MELVIN M. NEWLAND, MINISTER RIDGE CHAPEL
(Powerpoints used with this message are available at no charge. Just email me at mnewland@sstelco.com and request #121.)
(Title Slide) A GREAT OPEN DOOR!
Genesis 12:1-3; 1 Corinthians 16:5 9
A. One day, almost 4,000 years ago, God spoke to a man named Abram, who was later called Abraham, & said to him,
(Slide 2) “Leave your country, your people & your father’s household & go to the land I will show you. I will make you into a great nation & I will bless you;
(Slide 3) “I will make your name great, & you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, & whoever curses you I will curse; & all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.” (Genesis 12:1-3)
Now why did God do that? What was His purpose? And why did He place such an emphasis on the subject of being a “blessing”?
(Slide 4) Well, as most of you know, I spent the first few years of my life with my parents on the border of China & Tibet. And the 2 Tibetan women that you see projected on the screen may help us understand why God was doing what He did.
(Slide 5) You see, the great majority of Tibetans are followers of Buddha & believe that there are thousands of different gods.
(Slide 6) How about this idol? It is almost 9 feet tall, & they say that it is made of solid gold. They worship it as a “Thousand-armed goddess” involved in almost every aspect of human life.
(Slide 7) Day after day, year after year they bow down before idols & offer sacrifices – not because they love them, but because they fear them & are seeking to appease them. You see, they believe that every bad thing that happens in life happens because some god is angry & has sent evil demons down to punish them.
(Slide 8) But which god, & why? And how can you appease that god? Well, of course, you can offer sacrifices to one god after another until finally you hit the right one. Or you can go to the Lama priests & pay them to determine which god is angry & then to offer sacrifices & intercede on your behalf.
(Slide 9) Here are some Lama priests preparing to take part in the new year’s festival. For 3 days the people bring offerings & sacrifices to the Lama priests to do their “devil dances” to drive away the evil demons from their village.
(Slide 10) Finally, on the 3rd day, when the priests have collected all they can from the people, the high priest comes & does the “Stag Devil – King of Hell” victory dance, & he announces that they have successfully driven the evil demons away from their village for another year.
(Slide 11) But for these 2 Tibetan women, nothing seemed to help. No matter to which gods or how much they sacrificed, their troubles & the evil demons that they believed had caused them did not go away.
Finally, the priests told them that somehow they had so angered the gods that nothing they had done so far was sufficient to appease them. There was just one thing left to try, the priests said.
If they would make a pilgrimage to a holy mountain that was about 3½ months journey away; & when they reached it, if they would crawl on their hands & knees over the rocks for the 11 miles around its base, praying “Om mani pad mi hum” over & over again as they crawled, then the gods would surely be appeased & send the demons away.
It is hard for us to realize that there are millions of people living in such superstition & fear. You see, we have been taught that God knows & loves each of us. And all our lives we have heard these words:
(Slide 12) “For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.
(Slide 13) “For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through Him.” (John 3:16-17)
PROP. God does love us & yearns for us to love & follow Him, & in doing that to be a blessing & an example of the difference God can make in our lives.
B. I think that is the way the Apostle Paul must have felt when he wrote the words we find in 1 Corinthians 16:5 9. Listen as I read.
(Slide 14) "After I go through Macedonia, I will come to you for I will be going through Macedonia. Perhaps I will stay with you awhile, or even spend the winter, so that you can help me on my journey, wherever I go.”
(Slide 15) “I do not want to see you now & make only a passing visit; I hope to spend some time with you, if the Lord permits.
(Slide 16) “But I will stay on at Ephesus until Pentecost, because a great door for effective work has opened to me, & there are many who oppose me.”
Evidently, Paul is tired. He has already spent more than 8 years on his first 2 missionary journeys, working tirelessly, preaching the gospel, starting churches, facing opposition, sometimes even having to flee from those wanting to kill him.
Now he is in Ephesus on his 3rd missionary journey, & he was writing to the church at Corinth.
C. Paul didn't know it when he wrote those words, but God was opening up a great door for him in Ephesus. In fact, Paul ends up staying there for 3 years.
And God not only used Paul to start a great church in Ephesus, but while he was there, many more churches were started in the towns around Ephesus. It became a center from which the gospel flowed.
PROP. Now my point is this: When Paul saw that door opening for him, he saw it as a door of opportunity, a door of obligation, & a door of opposition.
(Slide 17) I. A DOOR OF OPPORTUNITY
A. Ephesus was a city where people were superstitious & constantly consulting soothsayers & fortune tellers.
It boasted one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. The Temple of Diana was there with all its immorality & prostitution. In fact, that was a part of their worship of the goddess Diana. It was not a place where Christians would normally want to live.
But when Paul looked at Ephesus he said, "There is an open door here & I’m going to stay for awhile." There were so many people who needed to hear about Jesus, & Paul was determined to share the Gospel with them.
ILL. Dr. Paul Brand wrote about his parents, who were missionaries to India. For years they saw almost no converts, due primarily to a Hindu priest who warned the people that if they listened to the Christians their cattle would die.
Sure enough, the cattle of those who came to the Christian chapel did die, but only because the priest poisoned them! As a result, almost no one would listen to the gospel. Discouraged, Bland’s father at times doubted his calling.
Following WW1 a terrible flu epidemic took the lives of thousands in India. Many of them died from dehydration. Dr. Brand’s parents cooked huge vats of soup & took it in buckets to the afflicted. When the wife of the Hindu priest became ill, the Brands lovingly ministered to her, but she also died.
When the priest himself became ill, the Brands brought soup & attempted to assist him. But before he died, he asked the Brands to adopt his daughter. He told them, “All my life I have served my people, but now that I am hurting no one comes to help me but Christians. I don’t want my daughter to grow up as a Hindu.”
The Brands adopted her & today she is a great-grandmother with a large family of Christians. Because the Indian people saw how much the Christians cared even for those who had persecuted them, the mission became a thriving work.
(Bob Russell in the 2-24-2002 “The Lookout” Standard Pub. Co)
We are told in the 8th chapter of Acts that a terrible persecution began against the church in Jerusalem. And many Christians had to flee in order to escape the persecution.
(Slide 18) Vs. 4 tells us that "Those who had been scattered preached the word wherever they went." Wherever they went, they shared their faith.
They turned the world upside down with the gospel. The whole world started changing, because wherever they went they told others about Jesus.
APPL. Today, people are moving from one place to another in record numbers. And people from all over the world are coming to our cities, too. God can use this scattering to give us opportunities to share the Gospel with the rest of the world.
ILL. Sadhu Sundar Singh is a former Hindu who became a Christian. Late one afternoon Sadhu was traveling on foot through the Himalayas with a Buddhist monk. It was bitterly cold & the wind felt like sharp blades slicing Sadhu’s skin.
Night was fast approaching & the monk warned Sadhu that they were in danger of freezing to death if they didn’t reach the village before darkness fell.
While walking on a narrow path along a steep cliff, they heard a cry for help. Down the cliff lay a man, fallen & badly hurt. The monk looked at Sadhu & said, “Do not stop. The gods have brought this man to his fate. He must work it out for himself.” Then he quickly added, “Let us hurry on before we perish, too.”
But Sadhu replied, “God has sent me here to help my brother. I cannot abandon him.” Shrugging his shoulders, the monk continued trudging off through the whirling snow, while Sadhu made his way down the embankment.
The man’s leg was broken. So Sadhu took his blanket, made a sling, & tied the man on his back. Then he began a body-torturing climb. By the time he reached the narrow path again, he was drenched in perspiration.
Doggedly, he made his way through the deepening snow. It was all he could do to stay on the path. But he kept on, faint with fatigue & overheated from the exertion of carrying the man. Finally he saw the lights of the village ahead.
Just then, Sadhu stumbled & nearly fell over an object lying in the snow-covered road. Slowly he bent down & brushed away the snow to discover the frozen body of the monk, lying dead in the snow.
The monk had almost made it. But Sadhu, in putting forth the effort to save someone else, had ended up saving himself, too. (SermonCentral.com)
SUM. Today doors are opening all over the world. Maybe God is getting ready for a great surge before He comes again. As never before, there are opportunities to preach the Gospel to people who desperately need to hear it.
(Slide 19) II. A DOOR OF OBLIGATION
Not only did Paul see an open door of opportunity, he also saw a door of obligation. He said, "A great door for effective work has opened to me."
He didn't say it had opened to Timothy or Titus or someone else. It had opened to him. He felt a personal obligation to stay in Ephesus & preach the Word of God to them.
We must each realize that I can't do your work for you, & you can't do my work for me. We have a personal obligation to share the Gospel wherever we are.
ILL. James Hudson Taylor, in challenging students of his day to be involved in missionary work, used to tell them about Peter, his Chinese convert & disciple.
On one of their sea journeys, Peter (who did not know how to swim) fell overboard. Fortunately, there were Chinese fishermen nearby, just a grab away from where Peter fell. Taylor shouted at the fishermen & asked them to help Peter.
“Help my friend. He is drowning!” However, the fishermen paid no heed to his call because they were busy loading their catch from their nets into their boat.
Taylor yelled even louder, “Stop! Please help my friend. He is just a grab away.” But the fishermen continued their work until the last fish was loaded. Then they jumped in and got Peter out of the water.
They tried to revive him, but it was no use. Peter had drowned. He could have been saved, but they had waited too long.
Then Taylor turned to the students & asked what they thought about those Chinese fishermen. Some said that they were bad, evil, selfish men for being so unconcerned about saving a dying man.
Taylor responded, “I see it differently. I think the Chinese fishermen were like most Christians today who are unconcerned about the plight of sinners who are just a grab away from them, saying that they are just too busy to do it.” (SermonCentral.com)
SUM. Is that a picture of our Christian world today? Does anybody care?
(Slide 20) Will anybody stand with Isaiah & say, "Here am I. Send me!"? (Isa. 6:8)
(Slide 21) III. A DOOR OF OPPOSITION
The Apostle Paul also saw a door of opposition. He said, "There are many who oppose me." It's true. There will always be those who oppose the advancement of the Gospel.
In Ephesus there was Demetrius who made & sold silver idols. When the Gospel was proclaimed & people became Christians they stopped buying idols, & Demetrius was losing a great deal of his business. So he became an opponent of the Gospel, & started a persecution of Paul.
ILL. Something happened last summer that I want to share with you. One of my granddaughters, Allie Borders, graduated last year from Dallas Christian College. Her goal is to spend her life serving in a mission in India.
With that as her goal she has spent the last 4 summers preparing by working with missionaries in India, Ecuador, & Guatemala. And last summer she was asked by the Global Expeditions mission to be a group leader in Nepal & then to be an assistant to those directing that mission in India.
There were 49 who went to Nepal – 8 adults & 41 teenage mission volunteers. When their time in Nepal was over, 26 of them flew back to the United States, leaving 2 men, Allie, & 20 teenage girls to fly on to India & join a group of mission workers there for another month of service.
They flew from Nepal to New Delhi. When they got to New Delhi the taxi company that had been hired to take them to their hotel did not send 3 vans as expected. Instead it sent 7 taxicabs, & they didn’t all arrive at the airport at the same time.
Each driver had been given the same written instructions where to take their passengers. The first 2 taxis took one of the men & 6 of the girls & left. The next 3 taxis that arrived loaded up Allie & 8 more of the girls, leaving one man & 6 girls to wait for the last 2 taxis.
After the taxi that Allie was in had gone a ways, it turned off the main road & headed down a long dark alley, turned & went down another dark alley, stopping in front of a seedy-looking building, & the driver told Allie that this was her hotel.
But things just didn’t feel right. Men were sitting around everywhere, & there was a strong smell of marijuana & liquor. Allie told the girls to stay in the taxi while she went in to check it out. She went inside, but it was obvious that this was not the place where they had reservations & where the first 2 taxis had gone.
She went outside to try to call someone on her cell phone, & found that the taxi driver had made the girls get out of the cab, quickly unloaded their luggage in the alley & left. The next 2 taxis had also arrived & done exactly the same thing.
So here they were, 9 girls, foreigners, all alone, who didn’t know the language; who had been dumped in an alley; & no one else knew where they were.
Now you also need to realize that in India New Delhi is known for its involve-ment in the sex slave trade where hundreds of girls disappear every year. And here was this hotel clerk insisting that the girls had to split up & go upstairs “now.”
Very apprehensive about the whole situation Allie told the girls to stay together while she continued trying to use her cell phone. Suddenly the mood of the hotel clerk turned ugly & Allie told the girls to grab their luggage & get out of the hotel.
Carrying their luggage they walked back down those two dark alleys until they reached the main road which was jammed with pedestrians.
After they had gone several blocks, suddenly a man approached them & said, “I know where the rest of your group is staying. Just follow me.” Up to this point Allie had been very apprehensive, but for some strange reason she felt completely at peace about following this man.
They walked quite a few blocks following him, when suddenly they saw one of the two men of their group standing on a corner watching & waiting for them. Allie then turned to thank the man who had led them. But he was gone, & none of the girls remembered seeing him leave. He was just gone.
Folks, I don’t know what conclusions you may draw about this incident in India, & about the stranger who just appeared & led them to safety. But I am convinced that time & time again our Lord has kept His promise to be with us always.
And I am also convinced that God’s people have been the recipients of His protection & deliverance far more often than we have ever realized. Do you suppose that the words “Guardian angel” are more than just words? I do.
Doors, all kinds of doors, are swinging open. And there will be opponents, no doubt about that. Yet we dare not fear the problems, but see the opportunities, like Paul, to go into all the world & preach the Gospel.
So we offer His invitation this morning. Will you come?
