How the assets of the church are used by Satan to paralyze efforts in risky places

<p>How the assets of the church are used by Satan to paralyze efforts in risky places</p>

<p>Free sharing permitted under the Creative Commons <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/">BY-NC-ND 3.0 (US)</a> license.</p>

East Bangladesh Mission of SDA

Eugene Prewitt

The State of Missions in Adventism

The Bible on Missions

Codependent Missions

Making a Connected Mission Strategy

Assets, Cons and Support for Missions


Welcome back to the last in our series of 4 talks on the State of Adventist Mission. I've been trying to share a mixture of great things going on and concerning things that are going on that need addressing. Let me tell you the story about Sajjad. Sajjad isn't his real name, but we're talking about a man in Somalia. And he is a man who began studying there and he learned so much, and I'm thankful for what he has developed there in Somalia.

But it took almost 2 years of study with Sajjad for him to be willing to leave the strong prejudices behind. The Somali people have very strong prejudices. It's part of their belief system that it's almost an unpardonable sin to even investigate Christianity. So working with him took time. I had to be so patient.

Eventually he read Ministry of Healing for its health benefits and that opened the door that let the message right in. The way that the medical missionary work should work, it worked there. But I want to talk to you about the problem of integrity. Hey, I've been taken twice already, and though I have far more sincere people that I know and are working successfully. And 1 of the things I've noticed about missions is that there are stories that sell, and those stories get a lot of press.

But by the very nature of marketing, the marketers aren't so concerned with the stories being accurate as they are with the stories being emotive. So if there's a story related to spiritualism or to demons or to suicide or to something that you can relate to that is very, yeah, emotionally triggering. Those kind of stories are the ones that involve miracles that almost sound like magic, they create itchy ears. And we want to be careful that we not create itchy ears by being so excited about miracle stories. I had a worker here in Bangladesh that there was a person that said they were healed and answered his prayer.

I was happy for that, but I told him, let's not tell anyone about it. Let's keep that hush hush, because we don't want people to be searching for the truth and the basis of miracles. If they search for the truth and the basis of miracles, we're told in the Bible in 7 places in the New Testament that there's gonna be a lot of miracles that are sources of deception. So, how do you tell persons that are deceitful? I certainly can't answer all of that, but I'll tell you 1 thing I found.

If I approach someone and get to know them and discover their needs and offer to help, that typically isn't a con artist. But if someone approaches me that I don't know and is quite demanding of help or accuses me of not being a person that cares about anyone, that's almost always a lying con artist. So the way to avoid your charitable dollars going to con artists is for you to be in the homes of your neighbors getting to know their needs and you to know someone maybe like me or others that are on the ground in the mission fields that know where the needs are And that is how to do it. Because if you're giving to the con artist, you're really robbing from the needy people who never will beg. Righteous people don't often beg.

I often beg. Well, I don't know. I ask for money because it takes a lot of money to run the work that I'm doing. But don't forget that the 10 Commandments are a Christian idea and a Jewish idea. They really aren't a Muslim idea or a Hindu idea or a Buddhist idea.

And so there isn't such a strong taboo against dishonesty in those cultures. And you have to watch what poverty does. It can lead people to put on a pretty good show for the sake of getting some assistance. So if you have a Bible with you, I'd like you to turn to Luke chapter 9. We're gonna look at Luke 9 and Luke 10 briefly, and we'll get into our first problem that we're going to talk about in missions in our last talk.

Luke 9, and looking at verse 2, He sent them to preach the kingdom of God and to heal the sick. And he said to them, take nothing for the journey, neither staffs nor bag nor bread nor money, and do not have 2 tunics apiece." Jesus started a mission program that didn't have many assets. And if you go to chapter 10, you're going to see the continuation of that. Chapter 10, and looking at verse 2 and 3 and 4, The harvest truly is great, but the laborers are few. Therefore pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.

Go your way. Behold, I send you out as lambs among wolves. Carry neither money bag, knapsack, or sandals, and greet no 1 by the way. Jesus started a ministry program. It wasn't a program that had what you might call real assets, lands, for example, and houses.

Those are easily targeted. I've been talking to the president of the mission where I am here today. It looks like there's a pretty elaborate system set up here in Bangladesh to protect the properties of the church from persecution that will arise someday. I applaud their efforts to do that. I don't know if Satan will be prevented from accomplishing his goal.

But I'll say what I've observed in some of these countries. I've observed that people are afraid to tell the truth because what's gonna happen to their assets? They're afraid. And if you look back in the Bible history, you'll see that Israel had a strong central asset called the temple that had gold and silver and jewels. And you'll see in that history that God allowed the ark to be taken captive and the temple to be destroyed, to be built and destroyed again, and to be ultimately destroyed, you might say, did he not care about the assets of the church?

I'll tell you, Jesus cares more about the assets of people, human resources, And if that's what it takes to save more people, he would be willing that every church building in the whole world would be gone. That is, people are so important that fiscal assets can't hold a candle to them. So let's not think that that physical assets are so important to us. I found in all the countries I've been working that physical assets become a chief target of persecution. And so I'm looking here of sending people traveling around, of traveling around myself and teaching and preaching and doing what we can to help people with their health and with their mental health.

So the next thing I wanna talk about in missions is that media can't accomplish the mission. When Ellen White said that God would use simple means and bring the work into his own hand, I don't know what those means are, but I'll tell you, it certainly isn't media. I've observed enough to know that media creates interest, but it doesn't create decisions. It doesn't do discipleship, and it does not create workers. Media plants a seed that must be cultivated by someone on the ground.

So if you're supporting programs that are media programs, that'd be Amazing Facts, It Is Written, Voice of Prophecy, I don't say you shouldn't support them, but would you give equal support to people on the ground who are doing the work that needs to be done? Christ's method, the 1 that alone gives success, is a personal method. And Jesus came to earth and lived here a man among men doing personal work in a small circumference, in a small area so that he could do personal work. That's what works. So suppose that you're 1 of those godly young men that wants to do media and ministry.

Maybe you have your own channel on YouTube. That would you just make sure that there's a way to connect people to churches and people on the ground and make sure that we can follow up so that it won't be said when you get to heaven, where is your beautiful flock? What happened to those tens of thousands of people that liked your media but never heard the 3 of those messages. Then I want to talk to you about vacations, about education and work and strategy. You ought to consider putting in job applications in countries that are hardly reached.

Cambodia and Laos and Vietnam and M countries. You ought to consider it. And if you're gonna go on vacation, I was listening recently to some people that I know quite personally going on a scuba diving vacation there in the Middle East. And I thought, oh, I hope that they're trying to make good contacts while they're there. Well, I don't know if they are, but I hope you will.

Go on vacations to places with few admonists and make real contacts with the people. Get to know your hosts and hostesses and your drivers and your cooks and your chefs and your waiters and do what you can. Make your vacations count for the gospel. And if your children are gonna go to school, why don't you send them to study in 1 of those places? Make your education count for the gospel.

If we use strategy this way about where we work and where we study and where we vacation, the church could quickly enter the unentered people groups that are on this planet. Now, I want to share with you a statement about generosity, and I probably should have had it written out even before I talked about it. I'm going to summarize it to you. To you, but what it says is that the power of your ministry in your local church is largely dependent on the influence of the Spirit, and that Spirit will bless your local ministry and your church when you're generous with the ministry in foreign lands. That's the very thing.

That would be just really a great idea. And I'm not gonna read the quote to you because frankly I didn't prepare to do that but I'm nearly quoting it to you and if you want to see it you can write me and I'll dig it up for you I'll do that. So what are some good things that are happening in the field? J4A, Jesus for Asia. I have a ministry there, but so does Lehman, excuse me, and so do many other ministries that work through Jesus for Asia and they all could use good funding.

Lehman Ministry News is doing good work. Adventist Frontier Missions is doing good work. There are some mission stations where the denomination is doing good work. There might be scores of those but the 2 I've been working with are both quite good. PEM, that is the Peninsula Malaysia Mission and East Bangladesh Mission both have administrations that understand the truth for this time and that is yeah that is great and then let me just tell you a bit about the work that I have going and make an appeal and I'll be done with this short series.

I've bet my energies for the last 8 years to reaching the people in unreached people groups. Putting myself there, doing what I can, sometimes putting myself at risk. And I can see that God's protected me. I have believers in Yemen and in Somalia and in Afghanistan and in Iran and in Iraq and in Sierra Leone and soon it will probably be in Senegal. I have believers in lots of them in Malaysia and plenty in Indonesia among the people groups that are least reached.

And I was even today talking to some of my workers in Afghanistan about how it's difficult to have money funding for them, to keep them going. So I've been trying to raise a million dollars for many of my projects in North America this last few months. Did I say North America? I'm trying to raise it in North America, but the projects aren't in North America. The projects are outside of North America.

And I realized some time ago that there are tens of thousands of people that have listened to my sermons and audio verse. And that's why I'm putting this short series there because I thought maybe you might be 1 of those people to be willing, like if each of them gave just $50 for the 10, 000, that would do more than half of it right there. I think a lot of you could be supporting the work in these foreign fields in a way that would make a difference, a way that would allow the work to go forward. And yeah, how do we want to do it? We don't want to do it in a way that's synchristic.

We don't want to pretend that we're not Christians. We don't want to dumb down the message because we think people are simple-minded. We don't want to allow our racial prejudice or our tribalism to slow us down. We don't want to work from churches so big that they can't really take care of individuals. We don't want to invest money without a real plan to make sure that there's follow-up, either with our literature or our media.

But if you're doing anything, please accept my appreciation for what you're doing, even if these counsels are all new to you. You're doing something when most people are doing nothing. I wanna speak to those who are doing nothing for a minute. Friends that are doing nothing. I have found working for the lost to be essential to my own salvation.

Making a science out of it has been essential to me. I'm thinking of Counsel to Parents and Teachers, page 514, where it says, "'There are many that would work if urged into service and it would save their souls by thus working. And I'd like to see you get into it. I'd like to see you plant a church in your own area, or have your church plant a church, or maybe start a new branch Sabbath school in a region near you that is unreached. I'd like to see thousands of people taking their vacations and doing their graduate studies and undergraduate studies and getting their work in countries where we need temp-making workers.

So I've mentioned to you lots of good things that are going on and yeah maybe I should mention some of those again since I talked about my own work. Don't forget about ASAP with the refugees and Weimar, excuse me, the light ministry by Wildwood and the internships that are available, my appeal to you is get involved. Do it with money or do it with your person or do it with both, you can do it with both. If you have a house in North America, renting that house out would be enough to support you in almost any country you could work in. You wouldn't even need someone else to support you.

You could just rent out your house. May God give us wisdom to finish the work and to do it in good time. Let me pray for you and we'll be done. Our Father in heaven, I'm asking you to bless these 4 messages with power, to make them efficient for good in the setting fire to your church in many places. Would you please forward your work by your spirit?

We ask in the name of Jesus. Amen. This media was brought to you by AudioVerse, a website dedicated to spreading God's Word through free sermon audio and much more. If you would like to know more about Audioverse or if You

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The State of Missions in Adventism

Assets, Cons and Support for Missions

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The Bible on Missions

Codependent Missions

Making a Connected Mission Strategy

Assets, Cons and Support for Missions

Sound Doctrine