I hope this missionary update finds you growing in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. This update is more a petition for prayer than an update. It is motivated by the fact that the HeartCry European Missionary Conference is drawing near and those who will be in attendance (teachers and missionaries) have a desperate need for believers to petition God’s throne for an unusual outpouring of His Spirit.
When we think of global missions, our minds are oftentimes drawn to remote jungles or nearly inaccessible mountain ranges in the 10/40 window. Rarely does one think of the great European cities of Barcelona, Paris, Tuscany, Frankfort, or Zurich. Nevertheless, if the truth be told, there is often-times more gospel-light in the remote jungles of the world than there is in these great metropolitan centers of Europe.
Western Europe was once a hot-bed of Reformed and Evangelical theology and home to some of the greatest theologians and preachers that the world has ever known – Calvin, Knox, Bunyan, Spurgeon… The list could go on and on! However, generations of secular humanism and liberalism have brought Christianity and the Christian church into great decline. Make no mistake, God has His thousands who have not bowed their knee to Baal, but they are like a drop of water in a much larger ocean. They labor in a field where the harvest is great, but the workers are few.
We must recognize that the world is changing. The West, which once sent out missionaries to the four corners of the globe, is now in desperate need for the four corners to send missionaries to the West. This need is further accentuated by the present day immigration policies that have opened the door to so many people groups that would normally be beyond the reach of cross-cultural missionary activity. Regardless of what we might think about such policies we must admit that they provide a tremendous opportunity for Christians in Western Europe to reach out to countless people groups and individuals in their time of need. We must always remember that God is sovereign over the nations—“The king’s heart is like channels of water in the hand of the LORD; He turns it wherever He wishes” (Proverbs 21:1). God moves nations “en masse” that on that Final Day, “a great multitude which no one can count, from every nation and all tribes and peoples and tongues, might stand before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, and with palm branches in their hands; crying out with a loud voice, saying, ‘Salvation to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb’” (Revelation 7:9-10).
It is for this reason that HeartCry not only works in remote jungles and near-inaccessible mountain ranges, but also in the center of Paris, Barcelona, Frankfort, etc. Our great goal is that all humankind might hear and believe—“That from the rising of the sun even to its setting, God’s name will be great among the nations” (Malachi 1:11); that “They who had no news of Him shall see, and they who have not heard shall understand” (Romans 15:21). It is with this intention and zeal, that we will be holding our annual missionary conference in Barcelona at the end of October. Our hope is to teach, encourage, and strengthen our brethren who labor in these “difficult lands” among a people who have been been indoctrinated with every secular “ism” so that they might reject the only message by which they and their countries might be saved.
Please pray, that our teachers will teach in submission to the Scriptures and in the power of the Holy Spirit. Pray that the same Spirit might illuminate and strength each missionary so that each might return to their field of labor with new strength—that they might “mount up with wings like eagles, run and not get tired, walk and not become weary” (Isaiah 40:31). Pray that God might raise up men of great biblical knowledge, who in the power of the Holy Spirit will storm the gates of hell like John Knox, who prayed, “Give me Scotland, Lord, or I die!” Of Knox, it was said, “He did not fear men, because he feared God. He was a man willing to offend men, because He was not willing to offend God.” Further it has been long reported that Mary, Queen of Scots, a lifelong enemy of Knox, one declared, “I fear the prayers of John Knox more than all the assembled armies of Europe.”
We must remember that Western Europe and her people will not be converted by a band of weak, culturally sensitive, compromising and unoffensive “do gooders” tiptoeing through the streets in the name of an undefined Jesus. Europe will be impacted by men “who know their God, who display His strength and take action” (Daniel 11:32). It will be changed by those who challenge every idol and false opinion; men who are not ruled by “a spirit of timidity, but by God’s power and love and discipline” (II Timothy 1:7); men who are not “ashamed of the gospel “(Romans 1:16) or “the testimony of our Lord” (II Timothy 1:8); men who “know whom they have believed and are convinced that He is able to guard what they have entrusted to Him until that day” (II Timothy 1:12); men who “preach the word; who are ready in season and out of season to reprove, rebuke, exhort, with great patience and instruction” (II Timothy 4:2). May God give us such men!
Your Brother,
Paul Washer
Paul is the founder of HeartCry Missionary Society and currently serves as its missions director. He also ministered as a missionary in Peru for ten years. He has preached hundreds of sermons and has authored a dozen published works. Paul lives in Radford, Virginia, with his wife Charo and their four children: Ian, Evan, Rowan, and Bronwyn.
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