We don't see that very much in Canada
or in the Western world at all, but
there are parts of the world where the
church is rising and growing.
And one of the very exciting missionary movements
in the world today is Gospel for Asia.
I am delighted that Dr. K.
P.
Johanan is here to speak to us today.
I have heard of him for many years.
First, when I got hold of a copy
of a book, Revolution in World Missions, which
K.
P.
wrote, which is now sold over two million
copies all over the world.
And K.
P.
is the founder and president of Gospel for
Asia.
Founded it in 1979, so 30 years ago.
They currently have 14,000 missionaries, mainly Asian
missionaries, working in 11 Asian countries, the Indian
subcontinent, and some of the surrounding countries, especially
to the east of there.
And of those 14,000 missionaries, 9,000
of them are church planters.
That is their full-time work.
And they have planted over 30,000 churches.
I mean, these figures are huge.
Very often, North India has been one of
the toughest places in the world.
Many of them have come from the south
to the north in order to evangelize.
And they also operate over 60 Bible schools.
Currently, with 7,000 students, they are normally
there for about three years.
2,000 will be graduating this year.
And those 2,000 students, many of them
will go into GFA church planting ministries.
And at the end of this service, as
we do during the Global Outreach Conference, we
will take up another offering.
If you're visiting us this morning, let it
pass you by, unless God touches your heart
this afternoon, rather.
We don't do this all the time.
But we want to invest in the cost
in having identified another area that is unevangelized,
where there are no churches.
We want to invest in the process of
putting people into those areas, not just to
plant a church, but to plant a group
of churches that will infiltrate and minister to
that whole area.
You can't put a timeline on how long
it's going to take.
You can't put a cost on how much
that will cost in each area, because the
variations are great.
But we are going to give everything that
you give in an offering at the end
of this service for that purpose of working
in what are currently unevangelized areas, new areas,
to take the gospel, plant churches.
And as they are planted and begin to
grow, they become self-supporting, but they need
seed money to begin the process.
And we're able to help them with that.
GFA also broadcasts and uses the media widely.
KP himself has a radio program that is
heard every day by literally millions of folks
across India and also on 400 stations in
North America.
And from that, he has written numerous books.
I've never met anybody in my life who's
written 230 books, but KP has done so.
And he and his wife, Gisela, live near
Dallas, though he is in India much of
the year, makes about 10 trips every year.
And he's here with a colleague, David Carroll.
David, it's good to have you here as
well.
David will be saying something right at the
end of the service today as well.
And Pat Emmerich, who directs the Canadian Office
of Gospel for Asia.
I think there's some other members of the
GFA team from Canada here.
If there are, just put your hand up.
Let's see who you are.
There they are.
There's a few hands going up around here
who work with Gospel for Asia here in
Canada, doing a good work on this home
base in facilitating that ministry there.
We also want to welcome those missionaries and
mission agency staff who are here with the
exhibit in the tent outside.
We had 20 last Sunday.
We have 24 exhibits this Sunday.
Would you just stand up as well, you
folks who are involved in that, just so
we can welcome you.
Mend them up in the balcony there.
Good to have you with us.
Thank you so much for investing time.
And I trust you'll all go and visit
that exhibition and get a hamburger and whatever
else is out there after this service as
well.
I have never met KP Ohana until today,
though I have looked forward to doing so
very much.
And I'm delighted he's able to minister to
us.
Would you please welcome Dr. KP Ohana.
Good afternoon.
It's good to be here.
I've been to Canada many, many, many times.
Usually always I end up coming during your
winter time.
It's ice and snow.
It's the worst place to go on planet
Earth during the winter time.
And I understand this is summer for you,
whereas for some of us it is again
40 degrees, means you are freezing.
But I really appreciate your passion, Dr. Charles
Price and the leadership here inviting me here
to share with you.
I hope you understand my English by now.
If not, please ask the Lord for grace.
I want to read for you a Bible
verse.
This is in 1st John, chapter 2.
1st John, chapter 2, verse 6.
Whoever claims to live in him must walk
as Jesus did.
In the living Bible, this verse reads like
this.
Anyone who says he's a Christian should live
as Christ did.
I'm sure you agree sometimes it is easy
for us to read Bible portions like this
or read books about it, hear sermons on
various subjects.
Yet experience in the reality of this kind
of scripture portions remains.
Like sometime maybe in the future I will
understand it and some experience I will have
all of a sudden and I will get
into a deeper understanding of it.
So we kind of miss the opportunity to
make choices, to enter into this reality.
In simple words, you and I are called
by the Father to live as Christ would
in this generation.
And quite intriguing to hear from my brother
about this moving thing.
I never heard anything like this in my
life before, but sound quite absolutely fascinating.
You know, usually when people talk about God's
blessing, they say I got a promotion and
I'm able to move to a bigger house
and God did this and that.
But Christ, example for us, he's left the
glory of heaven and everything there and came
down to earth to the pit of suffering
and nothingness and suffered throughout his life.
And so let me say a word here.
If you are seeking to experience Christ's life,
it's a good opportunity.
Think about downsizing or moving to one of
these places where our brother talked about.
But you see, it takes suffering in the
flesh for us to live as Christ lived
on earth.
I remember meeting one of our missionaries who
was sent to work among a people group
called missing people, some 2 million people way
up in the northeast of India, the delta
between Arunachal Pradesh and Assam.
And when he was sent there from southern
India, traveling to this mission field after his
seminary education, he found life to be quite
difficult and hard.
The first few months, it was full of
enthusiasm and excitement with the hope that these
people are going to be led to Christ
and things are going to happen.
But he realized the mission field became very
tough for many, many reasons.
The sheer physical suffering, inconveniences and the food
and all kinds of difficulties.
For example, he was telling me when he
got there, he realized if some people invited
you and treat you as a special guest,
the drink they offer you is they take
this humongous worms and squish it and make
juice out of it and give it to
you.
Now you know why you are not a
missionary there.
Life became so difficult.
Discouragement sets in and he now thinks about
somehow some way to get away from this
extremely primitive people that didn't have any understanding
about normal life or anything like that.
So he began to pray, saying, Lord, please
let me go somewhere else.
I'm not made for this place.
And anywhere else, please send me.
And he keep praying, but no answer comes
for weeks.
And finally one day, as he was again
crying out to God, the Lord spoke to
him.
And this is what he said, finally I
could hear him.
These words, you can go.
I give you the permission to go wherever
you want to go.
But I will have to stay back, for
these are my people.
That broke him and he fell on his
face and said, Lord, I don't want to
leave this place either.
I will stay.
My life is not my own.
Whether food or no food, or suffering or
death, I am all yours.
That's all that matters.
And he will continue to serve there with
tremendous amount of inconveniences and suffering.
But today you go there, I invite you,
you will find some 98 strong churches, daily
broadcast in their native language and a Bible
school.
And all that happened because it was no
more for him, a missionary, seeing the need
and the challenge and the opportunity, doing something,
giving some money, seeing the poverty and the
suffering, oh my goodness, I'm blessed so much,
I'm healthy and strong, I better do something.
No, it was no more like that.
It was a total transformation of him recognizing,
my earthen vessel, my life is no more
mine.
It belongs to him completely and totally.
And it was Christ himself now says, my
people.
And for this, he could say it.
See, my brothers and sisters, often in a
gathering like this, a very well known church
like this, when you have huge amount of
money collected and taken up and numbers are
given to you, you as an individual can
easily think, thank God I'm part of this
huge church that makes such impact around the
world.
Please understand, this church is made up of
people like you.
But the fundamental question, where are you in
your understanding about Christ and his heart?
You see, there's a difference between the old
covenant and new covenant.
Basically this, the old covenant, it is God's
call for obedience.
Do this, don't do this, do this, do
this and don't do this.
Curses and blessings are promised for obedience or
disobedience.
It is fairly objective.
But when it comes to the new covenant,
it is no more reading the Bible and
say, Oh, I'm going to do this.
I'm going to do this.
I don't want to do this for many,
many reasons.
But the new covenant is not that.
It is we are called to be partakers
of his nature.
That means Christ's life.
Now we live in our earthen vessel.
But this often is not possible because we
don't understand throughout Christ's life.
It says in Peter, he suffered for us,
leaving this example that we may follow in
his footsteps.
It is not the suffering of the cross
and the blood, the nails.
No, it is throughout his life.
He said no to himself and he embraced
Christ.
So, these are interesting conveniences.
You know, when I was barely 17, way
back in India, working with Operation Mobilization, I
heard about Oswald J.
Smith.
I read the book Passion for Souls.
And People's Church always remained a huge, huge,
bright example for church around the world.
And then, of course, you know, when I
found out Dr. Charles Price, the pastor here,
who come from the background of Capernaum, whose
writings had huge impact on my life for
years and years.
So, you got tremendous history behind you from
a great man of God, Oswald J.
Smith.
Then you have one of the finest, most
godly pastor teacher that you can look for
in the world in your pastor here.
But let me ask you a question.
Are you somehow now living with the shadow
of the past and being content with the
kind of teaching you receive?
Or is there a place where you are
new and fresh and radically committed to Christ
and his lordship so that in this generation,
some two billion people that wait to hear
his name will have a chance to hear.
Not because you just need more money.
Not because you say, I'm going to do
this and that.
Rather, your very life is so saturated with
his life and passion.
Nobody can help but be contaminated and influenced
by your life.
I remember reading a letter from one of
our missionaries who work by River Ganges, which
we just heard a minute ago, the telephone
conversation between the pastor and the brother there.
River Ganges, of course, you know, Hindus believe,
and I was surprised to hear that, which
is true.
Some 50,000 people come every day going
into this dirty, polluted, rotten waters, washing themselves
for the forgiveness of sin.
And I remember reading this letter from one
of our missionaries who worked in that region.
One day he was coming home after all
days witnessing that evening as he was coming
home, he saw a young woman sitting by
the bank of the river, weeping uncontrollably and
pounding upon her chest.
Knowing something happened so horrible to make her
do that, this our missionary went and asked
her, what happened to you?
Why are you crying so much?
And she simply said, you see, we are
poor, very poor people.
My husband is sick.
He's very ill.
He can't work anymore.
And my sins are so many that nobody
knows about.
To find forgiveness for my sins and solution
to the problems of my home, I have
given the best offering I can give to
River Ganges.
My only child, my six-month-old baby
boy, I just threw him into the river.
And he writes in his letter, I sat
beside her and explained to her, your sins
are forgiven 2,000 years ago.
Jesus died on the cross.
All you have to do is to believe.
God is not against you.
He didn't make you poor.
And he explained God's word to her.
And hearing all these things, he writes in
the end, she wiped her tears, looked straight
into my eyes and said these words, but
why didn't you come to me half hour
sooner?
I didn't have to kill my child.
It is too late.
And I think this is only a picture
of multiplied millions, both here and there and
everywhere that do not know the Lord.
And I think the more you understand the
life of Christ and enter into that life,
not standing outside, you will find automatically your
heart beats and with joy to continue pour
your life out without saying, oh, man alive.
I have to do this and that.
No.
I remember taking the pencil and reading through
the four Gospels one time to see the
man Jesus.
Yeah, I mean, I love Jesus.
He's my God.
He's my Lord.
But I want to follow him as a
man.
So I read through the four Gospels and
underlined the raw man that walked on earth.
And I remember coming to John's Gospel, chapter
14, where just like me, sometime I had
to deal with he was hungry, he was
thirsty, he was desperate, he was weary, he
was tired, worn out, sits there by the
well and the disciples goes off to buy
hamburger and French fries.
Maybe they went to Tim Hortons and and
they come back with food in their hand
saying, Jesus, please eat.
And Jesus responds back to them.
You read there in that passage, he says,
I have food to eat that you have
no knowledge of.
Now, in American phrase, you call it a
real bummer.
So they will have a consultation.
They said, what is this?
You mean we went off to buy this
food and did someone bring him something to
eat while we were gone?
Knowing their dilemma, Jesus says, my food is
to do the will of him that send
me and finishes what that's that's terribly complicated.
He didn't eat.
Now he says he ate God's will.
Now, what on earth is that?
You see, Jesus often took things that are
tangible, things you can see and feel and
teaches eternal truth.
So it is one of those situations here.
In simple terms, what Jesus is saying, listen,
it's true.
I'm hungry.
I mean, physically, I'm just worn out.
I need something to eat.
So you are.
And but while you were gone, I ran
into this woman who is lost and undone,
moving straight toward hell.
And her face became a window for me
to see multitudes like her that do not
know the Father's love and the realization simply
killed my very appetite.
I'm no more hungry.
The emotional anguish he faced impacted his very
physical being.
So he says, lift up your eyes and
see the field.
Don't say four months and then the harvest
comes.
Now it is time, not later.
What is it, I ask you, that hinders
us, hinder you and me from understanding this
kind of passion and enter into it?
What is it keeping us from waking up
one in the morning with alarm clock, spreading
the world map and weeping over the world
with the burden he placed upon us?
What is it that hindering us from saying
my life on earth is so very brief,
I better give up all this nonsense and
wasting my life and time for the sake
of him?
Because eternity is the only real thing.
What would stop some people, although they have
a feeling about downsizing and moving into a
bad neighborhood for the sake of him who
came to this earth?
What is hindering some that they feel the
need to go to Afghanistan or Iran or
Turkey or Mexico or somewhere?
What is it holding us back that we
cannot enter into the life of Christ and
walk among people and be his completely?
We blame the poor devil for all kinds
of things.
I don't think the devil is a good
guy, but poor devil got blamed for a
lot of things that he has nothing to
do with anything.
I remember one time in America, I was
preaching in some church in California.
A lady came to me and said, pastor,
would you please pray for me?
Lay your hand on me and pray for
me.
I said, madam, please tell me what is
it you want me to pray for?
She said, you know, I got a demon
of smoke inside me.
Would you please cast the demon out?
I said, dear lady, I can cast out
demons, but I can't cast out the flesh.
And the reason I'm saying something like that
to you is that we need to understand
you cannot, I cannot be part of Christ's
life for this lost world unless we are
willing to come to the place and say,
I'm no more my own dear Jesus, whatever
yours and you want and make those choices.
He will never force us to do that.
I joined with Operation Mobilization, George Orwell's movement
many, many years ago as a youngster.
I was barely 17 at that time, having
done my high school back in southern part
of India and went off to North India
for a couple of years.
And one of the places we went was
Rajasthan, a group of us.
And I'll never forget of the few times
I was beaten up along with others.
Boondi, this particular place was one of those
places we were beaten up really bad by
radical anti-Christian fundamentalists.
Our Bibles were burned and everything was destroyed.
And they said, dogs, get out of this
place or we will kill you.
Of course, we left the place.
I'm alive.
And some years would go by.
One young man who finished his Bible school
felt the Lord was calling him to go
to Boondi to plant a church.
The name Boondi, the very sound make you
scared because seven times our teams went there,
all those seven times they were beaten up
and abused.
So when he said to the leaders, he
wanted to go to Boondi, the leaders said,
are you sure this is where you want
to go?
You are young, you are skinny and you
are not strong.
They will kill you before you get there.
And he said, no, I prayed for a
year.
The Lord wanted me to go to Boondi.
Of course, sure.
He went off to Boondi, rented a small
place for a few dollars a month and
started going house to house and distributing tracts
and doing the ministry.
But one night while he was sleeping, a
group of men, about 6,000 came and
busted the door open and the tall Rajput
with the turban on his head pulled this
brother up by his leg like you hold
up a chicken and said, you young fellow,
why did you come here with your God?
We have our gods.
We don't need you here.
We can tear you apart like a chicken.
We do with the chicken.
Get out of this place first thing tomorrow
morning.
Don't ever stay here any longer.
And of course, they left him.
And next morning he got so scared here,
went back to the mission station and told
this to the leaders and they said, well,
we told you this might happen.
And then he said, but the Lord told
me to go there, but they are going
to kill me.
The senior most brother asked him a simple
question.
He said, son, did Jesus ask you to
go to Boondi?
He said, I know he did.
Then he said, son, go back to Boondi.
The Lord called you go back there.
Yes, you will face some problems and difficulty.
They may come and beat you up and
bunch of things.
And there's a small chance they may kill
you also.
But if that happens, son, remember, heaven is
a much better place than Boondi.
You wait in heaven for us and we'll
come and see you later.
And he knelt down, they laid hand on
him, prayed and he went back to Boondi.
Sure enough, they came back to him and
said, now you are going to make us
murderers.
Why on earth you came back?
After hearing their mighty speech and threats, he
simply and calm and sober said to these
men, the sooner you do your job, it
is better for me.
I have no reason to be here.
I'd rather be in heaven, but I am
not going to leave this place.
Jesus sent me here and I will have
to stay.
Yes, he did face some difficulties and problems,
but about three years or so goes by
and I get a telephone call in the
United States.
I said, yeah, it's me.
Brother, we want you to come to Boondi.
I said, what?
It's the last place I want to go.
He said, no, no, no, no.
We just finished constructing our church.
We want you to come and inaugurate the
church.
The story changes.
I flew to Delhi, went to Kota, went
on to Boondi and Sunday morning.
You really want to see heaven on the
face of people?
You go to that church the way it
happened then.
People's face glow with Christ's love and his
glory.
First generation Christians, over a hundred people, adults
and children, all worshiping God.
I taught God's word, weeping through the whole
service and then it was over.
He said, this is the man who said
he will tear me like a chicken.
And on and on.
But here's the thing.
What made the difference?
It was not poor people in Boondi need
my help.
It was not I got money.
I need to give more money to these
suffering people.
It was not Christ did so much for
me.
I have to do something for him now.
It was the grain.
The seed was willing to fall and die
to all and bring forth fruit.
And my dear brothers and sisters, this journey
may not be easy.
Time will not permit me to tell part
of the lessons I must learn through brokenness
regarding this.
But having come to America to go to
seminary, then soon pastoring a church in Dallas,
Texas, I was caught up in a world
of wanting to become like any American.
Materialism, comfort and ease.
And sometimes it took me half hour to
figure out what color I was going to
wear, the coordination, because I read a book
called Color Me Beautiful.
I didn't know the summer, winter, autumn, spring.
Some of you men look like you are
lost.
Ask your wife.
And out of 70 neckties, I had to
agonize which one is going to match which.
I was not doing anything wrong and sinful.
But all the eight, nine years of my
life on the streets of Nepal and India
and those nations, how I wept and cried
and prayed all night.
But now it is all in the past.
And I remember one day, after two years
of my life like that, I was sitting
in my own private study with books in
my library.
I may never read, but it impressed a
lot of people.
And I remember writing something, I don't know
what it was, using my fountain pen, Mont
Blanc.
Whoever wanted to spend $600 to buy a
fountain pen, I did it when I was
in Germany, before coming to America.
The strange thing happened.
I am not a spooky person, please believe
me.
I am not looking for lights and sounds
and nothing like that.
It was a strange thing as the Christ
himself walked to the table and just stood
beside me and asked me a question.
So, you like that pen, don't you?
I said, I do, this is my pen,
I love it.
And the next thing, so, who is going
to use it 100 years from now?
I said, what?
He said, oh, I just asked the question,
who is going to use it 100 years
from now?
I am not making this story up.
I looked at the pen and I put
it down and took it up and I
realized he is speaking again.
I looked at my closet, my land, my
house, my new cars and all the stuff
and what I was living for.
And the Lord said, this is all for
nothing, isn't it?
And I had to repent, repent bitterly for
two weeks almost.
Not for any immorality or drunkenness or drugs
or lying and deceiving.
No, it was of self-centeredness, even in
spiritual matters.
I didn't understand it all and another step,
another door, opportunity for me to say, Lord,
I seek my own forgiveness.
People ask me about where I was born
and raised, I tell them, you don't want
to know.
If you really want to know, go and
look at the oldest Tarzan movie, black and
white movie you can find.
But I had the privilege to have a
godly mother who raised her six boys, I
am the youngest.
The memory of my mother growing up as
a little boy, she would wake up about
four in the morning, no later than that
she would spend a couple of hours in
prayer and then wake up the whole family
for family prayer.
And I would hear her quoting this Bible
verse a million times, Psalm 73 verse 25,
Whom have I in heaven but you and
on earth I deserve no one beside you.
Her prayer was, Lord, call one of my
sons to go and serve you.
But she never told this to any of
her sons.
One by one, her sons went into business
and farming and all these different things and
she tells, when I was born and growing
up, timid, shy, withdrawn, skinny, you don't believe
that, she kind of lost her hope.
And she began to pray every Friday, full
fast, every Friday, saying, Lord, please call one
of my sons to serve you before I
die, I want to see it.
Three and a half years my mother prayed
like that without telling anyone.
When I finished my high school, I remember
the day I told her, if they allow
me, you know, of course my mother led
me to the Lord when I was eight
years old, if they allow me, I'd like
to go to serve the Lord.
Before I could finish my question, she jumped
up from the bench she was sitting on
and said, go!
I thought she hated me.
I was a mistake.
But I did not know any of those
things.
Only after two years of my life in
North India, when I went back home, my
mother told me the story of her prayer
and fast.
In 1980, at the age of 84, my
mother went to be with the Lord.
And I remember, my brothers, we all gathered
in the room, my father went to be
with the Lord earlier.
We began to talk about our mother.
One of my brothers, who is kind of
interested in money more than anything else, said,
how much money did our mother leave in
the bank?
The sons would give her anything she wanted,
you know, and quite a lot of money
she had, but we never saw her spending
any money.
And one of my brothers, answering the question,
said, you know, I found this notebook under
the pillow of our mother's bed.
So we were curious, what is in there?
And he flipped the pages and he said,
well, there are names, dozens of names of
people who are in Bible colleges and on
mission field everywhere, and the money she was
sending them, against the names, she wrote those
amounts.
And then he said, as far as I
know, there is nothing in the bank.
And I broke down and began to weep.
Not because there was no money in the
bank, because I remember two years prior to
that, when I went to see my mother,
I got mad at her for wearing a
cloth, a blouse that is stitched from here
to here, hand-stitched, really Mickey Mouse job.
I was so angry, I said, mother, what
madness got into your head?
Don't you care about your sons, the shame
you put on us?
The whole world will think we don't care
about your mother, you can buy a new
dress every month if you want, why do
you do this to us?
And I was so furious, you know, preachers
can get mad.
After all my madness and anger, I remember
this incredible gentle smile, she said, my little
boy, you don't understand, someday you will.
Sitting in the room, it was as though
she walked back in the room, saying, my
son, yeah, I could have bought a brand
new dress every month if I wanted, but
I made a choice, my son, to live
in the light of eternity.
And my resources, my money, all went to
win souls.
And the last thing she left with her
sons reads like this, when I am dead
and gone, the only thing I will leave
behind, it is my earrings, my wedding ring,
and the gold chain my husband gave me
when he married me at the age of
19.
I want you to sell these items and
give the money to preach the gospel among
people that never heard my Jesus name, I
want to meet them also in heaven.
You think my mother is sitting in heaven
and saying, oh man, what a dumb thing
I did.
I don't think so.
I am not here to ask you to
give more money for any cause or me
or anything like that, but I am deeply
concerned about the day you will stand before
the Lord and look back over the years
you spent as his follower.
And what was it you lived for?
I am not calling you for some new
things to do, I am calling you to
abandon your life and completely and totally for
him and him alone.
And then he will take it and break
it and distribute it, whatever he does, it
will be for the sake of a lost
world.
Four things I recommend at the end.
One, take one day of the week for
fasting and prayer, get a world map, the
book Operation World.
If you add a few more days for
fasting and prayer for the lost world, if
you die, please let me know.
You will not.
Second, simplify your life.
Don't let material things become the reason for
joy and happiness.
Your worst enemy is the things of the
world.
Please be cautious and evaluate your life.
Let the Lord direct you, not someone else.
Number three, if the Lord is calling you
to serve him somewhere in the world, anywhere,
please don't stay, go.
Parents, do pray that one of your children,
at least one, will go and serve God
as my mother did.
Number four, give so that others can go.
Give, not because you are so much, because
it's a privilege.
And may the Lord make us more like
him.
May he create such hunger on the inside,
that we will seek him not for anything,
but for himself.
And that would be the beginning of a
wonderful journey.
I can't wait for the day I will
see him face to face.
It's been worth following him 40 years of
my life, serving him.
I have no regrets.
May the Lord speak to us.