Gospel For Asia: Road To Reality Radio Program
Slumdog Message
K.P. Yohannan
Aired on July 9, 2011
I want to ask you a question. Can you imagine your little boy or little daughter or grandchild getting kidnapped by someone, then they take that little child to a hiding place where no police, no one can get to. They tie that little boy down, maybe four or five year old, six year old boy or a girl, then take some chloroform and pour it into a cotton ball or cloth and put it on the nose and the face of the little one and he or she is knocked out. The next thing, you see a man near the child but he holds in his hand a vessel, in it, boiling oil, hot, boiling oil and the unconscious child laying on the table, helpless and the man opens the eyelid of the child and pours that boiling oil into that child's eye, then he does the same to the other eye, then bandaging it up. What is he doing? Deliberately making the child go blind.
Then fast forward six months into the future, then fast forward six months goes by, you find that little child, oh don't forget that's your boy, that's your daughter, your grandchild, on a busy street in Mumbai India wearing rags, dirty fingernails, no shoes, no socks, having its hand stretched out begging, saying please give me a few pennies, please. In between he or she just sings with whatever ability they have. You've been listening I hope. I began this discussion by asking a question: can you imagine something like this happening to your child, to your grandchild? Now I can hear you say, no I just cannot imagine it, why one earth are you asking something like this? Well my friend, believing you are a child of God, you are a follower of Christ, I hope my words will not just be words that you hear and forget it but you will think deep about it.
Have you seen the movie, The Slumdog Millionaire? Maybe you have maybe you have not. You see, when that movie was released I happened to be in India and I didn't know what this movie was all about except I heard people talk about how this describes the multiplied millions of people live in the slums of Bombay and the suffering of the children. When I came back to the United States I decided to watch that movie, somebody rented me a DVD so I sat down and watched it but unfortunately I was not prepared to face what I was to see and hear. There as you watch that movie, you will find the story I just told you about. A little child, a lost child of Bombay street, her parents brutally murdered by upper-cast, and she was born and raised in one of those Dalit, Untouchable communities. They have no home, car, no bicycles, no refrigerator, no living room, no television. They wear simple clothes, mostly rags. They have no attached bathrooms or any comforts or toothbrush or toothpaste, any of those things we think or consider to be normal. And they live out there in the open and it is a life of abject poverty and suffering, illiteracy and misuse and abuse and rape, that's the way of life.
And there you find a little boy being treated just the way I described to you. Now before I continue, maybe you should go and get a copy of that movie, of course the DVD is now available. Maybe my recommendation is that you should go and get a copy of that DVD, The Slumdog Millionaire, and watch that. Oh by the way believe me, it is not a fairy tale or some imaginary story somebody wrote up to create a movie like most movies are, but this is reality. And as I watched that movie I couldn't help but weep, deeply, deeply hurting just to watch the lives of these innocent children and these poor people. And it goes on.
Well the reason I am trying to communicate the seriousness of this with you is that in the gospel of Matthew chapter eighteen, Jesus talks about this quite seriously. Oh don't worry, he's not talking about the Slumdog Millionaire, but it talks about the reality and the seriousness of children in our world, in our generation. Now the disciples asked this question: Jesus, hey tell us who is the greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven? He didn't say John the Baptist no, He said, little kids! And He says, anyone who embrace one of these little children, and love them and accept them and give them dignity and value, actually they are receiving me and my Father, that's what Jesus said. Oh but then he says something more, woe to those people, those who create pain and suffering and hurt to these little kids. But you know there is an amazing verse you find in Matthew eighteen, verse ten: see that you do not look down on one of these little ones. For I tell you, their angels in heaven always see the face of my Father in heaven. Did you get that? It says, you take care, be careful that when you look at these children and hear about them, read about them and watch what is going on about them, don't ignore them, don't walk away and say, ya you know what can I do, all those dumb stupid people doing those rotten things you know it's terrible they should be killed and put in jail and–He says, don't just walk away making excuses but rather, take care that you don't ignore them. The reason? They have angels assigned to these little kids. Angels are assigned to watch over them, more than that, these angels are always beholding the face of the Father in heaven. That's quite serious.
So when I watched the movie, The Slumdog Millionaire, and saw what is happening with hundreds of thousands and millions of precious, innocent children, my heart began to ache, I couldn't help but cry. The reason is, you see as a follower of Christ, my assignment by Christ is this: as the Father sent me, so I send you (John 20:21). Hey, that's your assignment. A lot of Christians believe that, you know, life is all about sins being forgiven and having a wonderful life and homeschooling for the kids and not doing a bunch of dirty things and finally getting to heaven, no. The call of Christ is much more serious. He says, come after me, learn of me, be mine, and then he says, I send you just the way the Father sent me. Think about that. Read Philippians chapter two, the life of Christ here on earth, what was it all about? He said, I came not for myself, I came to seek and to save that which was lost. He gave himself so completely for others, for you and for me. He would walk, miles after miles after miles just to minister to one person. He would look at the suffering and his heart ached, and he weeps. You want proof? Hey take time and read Matthew's gospel chapters eight and nine. As he watched the suffering, the pain, the anguish, the misery, the demon possession and people that are hurting so deep, abused by the powers of darkness. Then in verse thirty-five, chapter nine it says, and he was moved with compassion, for these people he watched, for these people that he was looking at. They were like sheep without a shepherd and it says they were abused, mistreated and they were hurting, nobody cared. Matthew the disciple writes decades later and we saw Christ was so moved with compassion.
Let me ask you a question. What was it that happened to Jesus, his body language, what emotions they witnessed that after thirty, forty years this disciple could not forget it. Well quite possibly, just like when one of the closest of relatives, a son or daughter or wife or husband or father or mother, somebody like that dies, you can't help but lose all your control, the emotions all come out, the weeping, the wailing, you lose the appetite, there's nothing you can do about it, you can't handle it. Could it be, the creation of his hands, the little children and mothers and fathers and people that he made in his own image, their lives been so destroyed and abused, when he saw it his heart began to break that he broke down possibly weeping, he just couldn't stand up on his own legs. And the disciples say we saw it, and Matthew and the disciples couldn't forget it. But you know the interesting thing, I really wish Matthew said something like this, when we along with Christ saw these suffering people our hearts were breaking so much we couldn't handle it, we broke down, we couldn't handle the emotion, no. He said, he, about Christ. I want to ask you a question. What about the reality of the suffering children and the multitudes in our generation? Are you one that says, I belong to Christ? I hope you do. If that be the case let me ask you a question, are you one that feels the pain, the hurt, the sorrow that He feels for the suffering and the hurting and the abused and those who are undone and weeping.
Are you one, when watching a movie like that, instead of saying you know what, they're using some bad language in this thing and I think they should do that movie a little better. Hey you know what, I'm not a movie-goer, I'm not one looking for all this stuff but I'm telling you something, please listen to me, God orchestrates, some things happen in our world to entice us to force us to open our eyes. I remember when the movie Gandhi came out how it impacted multiplied millions to understand, learn about a nation with over a billion people, India that need Christ. And I think this movie happened to be one of those, by the way nobody's paying me to talk about the movie but rather I am telling you there are a hundred and eighty million children, child laborers in India, the largest number of working children in the world, living in India. Who are these children? They are children of the Dalits, the Untouchables.
The question is this, if Jesus said, you take one of these children, you embrace them, you love them. If you do that you are receiving me, I will go home with you and my Father also will come with you. You think Jesus cares about these children living on the streets? The Indian newspaper said over a hundred thousand children live on the streets of Calcutta and Mumbai not knowing who their parents are. If you've been to Bombay or Dhaka or some other places, you will find kids by hundreds on the streets, blind and maimed and crippled and walking around in rags begging for a few pennies. But unfortunately we saw so much of this, we hear so much of this, we read so much of this, our hearts are no more hurting, we get used to it but that is not the way Christ is.
What I'm getting at is this. People now here in the United States and of course you know in every country, a whole bunch of people lost a lot of money, the economy is going haywire and people are screaming and shouting and saying we lost everything all those things. But think about all those people made those investments in whatever companies or shares they took, they did it believing, okay I'm going to invest my ten thousand dollars, I'm going to make maybe fifty thousand. You know, most of them lost a lot of money I think, but here is what I am telling you. Those people went after the possibilities to invest their money. I ask you, are you going after the possibilities, opportunities like the children in the slums, not one or two, but multiplied millions. Are you looking for opportunities to say Lord Jesus, please show me places where I can go and embrace some of these children. Please help me to find opportunities I can share my resources and my prayers that, Jesus someday when I get to heaven it is not going to be just me and my kids and my grandkids but Lord I want to see hundreds of thousands of precious lives from all these nations, Lord I want them also to be in heaven and be blessed by you.
Well please listen to me my brother my sister, Gospel for Asia, we've been involved in helping, rescuing and training, giving hope to children from the slums, from the Dalit communities over the many, many years. Today by the grace of God we have fifty thousand children, children like the kids you see in the movie Slumdog Millionaire. Now they have clothes, now they can eat decent meals, medical checks are given, they are given education, but more important, everyday they hear about the love of Christ. I wish I had the time to tell you story after story after story like a little girl, barely nine years old now having been to our Bridge of Hope center, she came with rags, hardly anything to wear, skin and bones. Never in her life she had the experience of washing her hair with shampoo or taking a clean bath with a piece of soap, but now she is given all this and she learns about Jesus. And when she prays, often her prayers goes like this: Dear Jesus, thank-you for loving me, thank-you for saving me, thank-you for caring for me and then she goes on using the same words, thank-you, thank-you.
I wish, I really do, we have the opportunity, the means to help not just fifty three thousand children, no. I wish we could help five hundred thousand children. But then what is five hundred thousand children when you talk about a hundred and eighty million child laborers waiting for someone to love them and give them hope. You know it's been forty years since the Lord called me to serve him, now you're trying to figure out how old I am I guess, but you know what, in all these four decades of serving my Christ I never ever asked anyone saying that I need some money, please give me a few dollars, a little money, I never did it. But often when I think about these precious children, misused, hurting, lonely, helpless, I have no shame, no fear, no agony to ask you or anyone saying, please help us to help rescue these children and give them hope. If you do that, please understand you are not doing a great favor for someone or saying that I got so much money and I'm blessed this way, hey listen, this is our awesome privilege to fulfill the words of Christ, take care, make sure that you do not ignore these children. Then his words are quite profound, whatever you have done for the least of these you have done it for me, that's what Jesus said. And I pray that you will not miss this opportunity, I pray that you will make sure, you will somehow find a way to watch that movie and I pray that somehow after watching it or learning about it, you will contact Gospel for Asia, our website and telephone number is all available for you and let us work together to rescue a few more children. You cannot do all things, you cannot help all the children, I can't, but we can at least help one or two or three. May the Lord grip our hearts with the things that hurt him. As someone prayed, may the Lord break our hearts with the things that break his heart. And I have no doubt, the multitudes, the children that are suffering and hurting, Jesus he's troubled by it. Let us be those people that not only feel the pain that he feels but do something about it. God bless you.