I Shall Give Theethe Heathen forThine Inheritance

One of the blessings I’ve received is having met Missionary Dick York. Before meeting him, I knew about the Bible, but I couldn’t apply it to my life, thus creating distance between the Word and the Bible. In the Bible, it is recorded that God has taken all of my problems as His own, but I couldn’t even entrust one problem in my life to God, and ended up struggling with them on my own. The first goal Missionary Dick York had in mind when training us was to live life by faith. “Each morning, we have some quiet time. In reading the Bible and praying, find the voice of God. And go forward with faith if God shows you something.” After being trained under Missionary York, I too was able to open my eyes to faith as the years passed. As soon as I left the things that happened in my life up to God, I was able to connect big and small problems to God, and saw them being resolved.

Although Peter lived his life as a fisherman before meeting Jesus, he no longer fished, but followed after Jesus after he met Him. As Peter followed after Jesus, he either saw or experienced things he would never able to do, such as feeding 5,000 with five barley loaves, walking on water, raising the dead to life. The formula is that since Jesus Christ is, will be, and has been the same being, if the Lord that called Peter called me, the power of the Lord must be manifested through me as well. However, when that formula didn’t apply to my life, or when I fell into difficult circumstances and problems, I tried to use my humanistic methods to resolve those problems.

As the years passed, God led me into faith. After God put me in the midst of a problem, he cut off all of my humanistic methods, so I had no choice but to rely on God and walk the path of faith. Amazingly, each time, God resolved those problems. As I saw this process, I was continually able to have the faith that God is alive in me, and is leading my life.

After having faith, when I began something, I put behind my conditions such as: “Is this possible? Is there anyone to help me? Are there enough finances?” and stepped forward. What I’ve come to learn from living a life of faith is that no matter what the situation, if it’s something God is happy with, God will help fulfill it. As a result, asking God, “Is this really what you’re happy with?” and asking God for His will and listening for His answer became the most important thing for me. No matter how impossible something seemed situation-wise, when I carried something out in faith, knowing that God was happy with it, I experienced God miraculously making it happen. Since then, I always think, ‘The will of God is in the Bible. What is it that God wants?’

Once day, while reading the Bible, I was able to focus on these words, “Ask of me and I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession” (Psalms 2:8). God said, “Ask of me.” The reason why God tells me to ask of Him is because He wants to give me something. I have a daughter and a son, and I would become happy with them when they would be happy over nice clothes or bread that I bought for them. Just like that, as I realized the fact that God is happy with me being happy through God, I had the heart that God wants to give me the uttermost parts of the earth for my possession. So, with those words in my heart, I began to pray. At the time, I had just begun my ministry in Daegu, so the circumstances were difficult, we were hungry, cold, and poor.

When the brothers and sisters returned home after service, I would lose strength in my heart. There weren’t much people who’d received salvation, there was a brother who had fallen into trial…So, I locked myself in my room and began to pray before the Lord. At first, I would begin saying, “Father God, there’s no food. Please give us food. My shoes are all worn out. Please give me shoes.” But after praying for a while, I would always end up giving a bold prayer according to the Word. Whenever I would simply begin a prayer, the Holy Spirit would lead that prayer.

“God, allow us to send overseas missionaries, allow us to begin a missionary school. Allow our sermons to be published as books, allow us to begin broadcasting sermons.” When I would finish praying, I’d surprise myself. I thought, “How could a person like me do such things? That’s nonsense! This is a dream, a dream!” But once I began praying, God would continually lead my prayers like that. After praying like that several times, I gained faith that God would work accordingly. As a result, one day after I finished service, I spoke of my faith to a few brothers.

“Brothers, let’s be strong. Although we may seem like nothing now, soon, we’ll publish books, begin a missionary school, and send missionaries overseas. We’ll be broadcasting sermons as well.”

As those words were so far away from our current circumstances, everyone laughed. One of the gentleman-like brothers told me as if he were consoling me, “Pastor, it’s okay to dream big. At least your dreams should be big. Have courage.” What he said was the same as saying, “keep dreaming.” Even when I thought about it, what I said seemed like a dream, and it wasn’t fit for us. I thought to myself, “Look at yourself. If God gives you the earth for thy possession, could you even look over it? Wake up.” When I looked at myself, those were just delusions of grandeur. So, I stopped those prayers. I thought no more of those words.

Long after that, as I was reading the Bible, I came across that verse again, and those words stirred up new hope in my heart. “That’s right, if God said he would give me the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession, he would give me the power to look after it as well. He wouldn’t just give me the earth itself.” With that heart, I prayed again. I was certain that these words were a promise God had given me. After that, I often gave testimonies by faith in front of the church.

“Everyone, God gave me the promise that He will give thee the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession. According to that promise, we will publish books, broadcast sermons, and establish a missionary school. Churches will be established in each part of the nation, and missionaries will be dispatched to each country. The Almighty God will make it all happen.”

According to that promise, God began to open paths before me. We began a missionary school, missionaries were dispatched to various parts of countries and churches were established. We began broadcasting sermons, and books were published through our Good News Mission Publications Inc. God opened doors for the mission to work in Germany, America, and Japan. And paths were opened for us to establish churches in Russia, China, East Asia, South America, and Africa. Things that were unimaginable for us were all made possible by God. Many of the missionaries are lacking and weak, but God helps so that amazing works of the Gospel can happen through them wherever they go. They each have beautiful testimonies. In each of the countries that our missionaries go to, I see overflowing hope. There are still countless requests from different countries asking to send missionaries, but because we don’t have enough workers, I am continually praying to God about it. Looking back now, I can testify that from the things I prayed for in the past, not even a prayer as small as a mustard seed was left unanswered.