I was recently in Zambia as many of you know. I was with many pastors and ministry leaders from 15 different countries that were gathered there at a conference where I spoke. One of the signs of success that we look for after we go to a place in terms of our practical mission is: Do the pastors that we train go back home and begin to reteach our Four Questions on the Gospel of life to other pastors? This past week I’ve received a number of pictures, one from a gathering in central Zambia of about 50 or 60 pastors. In the picture many are gathered and you can see how well dressed they are. Oftentimes in Africa it might be a hundred degrees outside, but the brothers are well dressed in fine black suits. I asked one pastor about this and he said that “a gentleman knows not the weather”, which is their way of saying that it’s their custom still to be very well dressed, dressed for official biblical training. So a number of pastors and leaders gathered to study the Four Questions on the Gospel of life, the sanctity of human life, the call to reject abortion, to the renewal of the Gospel, and the call to rescue the innocent. What’s exciting about this rather plain picture is that it is the pastors that we have trained now training this group of pastors. In another picture one of our leaders, Nisa, that we work with there is training the pastors to start to take more of the lead in his own province of Zambia.
In the second question that we teach, it often leads to a moment of repentance; not all the time, but where God is particularly moving. The second question that we help these pastors think through is: What does the Bible say about the shedding of innocent blood, including abortion? That’s the moment in which we get to go through what the Bible says about the intentional killing of innocent children, looking at how God responds to child sacrifice, probably the most offensive form of taking innocent life that is in the Bible, and calling people to understand that abortion today is how we practice child sacrifice in the world. One of the things that we do as part of that question is that we show them a two-minute video of what abortion actually is and how it results in the death of a child. This is the moment in which many key leaders will begin to weep either because of their own personal involvement with abortion or because they begin to realize the heavy reality–that the Bible has a lot to say about the shedding of innocent blood and that we’re guilty when we shed it, but we’re also guilty if we say nothing about it. For many pastors this is a painful moment. This is part of my own testimony in my own life, how I said nothing for a long time. One of the leading pastors in this group stood up in front of his peers and then knelt down in great lamentation, grieving and sorrowing over his lack of leadership when it comes to the shedding of innocent blood or abortion in Zambia.
This is not the first time that we have seen this, though we don’t see it everywhere. We have witnessed some sisters in China, weeping openly in front of a great multitude of people over their own involvement with abortion. Another woman in Cuba was overcome with grief and sorrow as she began to understand the scientific truth of abortion, as well as the biblical weightiness of shedding innocent blood. Some pastors in Colombia realized that it’s one thing for women to weep but it’s another thing for the men also to own up to their responsibilities regarding these babies. It’s still another thing when people of prominence, people who are in places of leadership, authority and certain prestige that comes with being a pastor, are humbled, grieving and weeping openly over their involvement with abortion or their passive, quiet tacit approval over it through many years.
I consider these to be the most holy moments in all of my work around the world when I am an eyewitness to seeing God’s Holy Spirit coming down and bringing that kind of cleansing. I pray for it. I wait for it. I look for it. Oftentimes some people are upset by this tremendous show of emotion. I try to remind them that there is a godly grief that brings no lasting grief. You know, there’s a temporary, sharp painful grief that comes when you finally stop justifying and you just go ahead and admit. Then when you begin to grieve, as you begin to see the implications of your actions, what happened, how it hurt people and the full weight of it starts to dawn on you, it can only lead to what the Bible calls lamentation, and the Bible provides us a whole book called Lamentations just to help us weep and grieve over our sin and disobedience to God. But here’s the verses that have always been an encouragement to me when it comes to grieving over things that you know are worth crying over: Godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret, whereas worldly grief produces death. That’s why most people are in denial about their sin, because to admit it without a solution for it is just overwhelming. But the Gospel calls us to admit what we’ve done and then to take refuge in the blood of Christ.
Of course what we teach is that abortion is the shedding of innocent blood. But so is the Gospel. The cross is the shedding of innocent blood that can cover over the guilt of shedding innocent blood is why we call the Gospel good news. So Paul writes that God brings a grieving that is temporary. It doesn’t last, but it produces something of great value. Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 7:10-11: “For see what earnestness this godly grief has produced in you, but also what eagerness to clear yourselves, what indignation, what fear, what longing, what zeal, what punishment. At every point, you have proved yourselves innocent in the matter.” Paul states that from our guilt and our repentance there is a great awakening in the soul that happens and produces a new level of zeal. We’re seeing this right now in Zambia among some of these pastors. They just sent me a map of Zambia, showing that these pastors are talking to each other and breaking down the various provinces or counties within Zambia, starting with their immediate area and thinking through how they are going to get to this part of Zambia or this town? Asking who do we know, when should we do this and how should we organize the rapid reproduction of our training of the Four Questions? These are the early signs of a movement of God that is produced through the tears of repentance, trust in the Gospel and answering the call to rescue the innocent.
So I’m very encouraged by what’s happening right now in Zambia. They’re asking for some help with some travel money. We want to get them a projector because in many parts of Zambia they’re going to have big crowds and they will need to be able to project the Scripture and the videos on a wall. We need to figure out how to get boxes and boxes of fetal models that equip every one of these pastors with ways to teach their people. So those are some entry points for your own generosity. If you want to help out, we need to buy about three projectors. I think they’re about $800 a piece. It costs us about $50 for a box of 50 fetal models to get to Africa.
Travel money is pretty small in Africa. So jump in with a gift if you can and let’s fan into flame the spirit of repentance that is blowing across parts of Zambia, leading to zeal for life there. Thank you.