Lausanne World Pulse – Themed Articles – The Worse of Two Worlds: For the Sake of Those Who Have Never Heard

By Ferdinand Nweke
March 2011

The First of Nine Wives
Mama Lotun is the first of nine wives; she is Pokot. She lives in Orus (Kenya), a cluster of villages, some made up of only four huts. She was one of the earliest Pokot to put their trust in Christ when missionaries came calling decades earlier.

Hearing that her aged husband was ill, we went for a visit. We had to bend very low to get through the entrance of his hut—like a camel passing through the eye of a needle. He lay on one of two “beds” (piles of sticks) coughing and spitting on the floor or the wall, whichever was more convenient. He let out some groans as he shifted to some more comfortable position on his “mattress” (cow hide).

The putrid smell was inescapable. In the middle of the hut, a fire burned, pouring smoke, tearing our eyes, and choking us. Breathing was difficult: this was no place for a claustrophobic or asthmatic. But the Pokot didn’t seem to mind at all: they were used to the fire: they stoked it, cooked their meals on it, and used it to heat their hut on many chilly.

The old man was living out his last days in the most squalid condition imaginable. I had seen poverty in other parts of Africa, but nothing like this. Through the smoke and stench of the dark, dank hut, we shared the love of Jesus with him. Although neither hostile to the gospel, nor prohibitive of his first wife’s faith, he’d refused to believe, despite years of faithful witness.

Tonight was different. With newfound conviction which suddenly energized his weak voice, he excitedly declared his faith in Christ and prayed with us to ask Jesus to save him. We asked the Lord to heal him and gave him The Treasure, the amazing, solar-powered, audio Bible that will continue to bring him the message of God’s love in his own language.

I was in Orus as part of an international team put together by World Mission ministering to the nomadic Pokot people. On one memorable evening, the Pokot speared a goat to death and roasted the meat for us. They drank the raw blood mixed with fat and ate some part of the goat intestines unwashed and raw. We slept with them in their mud and straw hut (a puny shelter from the howling wind) and preached the gospel to them. Several came to Christ.

Many primitive practices are still performed among the Pokot, including polygamy and female circumcision. The mother of a freshly-circumcised girl even gets to have a feather stuck in her hair. Until recently, the Pokot engaged their neighbors (the Samburus and the Turkanas) in fierce, internecine wars, often over cattle. These three tribes are among the earth’s 2.7 billion unreached peoples who will have the worst of two worlds unless their eternity is secured through the gospel.

Two Worlds
Every individual will experience two worlds. At his trial before Pilate, Jesus told the governor, “My kingdom is not of this world” (John 18:36), implying another world no less real. Paul declared, “If our hope in Christ is good for this life only and no more, then we deserve more pity than anyone else” (1 Corinthians 15:19, emphasis mine). There is this world and the next; one in time, the other in eternity.

To live in grinding poverty on earth and still spend eternity apart from God is double tragedy.

There can be no vacuum in our hearts; we must live for time or eternity, for the ephemeral or the eternal. The believer’s ultimate destiny is to spend eternity in glory with Christ. No wonder the psalmist prayed, “You shall guide me by Your counsel; and afterward You will take me to glory” (Psalm 73:24).

There is an afterward: beyond time lies eternity. To not spend eternity with Christ is the ultimate disaster, the mother of all calamities that can befall a person. Better not to have been born than to live on earth and miss heaven. The subject of eternal punishment is not popular in a relativistic world bereft of absolute truth. But something serious made it necessary for Christ to die a shameful death on a cruel cross. Eternity was at stake. Our destiny hung in the balance, but the love of God devised Calvary to save humanity.

Dr. Ferdinand Nweke, a medical doctor in Nigeria, coordinates Eternity Ministries, which focuses on maximizing Calvary and living with eternity in view. He has authored several books and songs.