I was recently gripped by the heart-rousing burning spirit which Charles H Spurgeon had for the gospel and missions. His spirit should awaken us from our sleepiness and slumber. Would to God that it would also waken the Christian church of our nation – from her spiritual lethargy, deadness and worldliness. He said, ‘If there be any one point in which the Christian church ought to keep its fervour at a white heat, it is concerning missions. If there be anything about which we cannot tolerate lukewarmness, it is in the matter of sending the gospel to a dying world’. I don’t need to tell you that the best and greatest story ever heard in this ‘dying world’ is summed up in one short Bible verse: ‘For the Son of Man is come to seek and to save that which was lost’ (Lk. 19:10). The weighty importance of scattering good gospel seed and sharing the good news of the gospel with sinners everywhere, is highlighted by the Lord Jesus Christ Himself in His parting words to the disciples as He commissioned them: ‘Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature’.

The Message of Truth⤒🔗

The Lord would have us know here three indispensable truths. Firstly, how vitally important missionary work is, both at home and abroad, near and far, amongst Jew and Gentile – wherever lost souls are found, not just in Scotland but in ‘all the world.’ Secondly, nothing is to be preached except one message only. It is not our message, the world’s message or religion’s message. What a mess it would be in, if it was religion’s message! I met a minister very recently (he had it all – white clerical collar, shining black suit, fine oratory and scholarly vocabulary) – but there was one thing he didn’t have and one thing he didn’t know: he didn’t have or know the truth. As I tried to reason with him on what the Bible and Jesus said on the ‘same-sex marriage’ issue that divided his church at the General Assembly in 2011, he replied ‘Oh it just depends what your interpretation of truth is!’ Astonishing! No, it is not a church’s message or any denomination’s message: but the one message that is able to turn the world upside down and transform the life of a hell-deserving sinner. That message is the gospel. We are to ‘preach the gospel’. And like the Apostle Paul we ought never to be ‘ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every-one that believeth’. One word of this gospel is able, by the grace of God, to make a sinner ‘wise unto salvation’ through faith in Jesus Christ.

Salvation Saves a Soul←⤒🔗

None of us need that confirmed to us, but when it is, it brings both joy and encouragement. As I spoke to one man on Lewis last year, he said: ‘I recall a certain Saturday night during Christmas week a few years ago when you spoke to me about my need of Jesus Christ, as Saviour. You also gave me a Bible and a little booklet called ‘My Friend: Your Soul is Speaking’. I had completely forgotten about the incident’. He went on: ‘I have not forgotten that evening. The booklet was blessed to my soul and I have been reading the Bible ever since. I am now a Christian’. I was deeply moved by his word of testimony, which reminded me of a certain Biblical truth which I personally found that day to hold true: ‘Cast thy bread upon the waters: for thou shalt find it after many days ... in the morning sow thy seed, and in the evening withhold not thine hand: for thou knowest not whether shall prosper, either this or that’. Somebody wisely said that the world has many religions, but only one gospel – and the whole gospel is united in Christ. Thirdly, the Lord Jesus Christ would have us know that the salvation of this gospel is to be offered freely, and proclaimed freely, to all mankind without exception, ‘to every creature’. He calls us to ‘Go out quickly into the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in hither the poor, and the maimed, and the halt, and the blind ... Go out into the highways and hedges, and compel them to come in, that my house may be filled’. Thomas Chalmers said that ‘in the offer of the gospel we must make no limitation whatsoever, because “God commandeth all men everywhere to repent”’.

The Love of Christ←⤒🔗

Yes friends, we are to go forth with it, ‘go ye’. This surely reminds us that we ought not to allow anything to prevent us from sharing the good news message of the gospel, whatever the outward appearances. A missionary in Africa was once asked if he really liked what he was doing. ‘Do I like this work?’ he said. ‘No. My wife and I do not like dirt. We have reasonably refined sensibilities. We do not like crawling into vile huts through goat waste ... But is a man to do nothing for Christ he does not like? God pity him, if not. Liking or disliking has nothing to do with it. We have orders to ‘Go ye’ and we go because His love constrains us’.

It was the same constraining love for God and a burden for souls that brought a Scottish teacher into contact with the China Inland Mission. After offering himself for missionary service he was invited to meet Hudson Taylor for an interview. But this teacher had a problem, and a big one at that. He only had one leg! ‘With only one leg’, Taylor asked him, ‘why do you think of going as a missionary?’ ‘Because I do not see those with two legs going!’ was George Stott’s reply. He was accepted as a missionary and laboured for the gospel in China for 23 years.

One reliable source remarked on the spiritual legacy he left behind: ‘His efforts brought Christianity to the city of Wenzhou in Zhejiang province, where the teaching had been unknown previously.’ The oldest church in the city, Chengxi Christian Church, still stands as a testimony to his work among the people that he loved. As a result of the ongoing influence of the message of Christ first brought there by Stott, Wenzhou is known today as the ‘Jerusalem of China’ because in the whole of Wenzhou, which has 6 million inhabitants, there are more than 600,000 evangelical Protestants – 10% of the population.

Reaching Scotland with Good News←⤒🔗

A large percentage of Scotland’s population continues to be reached with the gospel. You will be encouraged to know that a mountain of good evangelistic and reformed literature was distributed and circulated in many locations across Scotland over the past 12 months. I regard it a great joy and a deep privilege to be working in the service of the Master and being able to share, with so many people from all walks of life, the old, old gospel story of salvation. Mission outreach was also engaged in at the Black Isle Show, Hebridean Festival, Monster Science Festival, Jesus Christ Superstar: Rock Opera, Rockness and in the Army Base at Fort George.

A combined total of around 21,000 gospel tracts were distributed, in addition to nearly 8,000 booklets, magazines and Bibles, along with a large quantity of literature in various foreign languages. The special evangelistic issue of the Good News magazine, containing inspirational gospel stories, testimonies, and arguments in defence of Biblical truths, continues to be freely given out in large quantities. This magazine is an extremely effective witnessing tool when confronting people with the ‘good news’ about Jesus Christ and salvation. Pray that it may yield a great and blessed harvest. I hope we all know how vitally important it is to share this same unchanging gospel message, pleadingly and persuasively and compellingly, that lost and perishing souls may hear the good news and be saved from hell. The Bible assures us that he ‘who winneth souls is wise’.

The Value of a Soul←⤒🔗

The importance of handing out gospel literature cannot be overstated. One missionary once wrote, ‘If religious books are not widely circulated among the masses in this country, I do not know what is going to become of us as a nation. If truth be not diffused, then error will be. If God and His Word are not known and received, the devil and his works will gain the ascendancy. If the evangelical volume does not reach every hamlet, the pages of a corrupt and licentious literature will. If the power of the gospel is not felt throughout the length and breadth of this land, anarchy and misrule, degradation and misery, corruption and darkness will reign without mitigation or end’. This was written in 1823!

Reaching the perishing with the message of forgiveness, salvation and eternal life in Jesus Christ is the only hope for sinners. The true story is told of a criminal called Charles Pearce who, in 1879, was sentenced to death in Portsmouth for a string of offences, including murder. As he was being led to the scaffold, just before his execution, a chaplain walked by his side and read to him some Bible verses. As he spoke to him about God’s forgiveness and mercy, and Christ’s power to save him even at this late hour from sin and hell, the dying man turned to him and said: ‘Do you believe it? Do you honestly believe what you have just told me? If I believed what you believe, I would willingly crawl across England on my hands and knees, even if it was covered in broken glass, to save a single soul from an eternity in hell’. Oh to see the worth and value of precious souls everywhere ... and of the glorious good news that saves:

O teach me what it meaneth,
That cross uplifted high,
With One, the Man of Sorrows,
Condemned to bleed and die!
O teach me what it cost thee,
To make a sinner whole;
And teach me, Saviour, teach me,
The value of a soul!