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By Bishop Tubman S. Sarpee, LIBERIA
I am from Liberia’s Krahn tribe, the tribe of the late President Samuel Doe. When Doe was overthrown, our people were under heavy attack. I stayed in my home county, Sinoe, during the war, but I had to run away into the forest a lot.
Before the war, Sinoe County was a place of peace and quiet for me and my nine brothers and sisters. We had a good childhood. Although our ancestral religion was traditional African, my father became a member of the Southern Baptist Church. He later became a deacon; Mother became a choir member. So I had the joy of being raised by parents who were born-again Christians. They were conscientious to provide us with a good education. For elementary school, I attended the African Fruit Company School System. (The company is now a rubber plantation and known as the Sinoe Rubber Company.) I took my junior high school at the Episcopal Parish High School and my high school at the Christian National Evangelistic Commission High School—a Pentecostal school.
Our parents took us to church every Sunday. They had a rule that if you didn’t go to church, you didn’t eat. Sometimes we went to church just to get a meal, not because we wanted to go. At home we had morning devotions. We recited Bible verses and were taught to respect older folks. When I grew up, going to church was a very difficult thing for me.
One day I was listening to the program UNSHACKLED, over radio station ELWA. It is a dramatization of a person’s lifestory. The life of the young man that was featured was very much like mine. As a child he went to church but ended up on drugs. He left home and just wasted his life. The people at the Lighthouse, a rescue mission, gave him much care and counsel before he could come to the Lord.
The announcer counseled the listeners that if we found ourselves in a similar situation, we should avoid it. He said if we wished to give our lives to the Lord, we should do so now. I bowed my head and prayed to receive Jesus Christ as my Savior. I followed the words the person in the program prayed and I meant it with all my heart. The Scripture verse that convicted me was, “ ‘Therefore come out from them and be separate,’ says the Lord. ‘Touch no unclean thing, and I will receive you. I will be a Father to you, and you will be my sons and daughters,’ says the Lord Almighty” (2 Cor. 6:17-18).
The program announcer advised us listeners who prayed for salvation to attend a Bible-believing church. I began attending the Wesleyan Church. I no longer went to church just to get a meal but to serve God. I was baptized in water and started to work as a youth leader.
The Wesleyan Church sponsored me to attend the Sierra Leone Bible College, an interdenominational school located in Freetown. I graduated from the College with a Bachelor of Theology degree. When I returned to Liberia, I worked for the Wesleyan Church, becoming a pastor and a district superintendent.
I married when I graduated from the Bible College in 1988. But in 1990 the civil war began, and it was necessary for us men to flee into the forest. My wife, Mercy, and my son, Allen, remained in the town because we had heard they were not killing women and children. I thought they would be safe there. While living in the bush, I served the displaced people because the Lord called us to be lights to the world and salt on the earth.
As the fighting continued, my wife and my son became victims and both died in the war. With the coming of the Nigerian peace force, ECOMOG, a cease fire was declared and those of us in the forest were able to return to the town.
When I returned to the town, the Lord gave me a new ministry. I established three churches, one in Gbarnga and two in Monrovia, our capital city. I am also the executive director of the Union of Liberian Christian Churches (ULCC) working with grassroots independent churches to promote and fulfill the Great Commission.
The Lord has blessed me with another wife and two sons as well as two adopted sons. My wife and I advocate adoption of orphans. In Liberia, we have many children below six years of age who presently need to be adopted.
From 1993-1994, the Lord enabled me to have training in social work. He opened the door for me to attend the Mother Pattern College of Health and Sciences in Monrovia for basic social work skills. I received further training at the AME Zion University College/UNICEF by enrolling in their trauma counselors training program. The course included counseling and social work skills addressing post war trauma and stress.
As ULCC churches, we are working together to plant churches in unreached areas. We also hold crusades around the country to promote spiritual growth, winning souls at all cost. We are also involved in leadership training to empower pastors to go out and have Christ-like leadership in their administration. We cater to over 525 orphans in seven different homes and empower war widows with a one-time grant to go into business. We also provide agricultural tools and seeds so they can support themselves and their children, to put a stop to illicit prostitution. We need people everywhere to pray that God will provide for the needs of these programs so we can help the traumatized innocent victims of the war.
A Word To The Young People:
Christ is the only cure for sin. People have said that if you change a person’s environment or give him a better education and take him from poverty to wealth, his life will be better. But it is the heart that devises evil, and only salvation reaches the heart. When the heart has been changed by Christ, then a person has a real focus and a quality life to live. So I advise you young people to give your lives to Jesus Christ.
We have had and still have religious leaders who claim to be the Savior of the world. But they are not. If they really came from God, God would testify of them. Jesus Christ said, “I am the Savior of the world.” There is a lot of difference between Christ’s life and the lives of the leaders of the world’s religions.
1) First of all, Christ was pre-announced. No other religious leader was pre-announced. The Old Testament records are there to prove it. You don’t find records predicting the coming of Buddha, Mohammed, Hare Krishna, Joseph Smith, Sun Yun Moon, etc. Christ had an impact on history. When He came, He split history in two—before Christ and after Christ. No other religions have done so.
2) Christ was not only pre-announced but He appeared. People were expecting Christ to appear. Nobody expected the others. They just came and said, “Here I am. I am you leader. Believe me; I can save you.” They were not pre-announced and God did not testify of them.They just came and introduced themselves. They were men among men. Christ was God among men because God named Him “Emmanuel,” meaning “God with men.”
3) Everybody that comes into the world comes to live. Life begins with birth and ends with death. All the religious leaders of the world came to live, but Christ came to die. He went through death and ended up with life. No other religious leader has done that. All of them are still in the grave. Christ came to die and after that He lived. He said, “Because I live, you shall live also.” He went through death on the cross, but He ended up with an empty tomb and a resurrected life.
4) Another difference between Christ and the religious leaders of the world was His message. Christ’s message was so profound (deeply felt) that his critics said He was a friend of sinners. He associated with sinners not to partake of what they were doing, but to save them. He called the publican Zaccheus out of the tree, told the woman at the well that she needed salvation, did not condemn the woman taken in adultery, but told her to go and sin no more. Jesus Christ saves people. The Apostle John wrote of Him saying, “For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him” (Jn. 3:17 NIV).
Other religious leaders separated themselves and lived in an isolated place. No one went to them and yet they claimed they were the Savior. Jesus identified with the sinners to save them. There is a very great difference between them and Christ.
I challenge you young people reading this paper to give your lives to Jesus Christ. All of us will one day stand at the Judgment Seat of Christ. The religious leaders, as well as you and I, will be there. We will each one answer for ourselves. So why put your trust in someone in the grave who will have to give an account of himself to God? Instead, put your faith and trust in someone who is alive now and who is coming back to judge the living and the dead. He says, “Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me” (Rev. 3:20 NIV). You have to open up your heart and invite Him in. The living God will come in.
Christianity is not a religion, it is a relationship.
The Apostle Paul gives further instruction on receiving Christ as Savior and Lord. “If you confess with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with the heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved” (Rom. 10:9-10 NIV).
Remember, when you accept Christ as Savior and preach the Bible, there will be a division. People will oppose true teaching. Other religions say you can do what you are doing; Christianity demands a change. Drugs will not benefit you; prostitution will not benefit you. No other life will benefit you. Christ will change your mind through His Word and heal your life. He will give you a purpose for living. Begin to read the Bible. Expect God to speak to you as you read because the Bible is the inspired Word of God. The writer of the epistle to the Hebrews wrote: “The word of God is living and active. It is sharper than any two-edged sword...it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart” (Heb. 4:12 NIV).
I pray God will bless you as you read His Word and reveal Himself to you through it.
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