World Evangelism Podcast

Bill Wallace to China and the Call of Global Evangelism

• W. Austin Gardner • Season 1 • Episode 2

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Discover the timeless calling that began with a man named Abram and the profound impact it has had on my journey of faith and service. As we navigate the story of world evangelism, I'm thrilled to share how the Jewish nation's role in bringing forth the Scriptures, the church, and the Messiah laid the foundation for a global mission that transcends all boundaries. The compelling tale of Bill Wallace, a medical missionary whose dedication and sacrifice in China have left an eternal legacy, has been a personal beacon of inspiration for me. Through these narratives, I invite you to consider how we, too, are called to be a blessing to nations far and wide, sharing the transformative love of Jesus with every corner of the earth.

Our adventure doesn't stop at ancient paths; it leads us to the vibrant and spiritually thirsty land of India, where the challenges and opportunities for Christian missions abound. Here, I recount the vivid experiences and the heartfelt longing for the youth to rise with passion for missionary work. We also honor the unwavering spirit of Bridget Young, who despite personal trials, continues to serve with steadfast faith in Colombia. This episode is a call to action, an encouragement for the church to equip the next wave of missionaries, and a reminder of the imminent hope in Christ's return. Join us as we explore the urgency of the gospel's reach and the shared commitment to glorify God in the tapestry of world evangelism.

Thanks for listening. Find us on YouTube, Substack, Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram.

W. Austin Gardner:

Well, I am very excited to be back with you on the World Evangelism Podcast. This is actually episode number two. By this time you've gotten a placeholder in our first podcast, where we talked about India, and we also talked about George Lyle, a great man, an African-American slave, who went to Jamaica as a missionary. I also spoke with you about the book Free Indeed and challenged you to get a hold of that. We prayed for China, a country in great need of hearing the gospel, and I hope that you will not forget any of that. I hope you'll put that into practice in your life. And we talked about Genesis 1-1, where God has the right to send missionaries anywhere he wants to in the world, because the world belongs to Him. He created the world and today I would like to start with the next thing.

W. Austin Gardner:

I think that when people think in terms of world evangelism, you tend to run straight to Matthew 28, 19, and 20, which is wonderful. But world evangelism is almost on every page of the Word of God, and you know page of the Word of God, and you know it's on the pages of the Bible in so many ways that, unless you realize how much God loves everybody and he doesn't want anyone to live the life that sin would bring on them, as it would ruin them and destroy them and put them in a position where they hated God and they were separated from the understanding of the sweet love of God that he has for them. So we need to think about world evangelism. But in Genesis, chapter 12, god calls out a people to be His messengers. And they weren't picked. The Jewish nation wasn't picked because they were better than anyone, or or god loved them more than he loved anyone. The scriptures are clear about that. They were chosen to take the gospel message to the world and they were, and have been greatly used. And I love israel and always will.

W. Austin Gardner:

The Bible says in Genesis, chapter 12, now the Lord had said unto Abram get thee out of thy country, into thy kindred, from thy people, from thy father's house, the land I'll show you and I will make of thee a great nation and I will bless thee and I will make thy name great. And those are three wonderful promises that he had, that he's going to make him a nation, he's going to bless him and he's going to make his name great. But then it says here's the responsibility and here's the purpose in God's blessing and you shall be a blessing. You shall be a blessing. He said. I'll bless them that bless thee and I'll curse them. That curses you. And in thee shall all the families of the earth be blessed. God's going to help those that will help you, because God wants his name publicized. He wants the world to know that he loves us so much that God took on human flesh, was born into this world of sin and died on a cross and allowed sin to be placed on him so that we could all go to heaven when we die, that we could all enjoy the broken fellowship restored, we could be back to who we were.

W. Austin Gardner:

And so the Jews were blessed, to be a blessing to all the nations. They gave us the word of God because mostly God used Jewish people to write the Bible, almost all of it. God used the Jewish people to start the church, and you can't doubt that or question that. The early apostles and very few people were non-Gentiles until we get to Philip going out to speak to them. Jesus did speak to a few, and so they gave us the Messiah, gave us the Bible, gave us the church. I am forever grateful. They were to be a blessing and that's a lesson for me. God has blessed me richly, and he's blessed you richly. He's poured it out on us. He has given us so much. I've been through health crisis after health crisis, but he keeps me alive, and I don't know why he would keep me alive if it isn't to spread the name of Jesus and to get other people excited about spreading the name of Jesus, and so I want you to meditate on Genesis, chapter 12, this week and think about all of that that's going on around the world.

W. Austin Gardner:

Now I can't go much further without talking to you about a person and a book, and so the book this week is Bill Wallace of China. I want to speak to you about Bill Wallace of China. It's a book by Jesse C Fletcher and, to be honest with you now, we're talking about an older book. I got this one off of Amazon I'm going to give you a link to get to it and this book is actually copyrighted in 1963. The reason it's such an important book to me is because God used this man and this book to influence me as a boy. I got saved in 1962.

W. Austin Gardner:

And I wanted to serve God, and so I'm not sure how or why, but I heard about Bill Wallace. You see he was killed. The Chinese say he died. People, the Christians, the Chinese Christians believe he died as a martyr in 1951, in February 1850. In a communist prison cell. There's a movie about him. He's a Tennessean. I'm from Tennessee. Unless I'm badly mistaken, he was educated at Memphis State University. He was born in Knoxville, tennessee, and this book motivated me.

W. Austin Gardner:

Bill Wallace became a hero in his day. He served as a medical missionary in China during the 17 of the most turbulent years of the ancient kingdom's history. He became a legend among the people he served. At the peak of his ministry he was called upon to seal his Christian witness with his life. I remember reading in his book it's so funny, so sweet, so kind. He's riding down the river with the Chinese as they try to escape the communists that are coming and they're eating rice every day and there's not much food, not enough to go around, and they notice that Bill Wallace never eats in front of them and the Chinese people are eating by themselves and they realize one day he's not been eating themselves and they realized one day he's not been eating. He graduated from the University of Tennessee in 1935.

W. Austin Gardner:

He was born in 1908. My dad was born in 1929. My father-in-law was born in 1911. He felt like God called him and I believe can I say to all of you, parents and pastors, the stories of these great guys motivated me to want to do something for God and I just challenge you to get biographies and stories and tell them to the children and let them find out about how God used these people to do such great things. I mean, it's just fantastic and it motivated me.

W. Austin Gardner:

We had a group in our church called the Royal Ambassadors. I was a member of a Southern Baptist church and, boy, god used that church. Oh, I got saved in Wrigley Baptist Church and I felt the call when I was a member of Trace Creek Baptist Church, a little bit older, and everywhere I went they taught me about missions and when I went off to Royal Ambassador Camp I met a missionary to China named Jean Dock. She was an older lady, her name was Dr Jean but the Chinese had called her Jean Dock, and all of this just spurred my little 10, 11-year-old heart to want to do something for God. This just spurred my little 10, 11-year-old heart to want to do something for God. I pray you'll get your children involved in missions camps and reading mission biographies and finding out all about that. It really worked in my life. William Wallace, bill Wallace. He did thousands of surgeries under the most horrible conditions. He was captured in 1950. After the communist takeover he was captured by them and he died on February the 10th 1951.

W. Austin Gardner:

And I think it's just what a testimony. What a testimony. What a testimony to the people that gave me a group of young people to talk about missions, the royal ambassadors man. I wish our churches had all that. I wish that was still a big deal. What about all the people that put books in my hands as a little boy to read about missionary heroes and to hear about the chance to take the gospel message of Jesus Christ to the world? I'll never, ever quit being thankful for that.

W. Austin Gardner:

So I remember the pastor that I told I thought God had called me to be a missionary. He was so kind to me. He got me signed up to get material. He told people I was going to be a missionary. I was just a good night. I was 9, 10, 11 years old and he loved me and he believed in me. Pastors, that's what these young people need so desperately somebody to love them and believe in them, and it's just a wonderful opportunity that God gives us with these young people. I think about Bill Wallace and I think about his life and I think about how that motivated me and you know, I'm not the only one. It motivated hundreds, probably hundreds and maybe thousands more than me to go to the mission field to share the gospel of Jesus Christ, and I hate it that his life on earth was cut short, but God knew what he was doing. And there's other heroes. We'll talk about them in the coming days.

W. Austin Gardner:

I cannot imagine, I just can't imagine not having grown up with people motivating me for world evangelism. I can't imagine putting it on the back burner at your church. I can't imagine it. I just can't imagine it. I just can't imagine it. So I just want to say thank you to those Sunday school teachers and vacation Bible school workers and I want to say thank you to my parents and I want to say thank you to everyone that helped me so much to learn more about world evangelism. I want to challenge you to get a hold of the book Bill Wallace of China. I'll put it in the notes there, in the show notes, so you can find a copy of it.

W. Austin Gardner:

I want to challenge you to tell your children missionary stories. I want to challenge you to get involved in helping them carry the gospel message. My life has been so fulfilled because of that. I want to challenge you to get them in youth groups and other places where they can participate in world evangelism. So we have talked about a passage of scripture and we've talked about a person, and we've talked about a book, and the only thing that's left for me to talk with you about today except to make an announcement or two is I want to talk to you about a country of the day, and that country of the day is the second largest country in the world. Now I want to challenge you to go to operationworldorg. Now I want to challenge you to go to OperationWorldorg. Operationworldorg I'll put that in the notes.

W. Austin Gardner:

Also, the country of India is in Asia, as is China, and that's one of the biggest areas of the world that hasn't heard the gospel. Operationworld says that their population is 1 billion. 1 billion, that's a B 441,719. China and India are vying for first place. India will soon become the largest country in the world. I have only one friend that I can think of in India right now that's a missionary there and there's so much need. I know there's plenty of missionaries there and I know you've heard of national pastors, but you'd have to hear of tens of thousands for it to be enough with a country that large. And the reason I tell you that is that Operation World Statistics is that 5.8% of India is Christian. That's far worse off than China, and only 2.2% of them are evangelicals.

W. Austin Gardner:

It's a hard country to work in. I guess the times I've been there, you know it can be extremely hot. The people are sweet and wonderful people and visas may have been a problem, but it's a country where 74% of the people are involved in Hinduism. They have over 300 million gods. We've got to do something about getting the gospel to them and they're becoming a wealthy nation. And the fact is I read just this week that American businesses are preparing for Indian tourists that are going to come from India with so much money to spend in our country. Over 26% of their young people or their people are under the age of 15. So there's a group of people we could reach and train for the gospel message.

W. Austin Gardner:

Man, I wish I was young again. I wish I knew of a Bill Wallace of India. I wish you could be the Bill Wallace of India. Would you pray about that Now? I want to thank you so much for helping me. I want to bless you. I want to help you.

W. Austin Gardner:

This is really about me trying to serve you. I want to help you have a better missions program in your church. I want to help you. I want to help you know about missionary heroes and missionary resources. I want to introduce you to people.

W. Austin Gardner:

You're going to hear and you've already heard one podcast, if you're keeping up, of Bridget Young, and Bridget's written a book called Lost in the Gray, and in that book she talks about what it was like to lose their baby. She's lost two children to heaven. Her and her husband serve as administrators of the country of Columbia. I just want to challenge you to listen and share the podcast. It's brand new. You're in on the ground floor, so all I can say is thank you, thank you, thank you for helping me, and there's so much more to do and so much you can help me with, and I just ask you to let's make a difference. I hope Jesus comes soon, but if he doesn't, until he comes, let's tell him how much he loves people. Let's share the gospel. This is World Evangelism Podcast. My name is Austin Gardner, I'm your host and I'm excited to see what God's going to do with all of us for his glory, his honor. God bless you.