Witnessing to Hindus - what is the key?

Satan is very busy in India as elsewhere. He is doing His best to get it believed that all religions are practically one and the same, as long as their followers are sincere seekers after God. We are assured that sincere seekers after God will find Him, but it can only be through Christ. He is the Way. There are not several ways—the Hindu way, the Sikh way, the Mohammedan way, the Buddhist way, the Christian way—there is only ONE way. Christ says, “I am THE Way” there is no other.

Here we get the answer to the Hindu’s yearnings of heart. Had he rightly understood, he could have rejoiced that God is perfect, and been assured that He will answer true prayer, that He is love and has shown it by sending His only begotten Son into the world—God and Man, yet one blessed Person—who died an atoning death on the cross, and that God can RIGHTEOUSLY forgive sins, and yet maintain absolute justice.

The purpose of our visit was to encourage brother Sat Pal Hans who lives in the village of Tanda about an hour's drive from Jullundur. This brother is a converted Hindu with a most interesting history. He had worshipped different Hindu gods, followed the teaching of gurus (religious teachers), meditated on mantras (prayer formulas or chants), even built a shrine to lord Shiva (one of the chief pagan deities), without finding peace. Then he attended a Pentecostal gospel meeting, was given a Bible, and later through a process of events came to a knowledge of salvation through the Lord Jesus Christ. Later through grace his wife was also converted, and he asked me particularly to pray for his mother and father who are still Hindus, and who live with him. For a time he was with the Pentecostals, but literature received from brother Ronny helped him, and now that he has separated from them, he is almost completely isolated.

Bhagwan Das willingly agreed for us to hold a meeting. By this time a big crowd gathered in the open air. We addressed the people in their own tongue, and told them the simple story of the cross of Calvary, that brings forgiveness of sins and reconciliation to God to all who put their trust in the Lord Jesus Christ as their Saviour. An hour or two had passed when Bhagwan Das interrogated us. We reason with him. We asked him, What is the Hindu religion? He replied, It is the religion of my ancestors. We asked, What is the religion of your ancestors? He vaguely replied, The Brahman religion.

As a matter of fact the Brahman religion may mean anything. With some it is a collection of silly superstitions. With others it is simply a matter of mere external rites, having no moral or practical values. As time went on, the manner of Bhagwan Das changed. He became an anxious listener to the Gospel message. I said to him on one occasion, "Bhagwan Das, you remember the Hindu proverb, 'Though you may wash charcoal in milk, it will never become white, but, if you put it in the fire, it will at once become white'? Your mind is like that charcoal. Argument will never change you. You need the fire of God's Holy Spirit in your heart, and the blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son, to cleanse you from all sin." Without another word the old Bhagath fell upon his knees, and with bowed head cried out, "I believe it, I believe it. I want to be free from sin. I do. I do," his feelings finding relief in a flood of tears. Thus he entered into peace with God. Here is a sample of India's need. Would that hearts may be stirred to meet that need.

Our conduct to them should be courteous, kind, affable. There should be no sanctimonious air as if we were better than they. We should act so as to win their respect for the Master we serve, and if possible to win them for Him.

Time is refuting the unproved theory of Evolution and forcing scientific assertions into correspondence with Genesis 1. When travelling to India recently a series of talks on different religions was organized on the upper deck in the evenings. When Christianity was presented by a missionary I was specially invited to attend. This missionary talked only of love and the Sermon on the Mount, and said not a word about sin in its real character, the cross, the atoning sacrifice, but followed to some extent the modernistic trend that has degraded Christianity to a Unitarian level of following Christ as an example and refusing Him as Saviour. We took occasion to bring forward those vital truths of Christianity that centre round Christ as God and Man who atoned for sin on the cross.

What then is the resource and remedy? "But sanctify in your hearts Christ as Lord." Sanctimoniousness in manner or outward acts, far from availing, is a snare and a shame unworthy of a Christian, as far as possible from pleasing God, though it may deceive himself if unwary and others too. But to give Christ the holy place due to Him, and supremely as Lord, in our hearts, truly pleases Him Who would have us honour the Son even as we honour the Father. Without Him thus constantly set up and apart in our hearts, we are exposed to any and every idol whereby the enemy deceives the world; but with Christ thus the object of our inmost affections, how kept and blessed! So we see the fruit and accompaniment in the words that follow, "ready always for an answer to every one that asketh you a reason (or, account) for the hope that is in you with meekness and fear." What account can creature give so satisfying, even to God, as the Lord Jesus and His redemption? In Him we have the righteousness found nowhere else, yea, we are become God's righteousness in Him; so that, as the same apostle says (Gal. 5:5), "we through the Spirit by faith await," not righteousness as if we were not justified, but "the hope of righteousness," that is, heavenly glory with Christ. But this very blessedness, so undeserved by any, calls us to meekness and fear in confessing it, lest a rough or presumptuous spirit might dishonour the God of all grace or ourselves the recipients of His rich mercy.

In preaching we should avoid too nice distinctions. It is wise to be direct, simple, and thorough, in affectionately pressing with solemn earnestness the broad facts of Christ and redemption. It may be all well among the children of God to point out the various lights and shades in the truth of God; but, in my judgment, refinement in evangelizing spoils the message of Divine grace. As God is simple in His dealing with souls, so should we be as servants, not seeking to please men or ourselves. The same apostle Paul, who was inspired to lead into all the heights and depths of God's counsels and ways, when helping on the children of God, appears in the Acts of the Apostles, coming down to a gospel of such simplicity as many preachers would hardly think of giving out. He takes his stand on the facts of Christ, His death and resurrection; but he also takes care to meet them exactly where they were, where for instance he cites the rain from heaven and fruitful seasons as witnesses of God's goodness, against degrading and selfish demon-gods, even when all the nations were suffered to go their own ways. These suffice to tell of His beneficence who now sent them the glad tidings of Jesus. For we are not to suppose that we have all reported, but some special point urged in divine wisdom: the wants of a sinner's heart cannot be met by rain from heaven; nor can a soul now, still less in view of God and eternity, be satisfied by present goodness in this world, however rich. Nevertheless it is wholesome and important to note how the apostle takes up the poor heathen, and presents to them (from what was before their eyes, or in their own consciousness) testimony to a power infinitely superior to the creature. To a heathen, who had not the written word, the analogy of God's care for the body was no mean argument from which to proceed to tell the love of God to the soul, and thus the whole story of Divine grace. To my mind there is no less wisdom than simplicity in such a method, which we might do well to cultivate.

The same apostle Paul, speaking to the Jews, does not enter into the question of the outward creation, or the nature of man here below, forgetful of his truest dignity (Acts 14, 17, end). He takes them up to the Old Testament (Acts 13, 17, beginning), shows them the Messiah, His death, resurrection, and kingdom, required by the positive word of God with which they were so familiar, and then compares the facts of the life and death of the Lord Jesus, as the only answer to what the Law and the Psalms and the Prophets prepare us for. All this clearly shows the singleness of purpose, and consequently the union of depth and plainness in the presentation found in scripture. For it is a mistake to suppose that those most profoundly taught are necessarily the hardest to understand. The reverse was true in the apostle's case.

But the Apostle's zeal for the Gospel carried him further even than this. He was perfectly free. He lay under obligations to no man. Yet in calculating love he made himself servant to all that he might gain "the more," or, "the most possible." He was out to win as many as possible, so, within the limits of the will of God, he adapted himself to those he sought to win. He specifies four classes, the Jews, those under law, those without law and the weak. He accommodated himself to each class as he approached them, but of course without doing anything contrary to the revealed will of God. Testimony to this is found in the short parenthesis which occur in verses 20 and 21.

The parenthesis in verse 20 does not appear in our Authorized Version. But it should be there. "As under the law (not being myself under law) that I might gain them that are under the law." In verse 21 the parenthesis is quite evident, being printed in brackets. In the New Translation it is rendered, "not as without law to God, but as legitimately subject to Christ." This signifies that when Paul approached the man under law, he observed the conventions which the law imposed, so as not to offend their susceptibilities — everything in fact, so long as it did not deny the fact that he himself was not under the law. When he approached the man without law he did so on that basis. Only he was always careful to let it be seen that he himself was not a lawless man but rightly subject to the Lord. It is evident then that the Apostle really studied the people that he approached, and their idiosyncracies, so that he might avoid everything which would needlessly prejudice them against the Message that he brought. He was far removed from that mistaken spirit that would say, "God can save and take care of His own elect," and as a result almost hurl the Gospel at people's heads, without much care as to the result.

In the course of his ministry the apostle had to do with all sorts and conditions of men. He was a chosen vessel to Christ to bear His name before the Gentiles and kings, and the children of Israel (Acts 9:15). His theme everywhere was the same — Christ as the one and only provision of God for the need of men. But his presentation of the theme necessarily varied according to the circumstances of those to whom he addressed himself from time to time. Thus at Lystra, amongst ignorant heathen, we find him speaking of the goodness of the living God in giving men fruitful seasons, filling their hearts with food and gladness (Acts 14:15-17). At Athens, amongst learned heathen, we hear him insisting upon the unity and supremacy of the Creator, and the origin and unity of the human family, and from these truths reasoning against the folly of idolatry (Acts 17:21- 31). With the heathen he felt constrained to begin upon the very lowest rung of the ladder of truth.