A Letter to Pastor Thomas Wang (Part I)
Part I The Obstacles to the Spread of Gospel
A. The Overflowing of the Power of Sin and Evil
The power of sin and evil has been extremely vicious among the unbelievers. Man and woman living together has become a common sight. “Abortion is legal. It is a privilege to be homosexual.” Murders and terrorism happen everywhere. Nevertheless, it is more dreadful to see that the power of sin and evil has even penetrated into the spiritual institutions and the heart of God’s children. We have met quite a few zealous brothers and sisters, some of them are preachers, since we came to America. Though they love God, they often entangled in the temptation of the idol. Just as it is written in Revelation, “the inhabitants of the earth were intoxicated with the wine of her adulteries…the woman was drunk with the blood of the saints, the blood of those who bore testimony to Jesus.”(17: 2 & 6) It must be acknowledged that God’s servants and children themselves are facing tremendous crisis.
B. The Deceiving of False Teaching
When I was in China, I heard and saw that some believers were deceived into believing in the evil spirit and the specious false teaching. However, after I arrived in America, I have found that the deceiving of false teaching is even worse than in China. Many times, in an aircraft, I would meet some loving, kind and elegant women, yet they would believe in heresy or demons. They told me that they did not believe in the Bible because it had been falsified. They believed in a doctrine of so and so Doctor and regard his hardcover books as a priceless treasure. However, those books consist of nothing but strange tales and absurd arguments, a mix of all kinds of teachings.
In addition, it is even more distressing to see that many of God’s servants and followers are eager to seek Him out, yet ignore the truth in the Bible. They run to the prophecy of “prophets,” miraculous signs, the attaining of “the beautiful state of the spiritual world” and so on. Indeed, in the last days before the coming of Christ, men do not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They do not pay attention to the prophecies in the Scriptures, but rather are deceived and led astray by Satan who pretends to be the Angel of Light.
Moreover, some people interpret the Scriptures by the will and wisdom of man. They think up “inspiration” instead of receiving the “light of God’s face” from having fellowship with God. As a result of it, they replace God’s commands with man-made regulations, which completely go against the original intention of God’s word, in the practice of church or spiritual institutions.
In addition to he false teaching, the communist atheism has occupied the heart of billions of people. Though it once fell into a low tide and lost the heart of the mass, it is now staging a comeback. The communist atheists have never stopped penetrating and propagandizing into all walks oflife all over the world. Nevertheless, there are other “doctrines,” “theories,” and “isms” attracting the attention of people.
There is an even greater proportion of people who are burdened with the worries of this life, the deceitfulness of wealth and the desires for other things. They are either busy all day looking after the daily life or idling away their time in seeking pleasure so much so that they fall into the trap of dissipation and drunkenness. The unbelievers do not have their hearts on Jesus; whereas, the believers have no heart for Jesus.
How can we accomplish the great commission to spread over the gospel in the face of all these difficulties? Our suggestions, derived from the Scriptures and what received from God by his servant John Song, are as followed: