It is a very real joy to be
back at Knox Presbyterian Church.
Leon and I remember with tremendous joy the
opportunity we had back six years ago now
to be with you and to share in
the Bible ministry in connection with the annual
mission conference.
It's a joy to continue to see the
continuing commitment to evangelism and world missions.
With David, I really rejoice in what God
did 100 years ago and to stand here
this evening with you.
As Leon and I came to the church,
I had the feeling that it was indeed
an historic event.
100 years ago this month, well actually the
end of last month, just a month ago
to be exact, that group left Knox Presbyterian
Church.
It's interesting and sobering to reflect on the
cost of discipleship.
Bonhoeffer once said, When Jesus Christ calls a
man to be his disciple, he calls him
to die.
And of that party that went out, three
within the first two years had given their
lives for the Lord Jesus Christ.
It cost something.
We will be thinking this weekend together about
God's word.
And our theme is taken from Isaiah chapter
55 verse 11.
This is a very precious chapter for our
family.
We weren't asked to sing it this afternoon.
We might have done that at the Weishen
concentration camp reunion because all four of the
Taylor children along with our family were taught
by our parents the 55th chapter of Isaiah.
And we used to sing it for morning
worship.
I shall not sing it for you this
evening for fear there will be no congregation
when I'm through.
Verse 11, So shall my word be that
goeth forth out of my mouth.
It shall not return unto me void, but
it shall accomplish that which I please.
And it shall prosper in the thing whereunto
I have sent it.
For our scripture reading this evening, I would
like to invite your attention to Acts chapter
6.
Acts 6.
Reading from verse 1 through verse 7.
Hear the word of the Lord.
Now at this time while the disciples were
increasing in number, a complaint arose on the
part of the Hellenistic Jews against the native
Hebrews because their widows were being overlooked in
the daily serving of food.
And the twelve summoned the congregation of the
disciples and said, It is not desirable for
us to neglect the word of God in
order to serve tables.
But select from among you, brethren, seven men
of good report, good reputation, full of the
spirit and of wisdom, whom we may put
in charge of this task.
But we will devote ourselves to prayer and
to the ministry of the word.
And the statement found approval with the whole
congregation, and they chose Stephen, a man full
of faith and of the Holy Spirit, and
Philip, Crocorus, Nicanor, Timon, Parmenas, and Nicholas, a
proselyte from Antioch.
These they brought before the apostles, and after
praying they laid their hands on them.
And the word of God kept on spreading,
and the number of disciples continued to increase
greatly in Jerusalem.
And a great many of the priests were
becoming obedient to the faith.
Will you join with me in a word
of prayer?
Father, all through this week we have been
thinking about your commission.
You have sent us as believers, as followers
of Jesus, to make disciples of all nations.
And we have thought of various parts of
the world, of India and Latin America, of
Asia and Africa, of the Muslim world.
We ask this evening, dear Lord, as we
turn to your word, that you will speak
to our hearts.
We want to praise you together for what
you did 100 years ago.
We thank you for your hand of grace
upon Jonathan and Rosalyn Goforth, and the way
in which you used them in such a
mighty way in China, not only among the
Chinese, but also among the missionaries.
We thank you, Lord, for that band of
14 young people that left Knox, left Toronto
100 years ago now, to go to China
to give their lives for Christ, that the
Chinese people might come to newness of life
in Jesus.
Lord, we pray that tonight you will speak
to our hearts as you spoke to Jonathan
Goforth's heart, as you spoke to those young
people 100 years ago.
It may not be to China that you
are calling us, but Lord, call us clearly
that we may hear your voice and respond
in obedience.
In Christ's name we pray.
Amen.
As we look at the growth of the
early church, our attention this evening is on
the words, the Word of God spread.
That is found in Acts 6, verse 7.
The Word of God spread.
In the book of Acts, Luke has given
us at least five summations, and we come
this evening to the first.
It is a kind of summation that draws
together, in a conclusion, what God was doing
as a result of events just recorded.
And from chapter 1 right up through to
Acts 6, verse 7, you see this moving
record of what God was doing through His
chosen disciples.
The Word of God spread.
The background of this summation can be seen
in several important events and statements.
First of all, it can be seen in
the power of the resurrection.
Chapter 1 records that the Lord, the risen
Lord, made Himself known in many ways and
at many times to His disciples.
The fact of the resurrection comes through in
the preaching of the early church as a
foundation for their pressing out in obedience to
the Lord.
Ten times in the first six chapters, reference
is made to the resurrection.
Jesus Himself showed Himself alive by many convincing
proofs, and these, His disciples, were to be
witness of the resurrection.
I wonder, friends, how often today we make
the resurrection of Jesus part of our testimony.
The fact that the Lord is risen, is
that an important element in our witness today?
That He is alive.
It was in the early church.
Secondly, the outpouring of the Holy Spirit.
Jesus had promised His disciples, I am leaving,
but I will send My Spirit.
And in chapter 2, we read of the
coming of the Holy Spirit.
In chapter 1, verse 8, the Lord had
said to His disciples, You will receive power
when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and
then you will be My witnesses.
That power was a cleansing power.
Cleansing their hearts by faith, as Peter said.
Making no distinction between them and us, Gentile
and Jew.
It was a guiding power.
It was a powerful witness to stand boldly
in the face of tremendous opposition.
The Holy Spirit.
Above all, it was the presence of the
risen Lord.
So often we think of the other attributes
and the other aspects of the Holy Spirit.
But was it not He Himself present with
them, that enabled them to stand?
Jesus said, and I will be with you.
My dear friend Dick Dowsett, who will be
here before too long, as he preaches on
Matthew chapter 28, the closing verses there, he
constantly reminds young people, no go, no lo.
Do you know what he means?
Go was the command.
Go and make disciples.
And the promise, lo, I am with you
always.
And if we don't accept and obey the
command, go, how can we appropriate, lo, the
promise, lo, I am with you always?
Well, the risen Lord, through the Holy Spirit,
was to be with His servants.
Thirdly, I think we see the way in
which Jesus was presented in His uniqueness.
And it's something we need to recapture today.
Not only in His risen life, through His
Spirit, but in His uniqueness.
There is no other name.
You say that we cannot preach in His
name?
Should we obey man rather than God?
Today, the very nerve of missions is being
cut by those who are moving away from
the recognition of the New Testament church that
Jesus Christ alone is Savior.
There is no other name under heaven given
among men whereby we must be saved.
Our Lord Himself said, I am the way,
the truth, and the life.
No man cometh unto the Father but by
Me.
But today, the inroads of universalism in the
church are cutting the nerve of missions as
people feel, well, what right have we as
Christians to superimpose our religious faith on others?
Friends, those early Christians knew that there was
no other way.
That Jesus Christ alone is the answer.
There are other religions.
There are other great philosophies.
But Jesus alone is the way, the truth,
and the life.
And they declared His uniqueness.
Man is lost, and Christ is the only
answer.
I hope that you will read Dick Dowsett's
book, God, That's Not Fair.
It's a bit like C.S. Lewis' book,
Screwtape Letters, in format, because in it you
have letters from Dick to his pal in
university, and they're struggling over this very issue.
Read it, and let the word of God
speak to your heart.
The centrality of the word is also apparent
all through these six chapters.
The word of the Lord is so central
here.
And so the summation comes.
The word of the Lord spread.
The word of God spread.
Now, what is the immediate circumstance of this
spreading?
Chapter six opens with the church in crisis.
I'm sure this never happens at Knox.
But the church in Jerusalem was about to
split.
They were having a tough time.
It was growing.
And you know, when the church grows, Satan
is very active, and he was on the
attack.
There was complaining, there was murmuring, because the
church was reaching out in love to orphans
and widows.
And some were being neglected in this ministry
of compassion.
You know, when work is going forward rapidly,
and the numbers are growing, that can often
happen, and happen easily.
And we read here that at a time
of increase and growth, there was complaint that
arose on the part of the Hellenistic Jews
against the native Hebrews because their widows were
being overlooked in the daily serving of food.
I am impressed by the sensitivity of the
early church.
The sensitivity to the currents, the voices, the
messages.
And the leaders of the church heard this
complaint.
Now, they could have responded in a number
of ways.
They might, first of all, have responded by
just saying, this is an insignificant problem.
This small number of believers, furthermore, they are
Hellenistic.
These are the overseas, not overseas Chinese, but
overseas Jews, who have come back to Jerusalem.
We can afford to neglect them.
The major body of people here are being
cared for.
They didn't.
They took decisive action.
Complaint in the church.
Discrimination in the church demands decisive action.
And Peter and the leaders of the church
were prepared to bite the bullet.
And I read here that they called the
whole body of believers together, the assembly together.
They summoned the congregation of the disciples.
You see, they took the matter really seriously.
And they took their own role seriously.
Listen to what they said.
It is not desirable for us to neglect
the Word of God in order to serve
tables.
Now, I have a friend in Singapore that
doesn't like this verse of Scripture.
He says to me that Peter, when he
said that, was not expressing the Spirit of
Christ.
Christ had taken the towel and had girt
himself, and then member by member he had
washed his disciples' feet.
And here Peter is expressing a proud spirit.
He wasn't prepared to serve the tables.
And I think my friend in Singapore just
doesn't get the point.
It wasn't that Peter was proud.
Read his epistle and see how he talks
about being girt about with a towel of
humility.
He knows what he's talking about.
But what he meant here was that the
Lord had entrusted to him a responsibility.
Ah yes, he was concerned when widows hurt
and when Lydia died.
You see him going to the scene there,
called to the scene in his response.
He hurt when people hurt.
It wasn't that, as we say in Chinese,
that he was a wooden person.
He wasn't a wooden person without any feeling.
He hurt.
He had compassion.
But Peter said, God has entrusted to us
the responsibility to open the word.
And he knew that as some faced a
lack, a famine of bread, if he and
the other disciples neglected their responsibility, a greater
famine, a more serious famine, the famine of
God's word would come upon the church.
And therefore, he refused to stand back from
his responsibility.
Look what he did.
He didn't ask his wife to take over
or members of his family.
That might have been very comfortable.
You know, you can keep a tight control
on things.
Then nepotism happens in the church today.
You know, I think it's beautiful to see
the confidence that Peter expresses here in the
body of believers.
He quietly set out for them principles of
selection.
And then he said, it's over to you.
You make the selection.
The tremendous sense of confidence that he had,
not only in the believers, but in their
ability to bring forward people of adequate qualification
to meet the need.
They here were prepared.
Peter and the other disciples were prepared to
bring in new blood.
And I long to see the church today
reaching out to young people and bringing in
new leaders and new blood to serve shoulder
to shoulder with others who have borne the
heat of battle.
There's a beautiful picture here to see the
way in which these disciples said, we don't
have to do everything.
Indeed, they already were confronted with the realization
that they couldn't do everything.
They were in trouble, and the church was
about to split because of it.
But they said, young people can help.
Spirit filled young people.
Young people that are full of wisdom and
of faith.
And thank God that Peter recognized that new
blood coming in had that kind of quality.
It wasn't money or position, authority.
These were the factors that were laid out
by Peter.
And then he turned it over to the
body of saints and said, you go on.
We must give ourselves to preaching the word
and prayer.
And you see what happened.
The body of believers acted on the principles
laid out, spiritual principles laid out here.
And seven men were chosen.
It's interesting to see that these seven all
had Gentile names.
It speaks of the breadth of the spirit
of the believers then.
That they weren't still holding tightly to just
bringing Jews into the picture or local Jews.
But they were prepared to bring the overseas
Jews into the picture.
Oh yes, it was all Jews still.
That breakthrough hadn't yet come.
We'll see that tomorrow.
But they brought this new blood in.
And immediately Luke gives us the summation.
As a result of that, the word of
God kept on spreading.
And the number of disciples continued to increase
greatly in Jerusalem.
Friends, if we're looking for church growth at
home, as well as world evangelization beyond us,
we need to see closely some of these
principles that are outlined for us here.
Discrimination is dealt with.
Murmuring is recognized and is also dealt with.
We need to recognize that growth demands increased
organization.
But that organization must be carried forward on
biblical principles.
And leaders need to have a clear sense
of priority.
Tonight, in a sense, is China night.
We've been thinking about a hundred years ago.
About Jonathan Goforth and the way God used
that great leader in China and in other
parts of the world.
David has shared with us about Henry Frost
and the way in which the Lord led
him.
And how, as a result of God's hand
on this young man, the China inland mission
began to span the Atlantic and include Canadian
missionaries and missionaries from the United States.
Those missionaries went out in 1888.
They weren't the first from North America.
You have some who have already gone, George
McKay to Formosa for Taiwan in 1865.
Work had already begun in some other parts,
in Fujian province as well as Taiwan.
But these represented, at least for the China
inland mission and for Goforth's, a new penetration
of China.
That was 1888.
The church was to face some tremendous testing.
By 1900, the Boxer Uprising took place.
Thousands of Chinese Christians gave their lives, not
a few missionaries.
More than 56 missionaries of the China inland
mission died during the Boxer Uprising.
That year, 1900, there were 100,000 Christians
in China.
Many people thought with that uprising, with the
Empress Dowager on the rampage as she was,
stirring up the obscurantist boxers, that that marked
the end of the church.
But friends, never forget that God is sovereign
and that His word, properly proclaimed, will bear
fruit in God's time.
Missionaries continued.
Chinese pastors continued.
By 1937, when Japan attacked China, there were
already half a million Christians in China.
Over that period of some 36, 37 years,
the number of Christians had multiplied by five
at least.
And then through those war years, very difficult
war years, it was amazing to see what
God was doing.
Chinese, by the thousand, had to flee from
the northeastern provinces, from the eastern seaboard.
And they made their way into the interior,
to areas, many of them, many areas where
the gospel had never reached, where missionaries had
not penetrated.
And Christians were among these refugees from the
eastern seaboard, carrying the gospel.
By 1949, the war with Japan was over.
The civil war was over.
Mao Zedong stood in Tiananmen Square and proclaimed
to the world, China has stood up.
At that point, there were between 700,000
and one million Christians in all of China.
Surely we can acknowledge this evening that the
word of God had spread.
What a picture.
I see my dear colleague, Dr. McLeod, here
this evening.
He served in China.
Some others here may also have served.
I don't know how you felt, Dr. McLeod,
when the bamboo curtain came down.
There was trembling in many hearts and wondering
what would happen to the church.
In 1976-77, that period, one of our
CIM missionaries went back into China.
And when he came out, he described what
he had seen.
A spiritual desert.
No evidence.
But friends, it is incredible to see what
God has done in China.
How the word has spread.
I returned to China in 1980 for my
first visit after an absence of 34 years.
And since that time, almost on an annual
basis, Leon and I have had the privilege
of traveling to different parts of China.
To Beijing.
To Shandong, where we went to the China
Inland Mission School.
To Weixian, where we were imprisoned by the
Japanese.
To the northeastern provinces.
To Xinjiang.
To Kunming.
To Chongqing in Sichuan.
To Hunan province.
Henan province, where I was born.
And many other parts.
Shanghai and Canton.
And as we've traveled, we've seen something of
the mighty power of God's word.
It is incredible to see what God has
been doing.
Yes, many people in 1949 and 50-51
were saying that's the end of the church
in China.
No missionaries, no church.
I submit to you that that is an
inadequate understanding of the church.
Jesus said, I will build my church and
the gates of hell will not prevail against
it.
When I visited Moore Memorial Church in Shanghai
in my first visit, Dr. Billy Graham was
speaking about his visit there just two nights
ago.
I arrived at the church at 6.30
in the morning.
There were three services.
6.30, 8.30 and 10.30. And
at 6.30 in the morning when I
arrived, I discovered that there was already a
crowd of people around the gate.
I was a bit disturbed because I thought
they haven't opened the gates yet to allow
the Christians to go in.
But when they saw the tourists coming, a
little group of us, they opened a passage
and we entered.
And to my amazement, I discovered the church
was already full.
2,000 people were already crowding the church.
The people standing outside at 6.25 that
morning were waiting for the 8.30 service.
There was no room for them at 6
.30. 2,000 of my Chinese brothers and
sisters.
It was an incredible experience.
I wept as the piano began to play
the prelude.
Oh yes, the piano had gone through the
cultural revolution.
There was no question about that.
But the strains of Jesus, this is the
very thought of thee with sweetness fills my
breast.
And I thought of the way in which
a political power had sought every means at
its disposal to expunge the name of Jesus
from the face of that nation.
And that morning to have the privilege to
join with my brothers and sisters in exalting
His name.
It was a tremendous experience.
How has that church grown?
There are many factors.
Many important factors.
Factors that we find in these first six
chapters.
The love factor.
That kind of concern for widows and orphans.
A doctor told me after he left China
of the way in which they brought together
two or three families.
Hurting families.
Wobbly families that really hadn't stood as Christians
during the heat of the persecution.
Brought them into a little community of love.
And supported them, encouraged them.
I saw a sister who had gone through
14 years of hard labor being sheltered by
a brilliant neurosurgeon.
He could have been discriminated against as a
result of that.
Fearlessly, he brought her into his home and
there protected this dear old sister.
We heard last summer in Xinjiang, the far
northwest, massive Muslim population there of a family
that was forced to leave their home.
Three days they were given to get out.
Christians in another commune heard what was happening.
And they said, those are our brothers and
sisters.
We've got to do something about it.
They got materials, came with equipment and helped
build a temporary shelter for this Christian family
that was being discriminated against because of their
faith.
That kind of love.
Our brothers and sisters in China have demonstrated
that it's lay people that have got to
carry the responsibility along with missionaries and pastors
in preaching the Word.
And young people, if you haven't learned here
in Toronto at Knox to serve the Lord,
don't think that going across to China or
any other part of the world is going
to make a missionary out of you.
It begins right here.
That's where it begins for our Christians in
China.
One brother told me he got out of
hard labor, went back to his home area,
couldn't find a single Christian.
You know why he had been in hard
labor for years and years?
Because he was a Christian.
When he got back to his home area,
not finding a single Christian, he decided it
was about time to start all over again.
There was a CIM church in that area.
Nobody attending.
No Christians in sight.
He began to witness.
He said, you won't believe me, but in
the last two years, we have seen 7
,000 people turn to Jesus Christ.
In two years' time.
He said the little house churches that have
been established over these two years, they are
so numerous that I've not been able to
touch base with all of them once.
Just a few of them.
That brother that was evicted from his home
and his family, they really loved the Lord.
You know, they went through the fire for
the Lord.
They had seen the Lord's hand of healing
on some of their children.
Two of their boys had been desperately ill.
And in answer to prayer, God brought healing
to those boys.
You know, a little after they got that
temporary shelter built for them by other Christians,
they were forced out of that and sent
to the city of Urumqi.
Do you know what their job assignment was?
Cleaning the public toilets.
That was their job assignment.
Cleaning their public toilets.
And this brother said, praise God, everybody has
to go to the toilet.
This is going to give us an opportunity
to witness for Jesus that we've never had
before.
Hey, when some untoward thing happens to you,
and you feel discriminated against, do you get
uptight?
Do you feel that you've got a raw
deal?
Or do you begin to look at it
in terms of the Great Commission?
And how the Great Commission is going to
be worked out in this situation.
This brother did.
He saw that new assignment through the grid
of the Great Commission.
Make disciples.
Praise God for that kind of commitment to
evangelism.
And friends, I long this evening that every
one of us here would make a commitment
before the Lord to be His witness.
To share His Word.
We get all warm inside thinking about world
missions.
But friends, I just long today, it may
not be an assignment to join the sanitation
department and go where this brother had to
go.
But can you, will you, in the year
ahead, determined by God's grace?
It's not only those people that we're concerned
about.
It's every one of us having a part
in fulfilling the Great Commission.
And being concerned right here in Toronto.
Oh, there are some other important factors.
The way our brothers and sisters have suffered
for their faith.
You know, in China today, they don't talk
about Christianity as Yangjiao, as foreign religion anymore.
They haven't had any foreigners around.
These foreign devils got kicked out 40 years
ago.
No missionaries have been around for 40 years.
But Chinese have seen Christians.
Chinese Christians.
And they thought they're rice Christians.
These missionaries are kicked out.
The money is cut off.
There's no more help from Canada and America
and other places.
That will pretty soon wither the vine.
But do you know what happened?
Billy Graham told me personally this week that
the director of the United Front Work Department
told Dr. Graham when he visited China earlier
this year that they have discovered when the
Christians were persecuted, they grew.
He said, now we don't want to persecute
them.
And they stood and stood for their faith.
Some of them suffered incredibly.
They learned the power of prayer.
And friends, they discovered the power of God's
Word.
Bibles were burned.
Many were confiscated.
I may have shown you six years ago
hand-transcribed copies of the Scriptures that were
made by our brothers and sisters in China
when they lost their Bibles.
Do you know, friends, that if you review
the history of Christianity in China, there were
basically four major periods when the Gospel was
brought to China.
The Nestorian period, 1,300 years ago.
The Franciscan period during the time of Marco
Polo.
The Jesuit period at the end of the
Ming Dynasty and the beginning of the Qing
Dynasty.
And then the fourth, when Robert Morrison, the
first Protestant missionary, entered China.
But I have discovered as I've studied these
four periods a very, very important distinction that
the fourth period has from the earlier three.
Never once in the first, second or third
period when the Gospel was carried to China,
never once was the Bible in its entirety
translated for the Chinese church.
But when Robert Morrison arrived, his first task
was to master the Chinese language, compile the
first Chinese-English dictionary and complete the translation
of the entire Word of God in the
Chinese language.
The Word spread.
You see, Peter said we cannot lightly hold
the responsibility that the Lord has entrusted to
us.
We cannot give up the preaching of the
Word.
And I believe that there is cause and
effect in those two verses.
We cannot give up the preaching of the
Word and we read in this summation the
Word of God kept on spreading.
Will we commit ourselves as Robert Morrison did,
as our brothers and sisters in China have
to the Word of God?
May I, in closing, just say to you
this evening that there are ways in which
we can respond to China today in prayer.
Praying for that great nation's leaders, for Deng
Xiaoping, for Zhao Jiyang, for the Premier Li
Peng and many others of the leaders.
They need our prayers.
They are seeking to open that country in
a new way.
We should thank God for that and bear
them up in prayer.
We need to remember our brothers and sisters.
The religious sector in China does not enjoy
the freedom, anything like the freedom that you
and I enjoy.
Billy Graham was not permitted any single citywide
crusade.
It was a controlled situation where in schools
and churches a controlled congregation came to hear
Billy Graham speak.
House churches do not have freedom.
Many times the pressure is on and it's
on pretty tough in a lot of the
big cities to close them down and force
them to merge into the official church.
We need to pray for our brothers and
sisters.
You and I need to stand with radio
broadcast.
Recently I've been informed that 50% of
the converts in China have been brought to
faith through radio ministry.
Praise God for that.
And I thank God that you are supporting
the World Radio Missionary Fellowship here at Knox.
Literature is important.
The preparation of literature.
Bibles.
Pastors' library.
Apologetic literature for intellectuals who have been steeped
in atheism, in evolution.
Helping them to see the relation of science
and faith.
Literature is important.
Friends, there are two other ways that you
and I can respond to China.
Some can go.
Many do go as tourists.
Quietly, in a loving spirit, travel through China
and let the fragrance of our Lord Jesus
Christ be shed abroad.
Some can go because the paramount leader Deng
Xiaoping has established a policy of four modernizations.
And that policy recognizes that China needs to
move forward.
Many of them are Christians.
And in a quiet, low-key way, they
let their lives flesh out the love of
Christ and the power of God's Word.
Oh, they don't speak as I do this
evening to large congregations.
That isn't their task.
They've gone as medical personnel or as scientists,
as engineers, people in computer and technology, in
agriculture, teaching English as a second language.
And what an opportunity they have just quietly
as Jesus with the Samaritan woman or Jesus
and Nicodemus.
Some of them are people who have taken
early retirement and are using their skills, long
honed, to bring China into a modernization that
it has never known.
And China is eager for that.
And in many cases, the leaders in China
have recognized that there is something different about
the lifestyle of Christians and non-Christians, and
they say, we like it.
They don't drink.
They don't smoke.
There isn't a kind of loose, moral standard.
And they try to abide by the contracts
in contrast to some who break their contracts.
So, friends, these are ways we can respond.
The final way is right here in Toronto.
I've been informed that in Toronto there are
between five and six hundred scholars from China.
We can make friends with them and extend
Christian hospitality to them.
Last year, a friend went to Pittsburgh where
my daughter and son-in-law serve in
pastoral work.
They became a host family.
And this professor from a city in China
came to their home on many occasions.
My daughter baked a birthday cake for him.
He was absolutely delighted.
You know, when Leon and I visited him
in China this year, he looked, and with
a lovely smile on his face, he said,
did your daughter tell you what happened?
He wasn't talking about the birthday cake.
He was talking about his opening his heart
to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ.
He said, yes, we know about it.
He said, I'm telling my son and my
wife about it too.
We can't send missionaries, but these scholars, when
they return, what an opportunity.
Perhaps I can close with an illustration that
I used last night at the banquet and
I've used in other parts of Canada.
My friend John Bechtel was at a great
banquet in the Great Hall of the People
in Beijing.
Sitting seated beside him was a leading Chinese
official.
And John Bechtel turned to this Chinese official
and said, Sir, yesterday I went to your
famous palace museum and I saw your national
treasures.
You know, vases and bronzes and all of
that.
I saw your national treasure.
And like a flash, the Chinese official turned
to him and he said, Sir, you didn't
see our national treasure.
They're all in your country.
And he wasn't talking about the way Bishop
White got precious things from China and brought
them to the museum in Toronto.
He was talking about scholars who have come
to this country and are studying and to
the United States and are studying.
That's the way a leader in China regards
these.
30,000 in Canada and the United States.
10,000 in Japan.
Thousands in Europe.
In England.
In Australia.
New Zealand.
All around the world seeking further training.
What an opportunity we have to reach China's
treasure.
We can't send missionaries to China today.
But China's treasure has come to Canada.
Do we treasure that opportunity to share Jesus
with them?
These are some ways we can respond.
Yes, it may be that there are 50
million Christians in China today.
But don't forget, friends, there are 950 million
who do not know Christ.
The Jerusalem church saw a beginning.
But they didn't stop there.
And tomorrow we're going to see the way
they move forward.
And we need to move forward in world
evangelization because as the Word spreads, we want
it to spread to every people, every nation,
every tongue, and every tribe that Jesus' name
may be exalted.
What role does the Lord want you to
play in this final period of world evangelization?
Would you bow with me, please, in prayer?
Lord, we ask that Your Word will speak
to our hearts as we reflect on Your
power displayed in the church in Jerusalem, the
way in which they addressed prejudice, the way
in which they avoided ingrown power.
They reached out with new blood coming in.
And they saw the importance of Your Word
and prayer.
And as a result, the problem was resolved
and the church moved forward in amazing growth.
Lord, we remember a hundred years ago the
way in which You were working in Toronto
and right here at Knox.
And we long, our Heavenly Father, that You
will do it again.
That Your power may come and be demonstrated
through the Holy Spirit in our daily lives.
Set our hearts afire as David has shared
with us that zeal to send out young
people and evangelize Toronto.
Lord, grant that this city may be shaken
by the power of the Gospel as it
was a hundred years ago.
Give us tonight, dear Lord, a new commitment
to Your Word and the proclamation of that
Word and world evangelization.
In Christ's name we pray.