Luke 17:1-6 “And He said to His disciples, ‘Temptations to sin are sure to come, but woe to the one through whom they come! It would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck and he were cast into the sea than that he should cause one of these little ones to sin. Pay attention to yourselves! If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him, and if he sins against you seven times in the day, and turns to you seven times saying, ‘I repent,’ you must forgive him. The apostles said to the Lord, ‘Increase our faith!’ And the Lord said, ‘If you had faith like a grain of mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea, and it would obey you.’”
Matthew 17:14-21 “And when they came to the crowd, a man came up to Him and, kneeling before Him, said, ‘Lord, have mercy on my son, for he is an epileptic and he suffers terribly. For often he falls into the fire, and often into the water. And I brought him to your disciples, and they could not heal him.’ And Jesus answered, ‘O faithless and twisted generation, how long am I to be with you? How long am I to bear with you? Bring him here to me.’ And Jesus rebuked him, and the demon came out of him, and the boy was healed instantly. Then the disciples came to Jesus privately and said, ‘Why could we not cast it out?’ He said to them, ‘Because of your little faith. For truly I say to you, if you have faith like a grain of mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move, and nothing will be impossible for you.’”
Mark 9:22-29 “And it has often cast him into fire and into water, to destroy him. But if you can do anything, have compassion on us and help us. And Jesus said to him, ‘If you can! All things are possible for one who believes.’ Immediately the father of the child cried out and said, ‘I believe; help my unbelief!’ And when Jesus saw that a crowd came running together, He rebuked the unclean spirit, saying to it, ‘You mute and deaf spirit, I command you, come out of him and never enter him again.’ And after crying out and convulsing him terribly, it came out, and the boy was like a corpse, so that most of them said, ‘He is dead.’ But Jesus took him by the hand and lifted him up, and he arose. And when He had entered the house, His disciples asked Him privately, ‘Why could we not cast it out?’ And He said to them, ‘This kind cannot be driven out by anything but prayer.’”
On May 4 a group of people will be gathering at the Berean Church in Lincoln, Nebraska to see what God will do with their little mustard seeds of faith. They will be coming together in the name of Jesus to stand before the massive mountain of unbelief that is global sex trafficking, and saying to it, “Move from here to there, from the increasingly mainstream, to the hell where you originate and rightfully belong.” The event is called, I’ve Got A Name, and its intent is to “create awareness, prayer and financial support to help eradicate sex trafficking, with an emphasis on protecting the daughters of Nepal.”
Last year the Lord started moving in the lives of several Christians in Lincoln, pressing upon them a vision for resisting world wide sex trafficking, specifically between the borders of Nepal and India. Every year an estimated 10,000 Nepalese girls are brought into India to work as sex slaves in brothels. Their average age is fourteen. These children live in a country where grinding poverty is a way of life, and under the pretense of a good job in the big city, or because they are simply not wanted by their own parents, these children are sold and brought over the border and into the living nightmare of brothel life, where they are forced to give themselves, sometimes up to forty times a night. It is a darkness beyond comprehension, an evil of such malignancy that only God can bring hope and healing.
Our hope is that by bringing this into the light, God might raise up more workers and inspire them to pick up their spades and find their place at the base of this mountain. Tiny Hands International and Freedom Firm, two Christian, Lincoln-based organizations will share what they do and how people can get involved. I urge you to get involved. Years ago William Wilberforce stood before a similar mountain, and for twenty years kept digging and digging against unbelievable odds, yet by the grace of God twenty years later the ax began to be put to the root of the African slave trade.
We are not naïve, but we are hopeful that God will ignite a fire in the lives of many on May 4th, and thereby build increasing momentum to push back this hell of human sex trafficking. As noted in the texts above, mountain moving depends on having a mountain moving God, and when people have faith in Him, all things are possible. Let us exercise those faith muscles together on May 4th and see what God will do. Several years ago I read a sermon by Martyn Lloyd-Jones in which he had commented, “The demon’s in too deep,” referring to evil that was so embedded that it took persistent, relentless prayer to get it out, not the kind of “let’s-try-once-and-give-up-if-it doesn’t-work” faith that the disciples exhibited in Mark 9. This is what we have before us, demons that are in too deep, but are you perhaps a surgeon called to this battlefield? Are you willing to draw near to this horror with what God has equipped you? Will you pray? Will you give? Will you care?
May we draw our swords and our spades and our scalpels and meet as we hear the battle cry of our General, May 4th at 7pm at Berean Church. The program is scheduled to go until 8pm with time after to ask questions and take action in the avenues God calls us to.
For more information on how to get involved, please call Denise at Tiny Hands International at (402) 310-9271 or email her at denise_THI@hotmail.com. More information about THI can be found at www.tinyhandsinternational.org
“And Jesus answered them, ‘Truly, I say to you, if you have faith and do not doubt, you will not only do what has been done to the fig tree, but even if you say to this mountain, ‘Be taken up and thrown into the sea,’ it will happen.’” Matthew 21:21