strange saying welcome because I know some of you been here for a couple of days already. But um, as I’m standing up here, I say
welcome to Caribou. It’s a beautiful part of the world and it’s a real joy to be gathering with you here in this um,
beautiful season of the year. And isn’t it wonderful to see so many brothers and sisters here tonight? Yes. From all around.
Thank the Lord that we have the freedom tonight to gather like this openly as we do and to work.
I thank the Lord for that beautiful music we just heard. And uh when I get to heaven, I’m going to ask God for a a
voice that sings in harmony. I make a joyful noise, but not necessarily a harmonious noise. And so if I could ask
our AV team, are you going to put this presentation on at the screen here
down here? Would that be okay?
All right. So, is it black? It’s just black now. Yes. Yeah. Okay.
So, while they’re sorting that out, I bring greetings from my wife and uh yesterday I was in Chicago and uh my my
passport was running out and it’s only been a few years to make my passport run out.
called up the uh the um pass and changed your passports. When I got
in there yesterday at 8:30 in Chicago, thank you very much. The um the the lady
at the desk, she says, “Why am I?” She says, “You travel a lot, don’t you?” I said, “A bit?” “Yes.” She said, “Well, in that case, we’re going to give you
two passports today.” I said, “Two passports.” I say, “Well, they have a different number on them.” She said, “Yes.” She says, “But you must always
travel just on one passport, so you don’t leave the country on one passport and come back with another passport.” So
yesterday I picked up my two passports at about um uh 3:00 in the afternoon in
Chicago, went to the public library, did work on my laptop in the library. When I came back and got my passports and drove
home feeling pretty proud of myself, got two brand new US passports, you know,
but there was a lot of traffic. So I got home at about 10:00 to get back to Chicago for this for the
flight early this morning. So I’m really glad to be here. If I slur my speech a bit tonight, it’s not my British accent.
It’s just cuz I don’t have much sleep in me right now. But uh it’s a privilege and a a joy to be sharing with you this
evening. Uh thank you, brother. And uh tonight I want to share about some remaining mission challenges because
just around the corner and we need to be ready for that. And I believe that Jesus came and he died to save us not in our
sin but from our sin. And if I believe that Jesus came to save me in my sin but
not from my sin, it means that when the mark of the beast is imposed, the breaking of the fourth commandment for
false worship. If I believe that Jesus saves me only in my sin, then I can receive the mark of the beast, which is
a sin, and still be saved. Uh but if I believe that Jesus came to save me from my sin, that means I’m not to receive
the mark of the beast because that’s breaking of the fourth commandment. So
here and which is miss
frontier and twice on Sabbath I’ll be
do with liberty of conscience in end time events and I wrote these four sermons um for this camp meeting and one
just a few weeks ago and uh so um I’m still kind of praying about those so we’ll see what happens tomorrow with
those but uh tonight I want to talk about the remaining mission challenges because there are some major remaining
mission challenges before us. So, I’m going to talk tonight about five celebrations and five challenges uh that
we face before Jesus comes again. And I’m going to talk about macro picture um issues here. I’m not going to talk about
the specifics about whether your church needs a new boiler or not. I’m going to talk about them the macro picture
because as we look through this, we’ll realize that incredible progress is being made around the world, but we
still have a long way to go. So there’s our journey tonight. We’re going to have a big picture overview. We’re going to
look at five positive trends and then we’re going to
ideas. The disciples came to Jesus in Matthew.
This is what they said. What this is what Matthew says. It says as he that is Jesus was sitting on the mount of olives
the disciples tell us when will these things happen
and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age. So Jesus in
the next few verses lists some birth pangs um for the end of the age. It was interesting while I was driving home
from Chicago yesterday. I was listening to um like a news station and they were
talking about the birth pangs that are coming upon the world. These were secular folk talking about the birth
pangs that we see all around us that some planet earth. And then Jesus gives one
of the signs of his second coming. This isn’t the only sign of the of his second coming but one of the signs of the
second coming of Jesus is this. He said, “This gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in the whole world as a
testimony to all the nations and then the end shall come.” And so, I just want
to dwell on that for a few moments. Jesus said, “This gospel will go to all the nations.” And at the end of that
gospel in Matthew 28, Jesus gives us the great commission or the gospel commission. And it’s three verses. And
the first verse is a statement. It’s like a an overarching statement. Jesus says that all authority, how much
authority? all authority. So, we’re not to be afraid of Satan and his demons or
the earthly powers of this world. And when Daniel saw the statue in Daniel chapter 2 in when when God gave him the
the the answer to the vision before Daniel describes Nebuchadnezzar as being the head of gold, Daniel said to the
king, “You saw in your dream a vision.” He said, “And the appearance of it was terrifying.
The eban into
Greece and Romany of human history is that it is
dwell so much on that from Daniel through to the second coming of Jesus. But Jesus says here, all
authority has been given me in heaven. Command and the command is not the word
go. The original language the command is not the word go. The command, the main verb
in this sentence is to make disciples. Disciples that is the verb, the
imperative there. Then you have three participles. We make disciples by going,
by baptizing, and by teaching. So there are three components of disciplem. One
is that we go, we answer the call to mission service. Whether it be here in Maine, in your in your district, here in
Maine, in your church, in your neighborhood, or overseas, we baptize and we teach people to observe all that
Jesus has taught in the gospels. And lo, I am with you always. This is the promise, even to the end of the age. So
we are to be disciples who make disciples of others. And uh when we talk
about baptisms, we often talk about converts. It’s more helpful to talk about disciples of Jesus Christ. Those
who are going to follow Jesus for the rest of their lives. So Jesus said we’re to make disciples of all the nations.
The word nation is ethnne. We get the word ethnic from that. And so uh maybe a
better description of this would be people groups. Now why do I say this? Because if you consider the nation of
Nigeria, as far as the United Nations is concerned, Nigeria is one nation. They
only have one vote at the United Nations. But as far as we are concerned as Christians, as Adventists who once
bring the gospel to every nation. When Jesus spoke, the nation of Nigeria did
not exist. What there are in Nigeria are multiple people groups. There are about
54 calculate it 500
group and make disciples of all nations and this
gospel will be proclaimed as a testimony to all nations. He’s not talking about the United Kingdom, United States and
Uruguay. He’s speaking about the people groups within those nations. And there
are thousands and thousands and thousands of people groups around the world. So, uh, when we talk about
missions in this perspective, is mission like a pancake or is it like a waffle?
So, I am not I’m not particularly keen on on either of those things. Um, they’re too sweet. I like toast with
Marmite on in the morning. And, uh, if my wife is not around, I put a slice of
raw onion on it because that really just tops it off nicely. And if my wife catches me, she says, “You better be
careful. You’re speaking with people today.” So, um, that’s one of my guilty pleasures in life, Marmmites with onion
on it. So, please don’t send me a Marmite with onion in the mail. Okay. But anyway, uh, is mission like a
pancake or is it like a waffle? Well, we often think that mission is a bit like a pancake because when you pour the syrup
on the top of the pancake that the syrup goes everywhere without any resistance to it. But mission is more like a waffle
because there are barriers between people groups. There are language barriers. There are cultural barriers.
There are barriers of hatred and history which mean I won’t listen to you because of what your parents did to me in the
1600s and so forth. And uh there are distance barriers. There are many barriers that impede the flow of the
gospel. And so mission is more like a waffle rather than a pancake. It needs effort to carry the butter and the maple
syrup to all of the little squares at the top of the waffle there. And so the gospel naturally flows really only until
it encounters ethnic boundaries and those are bound all around our world today. So who are those people groups
and which ones have few if any disciples today? Well um there depends on how you
calculate people groups. There are about three major estimates in the world today from different pro.
Uh the general conference generally goes by the work of the Joshua project.
Lord, if you haven’t go to joshu project.net uh they talk about all the unreached people groups in the world and you can
look at it by country, by people group, by language group and there’s all kinds of interesting statistics there and you
realize that the Adventist message has got a long way to go because at General Conference session we celebrate let’s
say the 200 sovereign nations where there is an Adventist presence. But if you ask yourself among how many language
groups is there an Adventist presence, it may be three to 400 right now out of over 17,000 language groups in our world
today. So we have got a long long way to go in bringing the everlasting gospel to the ends of the world. So the current
estimate is there about 17 and a half thousand people groups in the world today. And as we’re looking at language
groups around the world, we are seeing the extinction of many many languages around the world. We’re not just seeing
the extin extinction of species. Um we’re also seeing the extinction of languages. And when a language
humanity because every language captures some essence of the human experience in a unique way that no other language
does. But the world is is is reducing the number of language groups out there. And if you have teenage kids, you know
that is true. Yes. Um like you I speak with my parents in respectful English.
And sometimes with teenagers, you speak in grunts um or maybe just in emojis.
Okay? And I keep asking my daughter like, “What does this um thing mean?” I
know lol means laughing out loud, but you know, there other little acronyms that I really don’t have no idea what
this means. And so I have to say, well, just just explain what you’re trying to say to me here. But anyway, um there are
about 17 and a half thousand people groups in our world today. And of those 17 and a half thousand,
how many do you think have no viable Protestant presence? Not just Adventist,
but Protestant presence? 7,27.
7,217. Well, that’s a really good close pastor. Good estimate there. About 700 7,400.
And as a percentage of the world, that percentage is going up every year simply
due to the fact that Protestant nations don’t have a replacement birth rate going on. Ladies aren’t having children.
And in the unreached parts of the world, people are having more than the replacement number of children, more than 2.1 per couple. And so that the the
unreached parts of the world is growing every single year. We’re not keeping up with the task that Jesus has given us.
About 3.1 billion people live today in what we consider unreached people groups
where there is not a viable Protestant presence in their midst who can carry forward the gospel within their
language. Just giving you a couple of examples there. So, um that’s where they are. If you map them all out, you see
that um there’s there’s a few unreached tribal groups in in South America. Uh
you see that the majority the country with the most unreached people groups is India. And India has got a very
aggressive program of dchristianization going on right now. And that the prime
minister is a Hindu nationalist and he is arguing that everybody who who is in India um who speaks Hindi needs to
revert from Christianity or the other religions such as Janism back to being a Hindu. So there’s a lot of pressure on
people to revert uh back from Christianity to Hinduism. So India has about 2 and a half thousand of those
unreached people groups. Then you’ve got Southeast Asia and Indonesia. And then you’ve got um this the the Sahel region
of Africa uh just north just south of the Sahara and along the North African coast there. That’s where most of the
unreached people groups in our world live today. And there we know that as the 1040 mission window because it’s 10
to 40 degrees north of the equator. So um the top 10 countries with the most
unreached people groups are you all know what these top 10 countries are? All right, cuz maybe some of you
will end up serving in one of these countries. They are
there. We are India, Pakistan, China, Bangladesh,
Nepal, Indonesia, the Sudan.
That’s mostly across Siberia and South,
it’s mostly north. And what you notice about that list
there is that it’s it’s actually quite hard to get visas to most of those countries. And it’s very hard to find an
indigenous Protestant or Adventist presence. Now the top 10 countries or the worst 10 countries that with the
least missionaries per million population so the fewest missionaries per capita of population are North
Korea, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Myanmar,
Somalia where Mogadishu is Tajakistan. I used to live and work in Tajakistan. The capital is called Ducham Bay. It
literally means Tuesday in the local language. Afghanistan, India and Bangladesh.
Those are all countries that generally very hostile to the Christian presence in general and uh to missionaries in
particular. And then the top 10 largest frontier unreached people groups in terms of uh just people groups on their
own. Uh the top 10 in the world today are the shake of Bangladesh, 135 million
of them. The shake of India, 85 million of them. the Turks of Turkey. 59 million
Turks in Turkey. Now, this last year um was the first ever Turkish camp meeting
run by Turkish believers in the Turkish language. Can you say amen to that? Years of missionary labors
that some are house churches, some have bought their own buildings
there. But last year was the first ever camp meeting run by Turkish Adventists
in the Turkish language and we say praise the Lord for that. Uh the Brahmin of India. Now the brahinss are the
higher cast group in India. Um they are the they are the priests. A priest is a pundit. You get sports pundits in
America but a pundit is is a Hindi word. It means that the the the the um those
you go to for advice or priests. The Yadav of India, the Rajput of India, the Jat of Pakistan. You got some other
groups here in India. Pakistan and Algeria. So then you have the top 10 countries by
percent of the population living in unreached people groups. And it’s a slightly different list. The Maldives,
those beautiful islands in the Indian Ocean where some people go for um their honeymoons or they go for to celebrate
their 50th wedding anniversary. Uh 100%. Morocco.
Uh Morocco is you can live in Morocco but people uh they kind of fuse their Moroccan identity with their Islamic
identity. Afghanistan uh Somalia, Algeria, Yemen, Moritania,
Northwest Africa, that’s the Sahara mostly. Bhutan that’s Buh Buddhist
Tajakistan Muslim and North Korea. So those are
where the gospel has huge numbers of
to hear the everlasting remember tonight. One is approximately
17 and a half thousand people groups in our world today of whom about 7,400 are
considered. So do we have a long way to go as Adventists say yes or no?
Yes. And among those 17,4
probably operating in about 300 400 of those alone.
So uh we have a long long way to go. That means that these 7,400 unreached
people groups represent empty seats at the marriage supper of the lamb as of today. But when Jesus comes again and
brings his bride back to heaven and we’ll be talking about that on Sabbath about the fact that God is a divorcee
and he is entering into a betroal with his bride and we’re going to be talking about the marriage supper of the lamb on
Sabbath afternoon or Sabbath evening I think um there are going to be people from every nation tribe language and
people in the wedding supper of the lamb. So that is a promise in scripture that no matter what you do in mission
fraternity wherever you serve in the world today tribal and people group at the wedding
um let’s talk let’s talk about five positive these are big picture things that go way
beyond the Adventist church let me ask you a question is Islam growing faster than Christianity yes or no what do you
All right, there was we have a split vote here. I hope we haven’t got any hanging chads in the audience here. So,
hands up if you think it’s Islam is growing faster.
All right. Hands up if you think Christianity is growing faster. All right. Well, as Stalin said, it
doesn’t matter who casts the ballots, it’s who counts them that matters. So, I’m going to say tonight that it is the
Christians. They have this vote. You may be upset with me if I say that but actually actually actually actually if
you look at this is from 2018 the major global religions the annual growth rates you got world population was growing
about 1.2% Buddhism was growing at 1.3 Hinduism 1.2
Islam 1.9 and Christianity 1.2 too. But uh the when we look at Christianity,
we’re including many Christians who are Christians in case of emergency only and
they only talk to God when they have a crisis in their life. They go to church for weddings and funerals and
christristenings and dedications and so forth, but they really aren’t disciples of Jesus. When you consider born again
Protestants, just consider born again Protestants. And I put the word evangelical. It’s not
a good description. born again Protestants then they are growing at about 2.6%
around the world today the fastest growing group in the world and I’d say praise the Lord for that all right now
Islam uh since the year 2018 has taken a major hit despite what you see on the
news from Britain these days where there’s street fighting going on between white folks and and Muslim groups on the
streets and it’s looking pretty awful right now. Um, Islam in the last three years has has hit some major crises. The
first of these is that has become very public knowledge around the Islamic world that there are there are at least
about 26 official versions of the Quran and they’re all different.
And this um claim for Islam the number one proective
is the the Quran from the uh heaven to through
gabriel to Muhammad and to us today. But if there are 26 versions of the Quran which Quran do you follow? So that’s the
attack’s number one proof for Islam. The second major challenge Islam is facing is that the king of Saudi the crown
prince of Saudi Arabia did an interview three years ago and it’s on YouTube and
um the interviewer was shocked because the the the crown prince wants to modernize Saudi Arabia and he said some
shocking things in that interview. He said in that interview that the uh
Sunnis who are 85% of the Muslim world they follow the sun of Muhammad. That’s the way of Muhammad. And the way of
Muhammad is known from the hadith of Muhammad. The hadith are the sayings of Muhammad. So Muhammad would say when a
man dies, this is how his estate has to be divided up among his family. Okay? And that saying was allegedly recorded
through chains of transmission to the 8th century. And then it was recorded in these these volumes of these hadith. Al
Bkar and al-Islam are the most famous of those. And there are thousands and thousands and thousands of these sayings
of Muhammad that g that um that govern every aspect of a Muslim’s life. And the
crown prince of Saudi Arabia he said of he said we know that most those hadith
are not true and at one stroke he chopped away the
theological foundation of 85% of Islam. We know that most of these are not true
and we need to get rid of them and we only should keep the hadith that are explicitly mentioned in the Quran which
is hardly any of them. They’re called Hadith Kudsi, the holy hadith. And the interviewer was sitting there who’s
pulling his collar. You see, Crown Prince, he says, “Crown Prince, I are you could you just say that again?” And
the crown prince was essentially undermining that the the uh the Wahhabi clerics who provide the theological
rationale for the PR. So what he was doing was very deliberate. So the first trend we see in
our world today is there’s an amazing growth of Christf following Protestants around our world
in the last 10 years and this is happening in a number of countries.
Uh we see that around the world an estimated 50,000 people become Protestants every day. Now they not that
may not be happening in Maine. I understand that. But around 3,500 Protestant churches are
planted around the world every single week. And uh a lot of that growth is
taking place in China. Uh in 1949 there were less than 1 million believers. They’re mostly in the coastal region
region of China. And now there are they say between 80 to 90 million um 80 to
100 million believers in China today. And there is the underground church movement. And then there’s the three
patriotic selfurch movements in China. The three patriotic self church is basically under the control of the
communist government and they preach sermons that are approved by the communist party. But then the
underground house church movement has been growing rapidly since the 1960s. And I would encourage you as Adventists
today to buy to find and buy books on the underground house church movements in China because what they went through
is an incredible encouragement for us today. How God works to protect his people when the authorities become
oppressive. And God did incredible miracles in the 60s, the 70s, and the
80s in the Chinese underground house church movement. There was one one one lady or man, I think it was a man, his
house was backing up against a cliff and he was a poor man and he received the gospel and uh he received these these
visiting preachers who always one step ahead of the Chinese secret police. So he had to hide them and he had a small
little hvel. So he thought where am I going to hide these people? So he narrow he cut in he chiseled into the face of
the rock and and he carved out like a man-shaped cubby hole in the rock and he said when the police come I’m just going
to put a curtain against the wall and you hide behind the curtain in the rock which is what the evangelist did. And
then the man thought he says well if they if they’re hiding in the rock maybe I should chisel out a bit more space behind the rock for a small group to
meet. Eventually he had a seminary going in the clave behind his house with over
a hundred people in that and literally it was an underground in the cave house church and seminary he was running.
Eventually the authorities discovered it. But the point is is that when the Holy Spirit works there’s nothing oppressive governments can do to stop
the advance of the gospel. So we look forward to the outpouring of the Holy Spirit in the latter reign. There are now as many um Christians in China as
there are in North America. And there are now more Christians in China um than there are Communist Party members. And
so the Communist Party views the growth of Christianity as a major threat. In 1979, there are about 500 known
Protestants in Iran. There’s now over a million. And this is a rapid growth in Iran. Um
in the last 10 years, about 70% of the mosques of Iran have closed down because
nobody’s going to the mosque anymore. And about half the population lives beneath the poverty level. And there’s
there’s political persecution. There’s torture of opponents of the regime. And people are sick and tired of Islam. And
they’re turning to Jesus Christ as a way out of the of the oppression that they experience. And so um there are tens of
thousands of of underground house churches beginning in Iran, uh all over the country. And if you meet an Iranian
today, the chances are that they are hardly sick of the of the Islamic experience and the Ayatollas. And many
of them are very very open to the gospel. They’re unlike any other Muslim background group that you’ll ever meet.
Less than 10 known believers in the collapse of communism 1989
Protestants there. church was
missaries. They planted the inulam bat
um sends more missionaries to Southeast Asia than any other nation on earth per
capita of the Mongolian Protestant population. And so we tend to think that you have to have an established
Christian presence before you can become a missionary sending uh uh body. No. The experience of Mongolia is when people
receive the gospel, they’re excited about the gospel. they want to go and tell about other people about the gospel as well. And so Mongolia is a rapidly
growing church and they are a very large source of missionaries around the world. Okay, so there’s a large growth of
Protestants around the world. The second trend we see is the acceleration of Bible translation. And on that chart
there, we’ve got Gutenberg and his printing press just before Martin Luther comes along. But Gutenberg was not the
primary catalyst for the acceleration in Bible translation. The primary catalyst
was the mission uh the modern missions movement beginning in the late 1700s. One of whose leaders was William Kerry
who went to India and William Kerry went to India and he translated the Bible
into over 30 Indian languages and he had no formal language training but he
learned all these languages in India and he translated the Bible into many languages. Uh we kind of view William
Kerry as like one of the founders of the modern mission movement for Protestants but his wife would have another story to
tell. His his wife’s name was Dorothy and William Kerry believed God wants him to be missionary in China. But his wife
thought she should stay in Leicster or wherever they lived. It was in the Midlands of England.
So he couldn’t persuade his wife to go to India. So one day she had a baby. Well, he knew about it. He knew it was
coming for 9 months. But his wife had a baby. It wasn’t just overnight, you understand? And he married somebody
else. But anyway, uh the status of the Bible translations today in about 7,300
languages around the world today, the com the Bible is in complete 701 translations. The New Testament is in
21% of those languages. There’s a 15% are under translation right now. There’s
a questionable need 8%. Low language viability 18%. There are some languages
that are so basic um that you really don’t really don’t need a language. Bible translate into that language and
we still need the language the Bible translated into a quarter of those languages today. So there’s a huge
amount of work needed in Bible translation and what we’re seeing in the last 20 years is incredible um
collaboration and what you see there are four major Protestant translation groups. the Wickliffe Bible Translators,
um, SIL, Pioneer Bible Translators, and Seed Company. And these these Protestant
groups are are collaborating to translate the Bible into as many languages as they can. And there’s a lot
of collaboration. And when, for instance, our missionaries were in the Middle East. And we wanted um a Bible in
in a local language, there was no Bible. So, we tracked down um local SIL and Wikliffe translators
of the Gospels. with local people
groups in terms of the acceleration of Bible translation and now with the advent of
AI that further cuts the process the time needed for translation. Now AI can do
you like a 90% translation but word to make sure that it’s doing a
correct translation. Um but there is a massive acceleration in Bibles being translated around the world. Uh this is
important because orality 80% of the world’s population are oral communicators. People aren’t reading
much around the world anymore. People are watching videos all around the
world, or they’re listening to podcasts while they’re in their trains. And if you go to Bangkok, a major city in
Southeast Asia, and you go on the metro in Bangkok, you have thousands of people jammed into those metro into those um
cabins, and everybody has a cell phone, a smartphone with earphones that all standing looking like this. And they
don’t talk to each other. They don’t look at each other. Um you know, somebody could drop dead and nobody would nobody would know about it. Okay?
And there, if you go to Japan on the bullet trains, there are stories of of men. They they they work for the
companies their entire lives. They’re working maybe some of them 18 hours a day. They just die on the train in their
seat. And it takes a while for somebody to realize, oh, this person is dead. Okay. So, we have an oral society. And
so, the printed word is important, but fewer and fewer people around the world are reading. And so, there are more um
online versions of the Bible. uver version.com has uh 1370 languages on it
and you may not think much about these apps but when they have um when they when you can play it and it and it
speaks the text to you that’s an incredible advance in all these hundreds and hundreds of languages and then
Bible.is has over 1330 languages and then one of the greatest evangelistic
tools these days is the Jesus movie. Has anybody here seen the Jesus movie? Okay, I encourage you to watch it. It’s the
Gospel of Luke and this languages. Three new are produced every
week. It’s the most viewed film in. And if you go to some,
you can you can hire a public movie hall because the Muslims expect Christians to
do something in those two festivals. And you can you can play this movie to a packed house of Muslims because they
want to know the story of Jesus. And this isn’t an interpretation of the story of Jesus. It’s the Gospel of Luke.
And so I’d encourage you to find the Jesus film and find a link to it. And if
you got a friend um say, “Well, I I enjoyed this movie. I found it to be helpful. Why don’t you
take a look at it?” And uh it’s it’s amazing what what happens when people see this movie of
Jesus. The rise of the global south as a center of Christianity. So in the year 1800
about 99% of Christians lived in Europe and North America. These are Protestants. By the year 2050 about 85%
of Protestants will live in the southern hemisphere. And if you were to choose one person
today to represent the 7th Adventist church,
it would be a semi-iterate subsaharan black African lady.
That’s the single largest group in the Adventist church today because black Africans, subsaharan Africans are over
50% of the world church. And of that 50%, more than half of them are ladies.
And so the the if you chose one person to represent Adventism today, it’s a a a
village lady from Nigeria for instance. And we already are we are a subsaharan church and we are a southern hemisphere
church in the Adventist world actually. And the North American division has about 3 to 4% of the members.
We are a tiny drop in the ocean. We may have 50% of the tithe
but we are about 3 to 4% of the membership. Okay. And so these trends have have an
impact when it for instance comes to decisions in the world church at general conference session time. So the global
planning so for every new Protestant in Europe and North
Protestants in Latin America, Africa and Asia. So the growth is not in the northern hemisphere, it’s in the
southern hemisphere. Which leads us to the fourth trend that we’re seeing is that when we talk about the mission field, actually the harvest field is
becoming the harvest force that more and more missionaries, more and more cross-cultural missionaries,
they’re they’re not coming from North America anymore. They’re coming from Latin America. They’re coming from Subsahara and Africa. They’re coming
from India and Mongolia in the Philippines. And so more and more missionaries these days people are
willing to move to another country to share the gospel they are coming from the southern hemisphere. So as the
growth is inaries are starting to come from the southern hemisphere.
In 2011 uh we had about three families from West Africa
and now we have about 25 families southern hemisphere families working for us in many parts of the world. And so we
see in AFM that the harvest field is actually and this is a real blessing. It’s a real
blessing. It’s positive is the growth of church planting movements. And in 2 Timothy 2
and verse two turn there. I’ll read verse 1 and two.
Uh Paul says to Timothy, he says this 2 Timothy 2:es 1 and two. He says, “You then, my child, be strong in the grace
that is in Christ Jesus and what you have heard from me through many witnesses. Entrust to faithful people
who will be able to teach others as well.” And so, the Apostle Paul says to Timothy, I need you to entrust this the
teachings I’ve given you to faithful people who can teach others as well. Remember earlier on this evening, I was
talking about disciples who multiply, disciples who make disciples of other people. And so we call this church
planting movements. So you see on the screen there on the left you’ve got Paul and with him you’ve got um Silas and
Timothy and Priscilla and Aquilla and Titus and Epaphris. And then you start to see the house churches around them.
And those house churches have lay leaders and they they they reproduce to make other house churches that have lay
leaders and so forth. And so in the last 20 years there’s been a large growth of church. Wow. This is
I was having trouble getting this going forward. And um All right. So,
there we are. Okay. So, a church planting movement is where you’ve got four generations of of house churches
have been planted and this is the fastest growing area of Christianity as a whole today. um let’s say Pioneer
Memorial Church in Andrews University or Siggo Memorial uh in Tacoma Park or
Lominda Church each which has about 2 to 4 thousand
and Sabbath morning to study the word of God together and you praise the Lord and you pray together. How easy is it to
replicate that? It’s very easy. And that’s what it’s going to be in the end of time anyway. So, we need to start
thinking in this direction that the church is not the buildings and it’s not the budgets and it’s not the hierarchy.
It’s the body of Christ. Prophets and Kings page 713 714 describes the church
as the covenanteping people of God. And so, the church may have a rundown
building, but that’s not so important as does it have born again disciples of Jesus in it. And so church planting
movements have been taking off in the Protestant world for a number of years of years. Now uh there have been Muslim
movements to Christ in the year 2000. There were 69 of those around the world. There are people who chart these
movements around the world. Um and a wind in the house of Islam is a great book that charts what’s happening in the
Muslim world today. Um, Indonesia, Indonesian is the most populous mus
when you think of the Muslim world because India, Pakistan, Banglad
Muslims and any of the Muslim countries in the Middle East and so Indonesia
80,000
gener
Now this doesn’t
okay because our structure ability in a benign uh legal and envir
legal and political environment in the west u we’ve exported that structure around the world and why it’s been a blessing for mission in many ways it
actually holds us back in many ways. because our church manual is very restrictive in certain ways.
So those are our five great commission positive trends. There’s a growth of Christ followers around the world. The acceleration of Bible translation. The
global south as a new center of Christianity. The harvest field is becoming the harvest force. And there’s
a growth grow growth of people group movements to Christ. And I would say that with the use of artificial
intelligence, we’re probably going to see more and more of this taking place. So just give an example what AI can do
for you. Now, um I was looking last week at some AI prov
you can upload a you want it to
changes how your face operates so it looks like you’re speaking that language and you can edit the text so it does the right theological terms. But you can
actually now make an avatar of yourself and takes about five minutes to make an avatar in front of a green screen. And
then all you do is you drop and drag a word document into the text box and you click and choose over 100
into then the avatar has you giving that sermon.
It’s incredible. So husbands, if you want to watch a ball
game in peace, create an avatar for yourself. That’s a joke.
It’s like the husband who said to his wife, “I want to watch a ball game. Could you give me the silent treatment for the next three hours, please?”
But um in all seriousness with with artificial intelligence, artificial intelligence can be a tool for
incredible advances of the gospel. It it’s also a two-edged sword and it’s
also now being used to to um for instance uh they’re working on on a system so that if your mother dies, you
can still talk to your mother for the rest of your life, but it’s an AI chatbot you’re talking to. And it mimics
your mother’s face. It mimics her voice. Um it mimics
and it learns it learns about you from your conversation with it. And so um this is preparing us for the channeling
of evil spirits at the end of time. So AI can be a tool for good and it can be a tool for bad. And so those are five
positive trends. Here are five challenges we’re facing in our western world today. Barner research asked us
churchgoers the question, have you previously heard of the great commission? So let me ask you the question tonight. Um, have you heard a
sermon on the great commission in the last, let’s say, three years? Hands up.
Okay. I know you’ve been preaching it, brother. Yes. Yeah. Okay. Okay. So, so I would say that 80% of us have not heard
a sermon on the gospel commission just from this poll sample here in the last three two or three years. And uh if we
were to ask Christians what is the great commission? Well, there are varying understandings. And so among Protestant
Christians uh they uh the response to Barner research was that 51% of those
churchgoers had not heard of the great commission.
17 said yes and it means that’s good. And 25% yes I have heard of the great
commission but I can’t recall what it actually was. So what this tells us is that there is a
loss of focus among Protestants in in the western world today.
For many people the word unreached has been used so often.
So for some people um unreached peoples are off the radar. So they say been there, I’ve done that. I did my short-term mission trip. I’ve got the
t-shirt. I’m going to move on with my secular career here in America. And some
people say, “Well, my neighbor in New Jersey is unreached because he’s a Hindu or a Buddhist, and therefore I don’t
need to think about anything outside of the shores of New Jersey or the shores of Maine or the shores of the United States.” And so the word unreached has
lost its meaning for many, many Christians today. Uh the second challenge we face is the
absolute number of non-believers is growing rapidly around the world. So every minute there’s about 35 new
Protestants in the world, but every minute about 158 people are born in this world.
So every year there’s about 18 million new Protestants. And every year there’s 83 million new inhabitants of planet
Earth. So we’re not keeping up with population growth. And this next picture
tells us that business as usual is not fulfilling the gospel commission. So that those those red charts th that’s
the number of non-Christians in our world. And in 1900 there was just about a billion non-Christians in the world.
Now by 2025 it’s 5 a half billion. And by 2050 over six billion people will not
consider themselves Christians. So we are not keeping up with population
growth. And I’m tired of people dying of cancer
and all the rest of it and the deg the the divorce and drugs and depression and
despair in our western world. And if we want to go home to heaven, we need to be
serious about fulfilling the gospel commission which is not so much a commission, it’s a command. It’s an
imperative from Jesus. And Jesus does not need to give us a second command to go. He’s given it at the end of the
Gospel of Matthew. So if any big Christian needs any needs to know what does Jesus want me to do? He wants me to
be a living witness in Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria to the ends of the world which means every Christian is to
have a witness in Caribou Maine in Maine in United States and somewhere else in
the world that we we’re all to have this multi-dimensional witness. There are more people alive today that do not know
Jesus Christ than any other time in human history. And to make it even worse, there are
more people alive today who do don’t know that Jesus even existed than.
And so we have a slowing of the Protestant growth rates from the 1960s through to 2010. You’ve got
charismatics, you’ve got evangelicals and Christians in that. And the fastest decline in growth is taking their among
is taking place among the the charismatics. The evangelicals are down to about two 2.8% at 8 cent right now
and so the growth rate is slowing around the world. The fourth challenge we’re facing around
the world is that there is a desperate need for pastoral leadership training because when house groups are
established they need to be led by mature Christians and when we talk about leadership
training in the west we tend to focus on functional leadership training. So
be um a Sabbath school teacher. We actually have job description
American division that describes what it means to be an elder.
All of those job descriptions are functional every week. Make sure the Sabbath school
offering is taken up. Keep a record of those who in the Sabbath school class, etc., etc. Almost all of our training
and our dis our paperwork focuses on function. But if you look in the New
Testament, what Jesus was primarily teaching was not function but who you are as a Christian. The spiritual
qualities of leadership. So leaders are peacemakers. Leaders work for reconciliation.
Leaders are those who care for the lost. Leaders are those who seek to bind up the brokenhearted. leaders are willing
to be generous and hospitable to the poor and the homeless. That’s the spiritual qualities of leadership we
find in the New Testament. And we tend to focus on the functional side of leadership because the the the spiritual
qualities of leadership that involves personal sacrifice and we’re not so willing to do that.
Have a good week, brother. I’ll see you next Sabbath. But please don’t trouble me between now and next Sabbath.
That’s not the kind of love that draws people into the body of Christ. So I may have been a a great elder. I
may have preached a good sermon. Uh the church may have opened on time. It may have closed on time. But that person
goes home without a friend from that church. And they so there is an urgent need around the
world for pastoral leadership training. That’s pastors and elders. And there are
millions of pastors and elders in the southern hemisphere who are undertrained and who are very isolated. And I come
across them in my travels. I was recently in Papu Nag Guina and um
south and a week in the north and we had together uh in in newly planted church
of them were were illiterate and so it’s an oral society. So we were having to
explain about this is how you do a Lord’s supper and this is what forgiveness looks like and this is how
you prepare a sermon. But all of our approaches to to sermons really require
somebody to be at least be able to read the Bible before they can deliver a sermon from the Bible. And so it was a
real challenge. But I I see this in my work with AFM. There is a desperate need for the training of church leaders all
around the world um to be faithful shepherds. Ezekiel chapter 34 is is a
beautiful chapter about what it means to be a good shepherd. And Ezekiel chapter 34 shows how God is not pleased when
when uh some shepherds they trample on and and they kind of push away the weaker sheep in the flock and they muddy
the water and they take all the prime food for themselves and how God brings judgment upon those kind of leaders. But
God is looking for faithful leaders in local congregations and a key component to that is training for the for those
pastors and those elders. And the fifth challenge we face is there are limited resources directed towards unreached
people groups. So today less than one mission one in 10 missionaries work among the unreached. It’s probably about
one in 140 actually missionaries in the Protestant world. And if you look at um
missionaries who are doing church planting among unreached people groups, the general conference has about 450
mission budgets and overwhelmingly all but a handful are administrators and
educators. public evangelism. And now there is a reason for that. We’re a victim of our
own growth. So if we if we do evangelism in eastern
and the the west the central Africa the northeast Congo
secretary and a treasurer and to ensure accountability we use one of those missionary budgets to bring in an expat
maybe from South Africa maybe from Philippines maybe from Britain maybe from America to be the treasurer to
ensure there’s a there’s an outsider looking at those finances to make sure there’s financial accountability and
integrity. Now, the net result of this is that almost all of our missionary budgets are being used for administrators and educators, not what
we think they’re going for. And Pastor Ted Wilson, the General Conference president, we need to give him uh I
mean, kudos for this because for the last 15 years, he’s been fighting a valiant battle to refocus all of those
missionary budgets on the unreached people groups of the world today, doing evangelism in them. And but the problem
is is that when he proposes that at the mission board, all the divisions when they vote in favor of this, the division
presidents, that means they’re giving up budgets from their own institutions. Nobody wants to do that. So everybody
says yes, yes, yes, but please don’t take my budgets. But by the grace of God and after Elder Wilson’s persistent
leadership, because Elder Wilson is focused in mission, um they’ve got a goal. It’s called missionary focus.
about 70% of our world church missionary budgets by I think it’s 2035 will be
focused on church planting among the priority unreached people groups in our world today. I say praise the Lord for the leadership in the general conference
for that. So when you give your offerings when you have your Sabbath school class that little brown envelope
comes around that’s where that money goes. It goes to those 450 or so miss
mystery budgets that get assigned by the GC around the world. That’s what you’re supporting. I’d encourage you to be a
faithful giver for those for that mission budget whatever else you do uh because it’s an in it is a much needed
work that is taking place. So 80 87% of the world today for Hindus, Muslims
little if in fact many have no contact with Christians on the streets of their their cities. That’s a huge percentage.
So I won’t talk about this but I’ll talk dollar of Christian giving.
How much of it goes to finance? What do you think?
25 cents out of every dollar. Oh, you are very optimistic. Very
optimistic. All right. So, it’s less than a penny.
That’s true. So, I want you to think about your local church budget.
on your local church budget. How much of that church budget gets spent on yourselves?
Heating, cleaning, repairing of the roof, running your
local school. How much of your church budget gets spent on yourselves?
Almost all of it. A small proportion, the loose offering goes
or Hope TV. and the Sabbath school offering
but that Sabbath school offering if you ask your treasure compared with the annual budget for the
so we talk about the gospel commission we’re really not invested in it as we
need to be and so um we spend more in America we spend about5 billion dollars
a year on Halloween costumes for our pets than we send to work among the unreached people groups as Protestants.
And so that gives you an an indication of where our priorities are. So those are our five great commission challenges. There’s a lot of great
commission focus among Western Christians. The absolute number of non-believers is growing rapidly around
the world. The evangelical growth rate is declining. There’s a great need for pastoral leadership training around the
world. And there are very limited resources going towards reaching the unreached. So those are some of the
challenges we’re facing. biggest macro level in our world today. And these are some of the challenges I live with on a
daily basis as I lead AFM. I’m very I’m acutely aware of these things. You might say the sixth mission challenge we’re
facing is persecution. And maybe the seventh mission challenge we’re facing is um prosperity
because Satan kills the church through prosperity. And there was a Romanian church leader
who said that in his experience and that brutal communist regime
95% of Christians will survive physical torture. But 95% of Christians cannot survive
prosperity because we mix the dollar value with the gospel values and when push comes to
shove we always vote for the dollars rather than for the kingdom of God time and time again. So those are two extra
challenges that are not listed there. So you’ve heard of Coca-Cola? Yes. Okay. Um
I don’t particularly drink Coca-Cola, but if I’m in India and I have a dodgy meal, Coca-Cola is really good for your
stomach. And um sometimes you stop at the side of the road and and you get a plate of of
dahl and rice and the plate hasn’t probably been washed. It’s got dried food on from the previous meal. And so
you you kind of scoop it off with your fingers and then you you immediately your stomach starts kind of rumbling on you. Um if you don’t have any uh
medication for your stomach, drink a liter of Coca-Cola and it will clean you up on the spot. Okay. So I don’t
recommend Coca-Cola for you know general drinking, but it can be viewed as as as a quick and dirty medicine if necessary.
So the vision is to put Coca-Cola in every hand on planet Earth. I think that’s Coca-Cola in South Korea. There’s
Coca-Cola in the Middle East in Arabic. There’s Coca-Cola in Thailand. I think
that one is um that’s in India or Pakistan. Uh that’s in uh I think that’s
Vietnam. That’s Thailand there. How much more should we be concerned
about getting the word of God into the hand of every person on planet Earth? Amen. If an American corporation can put
Coca-Cola into almost every hand on planet Earth and they don’t have the power of the
Holy Spirit leading or guiding them or empowering them, how much more as Christians should we not have the goal
of bringing the Bible and the word of God, the living word of God, Jesus Christ, to every home on planet Earth?
Revelation 7:9 says this, “After these things, I looked and behold a great multitude which no one could count from
every nation and all tribes and peoples and tongues standing before the throne and before the lamb.” That is God’s goal
for us as Adventists today. We have a privilege. We have a
price in earth’s dying hours when it is our privilege
and to say there is something only hope and through faith
that one day every tear will be wiped away. Oh, so that’s gone. Uh last I’m sorry
stuff there. This is not for tonight. Let me try and
It just goes to It just goes to auto auto forward here.
It’s like when somebody asks you a question, you know they’re going to give you a lot in return. Yes. So, I want to talk about this before we
conclude tonight. Christian mythologists identify three basic responses to sin
across the people groups of our world today. Guilt, shame, and fear. And
depending on what part of the world you’re in today, when you hear the gospel, you may experience shame or
guilt or fear. You’re not likely to experience all three at the same time.
And those three moral emotions have become the foundations for the three dominant types of culture in our world
today. In the west, we have a guilt and innocence culture based on our in
that’s where people who break not guilty my your honor in
forgiveness to rectify a wrong. But in the Middle East, we have shame and honor societies. They have collectivist
cultures. People are shamed for not fulfilling the expectations of their group and they seek to restore their
honor and the honor of their group before their community. Which is why if a man in the Middle East his daughter be
he will he is obliged his daughter to restoance
of her conversion. Then you have fear and power cultures.
Those are animistic contexts um where people are afraid of evil spirits and
they they they pursue um through magical rituals the ability to influence or manipulate those spirits. And as I’ve
gone around the world and worked for many years inclusion that almost
or not is working in a far fear and power almost every society.
Buddhists are officially atheists but in practice Buddhists manipulate the spirits of their ancestors.
a Thai restaurant or a Chinese restaurant in in Banga and you go in there’ll be a statue of the Buddha with
some rice and some Coca-Cola that’s not there for decorative purposes they are manipulating the spirits if you go to
India the home of Hinduism uh you have thousands of deities who are fallen
angels and those statues like Ganesh and so forth are manifestations of demons
and those demons come alive in the festivals those statues come alive and when the festival is over they go back
into their spot and People are afraid of the debtors. The holy men
may speak forth and Hindus
the manipulation spirit spirits.
Most Muslims don’t practice. And so you heard of the hand of Fatima.
If you get into a taxi driver who’s a takar whose taxi driver is is a Muslim, you often see little hand swing
diamond or something in the middle. It’s the hand of Fatima to ward off the evil spirits. Or somebody wrote to me
yesterday, they were in Turkey for the first time and everywhere they go, they see this like this this big blue and black eye at the front of every truck.
That’s there to that’s there to soak up the evil eye when people put a curse upon you and they’re soaking up the evil
eye and people wear it in their bracelets. And so many many people in Islam practice folk Islam, not classical
Islam. And here in in Maine, there is a rise in the occult and wickercraft and
the new age movement in every city of the state. And so when it comes down to it, we talk
about Hindus, Buddhists, Muslims, animists, seculars, and Christians. When it comes down to it, when you strip aside the language and the culture and
the food and and the and the climate and all the rest of it, there’s a struggle between Christ and Satan going on for
the loyalty and love of every heart on planet Earth today. That’s what it comes down to. It’s between Christ and Satan.
And so, more and more people are are living in a fear and power culture uh context even here in the West. So, how
would you share the gospel with somebody in a guilt and innocence paradigm? Well, this is the kind of thing we’d say as
preachers that Jesus Christ lived a perfectly sin sinless life, became the perfect sacrifice to take away the sins
of humanity. Having no sin of his own, he was able to take our sin and he was the perfect lamb of God that taketh away
the sins of the world. He was pierced for our transgressions and bore the consequences of our iniquities. And his
death on the cross forgives our trespasses and cancels the record of debt that stands against us. Then Jesus
rose from the dead and went to heaven. God forgives those today who repent of their sins and believe in Jesus Christ
as their Lord and Savior. To become a follower of Jesus today, I must recognize and confess the truth of my
sin before God as I’m moved by the convicting and converting power of the Holy Spirit upon my conscience. And
because Jesus reconciles us to God, our efforts towards moral perfection in and of ourselves are ultimately in vain. We
are saved by faith as a gracious gift from God not by our
son sin turn. Those are
in a western guilt and innocence paradigm paradigm.
You may say something very different because if I say to a Muslim lady, Jesus died to pay the penalty for your sins,
that may mean something to her, but the chances are it won’t because Muslims have little to no concept of sin. What
that Muslim lady knows is she has a sense of shame. She doesn’t know where it comes from and she wants to stand
before God with honor, not with shame. That’s her concern. And so we would say because Jesus’ ministry threatened the
earthly honor of the established leaders, they responded by shaming him publicly and gruesomely. Jesus was
arrested, stripped, mocked, whipped, spat upon, nailed, and hung naked upon a cross before all eyes. We don’t show
that in our portrayals of Calvary. Jesus always has a loin cloth on. But he was nailed up there naked. We kind of hide
the shame. We don’t want to compromise his honor. You might say the cross restored God’s
honor and removed our shame and face was restored. God was glorified on Calvary.
God then publicly approved of Jesus shamebearing death by resurrecting him
hand of God. Jesus life faithfully honors both God
and his law and the needs of the human family. Those who give allegiance to Jesus will receive a new status. Their
shame is covered and honor is restored. And so people are invited to turn away from their games of social manipulation,
social status construction, and the management of faith. Your your your honor in your community. And membership
into God’s family is not based on ethnicity, reputation, or religious purity, but by one’s familial or your
family allegiance to the crucified Messiah, Jesus Christ. That may be a way of sharing the gospel uh with people who
are more of a shame and honor perspective. And um I won’t talk about it much tonight, but Muslims having
dream dreams of Jesus all around the world today. And um there the visions are from Revelation chapter 1,
Revelation chapter 5, Revelation chapter 14, and Revelation chapter 19. Those four chapters and they’re all chapters
that we focus on as Adventists. Something incredible is happening in our world today. Jesus is going before us as
Adventists and Muslims who don’t have the Bible in their hands, don’t have access to the Bible, Jesus is giving
them the key visions from the book of Revelation and they’re looking for answers to what those visions mean. We say, “Praise the Lord. If Jesus be for
us, who can be against us?” So then you have a fear and power paradigm.
So demonic powers thought that by that in killing God’s son, sorry, demonic powers thought killing God’s son would
solidify their authority in the world, but their plan backfired.
The death of Jesus Christ was a death blow to evil forces. The cross disarmed the powers and authorities and publicly
triumphed over them. Then the ultimate display of divine of power. God re resurrected Jesus who rose from the dead
to a position of power and dominion far above all rulers and authorities. And
those words rulers and authorities from Ephesians 6 are used repeatedly by Paul throughout the New Testament to refer to
fallen angels. So Jesus has authority not just on planet earth, but he has authority over fallen angels. People are
invited to turn from fear of the demonic powers and to submit to Jesus as Lord. Believers in Jesus are transferred from
the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of light. And so in the west we say baptism is a public expression of your
faith in Jesus. Whereas in in in Cambodia or Thailand, baptism is more often not so much about repentance. It’s
an act of repudiation that says, “I want nothing further to do with Satan and his angels and his demons. I’m now standing
on the side of Jesus Christ in his kingdom. He’s my savior and I’m going to walk in the light from now on. It’s a
repudiation of Satan just as much as an act of repentance. We are we just understand it differently in the west.
But in a fear and power culture, uh you talk about baptism in a different way. Both are true. They are both true. So
fear and power, let’s continue. God and seats us with him
have a power and dominion far above all authorities on planet earth with
constant can now stand firm.
Chapter six. This is the command to stand firm against Satan.
But when spirits come, we can stand firm in the armor of God.
Though Satan continues as a line on the prowl, Jesus shields us from his evil influence as we firm our identity and
authority in God’s anointed son. And God blesses Christians with every spiritual
blessing in the heavenly realm, rendering black magic and occultic practices spiritually futile against
Christians. Now, bit of clarification on that. Revelation 12:17 says that Satan
was angry with the woman went off to make what? With the remnant of her children. All right. So, if you are a
born again disciple of Jesus Christ and you keep the commandments of God or you’re asking God to give you the power
and the grace to live um free from sin and free from the power of sin, to keep the commandments of God, then you’re in
Satan’s crosscope. Um you’re in his sights. Uh three weeks ago I was uh in in a in a
major US city working with a family and a colleague and the family had had a lot of influence um from their past um with
direct occultic activity and I knew that it was going to be a battle and it was a battle for two days because um the
couple of days before I left uh our family car at home just died at the side of the road. Just died. And so we
dragged it off to the the station and took a look at it. I had to replace the water pump on it and a few other things.
And the car is like 15 years old. So it was like, is it worth doing this or not? You know, one of those kind of marginal
decisions. And then we had rain and the water rose around our house house about
12 ft and the culverts all blocked and then the culverts blocked down down down
among moved in and started chopping down trees around our house. And so,
well, it’s not our drains. We can’t fix it. We just discovered this this this
poisonous invasive um plant in your pond. We want to destroy that pond. We want to destroy your pond actually in
total and we’ll pay for it here. And then then we think, well, the Department of Natural Resource Resources
and saying this is protected wetlands. Now, we’ve got beavers chopping down trees on it. So we had the county, the
state, the DNR and then the roads commission because the the culvers went under a public road.
So we went off to New York City leaving this wife. Look, if you can’t drive up our
driveway, park at our just walk over the fields to get home.
So you know, I’ve got a very patient wife. The point is this is that when you engage in ministry for Jesus Christ,
Satan gives you push back. And by the grace of God, when I got back a week later, it was all taken care of.
And we say, “Thank you, Lord, for that.” But when you engage in ministry for Jesus Christ, Satan will push back.
And if you don’t engage in ministry for Jesus Christ, don’t expect him to really Satan to be really interested in you
because you’re an inactive in the army of God. Once we start to become active for Jesus Christ, Satan has an interest
in extinguishing our witness. And so when these things happen, it’s not an encouragement to stop ministering for
Jesus Christ. It’s an encouragement to get on our knees and pray our way through that problem. Say when I went off to that city, I said, “Lord, I don’t
have a I I don’t have a car. It’s broken. It’s in the garage. I don’t my house is in danger of being flooded, but
there’s a family that we’ve promised like over a year ago. We’re going to spend time with them. We’re going to do this.” And God gave us victory there.
And within a few days of getting back, we gained victory in all the other areas that we were struggling with. Um ministry is a battle. Satan makes war on
those who who are in active in the armies of God. Blessing of Jesus Christ. We
Satan is a defeated enemy. So this is this is uh more of a gospel presentation
of the occult. So out of folk Islam uh somebody who is has
been man manipulating the spirits hi the two for in their life. So, our time is up. There’s no clock around here, but I
don’t have a clock up here, but I assume that it’s getting dark outside and it’s time for us to finish.
So, what’s the time, by the way? It’s 8:00, is it? Oh, it’s 8:00. All
right. So, in conclusion,
because we have kids here, they want to get to bed as well. Uh, the first thing I want to say to you is start praying.
Jesus said, “Ask you the Lord of the harvest for laborers.” He did not say, “Ask the Lord of the harvest for money.”
Because when laborers come forward, God always provides the means for them to work. So start praying for laborers. And
not just start praying for laborers, ask God how you might be a laborer for him yourself.
Ask him to open doors opportunity for you to be an active servant in the kingdom of God. If you are, if you know
of some missionaries, whether it’s um Gospel Ministries International or Jesus for Asia or AFM or it’s a student
missionary going out from your church, make those people a focus of your prayers on a daily basis because when
they’re pushing forward with the gospel, the forces of Satan are coming back against them and those forces are angry
and we need Satan God’s protection for every missionary who’s out there. Um, so become prayer warriors. And if you don’t
know who to pray magazine or the GMI updates or Jesus Frasier updates
and every Sabbath there’s every week Sabbath school lessons
priority missionary for them
into those meet of of hell kind break loose over me and
miracle and I knew it’s because there was five or six people praying for me on the other side of the world. You could just feel the Holy Spirit pick that
meeting up by the scruff of the neck and take it in a whole new direction. Don’t underestimate the power of uniting in
prayer, of praying in your homes, in your families, with your spouse. And don’t pray separately to your spouse if
you can help it. Pray with your spouse. It brings you together in your marriage. Warriors for Jesus Christ. Today I want
to encourage you to be givers. Giving can be money. Yes, money is always good. But give hospitality to
visiting missionaries. When people come back, they don’t have
stay. Often if you know there’s a visiting a missionary coming back to your state or to your home church, just ask them, do you have a car? I’ve got a
second car. I can lend it to you. Do you have a place to stay? Give them a word of encouragement.
Missionaries will and burnt out and they’re carrying scars. Some are physical, some are
emotional, some are psychological. And giving a missionary two weeks
is sometimes the best thing you can do for that missionary because when they come back for those kids, Maine is not
their home. Their home Bolivia or their home is Thailand. when
they come back to this country, it’s a foreign country and they are experiencing culture shock. You think these American missionary kids are
coming home? No, they’re coming to another country and everything is strange for them. The only thing that most of those kids enjoy is Taco Bell.
So, every missionary kid likes Taco Bell, you know, but and when we take when we go out to visit missionaries,
one thing they always ask for is, “Can you bring us a little Taco Bell?” The little um the sachets, the the flavor
stuff, the sauce. Everybody asks for Taco Bell sachets. It’s amazing.
you give, give encouragement, write a letter to um open up your bedroom,
provide it for a missionary, you can give finances to intentional about giving because you
will find life in that one act of giving for a frontline worker then all
and the third thing is go and the harvest indeed is ripe. is
plentiful, but the laborers are few here in Maine. I was ch chatting with Pastor Anna who met me at the airport today.
Your district here, it goes all the way up to the Canadian border and then then it goes way way down south, you know,
halfway to Banga down there. It’s a huge district just for Pastor Arnut and and and uh Sister Arnut as well. You got a
huge district. Yes, it’s huge. And there is a need for laborers.
And even though we have four churches in this district, how many communities are in this district?
200, I don’t know, 300. This is not a reached part of the world.
There are islands of darkness all around us here in Maine of spiritual darkness.
And so I want to encourage you to be active in gospel ministry yourself. Everybody here, you have a spiritual
gift, at least one. And if you’re not sure what it is, ask
you think the holy and ask the Lord to
shine for Jesus Christ. This and we we all do this faithfully.
The gospel will go forward in a new and a more powerful way than we’ve ever seen before. So I want to encourage you
tonight to be active in gospel ministry. Um know your Bibles, read your Bibles,
be familiar with the contents of the word of the Lord. We are the Christ prepares his church for for for
translation. Christ sanctifies his church according to Ephesians chapter 5
by the washing of the water of the word. Christ loved the church and gave himself for her in order to make her holy by
cleansing her with the washing of water by the word. Ephesians 5:25 and 26. And so run the word of God through your mind
every morning. It cleanses you. It sanctifies you just as you have a physical shower every morning. and ask
the Lord where you can serve. And if you’re not sure what to do, the bare
minimum each one of us can do is at the start of the day say, “Lord, today give me one person who will ask me a question
about you in Walmart, at the gas station, somebody with a broken
public library, somebody I meet in the metro or on a bus system or at an airport. Lord, give me one person
today.” and you’re praying through the day and you’re expecting the Lord to answer that prayer and he will answer that prayer
because that prayer is in harmony with his will and you may not know what you’re going to say
like the one on suffering or the one on the the natural laws of
car little pocket steps to Christ carried it with you and you don’t need
you can listen to their story and say Well, I don’t have all the answers, but I found this to be helpful. Why don’t
you try it for yourself? That’s a non-antagonistic way of sharing the gospel. And then you say, “May I pray
for you?” And I find it hard to mind people who don’t want you to pray for them. Even atheists welcome prayer just
in case. Just in case. Just in case. Just like there are Adventists who
haven’t been to church in 20 years. They’re living a secular godless life. and you ask them, “Can we drop you your
name from the church membership roles?” No, no, pastor. Just leave it on there. It’s like an eternal life insurance
policy just in case I want my name on those church books. So, in conclusions
tonight, be men and women of prayer here in Maine. Be men and women, boys and
girls who give. Whatever you have, give for the cause of Jesus Christ. Do it in
a hidden way. Do it so the honor and glory comes to God. Give, trusting that God will yield a harvest return to you
from your sacrifice and go. The needs of the mission field are vast.
We can bomb from 30,000 ft. We often do that in our military in America, but until you put boots on the ground, you
never you never win a war. And there are we find an AFM that you go
to some parts of the Middle East and they can access Christian satellite TV, but what they’re looking for is a living
Christian on their streets they can come up to and say, “Would you tell me what it means to follow Jesus Christ?” Boots
on the ground is what we need. And so maybe you’re a young person and you’re looking for direction in life. Maybe you
have a burden for souls here in Maine. Maybe you’re 60 years old and your house has paid off and your kids have left
home and you’re in good health. There is space for everybody in the mission field. There is space for everybody here
in Maine, here in Caribou, and to the ends of the earth. All I would appeal is
you, you’ve seen the challenges this evening. I’ve shared some of them. You’ve seen some of the good things that are happening in the mission field. But
until Jesus comes again, his people will be laboring faithfully, bearing the everlasting gospel to the ends of the
world. My prayer is that when Jesus comes again, we will all be found faithful, laboring whatever portion of
the vineyard he’s called us to live and serve in. Be faithful until Jesus comes again. He is coming again. And I want to
hear those words, “Well done, good and faithful servant. Enter into the joy that’s been prepared for you.” I want to
hear that for myself. I know you want to hear it for yourself as well. So may God bless you. May God shine through you
in mission whether it’s main. That’s that’s God’s call
and shine for Jesus and close with a word of prayer.
Heavenly Father, we want to thank you tonight that you gave the gospel to
those apostles and there was a group of 120 people in that upper room
and those 120 people carried the gospel to Africa and to Asia and to Europe
and uh almost 2100 years later, people have been carrying that gospel
faithfully through all those countries through thousands and thousands of miles at incredible risk. can sacrifice for
themselves. And Father, now we have received the gospel here in Maine. Lord, I’m asking that that gospel doesn’t stop
with us. Lord, may we not be the end of that story. But I’m asking, Lord, that
your gospel, the good news of a dying, risen, and sooncoming Savior will flow
through us to the world around us. Father, in this coming year, I pray that
every single week, you will give us opportunities to share our faith. When those opportunities arise, Lord, I ask
that words will be given us from on high by your Holy Spirit. That the words we say will be winsome. They’ll be they
will win souls for Christ. We will speak truth seasoned with grace. And that
people will be drawn to Jesus Christ as their personal savior. So Lord, work this miracle in our lives. Work this
miracle through our lives. And Jesus, when you come again, we humbly ask that you’re going to come looking for us and
for all those we’ve been in contact with here in Maine in this coming year. Thank you, Father, for hearing and for
answering this prayer. We ask in Jesus’ holy name. Amen. Amen.