"I am well content with weaknesses, with insults, with distresses, with
persecutions, with difficulties, for Christ's sake; for when I am weak .
. . THEN I AM STRONG."   (II Cor. 12:10)

           In North America and the West, we have the books of many who report a visit to heaven and back.  Some of them have been on the New York Times bestseller list for months!  

          Then again, in many places around the world, I've heard from and ministered among a multitude who have been, it seems, to hell and back. Frankly, I am far more willing to listen to the testimony of this second  group.  You might be interested to know the dimensions of the pearls at the gates of the Holy City, and I am sure they are beautiful.  However,  Paul spoke only once of his heavenly visit, but often of the other experience; the shedding of BLOOD, SWEAT and TEARS.

          I am involved from time to time in leadership training and Bible college work overseas.  Some years ago, my wife and I sat at dinner with a brother  from north India.  In broken English he shared, "I wish you could come over to help us.  It is very hard.  Seven times I have been beaten in the area of India I serve."  He began to show us places where his back and arms were  scarred.   Then he said, "But praise the Lord!  There are now seven  strong churches in the places where I was beaten!"  A few minutes later, he asked me to come teach a seminar.  I wondered, "Who should be  teaching who?" and tried to change the subject.

        Little by little, it seems that our churches in America are  learning this painful lesson:
        WHEN THE MESSAGE OF VICTORIOUS LIFE IS PROCLAIMED TO THE
        EXCLUSION OF SELF-DENIAL AND HARDSHIP, THE RESULT IS A
        GENERATION OF PEOPLE WHO WANT TO SIT IN HEAVENLY PLACES
        BUT WHO DON'T BELONG THERE. 

          Blood, Sweat & Tears: Suitable Uniform Going Into the Next Century?

 

          In the last fiscal year, over 160,000 people worldwide have given their lives for the Gospel of Christ around the world.   Yet we don't need to focus on this time: these are three solemn promises for every Christian worker throughout church history.  They appear as three marks of dignity, three "medals" upon the  uniform of every soldier of Jesus Christ.  The Bible says of Jesus, "He set His face to go . . . "  (Lu. 9:51)  He set His blessed face in the  direction of Jerusalem, knowing that very soon the blood, sweat and  tears would be pouring from it.  (Matt. 27:29-30, Lu. 22:44, and Heb. 5:7)

          Paul also was a man beaten with whips and rods and stones, a man in hard labors day and night, a man who shed tears around the clock for the  churches he labored with.  The cloth taken from his body to anoint and  heal the sick was actually a sweat-rag, tied about his head and body as
he worked hard and long.  Rather than a diploma, he showed marks on his  body as evidence of his ordination.  This was also Paul's portion, a  call which he bore with great honor and joy.

          I sat one day in the jungle city of Iquitos, Peru, talking with an elderly preacher about the many as-yet unreached Indian tribes in that part of the world.  The tears poured freely from his eyes as he spoke of  his desire to reach them, "my beloved Mayorunas" he would call them, and during our many prayer sessions together this cry would be repeated.  Area churches, slow to help in this area of pioneer evangelism to their own, had not brought forth sufficient help  for gasoline for a boat trip during one of our seasons of prayer.  So he waited, labored as a gardener, and cried.

        Several families in Iquitos committed their lives to travel the jungle tributaries, in order to reach the far-distant communities.  They told me of huge mosquitoes on the river that bite the adults and children until they cry out.  They can only sit in the boat as the days of travel drag on, waiting and enduring until they reach their mission  several days later. 

        Then in July of 1994, I was privileged to endure some more bug bites (maybe mega-bites would be a better term) with a church-planting team to the Mexican tropical island of Juan Ramirez. Don't be fooled; it's not the location advertised at the travel agent office.

     We began each day's church-planting efforts by rubbing on a layer of sunblock, the heavy stuff, one step short of Teflon.  Then came a layer of mosquito repellant. Then, the wind blew dust and sand on the mixture.  Then sweat, in  hundred degree temperatures and 90% humidity, got added in.  Then the
 team leader had the audacity to ask me to share a "devotion" and call us all to go to work!  At the end of  the trip, I noticed massive amounts of red dots on legs.  Yes, blood got  left behind.  But a church was left behind too, with over fifty saved, most of them children.   

     We walked miles to reach those on the island with no Gospel; what a thrill, even while perspiring heavily, to see them reading the Gospel of John for the first time.  And to see so many children receive Christ in the morning Bible school lessons. 

      "Surely," you may say, "is there not an easier way to get out the Gospel?  Isn't there some way we can make it more comfortable?   I mean, the Reverend ___________ told me that if I send him $25 per month he will use his TV studio to do it!"  My answer from personal experience and the testimony of a multitude is NO: it never has been comfortable for the flesh to do the whole will of God.  The flesh suffers at every step, and it  fights both savagely and subtly to keep us from setting our own faces.

      Steve Camp writes about the old minister who explained the blurs on his sermon outlines by saying that they were caused by sweat and tears.  Without those marks, perhaps a sermon isn't really a sermon.  I wonder how many true sermons I have preached in my twenty-two plus years of ministry.

      In this materialistic, "me" generation, when many newsletters and magazines and sermons promise maximum returns on minimal investments, I  can promise you these three things---BLOOD, SWEAT AND TEARS---and probably  not much more if you go to many of the unreached and remote fields.  I
 can almost guarantee you blood, sweat and tears somewhere down the road,  and I urge you for the love of God and souls to make big, painful investments even though you may see nothing in return . . . on this side.  My sixteen-year-old and thirteen-year-old sons went to Juan Ramirez with me; they have
already begged to return the next time we go to that island, to finish the building that was started.

REVIVAL IN KOREA; HOW DID IT BEGIN?

     Today we hear of one church with over a half-million people.   One nationally-known minister said there are as many as eleven million believers in that country today.    We hear of their prayer mountains and great prayer meetings and much more in the nation of South Korea.  But where did it all begin?  Robert Thomas tried to get Bibles  into Korea 125 years ago; they burned his ship, and as he staggered to shore with the rest of his Bibles they beat him to death.  His last act?  To thrust the Scriptures into their hands as they drew his blood.  He sowed a blood-seed; his blood cried from the ground and God brought the  glorious harvest we see today.

REVIVAL IN ARGENTINA; HOW DID IT BEGIN?

     Captain Allen Gardiner and his missionary team landed near this  country's southern tip almost 150 years ago; many of their supplies were  lost, their plans to gather additional nourishment failed, and during the ensuing weeks the entire team starved to death.  Journals were later  found, laced with words of sorrow and tears.  This time, tears of hunger and sorrow were planted, and they brought forth fruit.  Listen to some of Allen Gardiner's last words in his journal:

     "Yet a little while, and through grace we may join that blessed
     throng, to sing the praises of Christ throughout eternity.  I
     neither hunger nor thirst, though 5 days without food!  Mar-
     vellous lovingkindness to me, a sinner!"

BLOOD; THE ONE PHYSICAL POSSESSION THAT WE BEG TO HOLD ONTO UNTIL THE
 VERY LAST.

       Said Leonard Ravenhill, "We love the old saints, missionaries, martyrs, reformers; we write their biographies, we reverence their memories, we frame their epitaphs.  We will do anything except imitate
them.  We cherish the last drop of their blood but watch the first drop of our own." 

        Yes, many of us have not "yet resisted to the point of shedding  blood in our striving against sin."  (Heb. 12:4)  Many of us in our  Christian battles would like to have what is called in politics a
"bloodless coup."  Leviticus teaches us that the life of the flesh is in the blood, and so it would seem inevitable that our flesh would be  repulsed at the thought of losing any.  Especially for the sake of
 eternal values.  But it still happens; read these portions from the  Bible record.

     "Rejoice; He will avenge the blood of His servants."
     "I have surely seen the blood of Naboth."
     "Their blood will be precious in His sight."
     "From the blood of Abel to the blood of Zacharias."
     "The blood of Thy martyr Stephen."

         This is the Bible testimony, that evil men hasten to shed innocent blood.  They succeeded from the life of Abel to Zachariah, they  went after David's, they shed Jesus', and they will go after ours too if we dare to put our hands to the plow and keep them there.

         Brother Andrew is one modern missionary with a revelation of this. He recently wrote about an experience he had while driving in a vehicle with his wife in the Middle East.  Suddenly they were stopped by an  Islamic gunman who told them their life was about to end.  "Well," Andrew said, "I guess that means that God wants to plant a church right  here."  The gunman shook his head and waved them off. 

         Blood will be shed, yes; but it becomes a seed of Kingdom greatness when it is spilled by the righteous on a mission anointed by Him.

SWEAT: HARD LABOR IN THE ABSENCE OF AIR CONDITIONING

        This is simply the promise of Genesis 3:19; labor that produces  sweat.  We're speaking of plain hard work, sometimes sixteen to eighteen hours in a day without much of a break from the hot sun and humidity. Air conditioning is new to this planet; sweat has always been the lot of the hard worker.  As a great man once said; success is about 10%  inspiration and about 90% perspiration.

TEARS: A THIRD TYPE OF BODILY FLUID THAT SIGNALS DEEP DEALINGS AND REACTIONS AT THE ROOT OF OUR EMOTIONAL LIFE.  WE SEE, WE FEEL, WE CRY.

 

       This lack of tears, especially among men, is perhaps a reason why manhood has been on a downward spiral in America.  The epistles warn us about  being "past feeling."   Charles Finney warned, "You never see revival without Mr. Wet Eyes around somewhere."

       Many years ago, I asked the Lord for tears.  This is not natural for a man; it's an embarassing thing, and when tears do come we often try to stifle them and apologize for them.  Some years ago, my church asked me to serve in Guatemala.  A burden was put on my heart for the people of this country, and several weeks later I simply collapsed in a heap on the floor at the end of a church service.  I sobbed and sobbed and could not stop.  "They must live!!!" was all I could cry.  The harder I tried to prevent the travail, the worse it became.  A rather humiliating display, I thought.  But that was just the beginning. 

        A year and a half after moving there, I was sitting under the preaching of Brother Moises Nunez in a meeting at a tin-sided church building.  He said his text would  be John 3:16.  At the time I was teaching in two different Bible Schools, so I promptly sat back to wait for him to finish.  Basic stuff is coming, just milk, I thought.  But he said something that struck me and changed me forever.  He said, "Many of us ask God for His power; but how many of  us are asking for His feelings?"  Praying and burning inside as I went home that night, I said something dangerous to God.  I said, "That's for me.  I want that.  I want the revelation of God's emotions in my heart." As I began to pray this way, the floodgates of the deep opened up. 

     Again, most of us try to stop when such an emotional display occurs.  But not Jeremiah; he said, "Don't let my eyes cease to flow for the brokenness of my people."  If you love souls, you will ventually
know something about tears.

     William Booth, one of the world's great missionary statesmen, was once approached by two of his workers who had found the work of church-planting rather hard.  When asked for a word of advice, his reply was "TRY TEARS."  They went forth, learned to pray and weep and travail for the lost, and later brought forth many sheaves with rejoicing.

     Let me never cry due to self-pity.  But due to the reproach upon the Church, due to the thousands of unreached ethnic groups, due to the  ruin of the ecology that has brought starvation to millions, due to poverty and oppression of the poor, due to the youth that have been kidnapped for the pornography industry, due to the unborn children who will be cut apart before their eyes can see His creation,  due to the weeping families that have lost a loved one in martyrdom worldwide, due to the needs of infants,
orphans, widows, and the heathen strangers, due to gratefulness to God  and His people, due to conviction over sin . . . THERE WILL BE TEARS.

BLOOD, SWEAT AND TEARS: A LIBATION?

     One type of Old Testament sacrifice mentioned in Leviticus was the libation, or drink  offering.  I believe that these three things are aspects of the offering  of our lives to God.  Maybe we are having to buy all of our clothes at  the bargain counter; we can at least wear these on our uniform! 

     And, when shed in the will of God, they are a pleasing aroma to Him  as well as fire on the altar that men will see and come to.