Stanley Tam is a businessman in Lima, Ohio. He delivered this testimony at the annual Generous Giving Conference, Orlando, Fla., February 19-21, 2004. Currently giving upwards of $4 million a year, he has far exceeded his lifetime prayer goal of giving $100 million toward the kingdom.
I spoke in Detroit, Mich., once when a lady came to the altar. When I went down and asked her if I could pray for her, she looked up at me and asked, “Mr. Tam, why don’t I grow spiritually in my Christian life?” I asked her what kind of ministry she had in the church. “I don’t have one,” she said. Next I asked what kind of ministry she had outside the church “I don’t have one,” she replied. “Lady,” I said, “you will never grow spiritually until you have a ministry.” “I guess that is my problem. I don’t want to be obligated to God for a ministry,” she responded. If that was the case, I told her, than there was no use in us praying. One of the greatest truths of the Bible is that if you want to grow spiritually, you need a ministry.
During a vacation Bible school exercise at our church, I saw a visitor with two little girls and went up and introduced myself. I asked her if the girls were hers and she told me that one was her daughter and the other was a neighbor’s child who had never been to church before. Every time someone walked through the door, the little girl would ask if that person were Jesus, and each time the lady had to say no. The girl asked, “Where can I find Jesus in this church?” When they took the offering, she leaned over and said, “Is Jesus poor?” I want to remind you that it is not Jesus who is poor, but you and me. We all come into this world naked, with nothing in our hands. When we die, we take nothing out. Between life and death, we are merely trustees of the material things of life. As a plaque outside our factory in Lima, Ohio, states, “Property is a sacred trust from the Lord.”
Hearing God’s Promise
In 1952, my life was completely changed as I was invited to go around the world to speak as a Christian layman. When the song leader and I got to Tokyo, we had a desire to go to Korea. This was during the Korean War, and we thought we had a message for the church there. We went to the U.S. Army and asked if we could go to Korea. Seven days later we got the necessary papers and flew 800 miles to speak night after night in the churches there. The Korean churches were nothing like we have here in America. They didn’t have beautiful electric lights like we had. They had kerosene gas lights. They didn’t have chairs to sit in. They sat on the floor. They didn’t have heat in their churches. We spoke every night with our overcoats on. But they had something in their churches that we don’t have in the United States. They had an early morning prayer meeting, from 5 to 6 a.m., where the churches were packed out to the wall. This occurred in almost all the churches.
We had the privilege of going up to Seoul within 28 miles of the fighting line. One night I told the missionary that I couldn’t speak in these churches anymore. When he asked why, I said, “I discovered something. It isn’t me that has the message; it is these people. Out here in the daytime, I see these people living on the side of the mountain in cardboard boxes and canvas tents right in the dead of winter. You tell me every family has had a death—a mother, a father, a child who has been taken because of the adverse conditions under which they live. You tell me they have lost all their earthly possessions because they have been pushed back and forth so many times by these two armies. Here I come from rich America to tell these people how to live the Christian life, and out here I see them bringing their lost souls before the Lord, and every night the altar is filled with their diamonds. I come from rich America. I live in a comfortable home. I have never lost any of my loved ones. I have never lost any of my earthly possessions. How can I stand in these pulpits and tell the Korean Christians how to live the Christian life?”
The next morning I came to the breakfast table said to those men around me, “God has been speaking to me. I have got to meet God afresh and anew for my own personal Christian life. Would you excuse me today from going with you on your itinerary? I need to meet God in a new way.”
After they left, I went back my room and began to pray: “Lord, why is it that I had this heavy burden? Would you have me take a step of faith and double my missionary pledge?” Back in 1952, I was trusting God for $5,000 for a missionary pledge, and to double it would have been a great step of faith for me. But I offered it to God. I offered it a second time, a third time. Seemingly, though, God wasn’t interested. He began to change my prayer that morning, turning me to the book of Ruth. As I read how she went into the field of Boaz and asked if she could work in his harvest field, my prayer became a petition to God, asking if I could work in His harvest field in a new and effective way. As I was praying, God gave me an offer: “Stanley, if you will do something, I will do something. If you will reach out and ask Me for the heathen, I will give them to you and the uttermost parts of the world for thy possession.” I said, “Lord, that is for a missionary, or at least for a minister. I am just a lay person.” It is so easy to hide behind the excuse that I'm just a lay person.
I prayed on. When the Lord gave it to me a second and third time, I opened my Bible to Psalm 2:8, and I underscored it. I wrote in my Bible, “Promise given to me in Puso, Korea, November 25, 1952, based on the book of Ruth.” I also wrote on the other side that while it is incredible to be spoken to by the Holy Spirit, I don’t understand what it means.
Seeing God’s Promise
As I caught the plane back to Tokyo, I shuddered under that scripture. How could I believe God for the heathen of the world? I was just a small businessman back in Lima, Ohio, doing only $200,000 gross sales in business. You don’t make much money off $200,000 gross sales. Also, nobody knew about me. I had no resources. How could I believe God for the heathen of the world? But about halfway back to Tokyo, I left my seat, and when I came back, somebody had taken my seat. I told the person to stay there, and I found an empty seat next to a Korean who was seated next to a window. I looked at him and assumed he couldn’t speak English. I said “hello” anyway. He said “hello.” I said, “Do you speak English?” He replied, “Yes, my Father told me if I learned how to speak English, I would never have to worry about making money. I studied English in Shanghai for four years.”
I discovered he was a businessman. I said, “I have a partner in my business whom I would like to talk to you about.” I began to talk to him about Christianity, and he said, “I am already a Christian.” “That is wonderful,” I said, “Tell me how did you become a Christian?” So he told me this story:
“I have an uncle in South Korea who is a great Christian. I so admired his life that I decided I would become a Christian, but I kept putting it off and putting it off. One day, I decided that on that day I would become a Christian. When I asked my uncle how to, he said, ‘This is the way I have done it. I am a wealthy man. I have a large home. I have invited all my poor relatives to come and live with me, and I am supporting them and sending their children to school.’ This is the way, Mr. Tam, I have become a Christian.” I could have rebuked him and said, “That is no way to become a Christian,” but I wanted to win him for Christ, so I said, “Mr. Chong, it thrills me to meet a man like you whose heart pants after God. It is no accident that my seat was taken back there on the plane. God has so arranged it that I could come up and be seated with you, that I could share something with you. Would you be embarrassed if I got my Bible out of my briefcase?” He said he wouldn’t be embarrassed, so I took my Bible. That day we went through the plan of salvation and answered a lot of questions. When I said, “Would you like to do what it says here, to give your heart and your life to Jesus?” He said, “This is all missing in my life. Yes, I would like to do it.” That day he prayed and gave his heart to Christ. I said goodbye to him in Tokyo, thinking I would never see him again since Tokyo was the largest city in the world.
Three days later, I had run out of Japanese yen. A missionary kindly took me down to the heart of the city where there were five or six banks. We picked out a bank, went in, and stood in line behind about eight men. When the man at the window turned around, lo and behold, it was Charles Chong! He was as surprised to see me as I was to see him. We invited him to the missionary compound, and he came that night and gave his first public testimony. When I returned to America, he wrote me letters. “Mr. Tam, write me a letter so that I can intelligently talk to my wife so that she, too, can know Jesus as her personal Savior.” The next letter had money in it. “Would you buy all the Christian literature this money will buy? I want to know more about Jesus Christ.”
God had said to me, “Stanley, I told you if you would just reach out and ask me for the heathen, I would give them to you.” Here was my first. When we got to Hong Kong, we led another soul to Christ. When we got to India, we led another soul to Christ. Everywhere we went, we saw souls come to know Jesus, and the Lord would speak to my heart, “Stanley, I told you if you would just ask me, I would give them to you in the uttermost parts of the world for thy possession.”
Responding to God’s Promise
But God wasn’t through with me yet. After that trip around the world, the president of a missionary society approached me one day and said, “Mr. Tam, one of the problems we have with our churches in South America is that they think America has so much money that can be sent that they don’t understand why they themselves should tithe. Would you take your wife to South America and speak in our churches there on stewardship? They will know that you are a lay person like they are, that you paid your own way. You will be able to relate to them and talk to them about tithing.
So my wife and I took five weeks in South America to speak in Columbia, Ecuador, Peru and Brazil. While we were in Medellin, Colombia, a city of over 2 million people known as the drug capital of the world, we presented a testimonial message at our Saturday night meeting, and the Spirit of God came upon that service. You could have heard a pin drop at any time. There was something different about this meeting. When I came to the end of the sermon, I told them we were not going to stand or sing; we were just going to bow our heads in prayer, and that if God had spoken to their hearts, to come to the old-fashioned altar across the front of the church. Almost instantaneously, the altar was filled across the front of the church, and then it stopped. That night, as I stood behind the pulpit, God began to talk to me, “Stanley, what is the greatest value in the entire world?” As I looked at those souls kneeling there, I knew the answer. The Bible says one soul is the greatest value in all the world.
Christian, do you believe that? Do you believe that one soul is the greatest value in the entire world? If you did, your life would be different than it is today. Your lifestyle, your goals in life, would be such that you would have a burden in your heart for souls. I wish I had it.
When God said to me, “Stanley, what is the greatest value in all the world?” I knew the only things of value were the souls of men. Christ died on the cross for souls, for sinners. Then the Lord spoke to me the second time, “Stanley, if a soul is the greatest value in all the world, then what investment can you make in this life that will pay the greatest dividends 100 years from now?” As I tried to look at my life 100 years from now, I saw the home I owned, the money I had in the bank, my investment in two companies and my business. Then I asked myself, “Where will all these material things be 100 years from now?” I realized that the material things that you and I fight so hard for in this life go back to rust, to dust. There was only one investment I could make in this life that would pay dividends 100 years from now—spiritual investments.
Then God spoke to me the third time. “Stanley, if a soul is the greatest value in all the world, and the only investment you can make in this life that will pay dividends 100 years from now are spiritual investments, will you go back to the United States and turn your entire business over to Me and use the profits to spread the gospel around the world?” I argued with the Lord: “Already 51 percent belongs to You! Isn’t that enough?” Then God spoke to my heart: “Stanley, on the cross, I paid it all for you that you might have the gift of eternal life. Now I live within you. You are my disciple. You are bought with a price. You are to glorify me in your body and in your spirit, which belong to Me.” You will never know the struggle that went on inside me that night.
Yet as I was struggling, I realized that it was wise to give God something that I couldn’t keep anyway. One day death would come. I would have to go, and I would have to leave everything behind. If I gave it to God, I could transmute it. I could send all I had.Henry Ford was a wealthy man, but how much money did he leave when he died? He left it all, didn’t he? You are going to leave it all, too, except that which you give to God. The only money you will ever keep is what you give to God.
When we look at it through the eyes of God, though, we don’t give God anything. Let me illustrate. Suppose you had $1,000, and you took it to the bank and put it on deposit in your name. Then you heard the bank loaned it to somebody to help buy an automobile. Would you assume that you didn’t have money in the bank anymore since it was spent on the automobile? We all know banking laws better than that. If it is on deposit in your name, it still belongs to you, and you can go down any time to withdraw it.
The verse we began with said, “Lay up for yourselves ...” Have you ever stopped to think about the word “yourselves” in this verse? We take the money out of the bank on earth and put it in the bank of heaven. We exchange banks. When we give God $1,000, He takes that $1,000 and wins a soul. Then He puts that soul on deposit in our name. This is how we become rich toward God since a soul is the greatest value in the entire world. It is worth more than all the buildings and real estate in the United States or even the world. One soul is the greatest value to God.
Fulfilling God’s Promise
The Lord worked on my heart, and I finally gave in and committed it all to Him. The next morning, I woke up at that mission station in South America, and I said, “Lord, I am confused this morning. The decision I made last night must have just been a moment of emotion. I don’t think I can go through with it.” I took my Bible and sat behind some trees. I said, “God, you will have to give me something from the Bible to stand on,” and I let my Bible fall open. Now, I don’t think it is a good idea to do that, but I did it. I didn’t want to pick out the promise; I wanted God to pick out the promise. I opened my Bible, I looked at a couple of verses and read, “Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant looking for fine pearls. When he found one of great value, he went away and sold everything he had and bought it” (Matthew 13:45-46). The verse seemed to fit. It speaks of Jesus Christ, who died on the cross for each one of us; we are the pearl.
The Lord said, “Stanley, you are my disciple. I want you to do the same thing.” I couldn’t respond but “yes.” It took me three weeks to get enough courage to tell my wife that I had given away her half of the business, but she took it so well that on the way back from South America, I said, “Honey, since God owns the business now, we ought to build a new factory.” So in 1952 we build a factory four times larger than the old one. I thought that would take care of me for the rest of my life, and to glorify God, we put “Christ Is The Answer” on the end of the factory and in the seven groups of glass windows that stood for the perfect number in the word of God. The three posts of the canopy at the entrance stood for the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The cornerstone of the building is taken from 1 Corinthians 3:11: “For no other foundation is laid but that which is laid, Christ Jesus.” Inside is an 8-by-20-foot map of the world because our heart was broken on the mission field, and that is we want to put our money.I want to be careful not to rob the glory from the Lord, for He says “I will share my glory with no man” (Isaiah 42:8). But I want to take you back to South Korea, back to 1952, when I said, “God, do You want me to double my missionary pledge from $5,000 to $10,000?” and He told me that He would rather do something for me. That was a long time ago, but the day came when we made a missionary pledge for $500,000. The next year, it was $600,000, and the next year, $700,000. Then it reached $1 million, then it reached $2 million, then it reached $3 million, and now our goal is $4 million a year for foreign missions. We have such a great God. The eyes of the Lord are upon us, looking into each one of our hearts, as He seeks to make Himself strong in those whose hearts are perfect toward Him.
You say, “Mr. Tam, I don’t have a perfect heart.” But maybe you have. The story is told of a brick layer who took his little boy to work with him one day. He was called to the telephone for over a half hour, and when he came back, his little boy had laid a row of bricks, just as crooked as they could be. He said, “Daddy, I wanted to help you in your work.” Daddy looked at his son and said, “Son, you have a perfect heart toward me.” Aren’t you glad that God looks upon your heart and you can have a perfect heart toward Him, despite its messiness?
George Mueller, a great man of faith who lived in England 200 years ago said, “We can soar with God in the graces of God and expect miracles in our life.” I went to a missionary society one day and said, “If I could trust God for $50,000 a year, would you start the Every Creature Crusades?” The Every Creature Crusades go into a country and to form a team of six nationals who will cover every home of a country in personal work, door to door. The society told me yes, and today we are in 34 different countries with a budget of $4 million. Last year they recorded 80,000 decisions and over 200 new churches. This is the fulfillment of the verse God gave to me: “Ask of me, and I will make the nations your inheritance, the ends of the earth your possession” (Psalm 2:8).b
Today, Stanley Tam is 95 years old and still loves to share the Gospel, his life story and how he has given away over $100 million in his lifetime!
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