It became obvious that drastic measures were called for in order to secure my Indian visa. On my third day at the Indian embassy I was still at least 10 people back in line when at midday the doors closed to the counter and everyone was told to leave. Having stood pointlessly in line for the last five hours, I was thinking for a moment of pulling out of going to India altogether. Thankfully I gave it a last shot and everything fell into place. Maybe 70-100 tourists were being turned away each day, many having stood hours in line, therefore the task of getting a visa was becoming competitive. I live far away from the embassy and at 3-4 in the morning there is no hope of getting a vehicle. Thankfully Zoell took me on the back of his motorbike and I arrived at 4:25 am to be number 16 on the list. People are getting so desperate to get a visa that the first guy was there before 2 in the morning. If you get to the embassy after 6 am your chances of getting a visa are virtually gone. You have to get your name within the top 40 on the list to be sure. Then we wait to 9:30 when the gate opens and for some reason I happened to take the leadership role and be the guy in charge. I went down the line calling out the numbers and everyone lined up peacefully in their order – the back people having no idea that they don’t stand a chance of getting a visa. The front people know all about it because they’ve already been through this horrid process because it’s the peak tourist season with only one Indian worker going incredibly slow at the front desk.

Having to struggle to get the Indian visa taught me many spiritual lessons. It gave me a whole series of messages about being on fire for Jesus, for while the visa to Heaven is free, if your name is not on the list you have no chance of getting in. Many people don’t know that they have to get their names on the list (the Lamb’s Book of Life) and what a shock it will be for them when they are told to depart from the Lord. Each day at twelve o’clock there is a stunned group of tourists when the door closes in their faces. When the door to Heaven is closed, Jesus said that people will stand outside, knocking and pleading to be let in, but Jesus will tell them plainly, “I don’t know you. Away from me, all you evildoers!” (Luke 13:23-30) Now if the people realized that this was going to happen they would take drastic measures to make sure that their name was written in the Book that grants access into the heavenly city. Because I knew that the gates to the Indian embassy would be closed, I was willing to do what was needed to get my name on the list and be at the front so that I could secure my visa. While the gates of Heaven will never be closed to the redeemed, the world needs to know that the gates of Heaven will soon be closed to those who are outside of God’s kingdom. Understanding the horror that a person will face when the gates of Heaven are shut in front of them should compel us to preach the gospel to those who have no idea that they will be eternally lost in their sins. Once the door of the Noah’s ark was closed, those left outside could not escape judgment.

The process to get an Indian visa is that you fill out the first form, then you have to wait one week while they do some kind of security check, and then after that one week you go to the embassy again and fill out the second form. He signs the second form, you get in a second line, pay some more money, and then you can collect your visa after 4:30 that same day. It took me two days to get the first form signed due to the overflow of people, but when I came back to do the second form the crowd had doubled. Each week the competition is getting harder, so until the peak time of the tourist season has passed I would now recommend that you get to the embassy before 3 am. On both occasions to do the forms I was standing beside someone from the Church of Latter Day Saints (Mormons). The first one was a lady from England who was delving deeply into Buddhism, so I had a good philosophical debate with here about why Joseph Smith (founder of Mormonism) and Siddhartha Gautama (founder of Buddhism) are both false prophets.  The next guy who had been brought up as a Mormon was from France. After waiting for hours in line to no avail, we went and had lunch together, with another French girl. Who you meet can give you a liking or a disliking of a country. The French people that I have met have given me a great liking of the French and a concern to pray for their salvation. I also met a French engineer and his wife on my way out of the embassy, and they were so humble and pleasant to talk with.

The tourist scene is quite a different scene compared to my work among the native people. Kathmandu has a little part of the city like a unique subculture for the tourists. The tourist scene is a great place for evangelism. Often they are spiritually open, being deceived by false religions, and ready to debate any ideas. One couple began telling me about their trip to the Nepali prison to visit an American guy who had been there for the last three years. He was saying that the guards basically leave the prison to be run by those who have been there the longest. The longest prison sentences are given to the drug traffickers and the women traffickers - those who are selling girls into prostitution. With these guys in charge of the prison there was no fighting and everything seemed to run peacefully. But if some problem does come about the guards will deal to it viciously, beating the person with metal pipes. The prison was built early last centaury and looked as if it had never received any repairs. The man speaking to me said that if felt really strange because the guards, the prison in-mates and the visitors were all wearing the same kinds of western clothes, so he had no idea who was who in the courtyard. The American guy was saying that it seems that there is a constant number of Moaists in the prison. When one lot is released an equal number of Moaists replace them and they are inside the prison recruiting more people to their communist philosophy. He thinks that the government wants the political unrest and is using it for financial gain. Leaders are happy to play with people’s lives when they are making money. This is the corruption behind wars.

Another person then told me about what they called, ‘Tiger Leeches,’ which fall from the trees. From my own experience with leeches I can say that they are very effective at sucking your blood. The first time I felt no pain, but looking down and seeing a little pool of blood on the ground I wondered where it had come from. Then I felt it right between my toes. I started to give a few copies of my booklets to the people from different countries. One Israeli man was talking to an African man from Cameroon. I was very sad to find that while the African man claimed to be a Christian, he did not believe in the existence of God and he was completely deceived by Hinduism. I explained to him why salvation comes through the Jews and why Jesus is the Messiah. The Israeli man was impressed and said that he had seen the darkness behind Hinduism. Later in the afternoon I joined a group of three Israelis who had been up since 2 in the morning to get their visa. One of them said that when he got to the embassy at 2 am he thought that he was going to be the first one there, but instead he found another Israeli lying half asleep in front of the gate. Most of these Israelis are young people who after doing their time in the army, save some money and do a world trip, then they go back and do their university studies. I find that it is very easy to share the gospel with these kinds of young Jewish people.

To get my Indian visa I felt a lot of spiritual attack and I saw the demons powers at work when things are disorganized. It reminded me of an occasion about twelve years ago when I could literally feel the demons coming against me. As I was doing street evangelism, some Mormon elders saw me and I got to know them. They invited me to their church and I took them through a pamphlet which clearly explained how the Mormon teachings contradicted the Bible. At the end one elder looked at me and said, “If you try to convert anyone out of our church, God will curse you.” I left their church and went straight to a shop of a Mormon I had often witnessed to. He was actually from the Church of England, but had married a Mormon girl and had gone along with her. His wife had told him not to listen to what I had to say. As I was explaining to him how their prophet has deceived them, I could feel the spiritual attack coming against me. Evil spirits were trying to carry out the curse from the Mormon missionaries. We do not wrestle against mere human beings but against the spiritual powers of Satan that keep people bound in deception. As I was sharing the gospel I could literally feel those demons. To get my Indian visa I had that same feeling.

I asked one of the leading men at the embassy about solving this problem of people waiting hours in line with no chance of getting a visa and he told me the name of the top man. I went into the offices and asked for the office of that man and I was immediately shown the way. I stood at the door while he was on the telephone and when he finished I began to ask if there was any way to solve this problem. He started half-yelling his answers and I could see that he was under an enormous amount of stress, so I spoke with extra calmness and said that people are lining up at 2,3,4 in the morning to be able to get a visa. He said, “We are open from 9:30-12:00. They should come at that time.” I said that there are so many people that they don’t have a chance unless they get there early. I told him that it took me four days to get my visa and he said, “I don’t know anything about that.” I asked him why they don’t employ one more worker and he said, “We can’t just employ another worker here or there like that.” His hands are tied by the India government. They can make good money from each person’s visa, so the Indian government is hurting themselves by this kind of attitude. This made me think of when Jesus Christ rules the earth in the millennium. One word and the problem will have to be instantly solved. No fooling around. Jesus will rule with a rod of iron. For the moment God has obviously permitted a demonic power to cause confusion over that embassy, but the time will come when those who rule and reign with Christ will give one word and it will have to be instantly obeyed. All the demonic powers will be under Jesus’ feet.

Waiting to pick up my visa at 4:30, I went for a walk around the tourist area. When I gave some booklets to one Nepali man, he showed me a piece of paper which had this writing on it, “Find your own truth and go your own way.” One man from Switzerland had written it for him. I told him about what will happen if you go your own way, for that is what the people did in the days of Noah. Many tourists are going out like missionaries, but they’re spreading nothing but lies. When I got back to the embassy I sat beside a young British man who had spent a couple of years in Peru. I ended up talking to him about why Hinduism and Buddhism are spiritual forms of atheism. Tourists are buying into Hinduism without seeing its glaring faults. The biggest problem, or the biggest sin in the world, is that people are not interested to really know God. They don’t seek to be close to Him. They do all these religious exercises, but it’s not done for God. It’s done for themselves, so that they can earn their own salvation, in order to become a god. The end result of spiritual atheism is that you become your own god – that is the lie of Satan.

From my Indian embassy experience I went to my painter and got him to make a painting for the messages about being on fire for God’s kingdom. The fire of Jesus will burn away our sins. It will set our prayer times alight and make our testimony for Christ shine. The painting has three people praying with Jesus above them and fire coming down from Jesus’ hands. It looks great. I’ve decided that I have to start taking a stronger stand to awaken the church goers. My message is that if you don’t have a real burden to pray and intercede for the salvation of lost souls, then you’re a deceived Christian. Every Christian needs to realize that if they don’t have a strong prayer life, they are not close to God and the devil has deceived them. Jesus had to rebuke Satan out of Peter’s life and every Christian who has no prayer life needs to be gently rebuked. Seeing all these people getting up so early to line up for hours to get a visa made me think about all the half empty prayer meetings that I’ve been to because the urgency and fire to pray hasn’t been fanned enough. I heard a message from Leonard Ravenhill and he said, “You can tell how popular the church is by the Sunday morning service. You can tell how popular the preacher is by the evening service. And you can tell how popular God is by the midweek prayer meeting.” I was beginning to see more clearly that prayer meetings are often put on the side line because many of God’s own people are deceived by the demonic powers that fight against their spiritual growth.

Another comment by Leonard Ravenhill that caught my attention was this: “From 1919 to 1939, we had twenty golden years of peace when the church had the greatest opportunity since Pentecost, in my judgment, but she missed it. Then came the Second World War.” Why did the church miss it? People didn’t realize what was around the corner, therefore they misused their freedom to pursue their own interests, rather than truly sacrifice all to penetrate those broken nations with the gospel. From the New Zealanders I have recently met in Nepal, I have to say that my home country is in spiritual trouble. One of the first persons I was talking to who didn’t have any desire to seek after God was from my home country. Later a New Zealander shifted right next door to where I was staying in Kathmandu. He was an older man who had spent twelve years wondering around India with the gurus. He had a Nepali maid and her son living with him. That boy was very much interested in following Jesus, so I used to give him the Bible books secretly. He is not permitted to follow Jesus or read Christian material because of my fellow New Zealander, whose attitude is that all religions are the same as long as you don’t follow Jesus. He likes to be called Baba and he has dreadlocks almost to the floor. Many New Zealanders like him are opposing the gospel throughout the world and there’s no point making excuses. We need to weep for our country. When the Second World War came those twenty years of peace to preach the gospel could not be brought back. Now the people’s houses would be blown to pieces, their children who be sent to the front lines, and all that they had worked for suddenly meant nothing. Jesus has commanded us, “Do not store your treasures on earth,” because on the Day of Judgment God isn’t going to just check our visa; He is going to check our baggage (all our works). Many Christians are going to make it into Heaven only as one escaping through the flames. The works of their life will be burned up and they will suffer lose (1 Corinthians 3:12-15). Better to be on fire for Jesus now than on the Day of Judgment.

A full day traveling to Indian border didn’t turn out as I expected. When it came to crossing the border the next morning I was then told that foreigners are not allowed to enter India from this point. I knew that God had a purpose for me in this, so instead of entering Bihar as I had planned, I went further up to enter from the eastern border. Then I decided to continue up to Kalimpong where I stayed during my last India trip with Zoell’s brother. By now I was thinking that the devil is really going to pay when I finally enter India. A soldier then called out to me from the roof because he had seen me giving out some booklets. He turned out to also be a Christian who wanted some.

In Kalimpong there is a good Christian bookshop and while I was there an older Indian man peered through the door, so I called him in. He was a Hindu, but he had studied in a Christian school. He invited me to have a coffee with him, then he invited me for lunch, and it turned out that I spent the whole day with him. He had been a fighter pilot, in two battles with Pakistan, worked with the United Nations in Vietnam, so we talked much about wars and especially the horrid nature of Hitler. His wife had died 13 years ago, so he said that it was very difficult for him to find good people to talk to. In the same hotel as that older man, there were two camera men making a documentary of Kalimpong. It was their final day before going back to Kolkata, so they were drinking heavily. One of them was an atheist and he was arguing intensely with me, which I quite enjoyed, but the older Indian man couldn’t handle that drinking man’s stubbornness and he had to walk away to cool down. What I like about the Indian people is that many of them are philosophically minded, which means that I can have a good discussion with them, build a friendship, take their address and send them further booklets later.

I’ve had a few days in Kalimpong distributing some copies of the ‘Light of the World’ film, which was recently translated into Nepali. I think that it is probably the best film I’ve seen for presenting the gospel to Hindus and Buddhists. Some of the controversial parts of the film can be seen at: www.chick.com/catalog/videos/lotw.asp?wpc=lotw.asp

Also got a few copies made up of the film of Ian McCormack’s great testimony about his personal encounter with Jesus Christ as he was dead for twenty minutes: www.aglimpseofeternity.org

Now I’ll be moving down to Siliguri to pick up the Hindi testimony booklets to distribute in Bihar. Then I should be moving on to Kolkata (Calcutta) before Christmas and then onto my main programme for this missions trip, which is in Andrah Pradesh (South India).

PLEASE PRAY: Continue to call upon the power of the Holy Spirit to work through the printing of my testimony booklets and for the right publisher to publish my books. Bihar is still largely an unreached area of India. Please pray that Jesus will reveal Himself to many Hindus and also Muslims to release a mighty move of God throughout this state (Bihar is found just below Nepal). Please pray that Jesus will reveal Himself in me and through me so that I can testify in my next missions newsletter to the answers that have come through your prayers. Thank you and God bless.

Jesus said, “Whoever tries to keep his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life will preserve it. I tell you, on that night two people will be in one bed; one will be taken and the other left. Two women will be grinding grain together; one will be taken and the other left.” “Where, Lord?” they asked. He replied, “Where there is a dead body, there the vultures will gather.” Then Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up …. However, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?” (Luke 17:33-8:8).

TAKE UP YOUR CROSS TO SAVE THE LOST!

Dear Reader - are you at peace with God?  If not, you can be.  Do you know what awaits you when you die?  You can have the assurance from the Holy Spirit that heaven will be your home, if you would like to be certain.  Either Jesus Christ died for yours sins, or He didn't (and He did!).  Are you prepared to stand before God on the Judgment Day and tell Him that you didn't need the shed blood of Jesus Christ on the Cross to cover your sins?  We plead with you ... please don't make such a tragic mistake.

To be at peace with God; to make certain heaven will be your home for eternity; to make certain that you are in right-standing with God right now ... please click here to help you understand the importance of being reconciled to God.  What you do about being reconciled to God will determine where you will spend eternity, dear one.  Your decision to be reconciled to God is the most important decision you'll ever make in this life.