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Jesus said the heart is where the treasures are kept. So what can we say about many evangelical Christians? Getting into debt for cars, homes and furnishings that probably are not needed and sacrificing family, church and health for corporate promotions and career advancement–I believe all this is deception, engineered by the god of this world to ensnare and destroy effective Christians and to keep them from sharing the Gospel with those who need it.

- K. P. Yohannan

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Once, on a 2,000-mile auto trip across the American West, I made it a point to listen to Christian radio all along the way. What I heard revealed much about the secret motivations that drive many Christians. Some of the broadcasts would have been hilarious if they weren’t exploiting the gullible–hawking health, wealth and success in the name of Christianity.

- Some speakers offered holy oil and lucky charms to those who sent in money and requested them.

- Some speakers offered prayer cloths that had blessed believers with $70,000 to $100,000, new cars, houses and health.

- One speaker said he would mail holy soap he had blessed. If used with his instructions, it would wash away bad luck, evil friends and sickness. Again he promised “plenty of money” and everything else the user wanted.

- K. P. Yohannan

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If only a small percentage of the 80 million people who claim to be born-again Christians in this country were to sponsor a native missionary, we could have literally hundreds of thousands of evangelists reaching the lost villages of Asia. When we look at the unfinished Great Commission and compare it to our personal lifestyles–or to the activity calendars of our churches and organizations–how can we explain our disobedience? We must see a great repentance from the sin of our unbelief in God’s judgment.

- K. P. Yohannan

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The millions of Asians who are dying and going to Hell are people for whom Christ died. We say we believe it–but what are we doing to act on that faith? Without works, faith is dead. No one should go to hell today without hearing about the Lord Jesus. To me this is an atrocity much worse than the death camps of Hitler’s Germany or Stalin’s Russia. As horrible as the 1.3 million abortions are in the United States each year, the eternal loss of multiplied millions of additional souls every year is the greatest preventable tragedy of our times.

- K.P. Yohannan

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If you knew the horrors of the potential judgment that hangs over us–if we really believed in what is coming–how differently we would live. Why aren’t Christians living in obedience to God? Because of their unbelief. Why did Eve fall into sin? Because she did not truly believe in the judgment–that death really would come if she ate what God forbade. This is the same reason many continue in lives of sin and disobedience. - K. P. Yohannan

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    Believers are willing to accept the concept of heaven, but they look the other way when they come to passages in the Bible about hell. Very few seem to believe that those who die without Christ are going to a place where they will be tormented forever and ever in a bottomless pit where the fire is not quenched and they are separated from God and His love for all eternity without any chance of return.

- K. P. Yohannan

Book Review: The Road to Reality by K.P. Yohannan

After reading K. P. Yohannan’s book Revolution in World Missions, I was really impressed on how he grasped the realities of the lukewarm Church in America.

I just finished reading his follow-up book to that one: The Road to Reality. If he hit a home run with the book Revolution in World Missions, then he hits a grand slam with this one!

In this book he provides a scathing indictment of the lukewarm church and calls the Christian to quit living the lukewarm life. The book flows well and is a page turner. K.P. knows how to communicate well and gets his points across that will certainly leave an impression on you.

Here’s an excerpt from chapter 21:

The streets of India–especially in our bloated, overpopulated cities like Bombay and Calcutta–are maddening to Western visitors. Millions of homeless people are born, live, and die in them. Part toilet, part barnyard, part roadway–they are also the bedroom, living room, and marketplace for the poorest of the world’s poor.

In summertime’s furnace heat, the dust of centuries rises from them to fill your eyes, choking your mouth and nose. In the monsoon rains, the streets turn into vast seas of mud and sewage. In winter, the freezing pavements bring disease and death to those who have nowhere else to rest their starving bodies.

It was one of these nightmarish streets of Bombay that I was surrounded by an army of begging children. Already late and on my way to an important meeting, I tried to ignore the pleading children as I waited for the light to turn green.

Suddenly from the sea of hungry faces I heard a voice so distinct from the rest that I was paralyzed. In crystal clear tones I heard her speaking in plaintive Hindi, “Sir, my father died three months ago of tuberculosis. My mother is too sick to beg anymore. My little brothers and sisters have not eaten for two days. Please, sir, they are hungry and crying. Can you please give me a few pennies so I can buy some bread?”

The light turned green. But I couldn’t move. I was arrested by the image of this little girl who must have been about 9 years old. Her face was one of the most beautiful I’ve ever seen, perfectly shaped with big brown eyes and long black hair.

Through the tears on her cheeks, the dust and the sweat, I could see that in different circumstances this desperate little waif could easily have been a princess. Her filthy hair had obviously not been washed or combed for weeks. She was barefoot and dressed in rags. But I’m still sure she had the potential of being a winner in the Miss World beauty pageant.

Then something else happened. It was as if another face came before my eyes right beside hers. It was another child, about 8, also with big brown eyes. But she had long, clean hair and a shining face. Her clothes were fresh and colorful–and she wore nice socks and tennis shoes. I knew her. She was the best student in her class. Each night she said her prayers and read the Bible. Her parents loved her. She had a comfortable home, air-conditioned from the Texas summer and heated in the cold winter. She had a comfortable bed with clean sheets every week. I didn’t know the name of the dirty little beggar girl, but I did know the name of the girl beside her. It was Sarah, my own darling daughter.

Then I heard a supernatural voice beside me ask, “What is the value of this beggar girl? Is she of less value than your daughter, Sarah?”

To read more, you’ll have to get the book, and I highly recommend that you do. The book can be purchased at Gospel For Asia by clicking here.

Quotes (134)

It is painful to think about Hell and judgment. I understand why preachers do not like to talk about it, because I don’t either. It is so much easier to preach that “God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life” or to focus on the many delightful aspects of “possibility thinking” and the “word of faith” that brings health, wealth, and happiness. The grace and love of God are pleasant subjects, and no one more beautifully demonstrated them than our Lord Jesus. Yet in His earthly ministry, He made more references to Hell and judgment than He did to Heaven. Jesus lived with the reality of Hell, and He died on Calvary because He knew it was real and coming to everyone who doesn’t turn to God in this life.

- K.P. Yohannan

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One of the great boasts of many Western evangelical Christians is their devotion to the Scriptures. It is hard to find a church that does not at one time or another brag about being “Bible believing.” When I first came here, I made the mistake of taking that description at face value. But I have come to see that many evangelical Christians do not really believe the Word of God, especially when it talks about Hell and judgment. Instead, they selectively accept only the portions that allow them to continue living in their current lifestyles.

- K.P. Yohannan

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Many Christian leaders are caught up in secondary issues that sap their time and energy. I will never forget preaching in one church where the pastor had turned defending the King James translation of the Bible into a crusade. Not only does he spend most of his pulpit time upholding it–but thousands of dollars go to printing books, tracts, and pamphlets advocating the exclusive use of this one translation. In the years I have lived and worked in the United States, I have watched believers and whole congregations get caught up in all kinds of similar crusades and causes that, while not necessarily bad in themselves, end up taking our eyes off obedience to Christ.

- K.P. Yohannan

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How far we have drifted from the faith of the apostles and the prophets! What a tragedy when the techniques of the world and its agents are brought into the sanctuary of God. Only when we are emptied of our own self-sufficiency can God use us.

- K.P. Yohannan

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Is missions an option–especially for superwealthy countries like America? The biblical answer is clear. Every Christian in America has some minimal responsibility to get involved in helping the poor brethren in the Church in other countries. God has not given this superabundance of blessings to American and Canadian Christians so we can sit back and enjoy the luxuries of this society–or even in spiritual terms, so we can gorge ourselves on books, teachings cassettes and deeper-life conferences. . . . God is calling us as Christians to alter our lifestyles, to give up the nonessentials of our lives so we can better invest our wealth in the kingdom of God.

- K.P. Yohannan

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The Bible advocates and demands that we show love for the needy brethren.Right now, because of historical and economical factors that none of us can control, the needy brethren are in Asia. The wealthy brethren are in the United States, Canada, and a few other nations. The conclusion is obvious: These affluent believers must share with the poorer churches.

- K.P. Yohannan

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Many things broke my heart, especially the condition of American Christians. What had happened to the zeal for missions and outreach that made this nation so great? . . . Here were people of great privilege–a nation more able, more affluent and more free to act on the Great Commission than any other in all of history. Yet my audiences did not seem to comprehend this. . . . While much of the world is concerned mainly about where its next meal is coming from, affluent North Americans spend most of their wages and waking moments planning unnecessary purchases.

- K.P. Yohannan

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Despite the solemn message of death, suffering and need I was presenting, people still left the meetings with laughter and gossip on their lips. I was offended at the spirit of jocularity in the churches: It wounded me. So many times we went out to eat after I had just shared the tragedy of the thousands who starve to death daily or the millions of homeless people living on the streets of Asia.

- K.P. Yohannan

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  I was discouraged by the poor response–especially from churches and pastors. Many times it seemed as if my presence threatened them. Where, I wondered, was the fraternal fellowship of working together in the extension of the kingdom? Many days I called on people for hours to get only one or two new sponsors. Pastors and mission committees listened to me and promised to call back, but I never heard from them again. It always seemed as though I was competing against the building fund, new carpets for the fellowship hall or next Sunday night’s Jesus rock concert.

- K.P. Yohannan

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   The trying of our faith works patience and hope into the fabric of our Christian lives. No one, I am convinced, will follow Jesus very long without tribulation. It is His way of demonstrating His presence. Suffering and trials–like persecution–are a normal part of the Christian walk.

- K.P. Yohannan

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   This present generation of Americans, particular, is receiving the most unearned and undeserved favor of all time. God has made this people the richest nation on earth, yet Americans carry on as if this wealth were a natural right–as if they have no obligation to a lost world, dying in darkness without Christ. God has been so patient with us. Why this awesome grace continues must be a question all heaven asks! Surely the United States today deserves His judgment and punishment. Yet the Lord has continued to show mercy to these wayward descendants of the Mayflower and Jamestown believers. The living God has been keeping the covenants those first settlers made with Him, mercifully keeping His promises to a prodigal people.

- K.P. Yohannan

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One of the most impressive blessings in America is religious liberty. Not only do Christians have access to radio and television, unheard of in most nations of Asia, but they are also free to hold meetings, evangelize, and print literature. How different this is from many Asian nations in which government persecution of Christians is common and often legal. . . . Coming from India, where I was beaten and stoned for my faith, I know what it is to be a persecuted minority in my own country. When I set foot on Western soil, I could sense a spirit of religious liberty. Americans have never known the fear of persecution. . . . From India, I always looked to the United States as a fortress of Christianity. With the abundance of both spiritual and material things, affluence unsurpassed by any nation on earth, and a totally unfettered church, I expected to see a bold witness. God’s grace obviously has been poured out on this nation and Church in a way no other people ever have experienced. Instead I found a Church in spiritual decline. . . . These people, I knew, were capable of so much more. They were dying spiritually, but I knew God wanted to give them life again. He wanted His Church to recover its moral mandate and sense of mission. . . . God did not shower such great blessing on this nation for the Christians to live in extravagance, in self-indulgence, and in spiritual weakness.

- K.P. Yohannan

K.P. Yohannan sermon.

Part One

Part Two

It’s not too late to send a Christmas gift to support a native missionary to help further the gospel. Just click here.

 

Quotes (78)

Besides books, 8,000 Christian magazines and newspapers flourish. More than 1,600 Christian radio stations broadcast the Gospel full-time, while many countries don’t even have their first Christian radio station. A tiny 0.1 percent of all Christian radio and television programming is directed toward the unevangelized world. The saddest observation I can make about most of the religious communication activity of the Western world is this: Little, if any, of this media is designed to reach unbelievers. Almost all is entertainment for the saints.
- K.P. Yohannan

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   If the affluence of America impressed me, the affluence of Christians impressed me even more. The United States has about 5,000 Christian book and gift stores, carrying varieties of products beyond my ability to imagine–and many secular stores also carry religious books. All this while 6,800 of the world’s 13,500 languages are still without a single portion of the Bible published in their own language! In his book My Billion Bible Dream, Rochunga Pudaite says, “Eighty-five percent of all Bibles printed today are in English for the nine percent of the world who read English. Eighty percent of the world’s people have never owned a Bible while Americans have an average of four in every household.”

- K.P. Yohannan

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  I picked up a popular Christian magazine containing many interesting articles, stories and reports from all over the world–most written by famous leaders in the West. I noticed that this magazine offered ads for 21 Christian colleges, seminaries and correspondence courses; five different English translations of the Bible; seven conferences and retreats; five new Christian films; 19 commentaries and devotional books; seven Christian health or diet programs; and five fund-raising services. But that was not all. There were ads for all kinds of products and services: counseling, chaplaincy services, writing courses, church steeples, choir robes, wall crosses, baptisteries, and water heaters, T-shirts, records, tapes, adoption agencies, tracts, poems, gifts, book clubs and pen pals. It was all rather impressive. Probably none of these things was wrong in itself, but it bothered me that one nation should have such spiritual luxury while 40,000 people were dying in my homeland every day without hearing the Gospel even once.

- K.P. Yohannan

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   Many North American Christians live isolated from reality–not only from the needs of the poor overseas, but even from the poor in their own cities. . . .  I found that believers are ready to get involved in almost any activity that looks spiritual but allows them to escape their responsibility to the Gospel.

- K.P. Yohannan

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Religion, I discovered, is a multi-billion dollar business in the United States. Entering churches, I was astonished at the carpeting, furnishing, air-conditioning and ornamentation. Many churches have gymnasiums and fellowships that cater to a busy schedule of activities having little or nothing to do with Christ. The orchestras, choirs, “special” music–and sometimes even the preaching–seemed to me more like entertainment than worship.

- K.P. Yohannan

Quotes (56)

   There is such an emphasis on church buildings in the United States that we sometimes forget that the church is the people–not the place where the people meet.

- K.P. Yohannan

Book review: K.P. Yohannan’s book Revolution in World Missions.

I recently finished reading K.P. Yohannan’s book Revolution in World Missions (1.5 million copies in print). I have to admit that, although I had seen in numerous times before, I had no intentions of reading it. But after my wife kept telling me about it as she read it, I picked it up when she was done and was very glad that I did.

This is a fantastic book, easy to read, and a page turner. Yohannan speaks of recent drastic changes in World Missions in light of today’s political and social climate, and he pulls no punches when it comes to the state of the Western Church. He steps on lots of toes in his examination of our comfortable Christianity in light of those truly suffering for the sake of Christ. And best of all, you can order this book absolutely free from the Gospel For Asia website.

Here’s an excerpt from the forward of the book by David and Karen Mains:
“. . . Those evangelists traveling into the unreached villages of Asia have more heart, more fervor, more passion to spread the Gospel of Christ than most of us who are surrounded by the comforts and conveniences of our Western world. We know because we have seen them and talked with them, and they have put us to shame.“

Not a book for the satisfied with the status-quo, don’t-rock-the-boat, nominal professing Christians, but definitely a book for those who have a heart for God, a heart for the spreading of the Gospel, and a heart for their neighbor… even if that neighbor is on the other side of the world.

Quotes (53)

   A friend in Dallas recently pointed out a new church building that cost $74 million. While this thought was still exploding in my mind, he pointed out another $7 million church building going up less than a minute away. These extravagant buildings are insanity from a Two-Thirds World perspective. The $74 million spent on one new building in the United States could build more than 7,000 average size churches in India. The same $74 million would be enough to guarantee the evangelization of a whole state–or even some of the smaller countries of Asia. . . .  It amazed me, though, that these buildings had been constructed to worship Jesus, who said, “The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man hath not where to lay His head” (Matthew 8:20).

- K.P. Yohannan

Quotes (52)

I was constantly aware of how large–and overweight–most Americans seemed to be. Americans need big cars, big homes and large furniture, because they are big people. I was amazed at how important eating, drinking, smoking and even drug use were in the Western lifestyle. Even among Christians, food was a major part of fellowship events. . . . Often when I spoke at a church, the people would appear moved as I told of the suffering and needs of the native evangelists. They usually took an offering and presented me with a check for what seemed like a great amount of money. Then with their usual hospitality, they invited me to eat with the leaders following the meeting. To my horror, the food and “fellowship” frequently cost more than the money they had just given to missions.

- K.P. Yohannan

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What impresses visitors from the Two-Thirds World are the simple things Americans take for granted: fresh water available 24 hours a day, unlimited electrical power, telephones that work and a most remarkable network of paved roads. . . . At the time, we still had no television in India, but my American hosts seemed to have TV sets in every room–and they operated day and night. This ever-present blast of media disturbed me. For some reason, Americans seemed to have a need to surround themselves with noise all the time. Even in their cars, I noticed the radios were on even when no one was listening. Why do they always have to be either entertained or entertaining? I wondered. It was as if they were trying to escape from guilt they had not yet defined or even identified.

- K.P. Yohannan

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I began with alarm to understand how misplaced are the spiritual values of most Western believers. Sad to say, it appeared to me that for the most part they had absorbed the same humanistic and materialistic values that dominated the secular culture. Almost immediately I sensed an awesome judgment was hanging over the United States–and that I had to warn God’s people that He was not going to lavish this abundance on them forever.

- K.P. Yohannan

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In my prayers I began to seek a message from God that would bring a change in lifestyle to the American Church. It came over a period of weeks. And that message came loud and clear: Unless there is repentance among Christians–individually and in concert as a community of believers–an awesome judgment will fall on America.

- K.P. Yohannan

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Satan has done a masterful job of deception within the body of Christ. Christianity has been redefined to fit modern society. It is now a good moneymaking business. The Christian music and entertainment industry skyrockets, while the Word of God is peddled for profit and the authentic Christian life of surrender and obedience is tossed aside as legalism. More then 2 billion people who do not know Jesus head toward hell to perish for eternity, while the Church laughs its way to hysteria, claiming this is the sign of the last days’ outpouring of the Holy Spirit. Instead of laying down our lives to serve the purposes of God, we try numerous ways to make the Almighty God our servant to fulfill our dreams and desires. My brothers and sisters, this is not Christianity.

- K. P. Yohannan

Quotes (4)

But I have come to see that many evangelical Christians do not really believe the Word of God, especially when it talks about hell and judgment. Instead, they selectively accept only the portions that allow them to continue living in their current lifestyles. It is painful to think about hell and judgment. I understand why preachers do not like to talk about it, because I don’t either. It is so much easier to preach that “God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life” or to focus on the many delightful aspects of “possibility thinking” and the “word of faith” that brings health, wealth and happiness. The grace and love of God are pleasant subjects, and no one more beautifully demonstrated them than our Lord Jesus. Yet in His earthly ministry, He made more references to hell and judgment than He did to heaven. Jesus lived with the reality of hell, and He died on Calvary because He knew it was real and coming to everyone who doesn’t turn to God in this life. Believers are willing to accept the concept of heaven, but they look the other way when they come to passages in the Bible about hell. Very few seem to believe that those who die without Christ are going to a place where they will be tormented forever and ever in a bottomless pit where the fire is not quenched and they are separated from God and His love for all eternity without any chance of return. If we knew the horrors of the potential judgment that hangs over us–if we really believed in what is coming–how differently we would live.

- K. P. Yohannan