Zambia Hunt

Among some documents passed onto me by Neil Whitwam, my missionary mentor, was a tract published by the CHINA INLAND MISSION OVERSEAS MISSIONARY FELLOWSHIP. There is no date, but scrawled in Neil’s handwriting at the top are the words, “Tract written about 45 years ago.” That would make this moth eaten paper in my hands about 75 years old. 

The China Inland Mission Overseas Missionary Fellowship was founded in 1865 by J. Hudson Taylor. The introduction says this: “The China Inland Mission for more than ninety years has testified to the faithfulness of God. Looking to Him alone for the supply of every need, the members of the Mission have found Him to be their Sufficiency in all things. God’s blessing has been on this work all down the years, and strong indigenous churches were established in many parts of China before the missionaries were forced out of the land.”

Here are the thoughts of a missionary named, Raymond W. Frame, titled: How To Test Your Missionary Motives. This message needs a fresh hearing by those who are going out as missionaries to share the gospel…

TYPES OF APPEALS

I was talking to a young missionary who had been born on the mission field of missionary parents. She was much loved by the people among whom she was working, especially by the young people. Nearly all the members of her mission except herself and a few others had decided that political conditions were likely to grow worse rather than better, and a number of young doctors had been among the first to leave the field. She confessed feeling troubled about this. Why had they given up and left the field so soon? She attributed the cause to the type of appeal that had been used at home in urging young people to offer themselves for Christian service overseas. They had been urged to make an investment of their talents in missionary work.

SACRIFICE, NOT INVESTMENT

“Here at home,” they were told, “if you are a doctor, you are only one among many other doctors. Your sphere of influence is small. The people with whom you make contact are far less than the number would be if you were to practice your profession among the teeming populations of the world. There the need is far greater, the number of doctors is far less, and the amount of good you could do would be many times greater. Invest your life in the mission field, where you will find the spiritual returns on your investment much greater than you would obtain at home.”

In response to this type of missionary appeal a number of fine young people went to the mission field. They worked with enthusiasm at first, but when conditions began to change, when it appeared that their opportunities for investing their professional skills where they would count for the kingdom of God were going to be sharply curtailed, they lost interest and returned home.

This young lady feared that the idea of sacrifice in the Lord’s service had not entered their minds. The idea of committing themselves to the Lord and to His work for better or for worse, the idea of being absolutely at His disposal, whether the way would be easy or hard, fruitful or barren, light or dark, apparently was not in their thoughts at all. Their attitude was that of businessmen or merchants: “We have an investment to make. We want to invest it where it will yield the greatest returns. If we get no return on it here on this mission field, we will invest it somewhere else where it will.”

The young lady felt that the New Testament calls for us to serve, not with a mercenary spirit, the spirit of a merchant, but to be soldiers in spirit, ready to obey our orders whether they mean life or death, ready to go forth prepared for sacrifice if sacrifice happens to be in the line of duty, ready to go wherever we are sent, not choosing our own field.

Later I was talking to a young missionary from Switzerland. I mentioned to him the fact that many Swiss and German missionaries had remained at their posts of duty for ten, fifteen, or more years without furlough and that many of them remained on the field even after being freed from internment camps following the war.

The young Swiss worker’s comment was illuminating and very similar in character to the attitude expressed by the lady missionary just referred to. He said: “Most European missionaries who are sent to foreign mission fields undergo a rigid training at home before being sent out. The societies which send them have missionaries in more than one country, so the young worker is sent to the field as a soldier who has volunteered to serve the Lord, and he is happy to serve where those over him in the Lord feel it is best to send him. He knows that in ordinary warfare there are defeats as well as victories, and sacrifices as well as triumphs. When the going is hard, he accepts the trials as a part of the work to which he has been called and does not think of going home. He is a soldier of Jesus Christ, and the battle is not yet over. Why go home?”

From the comments of these two younger missionaries we can see that the motive with which we go to the mission field has a very direct bearing on the type of service we render when we get there.

MOTIVE OF PAUL

Paul, the greatest missionary of all, stated the motive which impelled him in his service for God and for lost men and women: “For the love of Christ constraineth us; because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead: And that he died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them, and rose again” (2 Cor. 5:14-15).

Later he added, “Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us: we pray you in Christ’s stead, be ye reconciled to God” (2 Cor. 5:20).

Paul declared that the thing which motivated his missionary work was the constraining love of Christ. It was not so much his own love for the lost—though Paul did have a great love for men—but it was Christ’s love for men that drove him to such tireless efforts to get the message of reconciliation out to the ends of the earth. He regarded himself as a voice only, a voice crying out in Christ’s stead. The One who was really concerned about men’s lost estate was Christ himself; Paul was only His messenger. The impression that Paul’s ministry made upon the minds of those who heard him was not so much of Paul’s own love for them as it was of the fact that Christ loved them. Paul wanted all men to know that Christ loved them and had given Himself for them.

Jesus had said, “I, if I be lifted up… will draw all men unto me” (John 12:32). Paul was intent on lifting up the crucified and risen Saviour before men so that they would be drawn to Him, not to himself.

Constrained by the love of Christ! The true missionary is not constrained so much by his own love for the lost—though God does give that love, particularly after he once begins work among them—but far more important, by Christ’s love for the lost. Christ’s love was the thing that constrained Paul, and it is the true missionary motive.

MOTIVE OF DAVID’S MEN

There is a beautiful story in the eleventh chapter of 1 Chronicles which illustrates this point. David and his mighty men were hiding from the Philistines in the cave of Adullam. From their mountain hideout David could see his home town, Bethlehem. Overcome with homesickness, he cried out, not for anyone to hear but just in longing of spirit, “Oh that one would give me drink of the water of the well of Beth-lehem, that is at the gate!” (1 Chron. 11:17).

Three of his mighty men overheard the cry of their beloved master and determined to see to it that his desire was realized, whatever it might cost themselves. They went down the mountain, fought through the Philistines, got to the well, drew a skinful of water, made their way back to David, and said, “Here is water from the well of Bethlehem by the gate.”

When David realized what his men had done, he was deeply touched. “I dare not drink this! No mere man is worthy of devotion such as that; only God is worthy of it. I am unworthy to drink this.” He poured it out before the Lord.

Notice that it was not their own thirst that drove the three men to such heroism; it was the thirst of another. They had seen the thirst of their lord and wanted to do all in their power to quench it.

MOTIVE OF CHRIST

On the cross our Master cried out, “I thirst.” His was also physical thirst, but there was a deeper thirst. His whole reason for going to the cross was that He longed to save lost men from eternal destruction. He longed for their salvation. How can we who overhear His cry, “I thirst,” and know His love for the lost, His longing that His other sheep be found and brought to the fold, do less than David’s three mighty men did? How can we refrain from risking all to bring to Him those lost ones, whose salvation alone can satisfy the longing of His heart? We should be constrained by the sight of His thirst, by the sight of the love of the One who was willing to suffer all that for those who are without strength, sinners and enemies. Surely His love for the world is great. What can we do to quench His longing for their salvation? Paul’s missionary motive was to relieve that longing. It should be ours, too! We are constrained, not by our own love, which is a faulty thing, but by His love.

FALSE MOTIVES

Too often, the missionary emphasis that arouses people at home to pray, to give, and to go for missions is not on Christ’s love for the lost but their own human pity. By means of stories of the suffering and the need, by colored slides, and by moving pictures, the emotions of the congregation are so moved that a feeling of deep pity is aroused, and because of pity for these unfortunates, the people feel that they simply must do something. Some pray, some give, and some go.

One young lady who was deeply stirred by a missionary address saw pictures of little children and babies in their native dress and undress, and she felt that the Lord was calling her to work among children on the foreign field. She felt a very deep love for the people of that land, and she could hardly wait until she got to the mission field and had learned the language so that she could begin work.

On her first trip into the interior she traveled by ox cart. About one hour before she reached her destination, it began to rain. The driver said that he could go no farther, for the mud was too deep. She was horrified. Could she spend the night out in the rain on the road? All of her baggage would be ruined. She would get pneumonia. She pleaded, coaxed, and shoved, but the carter paid no attention.

All her love for these dear people evaporated. She thought that they were horrid, stubborn creatures. She did not know how she could ever bear living among them all the rest of her life. Finally, the man said that if she would give him five dollars more, he thought that the ox could pull the cart to the town. She had to pay it, but from then on, her rosy vision of the mission field and its glamour grew very dim.

Later she went to a village to try to reach the children whom she loved, and they all ran from her, calling her “foreign devil” and other rude names. It was the last straw. Her heart was nearly broken. She realized at last that she had come to the mission field because of her own natural pity and love for the people, and then she knew that mere human love and pity just will not stand the tests of the realities of life.

Our natural love is a broken staff; we dare not trust it. It will let us down badly when the test comes. If this girl had come to the mission field because Christ loved the lost, not because she loved the lost, the situation would have been different. Even though the driver had left her in the mud, Christ’s love for his soul would not be altered. Christ had died for him, but he was unlovely because he did not yet know Christ.

Even though the children were rude to her, Christ still loved them. If she had His love, their remarks would not alter the love for their souls. It is dangerous to enter Christian work simply because your own feelings of pity and love are stirred. You must have more than that. You have to be in close touch with Jesus, the Lover of souls. You have to see how concerned He is; you must be convinced that He loves them. You are His servant. Can you bear to see His longing and not do something about it?

If you realize His love for the lost and feel the true motive that you must do something to bring relief to Him, you are being impelled by the true missionary motive, the one that impelled Paul.

Recently, I heard a friend point out that true joy in service comes only when the order is Jesus first, Others second, and yourself last. I was especially interested to hear him point out that some change the order to read “O.J.Y.” Their motto is “others.” Their object is primarily to help the world become a better place in which to live. They introduce Jesus, but they feel that they must help people live better lives, obtain better homes and food, and raise the standard of living conditions before the people can keep Jesus’ commands and live a Christian life. They are really unselfish, for they put themselves last. But O.J.Y. does not spell “joy.”

Paul preached the gospel not first of all for others, but first for Jesus Christ. “The love of Christ constraineth us.” In Matt. 9:36-38 Jesus urged His disciples to pray the Lord of the harvest to send forth laborers into His harvest. Notice that He was moved with compassion. It is our concern to gather in the harvest for the Lord of the harvest. Who suffers loss if the harvest is not reaped? It is not the laborer in the field; it is the owner of the crop. The order is J.O.Y.- Jesus, others, yourself; no other arrangement will spell “joy.”

May God help us to be more constrained by His love, to get close to Him until we feel the throb of His heart for the lost, until we see His thirst, and until we shall go forth like David’s men to risk all to relieve His longing, constrained by the love of Christ.