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Maybe that's the reason I'm not married. I don't respond to invitations from ladies fast enough. I never thought about that. Believe me, it wasn't because I didn't want to come earlier, it's because I couldn't. I am happy to be here. The synod is located in the center of our nation. Synods of lakes and prairies and trails,

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those synods have a school every year in the month of July. It's always held on the campus of Hastings College in Hastings, Nebraska. And once again this year I have been asked to be a member of the faculty at that school. Only ministers may come. We usually have about 200 of them. And what I want to share with you today is part of a lecture which I have

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been in the process of preparing to give to those men in Nebraska. In other words, this is not a sermon, this is not designed to be an inspirational talk, this is a serious look at some of the perspectives in world mission today. And I hope you will find it helpful. It seems to me as I look at the world mission situation, particularly as it is viewed from

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the church, that I see certain myths or misunderstandings abroad. And it also seems to me that we will not make the advance in world mission to which we are committed as long as we labor under the burden of these misconceptions. I would like to identify several of them for you this afternoon. The first myth is this, that mission is not a biblical priority. It is a mission

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priority. Now every Christian knows that missions are talked about in the scriptures. If they cannot quote any other verse in support of that contention, they can at least quote Matthew 28 where Jesus says, "Go ye into all the world and make disciples of all nations." But too many people within the church do not grasp the fact that mission is one of the two central

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biblical ideas. The first and the primary idea is that our only access to God is through his son Jesus Christ our Lord. The evangelical accent is the primary one. But second to that and second to nothing else is that it is our responsibility as Christians to lead others to the same experience of Christ which we have known. You see some of the world's religions

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are very self-centered, are very inward looking. But that is not true of Christianity. Christianity has never been a religion of the center. It has always been a religion of the circumference. Pascal, the French philosopher, once said that it was the pathetic fate of God to be perpetually misunderstood. And I think we are confronting here one of the great misunderstandings

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of God and misunderstandings of our Christian faith. God has always said to his people, "Go ye." But his people have been rarely willing to go. In the very earliest chapters of Genesis, what do we find Cain doing? The first thing he did was to build a city. A city is not a place from which you go. A city is a place where you settle down. God said to the people

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again in Genesis, "Scatter to the four corners of the earth." And what did they do? They built the Tower of Babel. Not an effort to go out, you see, into other parts of the world, but trying to go up to heaven, focusing on the center, not the circumference. God said to Abraham, "I will bless you, and in turn you are to be a blessing to all the nations

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of the earth." And that word to Abraham was picked up by both Peter and Paul in the New Testament. That's the Magna Carta of Christian missions. The greatest scandal of the Old Testament is the fact that people were called by God to go, and they didn't. In Genesis, in Exodus, in Numbers, in Deuteronomy, in 2 Chronicles,

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in Psalms, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Zechariah, and in Malachi, in every one of these, specific word of God is given on carrying the gospel to the four corners of the earth. But people did not go. Old Testament Israel, for example, was ready to go all over the earth to gather together the rare materials with which they built the temple in Jerusalem. See, there's

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the center idea again. They would go anywhere to bring stuff back to build that temple, but it never seemed to dawn on them that they were not being called to build a great worship center at the middle. They were being sent to the circumference of the world. They would go and bring things back. They wouldn't carry the message while they were going.

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Of course, the best known of all of the Old Testament prophets in this regard is Jonah. He was told to go to Nineveh, and he simply and plainly refused. And in that simple refusal, we see an accent which is common throughout the entire Old Testament. And then came Jesus. Jesus might be described as the man of the circumference. His very coming to the earth

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was a journey to the edges. Remember, God only had one son, and that son was a missionary. At his birth, wise men came from the east. In the last week of his life, Greeks came to worship him from the west. In other words, they came to him from every quarter. And in the years between his coming and his going from us in the flesh, he did not limit himself

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to Israel. He also went to Tyre and to Sidon. He ministered to publicans and to centurions and to slaves, and none of those people were Jews. The inscription on his cross was written in three different languages, representing the three great cultural groups of the earth. And he spoke often of carrying the gospel to the whole world. And at the end of his

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ministry, what did he do? He said, "It is expedient for you that I should go away." And why was it expedient? Well, just think of it. Suppose Jesus, in his resurrected glory, was present here on the face of the earth today. Everybody would be using every kind of transportation they could gather to go to him. Again, it would be the idea of the

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center. But Jesus does not want us to focus on one place. He wants us to go to the outermost parts of the earth. So he says, "It is expedient for you that I should go away and send you my Holy Spirit, who will accompany you wherever you go." And his last word to the disciples, you will remember, as he ascended into heaven, was this, "And ye shall be my witnesses."

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But the New Testament Church, like the Old Testament Church, refused to understand. It is very sad how many people have been studying the New Testament for so long and have never gotten this message. They noticed, for example, what Peter did. And they applauded Peter many times. They failed to perceive that Peter failed to do the thing that God wanted him

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the most to do. The most astonishing story, from an earthly perspective, in all of the New Testament, is the story when Peter was sitting on the roof of the house of Cornelius, and God came to him, and Peter knew it was God, he addresses him as Lord, and then God says to him that he is to eat of all the foods of the earth, representing, in other words,

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that he is to go to all the parts of the earth. And how does Peter answer? He says, "No." Imagine that. He says, "No" to God. He has acknowledged that it is God to whom he is speaking. And he looks at God and says, "No." Isn't it sad that the greatest of all the New Testament missionaries was not one of the twelve disciples? It was Paul. Isn't it

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sad that the second greatest of all the New Testament missionaries was Barnabas, not a disciple? In other words, the center group, the core group, failed to understand that ours is a religion of the circumference. And what was true of the Church in the Old Testament and what was true of the Church in the New Testament is also true of the Church today.

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Christians spend more money on chewing gum each year than they do on world mission. Or let me put it in another way. Last year, American Christians contributed $315 million to television ministries. I mean people like Oral Roberts, PTL Club, Jerry Falwell, the 700 Club, Rex Humbard, Robert Shuler, Billy Graham. $315 million. Now what did they get for that $315

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million? All of that money contributed to the support of three congregations, five schools or colleges, one hospital. Less than 5% of that money went to world mission. All the rest of it was spent to buy more radio and television time. More things you see for the center and not the circumference. The story is a very old one. The mission imperative

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is that we are to go to the edges of the earth. It's written in the scriptures, in the Old Testament and in the New Testament. In the New Testament we find it in all of the Gospels and in Hebrew, in James, in 1st, 2nd, and 3rd John, in 1st and 2nd Peter, Jude, in all of the letters of the Apostle Paul and also in the book of Revelation. To believe that

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missions is not the second greatest of all the biblical priorities is to believe a myth, a patent falsehood. It is to make the mistake that multitudes of sincere believers have made before, that our faith is a faith of the center. It never has been and it never will. Our perspective is to be the whole world. Ours is a faith of the circumference.

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Now the second myth which I would like to call to your attention is the myth that world mission is already largely completed. See there are a great number of Christians who sincerely believe that the mission task is in large measure accomplished. Now they don't believe that everybody in the world is Christian, but they believe that enough seeds have been

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sown that if you just let the process go on now, everyone is going to be one. And there's a lot of very encouraging evidence around that encourages people to feel that way. Did you know for example that the Christian church has grown 83 million times since it was founded in 31 AD? There's no institution in the history of the world that has multiplied itself 83

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million times. Also it's true to notice that more people have been won to Jesus Christ in the 20th century than in any of the 19th centuries that preceded it. There are a million, there are a billion, 400 million Christians in the world today. We have 202,000 mission aries at work. 54,000 of them are Protestant and 152,000 of them are Roman Catholic. And

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there are great mission success stories. They come from everywhere. Take Korea for example. As recently as 20 years ago, only 11% of the people in Korea were Christian. Today, 30% of them are Christian. And incidentally, one third of Korea's Christian churches are already sending missionaries abroad. And you might be interested to know where they're sending

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most of them. Their great mission field is Saudi Arabia. Or look at Romania. Now Romania of course is behind the Iron Curtain. Christians are terribly persecuted there. The Wall Street Journal today, this morning, carries the story of $20,000 worth of Bibles that were recently sent to Romania. And the Romanian government promised that they would be distributed to

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Christians and churches throughout Romania that needed them. This was an agreement entered into with our government. Well, the Bibles never showed up. No one ever found them until just a few weeks ago. And I'm sorry I have to offend you by telling you this, but this is the fact. The Bibles were sent to a factory, torn apart, watered down, and made into toilet

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paper. And how they discovered it is that the watering down process was not sufficient and toilet paper is showing up all over Romania with the Bible verses still showing through on it. The Wall Street Journal carried that story today. This is what has happened in Romania. But notice this. When the Iron Curtain came down, there were 30,000 Baptists in Romania.

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Today there are 164,000. So you see there are some very great stories about mission success. There's no question about that. The Kingdom of God is growing in the world and there is cause for rejoicing. But the sad fact is this. It's wrong to believe that because we've had all this success, the mission task is largely completed. The Church is growing

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today at the rate of about 110,000 new Christians every 24 hours. 110,000 new Christians every 24 hours. But the world's population is growing at the rate of 243,000 people every 24 hours. And that means that every 24 hours we fall 133,000 more people behind. In addition to the billions of the world's Christians who have never heard the Gospel, there are these

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who are being born every day. Now those who have never heard the Gospel are commonly called in the parlance of missions "hidden people." Now let me give you an illustration of what I mean by "hidden people." There are 574 million Hindus in the world. Now of this 574 million people, I shouldn't say, pardon me, I said that wrong. There are 574 million people who

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live in what is called the "Hindu world," the world that is dominated by Hinduism. Out of that number, 8 million are active and aggressive Christians, people who are out trying to win other people to Christ. There are another 12 million Christians, but they are not active. One could call them nominal Christians and nothing more than that. Now it is estimated

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that those 8 million active Christians can win another 50 million people to Christ. That still leaves over 500 million people living in the Hindu world who are utterly outside the reach of those there who are already Christians. Now why are they outside their reach? Because of economic and social and geographic reasons. You see, most Christians in India are from

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very low caste, what used to be called the "untouchables." They are not allowed to use that word anymore, but they are from the lower levels of society. The upper classes won't have anything to do with them. They won't hear anything that they have to say. And consequently those people there, no matter how zealous they are, are not going to be able to reach

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that other 500 million people. Let me give you an example from here in our own country. Who do you think is doing the most successful missionary work in Harlem? Now you know Harlem is the largest black ghetto in America. It's located in New York City. Who do you think is doing the most successful missionary work there? It is not white Christians. Because

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you see, white American Christians are looked upon with considerable hostility. The record of the white church with black people in America is a shameful record. Black people in Harlem will not listen to white Christians. What about black Christians? Will black people in Harlem listen to black American Christians? No, they call them "Uncle Toms." If you have

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become a member of a white church, for example, or if you are practicing that Christian religion, you are looked upon many times as one who has turned your back on authentic blackness. So who is doing the greatest mission job for Christ in Harlem? Christians from Nigeria. Nigeria is sending missionaries to America to reach black people in Harlem. Those black

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people are hidden from us. That is, we can see them, but we cannot reach them because of cultural backlash, because of the things that have happened in the past, because of hostilities that exist. They are out of our touch. But when they meet somebody who has come from all the way across the water, whose skin is the same color as their own, and who

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comes telling them, "I have come all this way to tell you about Jesus Christ," that person is heard. Let me give you some other quickie illustrations. Only 1% of the Japanese people in the world are Christian, but almost all of those people live in the cities. Our evangelistic work in Japan has been in cities. There are thousands of small fishing villages

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all over Japan where the name of Jesus Christ has never been heard. In Thailand, there are 10,000 Buddhists for every one Christian, and most of those Buddhists have never heard the name of Jesus Christ. The church in Burma, we have been in Burma with the gospel for 160 years, and during that time we have converted a lot of Burmese, but they happen to all be

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mountain tribesmen. And there are 28 million upper class Buddhists who won't have anything to do with the tribesmen. So those tribesmen, you see, can't reach their fellow Buddhists. There are 1,000 missionaries working in Brazil today, almost exclusively amongst the upper classes in Brazil. Tonight, 2 million children will sleep on the streets of Brazilian cities.

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There are practically no missionaries to those children. All of our missionaries have been in upper economic levels. Europe used to be 85% Christian, but only 4% of the people who live in Europe go to church. And missionary efforts in Europe are frustrated because everybody says, "Oh, I am a Christian," simply because their name is on a roll when they actually

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have no vital commitment to Jesus Christ whatever. What language is spoken by more people in the world today than any other? Mandarin Chinese. But the number of Christian Chinese is very small when compared to the 900 million people there are who speak Mandarin Chinese. There are 720 million Muslims in the world, and they speak 580 different languages. We have

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a total of 500 missionaries to all of those people. Never be able to reach them on that basis. And the list goes on. So the record of the Church is great. We have multiplied ourselves 83 million times. And the spread of the Church throughout the world is one of the great miracles of history. But here's the fact, ladies. If we were to rent a stadium,

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if we were to rent Three River Stadium, which seats 50,000 people, and if we were to fill every seat in it, every day, for 165 years, and if we had a team of evangelists to preach every day to those people, there would still be a half a billion people in the world who have never yet even heard the name of Jesus Christ. If you're 73 years old, your heart

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has beaten 3 billion times. And that's how many people there are in the world who have never even heard his name. And that's not just a statistic. That's real people who are living and dying without Jesus Christ. And in light of this, we must reject the myth or the fantasy which suggests that the world mission task is largely complete. Now, a third

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myth that is very common in our time is that mission is no longer a dangerous and a challenging calling. You know, there's always been a certain mystique and a certain romance about missions. We've heard lots of stories about heroines and heroes on the mission field, and they're true. Well, some say those days are past. There's no longer any real adventure or thrill

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or challenge in mission. Ladies, more Christians have died on the mission field in the 20th century than in all of the previous 19 centuries added together. When someone sits down and writes the history of the Church a thousand years from now, this will be known as the century of blood. There have been more martyrs in Jesus' name in the 1900s than at any time

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in history. Now let me hold before you a single example, just one of what I mean. Chester Bitterman was a missionary doing Bible translation in Columbia. He was murdered about three years ago. He was taken prisoner, held hostage by a Marxist terrorist group, which then made a series of non-negotiable demands. The whole world knew about this case. Many people prayed

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about it. He was found shot to death five times in the head, wrapped in a Columbian flag. Now in the case of Chester Bitterman, we see what's going on in much of world mission today. Notice first of all that he was killed by Marxist terrorists. Communism, the idea of communism, sees itself as in a life and death struggle with the Christian Church.

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Communism sees itself as a missionary force also. We Christians may forget that we're supposed to win the whole world. The Communists don't forget it. I would respectfully point out to you that more than half of the world's Communists are under fifteen years of age. That means there's a lot of them coming up. And they are all being taught the same thing.

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You are to win the whole world to the red flag. The youngest neophyte in the Communist movement is taught that he plays an important part in history. He has a key role to perform. He is in a war. He is a soldier. He must be ready to go and to fight and to die wherever he is called. And he must do it in the name of the red flag under which he marches. Young

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Communists are told they are world reformers fighting poverty and disease and self-interested power and things of that kind. It's precisely because they believe this that Communism is growing so rapidly in the world. I heard one of the professors, Dr. John Sparks, at Grove City College say one day about world

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hunger that America was under no obligation to help the world's hungry. After all, he said, we've earned everything which is ours and there's no obligation, Christian, moral, or otherwise to do anything for anybody. Now that is an arrogant, stupid, and selfish remark. But it was made in a classroom on a Presbyterian campus not far from here. That's the attitude

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that the Communists love. What they want us to do is to sit here in arrogant pride and enjoy all the luxuries of life, ignoring the rest of the world while they're doing it, while we're doing that. They'll go out and take the rest of the world. And then someday, cut off from the rest of the world, we'll fall like a rotten head of cabbage into their

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hands. Chester Bitterman went out as a caring Christian to help the suffering of the world and they killed him for it. Communism doesn't want caring Christians. There's another thing I'd like you to notice about the death of Chester Bitterman. There is indisputable evidence that one of the reasons he was killed was because of the propaganda

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of a group of British anthropologists. It's a very interesting story. These anthropologists, you know what an anthropologist is, a person who studies the lifestyles of people in primitive situations, they wanted to study some of the primitive Indian tribes in Colombia. And they came to Chester Bitterman and asked him, because he knew those tribes and worked among them

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all the time, asked him if he would take them in and introduce them while they took pictures of all of this, which they would then use for their research. And he agreed. Then they took their pictures and they put them together in a movie which they called "The War of the Indians." And in this movie they claimed that Chester Bitterman and other Christian missionaries

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were trying to destroy Colombian culture, that these people were trying to force Western American ideas on these poor Indians who didn't really want to have any part of it. Now that film was shown all over Colombia. And there's no doubt that this is one of the reasons why Chester Bitterman was taken prisoner and later killed. Now ladies, think about that for a

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moment. Who did these anthropologists go to to find someone who was trusted enough by the Indians to be able to take them to the Indians? They went to Chester Bitterman, because he was trusted by them, because he did love them and did sacrifice for them. They never could have gotten in there on their own. They went in on his Christian coattails. And these

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same anthropologists who were quick to criticize this missionary effort, you never hear them say a word about Japanese or Chinese or Malayan or Indian or African merchants who are working very aggressively in South America. You know, if you go into a remote area in South America today and you find a radio in a hut, it wasn't usually put there by a missionary. It was

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sold to those people by a Pakistani businessman. You will find flashlights in those huts. And what kind of flashlights will they be? They'll be Sanyo flashlights. And what kind of batteries will be in them? Tiger brand flashlight batteries, which are made in China. Now these are the things that we associate with civilization. These are the things we associate with the

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Western world. These are the things that transform the life of the Indians and bring them out of their primitive culture. Are they coming from the missionaries? Oh no. They're coming from the businessmen who outnumber the missionaries a thousand to one. But you never hear the anthropologists complaining about that. And here's another thing to remember. Don't those

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Indians have the right to choose any culture they want to choose? I mean if they do see a culture which they like better than their own, if they do see a way of life which they like better than their own, who's to say that a group of anthropologists can deny them the right to choose that? If these Indians, for example, come to know Jesus Christ through

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a missionary and decide to throw away the ugly animistic faith full of fear and superstition and cruelty and sacrifice which is part of their previous way of life, if they choose to throw that away of their own free choice, by what rate does an anthropologist stand up and say, "You can't do that." The fact of the matter is these anthropologists don't

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care one bit about those Indians. They look upon them as guinea pigs. They look upon them as laboratory specimens on whom they can run their experiments. I'm sorry to have to say this but it's true and it's about time we woke up to it. Some of the most cruel and vicious enemies of Christian missionaries are not Reds. They are people who want ignorant,

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poor, fearful and diseased people to continue to live that way. They say it's for those Indians but the fact is it's for themselves to run their own experiments. Well, Chester Bitterman was ready to die. He was asked in a magazine article before he went to Columbia, "What if you lose your life on the field?" This is what he said, "I have already lost

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my life. I have given it to Christ. I'm dead already. It is Christ who lives in me." He understood what every Christian has to understand. The church is a living organism and like all living organisms, she is always under attack. Every human being sitting in this room here this afternoon has enough lethal bacteria in her body at this very moment to kill her

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within 24 hours. The only thing that keeps us alive, that saves us from the bacteria which are in every one of us at every minute, is the body's immune system. Now the immune system of the Christian church is dependence upon Jesus Christ, the Word of God and the Holy Spirit. The church is attacked by unbelief, by false beliefs, by complacency, by pride,

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by intellectual arrogance, by fear, but if she depends on the power of God, she will endure. This is a dangerous time to be involved in world mission and it is a myth to believe anything to the contrary. Now I know I've gone long, but I have one more thing I want to say before I sit down. One more myth. See I can only talk 22 minutes on Sunday morning

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because of the radio, but I'm not on the radio here. I'd like to say a word about young people and missions. It's a very interesting thing to notice that as you study the history of missions you find that the greatest chapters in it have been written by relatively young people. John Chrysostom was very young when he carried the gospel to barbarian Goths.

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Patrick was very young when he took the gospel to the Celtic people of Ireland. Gregory was very young when he went to the ancestors of most of us. He was the great missionary to Europe. You know most of our ancestors were cannibals at that time, painted their faces blue and danced around fires at night and cut each other's hearts off and heads off.

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Our kinfolk they were and he's the one who brought them the gospel. He was very young when he did it. Bartholomew Las Casas was the first great missionary to the Indians of South America. He was in his 30s when he carried out his mission work. Count Zinzendorf, he and his people brought the light of Christ to North America and also to South America

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and to Africa. The Mennonites, they once had a 24 hour prayer chain for missions, praying around the clock for missions, 24 hours, that lasted 102 years. 102 years of prayer. 102 years of prayer for missions, 24 hours a day. Think about that. Or think of modern missionaries like William Carey. He was a shoemaker who went out and helped to spread

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the gospel in India, translated the scripture into more than 30 different languages there. It's interesting that God has used so often these young people. Now the reason it fascinates me is because I am asked almost every week by some young person why it is that they don't get more thrill and excitement out of their faith. And they say to me, "You know, I go

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to a Bible study group. I'm part of fellowship. I come to church. I read the scriptures. I pray. But my faith doesn't have any exciting dimension to it. There's no adventure in my life. I don't find myself to be growing in significant ways." And I'll tell you what I tell them. The reason that's happening is because they're not giving away what they're

00:36:32.580 - 00:36:58.620

getting. The Christian life is very much like being a trapeze artist. There is no way to get to the next trapeze until you let go of the last one. You can't be on both of them at the same time. Or think of it this way. If you're at point A in the Christian faith, you cannot get to point B until you've shared what you got at point A, until you've given

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it to other people. The reason that most people don't have any excitement in their faith is because there's no risk in their religion. They don't ever really take a chance for Jesus Christ. I was talking to a medical doctor earlier this week who is being called upon to testify in a pornography trial here in Pittsburgh today. Now this doctor happens

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to be an expert in children. And they're going to show him, before a jury and in the courtroom, some pornographic movies using little children. I suppose you know that there is now "kiddie porn" as it's called. And he as an expert is supposed to look at these pictures and tell how old the children are. See, he is trained to be able to look at a child and

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by certain features to tell how he's going to testify to the age of those children as a doctor who's an expert in that field. Now he's done that once before. He got filthy telephone calls. He had the tires of his automobile slashed. He had kidnapping threats thrown to his wife and to his children. All of these kinds of things. Because he stood up and gave

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similar testimony in another pornography trial. Don't ever get the idea that pornography is a little gentle kind of sin that you just do in the back room. It's vicious, killing, cruel, ugly, debasing, well it's everything. But he has the courage to go into that courtroom and do it again. The reason most Christians, young Christians among them, never get any

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thrill out of their faith is because they've never taken a stand where it really costs them something. Weak faith is almost always faith that is unchallenged and untested. I don't care how many Bible verses you know. I don't care how many hours you pray. I don't care how many Christian books you read or magazines you subscribe to. Until there is

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an experience of faith, the excitement of faith will not belong. Dull Christians are dull Christians because they have dull goals. So it seems to me that what we have to present to our young people is the opportunity to risk themselves in the service of Jesus Christ. You can help do that. We want to establish a mission center here in the Church which

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we're going to call Mission Control. It's going to feature a map, locations of our missionaries, correspondence, latest news stories from missions, constantly changing pictures, things of that kind. This society could help in the establishment of that. It would bring missions to the minds of every one of our children every time they walk through the doors.

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I don't know. I won't put Mary Jane Kahn on the spot right now and ask her this, but how up to date is the mission collection in our library? I'd like to see this group take it as a major concern to see that every new and relevant and significant book on missions that comes out is in our library and that our kids know about it as well as all the

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rest of our people. Well, that's all right, then that's another task to give yourselves and that may involve a little bit of risk too. Now another thing that's involved here is this. I'd like to see every young person in this church receive a subscription to a mission magazine so that every month there would come to their homes a magazine which

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told the story of contemporary mission. That they could just sit down and pick it up one night instead of watching some rotten television show. We ought to have courses on missions. This October we're going to have an 80 minute around the world trip here in the church. It's called Around the World in 80 Minutes. It's a visit in 80 minutes. We're hoping to

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have a thousand people here for it. Around the World in 80 Minutes in Mission. We're going to need a lot of help. I hope that this group will become involved in that assistance. I wish that more missionaries would be brought here to our church and not as speakers but as guests. Wouldn't it be nice if some group in the church would organize simple luncheons

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where after church on a Sunday morning 20 people would be invited just to have lunch with a missionary. To ask questions. You see most times when missionaries speak they don't touch on the bases that people want to ask about. But to sit about the table and talk, that's a new kind of conduct. What about international students? I'm very proud of the fact that

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this church is involved in the support of Carl Templin who was here last month with his PRISM program. PRISM, that's a ministry to international students. Did you know that the leader of every major nation in Africa today spent at least part of his lifetime in a Christian school? Tremendous influence can come through such things. This next summer,

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not this summer, but next summer, we're going to send a deputation team to either Africa or South America. We're going to send a team of our own people from this church to Africa or to South America on a specific mission task. We're hoping to send between 15 and 20 people. I would like to see this group become interested in and involved. I'd like

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to see some of you go to fly down there and be involved in mission and see what it's like on the front line and then come back and share the excitement of what you've experienced. These are the kinds of things which make faith more exciting. And these are the kinds of things which ignite the mission fire.

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Well, I've already talked too long, but I'm not going to sit down before I preach one other sermon. I want to tell you the greatest missionary sermon I ever heard. It was when I was in seminary. The sermon was so good that I memorized it. I'm going to repeat the entire sermon to you right now, word for word. I'm not going to leave a single word of it

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out. It was preached by Dr. James Leon Kelso, who was my favorite professor. He got up one morning. We had a 20-minute chapel every morning. The message was usually about 15 of those 20 minutes. He got up one morning, and this is what he said. "Gentlemen," there were no ladies in seminary, "Gentlemen, I want to talk to you about missions. My sermon has

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three points. Point one, be a missionary. Point two, if you cannot be a missionary, then support missions sacrificially. C, if you cannot be a missionary, and you will not support missions sacrificially, then get converted because you do not know Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. Amen." And he sat down, and so will I.

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He had really challenged us, Dr. Thielman. He really had. [End of Audio] Page 2 of 9 have.

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