But it's a musical instrument.
And I had, this is one of the
things that I studied in London, and this
is a very special oboe.
Actually, to an oboist, his oboe or her
oboe is always special, because it's yours.
You've chosen it, and you know how it
works, and it suits you, and you've worked
on it.
And I thought, why, no, no, no, not
that.
You know, I, no, no, no, no.
The Lord would never mean me to give
that up.
Anyway, I didn't say anything to the boy,
and we prayed together.
And as we prayed, I had a message
in tongues, and he had the interpretation.
And the interpretation of the message was roughly
this.
If Jesus gave up his life for you,
what's an oboe?
All right, Lord, I said.
I mean, what's an oboe?
So I went out to the girl, and
I said, Look, I'll give you the money
on two conditions.
First of all, I hand over the money
myself.
I'm not going to give it to you.
I'll give it to the loan sharks.
Secondly, I want you really to consider a
new life in Jesus.
We'll give you any help you like.
We'll find a place for you to live.
We'll help you get a job.
We'll support you so that you can start
a new life.
And she said, No way.
She said, The loan shark won't talk to
you.
It has to be me.
And I said, Well, those are my conditions.
So in the end, she agreed.
And she set up this appointment for me
in the middle of the night.
We sat at a cafe.
And this was outside the wall city.
And at midnight, and I'd taken all, I'd
sold my oboe and got all these dollar
bills used in a brown envelope.
And this was going to be very exciting,
you see.
And Michael, the loan shark, never turned up.
But he sent three or four of his
heavies along instead.
And they all sort of creature car tires
as they drove up to the cafe.
And they kept the car running outside.
And in came these men, you see.
And they came over to the table.
And they saw her.
And they picked up the envelope.
And they quickly counted the money.
And they walked out.
And I thought, Oh, this has gone a
bit too quick.
You see, I was very disappointed.
So I called to the men.
I said, Hey, stop.
And they looked around.
And I said, Excuse me, but I want
you to take a message to your leader.
And they said, What do you want?
And I said, No, I want to give
a message to your leader.
And they said, Well, you can tell us.
And I said, No, I have to tell
it myself.
This is very important.
And they said, No, he won't speak to
you.
And I said, I insist upon it.
So will you please arrange that?
So they took my phone number.
And later on, the leader, called Michael, phoned
me.
And when he telephoned me, he arranged for
me to go to his nightclub.
He operated a big nightclub on the 21st
floor of a building.
And when I got up there, they had
to let me in with a three feet
long golden key.
And I found out that this was a
club for sophisticated businessmen.
And this is where Maria would have worked.
Because upstairs, there were cages for the girls.
Downstairs, there was a bar, thickly carpeted with
teddy bears everywhere.
It's a very weird place.
And I sat down, and Michael wouldn't talk
to me.
He sent other people over.
Later on, he came down, and he sat
down.
And he said, I suppose you think you're
really clever.
He said, I suppose you think you've done
something really noble, don't you?
Well, he said, I know all about Jesus.
He said, you don't have to tell me
about him.
In fact, he said, people in Hong Kong
should be grateful to me, because I find
missing children.
The reason that he found missing children was
that as he was a gang leader, he
knew where many of them were, as they
were in brothels and so on.
And he operated this service for parents whose
children were run away.
And he thought he was doing a reasonable
job, because he'd got 11 brothers and sisters,
and he needed to support them.
And I said, I want to tell you
about Jesus.
And he said, oh, you don't need to
tell me all of that.
He said, you think you've done something good
for that girl, don't you?
Well, you haven't.
He said, she'll teach you.
She'll never change.
She'll go right back and do the same
thing.
He said it was a wasted gesture.
He's very good at talking.
And I said, well, when Jesus died for
me, you see, he didn't die when I
promised to change.
He died whether I was going to change
or not.
He laid down his life for me because
he loved me.
And I said, that's what I want to
do for her.
I'd rather pay the money for her and
give her the opportunity to be saved rather
than be hard-hearted and cynical and see
her go to hell.
I said, now it's up to her.
This is her choice what she does with
it or not.
But I'd rather be the fool and give
her the opportunity for a new life because
that's what Jesus did for me.
And he opened his mouth to speak back.
And he was struck dumb.
He couldn't speak.
He couldn't speak for about ten minutes.
No words came.
He tried.
Nothing came out and his eyes just filled
with tears.
And then at the end of ten minutes
he said, I have nothing more to say.
A man nearby had heard.
And he later followed me out and he
accepted Jesus and came to new life.
But Michael heard the gospel and he understood
it.
That's what it is.
And when you come to minister to the
poor and the hungry and the needy, remember
that you don't minister to people who are
going to be grateful.
You don't minister conditionally.
You don't minister because they're going to change.
You don't love them.
If they repent, you're willing to lay your
life down whether they appreciate it or not.
That's what Jesus did.
And that's what St. Paul said in 1
Thessalonians chapter 1 verse 5.
He said, we live among you.
And we preach the gospel not simply with
words, but also with power, with the Holy
Spirit and deep conviction.
You know how we have lived among you
for your sake.
And then he said to them, we loved
you so much that we were delighted to
share with you not only the gospel of
God but our lives as well because you
have become so dear to us.
Surely you remember, brothers, our toil and hardship.
We worked night and day in order not
to be a burden to anyone while we
preached the gospel to you.
And may it be that our lives do
indeed testify to other people that we love
them.
We don't just say the words and leave
them.
But we share with our lives.
We want to share our lives because they
were given by Jesus.
So what happened in Hong Kong?
Our fruits became more and more and more.
And there was a gang leader in the
walled city who controlled, indirectly, he controlled 10
,000 of the 14,000.
That particular triad worldwide is 100,000.
And his part in the walled city and
the surrounding areas is just about 10,000.
And his immediate followers were smaller.
Because in the triad society everybody has a
big brother.
And the big brother has a big brother.
And he has a big brother.
That's how you can be in control of
so many.
And after a few years, I had never
met him.
But we got to have tea together.
And he said to me, he said, we've
been watching you.
And he said, many people come to Hong
Kong.
We're not impressed.
He said, they stand on platforms and they
sing about Jesus.
Well, he said, give us an aeroplane ticket
round the world and we'd believe.
It doesn't touch us.
He said, those missionaries, they've still got their
air conditioners, their refrigerators.
And he said, us, we're still here.
So he said, we can usually get them
out in six months.
They're usually depressed by then.
They're discouraged.
But he said, when you've been here four
years, we thought maybe you meant what you
said.
He said, all that time, we weren't listening.
He said, you can have a program giving
out rice.
He said, you can have hymn singing every
night.
You can have judo classes or needlework.
He said, we don't care what your program
is.
We don't mind if you've got a little
room or a big church.
What we want to know is.