My Life to Give (1967)

Part 1 of 4: The Need for Missions
by David Howard

“True preaching of the gospel must be followed and accompanied directly by a ministration to the physical needs of men. Men with hungry stomachs and cold bodies are in no condition to grasp the demands of Jesus Christ.”

The topic which has been assigned to me is one which, from one standpoint, I would prefer not to deal with - the need of men as a motive for missions. The reason I say I would prefer not to deal with it is simply this: I disagree wholeheartedly with the idea, which I used to hear proclaimed rather vociferously when I was a student, that the need constitutes the call. If this were true, why am I not a missionary in India?

I know there are needs in India. Or to bring it closer to home - five weeks ago today I stood on the streets of Lima, Peru, and watched the final parade of Evangelism in Depth in that great city.

I saw poverty, such as I have seldom seen anywhere, in the terrible slums o£ Lima, some of the worst slums I have seen in any part of Latin America.

I see a tremendous need in Lima, Peru. But I am not a missionary in Lima, Peru. The need cannot, by itself, constitute the call. The need must be supplemented by the things which will be dealt with by the other men on this panel.

But look at it from another angle. Any other motive is insufficient unless a man can see a need. You are not going to go somewhere to serve the Lord unless you are convinced that there is a need there. The need must enter in, but it cannot be the only basis. In fact it is not the final basis. The other men are dealing with much more fundamental issues. But we cannot leave out need.

When we think about need and motivation, what do we mean by motivation? The simplest definition I have found in the dictionary is, "A motive is something within a person; as need, idea, organic state or emotion that incites him to action." Something within a person that incites him to action. We are dealing today with things which we trust will be used of God to incite us to action. This will be our motivation.

What are the kinds of need that mankind faces? There are physical needs, intellectual needs, emotional needs, spiritual needs. Every one of these is a legitimate need. I believe that the character in Scripture who combines these needs, upon whom all these needs converge at the same time, is Job. Job was a man who suffered simultaneously under every one of these needs - physical, intellectual, emotional, and spiritual. Let us look briefly this morning at Job as an illustration of the need of man.

First of all, Job suffered tremendous physical need. He lost everything he had materially - his houses, his cattle, his sheep, his oxen, and even his children. Nothing left. Then God gave Satan permission to touch even his body. Covered with sores from the top of his head to the bottom of his feet, Job sat down in sackcloth and ashes and scratched himself miserably with a potsherd. You know, there is an amazing thing in the book of Job. We find no indication that anybody did anything to help him physically. Isn't that strange? Three men came along and sat down silently by him for seven days to commiserate with him; then they began to argue with him for days on end. But there is no record that anybody tried to help him relieve the physical suffering. What a terrible thing.

When I look back in my life, some terrible memories come to mind from time to time. I find miserable failures in my life. One memory just tears at my heart every time I think of it. When I was a student in college, I used to go to Skid Row in Chicago on Saturday nights with a group of fellows to witness to the down-and-outers there. We would try to talk to these men, lying literally in the gutter, about their souls. I remember one cold, wintry night, about twenty years ago now,
I stood under a street lamp and talked to a shivering man. I tried to tell him of his need of Jesus Christ.

He turned to me and said, "Friend, would you buy me a bowl of soup?"

I said, "No, I've got something better for you. I want to tell you about Jesus Christ." The man turned away and stood there and listened apathetically as I continued to try to tell him of his need for Christ.

He turned a second time and said, "Look buddy, can't you buy me a bowl of soup?" I had been conditioned not to give anything to these men because they would spend it all on liquor. But he wasn't asking me for money. He wasn't asking me for liquor. He was a cold, shivering, hungry man asking me for soup.

I said, "No, I've got something better for you - Jesus Christ."

Do you think that helped him? I wish I could live that day over; I would buy him ten bowls of soup.

The physical needs of man cannot be denied. This question of social action versus the preaching of the gospel is not an either/or situation. It is both/and. True preaching of the gospel must be followed and accompanied directly by a ministration to the physical needs of men. Men with hungry stomachs and cold bodies are in no condition to grasp the demands of Jesus Christ. You and I have a responsibility before us to help meet the needs of these men.

I know of no more heart-rending sight than one that I see periodically because my work takes me to Bogotá, the capital of Colombia. Little street urchins run by the hundreds and thousands on the streets of Bogotá. I have never seen another city like it. They are in every city, but Bogotá is jammed with filthy-faced little street urchins who never saw a cake of soap in their lives. They live in the shivering cold of that high mountain city, just grubbing in the gutters during the day. As nighttime falls, they shiver and huddle in a doorway. The physical need of men cries out to us.

But this was not Job's greatest need. Those physical sufferings were really incidental to the deeper need that Job suffered. Job had intellectual needs that tore his heart. He was struggling with cosmic problems. The idea that the book of Job deals only with physical suffering is a misunderstanding of the depths of this book. The book of Job deals with some of the most deep and cosmic problems of all time. How can a man know God? This is what Job was dealing with. You are students - you know something of intellectual problems and how they tear at your mind and heart.

I talked yesterday to a girl at this convention (Don't try to guess who she is. There are 9,000 of you here and 8,950 of you never met her, so there is no sense in trying to guess who she is.), a Christian girl from a Christian background who has known Christianity all her life. She told me that the day before a fellow had asked her, "Are you a Christian?" This girl is going through some real problems at the present time, some intellectual struggles. She is struggling with cosmic problems and honestly so. When this fellow asked, "Are you a Christian?" do you know what she answered? She said, "Hell, I don't know." I sympathized with her when she told me that. I could see that she was in the midst of problems that were deep and vast. It would do me no good to sit like Job's miserable comforters and answer back the way they answered Job.

Job cried out in the midst of his suffering, "I'm full of confusion" (Job 10:15). You know what miserable Eliphaz answered a few chapters farther on? He said, "Are you the first man that was born? Or were you brought forth before the hills? Have you listened in the council of God? … What do you know that we do not know? What do you understand that is not clear to us?" (15:7-9 RSV).

What a way to deal with a man who is suffering the depths of agony and intellectual problems! The intellectual needs of today cry out to you and me. We must be motivated somehow by this. But Job had even a deeper problem. He had emotional trouble. Job was a lonely man. There should have been one person in the entire world to whom he could turn and pour out these problems and share them. When those three comforters sat there to commiserate with him and then did nothing but argue with him day after day, he should have been able to turn to his wife.

I thank God for a godly wife. I come home feeling sometimes the pressure of the work, seeing problems around me, and feeling utterly crushed by the magnitude of the job and the depths of the problems that surround the church of Jesus Christ in Latin America. Sometimes I lie awake in bed at night and think through these things and struggle with them. Then I turn to my wife and just pour them out to her. I thank God for a godly, loving, patient wife who listens and is a comforter.

Job turned to his wife, and what did she say? "Job, curse God and die. Forget the whole thing. Give it up, Job. What's the use?" (See Job 2:9.) That's a big help, isn't it, for a man who is in the midst of emotional need?

Beside loneliness, Job knew something of fear. He speaks of fear and says, "Amid thoughts from visions of the night, when deep sleep falls on men, dread came upon me, and trembling, which made all my bones shake" (Job 4:13-14 RSV). Have you ever been scared to death? Every time I come back to the University of Illinois, I remember with a certain amount of amusement the time I was most scared to death. It happened right here on this campus.

I was a freshman in college. By some strange quirk, fate, or luck, I was about the only man in the college who went out for a particular weight class on the wrestling team. I made the varsity team because there was not much opposition. Our first inter-collegiate match happened to be against the University of Illinois, who were Big Ten champions that year. We came down here on a Friday night and I made the mistake of reading the newspaper. I found out that my opponent the next day was a conference champion.

It was the first match I had ever had. I went into one of these big gymnasiums here (When you get out on the wrestling mat you don't have ten other men to lose the game with you, as you do on a football field. You lose, and you're lost, buddy. You're the only one.) I stood out on the edge of what looked to me like a gigantic mat in the midst of a huge gymnasium. My opponent was a stocky, square-built, Japanese man. This fellow - I thought he probably knew all the jujitsu in the book — was going to tear my head off. When that referee said, "Ready, wrestle," I had never been so scared in my life. That man charged across the mat at me.

I thought I knew something of fear then; I look back at it now and laugh. But it was real at the time. (You know who won the match? Never mind.)

You are living in fear sometimes too, aren't you? And Job was. He had emotional needs. These things are deep and they mean something to us. It does not help a bit, in the depths of emotional need; if somebody treats us the way Job's wife treated him. Men and women who are living in the depths of loneliness and fear cry out and look for help. You and I ought to be motivated by their emotional need.

Job had one more need - the deepest of all the needs - his spiritual need. Job was groping after God in the midst of all this. This tremendous need builds up throughout the book. In chapter 23 Job is crying out in desperation, "Oh, that I knew where I might find him" (I can't even find God), that I might come even to his seat! Behold, I go forward, but he is not there; and backward, but I cannot perceive him; on the left hand I seek him, but I cannot behold him; I turn to the right hand, but I cannot see him" (vv. 3, 8, 9 RSV).

Did you ever feel like that in your own life? Oh, that I knew where I might find him. I've gone every direction, forward and backward, left and right. I don't find God. I'm lost. Every man on the earth without Christ is like this, because Jesus Christ said, "No one comes to the Father, but by me" (John 14:6 RSV). There is no way to find God except through Jesus Christ. This is the message that he has given to us. "I am the way." The way, not one of many ways. "No one comes to the Father, but by me." Men grope in darkness and cry out, "Oh, that I knew where I might find him."

Job found at least one thing. He said in the next verse, "But he knows the way that I take" (Job 23:10 RSV). Thank God for that. Job recognized this at least: I don't know where he is but, thank God, he knows where I am. He is seeking me. "I sought the Lord, and afterward I knew he moved my soul to seek him, seeking me." This is what ought to motivate us.

How did needs motivate Jesus Christ? We read in the Gospels that when he saw the multitudes, he was moved with compassion because they were harassed and helpless and wandered as sheep without a shepherd (Matt. 9:36). What did he do? He did something for them. He healed their physical needs. He taught them, showed them the way. He preached to them, proclaimed the good news of God in Jesus Christ.

We must see the needs of men and women. We must do something to meet their needs. That hymn we sang last night, "The Vision of a Dying World," captures some of these thoughts in the second verse. "The savage hugs his god of stone and fears descent of night (the fear); the city dweller cringes lone amid the garish light (loneliness): Lord Jesus Christ, arouse thy church to see their mute distress! Lord Jesus Christ, equip thy church with love and tenderness."

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My Life to Give (1967)

God's Word

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December 27-31, 2009