He Left Not the Work

What if in the late 1800's missionaries were sent to a foreign field and began seeing success?

What if in the middle of last century an atheistic government drove all the missionaries out of that field and all contact with the churches in that land was cut off as they were brutally suppressed?

What if in the past few years of this century contact was reestablished?  What would you find?

This past Lord's Day evening I sat spellbound with others as we listened to answers to those questions.  They were provided by an American pastor who had visited the field and one of the spiritual descendants of earlier missionary work now studying in the U.S.  We heard of one church alone, existing in several sites and served by one humble pastor, that identifies itself with our denomination's teachings and former work yet easily quadruples the numbers in our denomination!  That was just one church!   That was amazing enough to the point it elicited audible praises from a gathering of Presbyterians!  But then the room became motionless and quiet, except for the sounds of quiet weeping and sniffling, as we listened to the stirring testimony of how the Spirit of God overcame the atheistic blindness of just _**one **_man from this nation to bring him to Christ.   Will not the eternal heaven be filled with the innumerable host of the redeemed offering praises such as these?

After prayer, the convener of the time asked us to conclude by singing from Psalm 138.  Pondering the faithfulness of our God's work through the centuries, never have the words of the closing stanza rang more true to me:

Your love, O LORD, forever stands;

Leave not the works done by Your hands.