Keeping Watch and Counting the Cost

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You can find out more about Robbie Zacharias and the team at www.rzim.org. We need each other. We need you to stand with us. We need to stand together as believers rather than stabbing each other in the back or taking on a competitive edge. The world out there is hostile. Can we come together and major on issues that are truly major and not on the minor ones? When an enemy is attacking you from all sides, you need friends, those who hold similar views.

But for some reason, the church is more inclined to quarrel instead of cooperate. Welcome back to Let My People Think where today we're sharing the conclusion of the message titled Keeping Watch and Counting the Cost. This was a message that RZIM's founder, the late Robbie Zacharias, delivered to a group of RZIM supporters a few years ago. And it's a message based on the story of Nehemiah and his building of the wall amidst great opposition. Last week, Robbie pointed out the first challenge that Nehemiah faced. He was scorned. In similar fashion, Christians are mocked today because we claim exclusivity, we claim to see the unseen, we challenge the sovereignty of man, and we defend the sovereignty of God.

But that wasn't Nehemiah's only challenge. Let's listen as we hear the final portion of this message. Secondly, he was threatened by force.

What is the force? We will kill you. We will hurt your families. You know, I don't often talk about these things in public. If I told you some of the telephone calls I get, and the voices, and the threats, I don't think I've ever talked about this in public.

And a few weeks ago, we had a very close incident where actually the bomb squad had to be called in. Why? You want to silence me?

Are they not courageous enough to allow a healthy, robust, honest, civil discussion on matters of disagreement? Has violence become so absolute that the only answer for some is to decapitate you, either literally or otherwise? Force. You know, 33 years ago, last week, a friend of mine was assassinated. His name was Kose Fiji.

You've heard me talk about him. Kose was my closest classmate and I went to theological studies late, but he happened to be three years older than me. He was a Dutchman, lanky tall guy. And as I was writing to his daughter, this is a picture of his family, Kose and Colleen, and they have three children.

That's Kose, assassinated in 1981. He was my closest friend in theological training. When my wife and I were married, the first guests we had in our home were Kose and Colleen. I wrote to his daughter Martina two weeks ago. I said, I just want to get the story straight.

Please let me understand because Martina was only two years old when her father was murdered at point blank range in Thailand as a missionary. Short while before that, I was going through Thailand and Kose came to receive me at the airport. I didn't have enough money to buy a room for him. The ministry had rented one room for me. I just asked for two twin beds and Kose and I lay all night in bed and he was chatting.

He's a tall guy in his bed, just hands behind his back. And I was leaving next day for Phnom Penh, 1974. He hugged me, prayed with me, told me he loved me, but he said, you know, I don't think I'm going to survive long.

He said, my life is constantly threatened. In 1981, when I got the in memoriam thing from overseas missionary fellowship, my heart sank. Do you know who he was? He was a plumber.

Before he went into theological training, he went into plumbing after having started a bakery business and the business with his friend went bankrupt. And he said, I'm going to pay back every penny. I want to go in ministry, but I'm not going to go into ministry in debt to no one except to God. I'm debtor to him. I'm going to pay my debts to mankind. The judge even dismissed him and said, you've paid back enough. He said, no, I'm going to pay back everything I borrowed.

And so he worked for two to three years as a plumber, earning enough money to pay back everything that he had borrowed and then came to theological training. And then we had him as a guest and he went on. He's in the middle of a prayer meeting, walks out of there.

No lights in that village. Going through that prayer meeting comes out. He's chatting with the Thai people whom he loved. A man walks in at point blank rage, filled him full of bullets and he collapsed and he was gone. And his brother Bill Fiji in another town was phoned. And Bill said, the dreaded telephone call came and said, your brother's been murdered.

Come and pick up his body. It was in 06 that I met Martina for the first time after that. So you see, she was at this point 27 expecting her child. R. Z. I. M. paid her way to go and see the spot where her father was slain.

She had not gone there. She talked about it. And I said, I'd like to get you there, Martina. She said she wanted to talk to me because I was her dad's closest friend and she'd always wanted to hear stories about her father. She's a missionary in Russia now.

Her brother Michael is a missionary in Peru. She told me I had the story a little off the first time I told it, so I made sure I could correct it. I said, did you sit next to the lady? I said, I seem to recall hearing that when we sent you to Thailand, you happened to sit next to a lady whose husband had paid the assassin to finish off.

Is that right? She said, yeah, I did meet her, but I didn't happen to be sitting next to her. She just came up and talked to me. My father had sat next to her the night that he was murdered.

She was the last person to really chat with him. He walked out and his face full of bullets. Force. We're threatened on every side.

And do we know what the future holds? I was 25 in 1971 on my way to Vietnam. And as I went to Vietnam, I remember being in Bamesuet at the fringe of the demilitarized zone, sitting in the front veranda at night in an amber colored sky with all the firepower.

And having just seen the graves of six missionaries within a two minute walk from where I was sitting, who'd paid with their lives. Force is always a reality. You can have the scorn, you can have the force. And thirdly, and very importantly, often happens, you can have scheming from within the ranks. Scheming from within the ranks.

What do I mean by that? From within the ranks, you can oftentimes have those who will betray you, those who will let you down, those who will hurt you, stab you in the back. Jason Elam, who used to be the place kicker first for the Colorado Rockies, then played for Atlanta Falcons, one of our great friends and supporters of the ministry. I remember Jason Elam telling me, you know, he said, I expect to be booed on the soil that I'm playing with the opponent.

It hurts very much when you're booed on your home turf. And you can often get stabbed in the back from within the ranks. Nabil was not kidding when he said some of the nastiest letters you can get from somebody within the ranks. Naomi will tell you, my family will tell you when I, some incident that had taken place in which somebody didn't think I did what I was supposed to do. And Christian talk shows this one particular anchor just railed after me, went after me, went after me, went after me till my daughter said, dad, aren't you going to say anything? I said, no, I don't even listen to it. Just ignore it. But it bothered them.

It stood them till she wrote a letter and said, look, leave my dad alone. What he's doing is doing for the same cause that supposedly you're talking about. Leave him alone, division. Here's a statement I want to read to you. It seems an awful thing to say, and it is true that there are betrayers like Shamaya and Noah Dyer and most Christian congregations today. Men and women who have professed conversion to Christ, who share in the fellowship and labors of the saints, who nevertheless seem to find cruel pleasure in the fall of a Christian leader. To his face, they are friendly, fussy, saintly, but behind his back, they're mischief makers. They profess loyalty and concern. Yet if he slips or falls, they love to gossip it among the brethren or talk about it around town or what heart pangs such disloyal brethren give to Christian ministries, pastors, superintendents and leaders.

They are Tobias Quislings, Satan's fifth columnists. Pretty powerful words. We need each other. We need you to stand with us. We need to stand together as believers rather than stabbing each other in the back or taking on a competitive edge. The world out there is hostile.

Can we come together and major on issues that are truly major and not on the minor ones? Nehemiah faced all these things from scorn, from force scheming. What did he do?

Quickly? He made three responses. Number one, he said they were to look to God. Keep looking towards God. Always realize what it is that has called you into this and who it is that calls you into this.

That's why I believe staying in the word is so important. One of my favorite biographies is to the Golden Shore Biography of Adoniram Judson, the one who was such a rank skeptic Providence College, now Brown University. They say he was so brilliant that in every competition he was right at the top.

No one else was anywhere to be seen. His father was a minister. He would sit and listen to his dad and actually mock his dad's belief. And then in a dramatic turn of events, his closest friend, a skeptic, had a horrendous death. They were staying at the same inn. Judson didn't know who the man was in the next room, moaning and groaning in pain. In the morning when he checked out, he says to the manager, who's that guy who kept us up in the crime society? He said, oh, he's a brilliant student from Brown out here, Providence College, and he was dying of some terrible thing and we couldn't put him out, but he died towards the early hours of the morning.

He said, oh, I go to the same university. What's his name? He said his name was Jacob Ames.

So what did he say? His name was Jacob Ames. He was Judson's roommate. Judson started to ride back and his biography, he said, as the hooves of my horse were pounding into the ground, what was pounding into my heart was how lost we are as human beings and don't know it. He surrendered his life to Christ. If you haven't read Judson's biography, read it. He buried his wife, buried his children, translated the Bible into Burmese seven years before his first convert.

Seven years, 20 years before he had 100 people in a congregation. He left from the United States as the first missionary, first missionary to leave, went to Calcutta, baptized by William Carey. There's a mark in Carey's church where Judson was baptized and then he went on to Burma, now called Myanmar. Today, the Burmese people as the church is beginning to grow, read the Bible that Adoniram Judson translated for them into their language. He died at sea, never make it, made it back to his birthplace in Malden, Massachusetts.

Rigorous intellectual, brilliant intellectual who buried so many kids and buried his wife. But he realized what the issue really was from love that asks that I may be sheltered from winds that beat on the from failing when I should aspire from faltering when I should climb higher from silk and self or captain free thy servant who would follow thee from subtle love of softening things like easy choices, weakenings, not thus our spirits fortified, not this way went the crucified from all that dims thy Calvary, O Lamb of God, deliver me. Give me the love that leads the way, the faith that nothing can dismay, the hope no disappointments tire, the passion that will burn like fire. Let me not sing to be a clod. Make me thy fuel. Flame of God.

Amy Carmichael, I challenge you today. Look to God. Secondly, and very importantly, reflect on the issues. What is at stake if you and I quit the fight? What is at stake? Your homes, your children, your grandchildren, our families are at stake.

That's exactly what Nehemiah said. It's your families for which you're really fighting. You know, as I saw my two girls up front here speaking today, I just said, Lord, I don't deserve this blessing because I'm not in the dad I would like to have been. I've been gone so much. But to see all of my three kids here, their spouses and, you know, settled in ministry and watching them talk about the needy, watching them talk about strategic planning. And by the way, the video you just saw before he came here was done by my son, Nathan, he works in the videography and the radio department out there. Somebody asked me, you've got all of your kids in the ministry? He said, Yeah, how come? I said, because I don't have any more or they would be in there too. For years and years of being gone, and now God in His mercy allows me the privilege of them working under the same roof.

I can't honestly tell you if I know where their office is in the building, but I can tell you they're there. And I just thank God it's a lunch now, a breakfast now, a dinner now. I'm doing this for our families, for your families.

Nehemiah had every family stand in front, guard and keeping watch. Please let us remember our children. You know, Lee Iacocca in his book Straight Talk, made an incredible comment. And I think I should be able to pull it up for you and not planned on quoting it. But he made this statement that I think was so powerful in an interview.

He says this. You know, as I start down the twilight years of my life, I try and look back and figure out what it was all about. I'm still not sure what is meant by good fortune and success. I know fame and power are really for the birds. But then life suddenly comes into focus and there stand my kids.

And I love them. No matter what you've done for yourself or humanity, if you haven't given love and attention to your family, I ask you, what have you really accomplished? You know, I wish this were a simple thing. I know some hurt when the children are off the mark. We went through that for a short period of time with one of ours. And I know how deep the pain is. Don't stop living with guilt. Don't start hammering yourself.

Don't start pounding your head against a wall on it. When the Bible says to train up a child in the way that he should go and when he's old, he will not depart from it. Actually, the Hebrew says, and it will not depart from him. Keep the truth. Keep the truth. Keep the truth going.

It will never depart. They'll never be able to outrun what it is you've really poured into their lives. And sooner or later, the strong arm of truth turns these lives around. Do it.

Reflect on the issues. I do it for my love for Christ. I do it for my love for my family. I do it for the love of my nation.

This is now home for me. I treat North America as my home. I've been here now 40 years. India is always on my heart. I'm an Indian in my blood. And that's why I keep going back. Keep going back. There are these three nations for which I long.

It's part of my DNA. When I look at what's happened to America in the last handful of years, I say, God help us. God help us. Whatever has happened, keep guard. And I bring you to the final point as he says, you know, look to God, reflect on the issues. And lastly, be armed in readiness. How do we get armed in readiness? I want you to seriously understand this.

I'll be just four, five minutes and I'll be done. No, this is not a self propagating ministry. But the ministry exists because of the truth I'm going to give to you. If we don't prepare our young people how to battle out these intellectual issues, we are actually tossing them to the wolves. If you don't prepare your sons and daughters on how to deal with this issue. And I just am so fearful that all of our sincerity and all of our genuineness, if we are so naive, that we think they'll be okay without helping them appear.

We are really flirting with weapons of warfare that they're going to face or which they're going to say, you know, I don't get it. I don't know how to answer these questions. There was a man who stood up in the Philippines at our Asia conference and he said for years and years, he was part of a discipleship group.

And he said almost everyone that he discipled along the way, five, 10 years down the line, they were gone from the faith. He said, there's no simple answer, but I'll tell you where I failed. I failed to equip them out here. We need both. We need the mentoring. We need the biblical stuff. We need the teaching. We need all of that.

But we also need this. Ultimately, they'll be defending it from here. But when people throw rocks at them, they have to be able to come up with that, which they can respond from the mind and say, I have taught this thing through. I've seen people's lives changed. I've seen people's lives transformed. And as I bring this message to a close, I just want to say to you that if you look to God, you reflect on the issues and be armed in readiness.

How do we get armed in readiness? You always are on the inner life first, your thought life, the habits of your heart, your eyes, training the eyes, training the thoughts, what you're getting comfortable with, you always strengthen the inner life first. That's where your strength will have to come from. Then the second thing is how do you prepare yourself to reach those who are genuinely seeking answers and find they are not getting them? By the time this the sun would set on December 31, if the Lord spares my life, I'd have been on the road over 200 days and it's been tough.

But you know what? God's helped me every step of the way. I've had some strange emotional responses as I've been preaching this year. We're halfway through a message.

It's almost like a voice that'll come up within me and say, keep preaching. I am with you. I'm sure the team will tell you that halfway through a message and say, I'm with you. I'm with you. I'm with you. I could never do this if you weren't with me.

Tough, tough settings. But you pen, when they raised this big stink about my coming there, I knew who the guy was who wrote what he did because I used one of his quotes and I watched my audience and I watched somebody jab him in the ribs. And he looked and I said, you know, one of you said in one of your articles that our philosophical approach, my philosophical approach is anecdotal rather than argument, meaning stories.

I said, do you know what you just did in that comment? Are you aware since you said you're a philosophy student that this argument is anecdotal, not argumentative? Do you know in that one statement you wiped out all of Sunni Islam?

It's all anecdotal. The Hadith, it's all tradition, stories. You wiped out the Gita, the most sacred text of the Hindus. It's entirely a story.

You wiped out the Mahabharata, the sacred text. I said, do you realize how prejudiced your argument was? And let me tell you something else. I said, if I were to talk to you about why these people don't believe in God, you know what they'll say?

Oh, you know, I had a friend who died so miserly as that. What's that? Anecdotal or argument? Anecdotes and argument mutually feed each other. We are committed to training this generation to be armed in readiness.

That's why I will continue. When Didi first helped me from this, he kept saying to me, and Beverly knows this, are you sure you want to build this team? Are you sure you want to build this team, Ravi?

You don't want an organization that you'll have to end up supporting. So I said, Didi, he took my family to Switzerland and he and I sat on a bench up top a great mountain. We talked, we prayed and we said, this is the way we are going to go.

30 years now have gone by and you saw the team this morning. We have only just begun. Margaret Thatcher, speaking to the Scottish General Assembly years ago, made this profound statement. The truths of the Judaic Christian tradition are infinitely precious, not only as I believe because they are true, but also because they provide the moral impulse which alone can lead to that peace for which we all long.

Do you know what Jesus said? The truths of the Judeo-Christian tradition are infinitely precious, not only as I believe because they are true, but also because they provide the moral impulse which alone can lead to that peace for which we all long. There is little hope for democracy if the hearts of men and women in democratic societies cannot be touched by a call to something greater than themselves.

Political structures, state institutions, collective ideals are not enough. We parliamentarians can legislate for the rule of law. You, the church, can teach the life of faith.

She said, we can legislate all we want. You, as Christians in the church, will have to teach the life of faith. That's you and me. Let's take this into the dark world and know the truths are precious. And whether we are scorned or whether force comes our way or whether we are faces of scheming, look to him.

Let's reflect on the issues and let's be armed in readiness. We do this for the glory of God and for the well-being of our families and our offspring. I am committed to that right into the next generation and generation after.

Are you committed to reflecting the glory of God, to preserving the well-being of families and the spreading of the Gospel? If so, we hope this message will help you keep watch and count the cost of that commitment. That concludes this week's message, but if you would like to purchase a copy, give us a call at 1-800-448-6766.

Be sure to ask for the title Keeping Watch and Counting the Cost When You Call. You can also order any of our resources online at rzim.org or rzim.ca for those listening in Canada. Let My People Think is a listener-supported radio ministry produced by RZIM in Atlanta, Georgia, and it is your prayers and gifts that help keep this program on the air. Thank you for supporting RZIM as we strive to share the Gospel with those around the globe and provide thoughtful answers to difficult questions.