Seeing it is a righteous thing with God to recompense tribulation to them that trouble you.
— 2 Thessalonians 1:6
We once had an employee whom we “thought” was the cream of the crop. He had come to one of my meetings to tell us that he believed God was calling him to be a leader in our ministry. Although I knew he had been in the ministry a long time, I didn’t know him very well personally, so I felt the need to dig deep to verify information about him. Everything I checked out confirmed this man would be a splendid addition to our team. At that time we needed a man with his skills, so we hired him to work in the office in a lower position to observe how he worked and performed with other people.
Over a period of several years, my top leadership team was very impressed with this man’s style of work and his commitment to get tasks done on time. He was professional and eager to learn, and he showed himself faithful in many respects. When the position of office manager opened up in that nation, we felt it right to move this man into that position. But once he had been entrusted with the oversight of money, serious problems started showing up. At first, the financial discrepancies were small, and we thought they were simply mistakes. But over time, it became apparent that there was a serious problem. This man was stealing money in very devious ways.
I loved this man, so when I finally discovered that he was secretly robbing us of money, I personally traveled hundreds of miles to give him an opportunity to be honest about what he had been doing. When I walked into our ministry office to meet with him, and he realized we knew about what he had been doing, he
erupted in anger!
I suddenly saw a man I had never seen or known before! He screamed, yelled, and commanded that we get out of
his office, which in fact was
our office! It was the official headquarters for our ministry in that particular nation. When I reminded him it was
our office and he had no right to tell us to leave, he shouted, “So you think this is your office? Who signed the contract?
I did! I signed it! It’s in my name — and legally that makes it
my office! So I am ordering you to move off the premises immediately, or I’ll call the police to have you arrested for trespassing.”
My team and I were shocked at his behavior. We had known him a long time, and I’d anticipated that he would admit what he had done and ask for forgiveness. My goal was not only to confront the problem, but also to see how I could help restore this man. But suddenly the mask he had donned for years fell off, and when it did, it revealed a face red with anger! His eyes looked like a demon peering at us, and he screamed with a complete lack of restraint. He was a man out of control and wholly given to anger. He got so close to my face as he screamed that at one point, I actually thought his nose would touch my face.
But no matter how loud the man turned up the volume, I remained calm and told him that I wasn’t leaving until he was honest with me about the discrepancies we had found. The next thing I knew, he was picking up the telephone to call the police to have us evicted from our own office. Rather than allow this to escalate into a worse situation, my team and I walked out the door and left.
That was the last time I ever saw that man.
Because we had operated our ministry in that location for years, I turned around to see it for the last time as we walked down the corridor. There on the door was the name of our ministry boldly printed for all those who visited. Behind those doors were nearly 100,000 letters addressed to Denise and me from our TV viewers. The shelves and the basement were filled with 250,000 copies of my books that we sent free of charge to people who wrote in response to our TV program. Eighty full-time employees paid by our ministry were working on desks, computers, typewriters, copy machines, fax machines, and tape duplicators that were purchased by our ministry.
The next day, we discovered that not only had this man robbed us of ministry funds, but secretly he had also legally registered everything in
his name. This meant we had no legal claim to anything in that office. He had even registered the ministry automobile in his name! It was the slickest, most polished case of professional thievery I had ever personally witnessed.
One of my leaders suggested I take the man to court to reclaim what belonged to us. But because we were so well known in that region of the world, I knew that such an action would end up on the front page of the newspapers, and it would be talked about from one end of that nation to the other end. In that former Communist nation where faith had historically been persecuted, I knew that a story like this hitting the newspapers would “load the gun” of every atheist and Communist who hated the Gospel. The newspapers would surely report this as the “war of the preachers,” and it would have profoundly negative consequences on the work of God in that country.
I knew that the reputation of the Gospel — and the impact it was having on countless precious souls — was worth far more than our loss. So instead of getting into a legal quandary that we couldn’t win, we made the choice to leave it all behind. We only asked that he give us the letters addressed to us, the 250,000 books that had our names on them, and the sign on the door. It was hard to refuse the letters, books, and sign, because our name was written on them and we could prove ownership of these things. But everything else was lost as we relocated to another city and reopened our office with directors who had been with Denise and me for more than a decade. After that experience, we fixed things
tight legally so this kind of situation could never occur again.
At the time these events transpired, staff members were amazed at how peaceful I was throughout the entire ordeal. They asked, “How can you just walk away so peacefully from this situation with no bitterness or contempt for this man?” But the truth was, I felt sorry for him, and I was more concerned about his soul than our loss. For him to do such a thing, I knew he had to be extremely deceived. I also knew that if he didn’t repent and make it right, God would hold him accountable and would avenge this situation. I really didn’t want him to reap something terrible, but there is a universal law involved here — the law of sowing and reaping — and a harvest
will come from seed sown, whether people have sown good or bad seed. This man had planted terrible seed in the ground, and if he didn’t repent for his actions, that seed would take root and grow in his life as deadly fruit.
-- PART 1 End --
