MELVIN M. NEWLAND, MINISTER
CENTRAL CHRISTIAN, BROWNSVILLE, TX
A. As all of you are now very well aware, this is a special morning for us here at Central. And it is an emotional one, too. We feel sadness in saying "goodbye" to some who are a precious part of our congregation. At the same time we rejoice in their commitment to Christ, & their decision to serve Him in a special way.
Then there is a tinge of concern, also, as we know just a little bit about the risks & dangers which they will be facing among primitive peoples in a very remote part of the world. But this is what they have chosen, & we wish them "God speed," realizing that there will undoubtedly be times when they will feel very lonely & far away from many they hold dear.
We pray that those times will be few, & that many more times they will know the joy of real service to Jesus & to their fellow man. And may they realize also the victory of seeing multitudes coming to know Jesus as their personal Savior & Lord because of the help that they have given.
B. I think that is a little bit the way the Apostle Paul felt when he wrote the words we find in 1 Corinthians 16:5-9. Listen as I read.
"After I go through Macedonia, I will come to you - for I will be going through Macedonia. Perhaps I will stay with you awhile, or even spend the winter, so that you can help me on my journey, wherever I go. I do not want to see you now & make only a passing visit; I hope to spend some time with you, if the Lord permits. But I will stay on at Ephesus until Pentecost, because a great door for effective work has opened to me, & there are many who oppose me."
Do you hear what he is saying? Evidently, Paul is tired. He has already spent more than 8 years on his first 2 missionary journeys traveling from city to city, working tirelessly, preaching the gospel, starting churches, facing opposition, sometimes even having to flee from those wanting to kill him.
Now Paul is in Ephesus on his third missionary journey, & he is writing to some friends in the church at Corinth. He is saying that he would like to come & spend some time with them, maybe even spend the winter.
He sounds like someone who needs a vacation, doesn’t he? And he is hoping to make it soon. But then we notice the 9th verse that says, "But I will stay on at Ephesus until Pentecost, because a great door for effective work has opened to me, & there are many who oppose me."
C. Paul didn’t know it when he wrote those words, but God was opening up a great door for him in Ephesus. In fact, Paul ends up staying 3 years there, more than twice as long as he ever stayed any place else on his journeys.
And from what we read, God not only used Paul to start a great church in Ephesus, but while he was there, many more churches were started in the towns & cities around Ephesus. It became a center from which the gospel flowed throughout all the provinces surrounding them.
PROP. Now the point I want to make is this: When Paul saw that great door opening for him, he saw that it was a door of opportunity, a door of obligation, & a door of opposition.
I. A DOOR OF OPPORTUNITY
A. Ephesus was not exactly a place where most Christians would have wanted to settle. Yes, it was a big city, one of the major cities in the eastern Mediterranean area. It was a financial & commercial center & a very rich city.
It boasted one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. The Temple of Diana was there with all its gross immorality & legalized prostitution. In fact, that was a part of their worship of the goddess Diana. It was a city where people were superstitious & believed in magic. They were constantly looking for soothsayers & fortune tellers to guide their lives. It was not a place where Christians would normally want to live.
But when Paul looked at Ephesus & saw the hundreds of thousands of people going about their daily activities, he said, "There is an open door here & I guess I’ll stay on a while longer." He saw the opportunity that was there.
ILL. Someone has said that the difference between a pessimist & an optimist is that a pessimist sees a problem in every opportunity. But an optimist sees an opportunity in every problem.
Paul saw the opportunities. There were so many people who needed to hear about Jesus, & Paul was determined to share the Gospel with them.
ILL. The U.S. Center of World Missions reports that in 30 A.D., when the church was just getting started, there were 200 million people in the world & only about 5,000 Christians. That is a ratio of 40,000 to one.
By the year 1900, there were a billion people in the world & 10 million committed Christians. That’s a ratio of 100 to one. Today there are 5 billion people in our world & 500 million committed Christians, not counting about 1.2 billion nominal Christians. And, people, that’s a ratio of 10 to one.
B. Now what does that tell us? First of all, it tells us the Gospel of Christ is having an everincreasing impact on the non-Christian world.
Secondly, it tells us that if the 500 million Christians got serious about sharing their faith, all we would have to do is to win ten people apiece & the world will have been won to Jesus.
Paul was a master missionary. He said, "I have become all things to all people." "If you need a preacher, I’ll be a preacher. If you need a teacher I’ll be a teacher. If you need a tentmaker, I’ll make tents with you. I will become all things so that some of you might come to know Christ Jesus."
We must also recognize that there is more than one way to get the job done. In the 13th chapter of the Book of Acts the church in Antioch did very much like we have done this morning. They laid hands on Paul & Barnabas & sent them out to preach the gospel. They prayed for them & supported them.
But remember also that back in the 8th chapter of the Book of Acts persecution fell upon the church in Jerusalem. And many Christians had to flee from Jerusalem in order to escape the terrible persecution.
Vs. 4 tells us that "Those who had been scattered preached the word wherever they went." Wherever they went, they shared their faith. And they turned the world upside down with the gospel. The whole world started changing because wherever they went they told others about Jesus.
APPL. Today, people are being moved from one place in this world to another in record numbers. Executives & business men & agriculture experts & teachers are being moved to places like Japan & Singapore & Bangkok. And people from all over the world are coming to our cities, too. God can use this scattering to give us opportunities to share the Gospel with the world.
ILL. A few years ago, men like Paul Bajko & Joseph Wurmbrand & others told of the persecutions that Christians were going through behind the Iron Curtain. They had to meet in basements & underground caverns & keep their faith secret. And many of us were involved in helping provide Bibles to be smuggled into their lands.
But now the borders are open & you can take Bibles in freely. Missionaries no longer have to worry when they cross the borders. They are no longer searched. They are welcomed & waved on.
ILL. After the borders were opened David Steele was invited to be a guest preacher at a church in Poland. As he spoke to them, he mentioned that he was part of a group that had purchased Bibles to smuggle into Poland. When he said that, they stood with tears in their eyes & applauded & praised God for people who had cared enough during those years of persecution to provide them with the blessed Word of God.
SUM. Today doors are opening all over the world. I think God is getting ready for a great surge before He comes again. As never before, we have wonderful opportunities to go through doors & preach the Gospel to people who have never been free to hear it before.
II. A DOOR OF OBLIGATION
Paul also saw a door of obligation. He said, "The door is opened to me." He didn’t say it was opened to Timothy or Barnabas or someone else. It had opened to him. He felt a personal obligation to stay in Ephesus & preach the Word of God to them.
We must each realize that I can’t do your work for you, & you can’t do my work for me. We have a personal obligation to share the Gospel wherever we are. As we see new homes being built in our neighborhoods it is an opportunity to reach out to more & more people. God is opening doors. But it becomes my obligation & your obligation to walk through the door.
ILL. Amy Carmichael tells of dreaming that she was in a jungle sitting by the campfire one night. As she watched the flames of the fire soar into the sky she said that she could see a grassy place, a clearing in the jungle, & many people were walking across it towards a terrible precipice.
There was a mother with a little girl clinging to her skirt walking towards the precipice, & no one said anything to her. She fell over the precipice, & Amy could hear their screams as they plummeted to their death.
Then she saw a little boy walking towards the precipice, & he was blind, even as the mother & the little girl had been blind. As he was walking to his death Amy thought, "Why doesn’t someone say something to him?"
As the boy fell over the cliff, he grabbed hold of a little tuft of grass & screamed for help. But no one came, & finally he, too, plummeted to his death. And there were thousands of others, all of them blind, & all of them were heading towards the precipice, too.
In her dream, Amy Carmichael said, "I cried from the depths of my soul, `Why doesn’t someone tell them about the precipice & warn them of their danger?’" "Then," she said, "I heard the voice of God saying, `Whom shall I send?’ And I said, `I’ll go. I’ll go.’ `All Right,’ said the Lord, `Then you’re my messenger.’"
SUM. You see that’s a picture of our world. There is a precipice & people are walking blindly toward it. Does anybody care? Will anybody stand with Isaiah & say, "Here am I, Lord, send me"?
III. A DOOR OF OPPOSITION
A. The Apostle Paul also saw a door of opposition. He said, "There are many who oppose me." It’s true. There will always be those who oppose the advancement of the Gospel.
In Ephesus there was Demetrius who made silver idols & sold them for profit. When the Gospel was proclaimed & people became Christians they stopped worshiping idols, & Demetrius went out of business. So he became an opponent of the Gospel, & started persecuting Paul.
But perhaps the worst opponents to the advancement of the Gospel are not its enemies. They are the people who sit in the pews & who are nominal Christians. They hear the messages. They see the blind people wandering towards the precipice, but they go home unmoved & uncaring. And they are among the worst opponents.
ILL. A few years ago Nicolae Ceausescu, the cruel dictator of Rumania, was executed by revolutionaries. You probably saw his bulletriddled body on the newscasts. The revolutionary forces emptied their rifles of ammunition as they shot him again & again & again. Those who knew the situation in Rumania said that it was probably a mercy killing, for if he had been captured by the people in the streets they would have torn him apart tissue by tissue because they hated him so much.
He & his wife had held the people in total contempt for years. Rumania is a fertile country, & they raised good crops. But he sold the crops to Russia & pocketed the money himself while his people were starving. His wife said, "If you give those worms food they’ll just ask for more."
Finally, the people had enough. They rebelled, & took him & his wife prisoner. Then they executed both of them, & the news media showed us the pictures of their bodies.
But did you see what happened shortly afterwards? A preacher climbed a balcony in the square where many communist leaders had stood previously proclaiming the precepts of communism, & he began to speak.
His underground name was Brother Paul, & he is one of the native preachers supported by our churches here in the U.S. He stood on that balcony & as he looked down at the thousands of people gathered there, he began shouting at the top of his voice, "Our God is alive! Our God is alive!" And thousands of people shouted back in unison, "Our God is alive! Our God is alive!" For the first time in decades the people of Rumania were free to proclaim their Christianity in the streets of the city.
CONCL. Doors, all kinds of doors, are swinging open. And there will be opponents, no question about that. But we dare not look at the problems. We must seize the opportunities.
We must see the opportunities to go into all the world & preach the Gospel. We offer His invitation this morning. We give you the opportunity to come to Jesus & confess your faith, repent of your sins, be buried with Him in Christian baptism, & raised to walk in the newness of life.
