God’s Call | Dr. Conrad Vine

song. Yes, I was listening in the back and I thought this was like a Disney movie I was listening to. The voices were so beautiful and so thank you so much. Word not for grace. So, uh, tonight is, uh, our last night here at this mission convention.

It's been a wonderful event. Yes. I was just chatting with some people over the lunch table there and, uh, learning about how everybody's setting up a lifestyle health um, center. Had a wonderful meeting this afternoon and sharing ideas and learning from each other. And that's one of the reasons we come to these conventions to be encouraged to learn so we don't have to reinvent the wheel all the time and so we can go away encouraged and say well God did it through them so God can do it through I'm going to talk about when God calls man woman is entitled God's call start out um we'll start out with a prayer and I want to tell you the story of a lady called Aida so let invite you to bow your heads with me and we'll ask the prayer presence of our heavenly father.

Heavenly father, we thank you for this uh mission convention. We thank you for the friendships made, the connections established, the lessons learned, the faith renewed. Father, we thank you for those who've come from far and wide. I thank you that though we come from far and wide, we're all heading in one direction to those streets of gold. And I pray Lord that as we share these moments together, I humbly ask that you speak through me and for me that God's call in our lives will become clearer.

That our sense of God's majesty, his power, and his glory will drive our mission from this day forward. So father, we give these moments into your hands. Speak through me and for me is my prayer. In the name of Jesus, I pray. Amen.

So I want to talk to you first, tell you the story about this lady here. Her name is Ida. She does exist and she is born in the Philippines and she is from the lowland uh Talbage people and on the island of Muro. She's one of the indigenous tribes from that island and she became an Adventist about 15 years ago when she married her husband who was one of the first Talbid people ever to accept the everlasting gospel and she moved to his home in the mountain community where he lived. Ida found that marriage was not as easy as she thought it was going to be.

Although her husband was publicly respected and a leader in his local congregation, in reality, he was a serial adulterer, a swindler, and a thief. Matters came to a head when he was arrested for allegedly messing with their 13-year-old daughter. Ida was distraught, but her husband was arrested and placed in prison to await trial. The local Talbet tribe insisted that Ida forgive her husband unconditionally. The local Adventist congregation insisted that she forgive her husband unconditionally.

And under the combined pressure of society and church, Ida decided to forgive her husband and to drop the charges. The congregation insisted that Ida followed the teachings of Jesus and forgive unconditionally in a way that her husband be allowed back into the family home. She tried to uh uh pre uh push back on this pressure but eventually the pre the pressure prevailed knowing that her husband was really unrepentant despite his pleas for forgiveness. Ultimately uh her husband tried it again with another one of her two daughters. He was put back in prison.

The police were called. Charges were pressed and once again the congregation and the tribe pressed Ida to forgive her husband. She was also blamed by the congregation and the tribe for the assault of her husband on the daughter because she had refused to let her husband back into the family home after his first time in the prison cell. Ida lives in the most basic of living conditions. There's the picture there.

She lives in a bamboo hut in the hills among a different community, her home community and a home church. Want nothing further to do with the she farms by herself on the steeps countryside. country hills. She uses slash and burn techniques with a machete and fire and she provides mountain rice for her children via subsistence farming. She's now about 55 years of age.

Her wiry frame is bent over almost double from years of hard work in the mountains and a severe spinal injury from a childhood fall. She faces huge pressure from the tribe and her local congregation to accept her husband back into her home. But she steadfastly refuses, insisting that though she has forgiven him, we must protect her daughters. She's been disinherited by the tribe from the ancestral domain lands that they hold out there. So she's now a lady without a people.

She's a lady without a congregation. They condemn her. They say she's living in sin because she refuses to show forgiveness to her husband by wel welcoming him back into the family home. This is Aida's story. This is Ida's wilderness experience.

This is Ida on the screen. Yes, she does exist. And it was my privilege to meet her some years ago by spending time on that project in the Philippines. This is her journey through the wilderness. Many people walk through the wilderness before they get a call from God.

Sometimes God allows you to go through the wilderness because there's something he needs to burn out of your character. Sometimes God allows you to go through the wilderness because he knows you're not ready for the call that he has for you. Sometimes we think we're ready, but God knows we're not ready. And so he lets us go through those wilderness experience. Jesus in the wilderness, Elijah in the wilderness, David on the run for 17 years, Moses for 40 years in the wilderness.

God allows us to go through wilderness experiences in anticipation of the call that he has in mind for each one of us. And you may be going through a wilderness experience today. And you may be wondering, what is the next stage of chapter of my life, my ministry? I've been to this mission convention. I'm saying, Lord, please write that next chapter of my life.

Please write that next chapter on my heart. Show me the way that I must go in the new chapter of ministry. I want to reflect for a few moments with you tonight on the call of Moses. Moses is one of my favorite characters in the Bible. Um, he's an incredible man.

He's one of the towering figures of human history. And uh Moses, we're going to start out in Exodus chapter 3 and verse one. And this is what the word of God says. It says, "Moses was keeping the flock of his father-in-law, Jethro, the priest of Midian. He led his flock beyond the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God.

Now, no, Moses had been raised as a prince of Egypt with the best education and training and all the possibilities that a young man could ever imagine. He was the crown prince of the world superpower of its time. He understood how to inspire men, how to organize armies, how to wage campaigns and win wars. He was being groomed to be the prime minister or the king of the most powerful nation then on earth, the Egyptian Empire. In Exodus chapter 2, just before the call of God in Exodus 3, Moses at the age of four believed that he had the abilities necessary to lead God's people.

And so he goes out to see the sla enslaved Israelites. And as he's going in his chariot, he sees an Egyptian overseer beating an Israelite slave. And he's outraged by this. And he jumps out of his chariot. And he runs over to the to the Egyptian overseer.

And he strikes him a blow. And he strikes him dead. Then he looks around. Did anybody see? No.

Nobody sees me. And so be no, Moses buries that body in the shifting sands of the Egyptian desert. That's not a great place to bury a body, by the way, in the shifting sands of the Egyptian desert. The next day, with a sense that I can deliver God's people. Maybe God has called me to this.

Now is the time to deliver the Israelite slaves. He goes out to view his people again. Text calls them his people, not God's people. He goes out to see his people again and he sees two Israelites fighting and he steps in to intervene and he says to the one who's beating the other, "Who gives you the right to beat your your neighbor?" And the one who's beating the the other Israelite looks to Moses and said, "Who made you a ruler and a judge over us?" And the answer is nobody. God has not yet called Moses to deliver his people.

The Pharaoh has not given Moses the right to intervene in this way. Moses is acting on his own initiative in his own time because he thinks that he is ready for the next chapter of life and ministry. And he's not. And the result of Moses stepping ahead of God's plan in his life, pressing fast forward on God's plan for his ministry was he had to flee to the wilderness of Midian. The wilderness of Midian we used to think was in the Sinai Peninsula.

Now most scholars believe it's in the western uh Saudi Arabia desert. There's very good evidence for that. We won't go into the details of why tonight, but Moses fled to the deserts of Saudi Arabia to flee the fury of Pharaoh. There he met seven daughters of a man called Rule or Jethro, the priest of Midian. They were shepherds.

He defended those seven shepherd women against some aggressive shepherds. And in all true romances, he fell in love with one of them and married her. He soon had a son called Gershon because he was an alien in a foreign land. He was now a shepherd in the Arabian wilderness, far away from the power, the might, the military, and the false gods of Egypt. And the story begins here in Exodus chapter 3 in verse one.

It says, "Moses was keeping the flock of his father-in-law, Jethro, the priest of me at Midian." It's interesting to me that Moses is almost 80 years old at this point, and he still has no flocks of his own. He's well into his adult life. He has a son who's almost 40 years of age, but he's tending his father-in-law's flocks. There is no hint in the story here that Moses has built up his own capital in life. He's looking after his father-in-law's flocks.

He's doing a despised job. He's the shepherd. Instead of coming home every night, doing a 9-5 job, and coming home and seeing his family, a shepherd in those days would spend night and day with the flocks out in the wilderness. watching over them day and night, sleepless nights and fending off the predators out there in the wilderness. And the story, the story says he led his flock beyond the wilderness and he came to Horeb, the mountain of God.

Now, it's interesting at this stage of the story, Moses doesn't know that this is the mountain of God. But Moses is writing this story with hindsight because he knows at the mountain of God, amazing things happen. in the mountain of God in Exodus 19, God will deliver the Ten Commandments to his people. He knows that at the mountain of God in Numbers 1, Israel will be numbered. He knows that in Deuteronomy chapter 5 later on um God will make a covenant with his people.

He knows that it is from this mountain, the mount of God, that God's people will set out on their journey to the promised land. He knows all of those things with hindsight, but at the time he doesn't know it. God is active in this story, in Moses' life. The text says he comes to the mountain of God. Moses doesn't yet know it's the mountain of God, but there's going to come a time in his life and his ministry when he can look back and say, "Yes, God led me to the mountain of God." We tend to live our lives looking forwards, but we make sense of our lives looking backwards.

And Moses writing this story of Exodus many years later can say, "I may not have known that was the mount of God. I may not have known that God was preparing me for a certain call. I may not have known how special that mountain would be in salvation history, but now with the benefit of hindsight, I can look back and say God was leading me in that moment though at the time was just a life in the wilderness experiences life where God speak because all the other voices world and God can attract our attention. When Moses thought he was ready to meet when sorry when Moses thought he was ready to lead Israel to freedom the end of chapter two he wasn't ready. When Moses thought he wasn't ready to meet God after 40 years as a shepherd in the wilderness God saw that he was ready.

It's a funny thing about when God calls us. You may think you're ready but God says wait not quite there yet. You may say God I'm not ready yet. God says oh yes you are. What matters is not what you think about yourself, but whether God is calling you in this moment or not.

And if he is calling, we step forward in faith. And if he's not calling, sometimes he just says, "Wait, and we wait for the time when God believes that we are ready." If you go through the call of Moses, we won't go through them tonight. Six times Moses objects to his call. Like if there's if there was ever a guy that didn't want a job, it was Moses. Six times he says but Moses said but Moses said but Moses said.

Six times it comes out in Exodus 3 and four and 5. And finally God says to Moses says but God said to Moses. So God to all Moses's complaint said Lord I am not ready. I'm not to do this. Somebody else ahead of me.

I don't know what to say. I'm not a good public speaker etc etc etc. And God has an answer for all of his objections. says, "But Moses says, "I'm still calling you to ministry." Call of Moses is very similar to the calls of many prophets. Given sort of three examples there, there's often a revelation from God was in Exodus 3, the burning bush in Gideon, the story of Gideon, Judges 6, and the call of Jeremiah in Jeremiah 1.

God calls a prophet in the scriptures as often in an introductory statement from God. God then missions the messenger. The messenger often questions God. Lord, I'm not ready for this call. They're not going to listen to me.

Please send somebody else. I don't feel up to this task right now. God then reassures the messenger. Those are the texts on the screen. And God often gives a sign or signs to assure his frail um sometimes fearful messengers that he's actually going to be with them and the task he's calling them to do.

The call of Moses teaches us that God calls frail, faulty, and fearful individuals not because of who they are today, because God sees what they can be tomorrow by his grace. And if you're filled with you think tonight you are frail and faulty and fearful, maybe that is the case. But in God's eyes, you're his messengers to the people of South Africa or some other country in this region. You are here at this mission convention because the Holy Spirit has led you here. And God is going to send you from this mission mission convention with a sense of renewed calling that that you are going to be a prophet to the nations.

You're going to be a messenger to the lost. You're going to be God's ambassador among the unreached. We may not feel like we're ready as does Moses in this story. When God calls you, he also equips you for the task ahead of you. And when Moses comes to this valley beside the mountain, the text says there the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire out of a bush.

He looked and the bush was blazing yet it was not consumed. Then Moses said,"I must turn aside and look at this great sight and see why the bush is not burning up." So the first question we ask is who is the angel of the Lord in this passage? Who the angel of the Lord? Now later we have the divine name Yahweh Jehovah. You also find the angel of the Lord in Genesis 22 when Abraham was going to sacrifice Isaac.

It was the angel of the Lord cried out from heaven and said,"Abraham, Abraham." And Abraham said, "Here I am." And it was the angel of the Lord who pointed Abraham to the ram caught in the thick. And the angel of the Lord said, "Jehovah, gyro, Yahweh, God will provide a sacrifice." There's a angel of the Lord. When you compare it with Genesis, we compare it with Exodus 34 and particularly when you compare it with John's gospel, we conclude that the angel of the Lord is the pre-incarnate son of God, Jesus Christ. And so when Moses meets God in the burning bush, he meets Jesus Christ. And we won't go into all the evidence tonight for the angel of the Lord being Jesus Christ, but I believe he is.

When God speaks to Moses here, there is fire. Like at Pentecost, there was fire. The giving of the ten commandments, there was fire. When God revealed himself to these writes on Mount Si in Exodus 24, there was fire. Deuteronomy 4, when God revealed himself these rights the second time, there was the mountain of God was ablaze with fire on the top and fire descended at Pentecost.

Sometimes God speaks through a fire. But in this case does not God does not speak through um a blazing fire. He speaks through a bush. Not an earthquake, not a rockbreaking storm, but a bush. A humble bush.

Now yesterday some kids came up to me or this morning. They were lovely little kids. They gave me a beautiful little little um I don't know what do you call it? You hold bushes in it. Yeah.

I I I spend so little time in the garden. It's like a little plastic thing and it's got a little bush in it. I said thank you to the children. It was a really beautiful gift from them and I and then I thought to myself, but I can't carry it home. What am I going to do with this bush?

And to my ability with with gardening is so bad that if I plant in the ground, it just dies. My mother has a green thumb. If she plants it, it lives. If I plant it, it dies. It's the curse of death.

So, it's not a good idea to give me a plant as a present. But here there is a bush. God doesn't speak to Moses in an earthquake. doesn't speak in a rockbreaking storm, but a bush, a humble bush. And the strange thing about the bush is the bush was burning, but the bush was not consumed by the fire.

But the bush was not consumed by the fire. Moses turned aside to inspect the burning bush. This was his first test from God. Would Moses, the former crown prince of Egypt, who had commanded entire armies, now notice something as seemingly insignificant as a burning bush? God is testing Moses to see if 40 years in the wilderness prepared him.

Is he now sensitive to the seemingly insignificant, to the small things of life? If Moses is going to lead that flock from Egypt to Canaan, he can only go at the pace of the slowest lamb. And in a flock of over half a million at the Exodus, Mo God needs to know that Moses has an eye for detail. Moses has an eye for the insignificant. Moses has an eye for those who appear to be weak.

And he's not going to go so fast that the flock gets strung out and get picked off by the Amalachites and other groups. Faithfulness in small things today prepares us for a greater call tomorrow. When we take care of the small details, we bring honor and glory to God. When we're asked to do a job, it's not for the benefit of our employer, though they do benefit from it. When we're asked to do a job, we do it well because we are ambassadors of Jesus Christ.

And there is no detail small, so insignificant that it does not demand our attention. When God calls Moses with this seemingly insignificant bush, a burning bush, who cares about a burning bush in the middle of the wilderness? God is testing to see, will Moses pay attention to something as insignificant as this? Moses responds positively. He saw the bush.

He stopped at the bush and he turned the side of the bush. And there he meets God. It said, "God said to Moses." When the Lord saw that he turned his side to see, God called him out of the bush, "Moses, Moses." And he said, "Here I am." Then he said, "Come no closer. Remove the sandals from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground." He said further, "I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob." And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God. The first thing this text tells us about God, not about Moses, but about God, is that God is a personal God.

He may be the creator of the universe. And Orthodox theology um focuses on the transcendence of God and Protestant theology focuses on the imminence of God. So we sing songs like what a friend we have in Jesus and um songs like that. And we focus on how Jesus so close and so present in our lives. And but in this passage here, we see a transcendent God who is also a personal God.

And he calls Moses by name. He knows Moses by name. He's not just a social security number. He's not just a passport code. He's not just binary on a hard drive to God.

God knows Moses by name in the middle of the wilderness. He refers to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. God is a personal God who knows his children by name. And when he calls you into ministry, it's because he knows you by name. He knows you personally.

Your name carries significance. Your name has meaning. Your name has a reputation. When God calls Moses by name, he's saying, "Moses, your name is is a name that has a certain reputation that tells me you are now ready for God's call in your life." Is your name such that God can say, "I know that you are ready for God's call in your life." Does your name say to the to the watching universe that this person through 40 years of faithfulness in the wilderness, through 40 years of faithfulness in the seemingly small tasks of life, is now ready for God's call to a larger platform on which to act. Isaiah 43:1-4 is a passage we often read in hospitals beside people who are dying.

But now, thus sayith the Lord, he who created you, oh Jacob, he who formed you, oh Israel, do not fear, for I have redeemed you. I have called you by name, and you are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you. When you when through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you. When you walk through the fire, you shall not be burnt and the flames shall not consume you.

For I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior. I give Egypt as your ransom, Ethiopia and Sa in exchange for you because you are precious in my sight and honored and I love you. God knows us by name. We're not just a number to God. To the South African government on its databases, you're just a number.

To the US government and social security, I'm just a social security number. I'm just binary codes on a hard drive somewhere. That's all I am to the government. But God is a personal God. He says, I know your father.

I was a god of your father. I was a god of your ancestors. You are not here by accident. These 40 years are not because I wasn't paying attention to your family. I've been intimately involved in the life of your family up until this moment in time.

And now I know you Moses. I'm calling you Moses for the first time in your life. This is the first time it appears that Moses had a direct connection and encounter with God. And he's 80 years of age. Only now is he ready for God's call.

Moses has been patient. He's served God his whole life. He's unlearned the lessons of Egypt. He's learned the lessons of being a shepherd. He's lived with his father, the priest of Midian, from whom he has learned about Jehovah God.

But now for the first time he encounters God as a personal God who calls him by name. Another favorite passage we read in hospital is Isaiah 49. And a woman forgets her nursing child will show no compassion for the child of her womb. Even these may forget yet I will not forget you. See I have inscribed you on the palms of my hands.

We serve a personal God. He knows us by name. When he calls you, he doesn't call out the number. He calls you by name. And he calls you by name because he sees the journey you've been on in life.

And he knows that you are now ready for the call. Out of all humans on planet Earth, your name is unique to you because it represents your spiritual experience. When God calls you, he calls you by name for a particular task. Praise the Lord. He knows us by name.

And God says to Moses, "Come no closer. Remove the sandals from your feet for the place on which you're standing is holy ground. And why is this holy ground? This is actually the first time in all of the Bible that we have the word holy. In in Genesis chapter 2, he sanctified the Sabbath.

That's the verbal form of that particular word in Hebrew. But this is the first time that we have the noun in Hebrew. God is a holy God. And this ground is therefore holy ground. Moses needs to learn at the start of his call the difference between the profane and the holy.

And when we are called into ministry, we need to know the difference that which is profane and that which is holy. Because we need to teach people the difference between the profane and the holy because we worship a holy God. And a holy God demands sacrifice that is come from a holy heart. Most learn that God is separate and distinct from mortal human beings. The ground previously held sheep and goats and probably covered with sheep droppings.

But now God is present. And wherever God is present, there is holiness. If God is present in your life tonight, is there holiness in your life as well? Is your body truly a living temple where the Holy Spirit delights to dwell? Is your home a set of four walls where angels delight to dwell?

Are your lips filled with such language that people delight to be in your presence? Do your co-workers understand that when you walk into the room, there's a sense of the holiness and the purity of the living God? Where God is present, there is holiness. Moses responds with worship. He bows with his feet to the ground.

Sister White puts it this way in patriarchs and prophets. She says, "Humility and reverence should characterize the department of all who come into the presence of God. In the name of Jesus, we may come before him with confidence, but we must not approach him with boldness of presumption, great and all powerful and holy God who dwelleth in light and approachable as they would address an equal or even an inferior. Those they are those there are before whom angels veil their faces. God is greatly to be.

All who truly realize his presence will bow in humility before him. And like beholding the vision of God, they will cry out, "How dreadful is this place with another none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven." When God calls us into ministry, we have a sense before we enter into ministry that we are serving a holy and an awesome God. We need to know the one who has called us and who is sending us out. If we have no sense of the holiness and the majesty and the otherness of God and the fact that he's hauling people out of a profane world to be a holy nation for his for his glory. If we have no sense of his holiness and we do not respond in worship ourselves, we're not overwhelmed with awe and wonder and his majesty and his glory and in this case his holiness and our call to ministry is handicapped.

It's harder to call people to worship the living God when we have no need of our own. We have no sense for our own need to worship him ourselves. If I don't engage in the worship of God myself, not to bow down before him and express my awe, my wonder, my reverence and my love. When God calls us, when God reveals to us, when God meets us, it calls for a response of reverence and worship. Exodus chapter 4:31, the They bowed.

They worked. And so when God's people realized that God was now present and active in their lives, their first respons response was not to hold a party or a celebration. It was to bow down and worship. Do we bow down and worship? We have Sabbath worship on Sabbath morning.

But what about your daily devotions? When we presume to enter into the courts of our heavenly father, we come with a sense of reverence and awe. We come with a sense of how majest majestic and mighty he really is. We come with the understanding that he speaks the stars into existence. These things that are far more powerful than anything we can imagine.

We understand that he casts the galaxies out with his hands and he speaks them into existence and he holds the universe together um by his might and by his power, by his will. We are coming into the presence of an awesome God. And when we come into his presence, we bow in wonder and awe. Say, "Father, be merciful to me for I'm a sinner." The publican says later in the gospels, "Yes, we serve an awesome God. We serve an awesome God, but he is also a holy God.

And he is a consuming fire. Those caught in the slavery of sin need to see his glory and power. They may respond in worship and trust. When we have a sense of how majestic God is, powerful he is. When we have a sense of how holy he is.

When we have a sense of how uncontaminated he is by the filth and moral degradation of our world. When we have a sense of how glorious the one who is who's calling us to ministry, then the mountains before us fade away in into insignificance. When we have a vision of God, his beauty and his power and his glory, the problems before us turn into mount into more hills. It's easy when you're called into ministry to focus on what about this, what about the other, what about those things over there? No.

start with reverence for God and appreciate how majestic and powerful he is. And if he could speak this universe into existence, then that budget problem is not going to be so much of a problem for him. And if we start our call to ministry by focusing on the problems, I need to do this, this, this, this, and the other. But without a sense that God is in control and God is majestic and God is powerful and God is holy and he's calling me to be his ambassador and to reflect his might and his power and his glory and his holiness in this fallen world, to the unreached people where I'm serving. If I don't have that start to my call to ministry, my call to ministry is going to be a lot of huffing and puffing and hard work without much rewards.

We start see he's reached down to planet earth and he's chosen you. He's chosen you. He's saying I'm calling you to do something. See me? As Moses says, me?

Aren't there other better people better than me? What are you calling me to do? Don't you want somebody else to start a health ministry? Don't you want someone else to work for pure light to breathe free? Surely you don't want me, father.

But no, I know you and I'm calling you by your name. I was the god of your father and the god of your grandfather and your great-grandfather and your great great-grandfather. I've been active in your family's life for so many generations, you cannot imagine. Now I'm going to walk with you in this generation. Glorify my name.

Exodus 3 7-9. The Lord said, "I have observed the misery of my people who are in Egypt. I've heard their cry in account of their taskmasters. Indeed, I know their sufferings and I have come down to deliver them from the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land to a good and broad land through a land flowing with milk and honey to the country the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. The cry of the Israelites has now come to me.

I've also seen how the Egyptians oppressed them. So in this passage here, God's actions are described in very physical and human terms. There is seeing, there is hearing, there is knowing, and there is coming down. But these verbs do not imply that God is limited by time or spatial limitations. Rather, God is a living being who can and who does follow the stream of human history and human events.

And he does and he and he will when necessary come down and intervene to save his people. And God does come down at time in time and space to intervene to save you and me when we get into trouble as well. I can tell you many mission stories from my example of my own life where there was a prayer and God sent an angel or there was a prayer and God delivered me from a fiery and so we wait on the Lord and we and we trust on the Lord because he knows he sees he he he understands what we're going through and we're waiting for God. to a good and abroad land like South Africa that is flowing with soy milk and artificial honey. That is the basics and the delicacies of life.

And in this story, Moses is going to God is going to work through Moses. He's going to work through the elders of Israel. He's going to even work through Pharaoh to save his people. When God calls you into ministry, he doesn't always tell you who you're going to work with. Moses can't imagine that this call to God working with his brother uh with the elders of Israel and with Pharaoh himself that they're all going to be part of the story of this call.

Moses would never dreamt that God would work through Pharaoh to set his people free. And when God calls ministry, sometimes he brings you close to people he never wants to be with. Verse eight, I have come down to deliver them from the Egyptians. to bring them to land that is good and broad, a land with milk and honey, to the country, the various Canaanite nations. God is close to his people, particularly in their moments of suffering.

He has come down to be their active deliverer. The story of Bethlehem was not the first time that Jesus Christ came down to save his people. We see it in this story here. Jesus intervenes to save his people. His very name means Jehovah saves.

So the child of Bethlehem we say was the first coming of Christ. Christ down in this story to save his people and to create new people for himself. Verses 9 and 10. The cry of the Israelites has now come to me. I've also seen how the Egyptians oppressed them.

So come, I'll now send you to Pharaoh to bring my people, the Israelites, out of Egypt. And God's call to Moses in this verse here concludes with an and a so now construction. This is a very common formula in the Old Testament. I've got multiple examples here in my notes. But the first bit now come refers to what has happened in the past.

And the second now come refers to what God is going to do in the future. So God knows the past and God has a plan for the future. And most you're going to be part of that plan for the future. God knows your past. But he also has a plan for your future.

You may only see your past tonight. But God sees the future that he has for you. The cry of the Israelites has come to me. The cry of the people in Sedan may have come to God tonight. God, how are you leading me?

Why did you lead me in this way? My my why am I suffering in this way? Why have all my life plans not failed to materialize? Why is my body frail than I hoped it would be? My my why my relationships not as positive as I hoped they would be?

Why are my finances in a state of collapse, etc., etc., etc. And God says that I know this. The cry, the cry of your heart has come up to me. I know your past, but I have a future for you. And that future means following my call in your life.

Because if you continue on the way you're doing, you're just going to get the same old, same old, same old disappointment and lack of success. But when you accept my call in my life, things are going to change. You are going to bring my people, the Israelites, out of Egypt. Moses would probably be forgiven for thinking, "You're kidding me. I'm going to go to Pharaoh, right, the US president of our modern era, and say, "Let my people go.

I have no army. I have no weapons. I have no power. How do you think I'm going to do this, Lord?" And God is saying, "I'm going to take you from a life of obscurity, of being a professional failure as a shepherd in the wilderness of Midian, where nobody cares and sees what you ever do. You're now going to be at the center of the greatest story of human history because I see that you're ready.

and I'm a personal guard and I know you by name and now is the hour. Now cometh the man. So 40 years earlier, Moses had acted in his own strength and wisdom and might to save his people. And the story in Exodus chapter 2, Moses refers to them as my people. But in Exodus chapter 3, God refers to them as my people.

Moses, these people don't belong to you. These are my people. And you weren't ready then. When you thought you were ready, you weren't ready. Now you don't think you're ready.

As far as I'm concerned, yes, you are. You may have a sense of frailty, of lack of readiness tonight. You may say, "Who am I to do what God is calling me to do?" But when God chooses someone to do an incredible task, he often chooses the lowliest on planet earth so that the greater the glory it is that accuses to our heavenly father. God wants to be glorified in our lives. He wants there to be glory given to him, not to ourselves.

And he often chooses the most humble, most insignificant that God alone might be glorified. And in this story here, come now, says God, I will send you to Pharaoh to bring my people, the Israelites, out of Egypt. Like Moses, we all need to learn to wait on the Lord because God opens doors in his time. When those doors walk through, we walk through with a holy boldness for God. This is not the last time that Jesus sends somebody in the scriptures.

Matthew chapter 28, Jesus also says, "I'm going to send the disciples to do something." In the call of the disciples in Matthew 10 and Luke 10, Jesus calls and he sends out those those 10 and those 70 disciples. In Acts chapter 26:1 17, Paul describes the vision of Christ on the road to Damascus. And Jesus says to Paul, "I am sending you." God sends people. He sends people you would never imagine were ready for the job. Paul was a professional killer of Christians and Jesus intervened and sent him on new call in life.

And those fishermen, we're going to come to them in a few minutes. They were humble fishermen. They were doing menial jobs for their time, but God saw them as men who were ready to turn the world upside down. And God takes this shepherd called Moses. He says, "I am sending you." And this is Jesus speaking here.

So, it's not the first, it's not the last time that Jesus sends somebody in the scripture. And when Jesus sends somebody in the scripture, there's something beautiful that happens. Moses 3:11-12, it says, "But Moses said to God, this is the first of Moses' six objections, by the way." And I think it's an amazing thing that Moses wrote all his objections down, don't you? When he wrote this story out, why did Moses include all his own objections? Maybe he was the most humble man on earth.

Maybe Moses was letting us know that many of us have good reasons not to accept the call of God. Whenever we see a reason not to accept a call of God, God sees an opportunity to display his might and his glory and his power in our lives. Lord, I don't have the resources. I will provide. Lord, I'm going on my own.

I will be your constant companion. Lord, I don't know what to do. My Holy Spirit will guide you saying this is the way. Walk ye in it. And so when we sense that we are weak, when we sense that we have an adequacy, inadequacy in our lives, as did Moses, that is the greater an opportunity for our heavenly father be glorified in our ministry.

Moses says to God, this is the first objection. Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt? You're calling the wrong man, God. Who am I? Moses understands the call.

He doesn't say, "Could you say that again?" Something got lost translation from English to Africans or between the heavenly language and the earth language. No, Moses knows exactly what God wants him to do and he's convinced he's the wrong man for the job. Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt? I I know what Pharaoh's like. I know the power of their armies.

I know the powers of the forces of evil. I've been there. I've got the t-shirt. I don't think I can do this, God. Not on my own.

And God says to Moses, "I will be with you." Just as Jesus said to the 11 disciples on the Mount of Olives, "Behold, I am with you always, even to the end of the age." Just as God said twice to Jeremiah in Jeremiah chapter 1, he says, "They will try to destroy you, but I will be with you to deliver you." God doesn't promise in when the call comes our way to lead us out of the fight. He promises to be with us in the fight. And Jesus says here to Moses, I will be with you. That is the first promise that God gives Moses. Second, God gives him a sign.

And this shall be a sign that it is I who sent you. When you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall worship God on this mountain. So Moses has a sign that God is already working in the future. And when that thing comes true, then God will know that the call really is genuine from God. Moses will know the call is genuine.

And that phrase I will be with you im doesn't come across so much in the English, but this is the first time we get the name Yahweh in scripture, but this is the first person singular and it's a future of that verb. God says like we would say these days say Yahweh. Yahweh Emac or Each, I will be with you. We know God's name as Yahweh or Jehovah. But God saying here to Moses that that I have called you by name, Moses, and you're going to know me by name, Yahweh.

That is my name. And what does he say about that name? What does he say about that name? Well, the story goes on there. Moses said to God, "If I come to the Israelites and say to them, the God of your ancestors sent me to you." They asked me, "What is your name?

What shall I say them to them?" God said to Moses, "I am who I am." He said further, "Thus you shall say to the Israelites, I am," that's the word Yahweh has sent me to you. God also said to Moses, "Thus you shall say to the Israelites, the Lord, the God of your ancestors, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob, has sent me to you. This is my name forever and this is my title for all generations. Now this im I will be with you has already appeared 14 times in the book of Genesis and Exodus. God has used this words with Abraham, with Isaac, with Jacob.

He then uses it with Gideon and with Joshua. Just as Jesus promises us, I will be with you always to the end of the age. God promises Abraham, I will be with you. God promises Isaac, I will be with you. God promises Jacob, "I will be with you." As Jacob flees to a foreign land before he comes back with his wives.

God promises to Joshua, "I will be with you." before he enters into the promised land on his call. God promises to Gideon, "I will be with you." In Judges 6, it's the same Hebrew here. And God promises to Moses here. Jesus is promising, "I will be with you in this call I'm giving you." And Jesus is saying to us tonight, if I'm going to give you a call, I'm not going to send you out there on your own. I will be with you personally on this call.

And if I be with you, who can be against you? If I be with you, who can be against you? What is his name? Says verse 14. It's not just the sound of the name.

The name represents the character of the one who was calling Moses. What is character? The significance, the essence of the name of God in this passage. What does the mean the name in capital letters for the Israelites who were caught in slavery in Egypt? So the text says God said to Moses I am who I am ash you say I am that I am.

Yes that's what it says in English. He said further thus you shall say to the Israelites. This is the phrase we normally use for names the name of God. Yahweh has sent me to you. Yahweh has sent me to you.

Now this verse has already appeared in verse 12. We've seen it. This name I will be with you. What does it mean? I am that I am.

It can refer to the fact that God is eternal. That Jesus is eternal. That he is self-existent. That he is outside of time. That he is without beginning.

That he is without end. But this verbal form Yahweh is an incomplete verbal form. He refers to an incomplete and unfinished action. It could also be interpreted this way as I will be or I will become referring to what God is going to do for his people Israel. Yahweh verse 15 God said to Moses thus you say to the Israelites the Lord the God of your ancestors God of Abraham the God of Isaac the God of Jacob has sent me to you.

This is my name forever and this is my title for all generations. Yahweh is the name of the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob. He called Abraham from of the Caldes through Haron and led him to Canaan. He intervened at the burning bush to save Isaac's life and promised that he would come back to be the sacrifice to save all people. It was Yahweh who found Ishmael wilderness in Genesis 16.

First, it was Yahweh provided the water, the spring of water, the spring of waters of life to save Ishmael's life in the desert. It was Yahweh sent angels to rescue Lot and his daughters from the destruction about to Sodom and Gomorrah. It was Yahweh who gave Sarah a child, Isaac, when she was an old woman and well past her childbearing years. It was Yahweh Jesus who rescued Jacob at the Brookennial after which Jacob was known as Israel or a prince of God. It was Yahweh who sent Joseph into slavery.

Yes, it was God's plan that Joseph go into slavery ahead of his brothers. Why? Because in God's call for Joseph, God intended to save the entire Middle East that the name of God might be glorified through Joseph's slavery and exaltation to the prime minership of Israel. Yahweh had a purpose not just for Joseph life but for the entire Middle East. This is the Yahweh who's appearing to Moses.

This is the Yahweh who calls us into ministry today. I am the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. I am the God of your parents and your grandparents and your grandpar great grandparents. And here in 2025, I want to be your God. And I'm calling you out to serve me in a very painful and bitter world out there.

And I will be with you. He is now present with Moses. And he's now declaring, "I did this for Abraham. I did this for Isaac. I did this for Jacob.

I did this for Amraham, your father. When when Pharaoh was killing the baby boys. I saved you, Moses, from the crocodiles in the Nile. And I led you to the throne of Egypt. Now I've led you to the deserts of the Midian.

Now I'm calling you to lead the greatest story in human history, the story of the Exodus. And now I'm calling you." And you're going to deliver my people from slavery. Yahweh means that God has been, is now, and tomorrow, tomorrow will be working to deliver his people. Call me Yahweh, says God. A name that will remind you always that I'm a God who saves.

I'm a God who hears. I'm a God who listens. I'm a God who comes down. I'm a God who intends to save my children in the hour of need. And I'm a God who sends you out on a mission.

And I'm the God who promises. I don't just send you out, but Yahweh, I will the one who be with you. This God in the burning bush does not hide from his people. He wants to be known by his people. He is a God of self-revelation.

He's not hiding himself from Moses or from the slaves of Egypt. He wants to be known by them, not just by what he does. He wants to be known by his personal name which reveals his character of care even before they know he exists. Paul's Moses Yahweh. He is a God of justice, a God of action.

He will save his people from slavery in Egypt. And he will save his people in South Africa from slavery to sin. He will lead them from slavery in Egypt to freedom in the promised land. And he will lead people in South Africa to the promised land in heaven above. He is a personal saving God who wants to be known by us tonight.

He we his people. He wants to be with his people. He wants to be close to his people. He wants to be known by his people. His name is Yahweh.

The Lord Yahweh. The Lord Yahweh. That word steadfast love, everlasting mercy, covenant faithfulness. The word is keeping steadfast love for the thousandth generation, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, yet by no means clearing the guilty, but visiting the iniquity of their parents upon the children and the children's children to the third and fourth generation. Yahweh, the father is an alcoholic.

Chances are the child will be an alcoholic with all the problems that go with it. And that child will be an alcoholic. But by the fourth generation, the impact of that initial sin will be fading out in that family. God limits the impact of sin. Yahweh limits the impact of sin.

But for those who are faithful to Yahweh today, God promises that for a thousand generations, you'd be faithful to their family. How many times did God say to say to faithless kings in Judah, "But for the sake of David, I will do this for you." When we serve Yahweh today, when we respond to him in worship, as did Moses, when we accept our his call in our lives, as did Moses, he is promising us, I will be faithful to you and to your children and your grandchildren, your great-grandchildren, and to generations you will never see until Jesus comes again. You are bringing a spiritual blessing into your ancestry and your heritage. So we talk in this world about ancestral curses from spirits and there are many out there. But there is also an ancestral blessing when we are faithful to God today.

And Yahweh promises us if you are faithful to me in 2025 my generation and you respond to my call in your life and you walk with me through life and you allow me to be your personal God and you allow me to reveal myself to you and you are faithful to what I'm placing in front of you, I will be faithful to you and your generations until Christ comes again. Because there's yet to be a thousand generations in human history. 6,000 years doesn't allow for a thousand generations. Yahweh is an incredible God. He's an incredible God.

And he calls a humble shepherd to lead maybe the greatest story of human history, the story of the Exodus. But Yahweh doesn't just call Moses. He comes down another time as the babe of Bethlehem because he's seen that humanity is in distress. He comes down at humanity's darkest hour when the forces of Satan, the forces of darkness weigh most heavily upon this world. And once again, he calls some humble men.

He gives them a call into ministry. As he walked by the Sea of Galilee, Matthew 4:18-22, he saw two brothers, Simon, who was called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea, for they were fishermen. And he said to them, "Follow me, and I'll make you fish for people or fishes of men. Immediately left their nets and followed him." As he went from there, he saw two other brothers, James, son of Zebedee, and his brother John, in the boat with their father. Immediately they left their boats followed him.

This is the call of the first disciples. It's not the first time Jesus as Yahweh will appear and call a man and it's not the last time he will do so. And he still calls people today. The fact that we're here tonight is evidence that we sense that God has a call on our lives. When Jesus called those first disciples realized that just like Moses, Jesus called men and women who are engaged in regular occupations, who are humble, were teachable, who he could train for their life calling.

Men and women willing to learn, willing to grow, willing to be challenged, willing to change, willing to leave everything behind in obedience to the call of Yahweh. Like Moses, those fishermen were used to an honest day's labor. They knew the blessing of hard work. They knew the importance of saving for a rainy day. They knew the need to work towards a specific goal.

They knew that the fact that when you work with your hands, you work with dignity. They knew the importance of taking pride in your daily accomplishments and of taking care of their immediate families. Yes, they knew all of these lessons from their humble occupations as fishermen. And like Moses before God at the burning bush, in such honest, faithful, hardworking men, Jesus saw men who could turn the world upside down for the gospel. And Jesus sees people tonight who can turn South Africa upside down for the gospel.

Their so-called menial low status jobs were actually the solid foundation upon which Jesus could build something glorious. God doesn't just call you if you're a high court justice or if you are the top accountant or top politician in the country. God wants to know if you've learned the value of honest work. If you're willing to do so-called humble or menial tasks. Are you willing to work with your head as well as your hands?

Have you learned the importance of putting in honest hours? Do you know the reality of working sometimes for nothing and sometimes for a bounty? If you've if you've gone through those lessons of life, you know that sometimes in ministry things go well and sometimes things don't go so well. And if you learned those lessons in your daily occupation before I call you, then you're well prepared for the reality of ministry. Because these days, you don't just need a heart for ministry, you need a spine.

Ministry requires a spine. Like Moses before, God calls people who know the importance of hard work, who are willing to work hard, who willing to push through disappointments, who willing to see beyond today's down to the upside that may come tomorrow. She met Mr. Sister White puts it this way in desire of ages. In the common walks of life, there is many a man patiently treading the ground of daily toil, unconscious that he possesses powers which if called into action would raise him to inequality with the world's most honored men.

If God if if his people will remove the obstructions, he will pour forth the waters of salvation in abundant streams through the human channels. What a blessed passage. Yes. God calls people into action. Treading the round of daily toil, God says, "I can use that person." They're honest.

They're faithful in small things. They push through the disappointments. They don't get easily pushed off course. They know what they have to do and they do what they have to do. That's the kind of person that God calls into ministry.

When Jesus called those fishermen, as when he called Moses, he was inviting them to step from a small stage, the deserts of Saudi Arabia or the Sea of Galilee in modern day Israel, he was inviting them to step onto the broadest stage possible into the plan of human salvation to play their parts in their moment in time in history before men and angels and unfallen worlds. When God calls you into ministry, it's not just going to be known by a few friends at this camp meeting. He's inviting you to step onto a stage, a cosmic stage, where none fallen girls are watching your actions. Where there is joy among the the angels of heaven above, when every sinner is led into the kingdom of God, where there is passion and anger among the demons of Satan. When you lead people into God's kingdom, he is calling you to life on a stage, the widest possible stage in the cosmos.

He's inviting you to be faithful on that stage. and you will play your part in your time in the story of humanity's salvation, but it will be an honorable part and it will be God's will for you to play that part. He's inviting you to step part of the place of the world you're laboring in now into a call that is lived out for the watching universe. What a humbling thought. And he says, "When I call you into this role, I'm going to be with you.

I, Yahweh, will be with you. They will fight against you as you said to Jeremiah. But I will be with you to deliver you. I will be with you to deliver you. And those 12 men by the Sea of Galilee, called and empowered by Jesus, those men turned the world upside down.

They healed the sick. They cast out demons. They raised the dead. A holy boldness came over them. When they spent three and a half years with Jesus, and as they were obedient to the gospel commission given on another mountain, the world was turned upside down.

The world has never been the same because those 12 men in that first group of 120 disciples were faithful to God's call in their lives. And we today are here because they were faithful to that call. And who is going to be here tomorrow because we are faithful to God's call today. What is the next generation going to know about God here in South Africa unless we are faithful to the God the call God places in our lives here in 2025? Oh that the gospel will not stop with us.

We shouldn't just rejoice in the blessings of the gospel and say, "Thank you, Lord. Because of the gospel, I have better finances. I have better health. Health message helps my body. I know the importance of saving.

I have blessed relationship with my children." That's all well and good, but that's not why God gives us the gospel. Gives us the gospel that we don't have to live on this earth. That we might live in the streets of gold above with an a huge throng of people from this nation. The hosts of Satan shook at the arrival of those men of God. The forces of Satan were pushed back throughout Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and to the ends of the world because those men by the Sea of Galilee, those humble fishermen who accepted the call of Yahweh were filled with his Holy Spirit and now had a heavenly purpose to life.

There is nothing more sad than a man who has no purpose in life. Men need purpose. Men need mountains to climb. Men who have no mountains to climb, their lives just go rounds and rounds in meaningless entertainment. You can tell when a man has a mountain to climb, it challenges him.

It calls him. It pushes him. It gives him purpose, meaning, and direction in life. And if you don't have a mountain to climb in life tonight, it's time to get on your knees tonight and say, "Lord, give me a call. Give me a mountain.

Give me the highest mountain in this country, if you will, but give me a mountain because I need a purpose and a direction, a call in my life." When God calls you, gives you the gift of the Holy Spirit, the forces of Satan quake. He who loves Christ the most do the greatest amount of good. There is no limit to the usefulness of one who by putting self aside makes room for the working of the Holy Spirit upon his heart lives a life wholly consecrated to God. When God calls you, it starts with an experience, an experiential knowledge of God. The call from God.

Our parents may say you need to do this. The church may say, "We want you to the other." Our friends may say, "I think this would be good for you." Your spouse may say, "I think this is a good option for you as long as it doesn't rock the boat with our family affairs." But when God calls you, we respond with worship and awe because he is a holy and a mighty God. And he says to us, "I'm sending you out and you may be going where the sheep droppings are, but wherever I am, that is holy ground because I am with you and I've sent you to deliver my people." What? Me? Yes, you.

Lord, I'm not ready. Oh, yes, you are. I've just been doing a meanial job. That's precisely why you're ready tonight. I'm calling you tonight to be my ambassadors in a fallen world.

And I will be with you wherever you go. So, we come back to Ida where she lives high in the mountains of Muro in the Philippines. She's had her desert experience. It was a brutally painful experience for Ida. I've met Ida myself.

I've sat in her home. Not really sat. I kind of squatted actually. It's the kind of house where if you sleep, you have a knife on your left and a knife on your right. I said to the missionary John Hullbrook out there, I said, "Why don't you put me to sleep in this hut?" I said, "Why did you give me machete on my right and machete on my left?" He said, "Very simply, says we have bow constrictors in this mountain." says, "And if the bo if you see rats in the house, that's a good sign.

It means there's no bo constrictors because they've eaten the rats." He said, "But if there are no rats in the in the house, then there's bo constrictors around. And by the way, we found a half masticated man inside a bo constrictor a few months ago." So he said, "Sleep well tonight. There's a knife to your right and there's a knife to your left. If the boa comes over this side, use your left left hand to kill him. If the boa comes from that side, use your right hand to kill him." I didn't sleep well that night.

This is where Ida lives. She's uneducated. She's barely literate. She has no financial support system. She's exiled to the village of animists who don't want her there.

The witch doctor tells everybody how evil she is because she is a Christian. She has no status as an uneducated woman of a despised minority indigenous group in her country. I met Ida a while ago and under the shade of her bamboo roof. We talked and we prayed. She didn't breathe a word of complaint.

She didn't ask for anything, not a dime. Despite raising her five children with backbreaking subsistence farming and living under continual social and religious condemnation, Ida's joy in Jesus is palpable. She's been trained to lead discover Bible studies by the AFM missionary John Hullbrook. And she's led many, many animists to Jesus Christ, this semiiterate woman. She knows the stories.

She tells the stories. She tells them to tell the stories back. And she asks them, "What does this tell you about God?" She's an incredible evangelist out there in the mountains of Muro. Night after night, she travels the mountain trails to study with Bible interest. God speaks to Ida in vivid dreams.

He shows her the future. He tells her which people in which village are open to the gospel. And she goes and finds those people. He gives her warning of attacks by animists. Gives her counsel needed.

She's a woman out there on her own. But as Yahweh said to Moses, as Jesus said to the 11, "I will be with you wherever you go, even to the end of the age." As I sat talking with Ida, she was bubbling over about her latest dream. She pointed me to high in the mountains, a mountain man rides miles away to a distant village inhabed by witch doctors and animists. That she says is the next Adventist church. I thought I don't believe that.

She says God has told me that's the next Adventist church plant. She says, "I'm going to build new bamboo huts in the mountains. I'm going to carve out a field by myself in the dense forest. I'm going to feed my rice, my children with rice and cassava, and I'll faithfully tell the demon worshippers that there is a god in heaven above." I said, 'When are you going to go, Ida? She said, 'I'm just waiting and praying.

When Jesus appears to me in a dream and says, 'Go, that's when I'm going. Until then, I'm waiting for the call. But he has told me that's my next mission field. Ida is now 55. She knows nothing of church policy or politics.

Not for Ida the debates over hermeneutics, women's ordination, theistic evolution, or LGBTQ issues. Ida lives in abject poverty in the Philippines, disinherited and rejected by her tribe, is fellowshipped basically by the local Adventist church because she won't let her husband back into the family home. She's an aging single mother condemned to backbreaking labor for her daily single meal of rice. She's under enemy fire from demon worshippers and not so friendly fire from her local Adventist congregation. Ida will never be voted credentials.

She will never be denominationally employed. She'll never be commissioned or votes into any church office. She is an outcast as far as society is concerned in the local Adventist church as well. She has no service plan, no healthcare as far as global Adventism is simply does not exist. As far as God concerned, he called this woman to ministry.

Now 10 years later, over 55 churches have been planted in the mountains, and Ida has been at the forefront of that battle. The gospel has spread not just from the Talvid, but to two other animist tribes further down the island of Muro. That's why Ida is one of my heroes. The world does not care or know about Ida. But God does, and he knows her by name, and he's called her by name.

And he promised her, "When you go among those Satan worshippers, I will be with you. As I was with Moses, as I was with Abraham, as I was with Isaac, Jacob, as and as I was with the 12 disciples, so I will be with you." Ida answered her call from God. She still lives out in the Philippines. She's still planting churches. Nobody knows.

World doesn't seem to care, but God does. And God speaks to her in dreams. And God plants churches through this illiterate, impoverished woman. She's my hero in many ways because she answered God's call regardless of the cost. If God can call Ida into ministry to go face to face with the forces of Satan among those animists and demon worshippers, what is God calling you to do tonight?

Each one of us is starting from a better position in the eyes of this world than Ida is. We have homes. We have bank accounts and cell phones. Most of us have some kind of education. As far as Idra is concerned, we are overflowing with wealth and riches and blessing.

So, are you going to be faithful to God's call in your life? Are you going to follow where Jesus is leading you? Are you going to step forward in faith after this mission convention, secure in the knowledge that I will be with you wherever you go? I'll go before you wherever you go. I'll be in front of you and I'll be your rear guard.

My angels will watch round about you wherever you go. I will send you my Holy Spirit who will guide you into all truth, who will bring to remembrance of things I've spoken. Will say, "This is the way walk ye in it." And you may feel like you are dying as far as this world is concerned and living a life of service and ministry. And what is that about? If God be for you, who can be against you?

And Ida will probably have more jewels in her crown in heaven above than many of us when we get there ourselves. She's my hero. I pray she becomes your hero. She's an example of what what God does when he calls the unequipped, the illequipped, the impoverished, the illiterate into ministry. He's done it for Ida.

He's done it for Moses. He did it for Peter, John, James, and Andrew. and he can do it for you. If God has called you at this mission convention, don't harden your hearts. If there is somebody you need to pray for when you get home, there's somebody you need to visit.

If there is somebody you need to send a note of encouragement to, if God is calling you to start a health outpost near Gaoang, or if God is calling you to start a media ministry in the in your backyard for your local church, don't say no to God. You don't know but God is going to create a new Exodus story for the people of South Africa. He's going to lead multitudes into kingdom because tonight he said here my Lord send me. Ida in my opinion ranks alongside Moses. I want to be named one day among Ida and Moses and Peter, James and John.

What about you? By God's grace, may each one of us be faithful to the call of God. I am Yahweh. I'm the God of your father and your mother. I was the god of your grandparents.

I was the god of your grand great great grandparents. I was a god of your great great great grandparents. And I want to be your God. And I'm calling you. And I know your past, but I'm sending you on a new future.

And if you go where I lead you, I promise I will always be with you. The forces of hell will tremble when you arrive because you are a man and woman of God on a God-scent mission. You are ambassadors of the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. Ida, Moses, James, John, Peter, and Andrew, members of Sedan. May we all be counted in that honor role when we get to heaven because we answered God's call.

We were faithful to his call, and we let the world know that there is a God in heaven who builds Paul's people in 2025. Invite you to bow your heads with me. We'll close our evening with a word of prayer. Dear heavenly father, when you call a man, when you call a woman, you don't look at their wealth, their education, you don't look at their social status, the rand in the bank, the cars they drive, or the clothes they wear. You look for a heart that is humble and obedient, a spirit that will go wherever you lead.

You're looking for feet that are willing to be walking the paths that you show up. looking for hands willing to do the tasks you give us. You're looking for eyes willing to shine with the love of the Savior. You're looking for tongues willing to talk about the love of God. Father, as we draw tonight, I want to ask that everybody in this call before they leave this convention will know in their hearts what their call from God is.

Father, give us the discernment to perceive that call. Give us the grace to accept that call whatever it is. Give us the courage to follow through with it. And may you be glorified in each of our prayer in the name of Yahweh our Lord and Savior and Savior soon coming Savior. Amen.