By John Thiel

How do we do missionary work today? Is missionary work today different to the past? People are studying constantly church growth styles to increase numbers in the churches. They are training the people to do missionary work to a completely different order to what we do. What Sr White wrote back in her time if we were to come along to the homes of people today to pray to them what would they tell you? Are people spiritually in tune nowadays compared to Ellen White’s time? The market has become flooded and people have grown wise to it. It’s a psychology exercise from the world. The real way to help people come to the real Jesus… the real Jesus is hardly known today. We are nearly at the end.

Amos 8:11 Behold, the days come, saith the Lord GOD, that I will send a famine in the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the LORD: 12 And they shall wander from sea to sea, and from the north even to the east, they shall run to and fro to seek the word of the LORD, and shall not find [it].

Can you see we are close to that now? What are people trying to do today? They are trying to find real answers to life and are looking at it from all directions. Can they find true heart satisfaction? It is not being found. If they did see it, their mind has been so befogged they won’t even recognise it. It is hard for people to respond and we will study the best way of working. Ministry of Healing gives an indication that even in Ellen Whites time it was difficult and how much harder is it now?

We are living in the midst of an “epidemic of crime,” at which thoughtful, God-fearing men everywhere stand aghast. The corruption that prevails, it is beyond the power of the human pen to describe. Every day brings fresh revelations of political strife, bribery, and fraud. Every day brings its heart-sickening record of violence and lawlessness, of indifference to human suffering, of brutal, fiendish destruction of human life. Every day testifies to the increase of insanity, murder, and suicide. Who can doubt that satanic agencies are at work among men with increasing activity to distract and corrupt the mind, and defile and destroy the body? {MH 142.4}

This was in the day in which there were no films, only theatre and they enacted these things. What is it today? Today we have films and television and young people are watching the crimes described. The mind has been so bewildered by the corruption all around. How bad is it? Television has captivated the minds of the people. Is it easy to take your eyes of Television? It is there to captivate your attention. With all that exciting stuff around going on, the children are excited by all the different attractions of artistic things.

And while the world is filled with these evils, the gospel is too often presented in so indifferent a manner as to make but little impression upon the consciences or the lives of men. {MH 143.1}

It’s become insipid and lukewarm, real missionary activity. Have you been looking and you’ve not been satisfied for so long? Do you know what that is like? How do you find Jesus? What touches the soul? Something inside of us recognises the hunger of the soul that is supplied, spiritual food.

Everywhere there are hearts crying out for something which they have not. They long for a power that will give them mastery over sin, a power that will deliver them from the bondage of evil, a power that will give health and life and peace. Many who once knew the power of God’s word have dwelt where there is no recognition of God, and they long for the divine presence. {MH 143.1}

Isn’t the mastery of sin the issue? Sin is so heavy around us and people are sick and tired of all the corruptions and they ask how can this ever change?

The world needs today what it needed nineteen hundred years ago–a revelation of Christ. A great work of reform is demanded, and it is only through the grace of Christ that the work of restoration, physical, mental, and spiritual, can be accomplished. {MH 143.2}

They needed to see Jesus and we need to see Jesus in greater reality. People are in a dire strait in so many areas and they just want the answer to the immorality and they think they found the answer and it melts away into insipid nothing. You think you found the answer and it melts away. People are hungering for something that will not leave them high and dry. Some have said they found something that didn’t leave them like that. How did you come by it? Can you recall anything that made a difference that yes I’m catching it. What was the avenue by which you were able to found it?

Christ’s method alone will give true success in reaching the people. The Saviour mingled with men as one who desired their good. He showed His sympathy for them, ministered to their needs, and won their confidence. Then He bade them, “Follow Me.”–MH 143. {PaM 117.1}

We need to follow Christ’s method alone. There are five steps in this paragraph we are to know so that we can all be missionaries if we follow this principle. What is Christ’s method alone?

Step 1

The Saviour mingled with men as one who desired their good. To be a missionary is not to offload information on people. The first step is to mingle among the people with what motive? What is the desire to do good? That is the first step to successfully help people, desiring in your heart to do them good. If we are going to be doing it Christ’s way, what is the next communication step?

Step 2

The saviour showed his sympathy for them. If you reflect on that, if someone comes and shares God’s word with you and just gives you the facts and you feel oh yeah ok but if they communicate sympathy and you can feel it, does it attract you? That is what Jesus did. He showed his sympathy for them.

Step 3

He ministered to their needs. Many people think they are not doing missionary work but anyone who ministers to another is doing missionary work. There is a sense of sympathy for a person. They are looking for understanding to fulfill the sympathy in their hearts. Let them feel you understand their problem. As you show that you show you can minister to it in some way or another.

Step 4

When Jesus did that, he won their confidence. When you have a person to the point that their need has been supplied, the hunger of soul they are looking for has been answered and then they have confidence in what you are standing on. When this process step by step has been followed and you have found the souls you have been able to minister to, what is the last step?

Step 5

What is Christ’s final step, what did he do when he won their confidence. He bade them follow me. You can only say come to be with me when you have their confidence. If you say would you like to come to my church? What do you want to do that for? You first have to show sympathy and when they are satisfied you have the genuine article, that takes some time, then you can say follow me as I follow Christ. That is what Apostle Paul said. That was Christ’s method when he bade them follow me. As we live what the word says, let alone to being kind, sympathetic and ministering to needs, what else do we have to do so these people can be won to following Jesus in practical truth? Isn’t it that we need to be practising the truth ourselves? Without being embarrassed as to why, very patiently give out a little here and there for their good. If you bombard them will that do them good? You are desiring to do them good.

When the confidence is won you have affected the mind of these people to have confidence that the way you eat and dress must have some value in it. We may not be able to be missionaries that can give bible studies but we can bring them to bible studies. By that kind of missionary activity you are giving people bible studies through the avenue of someone else. That is the team of how everyone works. There is not one of us who can’t do missionary work. As we put into practise Christs method, we are to show and desire their good and the only way you can have that desire for their good is if we have found Jesus as our personal friend and desire to impart that to whoever comes to you. In their dilemma asking how do I know you are teaching truth, that is their words, show sympathy to them. They have a need and a question or a problem I’ve had years in my mind, is that a need? What does God say, what does he believe about this. Did Nebuchadnezzar have a need and there came Daniel. He gave him a supply and ministered to his need. Then he won nebuchadnezzars confidence because of a need, an answer and confidence given. This is the success alone that can bring people to the truth. This is called the latter rain, the loud cry. When God peoples practise that under inspiration of the Holy Spirit the Lord will do the rest.

Amen.