14 I am debtor both to the Greeks, and to the Barbarians; both to the wise, and to the unwise.
15 So, as much as in me is, I am ready to preach the gospel to you that are at Rome also.
16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek.
Introduction
A lot of our people have been involved in missions work this week and last. It was my joy to be involved in missions work in Belize this past week as well. When the apostle Paul went out to do missions activities, he always came back to the churches and reviewed with them the things that God had done, so I thought it might be proper and fitting that we spend some time together this morning talking about some of the things God did in our lives and in the lives of others this past week in Belize.
We left Tyler a week ago at about 5:30 in the morning, and we arrived in Belize at 5:00 in the afternoon. Immediately upon arrival we encountered what some of our friends called the “Belizean factor.” The Belizean factor is that whatever can go wrong will go wrong, and it will always happen about two or three hours behind schedule. The plan was that as soon as we landed, we would board a bus and take a six-hour bus trip across some jungle roads to get to Punta Gorda and the hotel where we would be staying. The bus was about two hours late so it was around 7:00 before we got on the bus. We traveled for six hours across the muddy roads and the swollen rivers, and at about 1:00 in the morning we arrived at our hotel.
Now I’m using that word “hotel” rather loosely. You would have to be there to know what I am talking about. The mattress that I slept on was a straw mattress. I think probably most of the guests at the hotel through the years had slept on it without the benefit of a sheet, so the odors of the past guests were still very prevalent. The windows had no panes and no screens. We had a couple of “bathrooms,” and again I use the word lightly. The bathrooms that they had were for all of the guests in the hotel. The locks on the doors were nothing more than the little kind of locks and clasps that you find on a chest that you might have around your house.
As I said, we arrived at about 1:00 in the morning, we were probably in bed by 1:30, and then at about 4:30 in the morning we started getting up. The sun rises kind of early in Belize, and when the sun comes through those windows and people start stirring around, it is pretty difficult to sleep.
After we had managed to get a bite of breakfast, we had a worship service out on the porch of the hotel overlooking the Caribbean Sea. Our team had an opportunity to worship the Lord together as we made preparations for our mission trip. By this time the missionaries had arrived and we were ready to go out to one of the Indian villages for worship. We started down the road and traveled about 45 minutes and we came to a river. It was flooded, so we were not able to cross. In that part of Belize there are between 160 and 180 inches of rain per year. Now that computes to about a half-inch every day. This was the rainy season, so we were getting a lot of rain every day, and a storm every night. Almost every river was flooded, and many of them could not be crossed. We were not able to have services that morning.
That night we drove again for a little more than an hour to a little Kekchi Indian village where we conducted worship services. (The Kekchi Indians are part of the original people of Central America.) And so we had our first experience at one of those little Kekchi Indian churches. The churches are all very similar; they’re about two-thirds the size of our choir loft with a thatch roof and a dirt floor. If they have benches, they are crude homemade benches without any backs on them. Oftentimes the benches are just logs that have been split and are lying flat on the ground. The only light they have are Coleman lanterns. Interestingly, these are considered really modern in those little jungle churches.
The roof and the rafters are open. While I was trying to preach, there was a cat crawling around in the rafters above. The mothers bring their babies to church wrapped in a cloth, and if they want to rock their babies to sleep, they just tie the cloth up to one of the rafters above and they rock the baby.
We had a wonderful worship service, and when I gave the invitation, six people came forward. Three people said they wanted to strengthen and deepen their faith in the Lord, and three came forward to accept Christ as their Savior. It was a wonderful worship experience.
The next day we really got down to the activities of our mission. We divided up into three different groups. One of our groups would remain in Punta Gorda to conduct Bible classes in the little Methodist church and in some other churches in that area. Another group would make some short trips out into nearby villages to do medical work. They would maybe spend a night or so out on the trail. The group that I was involved in included Dr. Walker, the missionary Ned Luscombe, his cousin, and myself. We were to go into a remote area in the jungle to work with some of the Indians that the missionaries didn’t see but two or three times a year. We were going high and deep into the Maya mountains that were into the rain forest and within sight of the Guatemalan border. Traveling in rain forest and jungle is difficult anytime, and during the rainy season it is almost impossible. It would have taken us two or three days to hike into the jungle, so the missionary made arrangements for the British air force to take us in.
The British air force is there in Belize because it was at one time a colony of Britain. Belize had been given its independence, but the British keep their army and police there to protect Belize from Guatemala.
So the missionary made arrangements with the British air force to drop us into the jungle with a helicopter. I had never ridden in a helicopter before. You already know how I feel about airplanes. Well, I felt more so about this helicopter. When I think about an airplane, I think about the guy who went up with his friend one time for a flight, and low and behold in the middle of the flight, his friend died with a heart attack. The guy didn’t know what to do. He didn’t know how to fly that plane. He didn’t know how to get it down and so he got on the radio and talked to control tower. He said, “What am I going to do?” The controller said, “Well, put your flaps down.” The guy tried to put the flaps down and said, “I can’t do it. They are stuck.” The control tower said, “Well, pull the nose up.” The guy tried, but he said, “I can’t do it. The thing is stuck.” The controller said, “Well, turn the plane to the right.” He said, “I can’t do it. The thing is stuck.” The controller said, “Turn it to the left.” He said, “I can’t do it. The thing is stuck.” The controller said, “Then repeat after me: our Father which art in heaven …”
I always think of that whenever we go up. I was a bit nervous to say the least to go up in the helicopter. But they took us deep into the Maya mountains and dropped us off at a little Kekchi Indian village called Otoxha. Now when that helicopter started coming down, the man in control reached out and pulled the door open while we were still high above the ground. I looked down on that little village, and it was almost like dropping back 1,500 years into history. The women were bare breasted. They never wore any clothes above their waist except maybe if you were going to take their picture. If it was a very formal occasion, they may wear clothing above their waist.
The little huts that they lived in had a thatch roof and dirt floors, and they cooked over an open fire. They had the simplest and the crudest of pots, pans, and tools. The chickens, dogs, and pigs shared the house with the people. The people slept in hammocks if they were fortunate enough to have a hammock. Usually there was only one hammock in the house, and the man enjoyed that. The wife and kids slept on the floor or some other place.
The staple of their diet was the tortilla. They raised corn, and they would grind and cook the corn to make tortillas. They had tortillas for every meal. In addition to the tortillas, they usually made a stew called caldo. If they were fortunate enough to have some kind of meat, they would make a stew that consisted of meat and the broth. The broth was highly seasoned and very greasy. You would fold the tortilla, dip it down in the broth and eat it. You would eat the meat with your hands, and any part of the meat that you couldn’t eat you would throw on the floor, and the dogs would take care of it for you.
We immediately set up the jungle hospital and Dr. Walker, Ned, and some of the other men began to go to work on doctoring the people. They gave them shots for measles and they gave them medicine for worms, because everybody in the jungle had worms. They pulled many, many teeth. These occasional visits from people like Dr. Walker, Ned Luscombe, and some of the people from our church and other churches were the only medical treatments that these people ever came in contact with.
About midafternoon it came time for the meal and one of the ladies in one of the huts had prepared a dinner for us. We had taken some pork into the village because we felt like we needed some meat during the week, and we could only have what we took in for the first day. So she took the pork that we brought in and made some caldo and we had our first experience of eating their food prepared by their hands. After the meal we again went back to medical work, to taking care of the people.
Then Dr. Walker came and said, “I’ve got some good news and some bad news for you. The good news is that these Indians have killed a gibnut.” Now, a gibnut is bound to be a rodent. I tried to look it up in the encyclopedia and I could not find it listed, but it looks very much like a rat, only it is a good deal larger. These Indians had killed a gibnut, and they considered it a delicacy. He said, “That’s the good news. They have killed a gibnut.” Guess what the bad news was. We were their honored guests and he said, “There is a strong possibility that we will have gibnut caldo tomorrow morning for breakfast. As if all night long sleeping on the floor weren’t bad enough, I kept thinking about that rat lying there on the floor in that hut. Sure enough, the next morning, lucky us! Instead of bacon and eggs, we had the gibnut.
That night we again had worship services and when the invitation was given, about seven people came forward and responded by making various commitments of their life to Christ. We were grateful for that.
The next day we needed to be on our way because there were a number of villages that needed to be visited for medical reasons, and we of course wanted to preach the Gospel as well. We started out by trying to rent some donkeys from the Indians. We soon found out that none of them were willing to rent us the donkeys. The reason was that it was the rainy season, and all the rivers were swollen out of their banks. Traveling up and down the mountains was most difficult and they didn’t want to take a chance on losing their donkeys. Now that should have been a hint to us. But the missionary was determined that we would make the journey. So we strapped on our backpacks containing all of our food, clothing, and all the medicine that we had, and we started our journey through the jungle. I want you to know that that was the hardest journey that I have ever made in my life. It seemed as though God took all the mud in the world and put it right there in that jungle trail. Mile after mile, after mile, we were in mud between six and eight inches deep. When we got out of the mud we would be walking in water up to our knees. We went up and down mountains, under and over logs, and we went through the brush. There never was a time when we were on dry land or on level land. For four days, there was never a time when our clothes were dry. I found myself muttering to myself, “I can’t believe that I’m here. I can’t believe that this is happening to me. This is bound to be a dream and I’m going to wake up sooner or later.”
For seven hours we walked through those kinds of conditions. We came eventually to the river that was swollen out of its banks. The villages were always by the river. We had to swim the river to get to the boat on the other side of the river. It never ceases to amaze me. Here, the fish are always on the other side of the river. Down there, the boats are always on the other side of the river. We never came to a river where the boats were on our side.
Ned swam the river and got us a boat, and we carried all of our cargo and all the people, and just before Dr. Walker and missionary Larry Smith got to the other side, the boat capsized and they went under. Fortunately they were close enough to the bank and out of the current that they were able to swim to safety, but it could have been a very dangerous experience.
That night we set up camp in a village that had never heard the Gospel. They did not have a church. The missionary had never traveled there before. Our men did medical work and that night I had the opportunity of preaching the Gospel to some people who had never heard the Gospel before in their life.
The next morning we were up bright and early and at it again. This time I was going to discover that we would hike not seven hours through the jungle, but 11 hours through the jungle. There were times when I wondered if I really could make it or if I could even take another step. It was long after dark that we arrived in the village that we intended to worship and work in that night. We managed to get down to the river and take a bath in the icy streams and get back to the hut to get a bite to eat. We were so tired that we could hardly eat, much less hold a worship service. So we decided that we would wait until the next morning to have the worship service.
At 7:30 the next morning we were up bright and early. I say we get up early every morning because the sun is up, women and children are up, chickens and hogs are up, so it is not long until you are up, and you are glad to be up and starting a new day. That morning we had a worship service and saw a good response of people coming forward to make commitments of their life to Christ, to deepen their fellowship and their commitment to him. The rest of the morning, Dr. Walker and Ned and the other men gave medical services to these people who otherwise would have no medical care.
We were promised that that afternoon the helicopter would come back into the jungle to pick us up. It was with a great deal of anxiety and anticipation that we waited for the helicopter to come. In fact, Dr. Walker was telling me that when we got on board that helicopter, the missionary turned and looked at him and there were great big tears in his eyes because he was so happy to get out of the jungle at that time.
It was a marvelous experience that I don’t want to duplicate. I don’t want to go through it but one time in my life, but to see the Gospel going forward and to be able to reach some people for Christ who had never heard the Gospel before was amazing. Some people asked me, “Were there bugs in the jungle?” And the answer is yes! All kinds of bugs! Mosquitos, chiggers, fleas, mites, ticks, and more, and every one of them prefers white meat. I want you to know that I itch in every place. I itch in some places that I didn’t even know I had before I went into the jungle.
People have asked me, “Were there animals in the jungle?” We did not think so at the time, but after we got out, I was reading the atlas and I discovered that that area of Central America is noted for being home to the boa constrictor. I didn’t see one, but if I had known in advance, I would have seen many I am sure. If I had ever seen one while there, there would be another exit trail through the jungle somewhere along the way. I’ve been asked if I intend to go back again. If I go back again, the Lord is going to have to come up behind me and say, “Paul, Paul” in a loud voice. I think that other members of our staff need to have experiences like this.
I was in the bush country of Africa in 1970 for a couple of weeks and I said, “Lord, if you get me out of Africa, I want to promise you right here and right now that I never will come back again.” Well, last week I enlarged that promise to include all jungle activities. I’m no longer a jungle preacher. I’ve decided that I am a city preacher and I just kind of like it the way we’ve got it here. But it was a marvelous experience in that I saw two or three things that encouraged my heart.
Number one was to see some people get saved that probably would not have been saved except in an experience like this. To see people come to know Christ as their Savior is such a great experience. I love to talk to people who have never heard the Gospel and to tell them about God, who created all things, and who sends the rain and makes the corn to grow so they can have food to eat. I love to tell them about this God who loves them and sent his son Jesus to die on the cross for them. It is a joyous thing to plant the seed and to know that in time, God is going to water it and bring some fruit out of it. It is a joy to see Christians grow and be encouraged in the faith. That’s a very vital part of missions work.
The apostle Paul went out the second time on his missionary endeavors to places where he could encourage those who had already come to faith in Christ. It is not enough just to win a person to Christ. We must then teach them, train them, and encourage them in the Christian faith so that they become fully grown in Jesus Christ. We could see the people in Belize being encouraged and strengthened in this way. It was fulfilling to see the seed planted and to know that in time there would be a full harvest of souls. There would be churches established in cities and in villages where at the present time no church had been established.
I was impressed again by the power of the Gospel. The passage of scripture Ken read a few moments ago tells us about it. Paul said, “I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek” (Romans 1:16). When he used that little phrase “power of God unto salvation,” he was saying the Gospel is God’s dynamite. It has explosive power in the lives and the hearts of people and in our world today. When you go on a trip like this, it gives you an opportunity to see afresh and anew the dynamic and moving power of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I saw his power on our trip in three distinct ways.
1. The Gospel has the power to attract. First of all, I saw that the Gospel has drawing power. The Gospel has the ability to touch hearts from all different cultures and from all different walks of life. It has the power to bring all people to one spot to trust in Jesus Christ and be saved.
I sat one night in one of these little Indian churches and the thought came to me, “There could be no greater difference existing between these people and myself.” They live as people lived hundreds and hundreds of years ago without any advances, without any of the conveniences of life, and without any of the progress that we have experienced. I have the privilege of living in the most advanced culture and civilization that has ever been on the face of the earth. And yet the Gospel of Jesus Christ appeals to both of us. They heard the Gospel and they responded to Christ to give him their life, and their life was changed by that Gospel. I heard the Gospel in the same way and responded in the same way, and my life was changed also. It is a miracle of all miracles that Jesus Christ can draw people to himself and transform their lives.
Well, Jesus said it was going to happen. He said, “And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me” (John 12:32). He was talking about the crucifixion. He was saying that if he be lifted up on the cross, he would die for the sins of the world. There would be a magnetism to that cross, and men and women of all ages and all cultures would be drawn to it and their lives would be blessed and changed by it. What I saw that night in that Indian village was the fulfillment of prophecy.
Friends, you do not have to go to the ends of the earth to see the fulfillment of prophecy. And you do not have to wait until the end of time to see the fulfillment of prophecy. It is happening around us all the time. There is an irresistible magnetism to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. On this trip I was impressed again by how the Gospel has the power to draw men to the Savior regardless of their past experiences, regardless of the advances of their culture, and regardless of the color of their skin or the language they may speak. If people hear about Jesus Christ, they are attracted to him. That’s a marvelous thing and the cross of Jesus became a platform from which he continues to speak to all mankind in the deepest and most meaningful way.[1] I was impressed by the drawing power of the Gospel.
2. The Gospel has the power to transform. There was a second thing that impressed me. The Gospel not only has drawing power, it has transforming power as well. When we think about the power of the Gospel, we usually think about people being saved and people going to heaven when they die. Out in the jungle villages you have an opportunity to see in a more vivid way the power of the Gospel to transform, not just the souls of men and women, but their entire lives.
For example, we went into this village of Otoxha and we discovered that enough people had been converted to Christ in that village that they had changed the whole complexion of it. These Indians had celebrations like anyone else would have celebrations, and it was a part of their tradition. It went back as far as they can remember. On that day of celebration, before knowing Christ, they would get together to pool their money and buy enough rum so that all the men and the women in the village would get drunk. But enough of them became Christians that they gave up that kind of celebration, and they pooled their money together and they bought soft drinks and other refreshments for the children, and they celebrated differently because of the transforming power of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We noted in that village that the people were clean. The houses were clean. The floor may be made out of dirt, but it had been packed down from people walking over it through long periods of time, and the lady would sweep the dirt floor several times a day. They were conscious of keeping their home and their bodies clean as much as possible.
On the second day’s journey we came to a village that had no church. As far as we know, this village had never heard the Gospel. As we sat preparing our meal in an abandoned hut that night, the young man who was a cousin to the missionary came in and he said, “There is something strange about this village. It is not like the other one. Have you noticed that the people are dirty? Have you noticed that the grounds are dirty? Have you noticed how filthy their houses are? I wonder what makes this village different from the other.” It dawned on me what made the difference. It was the Gospel of Christ. It had penetrated the hearts and the lives of the people in that other village. The Gospel had never come to this one and it made a difference not only in the eternal destiny of people, but also in the way they were living in the here and now. You see, if a man or woman comes to know Christ as their Savior they not only are cleansed inwardly, but something happens to them and they want to be cleaner on the outside. It affects their whole environment. It affects their home, their children, and their society.
As he did medical work, one of our men said that he talked personally with every person who came to him about their relationship to Christ. He had to do it through an interpreter because they speak the Kekchi language and he didn’t. But he would talk to them about their personal relationship with Jesus, and he said that it became very evident that those who were Christians had cleaner, healthier bodies. The only explanation that he had was the fact that the Gospel of Jesus Christ not only affects a man spiritually, but it also affects him morally, socially, and physically.
When we went back to Belize City, Otis Brady, our Southern Baptist missionary, was there. He has been there only a year. He said they recently had a revival meeting in their church, and a man who had been an alcoholic was converted. Otis said that was the first time that anyone could ever remember this man being sober. For the past two months he had not had a drink, and the news of this man’s sobriety and transformation has spread throughout the whole community. People were talking about it this example of the transforming power of Jesus Christ. Sometimes you have the chance to see it more vividly in a jungle village than you can in a city like this. When Jesus comes into a person’s life, he affects every part of it. He invades every particle of it and he is not just concerned about your soul and your spirit—that intangible part of you, but he is also concerned about your mind and your body and every part of your being.
3. The Gospel has the power to unify. I was impressed by the drawing power of the Gospel and the transforming power of the Gospel. Then I was impressed by the unifying power of the Gospel. No matter how far into the jungles we went, we found people who were Christians. One of the first English words they learned as Christians was the word “brother.” It was so encouraging to meet a man on the trail or in one of those villages who would address you as “brother.” You knew immediately that he was a believer. You knew immediately that he had put his faith and trust in Jesus Christ, and though there were cultural barriers and language barriers, you knew that you were unified in Jesus Christ. When he called you “brother,” he was talking about a relationship that transcends everything else.
You can’t imagine what it is like to hear the word “brother” until you are out there. You don’t know who you are going to meet or how they are going to respond, and then a fellow walks up to you with a smile on his face and calls you “brother,” and you feel much more at peace.
The apostle Paul learned something about the unifying power of the Gospel. He was on his way to Rome and he didn’t know what was going to happen there. He just didn’t know whether he would lose his life or whether he would ever have a chance to preach beyond that day. But the Christians in Italy heard that Paul was coming, so they made the long journey to the city of Rome. They went down to the port where he was going to land, and when Paul arrived they were there to meet him. The Bible says that when Paul saw them he “thanked God and took courage.” The only bond between Paul and these people was the common faith they had in Jesus Christ.
When we have that common faith and commitment, it does something to our lives and we are never the same again. And the marvelous thing is what the Gospel did in those jungles, it can do right here and right now. It can draw men to Christ. It can change and transform their lives. It can overcome all the other barriers that may separate and divide us. It can make us one as brothers in Christ, and part of the family of God with God as our Father. When we respond to the Gospel and come to Jesus, that’s what happens.[2]
Somebody has said that if you want to know if Christianity is true, don’t buy a book to read—buy a ticket. Go to the mission field and see what God is doing there. See a jungle school, a jungle hospital, or a jungle church. See lives transformed and made new again. And when you see what God is doing, then you will have a confirmation (if you need one) that the Gospel is true, that Jesus is Lord, and that he is the Savior. It is our responsibility to respond to Christ and to give him our lives and our hearts. Once we have responded to him, we are to then go forward to share the good news that he is Savior and Lord.
Have you responded to him in your own life? Have you accepted him as your Savior? If not, then do it today. Right here, right now, accept Christ as your Savior, and begin to follow him and serve him.
[1]Illustration.
[2]Illustration.