Followed By Mercy

Expecting and Attempting Great Things in Ministry

• W. Austin Gardner • Season 1 • Episode 14

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Embark on a profound journey with me, W. Austin Gardner, as we traverse the vibrant paths of world evangelism, expanding from the bustling streets of Peru to the spiritual hunger in Bangladesh. Prepare to be enchanted by the tales of dedication and fervor that define the missionary experience. This episode promises to be an enlightening exploration of the roles played by both those who go and those who send, with a special focus on the indispensable 'Remainers' or 'Senders' whose contributions fuel this global endeavor.

Witness the candid reflections and lessons learned from the mission field, where cultural immersion and humility pave the way for potent, life-changing ministry. From the historical legacy of William Carey to the timely wisdom found in Thomas Hale's "On Being a Missionary," this episode is an intimate look into the triumphs and trials faced by those called to serve. Join us as we uncover the complex beauty of missionary work, and may you too be inspired to expect and attempt great things from God.

Thanks for listening. Find us on YouTube, Substack, Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram.

W. Austin Gardner:

I want to start right off with those of you that are the laymen, the regular people in the church. You know you're the people that are the backbone of the church. It is crucial to have you and the ministry that you do. Without you, there'd be no missions. All missionaries are born and bred in good, strong, bible preaching, bible teaching churches, and so I was just thinking you know I spent a long time actually much less time in the podcast as I am preparing for the podcast and I thought about a message. I used to preach a lot when I was on the deputation and furlough and I called it Remainers. Remainers, those that stay, stayers, or another word of saying that would be senders.

W. Austin Gardner:

And one of the key stories to that message is found in the book of Ezra. Now, I know that's Old Testament, I know it's not New Testament, but we have proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that God of the Old Testament is the God of evangelism and wants the entire world to be saved. And so I know, you know that already. In Ezra, chapter one, in verse one, ezra writes that it's the first year of Cyrus and the word of the Lord came by the mouth of Jeremiah, so the guy who wrote a book in your Bible, and he stirred up the spirit of Cyrus. And Cyrus then begins to have in his heart and in his mind that he should see to it that the house of the Lord is built in Jerusalem. In Ezra, chapter 1 and verse 2.

W. Austin Gardner:

Now, cyrus isn't going to go build the wall and not all of you are going to go be missionaries. But he said to them God's given me all of this. And he recognized that God gave it to him. And as a believer, I know you recognize that, I know that you know that everything you have is a gift from Almighty God. In fact, as David said that in 1 Chronicles 29, verse 14, he said who am I, what are my people? That we could give you an offering? Because everything we have comes from you and what we give back to you is what you already gave to us. It comes from your hand and we give it back To us. It comes from your hand and we give it back.

W. Austin Gardner:

So Cyrus says I really want to see the house of God built. The Lord, god of heaven, he says, has given me the kingdoms of the earth in verse two. And he's charged me, he's put on me a burden to build the house. He's going to stay in place. He is not a goer, he is a sender, he is a remainer. And so then he begins to challenge the people, and he challenges them that through preaching and written word, he challenges them that they are to build the house in Jerusalem. And so, knowing that God had given him everything, knowing that God had a plan for his life, he decides that's what they're going to do.

W. Austin Gardner:

And so he says to the people of God I need some of you to volunteer, some of you to step forward and say we will go and build the temple and I want you to go, but only go if the Lord puts that in your heart. He said God would stir up the hearts of those that he raised up to go build the house of the Lord in Ezra, chapter 1 and verse 5. But he realized not everybody would go and so he said in verse 4, some of you are going to remain here. He called them remainers. He said you'll stay here, you'll live here, you'll sojourn here, but I want you to help them with silver and gold and goods and animals, beasts which would be machines in our day and time, and a free will offer. I want you to be giving it to them. I want you to strengthen their hands. You may not be going, but you're going to help those that do go and it's going to be a part of who you are to help them.

W. Austin Gardner:

So he says in verse 4, if you stay, if you remain here, I want you to be a big part. Now, as you think about that and you think in terms of world evangelism, I want you to think about what you're doing and how what you do affects what's going on all over the world, how your life impacts the life of others. I want to challenge you to get involved in discipleship and ministry. I want you to know you're preparing workers. When I was a little boy in a Sunday school class, causing trouble and getting fussed at and sent to my mother, no one knew that God would open the door for me to learn the language and go to South America and see literally thousands of people come to Christ. But he did, and so everybody who taught me, everybody who loved me as a child, everybody helped lead me to Christ and then disciple me all had a part in that. So you may be a stayer, you may be a person that God has called to stay here, and so I just want to challenge you to use your staying here, use your remaining here to help others go. That's your job. It's really not about what you get. You're not about being more selfish by staying here. Instead of that, you're about helping others get there. That's a great calling, isn't it? I don't want you to dare forsake that. I want you to realize that when you hold that baby in your arms in the nursery, you're holding a future missionary, possibly a future pastor, possibly. I want you to know that when you're teaching that children's class. You have little idea which one is going to be greatly used of God.

W. Austin Gardner:

A fantastic story is told about when Charles Spurgeon was a boy and an old preacher came to visit him and rubbed him on the top of his head. He said I want to meet you out in the playground it's early in the morning when you get up and he did, and he had a word of prayer for him, rubbed his little six or seven-year-old head and said I know God has big plans for you. That impacted Spurgeon for the rest of his life. He never forgot that. That impacted Spurgeon for the rest of his life. He never forgot that. So I want to thank you for listening.

W. Austin Gardner:

Now, as you know, every day I am writing. For those of you who get it, I'm writing articles that go out of my blog. It's called W Austin Gardner at Substack, and I want to invite you to subscribe. If you're not subscribed, invite others to, because it's there that I use that to challenge you and to help you, and I don't know if it'd be a help, but I pray it is. I work at it being a help, I promise you. I put in long hours just trying to prepare material and be ready.

W. Austin Gardner:

Well, that brings me to our second very important thing that we do today, and that is what's our verse of the week. Do today and that is what's our verse of the week. Well, I decided to go all the way back to the Old Testament, from out of the Old Testament all the way to the New Testament. Don't worry, we'll be back in the Old Testament soon, because I want to continue to show you that all through the Bible, god's saying the same thing. But in Revelation, chapter 7 and verse 9, he said I beheld a great multitude, such a large number. No man could number all of them. All of the nations of the world, all the kindreds, all the peoples, all the tongues or languages were standing before the throne of the Lamb, clothed in white robes, purified you get that Purified wearing righteousness provided by Jesus. They had palms in their hands so they could worship with him and they cried salvation to our God. You realize what's going to happen, folks, when we talk about world evangelism, we're on the winning side. I know you may be hearing all kinds of dire and doom and gloom and you may be thinking it's all over, but in in heaven, there's a number so large that man could not number it. The church and the 144,000 Jewish witnesses have fulfilled their job. God is getting the gospel to the world Today.

W. Austin Gardner:

While we still have a chance, we should use everything at our disposition. We ought to be trying to use radio and social media and television and the Internet and the printed page. All of you young people out there, you know how to use social media. How about turning it from me to them? How about turning it from talking about me to talking about how to get the gospel message to them? We ought to be using the printed page. We ought to be supporting missionaries. We ought to be sending missionaries. We ought to be using a printed page. We ought to be supporting missionaries. We ought to be sending missionaries. We ought to be supporting nationals.

W. Austin Gardner:

See, god does a great work. He saves people from everywhere, of all religious backgrounds, and he's closed them in the righteousness of Jesus Christ, not the filthy rags of their merit. You know why? Because our God is a saving God. He says in verse 9 a great multitude. You know, he wants all men everywhere to be saved. In first timothy, chapter 2, verses 3 and forward, he says he wants all men to be saved and all men to come to the knowledge of the truth and he gave and paid the ransom for all. Second peter 3, 9. He's not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. In Hebrews 2, 9, he's already tasted death for every man. In 1 John 2, he's the payment for the propitiation for our sins, but not ours only, but for the sins of the whole world. You know he's the Savior, god, all the way through the Bible. In Psalm, they forgot God, their Savior. In Isaiah 43, beside me, there is no Savior. In 1 Timothy 2, 3, in the sight of God, our Savior, he's the Savior of all men. The Bible says in 1 Timothy 4, 10. He wants to abolish death and give life to everybody.

W. Austin Gardner:

So I just want to challenge you to get involved in the greatest, most wonderful work that is going on anywhere in the world. That's the job of world evangelism getting the message to the world. God wants them all to be saved. It's the blood of Jesus that saves, certainly not the denomination that I'm a part of or you're a part of. It's the blood of Jesus, the gospel of Jesus Christ and what he did on Calvary, and so you and I have the privilege of telling people about it, so that they can be purchased by his blood Acts 2, verse 28, so that they can have faith in his blood, they can believe, so that they can have peace made through the blood of Jesus Christ, so they can be reconciled to God by the death of his son and that they can be redeemed through his blood and through the blood of his cross. You see, the Lord saves and changes, and he's given us all that privilege and all that responsibility of getting the gospel message to the world. I hope you're a part of that. Thank you so much for listening, boy. I am so excited that you would take the time to listen and to think about all of this and have it on your heart and mind.

W. Austin Gardner:

And that brings me now to our country of the week. Are you ready? Our country of the week, bangladesh. Now you know I'm going to use and what is it? Good night, just slipped my mind. I'll get it right back to you. That's a sign of old age, for sure.

W. Austin Gardner:

But operationworldorg that's where you can get a lot of information. Plenty of other websites too. But just northeast of India is a place called Bangladesh. Bangladesh has 173 million people approximately. They're living in the country. The fact is, one source is 174 million, and so I want you to know that, like 27, I'm around the age of 15. That means they're ripe to hear the gospel. They speak english and a total of 45 other languages, so it's a lot of work. I couldn't hardly find. I looked. I found a charismatic couple there trying to preach the gospel. Praise the Lord for that. But I couldn't hardly find anybody else over there in the country.

W. Austin Gardner:

It's a Muslim country and persecution is large. Eighty-nine percent of the population is Muslim and at least 50 percent of the country is un-evangelized and only 0.7 percent consider themselves to be Christian. Operation World asks you to pray for the leadership of the churches. Back in the day, lots of people got saved, but not much has happened Now. I chose the man of the day to go along with the country today because you know, bangladesh is where Sarah, sarah, sarah poor was, where William Carey was. We always called him admission to India, but he was in Bangladesh and they even honor him there, the Beng, and they suffer much persecution at the hands of the Muslims.

W. Austin Gardner:

Would you pray that God would do a work there? I don't know if God's calling you, but man, I've tried to offer this book to you. I really would like to see you. In fact, if the first five of you that write me send me a text or something, I'll send you a free copy of the book. Are you Called? And I'd love to help you. So just a checklist to help you find out if you're called or not, to help you check and see where you are on your stage towards getting ready to go as a missionary, because that's who you are and that's what you ought to go as a missionary, because that's who you are and that's what you ought to do. God's calling you to do that. Well, that's been exciting, but let's talk about this. I've tried to talk to the stayers, to the remainers. They're great people. God's using them because God's got a place for all of us. No judging going on here. We're rather more excited about God getting his word to the world. But how about to the goers? Can I talk to you from heart to heart? I just returned from Peru, from three weeks down in Peru and had the time of my life.

W. Austin Gardner:

Now, when you go to the mission field, one of the first things you want to learn how to do is identify with the people. Now, mr Ray, I'm talking to you Now. Tomorrow, after this one airs, the very next day will be another podcast on mentoring. But I want you to know that your job is to identify with the national. To be an effective cross-cultural ministry or missionary, you have to be a student of the culture. That means you have to learn how they think. It's their integrated system of beliefs, it's what they think about God and reality and values and customs and work. It's how they express their beliefs and their values and it's what gives them a sense of community. And so an effective missionary learns to identify with the culture. You see, that's what Jesus did. He's the best example of all. In fact, when this is discussed in missionary circles, it's called incarnational ministries, because it is you putting yourself in their skin and in their world. That's what Jesus did.

W. Austin Gardner:

When Jesus left heaven and came to earth, he became one of us. He became fully human. He was birthed the way we're birthed. He was raised the way we were raised. He knew hunger and thirst and poverty and oppression. He experienced rejection and anger and loss. He wept. He experienced all of the human side of life. He became one of us, and so that's important for you and I to do the same things. If we're going to reach these people Now. You can't go down there and hold on to who you are and ask them to adapt to you. You got to kind of leave who you are and leave all your preconceived notions behind and adapt to them. You see, the word was made flesh and dwelt among them. He identified with the people. He came not as a great savior in the beginning, but as the helpless infant. He didn't show himself to be a leader or a teacher or an expert or a visitor from a superior, dominant culture. He came to show them he wasn't a big shot, but to reach them.

W. Austin Gardner:

Jesus was a learner. He learned the language from his parents. He learned how to play with his peers. The very son of God sat in the temple asking questions Are you willing to be a learner? Are you willing to approach the new people you work with as humbly learning a learner? Can you spend three days sitting with their leaders and let them teach? You Get this.

W. Austin Gardner:

The God who created it all studied the language, learned the culture, learned the lifestyles of the people for 30 years before he began his public ministry. He knew about their family life. He knew about their problems. He heard the neighbor and his wife arguing. He heard the other children being disciplined. He identified with them being disciplined. He identified with them. You see, he increased in wisdom and statue and in favor with God and man. Now we're taught biblically to let this same spirit be in us. He was in the form of God. He didn't find it funny to be God, but he humbled himself and became a legitimately and completely Jewish person. He was so ordinary that when people recognized him they said isn't that Mary's boy? Don't we know his brothers and sisters? Isn't he one of us? And even the people of his hometown rejected him. He came to be a minister.

W. Austin Gardner:

Now I say that I'll give you more at a later date, but let's just leave it with this. As a missionary, your job is to cross the cultural bounds and become as much one of them as you possibly can. I have a ton more material on this and I'll be glad to talk to you about that just a little bit later. But I want you to know, being a missionary is quite a heavy burden because in a lot of ways you've got to forget who you are, forget where you come from, forget who your country is and love them enough to become one of them, and that can be quite difficult to accept, quite difficult to accomplish in your life, but that's what God's calling you to do Now. I would like to talk to you next about my book of the week Before I do, I'm not sure you're up to date on it, I'll put a link to it, but I've got the book Are you Called, and I've already gotten rid of all the books that I purchased to resell on marriage, the fulfilling marriage, but I'd sure like to invite you to get one of those, and here in the next few days I'll be running a special and try to get as many of you to get the Kindle version as you will.

W. Austin Gardner:

But today I want to talk to you about a book called Own being a Missionary. I don't have it in print, it's a digital copy Own being a Missionary by Thomas Hale, and it happens to be a book that I like very much, and it's kind of a book that you would read as you're learning about doing ministry. It's kind of like a primer, it's kind of like getting started, it's kind of like where you want to start out as you learn about being a missionary, and so let me share with you just some things I think are of value, that you need to know from the book, because I want to whet your appetite to buy it. I want you to get a hold of this book. It's going to help you with cultural adaptation and cross-cultural challenges and it is worth it because when you do not overcome those, you hinder your ministry.

W. Austin Gardner:

He helps you deal with the emotional strains and loneliness from being away from your home and away from your family and friends and witnessing so much poverty and suffering and how you want to deal with it. He helps you understand how to seek counseling and support groups. I recently posted on social media a comment that such and such a percentage of missionaries needed counseling when they came home and several people commented that's not right. It's a lot higher than that. He helps get you ready for spiritual warfare and what goes on when you go to the mission field. You leave a place that's got quite a bit of light, though it's still dark, but you step into the darkness itself. He helps you deal with health issues. He helps you deal with the disappointments that things don't work out like you think. The brand new mission is always very excited, but it doesn't take long for things to start falling apart, and that's when you're going to find out do you believe Jesus or not. It helps you to realize the cultural relevance of what's going on and how to learn about what's happening. It helps give you a biblical basis.

W. Austin Gardner:

This is a great book. I only recommend to you books that I truly find to be of great value to me, and so Own being a Missionary by Thomas Hale. I've read it several times and I want to challenge you to read that same book and spend a lot of time in it and learn all that you can from it. Thank you so much for listening and always being with me. I hope that it's being of great value to you. I hope you'll help me spread the word, get people to give it likes and shares. We are now approaching 250 downloads, but I'd sure like to see that go up a lot more than that, and I'd like your help. Let me get you to our historical person of the week. I chose William Carey because, by size of countries, I was down to Bangladesh, and Bangladesh is where Serampore was, where William Carey served.

W. Austin Gardner:

William Carey was born in England in 1776, on August the 17th, one day before Betty and I married and he died in Serampore, india, in 1834. Now you always hear a lot of great things about him, so I don't want to bust your bubble, but because if you go into missions you're going to think well, everybody has a high and lofty thought and no one would ever attack and there'll never be challenges. But there were trouble. William Carey dealt constantly with trouble. He had trouble from his wife who was crazy, who literally walked the streets calling him an adulterer in front of everybody, and people were leery of him and stayed away from him, even though his closest friends knew it wasn't true. He suffered greatly. She was literally crazy.

W. Austin Gardner:

Then the younger missionaries broke up with him in 1873. There was this big squabble and so the older missionaries were working hard and maybe the younger missionaries didn't agree with how things were being done. And that's a constant thing. The veteran missionary and the new missionary can often get into trouble and fight and fuss among themselves. That happened. And then they broke up with the mission board back in America. You know the American mission board was trying its best to tell them what to do, though they'd never lived there and had no idea what was going on. A lot of times that's what happens, the givers that have the money. They want to control what's going on in the field, though they've never lived there. So I just want you to know. I want you warned up front. Trouble's on the way it always comes. Life is full of trouble and it's coming your way. Now here's the positives.

W. Austin Gardner:

He was probably the greatest self-educated English missionary we can possibly think of. He was a cobbler, a shoesmith, he was a pot mender, a shoesmith, and he learned six languages and translated the Bible, the full Bible, into six languages and parts of 29 others. Now again, just kind of funny, his buddies said that much of what he wrote was indecipherable. They said you know, his translations aren't near as good as he thinks they are. Isn't that typical? There's always this competition between the missionaries, so be sure, don't be shocked when that happens. Don't be shocked Now.

W. Austin Gardner:

He was baptized in 1783. He's about 22 years of age in a river there and he became a pastor about four years later and he learned in no time at all. In seven years he learned Latin, greek, hebrew, french and Dutch and he had almost no teachers to help him do that. You know what excited him? Reading the adventures of Captain Cook, which was a secular book. But it filled his mind with all these people in all these foreign places and he began to wonder what happened to their souls when they died. So he was trying to get everybody started up in the mission. And again, whenever you get excited about missions, it kind of ruffles people's feathers. Everybody's willing to do a little bit, but not too much kind of ruffles people's feathers. Everybody's willing to do a little bit, but not too much. So he wrote a booklet called An Inquiry into the Obligation of Christians to Use the Means for the Conversion of the Heathen, and it really did have an impact on his friends. He later preached a message on May the 30th 1792, expect great things from God and attempt great things, and that stirred people up. His buddy, andrew Fuller, would write a book which would be about the gospel being for all people, and so together he and Fuller and others formed the First Mission Agency in England.

W. Austin Gardner:

Now, he wasn't the first missionary to India. He certainly wasn't the first missionary to Bangladesh. There was a Baptist surgeon by the name of Thomas who had already been preaching Christ occasionally to the natives and he happened to be back in town when they're having a meeting and Carrie's speaking and he shows up and the next thing you know he andrie are hugging and kissing and he's excited they'll work together till he finds out that the doctor not all he's supposed to be. But that's another story for another day. Things were hard on the mission field. The home agency couldn't see why he spent so much money, didn't want to send so much money, so he ended up being in charge of an indigo factory to stay alive and they later moved over to Bangladesh because the British businessmen didn't want them in India, ruining the natives. They set up a printing press, started a large boarding school, eventually founded a college he authored—now this will sometimes bother preachers in America. They're like how can he do this? I had a friend who wrote a book as a missionary and the pastors got mad. But Carey authored grammar books and foreign languages and he did dictionaries and he authored a lot of different secular works. But they got the Word of God to roughly one-third of the world in 40 languages in his day and time. You already know, I'm sure, the story that he led.

W. Austin Gardner:

Christian of Powell was the first guy to get saved and then churches started coming. Two of his wives died. Well, three wives died. He married one while he was at home and two, while he was on the field. He had such strong character that nothing could and would stop him. He'd pay whatever price. No matter how many people were against him, he would stop him. He'd pay whatever price. No matter how many people were against him, he would not quit. He used every minute and worked as hard as he could. He was mocked and sneered and laughed at. I know you don't hear that today, but as they were called low-bred, low-born mechanics, they did more to spread the gospel and accomplish God's will around the world than anybody. He had a genius for languages and God greatly used him. So from shoemaker to salvation sharer, that's our man and he was never ashamed of it.

W. Austin Gardner:

The gospel, worthy of all acceptation by Andrew Fuller, helped back him up and you know, when Kerry first wanted to go to the mission field, you recall the story. He said let's send a missionary. And the old preacher said sit down, young man, when God pleases to convert the heathen, he'll do it without your help or mine. But he didn't give up. He still went on to see God do great and mighty things. When they formed the first missionary society, he offered himself to be a missionary and John Thomas and he would go over and start doing a work over there and God used them greatly, in spite of all the junk that was going on and all that had happened. It was so bad while they were in India that they had to live as one family in one house and make decisions all based together. They didn't have any money, they didn't have any way to pay the bills, but God blessed the work and God helped them get the work out and see lives saved and people changed. By the time Kerry died, he had helped found some 30 missionary agencies, trained 40 native teachers, 45 preaching stations, 600 church members and a Baptist society to get the gospel out.

W. Austin Gardner:

Wow, what a man. Can you believe that? Now, who are you? You know God's got. I used to tell the Peruvians and I tell you God didn't make one William Carey and say that's it, I don't need to do anything big like that again. God still wants to do it and he wants to do it with you and you're important and valuable to him and he has a plan for your life and you're not something off to the side. So would you surrender your life? Who knows? You might just be a humble, poor shoemaker, pot mender, but God has bigger plans than that for you. You may feel like you're a little too old to go to the mission field, but God has good plans for you. You may have a wife that's not as into it as you want her to be, but God has big plans for you. So I just want to challenge you Now.

W. Austin Gardner:

As I close up today, I want to ask you to invite your friends. Would you help me share this? If I'm doing anything of value to you, I really am working at it, and if it's a value, would you help me spread it? Would you tell your friends about it? Would you get other people to listen? They can turn it on in a podcast app and listen on the way to and from work. They can hear it. You can do it on double speed. You'll be finished in less than 20 minutes. I'd just like to challenge you with world evangelism. I want to inspire world evangelism. I want to empower you to be all that God's called you to be, and I do want to. I'm writing every day. I'm preparing material for you every day. Get a hold of the copy of Are you Called, and then the book on fulfilling marriage. I'll have it by the time I do next week's podcast. There are more of them in the mail on the way to me right now, and so I'd like to invite you to do that. Well, you got there. You have it. Folks. We've dived into some epic insights, some jaw-dropping stories. I hope you're as fired up as I am to take the gospel of Jesus Christ to the world.

W. Austin Gardner:

Thanks for tuning in and joining me on the World Evangelism Podcast. I'll catch you next time for more adventure, inspiration and awesomeness, but for now, this is W Austin Gardner signing off. Keep spreading the gospel, being amazing. God bless you. Now listen to me worldevangelismpodcastcom. That's all you have to remember. Worldevangelismpodcastcom. All you need to do is share that with people and you'll be able to share with them the podcast and they can sign up and be a part of what's going on here. God bless you. Thank you everyone for all you do. God bless.