Ripened Fields
Ripened Fields Ripened Fields
John Wolfe
2730 Aumui Street, El Paso, Texas My dear brethren and Christian friends: It is a privilege to speak to this splendid audience upon the subject of Ripened Fields. The subject at once suggests to our minds a number of passages from the Scriptures. Io Israel at Kaclesh- Bamea God said, “Behold, the Lord thy God hath set the land before thee: go up and possess it, as the Lord God of thy fathers hath said unto thee; fear not, neither be dismayed.” After Lot separated from Abram, God said to him, “Lift up now thine eyes, and look from the place where thou art, north-ward and southward and eastward and westward: For all the land which thou seest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed forever.” Jesus said to his disciples, “Lift up your eyes, and look on the fields; for they are white already to harvest.” He also said, “The field is the world.”
Long ago when we had the old plantations m the South, when harvest time came the owner would saddle up his riding horse and ride out over the fields to see whether or not the crops were ready to be harvested. I have not had the privilege of going out into the highways and byways of the world to see a very large portion of the ripened fields, but I know that the Lord of the harvest has said that they are white unto reaping. So broad are the fields, so gigantic it the task of reaping, that in any approach to it we must remember that the power on which we depend does not emanate from men nor is it founded in the intelligence of men, for “The gospel is the power of God unto salvation unto every one that believes.” We must remember that our weapons “are not carnal, but mighty before God to the casting down of strongholds,” and that “faith is the victory that overcomes the world.”
I am glad that our general theme contemplates not only those fields where our brethren have gone proclaiming the gospel, but also those to which we have not gone, and those countries which have never had the privilege of he aring the message of salvation. Therefore, tonight, let us lift up our eyes and look on the fields. Let us believe that wherever we find human souls separated from God through ignorance and sin, whether they be Shintoists of Japan, Buddhists of China, Hindus of India, or the devotees of Animism in darkest Africa; wherever there are people perishing without God and without hope, there are people for whom Christ died. There is our field. There is the grain waiting for the harvesting sickle. There are men and women in need of the gospel to lift them out of shame and degradation and darkness and death to the high planes of life and truth and love and hope and glory that is in Christ Jesus, and to prepare them for those mansions not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.
First, then, let us start with the lands farthest from home and consider the Far East. The East with her shame, her poverty, and her filth; her idolatrous religions with their pagan temples and the empty sham of their priesthood. So great is the need in those eastern lands that the people have almost made a religion of their very need.
Let us first think of Japan, an Empire of 62,000,000 people. Perhaps no other nation in the East has been so profoundly influenced by western civilisation. The whole world knows that during the last fifty years Japan has undergone an entire transformation in her industrial life, her commercial life, her educational system and many other things that concern vitally her existence as a nation and an Empire. And still for all of that, Japan is still enmeshed in idolotry. Millions still worship at pagan shrines. Millions have never heard the gospel of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.
Japan is a land of suicides. Figures compiled by the Metropolitan Police Board show that during 1933 in Tokyo alone there were 2,551 suicides. Of these 498 were under 20 years of age. Cause—no hope, no anchor for the soul. In Japan, less than one-half of one per cent of the people are nominal Christians. This means that 259 out of every 260 people in the nation need Christ. They have never heard the gospel. Japan, with all her modern ways, is still a land of spiritual poverty. The Japanese people are inquisitive, alert, aggressive. They are also adaptable, ready and willing to learn, and they are still searching for the best things western civilisation has to offer them. What is the conclusion? Give them the gospel. Prove to them that it is the only power that can truly transform, that it is the greatest adornment of western civilisation, the greatest gift in our power to bestow, that it can be made the very joy and crown of their newly realised national life. Japan, standing at the gateway of the East, the land of the rising sun, is one of the great ripened fields of the world. We need to. send more missionaries to Japan that the Sun of Righteousness may arise with healing in his wings, to heal that great nation of her ignorance, poverty, misery and black despair and in very truth set her in the sun as a great Christian nation.
Let us pass over to China. China, with her poverty, her banditry and her civil strife. Long before the dawn of our modern civilisation, China had achieved the most successful political system ever known to man, which for two thousand years held her people together. She had brought forth a noble philosophy; she had produced an abundant literature, and had made notable achievements in the realms of art and architecture. And yet China has been called the great, sleeping giant.
Having accomplished so many fine thmgs hack in the twilight period of the world, it seems that she became, content, with no ability or desire to make further progress. Yet China today is no longer asleep. I he giant has awakened out of her dream and China, too, is wring through a transformation. She, too, has felt the impact of the western nations. She is building roads and railways, steamships and airplanes. Mr. Latourette says, "For sheer magnitude the changes experienced by China have never quite been equaled in any other portion of the world, not even in our age of revolutions,” Yet China is still a pagan nation. The land is filled with idols and with all manner of superstitions. Multiplied millions know nothing of the God of the Bible nor of the. Christ who died for them. Of her 450,000,000 of people, only between one-half and three- fourths of one per cent are professed Christians.
Yet Christianity has made a very vital impress upon the national life of China. Unlike the progress of Christianity in Japan, where most of the converts are drawn from the urban middle class, or iij India where they have been drawn mostly from the outcasts or untouchables, those in China have been drawn from every stratum of society. Among prominent Chinese who have professed a faith, in Christ we find such leaders as Dr. Sun Yat Sen, the most beloved man in China up to the time of his death, and the most remembered since. Chiang Kai Shek, most powerful figure in the present China and leader in the reconstruction of his country, is a believer in Christ. H H. King, who has served at the head of more than one national ministry at Nanking, has been a professed Christian from childhood. Also on the list are Wang Chung-Hue, who has been minister of justice and a member of the World Court, C. T. Wang, for several years minister of foreign affairs, and W. W. Yen, prominent in diplomacy and in national politics. In the educational field are Chang Po-I.ing, the distinguished head of Nanking University, and James Yet, organiser of the mass education movement. Such names among the professing Christians of Chuia serve to demonstrate that the ideals of the Christian religion have already touched very vitally the life of that great country. That there are challenging opportunities for making Christians m China no one denies. China is another ripened field. China needs the gospel. Our duty is to arouse her to a greater realisation of that need, and to point out to her that One who said, “I am the Way, the Truth, and the life.” From this glimpse, of China we pass to a consideration of that small country of Korea set strategically in the midst of three great F.mpires— -China, Japan, and Russia. Korea has been called the ripest mission field in the world, and the facts seem to demonstrate that her people are the most responsive to the, gospel of all the peoples of the Fast. The Koreans are a literary people, not a military, nor a commercial people, but a people given to exalt books and the learning derived from books. The missionary comes to them as the man with The Book, and for him is reserved a place of special honor. He is the teacher, the spiritual guide and leader come to show them the way of truth.
Korean customs have served, in a very peculiar way, to prepare Korea to receive the gospel. Many of these customs are strikingly similar to the customs of Bible lands and times. Sackcloth is worn by the people in times of mourning and distress, recalling a Bible practice. At the time of a wedding ceremony the bridegroom comes forth riding a splendid white steed preceded by attendants who shout, “Make way for the bridegroom!” An easy approach is here afforded the missionary to one of the great parables of the Master. From time immemorial the Koreans have offered animal sacrifice for their sins. This provides another rich opportunity for the messenger of the cross. In fact, the parallels are so numerous between prevalent customs in Korea today and those described in the Bible that the missionary has no difficulty in finding in the lives of the people a basis for the gospel teaching. As one missionary to Korea has said, “God doesn’t often give men such rich opportunities.”
“From practically the beginning,” says Mr. Latourette in his re' cent survey, “Protestantism in Korea has emphasised self support and has been vigorously evangelistic. Out of their poverty, Korean Chris' tians have cared for their own pastors and have paid their own church expenses. They have also been zealous in spreading their faith. Singly and in bands they have gone out, New Testament and hymn' book in hand, to tell the gospel story. Not only have they done this among their own countrymen at home and in the regions to which they have migrated, but they have established a mission in China. From time to time revivals have swept thousands into the church. With all of their vigor, however, the Protestant churches in Korea still embrace considerably less than two per cent of the population. Yet their proportional increase has been much more rapid than that of the population as a whole. Denominational differences, too, are less nu' merous than in other regions.” Regarding denominationalism in Korea, the Tokyo Christian has this to say: “Here is a new development of that interesting situation in Korea. Many groups are dc' manding Scriptural baptism, and are receiving it at the hands of their sectarian ministers rather than allow them to secede as others are doing. Having won in this point they are certain to demand further concessions until denominationalism will cease to be. Because of the discontent with denominationalism in Korea, this is a very opportune time to push New Testament teaching in that country.”
Korean Christians are said to be very much given to prayer. It is not unusual for a man to engage one or two whole hours in private prayer, while prayer'meetings have been known to last all night. Of this praying, fervent people much may be expected. As God chose little Judaea to be his seedbed to disseminate his truth in ancient times, so may he not have chosen Korea to be his seedbed for the gospel in the East? Korea, that has been called God’s House of Prayer m the East, is certainly a held ripe unto the harvest. Let us pray the Lord of Harvest that be send more reapers into this great field.
Let us next take a brief glance at India with her teeming millions, oppressed by a system of caste that holds them in the bondage of ig-norance and poverty. Of her 250,000,000 population, a large majority are Hindus, one-fifth are Moslem, and one and one-half per cent or over 3,000,000 are professed Christians.
Regarding the progress of Christianity in India the Missionary Review of the. World gives the following report: “The encouraging fact is that the knowledge of Christ and His teachings has permeated India and the general attitude of the people has changed from one of bitter hostility to one of respect and inquiry. Great mass movements toward Christ have been reported in many places during the last five years, with w-hole villages of the depressed classes ready to come under C Christian instruction ” One worker reports 800,000 people in Trav- ancore moving Christ ward. The leaders express a desire to see their whole community embrace Christianity, and a large body of Indian Christians have offered to give their services as volunteer evangelists and teachers for this ingathering. Hundreds of villages are crying out for tpachers and tens of thousands are seeking Christ. The opportunity and challenge is likely to grow during the coming months as the disillusioned Untouchables seek some escape from the oppressive bonds of Hinduism Already they are turning to Christ and asking for baptism at the rate of 15,000 every month This is influencing the caste Hindus also as they see the. new birth and new life of those whom they have despised. The awakening is also reported in. the Punjab, the United Provinces, and elsewhere.” The fact that so many of India’s outcasts are turning to the gospel, while it illustrates beautifully the power of the message to lift and transform, supplies us with a grave problem and a grave responsibility The task is to supply missionaries and teachers to care for these thou-sands who are knocking at the gate of the Kingdom. Untaught and unprepared they often come ask mg for baptism and it is our responsi-bility and privilege to prepare them to render a true and faithful obedience to that Saviour to whom they are ruining in their distress. From India we will journey to what is known as the Near East, embracing Turkey, Syria, and Egypt. Here the missionary encounters the Moslem world, the followers of the false prophet, fanatical in their allegiance to Mohammed. Into this field the church of Christ has not gone. For seventy-five years Protestant missionaries have been at work in Egypt, with the result that the. sects now number 21,000 members in that country. I here are, we are told, 143 organised congregations and 201 unorganised circles. Of these, 114 have their own ministers and 59 are self supporting. These converts are drawn largely from the ancient Coptic race who mingle with the 13,000,000 Moslems in the valley of the Nile. From the reports of missionaries in the Near East are many en-couraging statements. Kamil Elfendi Mansour of Cairo, Egypt, after calling attention to Egypt’s progress in the field of education, writes: “It is impossible to advance in education and in social life while religious attitudes remain static and the religious life stagnant. The number of people going to Christian religious meetings this year is far greater than in former years. Every Sunday morning you will find evangelical churches, whether in town or in country districts, crowded with Moslem attendants. These multitudes who come ask many questions about Christian morality. It has also become easy to preach to Moslems, and a preacher can speak about Christ’s salvation in the midst of the most fanatical Moslem districts today without being opposed. I myself have visited most of the mosques, have spoken about Jesus in many of them, and have distributed pamphlets and gospels to those who have asked for them. Even the Mosque Asfiar, where I was brought up and where many of its teachers know me, I have often gone, alone or with others, and many a time we have spoken and prayed with the students there. Many Moslems have come to enjoy reading the Bible, and reports from Bible agencies tell us that the number of Moslems who buy the Bible has increased greatly. Last year I was invited to forty different churches to preach to Moslems who had come with gladness to listen to what I had to say. I was also invited to Palestine, where I preached about twenty times in Jerusalem, especially to Moslems. Many would stay after the meeting to discuss further the points which I had stressed.
Many Christians in Syria have turned their attention to preaching to Moslems. We have circles also for studying the Bible, in which Moslems who are anxious and jealous to get more knowledge of the Christian truth have enrolled. Yearly many of these Moslems ask to be baptised. Observing the situation from the negative viewpoint we find that Moslems are in great uproar against their own religion, against their beliefs, against the dormant state of their society, against the old fanatical spirit, against old customs, against the old forms of worship. The Turkish government has opposed the Islamic religion and its teachers, and this fact has become known throughout the world.” Effendi Mansour closes his article with these statements: “Islam nowadays is in a condition which was never dreamed of formerly, and in almost every city in Egypt there is a native group enlightening the minds of their fellow-men and exhorting them to leave the past. Who ever expected to see what Turkey has done?—she who was thought to be the foundation stone in Islam. Or who ever dreamed that the Moslems in Egypt, Syria and Hedjas would rise with one mind to fight old beliefs and customs long considered to be holy? Can it be that one of the learned Moslem men should himself publish a book dealing with the false and evil phases in his religion? Who ever expected that progress in ideals would one day demand a change in marriage regulations and divorce customs? Yet all these have come to pass.”
Atter speaking of Turkey’s revolt against her old customs and ideals, and of her almost feverish desire to take up the ideas and life of the western nations, one writer says: “In spite of the announced religious liberty, I know that preaching to Moslems in Turkey is still practically prohibited. That at least is now the unwritten law of the country.” He suggests some, missionary activities that could and should be pursued:
1. The opening of mission schools and hospitals.
2. Commercial and mechanical training schools for boys and girls.
3. Publication work, especially publication and distiibution of Bibles.
4. A disinterested and devoted life of service and love on the part of missionaries.
Concluding, he says, “Religiously, Turkey is now in a critical condition. The former allegiance to Islam, especially among the educated youth and ruling classes, is broken. Many are bec.onv ing agnostic or indifferent. Others are in unsettled and hesitating mood. Some are really groping about to find the truth. Who knows, perhaps the time is not far off when Turkey may awaken to discover the fact that western Christian civilisation is impossible without Christ. Now’ is the time for the western churches to help Turkey find Him who is the Light of the world.”
Leaving the Near East, we next call your attention to Central Africa. Between the Moslems of north Africa and the European population of South Africa are approximately 100,000,000 negro Africans. Considering the extent of the land, the population is sparse, and the people are still in the tribal stage of development. Their social and economic life is of a very primitive nature, they have no written language except where missionaries have supplied them with one, and their religion is chiefly animistic. It is sa’d that the greatest single obstacle to the gospel in Africa is polygamy. Yet with all the hindrances there is in Central Africa a great opportunity for spreading the gospel. I shall take one example of what others have done and are doing among the tribes of that country. I quote again from the Missionary Review of the World: “T'hirty-one years ago an early missionary of the Disciples of Christ mission, who was leaving Congo to go on furlough left one mission station, Bolenge, and about 200 Christians. Todav there are six stations and over 42,000 Christians. In the whole of the Congo the Protestant Christians and adherents number more than a million, all of these of whatever mission belong to one church, The Church of Christ of the Congo.” Of the church at Coqudhatville, one of the. provincial capitals of the Congo, one writer says: “To attend the Sunday morning service at this church is a real experience; for the pastor, the choir of ten male voices and the audience ioin together to make a truly inspiring and reverent period of worship of which the celebration of the Lord’s Supper is made the climax. Churches like this one are being duplh cated by the score in many outstations throughout the Congo.”
Africa, too, is a great ripened field. We ought to be sending more missionaries there to strengthen the hands of the brethren ah ready on the field, and establish missions in other parts of that great continent. In this brief survey I have not tried to describe the extent of the work being done by our brethren who are already on the field. Their work I have purposely omitted because several of them are present and will themselves tell of their work later on in this program. There is not now time to speak even briefly of the many ripened fields the world over. I pass by the nations of Europe where the gospel might well be established in its purity with the right kind of effort, and the British Dominions such as Canada, Australia, and South Africa which are indeed fertile fields, to call your attention to the country and the people to which it has been my lot to go.
Mexico is a country of 17,000,000 people. Four centuries ago the Roman Catholic religion was imposed on the Mexican Indians by the conquering Spaniards. For four long centuries the Mexicans, of whom 30% are now pure Indians and 60% Mestizos or of mixed Spanish and Indian blood, have borne the yoke of Rome. Naturally of a passive, religious disposition, the Mexicans exercised patience to a point almost beyond belief. But at last the long oppression, founded in a system of ignorance, superstition and prejudice, bore fruit in a revolution against the old order. The leaders of Mexico have recog' nized in the Roman church one of the chief obstacles to her progress. As a result the Mexican government has closed a large majority of the Catholic churches, exiled hundreds of priests, and wrested from the church the control of the schools. Thousands of people are turning away from the Catholic fold to become agnostics or atheists, or to enter one of the sects of Protestantism. The movement is strongest in southern Mexico, but even along the northern border the effects of the religious controversy are being felt. The Mexican people, after centuries of bondage to Rome are breaking their fetters, seeking for something better and more satisfying, and therein is cur opportunity. In seeking to spread the gospel among the Mexicans, a number of advantages are on our side. These people already believe in God and in the divinity of Jesus Christ. They already accept the Bible as an inspired message from God. That that message has been obscured from them is not their fault. The proximity of the field is another great advantage. It costs less to send a missionary to Mexico than to any other foreign country. And even of greater value is the close contact and communion that churches in Mexico may always have with our own churches of America. Preaching the gospel in Mexico will be but an extension of the work in our own country. That the Mexican people are responsive to the gospel message when it is properly presented to them I can testify from my own experience. Not only do the young respond to the teaching of the gospel, hut I have frequently seen old, gray haired men and women, cradled in the Catholic church from infancy, leave their old traditions and being buried with their Lord in baptism, rise to walk the new life.
Mexico is ready for the gospel. “Come over and help us” is the Macedonian call that rings out from our southern neighbors. “Why sit ye here all the day idle?” is the question that should be borne in upon us when wre consider this great open door. My brethren, let us not tarry. In truth, the fields are white unto the harvest. Let us press die battle, and God will be with us and lead us on to victory in Christ Jesus.
QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION
1. Where are the Ripened Fields?
2. Describe religious conditions ’n Japan?
3. What opportunities await the Christian missionary in Japan?
4. Why does China oiler such an open door for Christianity today?
5. Describe conditions in Korea.
6. What are the conditions in India?
7. Just why should special efforts just now be made in the Near East to Christianize the Moslems?
8. Describe the animistic religion of the negroes of Central Africa.
9. What has been done in Afnca towaid introducing Christianity?
10. Relate the religious history of the Mexican people.
11 Why is iy at this time a really “ripened field”?