It’s funny how we can choose to distance ourselves from rampant evil in the world simply by treating statistics as numbers rather than people. For example, I can tell you that there are 4.5 million souls trapped in the sex industry, 13,000 children who will starve to death today, and 2.87 billion people around the globe have never once heard the Gospel. We can read these statistics and go one with our day as usual.
Then you meet one. The statistic becomes a face. A smile. A voice.
But people aren’t just faces. When you sit with a prostitute, play with an orphan, laugh with a woman from an unreached people group, a statistic is quickly transformed into a friend. A friend with hopes, dreams, a family, and a story.
4.5 million is a big number. But 4.5 million people is something far more heart-wrenching than a big number. 4.5 million souls caught in the sex industry is the height of barbarism in the midst of modern civilization.
4.5 million slaves became real to me as I walked through the Red Light District of Bangkok, Thailand this week.
I looked into their eyes. I experienced the world that they are trapped in. 4.5 million people became a weight so heavy it broke me. I walked past bar after bar knowing that I was only seeing a tiny fraction of the abomination that is the worldwide sex industry.
I realized I could do absolutely nothing to solve the problem. Nothing except plead with the Spirit of God to pour out His goodness, light, and love on souls stuck in this pit of hell. I prayed the Doxology as my soul was overwhelmed with my surroundings.
Praise God from whom all blessings flow;
Praise Him all creatures here below;
Praise Him above, ye heavenly hosts;
Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.
Amen.
Amen. Let is be so. Please Jesus let it be so here.
Psalm 97:6 says, “The heavens declare His righteousness, and all the peoples see His glory.” I looked up into the sky and knew that God was not absent from that dark place. The sky was declaring His righteousness. His glory was ever present over a city proud of its immorality. I prayed for God to open the eyes of everyone I passed to see His glory and His righteousness all around them.
I continued walking with tears running down my face. My heart couldn’t handle the pain that I was seeing. Why were tears found on my face, but smiles on the faces of all the girls? Shouldn’t it be the other way around? Why was I the one who was broken having tasted the goodness of the Gospel, while girls who live in death every day acted as if nothing was wrong?
I can truly say that I hate sin more because of what I experienced that night. Jesus Christ and His righteousness are certainly the only forms of good in the universe. But God isn’t losing in the Red Light District. My God is victorious. He always wins. Jesus is and always will be undefeated.
I was again reminded that there is no good that I can bring to the world apart from the power of the Spirit of the Living God working in me and through me. My life will never be the same after seeing the things that I have seen. Mankind is wholly lost without God Almighty. And we are wholly satisfied when clothed in His righteousness and power.
Let us war against the sex industry and human trafficking as if it we ourselves were trapped in such a system. We must pound on the gates of Heaven, pleading with God to give us the strength necessary to smash the gates of hell to dust.
4.5 million isn’t just a number to me anymore. Souls are at stake. The glory of Christ is our reward. For He is worthy to receive the reward of His suffering!
“You may choose to look the other way, but you can never say again that you did not know.” William Wilberforce
