoke to a little girl, about 9 or 10 years old. We walked together until I reached her flat. She shouted to her mum, who came to the door. This woman, with a bruised eye and battered face, was visibly shaken. I spoke to her about her soul and offered her a Good News magazine. On refusing, her daughter turned round to her and said, ‘But mamma, it’s good news. No-one comes here with good news. This nice man is bringing us good news, can we not just take it’. This little girl’s words went through my heart as mum surrendered to her pleading. As I continued up the flight of stairs, I heard a loud knock at the same door down below. As it opened again I was numbed by what I heard. As I listened to a ruthless man’s threatening words I now realised why ‘mamma’ had been tense and scared. ‘You owe me £50 which I had hoped to get today. You have 24 hours to find it. If you don’t have it when I call again, I’ll get rid of you. You know that I’m a man of my word. Others have found that out!’

There is only one thing that can restore and heal all that is falling apart around us and in the lives of people. It is the good news of Christ in the glorious gospel message. The gospel of God’s grace can bring restoration and blessing out of brokenness. That news has to be spread north, south, east and west. To that end a mountain of literature was given out throughout the year in different languages. Around 22,500 gospel tracts in English, in addition to many foreign ones, were distributed along with 6,915 booklets and magazines. The bulk of these magazines were the Good News special evangelistic issue, which continues to be an extremely effective witnessing tool. Many copies were picked up, and countless conversations engaged in, at the ‘table ministry’ in Inverness throughout the year.

Friends, we are at ease in Zion and people are going to hell, and we need to waken from our deep slumber and deep sleep. We also need that spirit of brokenness in our hearts, along with the vision and compassion that David Brainerd had to reach out to the perishing around us.