[0:00] So this morning, I want to talk to you about how to pray for missionaries. I think I can speak from a point of authority about this maybe more than you would think I could because I did spend 20 years as a missionary.
[0:13] I took my family as a small bunch of kids, and we raised our family on the mission field. And then I have a very special relationship with these missionaries. I do not consider them missionaries.
[0:24] I consider them part of my family. I adopt every one of them as though they were my literal son or daughter. And I know that's pretty hard for you to understand. Years ago, I got one of my most prized possessions, but David was a young kid.
[0:40] And David wrote a letter to the team of young missionaries around me all the time. And basically, he let them know that he had never been an only child, and he hadn't even been one of four.
[0:53] He had been one of many. And he talked about what it was like to be raised up with a dad who was consumed with trying to get the gospel around the world and to be raised up with them. And instead of being bitter, he was actually very thankful that God had let that happen.
[1:06] I love these young people. I sat in a circle, and we go to these places, and we have these conferences. We call it a regional conference. We gather all of our missionaries from any part of the world that can get to those.
[1:17] And they're on the field, and they're in the middle of the battle, and we sat in a circle. And this week, a young mother, a sweet lady, you know, I don't want to give names. I don't want to embarrass people. But a young mother looked across the room, and we were talking to new people about to leave for the field or sitting there hearing about that from old people that have been on the field.
[1:35] And none of them are very old compared to me, but they're old compared to the others. And a young lady looked across the table, and she said, I think the hardest part is being lonely. It's a beautiful young lady. She's got children, a husband, a very happy home.
[1:49] A very happy home. She said, I think the hardest part is being lonely. The first year is horrible. It's terrible. You're so lonely. And then she goes at the end, almost tearful with her head kind of down.
[1:59] She said, but I'm still lonely. They need your prayer. Today, Daniel Sparks is starting a brand new church. This will be his first Sunday.
[2:09] They had over 50 people come to the English classes, and they've had a great time, but that's a scary time for them. The Apostle Paul felt that exact same pressure that these guys felt, probably even worse than they could ever dream of feeling it.
[2:22] So in 1 Thessalonians 5 and verse 25, he said, Brethren, pray for us. The Apostle Paul felt like he needed to be prayed for. The Apostle Paul felt like he needed God's people to pray for him.
[2:37] In 2 Corinthians 1 and verse 11, which is a verse I really wish you'd look up. Those of you that are real Bible students, at least at home, look this up and underline it so you'll understand we're talking about how to pray for missionaries.
[2:48] The Bible says in 2 Corinthians 1 and verse 11, you also helping together by prayer for us. I wish you'd underline in your Bible, helping together by prayer for us.
[3:01] That for the gift bestowed upon us by the means of many persons, thanks may be given by many on our behalf. Helping together by prayer for us.
[3:12] I sat in the room, and it's not a griping time, but it is a time to get to come clean. It's not a time they get, it's not prayer letter stuff I hear. Brother Jeff and I sit there, and we're there to encourage them and help them.
[3:24] And one of our missionaries has lost 25% of his support. 25% of his support. In other words, he went to the field with a certain amount of support, and now he's at 25% less than that.
[3:38] They need you to help them together by prayer. Another thing that was interesting to hear this week was, it's either four or five, and this was, I knew some of this going and some of this there, either four or five of our guys have been betrayed by their very closest workers that have gone into sin or have turned on the Lord.
[4:03] They get all the way down to the end of their term, and they're ready to move on, to come back to the States, to try to raise some of that support, to try to report, to try to spend a little bit of time with their family.
[4:13] And four or five of them, their main guy. One of the guys actually made a comment, you know, you're just taking the money, you're just abusing people, and he said a lot of ugly things that hurt after somebody led them to Christ and taught them all about Jesus.
[4:29] Another one of the guys was taken in by the family like he was their son. I've been in their home many times, many times, and this guy was always there. He was recently caught flirting with girls.
[4:41] He's a married man. He was flirting with girls and trying to meet girls in a park, and the missionary had to say, look, you can't do that. You know that's not right. And so now that guy is wanting to say all things he can and be as ugly as he can.
[4:54] I have a missionary in a brand-new country. Sean Bateman is now in Argentina, and he's trying to find a house in the city all by himself and find the right kind of house and find a house he can take care of his family with.
[5:06] As missionaries, they face things you don't understand about it. I think sometimes if you go to Vision, you know, man, they raise a lot of money. They travel all the places, and then they use Facebook, and sometimes it looks plum exotic the way they live.
[5:19] That's because they're mostly liars. That's what Facebook makes all of you. I mean, y'all all got happy families, and then you meet me in the office, and I'm like, I can't imagine you've got a marriage problem.
[5:31] Facebook makes it sound like y'all are wonderful. And they're like, well, that's Facebook. This is to tell you the truth. And so missionaries are like, oh, check out this beautiful sunset. I don't really like my wife, but look at the sunset.
[5:44] And check out this city where I'm traveling. I've got problems going on, and my life's falling apart, and I can't tell anyone, would you pray with them? So I'd like you to go back with me, if you would, to Romans chapter 15 and verse 30, and I want to ask you to get in the battle with our missionaries.
[6:00] I want to ask you to get in the battle with our missionaries. These are people that I love beyond what you can imagine. And I hope you do too. The Bible says in Romans chapter 15 and verse 30, now I beseech you, brethren, for the Lord Jesus Christ's sake, and for the love of the Spirit, man, for Jesus' sake.
[6:17] I used to hear that when I was a kid. And, of course, that was considered blasphemy. But whenever you do something wrong, somebody might look and say, for Jesus' sake, don't do that. Well, Paul's using it right when he said, man, for the sake of the Lord Jesus Christ, and because you love the Holy Spirit, you got the love of the Holy Spirit in you, strive together.
[6:37] Would you underline that in your Bible? Strive together with me in your prayers to God for me. That word strive is the idea of being in a fight. It's like when I was a kid that used to have wrestling, and, you know, it wasn't real, but I never knew that.
[6:51] Boy, when I was a kid, I know some of y'all still don't know that, so don't hear this part of the message, but it was like wrestling. And I can remember when they were just beating a living slop out of that one guy, and he kept sticking his hand out trying to tag the other guy.
[7:03] And, you know, and finally, when he tagged the other guy, somebody got in a fight with him, and the poor guy crawls over the side. It was terrible. I mean, I watched those poor guys. I didn't know they got coffee afterwards together, or beer.
[7:13] I had no idea. It wasn't ice in their beer. I learned about that. You bunch of heathens. I preached that day. I said something about you getting ice in your beer. And everybody told me, you don't drink, you don't have ice with your beer. I said, well, how'd you know? I didn't know.
[7:24] How'd you know? I work at a great church. He said, amen. And strive together. Strive together. Get in the fight with me.
[7:35] Get in the fight of a young man today living in an Airbnb, a ribbony. He couldn't say it. I can't remember what he told everybody. He said, I'm getting me one of them a ribbony's, or whatever, however he said it.
[7:46] Everybody just started laughing. What's that? It was an Airbnb, so he could get him a place he could rent, so he could use it for a few days to find him a house. And now he's traveling all around the city, and he's trying to find a house, and he's wanting a place where it's secure because it wasn't long ago in Argentina, just a few weeks ago, a man left the house with him in another city, the city of Mendoza.
[8:06] He left the house. His wife and kids were there, and while he was going, they came in, and they duct taped the family, held him at knife and gunpoint. And so he's kind of like, I want a house where I don't have to worry about that happening quite so much.
[8:19] Paul asked for his brothers to pray for him. It's not selfish to ask prayer if it's for the cause of the Lord Jesus and because of the love of the Spirit. They could, and you could really get involved in prayer if you would.
[8:34] But real prayer is work because you're going to have to be disciplined, and you're going to have to be dedicated, and you have to be interested enough to stay in touch, and you've got to know what they're going through. I listened to a missionary sitting around the room, and one of the guys looked, and he said, I'll just be honest with you.
[8:51] I don't want to fail. I'm afraid to fail. I'm afraid to fail. It's hard for me to deal with criticism. It's hard for me to deal with criticism.
[9:03] You're going to come back to America and hear people and what they have to say. It's hard to be slandered by others. It's hard to be slandered by others, other missionaries in your town, national people that you're working with.
[9:16] And the idea of the message this morning is for you to help carry their burdens. So we go with these conferences, and we go to the mission field, and we sit down with missionary small, there were 33 of us, and we're in special villas rented down in a beautiful place in Thailand, and the food's being prepared every day by Thai people.
[9:34] And we just sit and study the Bible and pray together and talk over whatever's going on in their lives. And so I want to challenge you to pray for them. And it's not an unbiblical thing for you to pray for them, to really carry the burden.
[9:49] Look at Romans chapter 15 and verse 31. This is the first thing you can pray for. Pray for protection. The Bible says in Romans chapter 15 and verse 31, that I may be delivered from them that do not believe in Judea, and that my service which I have for Jerusalem may be accepted of the saints.
[10:08] There's a missionary that gets held up in Argentina. Jeff and Mindy Bush were held at gunpoint when they were missionaries, and their house was ransacked.
[10:19] And probably the most hurtful thing about that robbery was they knew so much that they were either people that had been to church or knew people that went to church to help them pull that robbery off on Jeff and Mindy.
[10:33] And Jeff's family was there, and they got to watch that. We need to pray for protection. Pray that they will be delivered from them that do not believe.
[10:43] You know that recently a missionary in Cameroon was shot and killed. It was in his very first days of getting there. Though that sounds like a story way off, and it's not important to you because it didn't happen to you or anybody you know, but our guys live this every day of their life where that can happen.
[11:02] It can happen here. But these are people who don't believe, and they're in the heart of Satan's land. This is a wicked world you live in in the United States of America. You know that by now. My goodness, you can't read the newspaper without hearing about people being arrested for bestiality in Cherokee County.
[11:18] You can't read the newspaper without hearing about some pedophile abusing somebody or some Hollywood star abusing people. It's a wicked world where you live, but in this place the light of Jesus shines bright and shines far and affects everything around us.
[11:33] And whether you realize it or not, we're salt, and we're holding back a lot of filthy junk. We are salt and light as Christians, and there's enough Christians to hold this back. But when you're in a country where the percentage of Christians is so minute, there's almost no light.
[11:48] Jesse Turpin just recently landed in Indonesia in just a few days. I think maybe this Tuesday, Josh Ewan's dad, who's been helping him, will get on an airplane and leave, and they'll be alone.
[12:02] Pray that they will be protected. In 2 Thessalonians 3 and verse 1, the apostle Paul said, Finally, brethren, as I finish this letter, pray for us that the Lord may have free course and be glorified even as it is with you and that we may be delivered from unreasonable and wicked men.
[12:21] Unreasonable and wicked men, for all have not faith. There are often great dangers on the mission field. There's a lot of hatred towards a person who carries the message of Jesus Christ.
[12:35] They hate the missionary. They hate what he represents. I don't know if you know this, but in our first three years in Peru, we were robbed or tempted to be robbed 55 times that we wrote down. And at a time when our ministry had grown to a fairly large ministry, and God was beginning to use us, and you're all the great stories, at a time when there was a man stealing our Bible college land, my daughter was grabbed and gang raped.
[12:59] The girl that works right over there in the Spanish, 15 or 16 years old, three men took her in a car and raped her and threw her out on the side of the road, and she called a taxi and came home.
[13:10] We need to pray for protection. We need to pray for these young people as they step out. Missionaries are out there, and satanic attack and oppression is a real thing.
[13:22] Marriages are under attack. Marriages are under attack. In ways I could never explain to you, the burdens that we carry as we love these people, the devil is attacking them. Loneliness, isolation, strange customs, language, they're all part of what the devil uses to destroy his people, the God's people.
[13:42] Satan does not want them preaching the gospel. They're walking into Satan's stronghold, and maybe you don't study your Bible enough to know this, but talk to the ones that do.
[13:52] Satan actually has in the book of Revelation, the seat of Satan. There are places where Satan's power is far stronger. In Thailand, when you get ready to build a house, before you disturb the ground, you build the spirit a house, and you ask the spirits of that land if they would be willing to live in the small house, you build them so you can build your house, because you know they're there.
[14:16] And I didn't keep a proof when I was there. I'd never in my life heard of all that stuff, and people were coming to me, and they were telling me stories about witchcraft, and telling me stories about people, about demons being in houses, and about little, the black hand, they called it, would go in the house and do stuff wrong.
[14:32] They would tell me about little dwarfs that run around their house, and you would laugh at that. It's your people that are serving where it's believed. We are in a spiritual war, and our missionaries are in the middle of a place with great spiritual warfare.
[14:47] Go with me, if you would, Ephesians chapter 6 and verse 10. Ephesians chapter 6 and verse 10, and this is a passage of scripture I go to all the time. I just told the missionaries over and over, you've got to lift your shield of faith.
[14:59] You've got to put on your armor. You've got to know you're in a fight. You've got to know the devil hates you. He hates you, by the way. Every one of you who share the gospel of Jesus Christ, you sit down, and you talk to somebody about Jesus, and the devil will do everything he can to discourage you.
[15:15] He will do everything he can to get you to be quiet. He does not want people to know about Jesus. The Bible says in Ephesians chapter 6 and verse 10, finally, my brethren, as I finish this book, be strong in the Lord.
[15:28] If you've got your Bible open, you should underline that. Be strong in the Lord, because the only place you get strength is not where you go to church. It's not how much Bible you know. It's not where you graduate from Bible college.
[15:39] It's not who your Sunday school teacher was. It's be strong in the Lord. You've got to know Jesus. You've got to walk with him. You've got to be strong in him. You've got to have a close relationship with him and in the power of his might.
[15:53] I know you may mock this, but when Cason stepped into that room and they took those things, and you may say that was a light thing. They just took away his little MP3 players.
[16:04] Not a big deal. But what you don't realize is we wrestle not against flesh and blood. But that's going to be in this passage. But all of a sudden, here's a guy with a suitcase full of gospel material stepping into a country with this gospel material, and the devil says, I will not let that happen.
[16:20] And when they arrest him and they separate little Bethany, his wife, and put her in one room and put him in another room, you can mark it down. Some demons came whispering in their ears, what a mistake you've made and what's going to happen to you and are they going to arrest you and what's going to happen?
[16:33] Because four hours of being detained. See, the Bible says, put on the whole armor of God, verse 11, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.
[16:44] The Bible said in the book of Ephesians that there is a war going on and the devil's a real tricky guy. He's a real slick guy. He's really sharp. He knows how to mess people up.
[16:56] Doing that to you. Doing that to Ulysses, the guy I spoke to this morning who thinks God's terrible. He even told me, he said, what kind of God is he if he would make his son go down on a cross?
[17:08] I said, nobody made Jesus down on a cross. He didn't understand that. He said, be able to stand. I need to be able to stand. I want to keep loving Jesus no matter how the devil fights me. Verse 12, for we wrestle not against flesh and blood.
[17:23] We wrestle not against flesh and blood. We're not fighting people. It's not the time people. It's not the Peruvian people. It's not the Cambodian people.
[17:33] It's a devil. It wasn't the Chinese people who took away those machines. You may think, well, it's the Chinese people and that's what's going on. No, there's something bigger than that going on behind the scenes. We wrestle not against flesh and blood or against principalities and powers and rulers of darkness of this world against spiritual wickedness in high places.
[17:51] So he says in verse 13, wherefore, take unto you the whole armor of God that you may be able to withstand because I'm telling you, war is coming.
[18:03] If you hadn't figured this out, your kids are not going to love Jesus when they grow up and some of your kids are going to grow up and go to hell because they won't trust Jesus because you're failing to realize you're in an all-out spiritual war.
[18:14] You know where the hardest place to be in war is? Peace time. When you know who's throwing grenades at you, you keep your shield up. When you know they're shooting at you, you keep your armor on. But when you live in America and you get all tranquil and relaxed and lazy, all of a sudden, you don't care what's happening around you and you kind of lay your shield down and you say, my helmet is not that important and you take it off and the devil says, thank you for making that an easy shot.
[18:39] This wasn't written to missionaries. This was written to a church in a place called Ephesus like our church. Put on the whole armor. Verse 14, stand therefore, stand therefore, having your loins girt about with truth, having on the breastplate of righteousness and your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace and take the shield of faith so that you'll be able to quench.
[19:01] The fiery darts, the devil's going to throw at you. You need to know. You need to know the devil's in an all-out war. Let me explain something to you. It's us against them.
[19:12] Not against lost people, not against American people, not against Thai people, but we're on the side of the God of heaven and everybody in the world. Not people, but principalities and powers and demons.
[19:24] They hate God. They'll quiet every church's ministry. They'll stop every preacher from sharing the gospel. They'll shut every missionary down they can. They'll stop every soul winner from going they can because the devil hates our God.
[19:39] That's what the Bible's saying here in Ephesians chapter 6. Pray for protection. Pray for protection. Number two, pray for an acceptable ministry.
[19:51] Pray that people will accept their ministry. Romans 15, 31, that I may be delivered from them which do not believe in Judea and that my service which I have for Jerusalem may be accepted of the saints.
[20:04] You realize that they are so worried about what you think. You see, his problem here was not what lost people would think. I need protection from them. But he said, I want my ministry to be accepted by the saints.
[20:15] Paul was like, sometimes church people don't respect me much. Sometimes they say my bodily presence is weak. Sometimes they say my messages are contemptible.
[20:26] And sometimes it's easy for you to get a very negative attitude. So our missionary lost 25% of his support. No real reason. Just slowly dwindling and not caring and dropping away.
[20:39] But Paul said, pray that the believers, the saints, accepted of the saints, just because you preach the Bible doesn't mean it can and will get through.
[20:52] I pray so. I so want you to accept that God's using me to teach you the Bible. I pray all the time that it'll get through. So here's a missionary standing on a foreign field this morning.
[21:04] Daniel Sparks will stand. He's already stood in a church and he's tried his best to preach the gospel. And he's doing it in a foreign language. And yesterday, Paul Tauby stood on Saturday because they had their services on Saturday and he preached.
[21:18] And maybe you think, oh, isn't that cute? Little old guy living overseas, enjoying a life and you don't realize this is a ministry for the Lord. Paul said, when I get to Jerusalem, I want them to accept the ministry I have.
[21:31] These missionaries come home and sometimes it's like all big hoop. We don't care you're here or not here. We don't care what you've done. Don't care what you've gone through. You want to hear about my latest gadget I bought? You want to hear about where I live? You want to, nobody accepts her ministry.
[21:44] Paul said, y'all pray they'll accept my ministry. And I don't think we realize that ministry means service and I don't think we realize. The military man gets off the airplane and they say, thank you for your service. The missionary comes back and he's lived in fear and he's lived in loneliness and his best men have turned their back on him and his wife has lived lonely and he gets back to the church and they're like, hey, how you doing?
[22:05] Moving on. needs to be acceptable. Pray for success.
[22:16] Romans chapter 15 and verse 32. The Bible said that I may come to you with joy by the will of God and may with you be refreshed. You see, as, yeah, of course, I don't know if nowadays, nobody in this room, if we go fishing, we go, it's catch and release.
[22:33] When I was a kid, it was called catch and eat. When I was a kid, it was called catch and eat and no catch, no eat. And so I loved going fishing because when I got, that meant fried fish and that meant corn, whatever the hush puppies and whatever, all that came with it.
[22:52] And, you know, when you go off fishing in the morning, you leave the house, you know, you're going out and you're going to go fishing. You want to come back with a big stringer full of fish and you want to show off you had a great ministry. Now, Paul says, I'll be coming to you, church.
[23:05] I'll be coming to you, Roman people. And when I meet you, man, I'd like to come. Woo, excited. High five. God used me. Hey, God used me. My ministry counted.
[23:15] Something happened. I want to come to you with joy. Make sure he wants to come home with joy. He wants to know God used him. He wants there to be great testimonies of God's grace.
[23:27] One of the hardest things I was asked this week. One missionary said, I don't write a prayer letter but every two months. Don't like writing prayer letters. I had another missionary friend said, my ministry ain't writing prayer letters.
[23:40] I had people, one of the guys said this week, he said, I hate writing prayer letters. He said, it's called the humble brag. He said, I'm supposed to act like, ain't y'all proud of me?
[23:51] He said, and I can't say what I really think. Can't tell them what's really going on or they really wouldn't like me. I can't tell them that I preached and prayed and visited and invited and nobody came. I was going over how to get their churches to grow and going over how to do the work that they were doing there on the mission field.
[24:08] So one of the guys texted me and he said, please break it down. You're telling what happened in 20 years and they expect that to happen in two months and it took 20 years.
[24:19] They want to come back with joy. And here's what Paul said, would y'all pray for me so I can come back with joy? But basically, you know, you're like, I'll wait and see. I didn't believe in you when you left and I still don't believe in you when you're coming back.
[24:36] The Bible says, if you would read with me in Acts chapter 14 and verse 25, and when they had preached the word in Perga, they went down into Talia and when they sailed to Antioch from whence they came or whence they had been recommended to the grace of God for the work.
[24:49] So they're on their way back to Alpharetta. They're on their way back to where they came from. They had been recommended to God for the work which they fulfilled. They got it done. Underline in that verse, they fulfilled it.
[24:59] They got it done. They got a church started. They got some preachers trained. And when they were coming and they gathered the church together, they rehearsed all that God had done with them.
[25:10] They got up and said, let me tell you what God did and how God had opened the door of faith in the Gentiles. He said, they want to come back and they want to be able to say, I went out and somebody got saved.
[25:21] They want to come bringing the sheaves, bringing in the sheaves. They want to come home and they want to say, here's people got saved. You gave, you prayed for me and you gave me money and you gave me training and you helped me and I left my family and my wife was lonely to the point of tears.
[25:39] And yet, here we are and God did something. You can be in a battle with your missionary and what he's doing. You can stand with him when he preaches and when he teaches. You can make a difference in his life through prayer and you can add fruit to your account because you get in the battle with him.
[25:55] But the truth is we send this guy into the enemy's territory and he parachutes behind enemy lines and he carries a Bible he's not that familiar with because it's in a different language and he has to learn how to talk to people and he has to learn how to deal with them and he loves them with all of his heart and he gives everything he's got and he walks back home and we're like, well, how you doing?
[26:15] I've been missing you, you've been gone a couple weeks, huh? Oh, it's been four years. Well, we give you a lot of money. Did you do anything? Paul said they could make a difference through prayer and that God would add fruit to their account.
[26:28] Philippians chapter 4 verse 17, not because I desire a gift but I desire fruit that may abound to your account. I have two more real quickly and I know it's a minute till but let me give you two more. Pray that God will open doors for the gospel.
[26:44] In Colossians chapter 4 and verses 3 and 4 the apostle Paul said, with all praying also for us that God would open unto us a door of utterance and to speak the mystery of Christ for which I am also in bonds that I may make it manifest as I ought to speak.
[26:59] You see, you don't like going soul winning. You know why you don't? Because people turn you down. Let's be honest with you, none of us really enjoy it that much. Maybe Sam Wilson does but the rest of us don't.
[27:11] Maybe Nate Wilkerson. But the rest of us are kind of like, I don't know, every time I talk to somebody they kind of get upset with me. I don't like it. People aren't paying attention to me. Now how would you like to do this in a whole different world?
[27:22] I went in there to talk to that guy this morning and I thought he was already a Christian or maybe a Christian because the guy that had just been talking to him and he meets with him every Sunday. I see him and they're eating together every Sunday and so I walked in the room thinking well this ain't going to be too bad.
[27:33] I'll just share the gospel with him real quick and step out and buddy, he was full of venom. Miguel Sanabria is there right now. He's right out of this church.
[27:45] Dropped in behind enemy lines going to share the gospel of Jesus Christ with them and what are they going to think? They need open doors. When you knock on doors and the people won't accept you at this door and you knock on them at this door and you invite people and you invite people.
[27:57] Somebody asked a famous preacher what do you do that builds a church and his answer was well nothing works. So just do everything you can because nothing works. So give out gospel tracks but it doesn't work.
[28:10] Knock on doors but it doesn't work and use the internet but it doesn't work and somewhere in there God does something. But here's the deal they need open doors. Paul said pray that I can have open doors.
[28:21] Pray that I'll have a place that somebody will listen to me preach. Pray I'll have a place where somebody will pay attention. It's the Holy Spirit that convinces. It's the Holy Spirit that convicts.
[28:32] But the missionary has got to learn how to speak and when to speak and he needs God to open doors and get people's hearts ready. And sometimes you preach the gospel and it's just like wow they got saved.
[28:47] And other times you preach and nobody pays attention. But I need you to understand something. You think it's hard in your own language. It's a lot harder in somebody else's language. You think it's hard in your own culture.
[28:59] It's a lot harder in somebody else's culture. When you say it in somebody else's culture you say the same words and you say this is nice and this is nice in English so I'll say that way in Spanish but when you say it in Spanish it's not nice it's rude.
[29:12] It's rude. And you're like I didn't mean to be rude here. I'm just saying what I know is nice and it's like no. Paul needed to know how he ought to speak. So those missionaries.
[29:26] Last one. 2 Thessalonians chapter 3 verses 1 and 2. Pray that the word of God might have free course and be glorified. Paul says finally brethren pray for us that the word of God may have free course and be glorified.
[29:39] I wish you'd underline free course and be glorified. Even as it is with you that we may be delivered from one of our guys.
[29:53] Two months before he's to come home they come in and tell him we want you to up your rent $600. $600. He says already lost a bunch of support.
[30:04] I don't have $600 and if I move my church right now and go find something smaller maybe they'll all think we're discouraged and quitting and then I go home right after that. Am I just shutting all the doors?
[30:17] And then he's like I don't want to fail. I go home and I shut the doors the rent was too much and I moved to a smaller building and my leaders have all quit on me and I moved this other place. They said more than one said I tell them I just want to do every verse every nation.
[30:40] I just want people to love Jesus and love the Bible. One of our missionaries was in a church and trying to share the gospel and he had cameras in his office and during the night a national would sneak in and rifle through his stuff and mess around in his office but that guy was such friends with another guy who used to work at that church that there wasn't really much he could do so he's been branded a pretty bad guy because now he's leaving that church to go work in another church.
[31:10] I just want to see this book run. I just want to see people love this book. Every one of the missionaries they step out here you don't know this they didn't leave it to go down there because they don't like America. So I went to one of the missionaries this week he said every year I live out of the country I love America more.
[31:27] He said just something about knowing that your laws and I know you're sitting there going our country is in bad shape but they're like yeah it might be in bad shape but in nothing it was in bad shape he said over here say amen right there.
[31:38] I told my daddy one time my daddy was I said dad I said they got horrible inflation here in Peru and he said oh that ain't nothing we got horrible inflation in America. I said well how horrible is it there dad? He said 9%.
[31:49] I said it was 4,000% down here he said yeah we got bad too. I was like dad 9,000 and 4,000 aren't even on the same planet. He used to literally walk into a store and I'd say how much is that gallon of milk and they'd say when are you buying it?
[32:06] You buy it right now it's one price you come back in 10 minutes it'll charge you different because that's inflation. I'm just saying to you we got to pray for them. We need the Bible to run. They went down there they went to Bible school they studied the Bible they learned how to do it they watched it happen at their home church they're excited but even Paul said I need God to let the Bible run and have free course and be glorified.
[32:33] Pray the word of God will be free. Satan will do everything in his power to stop the spread of the word of God. They got a day as I talked to him he kept saying well I don't know why it's like this and I said well I can show you what the Bible says he said I don't know if I believe the Bible.
[32:46] I said well why don't you study it for yourself to find out if you do or not instead of what everybody's told you about the Bible. The devil will cause missionaries to be afraid and live in fear.
[32:59] He will cause the needs of the missionary to multiply so he's so busy he can't do much for God just trying to stay alive. But we want God to let the Bible run unhindered. We want God to glorify his Bible.
[33:13] We want Peruvian people we want people to learn the word of God and Bible truths like we do in practice. Your prayers help. You come to church I thank you man you're a given church I'm so proud of you.
[33:28] Every church I get to preach I get to say man what a given church you are. But they need much more than money. Money is the cheapest thing of all. But then you gave your kids that's the most expensive thing. And you gave yourselves that's the most expensive that's even more expensive.
[33:41] But let me tell you where they really need some help. whether you believe this or not God works through prayer. We have not because we ask not.
[33:54] When's the last time you said God hold up the hands of those mysteries as they stand up. When's the last time Jesse Turpin's name got mentioned before the God of heaven. Man in the world evangelism cabinet that wasn't an honorary place for you just to mess with.
[34:08] It's a real responsibility before God. Deacons of Vision Baptist Church these are our kids we're sending. They need more than our money they need our love.
[34:21] They need us caring about them. While Kason was being held several people were just literally Mark Tolson was under a burden because he sent them in.
[34:34] He told me I've been under a load like you can't imagine. and I think that I've watched Tyler Masters be arrested and held overnight. We need to pray for the word of God to be carried around the world.
[34:51] Ulysses said Ulysses said to me this morning you know one of the reasons I don't believe? I said if it's true why doesn't the whole world know about it? I said well I've been a good part of it and they do where I'm going.
[35:06] He said yeah well there are Buddhists there and there are Hindus there and I said because no one's telling what the truth is but you got a bunch of people out of this church your kids and they're going and they can act all macho and tough and I know what I'm doing and Austin taught me and the training center taught me and Jeff taught me and I'm ready no they're not none of us are ready for it we need God it's God's work done by God's people with God's word would you commit to really get into battle with your ministries warriorså¹´ your money they're looking at their God's yah has young sperm technology what's more and I will push them to reallyidosle and I've got me and everybody want