April 27, 2024
LOUISVILLE, Ky. (KT) — Impactful life lessons can come from unsuspecting people in unsuspecting places — even from four lepers. That was the focus of a message by Paul Chitwood, president of the International Mission Board, at Tuesday’s chapel service at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.
Chitwood, returning to the seminary where he earned a degree and previously served on the faculty, told students that three lessons can be gleaned from the story of the four lepers in 2 Kings 7. That text talks about the lepers starving outside Samaria while inside the city people were starving to death because of the siege by the Syrian army.
• Lesson No. 1: Recognize the condition of our world. “There was a bridge collapse in Baltimore this morning, but the world’s attention has been captured by Middle East events after the Oct. 7 attacks on Israel,” Chitwood said. “But Scripture records an attack against Israel long before this one. Syria had laid siege on Samaria for so long that the residents were literally starving to death.” Chitwood told how the lepers had an honest assessment of their situation — if something didn’t change, they were going to die. They were starving to death, if they went into Samaria they would starve with the people who were bargaining with their own children for food, and their only hope was to “go where they were afraid to go — to the camp of the enemy. At that very moment, the future of these four lepers and a starving city begins to change.
“They were unwilling to sit there and die, so they determined to set out for the enemy’s camp. At IMB there are 3,500 Christ followers who have said, ‘We are not going to sit here while others die.’ The world’s greatest problem is not physical hunger but spiritual hunger, not from starvation but from sin, not of destruction of earthly cities but the destruction of eternal souls.”
Chitwood said missionaries “know the world’s greatest problem is lostness, being separated from God because of sin. It is the only problem that lasts beyond this world. Every other problem in this world ends when you die. There’s no problem we face in life that doesn’t end the moment we die unless a person dies lost. That is an eternal problem — the only problem that is eternal. IMB missionaries understand that. It’s everyone’s problem and it’s a universal problem.”
Missionaries, Chitwood said, are determined to be part of the solution.
“They have determined they will go and take the good news to people. Like the lepers who didn’t know what awaited them in the enemy camp, missionaries typically don’t know what awaits him and her as they leave the comfort and security of America and go to the strongholds of the enemy. A missionary concludes, ‘I may be afraid to go where God has called me. It may cost me my life, but I will go — even to the camp of the enemy and demand those for whom Christ has died be set free.’”
Chitwood then asked the penetrating question, “What about us? We live in the same world — a world gripped by sin and lostness, where hundreds of millions of those gripped by lostness seemingly have no chance of being found because they live among more than 3,000 people groups around the world with no access to the gospel, not a single church among their people or a single missionary among their people, and they will die not hearing the gospel that God has called us to share.”
He noted that IMB is sending and Southern Baptists are supporting — through the Cooperative Program and the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering — the work of taking the gospel to the nations. The IMB has 3,500 missionaries whose work saw more than 178,000 people around the world come to faith through those missionaries sharing the gospel.
“Five years ago, our missionary application pipeline had about 300 in it, but there are 1,375 as of last week,” Chitwood said. “There is still room for one more. If God is calling you, we would love to talk with you.” He told students that IMB has created 300 jobs specifically targeting 3,000 unengaged and unreached people groups. “Apart from Christ, every human being will die and enter hell. We do well to consider the condition of our world.”
• Lesson No. 2: God has done what only God can do. Our job is to tell what God has done.
“This is an unpredictable turn of events — the Lord, with no help from Israel’a army, caused the entire Syrian army to flee in fear. The siege is over, but not one person in the city that is starving knows it. Four lepers arrive at the Syrian camp and find the soldiers had fled. As they feast on Syrian food and hide their treasures, the israelites continue to starve.
“Soon the lepers fall under conviction and say, ‘This is a day of good news — let us go tell the king’s household.’ Did the lepers defeat the mighty Syrian army? They didn’t raise a weapon. God did what only God could do and the lepers benefitted from it. God didn’t intend for these four lepers to be the only ones who benefitted from God’s mighty deeds and the food and treasures the Lord had provided. There was good news for others to hear and provision for them and their families as well — provision that God alone had made. God did for you what only God could do.”
Chitwood said “not even the finest missionary who has ever been sent has the ability to save a soul. God doesn’t expect you or me to do what He has already done. What does He expect of us? That we tell others of what He has done. Our world is full of people who don’t know the enemy has been defeated, that death has no sting and the grave has no victory. Would you and I sit feasting at the king’s table, enjoying the treasures of Christ, while people rush headlong into hell? The lepers understood that would not be right — let us go and tell what God has done.”
• Lesson No. 3: God has solved the world’s greatest problem. “The solution to that problem is that God sent His only Son to die for the sins of the world — and anyone who turns from their sin and toward the Savior in repentance and confesses Him as Lord because He is — at that moment has their greatest problem solved. it is the good news of the gospel that God has given us to share.
“We are stewards of that news. Indeed it is a day of good news. Lostness is a growing problem.” Chitwood, citing the world population at 8 billion, 37 million people, said the population has doubled in his lifetime. “But the most troubling statistic is the growing problem of lostness.” He said every day 174,202 people “enter eternity hopeless. At the moment of death, they are beyond help and hope. They die lost — in a day of good news, when everything has been done that can be done for them to be saved. More people will die today than on any other day that the sun has ever risen and set in history. That number will be larger tomorrow. As the (lostness) problem grows, our mission force must grow, our generosity and prayer for the lost must grow, our willingness to send our very best to the nations must grow. The stakes could not be higher. People simply need to hear the good news, to repent, to have faith, to confess, to be saved.”
Reflecting on a visit in South America two weeks ago, Chitwood told of an unreached jungle people group that had been displaced to a city because of drug gang violence in their homeland. They went to the city “with no education, no money, no jobs — these families are poor and desperate often exploited and hopeless, and there is an informal class system in the country that works against them— they are the dirt of society.”
Chitwood said he witnessed a young girl “face down asleep on the concrete, no blanket or pillow, no shoes or socks, little feet dirty— just a little dark haired girl asleep in a dirty dress with her face pressed against the dirty cold hard sidewalk. Jesus said do not despise one of these little ones.” He then referenced Romans 10 that refer to the beautiful feet of those who bring good news.
“Even the lepers’ feet are beautiful when they bring good news,” Chitwood concluded. “And so are yours. Therefore, go and tell the good news.”
