The Conflict of Evangelism

On last week, we looked at the picture of missions from a redemptive historic perspective. We looked at missions, you know, from the Old Testament all the way through to the New Testament, to the Great Commission, beyond the Great Commission. But today we want to look at the Great Commission itself. If you remember on last week, what we did was we sort of set the tone, set the foundation, so that when we finally got to the Great Commission, we realized that it wasn't new, that this was the same thing that God had been saying to Israel since the establishment of Israel as a nation. And so if you'll open your bibles to Matthew chapter twenty eight, well, now look at this. What is really the most full orbed expression of this call to mission that we have. And the first thing that we'll see is that it happens in the context of a conflict. So first we introduced the conflict Verses eleven through fifteen. Versus eleven through fifteen is the conflict. While they were going behold, some of the guard went into the city and told the chief priest all that had taken place. And when they had assembled with the elders and taken counsel. They gave a sufficient sum of money to the soldiers and said, tell people, his disciples came by night and stole him away while we were asleep, and if this comes to the governor's ears, we will satisfy him and keep you out of trouble. So they took the money and did as they were directed, and this story has been spread among the Jews to this day. Now, this is the conflict that helps us to comprehend missions. What's the conflict. There are people who are willing to accept anything about Jesus, accept the fact that he wrote from the dead, I mean, anything you say about Jesus, people will accept. Some outlandish story comes up about Jesus, and people jump all over the outlandish story, and you know they're ready to believe it. It doesn't have a fraction of the evidence to back it up that the New Testament does, but people just want something other than what the New Testament says. Some gnostic gospel comes up, some pseudo piggerfoot comes up, some writing from somewhere comes up, and people who deny the Bible to the cows come home say, uh huh, well, look at that. There's the acts of Paul and thecla there's the Gospel of Thomas. There's that, and they're accepting these things without a shred of evidence, simply because it's something other than the gospel. This is the conflict. So when we think about missions, we have to think about missions in terms of this conflict. We are not going into a waiting world, longing to hear what it is that we have to say. We are piercing darkness. We are going into enemy territory. We are going into a world where people are under the sway of the prints of the power of the air. We are going into enemy territory. And so we have to understand this, and this text brings this up in myriad ways. First, understand the use of money here. If you'll remember, there were thirty pieces of silver, and Jesus was turned over by Judas for thirty pieces of silver. Now we have these individuals, these soldiers, accepting money in order to lie about Jesus' resurrection. Second, understand the nature of this lie. These men come and again, if you're a Roman soldier and you have been charged to hold a captive, if that captive escapes, you pay with your life. So these soldiers, they haven't run away. They've actually come in to inform and to report what has happened, meaning they are ready and willing to accept even their death as a consequence for having lost their charge. And so this is why look at it again. Tell the people his disciples came by night and stole him away while we were asleep, while we were asleep. Now you die for that. If that was the truth, these men would die for that. Look at this, and if this comes to the governor's ears, we will satisfy him and keep you out of trouble. Because if you're a Roman soldier and somebody's given you some money and they say, here, take this money, and this is your story. We were asleep and his disciples came and got him a time out, because if we tell that story, we die. If we tell that story, we die. So these powerful government officials, understanding the nature of the consequences these men would face, then say hey, if this comes up to the governor, we got you back. So they took the money and did as they were directed. And this story has been spread among the Jews to this day. Not just among the Jews, folks, this story has been spread throughout the world to this day. The idea that we explain away the resurrection. There have been PhD dissertations written to explain away the resurrection. During the height of the era of higher criticism in the nineteenth century, for example, there were theories that abounded and dissertations that were written about theories like the swoon theory. The swoon theory is that Jesus wasn't really dead, He merely swooned. It only appeared that he was dead, and then he woke up again. The swoon theory does not coincide with the facts as we read them in the Gospels, because these were people who were experienced at execution. Execution was an art and a science for the Romans. They knew how to execute someone, and when you read the account in the Gospels, it's obvious that they carried through their execution with the same kind of precision that they always did, even down to piercing him through his side, puncturing the pericardi and basically stabbing him in the heart and blood and water rushing out. There's no way that he survives that. Just the blood loss alone, there's no way that he survives that. But again, the swing theory, it doesn't comport with the facts. But people don't want the facts. They want something that makes the gospel not true. Okay, there's the conspiracy theory. The conspiracy theory is the idea that basically the apostles made up this story about Jesus and his resurrection. The problem, of course, with the conspiracy theory is that there would be a body you follow, if there's a conspiracy, there would still be a body in that grain. So the conspiracy theory basically goes something like this. You know, Jesus is crucified, he's buried, there's you know, Roman soldiers who are guarding his tomb. There's a meeting of the apostles and they say, hey, I know what we should do. We should make up a lie. These same guys who all ran away the night before suddenly say we're going to make up a lie. And the lie that we're going to make up is that Jesus was resurrected, and we're going to tell everybody this lie that he was resurrected. And not only did this you know, idea pass muster within the group, but also nobody within the group raised their hand and said, excuse me, while this is this is a great idea, and all he's he's he's in he's he's in there, because in order for this idea to work, he can't be in there. And remember this is as simple as moving a stone. I say simple. It would have been a stone weighing tons, and it would have taken and a number of people in order to remove the stone. But you could remove the stone, walk in and say, there he lay. I've stood there at what we believed to be his tomb, not at the Roman Catholic site, which is in the wrong location inside the city gates, but in the actual garden tomb outside the city gates, by the place of the skull, where he would most likely have been laying. You stand there, you stick your head in, You see where he would have lain. You can walk in. You have to crouch down a little bit, but you can walk in to see where they would have laid him. It would have been very simple to demonstrate that he was still in the grave. So the other alternative would have been that they overwhelmed these guards again, these frightened men who ran away Peter's running from a little girl the night before, and we believe that just a few days later they took on, the most powerful fighting force known to mankind, overwhelmed them, moved the stone, took the body, and then lied and eventually all gave their lives for this conspiracy. Conspiracies don't work like that. Conspiracies break down when people start losing their lives, usually before and once your conspiracy is above two people, it's got zero chance of surviving. Okay. The other alternative that people floated was the idea of the hallucination theory. The hallucination theory basically says, these people wanted to believe this so badly that they just hallucinated. And so again John comes and he hallucinates, Peter comes and he hallucinates. They go to the other disciples and they all join in the hallucination. Thomas wasn't with him, though, so a week later they had the hallucination again, and Thomas is there. Then, according to Onst. Corinthians, chapter fifteen, more than five hundred eyewitnesses hallucinate at the same time. This doesn't work. Again. These are theories that were floated and people held onto simply because we'd rather believe anything than believe that Christ grows from the dead. So when we talk about missions, we have to understand that this is the conflict. And oftentimes when we forget this conflict, we get discouraged and many people don't want to have anything to do with the mission of the church. Why because we had this idea that somehow, you know, God will call us and we will go and as we go and we preach to people, they will come and they will wrap their arms around us and they will say, oh, thank you, thank you, thank you for bringing the Gospel to us, when that's usually not the case. It's usually not the case. There are people who preach the Gospel their entire lives and don't see converts. Think about how long Isaiah preached and Jeremiah preached. They did not see the same type of thing that Jonah saw. You realize that what Jonah saw was not the norm for the prophets. It was completely outside the norm. The norm for the Prophets was to preach to a stiff necked people did not see response. William Carey and other missionaries, they did not go places and see overwhelming response. That's usually not the case. And it's because of this conflict. There is a spiritual war, a spiritual battle taking place. Even the disciples were affected by this tendency toward unbelief. Looking verses sixteen and seventeen. Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them, and when they saw him, they worshiped him, but some doubted. I mean, trying to wrap your mind around that, because so many times, here's our attitude, here's our attitude. You have a friend, a loved one who's unconverted, and what do you pray? You pray that the Lord will show them something, because if they see whatever it is, they'll believe if they see what. What is it that people can see that the disciples didn't see. These individuals saw Jesus perform his miracles for three and a half years. These individuals watched him be crucified, and then they saw him resurrected, and the text says, some doubt it. So what is it that we think we can bring to people that will somehow be more powerful than the resurrected Christ. Nothing, folks, this is the conflict. This is the conflict. So let's look at the context, the context of the Great commission. Jesus came and said to them, all authority in heaven and on earth had has been given to me. That is the context of this commission that we've been given. It is Christ and his authority, all authority in heaven and on earth. Why all authority? The key here is this phrase heaven and earth. Jesus always had the authority of God. Jesus never stopped being God. The incarnation did not rob Jesus, did not rob Jesus of his deity. So why is it that only now he says he has all authority. Now he has authority over death, hell and the grave by virtue of his resurrection. Folks, The incarnation not only changes time, The incarnation actually changes the Godhead. R There is a member of the Godhead who now has a physical body he did not before. There is a member of the Godhead who has tasted death he had not before, not something we usually think about, right, This changes even the Godhead. And so Christ, in his incarnation takes on a second nature. He has never stopped being God, but now he has a human nature as well as his divine nature, without any comixture of those natures. And now he has actually tasted death and overcome death and defeated death in his flesh, in his body. This has transpired. So when he says, all the already in heaven and on earth has been given to me, understand that there is a sense in which even the Godhead has been forever changed by the miracle of the incarnation. Therefore it says it's Ephesians four. When he ascended on high, he led a host of captives, and he gave gifts to men, and saying he ascended, what does it mean but that he had also descended into the lower regions the earth. He who descended is the one who also ascended far above all the heavens, that he might fill all things Colossians, chapter two, verse thirteen to fifteen. And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him. Having for given us all our trespasses. By canceling the record of debt that stood against us, with its legal demands, this he set aside, nailing it to the cross. He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame by triumphing over them. In him, Christ disarmed these rulers and triumphed over them. This is what happens at the cross. This is the authority to which he refers Hebrews two, fourteen fifteen. Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is the devil, and deliver all those who, through fear of death, were subject to lifelong slaves free. This happens because of the incarnation. Now is the judgment of this world. Now will the ruler of this world be cast out concerning judgment? Because the ruler of this world is judged, I'll refer you back to our series on revelation, the idea of the significance here chapter twenty, verses one through three. Then I saw an angel coming down from heaven, holding in his hand the key to the bottomless pit and a great chain. And he sees the dragon, that ancient serpent, who is the devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years, and threw him into the pit and shut it and sealed it over him, so that he might not deceive the nations any longer until the thousand years were ended. After that he must be released for a little while. Without going into all of this, For the sake of time and because, as I said, we dealt with this in our series on revelation. Basically, the amillennial position an amillennial eschatology is not one that doesn't believe in the millennial reign of Christ, but it believes two things that set it apart. Number one, it believes that the thousand year reign of Christ is symbolic, that the thousand years are not a literal thousand years, but a symbolic thousand years. Why does it believe this because this paragraph is filled with symbols coming down from Heaven holding in his hand the key to the bottomless pit and a great chain. This is not an angel holding a physical key and a physical chain. This is symbolic language. The devil is not bound by a physical chain. That's symbolic, all right. And even people who are you know, pre millennial and believe in a literal thousand year millennium, even they don't argue that this first part of the paragraph is literal, which is ironic because they fought the millennial position saying you're just you're just not taking scripture literally right when the fact of the matter is this is not literal. And the number one thousand is not literal. It's ten times ten times ten. So you get the number three and the number ten, the number of God and the number of completion. You get all of that and you get a huge number. Right. That's the idea that it's a huge number. It's a huge number, and it's a significant number. The other problem that people have with this is they say, well, no, no, no, during the millennium when Satan is bound, if this was the millennium and Satan is bound, then you wouldn't have you know, all of the death and the war and the destruction and this and that and the other time out. The binding is very limited and specific. What does it say, threw him into a pit and shut it and sealed it over him so that he might not deceive the nations any longer. That's the purpose of the binding, that the nations might not be deceived, that the Gospel might prosper among the nations, which is exactly what has been happening since the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ. We are in the millennium now, Okay, so the millennial position number one believes it that thousand years is not literal, and secondly believes that the millennium is now. It's now, it's right now, We're in the midst of it. That's why this is the missionary age. Amen, That's why the Gospel is flourishing among the nations even now. Folks, we've gotten to a point to where we can actually count the number of unreached people groups, the number of language groups that don't have the script in their language. And when we look at the numbers, this is something that's doable. It's doable within a generation to get the scriptures into all of those remaining language groups. It's doable within a generation. Why because Satan is bound and he is not able to deceive the nations like he was able to deceive the nations before. But why does this happen? Because when Christ raises from the dead, he says, all authority in heaven and on earth is given to me. That in itself boasters the millennial position, boasters the belief that the millennium is now and that the binding of Satan is now. Because Christ says, right now, all authority in heaven and on earth is given to me, all of it, every last bit of it. So he also has authority as the faithful witness, as we see in Revelation. For the sake of time, we won't deal with all of that. Okay, what about the content? What about the content of this commission? We see the conflict, right, The conflict is our adversary, the devil, the prince of the power of the air, the people who would rather believe anything than believe the Gospel is true, blinded eyes, hostility towards the gospel. That's the conflict. The context, however, is Christ, who says all authority in heaven and on earth is given to him. That's the context wherein this commission was given. So whatever this commission is, it is going to be accomplished. Why because Christ has all authority in and on earth. Okay, So it's important to remember the context. By the way, this is what motivates us and encourages us in our mission, the fact that it's going to be accomplished. So what that means is, even if I don't see, you know, legions of people coming to faith in Christ through the work to which I've been called, I can still trust in the completion of the task because the one with all authority in heaven and on earth is the one who has given this commission. And is the one who is going to see it through. Amen. So my part may be to plant, my part may be the water. I may not see the increase, but he is going to accomplish this task. So what's the content. What is it that we're told to do in light of the conflict and this context, Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I've commanded you. And behold, I'm with you always to the end of the age. The content, it is global, it is multi ethnic, it is evangelistic, it is comprehensive. That's the content of the Great Commission. It is a global, multi ethnic, evangelistic and comprehensive commission. Let's look at each of these. It's global, go or as you go, as you go. In other words, this commission is only carried out as the people of God go go where everywhere. As we go everywhere, the names the nations go, make disciples of Panta ta Ethne, every nation, every people group. Okay, this is global, this is globe. There's no one there's no part of the globe that's not covered by this commission. It's Global Acts one to eight. You'll receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you. We mentioned this last week, and you'll be my witnesses in Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria and the remotest parts of the earth. Now, when we talk about missions, it's important that we interpret that text rightly, okay. And I know that you know, we look at that and we see, you know, these these particular words, you know, as the Gospel is going forward, but it's important for us to understand what they represent. Okay. You'll be my witnesses. First in Jerusalem. Now when he says Jerusalem, what he really means is Jerusalem. And then in all Judea. Now when he says all Judea. When you really look at that carefully, what you realize is that he was actually talking about Judea. And and then Samaria. Okay. And when you do an in depth study of what he meant when he said Samaria, you realized that what he actually was referring to there was Samaria, and then to the remotest parts of the world. And on this one, when you look at that very carefully, you you understand clearly that he means places like America. Right, no, no, see, no, actually, no, that's that's no, it's not that's not what it means. Can see, America is the epicenter of of you know, of of Christianity, and it's the epicenter of God's global work. And so therefore when he said Jerusalem, he meant, you know, here all Judea, he meant kind of our region Samaria. That's places where you know, other people sort of live in the remotest parts of the world. You know, that's that's like, you know, deepest, darkest, you know, Asia and Africa. Whatever. No, no, Actually, Africa and Asia are closer to the epicenter of Christianity than America is. Africa and Asia would have been known to the apostles and heard the Gospel early, America unknown. The Gospel doesn't get here till late. This is the remotest parts of the world. And it is because people heeded the call that the Gospel came here to the remotest parts of the world. You see, we have the gospel because people left home and brought it here. Think about that for a moment. We had the gospel because people laid down everything and came to what at that time was a hard place, and in this hard place planted their lives and planted the Gospel, and that's why we had the Gospel here. It's very important that we understand this because as Americans, it's so easy for us to view ourselves as the center of the Christian universe when we're not. It's so ironic that people talk about Christianity as being a Western religion, really a Western religion, born and bred and rooted in the Middle East. No, sir, this is not a Western religion. It is a global religion, but it has its roots in the Middle East, in the ancient Near East. The pattern of the Apostles was that this is global, that it's global. Why why would that have been their pattern? This would have been their pattern because they would have understood it from the beginning. You remember, on last week we talked about the fact that as Jews, they would have had this missionary context. They would have understood this context even as Jews. Now, as Christians, they see the fulfillment of these promises that God made and the gentiles are beginning to come into the fold. It's what they would have expected. It's what they would have anticipated, It's what they would have prayed for. It's what they would have longed for and yearned for. So now they're going, they're going, and they're going throughout the globe. It's a multi ethnic commission. Panta ta ethne. We get our word ethnic from this word for nations or peoples. This implies translation, This implies translation. You know, it's interesting you say missions to a person today and most people think feeding me hungry, and digging water wells and maybe you know, building some buildings. Come on, be honest, you say missions today, and that's what people think. Right. Missions is about about social justice. Missions is about spreading the wealth to different parts of the world. You say missions one hundred and fifty years ago, and people would have immediately thought about translating the scriptures into the language of other people. That would have been the immediate thought, We've got to get the word of God into people's language so that they can know God. That would have been the immediate thought. Not we need to feed, we need to clothe, we need to house, we need to know, And there would have been a thought of education. Education. Christians were on the forefront of education and higher education. Why because our religion is an intellectual one. You need to be able to read the scriptures and understand the scriptures. So if you're going to take the Gospel to people, you're going to take the scriptures to people. If you're going to take the scriptures to people, they need to be literate. This is why education and missions are linked. Inexorably, education falls under the category of our missionary outreach. Okay, it implies church planting. It implies church planting. Okay, that's why we exist. That's why we exist to plant churches. It's been incredibly encouraging to watch that happen, even even here, and it's been a tremendous blessing to watch God plant churches through this church. But that can't be. That can't be. That can't be it, that can't be it. We need to plant more churches, and we need to plant churches in more places, because ultimately, this is this is the mission, this is what we do. I had I had somebody ask me about this just not long ago, and you know, we were talking about missions church planting, and they mentioned something about church planting and I mentioned, you know, to them that that was something that we're involved in and engaged in and had experience in and he was like, Oh, yeah, that's a that's a big deal for you guys, isn't it. And I said, no, no, it's not a big deal for us. It's a big deal for gods. That's what it means to be a healthy church. We've forgotten that in the midst of this age where we believe the health of the church is determined by the growth of the individual congregation, where we we have no concept of planting churches. In other places, in this age, we we think church planting is something you know, for a select group of individuals, like it's that's the special forces of Christianity. No, healthy churches plant churches. It's like it's like it's like families that grow healthy churches plant churches. This is what we do. This is who we are. Sometimes we plant churches close to us, sometimes we help partner in plant churches far away. But ultimately it's about planting churches. The mission of the church is not to feed the hungry. It's not to clothe the naked. It's not to give shelter to people who don't have shelter. That is not the mission of the church. Did I say that that's unimportant? Did I say that Christians shouldn't do those things. No, I did not say that Christians should do those things. And those things are important. But when we are known for those things and not for the proclamation of the Gospel, what we have said is people going to hell as acceptable as long as they have food, clothing, and shelter on their way. That's the wrong answer, folks, that's the wrong answer. We are about the proclamation of the Gospel and planting healthy churches. Paul's missionary journeys gives us a picture of this. What did he do in his missionary journeys. He planted churches. Paul didn't go, you know, to Asia minor and take money and feed people and you know, dig wells and things of this. I mean again, life would have been rough for the people in these different places. He didn't go and do that and then come back and report and say, here are the number of people who now have clean drinking water. Because I went to say no, he planted churches. He planted churches, and as a result of planting churches, people there now had their lives impacted, so that things like their drinking water and housing and clothing would be affected as well. But we can't get there too fast. The pastoral epistles also makes this clear. It's an evangelistic commission, baptizing them. We go and we do evangelism. Okay, the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. This implies conversion. This also implies the rejection of false gods, the rejection of false gods. We don't go places just to help people live a little bit better. We don't go places to help people add a little Jesus to whatever it is that they're already practicing. Okay. This is why the early missions in the Book of Acts set off so much controversy. Where Hey, everywhere Paul Rent went there was either revival or a riot or both everywhere he went, partly because he's confronting false religions with the Gospel. It's a comprehensive commission, teaching them to observe all things. This leaves nothing out. This implies long term commitment, and it impacts people and culture. This is important, folks. You know, oftentimes we think about the world in terms of first world third world, and that there are there are there are ways that we think about this and things that we believe about this, and we say that there are certain people who are just better off because of X, and there are certain ways to look at this. Because of the influence of Darwinian evolution. What our tendency has been is to look at this in terms of the ethnicity of prosperous people. And so you look at people and you say, well, you know, the prosperity in the world, if you look at it, it's focused mainly around Europe. And then you know sort of you know out here in the Americas, especially you know here in North America, because Europeans came here. It's an ethnic thing. It's because europe people, people of European descent are just superior, and so they build superior cultures. And that's what we've seen. Nothing could be further from the truth. And there are people who believe this. There are people in third world countries who believe that the reason that they're in the condition that they're in is because their skin is dark and dark skinned people just don't build cultures. There are people who believe this. Paul Washer, you know, is one of my dearest friends, and he's been here and preached for us before. Paul Washer actually in a sermon in Zambia addressed this issue when he was there on one trip, and he said something that is stuck with folks for a long time, because he saw, even as he traveled throughout the world in Asia, in Africa and other South America and other places, this idea that people in the Third World had that you know, somehow we're inferior to lighter skin people because they're the ones who have great cultures. And it must just be because you know, we are the darker, inferior races. And he said, as only Paul Washer could, the difference is not ethnicity, it's the Gospel. Before the Gospel came to Europe, they were painting themselves blue and eating each other. And it's true, folks, Europeans were barbarians before the Gospel came. It had nothing to do with the hue of their skin. It had to do with the degree to which the Gospel infiltrated every area of life. That's the difference. The prosperity that people experience, the freedom that people experience, it's because of the Gospel. And the great irony is that now Europe and America are rejecting the Gospel and we're becoming barbarians again, killing our young embracing and celebrating homosexuality, killing our old. This is what barbarians do. It's the Gospel that transforms culture. And so if all we do is go in and throw some money at folks and dig them some wells and give them some clothes and build them some structures, but there is not the gospel, then we're going to spend the rest of our lives, really the rest of their lives, because they won't last long doing the same thing over and over and over again. But if the God, the Gospel is brought into a culture and takes root in a culture, and the implications of the Gospel are taught to a culture, and people understand how the implications of the gospel impact and infiltrate every area of life, then you see cultural transformation on a grand scale. Now you're not just giving people fish, You're teaching them how to fish, and it makes a difference. This is the problem with hit and run missions. The idea that all we need to do is go somewhere, is show them a film and ask them to raise their hands, and then you know, come back and report. Listen if reports, if reports are accurate from some of these film projects and other hit and run evangelism projects. If reports are Africa are accurate, Asia and Africa have been saved multiple times over, if the reports are accurate, because people come back and like thousands, thousands were saved because we showed a film and then ask people to raise their hand and in order to be kind to the foreigner who brought us nice stuff. Sure we raised our hands and you go back a year later, five years later, ten years later, there's still still mired in paganism. But it's worse because now if somebody comes with the gospel, the response they get is, yeah, we already did that. Now they've been inoculated. You see, our commission is a comprehensive one. It's not just hit and run. We go and we proclaim the gospel and we lay down roots so that we can take the time to explain implications so that lives are changed and transformed. This is why the church doesn't just migrate from place to place to place. This is why, you know, the apostles didn't just take everybody and say, okay, you know, here we are, and we're here and we're evangelized, let's just all go somewhere else. You know, they could be there and no, no, no, not everybody goes everywhere. Jerusalem Judea scenario, the remotest parts of the world. You know, most people and acts didn't get past Judea. Think about that. They didn't get past Judea, they didn't get to Samaria. They didn't get to the remotest parts of the world. Does that mean they were unfaithful or unsuccessful? No, no, not. Everyone is called everywhere because when ground is taken, it has to be secured. So yeah, there are some who will go to the remotest parts of the world. Praise God for they are no more significant in God's plan than people who are called to be faithful in Jerusalem. Amen. This is like the woman whom God calls to, you know, give her life to her family and raising her children, that somehow thinks that she's inferior. If there's not something more that she's doing with her life. Nothing can be further from the truth. Bloom where you plant it, Be faithful where God's called you. If your mission field is the children in your home who need you to do this very thing, what do they need? They need you to bring in the gospel and then they need you to instruct them and all the things. But she's commanded us. That's what they need. That's what they need. That's your mission field. Don't neglect that mission field for another. Amen. All right, we'll stop here so we have a few minutes for questions. Yes, yeah, yeah. The idea of the immutability of God, the idea that that God doesn't doesn't change with the idea that the that the God had is essentially, you know, change because there's one who takes on flesh. Depends on depends on how you're defining change. If by change you mean God learns something that he didn't know, God doesn't learn things that he didn't know. If by change you mean God God adapts and you know, whatever, so that he can better handle things. No, that that doesn't happen. But if by change you simply mean there wasn't a person in the Godhead who had taken on flesh, and now there is a person in the god who had taken on flesh. Yes, that that change. It doesn't change who God is, Okay, it changes the circumstances within the Godhead because now you actually have one member of the Godhead who has a body, which is an amazing idea. Jesus didn't have a body before and now he does. You know, he never tasted death before, now he has. This is why he is our perfect savior. You know. Yeah, Do I think Africa might become the next Christian nation as opposed to America or Europe. Well, first, Africa is not a nation. It's a continent that has fifty five nations. And that's a very common mistake. We talk about, you know, Africa like it's one country, and it's not. Nor is Europe, even though they're trying to become that. Do I think that that Africa may become the epicenter of Christianity? It could, It could. There are a lot of people who talk about the epicenter of Christianity moving and moving south because of things that are happening in South America and things that are happening in Africa and places like that. And I think, to a certain extent, it's true that that is happening. But by the same token, we can't take lightly what has happened here in the US, for example, wherever you are in the world, even when God is moving in South America and Africa and Asia or wherever. I mean, when God is moving and there are people who are coming to faith, and there are churches who are growing, and so on and so forth. When they want to grow in their learning and understanding, and they need books to help them. Guess where they get them from right here, because there's nowhere nowhere that has the wealth and depth of theological learning and expertise that we have here, and it will take generations for that to be accumulated in other places in their contexts. That just doesn't happen overnight. The other thing is when you think about America, it's easy for us because we're here, you know, and we think, oh, so many things are changing, and so many things are getting so bad and bad dah da dah dah. But if you go somewhere else, if you were to go somewhere else and live, you know, for a year or two or five in a place where the Gospels really you know, progressing and advancing, one of the things that you would realize is that people there are listening to preachers from here because some of the greatest preachers in the world are here. How many of us are listening to preachers from other parts of the world, right, I mean, you know, we're so spoiled that we don't realize, you know, what we have. And and then the third problem, I think is that we have this assumption that if we're faithful and if God is really here and really at work and really moving, well, that's going to mean that we're going to have bigger ch churches and you know, all of our you know, politicians are going to reflect what we believe, and you know, our laws are going to reflect what we believe. And you know, we're not going to have this moral problem and that moral problem. Da, nothing could be further from the truth, you know. I mean, we've experienced something here that the rest of the world hasn't experienced. It's not the norm. You know, the norm is that Christians are in the minority. The norm is that living as a Christian with Christian you know, morality and sensibilities puts you on the outside culturally, not on the inside. It brings persecution. So I think, you know, you can mind those three things, and it makes us sort of overreact to what's happening in the Southern hemisphere. Yeah, great question. What is the correct way to us for us to think about or to balance the idea that the church's mission is to be the church, to plant the church, to take the gospel and plant gospel churches in other places, with the idea that there is so much involvement in humanitarian work and so on and so forth, and we call that mission. I think two things. One, I am not going to say that the humanitarian stuff is bad or wrong. It's people are made in the image of God, and to be a blessing to people is a blessing. That's why most hospitals are called Baptist Methodists, you know what I'm saying, or whatever, because Christians as mercy ministry did this, the idea of the orphanage, the idea of all of this. This is Christians doing mercy ministry. But we've always understood that mercy ministry came out of this found of our mission, right, and so it was part of our mission. It was rooted and grounded our mission. I think what's wrong today is not that we're doing mercy ministry, but that we've separated mercy ministry from the mission of the church and we've called it the mission of the church. So now instead of people who have a desire to do mercy ministry being rooted and grounded in the mission effort right and gospel centered and accountable to this gospel centered locale. We now just sort of go off as lone rangers and call this the mission of the church. And because there's so much wealth in America, you can raise funds and go and do that and call yourself a missionary and say that God is blessing it because you were able to find enough money to keep on doing it. And our theology is so bad in this area that we don't even have a check. You know. In relation to these things, there are a lot of people out there on the mission field who are not part of a church and have been part of a church for decades. You know. Campus ministry is a prime example. In many campus ministries, you have people who go out to Campa. And I say this because you know you're a college student and you know you know this. There are campus ministries out there on your campus and basically this is how they work. We're here, we're gonna evangelize the University of Houston, and we're gonna have our weekly meetings, and we're gonna have our discipleship groups, and we're gonna have all these things for the students. Right and we do all of these sorts of things. Well, we're not gonna be connected to any particular church because we don't want other churches to be threatened by the particular church that we're connected to, because then they won't give us money. And since you know, we're not really connected to a particular church, we'll tell people you need to find a church, but we won't really you know, push that. So we'll have people in our leadership who are not members of a church, not accountable to a church, and essentially our weekly meeting here on campus is their church. And then when people get saved, if they're really on fire, guess what they'll do when they graduate. They'll go raise support, come back to the campus and do the same thing. They won't go be part of a church. And so you have generations of campus ministry and campus ministers who know nothing, nothing of authentic Christianity in the context of a real church. That's sick. That's not healthy. That's sick. Okay, that's a sickness in the church today. And that's just one example. What's the problem. We're disconnected from the source, We're disconnected from the church. Jesus came to build one thing, right, he came to build his church. That's what he came to build. Everything else that we do has to flow out of that has to be accountable to, that has to serve that. When we're doing that, man, then then it's great. You know, it's great. Yes, yeah, listen, there was several questions in those two let me, let me, let me back up and do it. The first one and this is how do we capture or captivate the younger generation that's passionate about reaching people with the gospel. How do how do we how do we how do we captivate them and direct that rightly? I think one of the things that we have to do is we have to have a biblical theology of missions. We have to do this. We have to have this conversation. That's why we're doing this. You know, this is a conversation we have to have and it's a conversation that's not happening. And because because we have this sort of churchless mentality in general, when people think about Christianity, don't think about the church. The church is a place that you go, right, y'all know. The next book after this one that I have coming out in May is the book titled churchless Christianity. And one of the analogies that I use, especially as it relates to young people, is that young people have kind of a Starbucks mentality when it relates to the church. You know, I like this Starbucks over here. It's got good coffee. There's another coffee shop on the other side of town. Every once in a while, I'll go over there because the coffee may not be as great, but the ambiance is better, you know. And then, you know, sometimes I'll go and I'll just you know, not do coffee at all. I'll go to somebody. You know. That's the attitude that we have towards the church. You know. Yeah, sure I show up sometimes, and you know, membership is what is that, you know, you know, commitment to the church doesn't exist. I'm here to be entertained, you know. I'm not here to be connected. I'm not here to be accountable. I'm sure to be entertained. And if there's something entertaining on the other side of the town, I'll run over to the other side of town and I'll enjoy that as long as I you know, enjoy it. Then but I don't enjoy it anymore, I'll come back over here. You know, maybe I'll go. You know, that's the attitude that we have toward church. And so when you have that sort of churchless mentality, and you couple that with the passion of youth and this desire for the world to be reached, well I can also have a churchless mission, right. I can just say, you know, man, I heard about this sex trafficking thing. You know, this is a big deal with the young people. Now, you know, I heard about this sex trafficking thing, and I want to get involved in this, and I want to eradicate sex trafficking. And so I'm going to go not to my church, you know what I mean, and figure out what in our context would make sense for us to do. I'm going to go to an organization that's not connected to or accountable to a church, so that I can rid the world of this. You see, this is what's happening. But it's because we have a faulty understanding of the church and a faulty understanding of missions. That's why this matters. That's why we need to talk about this, why we need to have this you know, this this this series. And so then the question is would it then be wrong for people to sort of run off and you know, do these things in these various other directions. Yes, to the degree that it's not connected to and accountable to the local church. But again this is this is foreign. What I'm saying is foreign, right, what I'm saying people would call, you know, legalistic, people would call unrealistic, people would call you know what I mean. Look at all the things that we've been able to do, and da da da da and so on and so forth. Okay, Yeah, we've fed a lot of people. Yeah, we've helped a lot of people. But we've also created an entire generation, probably two generations now, that have no sense of the importance of the centrality of the local church. It wasn't worth that, nothing's worth that. Yes, yeah, short term missions. Again, short term mission is important and helpful when it's connected to a long term mission. So short term missions in terms of you know, I'm just gonna go do whatever with this organization that's not connected to a local church, that's not connected to indigenous ministries, that's doing whatever. Listen, you want to go dig water wells for people. There's nothing wrong with going and digging water wells for people, Nothing at all, Right, humanitarian mercy ministry. Amen, Holy Praise the Lord, don't call it missions. Now, if you're planting churches and you're connecting that to this idea of digging water wells and when you get on the ground, you're going to be connected it to a local church that's doing missions. You see what I'm saying. Now you can say we're involved in the mission of the church. Okay, medical missions and things of this nature. You know, great if when you're connected to the ministry of the church. Absolutely, you know the whole thing in Zambia, you know, and African Christian University. One of the one of the one of the things that makes this attractive and a possibility as we think about it in terms of eldership and even beyond as we brought and involved you know, even uh David, and and and and and to a lesser degree, Josh, is the idea that this is connected to local churches. This is a school that's under the authority in the auspices of local churches. This is the this is the this is this is a mission outreach of local churches. This is part of this whole idea that people need to be literate and understand the gospel, and we need to train ministers who arelliterate to understand the gospel. And we need to be attached to connected to accountable to the local church. You know that when you look at what Harvard and Yale and Princeton and others were established to be and what they've become today, it's the major distinction. There is absolutely no accountability to the church. You know. So anyway, short term missions, it'd be great, be great. Most people don't just get up one day and go into long term missions. Most of them have experienced something short term, you know, and that gave them the exposure and understanding broaden their horizons. They understood, you know, global Christianity and what's happening, and it was that that you know, let them all. Yeah. The question is is there a place for large style crusade efforts And the answer is absolutely because it happens in Acts two. So I mean that, yeah, I can give an unequivocal yes to that. That. Yeah, Well that's two different things there when when you talk about these you know, large style you know, evangelical crusades. You know, what happened in Acts two happened because of another event that gathered a crowd, right. It wasn't hey, let's go hand out flyers and let's go you know, do whatever, and then we you know, we go get a crowd. It wasn't that. So while my answer is yes, that doesn't mean that this whole process that you see people like Reinhart Bunki and others going through in order to build ministries that are based on this are effective and biblical because they're not. Because one of the things that has to happen is it has to be connected to the local church. You have to have this idea that people who are hearing the gospel are going to be you know, followed up and discipled and you know, taught to observe whatsoever I've commanded you in the context of a local church. And so you know, to to that degree, yes, you can, and there are there are different ways in different times when you can. You can. You can gather crowds together, especially in third world countries. You know, sometimes just having a foreigner to come in, you know, he's going to be doing whatever. That's something that can sometimes you know, gather a crowd of people to come and hear the gospel. And there's nothing inherently wrong with that. But what we're seeing, you know, when you when you bring up this sort of specific this this specific version, what we're seeing there is promises of health, wealth and prosperity, gold in your teeth, you know, healing crusades and these sorts of things. And so you've got desperate people, poor people, you know, ravaged with sickness, who are being alled to and told to come to these meetings so that they can get what other people have gotten, when the fact of the matter is other people haven't. You know, ask these people for you know, the where was it Pensacola? What was the big Pensacola revival the second time? What was the guy's name? Guy who you know kicked people in the face or whatever? What's that? Todd Bentley? You know Todd Bentley. I mean, this thing was going, This thing was huge. Thousands upon thousands upon thousands of people come in there, and there are all these reports from Bentley about you know, healings and this, that and the other. Do you know when that thing finally fizzled out? It wasn't when he had an affair and he left his wife or the other woman and all that sort of stuff you recover from that. But when it really fizzled out was when he was interviewed, I think was on Nightline and they asked them for records of these healings, these miracles, and they brought some stuff in and he's like, what is this? You know this, you know, this is all you know, this is all scratched out. We don't have you know, doctors, we don't have this, We don't have that. There were no records. They were saying, we've got you know, we've recorded this many you know, miracles and healings and this and that and the other. There wasn't one. There wasn't one other than some psychosomatic things, people getting up saying, you know, I don't feel this anymore. You know, later on they felt the pain that they didn't feel during that you know, moment or whatever. But there was there wasn't one. And so what's happening is people are coming because of false hope, you know, and that's what's that's what's heartrending about what's going on and those types of things, and they're praying on the weakest and the poorest people in the world and taking advantage of them. You know. So yes, yes, yeah, great question. The question is when you connect this with Revelation twenty and Jesus, you know, talking about you know, I'll be with you to the end of the age, the idea of Satan being bound, and then there's that phrase him being released for a little while. Again, I'll refer you back to that series of revelation, but that idea is that's the end of the age. He's released, at the end of the age, and literally all hell breaks loose. It's unlike anything that people have seen. Does that mean that nobody will be saved during that time, Well, no, because there were people saved before that time, right there are people say before that time. There are people say before Jesus went to the cross. There should be some amen's around here on that. How many times have we talked about the fact that people were saved the same way before Christ as they were after Christ. They believed in the Savior to come right. So it doesn't mean that nobody, you know, can be saved during that time. But what significant about this time is the way that the Gospel is progressing among the nations, among all of these nations. So at the end of the age, it's not like there's a period and the gospel will be effective and reach the nations. And then at the end there's a period where it won't be effective and reach the nations. The gospel will have reached the nations by then, what's that Our goal will never change. Our goal will never change, and that's not going to be a long time. That's not going to be a long time. Those are those days that, by God's grace, will be cut short. Yeah,