KING'S BUSINESS MISSIONARY FEATURE
Why Angels Are Curious S h o u l d a person give his life for a tribe of 20,000 people, or for one of 5,000, 500, or 200? Data from the Indian protection service of Brazil indicate that seventy tribes of that country have become extinct, within the last fifty years. Is it worth while for a person to give his life for a tribe about to disappear? Should he sacrifice his life for just one person? Mexico City the director of the Wycliffe Bible Translators was calling on a cabinet minister. He told him that we were at his orders to go anywhere he wished. After all, why shouldn’t we? We wanted to go to all the tribes — we thought.
The cabinet minister immediately asked, “How about the Lacandons?” — a tribe of around 150 people living in a place which some of my colleagues at the University of Michigan say is the wildest place on the North American continent. He added, “None of our wives would go with us there. Would your people go there?” Here was a government official, moved with compassion for a small tribe, knowing that he did not have what it took to reach them. But he could sense that if we honestly believed in God as we affirmed that we did then that belief would take us to the 150 Indians — to live and die for them. Our director answered, “Yes, we will be glad to go to the Lacandons.” If we had been in doubt before about whether or not it was worth it, that incident swept it all away. Either we went to that small tribe, or we denied the character of God whom we claimed to be worshipping. That was evident to the non-Christian which had been hidden from those of us who had thought we would go to the 300,000 Aztecs, or maybe to a tribe of a thousand or two, but would not bother with a tribe of 150rpeople. Sometimes it costs more to help the ones and twos lost in the mountains than it does to bring home all ninety- nine from the plain. It is like mowing the lawn of a big estate. The gardner gets out the power mower and with a few times around he has cut most of the grass. Then he takes the half-mower, a hand machine with only one wheel. With that he cuts away the grass that grows next to the flower beds. But the lawn is not finished until he gets down on his hands and knees and clips the grass that is growing up against the trees. He cuts only a fraction of the grass that way but it takes more time and energy than it does to do all the rest of the lawn.- Is it worth it? Well, that is the only way to have a neat, well-kept lawn. The universe is like a lawn. The large language groups are those parts that can be cared for with the power mower. The small tribes are back against the trees where the grass is often shaggy and neglected. God wants a neat lawn and as gardners we should see to it that even the small tribes receive our attention. Men are collectors. God, too, is a collector in the sense that He likes variety — why else did He make so many kinds of trees and snowflakes? Even in heaven there is variety. There are seraphim, “ Each one had six wings; with twain he covered his face, and with twain he covered his feet, and with twain he did fly.” (Isa. 6:2). There are the “ creatures” which have “ four faces” and “four wings” each (Ezek. 1:5, 6). There is also a type of “ wheel.” “When they went, they went upon their four sides; and
God is interested in one individual. We are so confident of His interest that we like to insert our own names into John 3:16 like this, “ For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that Ken Pike believing on him hath everlasting life.” Jesus wept because of one man. When Mary and Martha sent word that their brother was sick, Jesus didn’t ask, “Have a lot of people died? If so, I’d better go around.” Of course not. He said, “ Lazarus is dead” (John 11:14). He was concerned with one. Some people think in numbers. They protest “ But the tribe is so small!” They ask, “ Is it worth it to go to such a small tribe?” They remember that it costs to get into the area. It is expensive transporting household equip ment. It is expensive in terms of health. It is expensive in terms of time — requiring sometimes fifteen years to accomplish anything in a new culture. But in such reckoning they forget that the price of just one individual was the death of Christ. If a small tribe is passed by because of its size, then we deny the value of the individual — he isn’t worth it either. If we deny the value of the individual, we are rejecting the Bible, for we are not heeding the command (Luke 14:23) to go “ into the highways and hedges,” the mountains, and the jungles, to reach the ones and twos that we will find there. In a sense the measure of the crucifixion is in the individual for which it was designed, and only secondarily in the masses. “ Doth he not leave the ninety and nine and goeth into the-mountains and seeketh that which is gone astray?” "(Matt. 18:12). God is also interested in the masses. That was the reason He sent Jonah to Nineveh, and when Jonah became dis gruntled about the withered gourd, He asked (Jonah 4:11), “ And should not I spare Nineveh, that great city, wherein are more than six score thousand persons?” Jesus looked out at the crowds, the thousands, and He was moved with compassion. There were so many of them, like sheep without a shepherd. However, He was concerned not because of the “masses,” but because of the men who made up the masses. Man. created in the image of God, is moved by the same things. He too is affected by the masses of people. Manv, manv workers have gone to the mission field because they realized that every tick of the clock a soul from China, India or some other land was passing into eternity. Men are also moved by the plight of the small tribes. Even non-Christians have such sympathy. One day in
12
THE KING 'S BUSINESS
Made with FlippingBook - professional solution for displaying marketing and sales documents online