One of my burdens in serving the Lord was to reach out to believers who had never been exposed to the truth of New Testament church gatherings. The standard model that most churches adhere to does not reflect the pattern established in the Acts of the Apostles and explained in the NT epistles (especially those of the apostle Paul).
I concluded that the best way to do this was through social media. So I started recording Bible teaching on video and podcasts and posting them online. To my great amazement, the most interested saints were not from the UK but mainly from Africa and Asia. As the interest of specific individuals developed and I got to know them (as well as you can from weekly meetings online and on Zoom), I had the privilege of visiting Uganda and Pakistan on several occasions to see how the Lord was working in the establishment of NT churches and the strengthening of the people of God. This article will focus on the work in Pakistan.
The Background to My Involvement in Pakistan
Sohail Dilbagh initially contacted me through Facebook, and I eventually agreed to chat with him via Skype. His story was fascinating and challenging, and it was extraordinary evidence of the sovereign hand of God in his life.
Sohail was saved as a young man of 18. He came from a Catholic background, but no one in his family was saved at this stage. His mother gave him a Bible and told him he needed to preach to prevent people from adhering to one of the other faiths that were being promoted then. As he read the Word of God, he discovered that he was not a Christian. As he read on, he realised that Christ had died for his sins, had risen from the dead, and that he could be right with God by repentance and faith. He was saved. This, to me, is one of the outstanding features of the believers in Pakistan. If they see something in the Word of God, they do what it says. In the words of 1 Thessalonians 2:13, “For this cause also thank we God without ceasing, because, when ye received the word of God which ye heard of us, ye received it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God, which effectually worketh also in you that believe” (KJV). It would be wonderful if all believers had such a straightforward approach to the truth of Scripture.
Believers – Initial Contact and Conditions
When I first met Sohail, he had been preaching the gospel for 20 years. Please remember that the blessing this report describes results from faithful brothers and sisters faithfully serving God when they had no contact or encouragement from saints in other countries.
Unlike his siblings, as a young man Sohail decided not to pursue further education but to devote his life to spreading the gospel. He had a limited but growing understanding of the Word of God, and everything he knew had been discovered through personal study or what he had come across online (and we all know that this can be either helpful or extremely damaging). He would work in a bus station for four hours each day and spend the rest of the day travelling to villages and areas of local towns where it was safe to spread the gospel. This was a dangerous task in a country known for the persecution of believers.
When we first met, Sohail was working with three groups of believers. They gathered regularly to pray and shared the gospel where and when possible. Souls were being routinely saved, but they had minimal idea about how to gather. They had a Breaking of Bread meeting once a month, the only reason being that they had seen online that other churches operated on this basis.
We spent a couple of hours each week looking at the Scriptures. We started in 1 Corinthians, then the Acts of the Apostles and eventually 1 Timothy. Sohail began to discover fresh truth and it confirmed that his understanding was correct. The thrill on his face was an unforgettable sight as he rejoiced in the delight that God had designed the Church for His glory (Eph 3:21), and that it (the Church) had been purchased by the blood of Christ (Act 20:28). We take so much truth for granted, failing to let it thrill us as it should. These believers (as Sohail then taught them) were discovering that God is a God of order, the Church is the body of Christ (with a local expression), it is led by elders, men and women have specific roles, and we are privileged to be part of it. Space will not permit me to recount the various times when the impact of God’s Word was evident in Sohail’s life and the lives of those he was teaching.
Assemblies in the Punjab Region of Pakistan
I made my first visit to Pakistan to meet the believers in 2019. By then, there were eight assemblies, all learning to function according to the NT pattern. It was thrilling to meet Sohail and many of the elders. The saints were encouraged and delighted to know that believers in “the West” prayed for them and were interested in them.
It is tough to be a believer in Pakistan. Every year, many are saved, but equally, many die as a result of their faith in the Lord Jesus. When a person is saved, they are often rejected by their family and community and have to be moved to a safe house in a new city or town. Christians are frequently accused falsely of blasphemy, and the local police do their best to protect them and ensure that justice is done, but often, their hands are tied by other strong factions in the country.
The Lord has opened the door to take the gospel into nine prisons. Amazingly, the prison governors admit that those who are saved behave better than the inmates from other religious backgrounds. Many of those who are saved will be in prison for years, and so they gather each week within the prison to remember the Lord and to preach and teach. When the believers are released, they go back to their communities with their newfound faith, and so the gospel continues to spread.
Final Comments
Today, there are over 30 assemblies in this region of Pakistan. Many elders are still learning and need help and support as they seek to feed and serve the people of God. I am sure this also was the case in Acts 14 when Paul and Barnabas revisited Lystra, Iconium and Antioch.
A constant supply of Bibles, audio and printed, is required. Over the past seven years, we have had various Bible teaching books translated into Urdu and given to young people, most of whom can read, and older saints and elders to help them understand Scripture.
There is now a team of men visiting the prisons, another visiting existing assemblies to teach, and many evangelists who go from village to village, either by bus or motorbike (which were supplied by saints from the UK and North America), preaching the gospel. All believers need to be extremely wise and cautious as evangelising people of the “M” faith is illegal, so most evangelism is done among nominal Christians and people of other religions, such as Hindus.
These believers will know far less than most of this magazine’s readers but have the passion, courage and zeal to serve the Lord in a dangerous country.
Please pray:
- For the preservation of individual believers.
- For the strengthening and development of each assembly.
- For the development of gift among evangelists, elders and teachers.
- For wisdom for all involved in supporting this work, that we will be “helpers of their joy” and not “masters over their faith” (2Co 1:24).
