Zambia Hunt

A Sermon by Darrell Champlin

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Of all the sermons that I heard Darrell Champlin preach, this was among the most impactful. I was 21 when I first heard this sermon… I remember crying out to God that he would grant me faith to trust Him no matter what trouble may come. That I would not be among those who run at the sight of danger on the mission field… this is still my prayer… and it is my prayer for you.

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Why Do Missionaries Run When There’s Danger?

My subject is a difficult one. I’m asking a question: Why do missionaries run when there’s danger, when a biblical principle of God’s word is so very clear?

We have been through twelve years of war. Four in the land of the Congo, Africa. And, of course, the end result of that war was the destruction of thirteen churches, the burning of seven schools, the massacre of hundreds of our Christians, the murder of twenty of the thirty-six men that I’d had the joy of training from the ground up in reading and writing. It involved the death of my wife’s sister-in-law’s sister, who was shot through the neck with an arrow and killed. It involved the loss of all of our property, not only our buildings, but our equipment.

And because we were trapped away from our outpost, we had only the clothing in a little suitcase, leaving us with nothing between my wife and me except what could fit in it. We cried out to God to stay, but it was impossible to stay at that time. We needed to re-equip. We came to the States, and then the government of the Congo denied us re-entry into our jungle field. Pleading on our faces before the God of heaven for a year, crying out to Him that we might go back to our beloved people, we were finally forced to move to the land of Suriname, South America.

And there again we met war. Our buildings were shaken again and again by explosions. Bridges were destroyed. We became the only white people in that entire district. The rest had fled. And then an order came from the Marxist military government for us to get out. Our response to them was that we will not leave on our own feet. If you’d like to send soldiers to carry us out, you may, but we will not leave on our own.

Then came the gunboat. Of course, our grandchildren were with us, from the smallest to the oldest. And we explained to them: “One day the gunboat will come. It will slide like a snake down the Cotica River. And it will, as it approaches us, do what it has done in destroying and shattering and leveling every other village along the river—sixteen of them, fourteen of them totally destroyed. What it will start to do is fire its cannon into the jungle. They want us to run. And when we run, as the nationals have, then they will destroy our buildings. They will level our church, our school, and our houses. And they will make what the Dutch call a ‘woestenij,’ a wilderness of this place.

“Now, what we want you to do, Benjamin and Ruthie, when you hear the cannon fire, you run down to the bank of the river. The river is not very wide—a person with a good arm can throw a stone across it. You run down to the bank of the river. And when that gunboat comes by, you talk to them. Easy to do that across water. Tell them, ‘Good morning. How are you? Nice day, isn’t it?’ Don’t be afraid of the cannons, the 90-millimeter cannons, the .50 caliber machine guns, and the .30 caliber machine guns. Just look them in the eye and don’t let them think you’re afraid of them.”

And it came one morning: five thunderous claps, the 90-millimeter cannon firing, tearing out house-sized holes, ripping them, burning them out of that jungle. Louise and I went out and stood on our porch. David and Lynn stood. Barbara Long, our nurse, went and stood in front of the Red Cross on our clinic. And Benjamin and Ruthie were right down on the bank of the river.

And when that snake-like gunboat purred into sight, its cannons and its .50 caliber and .30 caliber machine guns were pointed at us, and the turrets were turned toward us. And Benjamin and Ruthie were down there talking to the soldiers like it was a nice morning. And you can see the soldiers up there on the bridge arguing. They were having a debate: “What are we going to do?”

And then the cannon turned straight ahead. And they passed. And our grandchildren saw God. They passed down, blasting every village that had already been destroyed for the next two and a half hours in their frustration.

And then a newspaper article was put into the only newspaper left, controlled by the Marxists. And they said, “Who are those incredible Americans in the jungles taking care of Suriname people? We had many refugees taking care of Suriname people, where you could not pay a Surinamer enough money to go.”

And then word came that they were offering me knighthood. In Suriname, it’s called the Order of the Palm. It’s a golden palm tree that attaches to you, carries all kinds of honors and privileges. And we simply replied to them, “Thanks, but no thanks. Not from a Marxist military dictatorship.”

The Principle of Bearing the Iniquity

Why do you do things like that? It’s because of what I find in the Word of God, which I call the principle of bearing the iniquity.

If you go to Ezekiel chapter 3, verse 17:

“Son of man, I have made thee a watchman unto the house of Israel: therefore hear the word at my mouth, and give them warning from me. When I say unto the wicked, Thou shalt surely die; and thou givest him not warning, nor speakest to warn the wicked from his wicked way, to save his life; the same wicked man shall die in his iniquity; but his blood will I require at thine hand. Yet if thou warn the wicked, and he turn not from his wickedness, nor from his wicked way, he shall die in his iniquity; but thou hast delivered thy soul. Again, When a righteous man doth turn from his righteousness, and commit iniquity, and I lay a stumblingblock before him, he shall die: because thou hast not given him warning, he shall die in his sin, and his righteousness which he hath done shall not be remembered; but his blood will I require at thine hand. Nevertheless, if thou warn the righteous man, that the righteous sin not, and he doth not sin, he shall surely live, because he is warned; and also thou hast delivered thy soul.”

I state again, that’s the easy part. Now comes the hard part.

You see, King Zedekiah would rebel against Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon. And Nebuchadnezzar would be furious. Nebuchadnezzar would come with his mighty army, and he would besiege the city of Jerusalem.

If you want to see the fulfillment of that, go back here to the book of Jeremiah, chapter 52. Let’s read that down through verse 4, verse 5:

“Zedekiah was one and twenty years old when he began to reign, and he reigned eleven years in Jerusalem. And his mother’s name was Hamutal, the daughter of Jeremiah of Libnah. And he did that which was evil in the eyes of the LORD, according to all that Jehoiakim had done. For through the anger of the LORD it came to pass in Jerusalem and Judah, till he had cast them out from his presence, that Zedekiah rebelled against the king of Babylon. And it came to pass in the ninth year of his reign, in the tenth month, in the tenth day of the month, that Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon came, he and all his army, against Jerusalem, and pitched against it, and built forts against it round about. So the city was besieged unto the eleventh year of king Zedekiah.”

Here’s the story: The famine became so severe. There was no bread, no water. At last, the city was broken up in verse 7. The soldiers flee. The army of the Chaldeans pursues the king, overtaking Zedekiah in the plains of Jericho. His army is scattered. Verse 9: They took the king, carried him up unto the king of Babylon to Riblah in the land of Hamath, where he gave judgment upon him. And the king of Babylon slew the sons of Zedekiah before his eyes. He slew all the princes of Judah in Riblah. Then he put out the eyes of Zedekiah. And the king of Babylon bound him in chains and carried him to Babylon, and put him in prison till the day of his death.

Now, if you want to see what a horrible siege this was, go please to the fourth chapter of the book of Lamentations. This is what is coming. And God needs a man. He needs a man to do two things. He needs a man to warn the people. And he needs a man to bear their iniquity.

Verse 4 of chapter 4 of Lamentations: “The tongue of the sucking child cleaveth to the roof of his mouth for thirst: the young children ask bread, and no man breaketh it unto them. They that did feed delicately are desolate in the streets: they that were brought up in scarlet embrace dunghills. For the punishment of the iniquity of the daughter of my people is greater than the punishment of the sin of Sodom, that was overthrown as in a moment, and no hands stayed on her.”

Then he describes her Nazarites: “Her Nazarites were purer than snow, they were whiter than milk, they were more ruddy in body than rubies, their polishing was of sapphire: Their visage is blacker than a coal; they are not known in the streets: their skin cleaveth to their bones; it is withered, it is become like a stick.” That’s verse 8.

That happened, you know, during the siege of Stalingrad by the Germans in the Second World War. This was, of course, winter. And the result was that the Russians took corpses off the street, frozen corpses, hung them in hotel rooms, and sold human meat to their compatriots out of those rooms.

Here it happens. And listen to what it results in. Verse 10: “The hands of the pitiful women have sodden their own children: they were their meat in the destruction of the daughter of my people.” What does that mean? The mothers actually came to the point where they boiled their own babies and ate them.

Now that’s coming to them. And Ezekiel is called upon by God not only to warn the people, but to bear their iniquity.

Look at it here in Ezekiel 4:1-3: “Thou also, son of man, take thee a tile, and lay it before thee, and portray upon it the city, even Jerusalem: And lay siege against it, and build a fort against it, and cast a mount against it; set the camp also against it, and set battering rams against it round about. Moreover, take thou unto thee an iron pan, and set it for a wall of iron between thee and the city: and set thy face against it, and it shall be besieged, and thou shalt lay siege against it. This shall be a sign unto the house of Israel.”

The scene here is that he takes the slate and, in effect, he scratches out, as I would understand it, the skyline of Jerusalem. And then he plays soldier. He’s to lay a siege against it, build a fort against it, cast a mount against it, set up a camp against it, set up the battering rams around it. For see, he is their watchman to the house of Israel. And the people must be warned. He is also their man to stand between them and the holy God of heaven and between a sinning people on this earth.

Not only is he to do that, but he is to be their bearer of iniquity.

Now, what is iniquity? This is my definition: Because if you go to a dictionary, it says sin. But my observation of scripture is that iniquity is an accumulation of sin, an exacerbation of unrighteousness, a promulgation of hell-born satanic fiendishness that demands judgment. And that judgment—”Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them” (Romans 1:32)—against whom the wrath of God is revealed from heaven (Romans 1:18).

Now, what do you do when you are in the position of Ezekiel and God has brought judgment on the place where you serve? And you must understand that all God has to do to bring judgment, as I mentioned the other day, is take His restraining hand off of their sin, and they destroy themselves. It’s happening across Africa. It is happening in the United States.

And all God has to do to judge a people is take His hands off the volcano of their sin and let it explode. And they destroy themselves.

Now, when that begins to happen, God’s servant becomes a bearer of their iniquity.

Look in chapter 4 again: “Lay siege against it, and build a fort against it, and cast a mount against it; set the camp also against it, and set battering rams against it round about.” He’s picturing—he’s playing soldier. And he’s picturing for the people of Israel a siege. Their city is being besieged.

“Moreover, take thou unto thee an iron pan, and set it for a wall of iron between thee and the city: and set thy face against it, and it shall be besieged, and thou shalt lay siege against it. This shall be a sign unto the house of Israel.”

What does God’s servant do when his people, his country, his nation, the folk to whom the God of heaven has sent them, are under the judgment of God? The first thing he does is he lays siege against their sin. He joins God in God’s judgment of their sin. He sets his face against their sin.

Romans chapter 3beginning with verse 9. Paul rolls out the canons of his litany of the gruesome sinfulness and ungodliness of the people:

“What then? Are we better than they? No, in no wise: for we have before proved both Jews and Gentiles, that they are all under sin; As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one: There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God. They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one. Their throat is an open sepulchre; with their tongues they have used deceit; the poison of asps is under their lips: Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness: Their feet are swift to shed blood: Destruction and misery are in their ways: And the way of peace have they not known: There is no fear of God before their eyes.”

Paul joins God in His judgment of his people’s sin.

The Lord Jesus did it when He declared in Luke 13:3 and 5, twice: “Except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish.”

Moses did it when his people had worshipped the golden calf. He said to the Levites, “Take every man his sword, and go in and out from gate to gate throughout the camp, and slay every man his brother,” and 3,000 died.

The first thing that God’s servant does with his people is lay siege against their sin. He joins God in the judgment of their sin.

But that, beloved, is the easy part. The more difficult part comes when the Lord says to Ezekiel:

“Lie thou also upon thy left side, and lay the iniquity of the house of Israel upon it: according to the number of the days that thou shalt lie upon it thou shalt bear their iniquity. For I have laid upon thee the years of their iniquity, according to the number of days, three hundred and ninety days: so shalt thou bear the iniquity of the house of Israel.”

His people, under the judgment of God, were going into a captivity that would last three hundred and ninety years. Now he says:

“And when thou hast accomplished them, lie again on thy right side, and thou shalt bear the iniquity of the house of Judah forty days: I have appointed thee each day for a year.”

Signifying the forty years during which Judah would be in captivity.

“Therefore, thou shalt set thy face toward the siege of Jerusalem, and thine arm shall be uncovered, and thou shalt prophesy against it.”

Now listen to verse 8: “And, behold, I will lay bands upon thee, and thou shalt not turn thee from one side to another, till thou hast ended the days of thy siege.”

Can you imagine how painful that was? If you go to the hospital, what do they do every day? They turn you. Why? Bed sores. And the Lord says, “I’m going to strap you down. 390 days on your left side, 40 days on your right side. You’re going to go, in effect, through their judgment with them.”

Living with them in the disaster brought by sin. Staying with them in spite of and because of the destruction of their bodies by the fruits of their illicit sex, the ravages of alcohol and drugs, AIDS, and syphilis. Living with the blind, the broken, the bewildered, the bereft.

Between 1900 and 1960, had you gone to China as a missionary, you could not have expected to live beyond your 40th birthday. That’s right. The average lifespan of a missionary to China from 1900 to 1960 was 40 years.

When the communist forces were streaming down from the north, massacring Chinese Christians, carrying thousands of women and girls away as prostitutes for their soldiers, burning villages and towns, looting and pillaging, pushing Chiang Kai-shek eventually with his nationalist army to Taiwan and taking over the land of China under a communist government—during that period of time, China Inland Mission pled with America, with the world: “Send us 200 stalwart young men who will go back into those communist-infested areas and win Chinese to Christ before it is too late.” And they got them.

During that time, Jack Vinson was the first Southern Presbyterian missionary to be martyred. And E.H. Hamilton wrote this poem in his honor:

Afraid? Of what? Afraid to feel the spirit’s glad release? To pass from pain to perfect peace, The strife and strain of life to cease? Afraid of that?

Afraid? Of what? Afraid to see the Savior’s face, To hear His welcome, and to trace The glory gleam from wounds of grace? Afraid of that?

Afraid? Of what? A flash, a crash, a pierced heart; Darkness, light, O Heaven’s art A wound of His, a counterpart? Afraid of that?

Afraid? Of what? To do by death what life could not? Baptize with blood a stony plot, Till souls shall blossom from that spot? Afraid of that?

And old-time faithful servants of God said, “Not afraid.”

Miss Isabel Alley went out and was dead in one year on the eastern coast of Africa. Pastor Iyer lasted 21 years. But Miss Phoebe Bart was dead in four months. Miss Cogheshall was dead in three months. Mrs. Hoffman died in three years. Her husband lasted 16. But Missionary Holcomb lasted one, and Missionary Horn lasted two, and Missionary Messenger lasted three months, and Missionary Minor lasted seven years, and Mrs. Catherine Patch two years, Mrs. Jacob Rambo two years, and Missionary Robert Smith three months, and Dr. T.R. Steele six months.

William Hotzkish wrote: “I’ve dwelt four years practically alone in Africa. I’ve been thirty times stricken with the fever, malaria. Three times attacked by lions, several times by rhinos. But let me say to you, I’d gladly go again and have the joy of again bringing the word ‘Savior’ and flashing it into the darkness that envelops another tribe in Africa.”

Johann Kraft, a German Lutheran firebrand who was instrumental in opening up eastern Africa to the gospel, arrived there with his bride, Rosine. Rosine gave birth to a premature daughter whom they named Uba, “a tear.” And they buried that baby under a tree beside the trail. Later, when they reached Zanzibar, Rosine delivered another child, and this time both the mother and baby died.

And he wrote back to Europe: “There is now on the eastern African coast a lonely missionary grave. And this is a sign that you have commenced to struggle with this part of the world. And as the victories of the church are gained by stepping over the graves of her members, you may be the more convinced that the hour is at hand when you’re summoned to the conversion of Africa from its eastern shore.”

Afraid? Afraid of what? And their answer was, “Not afraid.”

Examples of Bearing the Iniquity

I think one of the best examples I’ve ever seen of bearing the iniquity of a people is my wife’s brother, Bob Grings, and his wife, Winifred. We visited them in their city house. It was back behind businesses, downtown Kinshasa, a city of 5 million at the time. The walls surrounded it. They saw the sun only at a certain time of day. There was a plaza next to them that had all of the evil of Kinshasa in it. You’d pass through that plaza to go to the house. It was a duplex. At one end of the building, a Congolese family lived. They had the other end.

Now this is a city, beloved, where at least one in four has HIV. At that time, there were more than one million cases in that city. For the duplex, which accommodated two families and many visitors to the Congo family, there was only one toilet and one shower. And that toilet had no seat. And they used the same toilet and the same shower in a place where statistically every fourth person who came there had HIV.

But the amazing thing was that they thought nothing of it. It didn’t dawn on them that there might be a problem with that. They had joined their people in the destitution brought by sin. They stayed with them in spite of and because of the destruction of their bodies by the fruits of illicit sex, alcohol, drugs, and syphilis. Living with the blind, the broken, the bewildered, the bereft.

I call that bearing the iniquity. Loving their souls in spite of the debauchery, pornography of their hearts, their eyes, their mouths. Holding them and hugging them in your heart.

The Lord said, “For I have laid on thee the years of their iniquity.”

There’s something, young people, beyond going out and preaching the gospel that’s necessary. We must, by God’s grace, join in His judgment of sin and offer to them the glorious love of the God of heaven as they repent from their sin and turn to Him to be saved, cleansed, and transformed. That’s the glorious message of the missionary. But we go beyond that. Not only do we join God in the judgment of sin, but we join the people in the destitution brought by their sin.

The Greatest Example: Jesus Christ

Now we must move toward a close. Let’s look just for a moment at some of the personages that bore the iniquity. Isaiah 53—oh, that’s the best example. Isaiah 53 verses 13 to 15:

“Behold, my servant shall deal prudently, he shall be exalted and extolled, and be very high. As many were astonied at thee; his visage was so marred more than any man, and his form more than the sons of men: So shall he sprinkle many nations; the kings shall shut their mouths at him: for that which had not been told them shall they see; and that which they had not heard shall they consider.”

“For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground: he hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him. He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.”

“He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth: he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth. He was taken from prison and from judgment: and who shall declare his generation? for he was cut off out of the land of the living: for the transgression of my people was he stricken. And he made his grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death; because he had done no violence, neither was any deceit in his mouth. Yet it pleased the LORD to bruise him; he hath put him to grief: when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the LORD shall prosper in his hand.”

Who, beloved, is the most wonderful example of bearing the iniquity? Of course, our own great high priest, the Lord Jesus Christ. He who was undesired and nothing, a cipher, who made Himself of no reputation, who took upon Himself the morphe’, the sculpted image of man, was found in fashion as man, indistinguishable—His family couldn’t even recognize Him, His brothers rejected Him—despised and rejected, scorned, loathed, detested, abhorred, found repulsive. “Crucify Him,” they screamed.

A man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief. In Mark 7:34, He sighed. In Mark 8:12, He sighed deeply in His spirit. In Luke 19:41, He beheld the city and wept over another siege. In John 11, He groaned in His spirit and was troubled and wept. Abandoned, and we hid, as it were, our face from Him. And He cried, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”

Unthinkable! Wounded, bruised, chastised, whipped, oppressed, afflicted, burdened with the iniquity of us all, brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and finally finishing in the travail of His soul, victoriously bearing the iniquity. And then we find in Isaiah 53:12, He adds to that: “Therefore will I divide him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong; because he hath poured out his soul unto death: and he was numbered with the transgressors; and he bare the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.”

And because of that, beloved, He received the accolade of God: “Therefore will I divide him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong, because he hath poured out his soul unto death, and he was numbered with the transgressors, and he bare the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.”

Now, young people, in the light of this, how well are we able to say, how honestly are we able to say, we are growing in the image of the Lord Jesus Christ?

Jeremiah did it—weeping, despairing, returning, staying, bearing the iniquity, and eventually seeing the victory of God.

How Far Do We Go in Bearing the Iniquity?

We have to decide how far we go in bearing the iniquity. Go back to our passage, Ezekiel chapter 4.

And we’re reading the description of a siege. And what God is doing with Ezekiel is having him act out a siege. And the Lord says now, verse 9:

“Take thou also unto thee wheat, and barley, and beans, and lentiles, and millet, and fitches, and put them in one vessel, and make thee bread thereof, according to the number of the days that thou shalt lie upon thy side, three hundred and ninety days shalt thou eat thereof.”

What’s happening? During the siege, they’re going to search for scraps of grain. They won’t find enough of any one of them to bake a loaf of bread, but if they gather all they can of all the different kinds, then they’re going to bake a loaf of bread out of that mixture of grains.

And so He says, “Now you’re to do that, Ezekiel. Take barley, wheat, beans, lentils, millet, fitches, put them in a vessel, and make bread of them. And make bread like you would make bread during the siege.”

“And thy meat which thou shalt eat shall be by weight, twenty shekels a day: from time to time shalt thou eat it. Thou shalt drink also water by measure, the sixth part of an hin: from time to time shalt thou drink. And thou shalt eat it as barley cakes, and thou shalt bake it with dung that cometh out of man, in their sight.”

Because that’s what is going to end up happening in the siege. They’ll be down—the cows are dead, cattle are dead, there’s no wood, there’s nothing with which to bake their bread, as little as they can scrape up off the streets or wherever, a mixture of all kinds of grain, and they’re going to end up baking it using human excrement as fuel.

And so the Lord says, “Now you’re going to bake your bread with dung, man’s dung.”

And what is the response of Ezekiel to that? Verse 14: “Then said I, Ah Lord GOD! behold, my soul hath not been polluted: for from my youth up even till now have I not eaten of that which dieth of itself, or is torn in pieces; neither came there abominable flesh into my mouth.”

Now what is the issue? Sin. “Lord, don’t make me violate my holiness. Don’t force me, Lord, to do some unclean thing. Don’t force me, Lord, to sin.”

What is the limit at which the servant of God should stop? It’s easy, in one sentence: anything but sin. Any kind of suffering, any kind of situation, anything but sin. No rights, no fame, no name.

When Louise and I were abducted by soldiers a couple years ago in Congo, taken back at ten o’clock at night, behind a fence, high stake fence, hidden back in there, where it looked like maybe the workers came out for lunch during their work day, and two soldiers trying to rob us, trying to take my shoes off, beating me over the head with a rifle butt, demanding that we give them money. We had no money to give them.

Finally, I prayed. I said, “I’m going to pray to the God of heaven. I don’t think God is pleased with what you’re doing.” And as I’m praying, they’re hitting me on the head. But then they got quiet. And when they got riled up again, and I said, “I’m going to talk to God again,” and this time they listened and they said, “Amen”—they must have been Catholics. And God delivered us from that.

If you can’t take that, you can’t be a missionary in Kinshasa, Zaire.

“Are ye able,” said the Master, “to be crucified with me?” 

“Yea,” the sturdy dreamers answered, “to the death we follow thee.” 

“Lord, we are able. Our spirits are thine. 

Remold us, make us like thee, divine. 

Thy guiding radiance forever shall be 

A beacon to God, to love and loyalty.”

The Power of God vs. the Better Way

I get asked in many churches, “Please tell these stories of the miraculous power of God.” But there’s a better way, a better way to raise children. Go and meet the enemy where he is, on his territory. The drug pushers, the occult, the prostitutes. And begin walking those people down the aisles of our churches, cleansed and transformed, and living for the God of heaven. And you will have shown your young people God.

Let our children see the power of God at work. Let them see us bear the iniquity of a lost people.

The Historical Pattern: Prophets and Missionaries Never Ran

Then the issue comes up of running. Young people, if you study through the Old Testament, the prophets never ran. They preached God’s word, they joined God in His judgment of their sin, and then they joined the people in the judgment of God when they did not turn from their sin.

The old-fashioned missionaries did it. The prophets did it, of course. The apostles did it. Ten of the twelve died right along with their Christian compatriots. The old-fashioned missionaries, you could not get them off the field, no matter what. I’ve given you some illustrations of that.

This is the first generation of missionaries to run. And sad to say, it is becoming the policy of mission boards to promise their missionaries that if there is danger, they will do everything they can to get them off of that place before harm can come to them.

I was in one conference—there were twenty-five missions there—and someone asked the question, “If I go to the mission field, and there’s danger, what will my mission board do to rescue me?” Virtually all of the representatives stood up one after another and said, “Don’t worry about that, we keep our ear to the ground, we keep track of the political situations, and we’ll do our best to get you out of there before harm can come to you.”

Beloved, that’s unbiblical, that’s unhistorical, that’s unethical.

You understand that running causes rejoicing and relief in the churches back here, but what does it say to them? “It’s too dangerous out there. You can’t go to the mission field, it’s too dangerous,” whether it’s disease or war.

What Staying Through Danger Communicates

Staying through danger—what if the missionary stays and God protects them, and they come through all of that danger alive and well? What does that say? “We have a God who can protect His servants, the God of Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, the God of Daniel in the lion’s den, the God of history, a God who can protect His servants in the midst of the greatest danger.”

What if the missionary stays and is killed? Historically, God’s people have risen up and said, “If there’s a task worth dying for, and a God worth dying for, I am going to go back and replace that missionary that was killed,” and virtually always far more go out than those who have been killed.

The worst possible thing a missionary can do is run.

A Call for a New Generation

Now, I don’t expect the proud to come, the lovers of comfort, the frivolous, the fancy, the flighty, the pursuers of fairy tales. I don’t expect them to go to the mission field and stick, but I do expect those who have a desire to become like Christ. Those whose eyes the Holy Spirit has opened and whose heart is gripped in His mighty grasp. Those whose ears have been opened to hear the footsteps of the lost passing them on their way to hell.

Amy Carmichael once was asked, “What’s the difference between an ordinary Christian and a missionary Christian?” And that was her answer: “The missionary is one who has never been able to become accustomed to the footsteps of the lost passing them on their way to hell.”

People who need to walk in the footsteps of Abraham and Elijah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel and Apostle Paul, will you indeed, beloved, come to bear the stench of the terminally ill, the darkness of the jungles, the burned-out minds of the drug addict, the rage of the rebels, the squalor of the slums, the terror of the runaways, the hopeless cheapness of the prostitutes?

The prophet said, “No, not afraid.” The apostle said, “Not afraid.” The old-fashioned missionary said, “Not afraid.”

And beloved, we need a new generation of young missionaries who will cry out into the face of Satan and echo in the ears of God, “We are not afraid.”

God, give us not only those who will join God in His judgment of the sin of a people and present to them a repentance, soul-saving gospel, but also a new generation of missionaries who will bear the iniquity of their people.

Father, bless now this portion of Thy word to our hearts, we pray. Teach me, O God, teach us, in Jesus’ name. Amen.