The Greatest Lesson I Ever Learned - Ian North

As I entered full-time ministry in 1995 I read a book compiled by Dr Bill Bright entitled, "The Greatest Lesson I Ever Learned". It was a collection of stories from Christian leaders. It inspired me to ask various Christian leaders in Australia that I knew (or, mostly, knew of) for their story. These have been sitting in my computer for 10 years waiting for publication, but I didn't collect enough to warrant publishing them. So, I am now posting them as blogs so the stories can get out there. I trust you enjoy them as much as I do.

Geoff

Ian North

Ian North is an Australian evangelist and teacher with who ministered for many years in India.

Ian works with Ambassadors for Christ in Sydney.

Ian is married and has four adult children who are actively serving the Lord in various parts of the world.

{Ian has since passed into the presence of his Lord Jesus}

THE STRENGTH OF WEAKNESS

It was January, 1960, the place was Calcutta, India. This was my first experience of a large gathering of Indian Christians as the Evangelical Fellowship of India held its annual conference. My curiosity was aroused when a friend, pointing to a large tent, said, “You should go over and hear the man they call 'The Weeping Prophet Of India.'”

We had arrived in India the previous year to assist Dr. Akbar Haqq as he developed a wide-spread evangelistic ministry in India and Pakistan. Dr. Billy Graham came to India in 1956 and Akbar Haqq had been invited to be his translator for large meetings in New Delhi. As Principal of the Henry Martyn School of Islamics in Allahabad, Dr. Haqq's approach had been more the intellectual and apologetics method rather than the direct preaching of the Gospel. It was through his contact with Billy Graham that he caught the vision of evangelistic campaigns conducted in the context of the largest democracy in the world.

One year after meeting Dr. Haqq in the New York 1957 Graham Crusade, I received my call to India. With five years of seminary education and a further year of special Islamic studies behind me I felt well equipped for the task of preaching and teaching. Of course we knew very well that 'without Him we could do nothing' and that our equipping would not be complete without the empowering of the Holy Spirit. But there were many basic lessons to be learned before I could become "broken bread and poured out wine for the feeding of multitudes." One of those was the lesson of brokenness, of weakness, of tenderness, of what the older generation used to call "a burden for souls." This is where Augustine Salins comes in.

On the advice of my friend, and never having heard a 'weeping prophet', I turned my steps in the direction of the large tent to which he pointed. It was crowded with eager people singing worship songs accompanied by the tabla, a hand beaten Indian drum, and the harmonica so typical of such gatherings. I was getting used to the semi tones and quarter tones of Indian tunes and was beginning to feel that this was my land and these were my people. My grandfather served in East Bengal as a medical missionary in the old days of the British Raj, establishing a hospital in what is today Bangladesh. My father, born in India, was the medical superintendent of the Welsh Presbyterian Hospital in the mountains of Megalaya among the Khasi tribal people. And now here was I, by no planning of my own, one of a new generation of missionaries, working under the direction of an Indian leader as part of an Indian evangelistic team, learning as much as possible to be an Indian in culture and in thought. What new lesson would I learn in this big tent?

There is a story from the early years of the Salvation Army in England. A young officer was sent to a town to preach and establish a witness for Christ. He took his stand and preached on the street corner, calling upon the people to repent, threatening them with the wrath to come, seeking to "pull them out of the fire." But there was no response. Frustrated and disappointed at the hardness of this place the young man sent a message to General William Booth requesting that he be reassigned to a place where the people were less resistant, less hard hearted. The good General sent a brief reply. "Try tears!" In the days that followed the discouraged missionary realized that the hardness was not out there but in here, in his own heart. On his knees he asked God to give him tears! And He did. Was this the lesson for me in the big tent?

Augustine Salins was born in a fishing town on the south west coast of India. His mother was a godly praying lady and his father was the headmaster of a school for orphans. Augustine was the fifth of twelve children. It was through the prayers and example of a godly mother and the witness of a faithful German missionary that Augustine came to saving faith. Some weeks later, after commencing studies in a distant college, Augustine was invited to give his testimony to a young people's group. Naturally nervous and shy he trembled as he walked to the front but as he began to speak his nervousness vanished. With great power he gave his testimony and "because these words came from the depth of his heart, they were charged with emotion. He could not hold back the tears that rolled down his cheeks." The impact was such that early next morning two young men under deep conviction came to Augustine, their fellow student, seeking salvation. From these early beginnings, through times of great inner trial and nervous illness, into many years of marvelous ministry God lead this humble, broken, weeping man.

As Augustine Salins stood to preach that day in the tent in Calcutta he first requested us all to pray for him. Then, beginning in a slow soft voice, he opened the scriptures and preached with clarity and power a biblical message beautifully illustrated from his own experience. As he spoke of the grace and love of God he was unable to restrain himself. His voice, tremulous with deep emotion, and his tears conveyed the passion of his heart for Christ and souls. Any doubts that I may have had about the reality of these tears was swept away. I understood that day something of the heart of Jeremiah, another weeping prophet, who said, "Oh, that my head were a spring of water and my eyes a fountain of tears! I would weep day and night for the slain of my people." Or the passion of Paul who reminded the people from Ephesus, "I served the Lord with great humility and with tears... Remember that for three years I never stopped warning each of you night and day with tears."

It was not until the next January, again at the EFI Annual conference, this time in Lucknow, that I met "the weeping prophet" personally. He invited me to speak in an annual retreat attended by hundreds of believers in his home town. It was here that I cornered him one day and asked him, "Brother Augustine, I have been hearing about your ministry everywhere I go in India. What is the secret of your spiritual power?"

My question embarrassed him? He hung his head and replied, "It's nothing in me. I'm so weak. You can ask my wife! In myself I'm just a big zero." I had the answer to my question. The secret of the turning of thousands of people to Christ under his ministry lay in the fact that here was a man physically and nervously so very weak, and so totally dependent on the grace and power of God, that the Holy Spirit could work through him with unhindered freedom.

To me this broken man has always been a living demonstration of 2 Corinthians 12: 9,10. "He said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you and my power is perfected in weakness.' Most gladly therefore will I rather boast about my weaknesses that the power of Christ may dwell in me. Therefore I am content with weaknesses, with insults, with distresses, with persecutions, with difficulties, for Christ's sake; for when I am weak then I am strong."

It has been my privilege to sit under the preaching of this servant of God as he preached to simple village folk, to university city people, in other lands to those with such diverse cultures as are found in India, England, Australia, and USA, and to see the same Holy Spirit moving with deep conviction upon all. Only eternity will reveal the abundant fruit of his poured out life. We give glory and praise to the Lord who delights to take the weak and to show forth His strength. "When I am weak, then I am strong."