Romans – A Missionary Book By Paris Reidhead*
Tonight I would like to read from this Missionary Book Romans 1:14-23:
“I am a debtor” said Paul, and say I, and you ought to join both of us in saying the same, “both to the Greeks, and to the Barbarians; both to the wise, and to the unwise. So, as much as in me is, I am ready to preach the gospel to you that are at Rome also. For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ for it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth; to the Jews first; and also to the Greek. For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith as it is written, the just shall live by faith. For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness; because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath showed it unto them. For the invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse. Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise they became fools. And changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image, made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and four-footed beasts, and creeping things.”
We are thinking tonight about the mission field. We are trying during the course of this week to understand what it means to live in heathen darkness. If I could take you to Africa, I could do more in two hours by having you by my side as I take you through a village than I could do in a whole month spent here. Just a few weeks in Africa, I would learn more about the need of the heathen than I had learned in several years of preparation to be a missionary. We can’t do that; we can go to the Word then we can show you that which the missionary sees, but the understanding that you have at the end of the week is going to be conditioned upon two things: First of all your faithfulness and your obedience to the Lord in being willing to sit and to look, and to listen. We can’t tell you everything we would like to in any one service because everything we say fits together. What we brought you yesterday has prepared you for tonight; what we will bring you tonight, we trust, is going to build upon what will be brought tomorrow. The pictures that you see tonight are the first that are to be seen, and tomorrow night’s pictures reveal a further phase of the truth. That’s why we are here together for the week...in order to understand the lostness of the lost, and when I say that, I believe with my heart that God want’s you to realize, you who are Christians, that your unsaved loved ones right here at home, right here in this lovely little valley, are just as lost, in the eyes of the Holy God as the savage cannibal head-hunter out in Africa. The same Blood that was shed for them, and will save them from their sins is needed to save the unsaved right here from their sins. Therefore, as we think together this week we are praying and trusting that the Holy Spirit is going to bring down upon your hearts a burden for the unsaved, the like of which perhaps you have never known before, and then we want you to also see that our wonderful Savior is able to save unto the utter most all them that come unto God by Him. If He can take one of these filthy, vile savages who you will be seeing and make them into the kind of Christian that we see them become as they put their trust in the Lord Jesus. Then there is no one in this house or in this community that’s so lost, but what our Savior can deliver them from their sins.
We preach an all sufficient, all powerful Savior, and we want you to become acquainted with Him this week. As you see the pictures tonight and as we think together you are going to be brought face to face with these people and then you will understand that as we find them; going to them as the first ones to come with the gospel, we discover that they are vile by Satan. They are blinded by Satan, and everything they do is dictated by Satan.
In every village; in every tribe you find the witchdoctor, and the witch doctor takes his directions, his orders immediately from the evil spirit... none other, they own, they claim it, they say that what they tell the people to do is what the spirit told them to do. And so you see man groveling in dirt, in sin, in superstition, in darkness. As you see them that way, you ask your heart how did man get this way; how did he become like this? What has happened that man should be so cruel, and so vicious, and so filthy, and so degraded? You say, Oh, how could it ever come about? Then you have to go again to the Word, and there you discover that the revelation is complete. This Book is indeed the Mind of God unfolded, and revealed to us.
Now the Bible tells us certain things about God; it tells a certain things about man; it tells us about man’s enemy, Satan; it tells us about the triumph of God over Satan. But the first thing we are interested in tonight is this - What do we find these heathens to know about God? You ask me this, and everybody in a conference some time or other seems to come around and say “Now, just what does the heathen know about God?” We have read the Scripture tonight, and it tells us that “the invisible things of God are clearly seen. Being understood by the things that are made.” Now, I would like to have you realize that every heathen; every savage; every pagan that you find any place in the world knows this...that God is powerful. Because, they say, “don’t you see the creation? God made it.” They know the name of the creator. Every Pagan tribe knows the name of the One that made the world. Now, note this.....no savage, no pagan ascribes creation to Satan or to any of the evil spirits. They all have a name for this God way off there... is the way they express it....that made the world. They say He is powerful. Then you will ask them. What else about this God do you know? They will say, “He is wise isn’t He? He keeps the world together; He keeps all His heavens together He is wise.” Then what else do you know about Him? “Oh, He’s good; He’s just.”
Well, you see them on the path going out to the place of sacrifice taking their chickens, or their goats, or their children, and you say to them “If you know God made the world; that He is wise; and that He is good and just why don’t you sacrifice to Him?” And they will say to you, “Why should we?” “He doesn’t bother us...it’s these demons, these evil spirits, they are the ones that kill us, and kill our cattle, kill our children.” “Why should we waste chickens on Him?”
The Bible says there is no fear of God before their eyes, but it does not say that there is no knowledge of God. They know the name of God; they know these things about Him. Well, you say, “Isn’t that enough?” No, it’s not enough. Creation reveals that, but there is something else. As you read in Genesis the first chapter these words you will find that “In the beginning God made out of nothing the heavens and the earth.” Now, God has left His testimony and nature to the fact that He is powerful. He has left His testimony in the human heart to the fact that He is good, but that is all.
The world nature does not tell anything further than that about God...that’s all. The heathen know that, and yet they are doomed; they are lost; they are damned. Listen, there is one sermon; one message that you never have to preach to a heathen, to a group of savages as you gather them to listen to you. One sermon that you never preach is this, “the heathen are lost”. They know they are lost; they don’t argue it. It’s assumed; they agree to it. Just let me illustrate that. Here you have this sword. This is a head-hunters sword; a cannibal sword; a sword that has actually been used to take human heads. This was given to one of our missionaries by an old chief. He said, “Take it home and show it to your people, and tell them what we had before you came.” The missionary has done that – here it is, and you can see it. If you want to come up after the service and see the religion of people without a knowledge of the gospel. The missionary said, “Chief what about this sword?” “Why do you want me to take it home?” “Well,” he said, “It’s this way, my father told my father’s father told my father in the flesh that up there some place was a good, great holy God, and that someday He was going punish us because we were so wicked.” He said, “There wasn’t anything we could do to stop that punishment, because all of our time, chickens, and money had to be spent in keeping away the evil spirits that were around us which would kill us and destroy us.” And he said, “That someday that God up there whose name we know, but that is all was going to punish us. My father said that his father told him that when we died there was a great lake of fire in which we would go, and there we would burn and suffer. There wasn’t anything we could do about it, but he said his father had told him that if he would take this sword and go out along the paths and wait there in the brush until someone from a neighboring tribe came by walking on the path not knowing he was there, and then if he would bring that sword down across the back of his neck and cut off his head then, and then take that head and body out into the bush, and there if my father would eat the flesh of the head, and give the body to the other men of the tribe to eat that it would help, because they said if he would eat the ears it would mean that he could hear because the spirit of hearing was in the head. If he would eat the tongue he could lie better; and deceive the people. If he ate the eyes it would mean that he could see his enemies more clearly, and if he ate the brain it would mean he would be more cunning and crafty to deceive his enemy.”
So he said, “My father went out on the path and he killed two men, and I went out on the path, I killed three men, but it didn’t do any good. My father told me if I would do that then I would have the spirit of the other men in me while I lived, but when I got out of life down in that dark place of burning the men that I killed would be there to take half of my punishment for me.”
He said, “Take the sword home, and show it to the people, and tell them the religion we had until the missionary came.” What was that religion? Oh, they knew they were lost; they knew they were damned; they knew that someday they would suffer; but what they didn’t know was that God so loved the world. Why? Because the only place that the love God is revealed is in the Word of God. Nowhere else.
You find the modernist; the liberalist today who get up and talk to you about the love of God and then deny the inspiration of the Scripture. Listen, my friend, he is denying the only source of the universe. Will you find one word about the fact that God is love? You don’t find it in creation; you don’t find it in the heart of man; you find it only in the Word of God....both written and living the Lord Jesus Christ. God loved. Beloved listen, that is the most mysterious and the most profound statement that has ever fallen upon ears of men. You say, how do you mean? God is love, everyone sitting here before me realizes, but love is incomplete, absolutely incomplete unless love has an object beloved.
What if some young man would come to your pastor today, and would say, “Pastor, I would like to get married.” He would say, “That’s very fine, and customary.. good many people have done that down through the years, I’m not surprised, but it, is rather strange that you, should come alone,...where is the one you want to marry?” “Well, I don’t have anyone yet...I, I just want to get married.” “Well are you in love?” “Yes, I’m in love, but I just don’t know who with yet.” If someone came to your pastor and said that sort of nonsense he would go to the telephone and call up the doctor, and say come quietly and take him before someone is hurt, because you would know what kind of a person it was. Why do I say that? Because we know in human relationship that love is incomplete until love has an object.
Now when the Word says that God is love that demands that some time there be an object upon which God’s love could be poured, and that object must be able to enjoy that love, and return that love. You have heard some person with a little Pekingese under her arm say, “Oh, I just love my Pekingese.” Listen, the next time you do well to laugh at her, because she deserves it. It is utterly impossible for a woman; a person; a human being to love a Pekingese unless they have the nature of a Pekingese. Life can only love life, and if a person says I love it then that means that they have a nature of a Pekingese, and a Pekingese can appreciate that love, and return that love in such a way that the woman’s heart is satisfied. It is utterly impossible. You may say, “I love my car”. That’s a mistake. If you do that pure idolatry. You can only love that which is like you; only love that which is the same nature as you have, and is capable of enjoying that love, and returning that love to satisfy the heart.
Therefore, the Bible tells that God is love. That meant that it was absolutely necessary that God produce something that which was capable of receiving his love; enjoying His love, and returning His love. Therefore you read in the Scripture “God said, let us make man in our image, and in our likeness.” And He made man in His image, and in His likeness. Now why did He do it? Because man had to be like Him if he was to be capable of receiving and enjoying the love of God. Man was made to satisfy the need in the very character and in the very heart of God. Therefore, when He made man He had to make man capable of loving Him for Himself. If He made man having of necessity loving Him, or like a mechanical invention, doing exactly what was desired by the inventor then there would be no love in it. Man might invent a telephone, but he couldn’t love a telephone... you can only love a person. The telephone might do anything he wanted done, and accomplish anything he wanted done, but it still would not be a fit object to love...it had to be man.
And if it was something like God then it had to be capable of loving God for Himself, choosing to love Him. And so He made man capable of choosing to love Him or else choosing to reject that love. Let me illustrate what I am trying to bring to your heart tonight. I am away from home usually about 28 days out of month. I try to get back with my family at least two or three days a month. I wouldn’t advise any of you to make that schedule, but in the work of the Lord Jesus we don’t, choose, we do as He leads, and as He sends, but of course as a father, my heart yearns for my boys. I think we have two of the sweetest boys, at least they seem that way to me...I haven’t seen them for five weeks...maybe if I had been with them all the time I wouldn’t be so prejudice, but to me they seem like two of the sweetest boys, and I miss them so much. But when I go home after being away for a month or two months and I’m home there, and they have the chance play with the boys, and having them around me, and getting acquainted with them again. Daddy’s home, and oh, how much it means to the boys, and how much more it means to Daddy. And then after the evening meal and they have gone in and had their baths my wife will put their pajamas on
them, and then she will say, “Run out and see Daddy”. I will be sitting in under the light reading, and pretty soon I will hear the patter of feet down the hall, and the first thing I know there is the 4 1⁄2 year old climbing up on me with his arms around me, and my glasses are off, and my hair is mussed up, and I’ve got a juicy kiss planted on this cheek, and the loneliness of the Father’s heart is satisfied because that little boy wants to kiss his Daddy; wants to put his arms around his daddy’s neck. And a moment later, I hear smaller feet coming and then the little fellow is trying to get up over the hump on to the knee, and pretty soon he is up there, and I’ve got more of it. You know it makes up for that month away just to have those boys want to put their arms around their Daddy; give him a kiss.
How different it would be if I had to say to my wife, “Dear bring the boys out and stand them in the door so I can see them.” And then when they got in the door I would put my fingers out and focus my eyes, and get their attention and then I would hypnotize them. When my mind controlled their minds I would say “Come over here...crawl up on your daddy’s lap and stiff unfeelingly.” They would walk over and arms would paw my clothes trying to get up in obedience to my mind over their minds. Then when they were there, I would say give the next command “Put your arms around my neck.” Those stiff little arms would go around my neck and then I would say, “Kiss me.” Cold, dead, unfeeling lips could and put themselves against my cheek. That wouldn’t meet the need of a Daddy’s heart at all.
And so when God made man, He had to make man capable of receiving and enjoying His love, and then voluntarily choosing to come back and return that love so as to satisfy the Father’s heart. He couldn’t make man absolutely controllable for if He did he wouldn’t be the creature that the heart of God’s eternal love demanded.
Something had happened back there in the years gone by, because apparently there had been one creature that God had made that had looked at God, and seeing God sitting high above all, and the heart that ought to have been filled with gratitude and worship and service became inflamed with selfishness, and lust. And this creature that God had made was the brightest; the most brilliant of all the created beings. His name was called Lucifer Son of the Morning, and he looked at God and his heart, as I say, became inflamed with lust, and he said, “I will be above the Most High; I’ll set my throne above the throne of God; I’ll dethrone God, and I’ll be God.” Now, Satan, Lucifer was an intelligent creature. He understood and knew that if he was to have created in heaven, and to dethrone God and destroy God, he would have to have weapons for it. He knew those weapons would have to be nearly as powerful or at least it would be foolish to make war against God unless he thought his weapons were designed to accomplish the victory he wanted.
Now what would the weapons of such a one be? Here was God, but what do we find out about God? First of all we said that the Bible tells us that God is love. A most marvelous passage. Well, now then if God is love it must be true that there is an opposite. You have heard it said that every thesis has an antithesis; every front has a back...if there is no back then there can be no front; every positive has a negative. Now that if God is love then what would the opposite be? Obviously the answer would be “hate”. And so Satan said God is love, and I am going to dethrone Him, and I’m going to overthrow Him therefore I must have a weapon nearly as powerful as love, and so he reached out and took the potentially existing opposite to the nature of God, “hate.” He saw that God was light, so Satan reached out and said, “I’ll take as my weapon darkness.” He saw that God was life, and Satan said, “Then I’ll reach out and take death.” He saw that God was truth, and he said “I’ll be a lie.” Satan took the four-fold opposites to this character of God. God is love; God is light...the Lord Jesus said “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” Therefore, when Satan was going to make war against God he took these four weapons and there was a g-r-e-a-t struggle in Heaven. And you will see here the Lord Jesus saying, “I beheld Satan fallen as lightning from heaven.” (Luke 10:18) Where did he fall? Genesis 1:1 says, “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.” Genesis 1:2 says, “And the earth became without form and void...” Now personally I believe it’s my opinion, I wouldn’t want to force it upon anyone, but it is my opinion that when God cast Lucifer out of Heaven He said, “You want to be God do you?” All right do you see that little speck down there; that little world down there? Well, I’m going to cast you down there; you can be God down there, so that was earth. Apparently at some time there was a cataclysm which struck this little globe on which we live until that which had been artic became tropic and that which had been tropical in climate became artic. Explorers in the frozen north found great dinosaurs frozen in the ice, so completely preserved that even now they can chop those beasts into pieces, and feed their sled dogs on the meat. Now what happened? A great cataclysm hit this old world. Personally, I believe, that when the earth became without form or void is when God cast Satan down to it. At any rate, it says in the Scripture that Satan is the god of this world.
Then when God was going to make man, He had to make man to choose to love Him...to love Him for Himself, so apparently God said, “We will make man, and We’ll go down there where Satan is, and we will plant a garden there, and then We’ll put man there, and We’ll give man the option of loving Us, for Ourselves, or if he chooses to disobey Us; to choose death then that’s the case.”
So God did plant a garden in Eden. There is the place where we find Him planting man; making man; and setting man; and giving man the lordship of all creation, but God did not exclude the Serpent; God did not exclude Satan. Therefore, you find that this slimy, filthy creature; this one that had fallen from Heaven; this one that had been cast down, came into the garden and spoke to Adam and Eve, and said this, “Yea, hath God said the day ye eat thereof ye shall surely die. You don’t believe that...don’t believe God because the day you eat thereof you shall be as God.” (Gen. 3:4,5) Why, that horrible lying Serpent, the Devil!! He had heard in his own heart the lustful cry of sin saying, to be like God, and he had tried it, but he hadn’t become like God. He couldn’t do anything about it, and now he came to Adam and Eve, and said, “You can’t trust God.” He’s trying to rob you; He’s trying to cheat you; you just eat this fruit; you just disobey Him because when you eat it why you are going to be like God. And then they looked, and they saw that the food was pleasant to the eye, and it was something to be eaten, and it was also something desired to make one wise. The lust of the flesh; the lust of the eye; the pride of life. And Satan appealed to them upon that basis, and they looked at God and said, Yes we know what He has done to us; we know what His love means to us, but you have come to us and say if we Him, and disobey Him, and reject Him, and serve you and obey you that you will make us like God. So they looked at God and literally shook their fist in His eyes, and said, “God we don’t want to have anything to do with You, we are through with you; we want Satan to be our God.” And deliberately man turned his back on God; turned his face away from God; wrapped his armed around the filthy, slimy Serpent and said, “You will be God over us.”
The Word said that sin entered the world; death by sin; death passed upon all because all have sinned. All by that act our forefathers put you and me in that place where we were by birth enemies, rebels against God. Well, how do you know they choose the way you and I would have done in their place. Because as soon as we became to the age of accountability we repeated their disobedience, and we deliberately said, “They choose the way I would have chosen for I too choose sin.” “All have sinned and come short of the glory of God.” (Rom. 3:13)
Now here was this creature that God had made Himself; here this He had made to satisfy the need of His own heart was and bound worshiping and serving Satan dead into sin. You would say, “Well, you would think God would just destroy him then.” What do you find? You go into Genesis 3 and there you find one of the most marvelous gospel sermons that is possible to find in the whole Word of God. What is it? It’s that night that sin entered the world; it’s that night that the great curse fell upon men; it’s that night when Adam and Eve woke to realize that they were guilty and vile, and sinful...they made for themselves aprons of fig leaves, and then Adam said, Listen He is coming like He has always come He doesn’t know about it yet, let’s hide? So they went over into the deepest, thickest of the garden where the trees were the heaviest and the largest, and the grass the deepest, and they got down behind the shrubs, and pulled leaves around them and Adam said, “Shew...He may not find us.” Hearts filled with stem rebellion against God. They were the ones sinning against God, and yet they hated God, and God loved them. What’s the picture? Oh beloved, when God began to deal with man He took another name, In the beginning Elohim created the heavens and the earth. But when He starts to deal with man He takes another name, Jehovah Elohim. Do you know what Jehovah means? You have heard it said....the Jesus of the New Testament is always the Jehovah of the Old Testament, and so it was Jehovah God; Jehovah Elohim; the Lord Jesus Christ in pre-existence manifestation that appeared that day.
And you see Him, our wonderful Savior, walking up and down the path of the garden calling out, “Adam, Adam, where art thou?” (Gen. 3:9) Adam, that creature who had sinned against Him; rejected Him; and spurned His love; and turned his face from Him, the Lord sees. And after a while out from the trees creeps Adam and Eve. “What is this thou has done?” Oh, the woman made me eat...turning on the one God had given him to love hoping that the blame would rest upon her, and she would be destroyed. And she turned and said, “The Serpent made me eat.” Still no humility; still no confession; still no guilt; still no sadness; no repentance; and you find the God the Son, the Lord Jesus looking at the apron of fig leaves...“it will never do; the works of your hands will never suffice...this thing which you have done is so enormous that anything you can do won’t help at all.”
The Lord Jesus went over and took a lamb and it says He made coats of skin, and I can see Him as the blood fell from that lamb and He, God, not Adam not Eve, they didn’t make it, the Lord made it. Killed from that beast the wet, damp, bloody hide of an animal that had been slain, walked over and pulled aside the fig leaves and put around them the apron of skin, and by that act He pointed His finger down across the centuries to that hour when John should say of Him, “Behold the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world.” (John 1:29) And then as the lamb He should go out to the cross there to be lifted between heaven and earth to die as that innocent lamb had died to cover the sin of Adam, so the Lord Jesus Christ, the innocent Lamb of God bore the sin of Adam and Eve, and bore your sins and my sins in His own Body on the tree that we might be covered by His love. All in Genesis the 3rd chapter, and then you find from thereon the rest of the book is the unfolding of the depth to which man could go in sin, and the depth which God could go in love. And finally you find God Himself clothing Himself with man’s nature; taking upon Himself the form of man; yea, becoming man. Why? That He, God, might unite Himself with Mankind by taking a human nature; a human personality He might have the vehicle; the means by which He could identify Himself with man, temptation of man, and then when He had proved Himself to be the law-keeper, I want you to see this now, the Lord Jesus coming in human flesh clothing Himself with the nature of man. He the law-giver for it was His finger that wrote the Decalogue on the tablet of stone, it was His voice that said, “The day thou eatest thereof, thou shalt die.” The law-giver became law-keeper and submitted Himself to His own law, and at the end of 30 years the Father could of this one, His Son, “This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased.” And I defy you tonight to emulate anyone who is thirty years of age of whom a Holy God could say, “I am well pleased.” He couldn’t of me, and He couldn’t of you, but He could of the Lord Jesus, because He was sinless and spotless and pure. He had triumphed over every test that Satan could bring. He became the perfect substitute. Now let me put it this way. If you had kept the law perfectly, and never sinned once in your life all you could have done would have been to die for one other person – just one other. You were finite; therefore, if you had been sinless you could have died for but one other finite person. But inasmuch as the Lord Jesus Christ was an infinitely Holy He could take the place of infinitely number of sinners. Therefore, you find Him fulfilling that picture in Genesis the Lord Jesus Christ becoming the Lamb and assuming human flesh and finally there as He was taken submitting Himself. Yes, to whom? To Satan. For there were two forces at work in the Person of the Lord Jesus. There was the righteous wrath of God upon man, and then there was the unholy, wicked hatred of Satan upon God. There in the presence of the Lord Jesus these two forces met. The God-man as man; the Lord Jesus bore all the wrath of God upon sin. As God He bore all of the hatred of Satan upon Him; therefore, you see Him. He was taken, listen now, what was the four-fold forces the weapon of Satan — do you see it? Hatred, darkness, death, and lie. The Lord Jesus was taken and by lie as Satan inspired it and in sighted men. He was sentenced, and then in hatred the very back of the Lord Jesus Christ was blooded by the hand of a wicked man inspired by Satan. Darkness settled upon that scene as God had to turn His back upon His Son while all the evil powers of hell surrounded the Lord Jesus, and then death...He died, and Lord Jesus Christ is God had finally submitted to everything that Satan could do. All of his hate; all of his darkness; all of death; all of lie, and He died. But oh, something else is man. He bore all of the wrath of a Holy God upon sin. He went into the grave, and there being the God-man; being spotless; being infinitely holy; the grave couldn’t hold Him; the chains could not bind Him, and He triumphed over sin, and over death, and over hell, and stood forth the captive one leading captivity captive. My Savior and yours. Oh, He paid the full price of sin, but more than that triumphed over Satan. God could not have destroyed Satan for had He done it it He would have destroyed Himself. But by standing there in love letting Satan do to Him all that he could, God in love destroyed Satan; God in light destroyed darkness; God in life destroyed death; God in truth destroyed a lie; and so the Lord Jesus triumphed over sin, and over death; and over hell, and provided for you and for me a full, complete perfect salvation. As a poor lost hell-deserving sinner who was conscious of his guilt and conscious of the deserving damnation of his soul, I came one night and saw that God had let His Son die for me. That everything that ought to have happened to me had happened to the Son of God. I believe that word, “If thou shalt confess with thy mouth, Jesus as Lord, and believe in thine heart that God has raised Him from the dead thou shalt be saved.” (Rom. 10:9)
I shall never forget as long as I live that night when as a little child...a little boy, knowing full well that I was lost, and if God didn’t have a hell and I were to die He would have to make one, and take care of me, and I put my faith and trust in the Lord Jesus and know that I passed from death to life. I was born again of the spirit of God. Oh, the joy I heard as Satan had come to Adam and tempted them by testimony so God by the Spirit had come to me, and told me that God loved me, and I believe that the testimony of the love of God is Jesus Christ, and was saved.
But, oh, tonight there are multiplied millions who, have never heard His name; never once heard of His death, and they are going on tonight blinded and bound by Satan. I would to God that you could see them. I would God I could take you to them, and help you understand what it means. Can I do it tonight? Can I take you into the Uduk Tribe and show you that mother? You see her, the body may be covered with red oak or rancid butter. On her shoulder she has a little hole; in her hand a staff; beside her a little gourd of water. Where is she going? You watch her, and she will leave the village, hides between the trees, and goes down over the hill... where is she going? The gospel has never come. The name of the Lord Jesus has never been found. Follow her, and finally you see her go off there and she goes to a tree away from the path of men and the sight of villages, all alone. She bats down the grass, and there she waits until her child is born, because this Huddo plan, and they believe if twins are born then it means that the mother has consorted with evil spirits...one of them is an evil spirit coming into life, and evil spirits in human flesh must die, and the Mother of an evil spirit must die, and she wouldn’t dare bare her child where anyone could see her...so all alone. Per chance it’s one, she picks the little child up and carries it home, and when they see her coming, the beer pots are dragged out and they begin to dance and sing.
But what if it’s twins?? Then that mother who have brought the hope of the purpose makes a little grave beside where she has borne her children, digs a little hole, without so much as touching them with her hands less the spirit should enter into her, she will roll those little child face-down into the hole, and covers them with dirt. And then gets up with a broken heart, and empty hands, and makes her way back to the village. Why? Why? Because she has never heard that “God so loved the world that He gave His Son...” (John 3:16) And so out of fear of demons, and evil spirits she has given her son in futile sacrifice; in useless empty sacrifice. Why? Because those of us who was entrusted this message of marvelous deliverance have been so selfish and so cool. We have said to mother’s like her...“go on in your darkness; live on in your hate; live on in your death; we don’t care; we are so glad we are saved. We don’t have any time to tell you what God did us and for you. The Life that was given for us was given for you; the Blood that was shed for us was shed for you. We are saved and that’s all we care about.”
Tonight, beloved listen millions have never heard that God so loved the world.
* Reference such as: Delivered at Latta Memorial Presbyterian Church, Christiana, PA Sunday Evening, 1958 by Paris W. Reidhead, Pastor. ©PRBTMI 1958
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Paris Reidhead (1919 - 1992)
Was a Christian missionary, teacher, writer, and advocate of economic development in impoverished nations. A spiritual crisis during this period—as he described two decades later in what is probably his best-known recorded teaching, "Ten Shekels and a Shirt"--left Reidhead with the conviction that much of evangelicalism had adopted utilitarian and humanistic philosophies contradictory to Biblical teaching. The end of all being, he came to believe, was not the happiness of man, but the glorification of God. This theme would recur throughout his later teaching.Since Mr. Reidhead's death in 1992, Bible Teaching Ministries, Inc. continues under the leadership of his wife, Marjorie, and daughter, Virginia Teitt, a dedicated Board, and the many people who have donated time and talent after being changed by God’s Word through this message. The message of the Gospel is reaching an ever-widening audience all over the world.