Jesus is working for a back to the Bible reformation and praying for a heaven-sent revival. Remember our badge, Bible-based, Christ-centered, Africa-faced. We are needing to always be prepared for battle, putting on the full armor of God. But we need to remind ourselves, you cannot presume to know the motives of other people. We should tackle issues without being judgmental about people's motives. So in a football match, you kick the ball. You don't kick the other player. You don't know what the person's motive is. So, you know, suggesting a person's doing this for this, that, or the other reason. As we know, there was someone here who was doing that a while ago and attributing motives to not nice ones, to Frank or others like that, as you might recall. We don't need to presume that we're omniscient. We don't know people's thoughts or motives. So you can assume the person did the wrong thing with a good motive, maybe. Don't overwhelm your friends and family. I think some frontline people have come back with knowledge they've gotten, or doctrines, or scriptures, and principles, and history. And next thing, overwhelm people like a tank. We need to be gracious as we share what we've learned. It might have taken us years to come to some convictions that we now bombard someone else with, expect them to change their position today. Don't just be a talker. We need to be a doer. There are people who talk and criticize, and there are people who do. Don't overreact. There's the kind of personality which are grenades with a pin pulled out. We need to keep balanced and keep things in perspective. It's easy to just explode. Sometimes there's a lot of motives and provocation, arsenic, if you deal with SARS and so on. Don't be a backstabber. There are people who can use boardroom meetings in order to backstab someone just in a word. And then when someone points it out, No, you're completely misunderstanding, but remember we had somebody specialized in accusing other people of all sorts of things, being like chickens running around with their heads on and things like that. Don't wait for the other person. Get started yourself. One of the most frustrating things here is having people have excuses. Why couldn't this get done? I'm waiting for Nick to give me the petrol card or something. Or I need Vaughan to do this. Or I need Tricia to do that. And so there's a whole range of excuses. That's pretty standard. Waiting for the other person. We've got to make a plan. If we've got a duty or we can see a need and a deadline's coming, it's no good having a good excuse. It's better to have had a plan and to resolve it. Some people make excuses and bored of not complying. Don't become a whiner. There are people who've got a gift of complaining and criticisms. Problems, problems, more problems, and even more problems. And, you know, it just makes people want to get earplugs. Choose your battles. You cannot do everything. We need to be selective and keep focused. There's a person who will volunteer for everything, take everything off your plate, but they won't ever do any of it. They take on too much, they become popular, but they don't ever get effective. And if you think when you start African Christian Action that people contacting us, we need to be demonstrating outside, okay, bazaars, they've got a Father Christmas, and Christmas is not about Father Christmas, and they've got an Easter Bunny there at Easter, we need to demonstrate. You know, you've got the vision, you get the job. We've got other more important things we're demonstrating against, like killing babies and things like that. Choose your battles. Sometimes people phone us up and they tell us what battles we should fight. Well, maybe it's better for them to get the Make a Difference book, organize their own Christian action group, mobilize their people in their area to do it. To expect us in Cape Town to solve their problems up in Pumalanga isn't realistic. Have a plan of action. Be decisive. Now, you often think of women being on the maybe category where their answer to everything is not a yes or a no, but it's a maybe. I'll see, but there's a lot of men falling into category two now. Absolutely indecisive. You can't get a yes or a no. You might get a yawn, yeah, but that's about it. But the maybe box is pathetic. I mean, look, they've even got the spider now in the no box because there's not much activity going on there. The road to hell is paved with good intentions, so having a good intention is completely irrelevant. It doesn't matter how well-intentioned we are. I've got a book on the shelf called Well-Intentioned Dragons. I haven't read it, but it's a good title. And there certainly is a lot of good intentions of people who are, meanwhile, stepping on your face on the way to hell. Get to the point. Communication is the essence of our work. And to communicate, you need to be without any mumbling, spluttering, um, er, well, you know, hesitation, repetition, deviation. Get to the point. Become a winner. Change your behavior. Sometimes we have to crossroads, and we've just got to make a decision. But you know the sort of Clark Kent Superman thing? Get out there and save the world. Smash cultural Marxism. We used to say, let's get out there and kill commies. It's a constructive idea of doing something constructive to improve the world. get out there and kill cultural Marxism. So we know our priorities. Evangelism, literature distribution, love and action, leadership training. These are the three key L's, literature, love and action, leadership training. So evangelism, especially amongst Muslims, Marxists, military personnel, prisoners, those in neglected and restricted access areas. Person evangelism, film evangelism, literature evangelism, radio evangelism, outreach in schools are some of the most productive ways, but they're not the only ways. And a lot of the displays in these cabinets around here show all kinds of evangelistic endeavours that have been done over the years, or tools, like the audio bibles and the God Story VCD players and so on. Love in action has often been boxes with love, which we've done for years, and I'd love us to get back to doing that in Zimbabwe in particular. A lot of agricultural medical relief work being done in the Nuba Mountains. And now our good friends of Doctors for Life are doing more than we could do in terms of medical help in Nuba Mountains, going regularly, cataract surgery, helping people who are effectively blind to see, distributing audio bibles to the people who are blind, and projects like those. So we need to increase the love and action. Leadership training is, of course, a key part of Bible teaching, preparing, presenting, biblical worldview seminars and summits, discipleship training seminars, Great Commission courses, Great Commission seminars, Reformation revival seminars, God and government seminars or conferences, Christian action training seminars, CATS, we all believe in CATS, Muslim evangelism workshops, that's a meow, and The Evangelism Explosion, Way of the Master, William Carey Bible Institute, Pastors Training Seminars, and now our latest, Livingston Chaplain's Training College. A new abbreviation to us, LCTC. And also important is research and photography, providing accurate research information, quotes, testimonies, reports, articles, statistics, video footage, photographs for newsletters, not only our own, documentaries, PowerPoints, slides, websites, social media, display boards, all designed to motivate Christians to prayer and action for missions and for reformation. So the research in photography is key. When I started our work in Sudan, you couldn't find but two pictures on the war in Sudan on the whole Internet. And fortunately, we've provided most that's there now. South Sudan was taken from the Forgotten War to the front page. But that took a lot of effort. Our video footage and pictures ended up in magazines around the world, books, and documentary films. And then establishing and training and mobilizing reformation groups, like the Reformation Society, Christian Action Groups, and getting groups together, whether we're talking about Fellowships for International Reformation Evangelism, the five movements, we started back in 2016. So Frontline Fellowship has some standing orders from God's Word, which is in our administrative folders, and these are not part two orders that reflect to what's going on this week, but standing orders good for any week of the year, any day. Philippians 1 verse 27, whatever happens, conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ. Then when I come and see you or only hear about you in my absence, I will know that you stand firm in one spirit, contending as one man for the faith of the gospel. I remember somebody saying to us, what do you need a gospel defense league for? The gospel does not need defending. Well, Philippians 1.27 says, contend for the faith of the gospel. Jude 3 also says that we are to contend for the faith once delivered to the saints. So there's some clear commands. You are to contend or fight for the gospel. So there is a need for a gospel defense league. The gospel is under attack and it's being undermined these days. 1 Corinthians 9 verse 25, everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last, but we do it to get a crown that will last forever. So we've got to think in terms of, think of all the hard work that goes in for physical training sports, whether you're talking about long distance running, hockey, water polo, ice skating, skiing, whatever it is, it all takes practice, it takes training. And people sacrifice, they change their diet, they do with less, they don't go to the party that night but get to bed earlier that they can get up fresh, ready for the training the next day and so on. And now the apostle Paul says, as people compete for the Olympic Games, so we need to go into strict training for our faith. Run in such a way as to get the prize. You've got to adhere to the rules. You can't cut across. If you're running around the Common, you can't cut across the middle of the Common. We'd go the whole way. And then you have to run in such a way that you're not distracted. You can't keep looking over your shoulder. I mean, think of the Chariots of Fire example again. Eric Liddell was not looking around at where the other races are. He's just looking towards the finish rope. Heading for that, I mean, it's a sprint. It's a short distance sprint and you've got to go full out, holding nothing back. You don't have time to, just looking over your shoulder at where the other person is can slow you down so that you lose the race. Eagerly desire the greatest gifts. 1 Corinthians 12 31. The greater gifts. What are the greater gifts? Love, charity. These are some of the greater gifts. Eagerly desire the greater gifts. Proclaiming God's Word. Try to excel in gifts that build up the church. Some people want to excel in some side gifts, which might be entertaining, you know, where the person can sing in tongues or whatever, but Bible teaching, things that are going to build up the church, counseling, personal evangelism, what is going to really build up the church? The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing. We need to focus on what is going to fulfill the Great Commission. Philippians 3.13, Apostle Paul says, one thing I do, forgetting what is behind, straining towards what is ahead, I press on forward towards the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. He's running to win. He's running with focus, with energy. And that means forgetting what's behind. You mustn't care about what's going on behind you or what you've failed in the past. That's not important. It's looking forward to the prize, straining to what is ahead. 2 Timothy 2.15, do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a workman who does not need to be ashamed, who correctly handles the word of truth. In stores, the Word of God is handled physically, but if we're in teaching or in radio and so on, we're handling the Word of God verbally. We've got to handle the Word of God respectfully, carefully. We don't want the Bible damaged. We don't want them damp. We don't want them wet. We don't want them in any way undermined so that they're not effective when they're handed to the person that they aim for. But when we teach and preach and read the Word of God, it's got to be clearly. eloquently. There's no good reading in such a way that people can't hear what you're saying. Mumbling and murmuring is not good. And we've had some people before who at the reading at lunchtime, you couldn't even hear them. Some people think it's more humble to read in such a way that nobody can hear what you're saying, except maybe the person standing just next to you. But that's not good. We've got to correctly handle the word of truth. When the word of God is read, it's got to be read clearly. Open your eyes and look at the fields. They're really ripe for harvest. Just looking here, there's so many things. Okay, you can see digitally there's needs and opportunities. You can see just looking across the common, you can see a whole lot of needs. Bus stops, traffic lights, intersections, all kinds of opportunities in town, physical opportunities, taxi ranks, hospitals, so many places where you can see there's a harvest field. Open your eyes, look at the fields. Whether we're talking about praying for different countries, reading through Operation World, seeing what's going on in other places. Like Johan looked and he saw the field that's ripe for harvest in the Congo. And he's let nothing get in the way. He's persevered until he's in the Congo now. Anyone then who knows the good he ought to do and doesn't do it sins. If you're engaged in this and not falling asleep for them, remember this is the verse that you read just before lunch today. Anyone knows the good he ought to do and doesn't do it sins. This is what you call a sin of commission, a sin of omission. Most sins we think of are sins of commission, bad things we did. But there's good things we failed to do, that's also sins, they're called sins of omission. To know the good we ought to do and to fail to do it is sin. Acts 20 verse 35, the Apostle Paul wrote, he said, in everything I did, I showed you that by this kind of hard work, we must help the weak. Remembering the words of our Lord Jesus himself, he said, there's more blessing to give than to receive. And so hard work is a form of witness, helping the weak, giving. A lot of our work is giving, whether we're giving Bibles, books, tracts, giving information, giving broadcasts. It's more blessed to give than to receive. And Romans 14 verse 1 says, accept him whose faith is weak without passing judgment on disputable matters. There are some matters that are not totally clear cut, and so sometimes it's wiser for us to remain silent rather than to pass judgment on something that could be debated. Accept him whose faith is weak. We're here to strengthen the weak. We can't... continually condemn a person if he comes to his faith is weak. Now, it can be pointed out he hasn't been strengthening his faith, he hasn't been doing spiritual exercises, but nevertheless, it's our place to be gracious. We who are strong ought to bear with the failings of the weak and not to please ourselves. Romans 15 verse one, we deny ourselves often for the sake of the people we call to serve. We urge you brothers, warn those who are idle, encourage the timid, help the weak, be patient with everyone. There are Christians who are too timid to witness. Some Christians are too afraid to make a stand, to lift up a pen or a poster. There are people who are weak and need encouragement and help. And there are many people who are idle who need to be rebuked. I mean, shame on these people who can't turn up for a life train or a march for life or an outreach or a prayer meeting even. There are many idle people who need to be rebuked. So warn them. Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might. Ecclesiastes 9 verse 10 makes it clear. If something is worth doing, it's worth doing well, enthusiastically, wholeheartedly, energetically. to the best of our ability. Those who sin are to be rebuked publicly so that others may be taking warning. 1 Timothy 5.20. have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them. Ephesians 5.11 is a standard text verse for African Christian action in particular. You know, you have people saying that we should not judge, we shouldn't get involved, you know, be kind, and basically they think we should just keep quiet. But the Bible says have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them. Abortion, pornography, perversion, these things need to be exposed. They are bad. They are destructive. They are destroying people's lives. It is up to us to expose them and oppose them. So watch yourselves. If your brother sins, rebuke him. If he repents, forgive him. So we need to watch ourselves because Hugh thinks he stands, but we're less than four. Preach the word, be prepared in season and out of season. A church service is in season, but while we're to be ready to preach the word in season, we should also be ready to preach the word out of season when it's not welcome and you don't even have a polite audience or a meeting scheduled. Our calling is to correct, to rebuke, and to encourage with great patience and careful instruction. This was the key verse for Baptist Theological College, where I studied, and we had preached the word even on our college ties. I think that's a key principle, and it's the word that we focused on, not opinions. Preach the word. We have to be ready in season, out of season. Francis Grimm of Hospital Christian Fellowship would say, a missionary needs to be ready to preach, pray, or die at a moment's notice. Encourage and rebuke with all authority. Do not let anyone despise you. Now, Titus being sent out by Paul to establish a church in Crete, and he's told to rebuke with all authority. I mean, the Cretans are liars, thieves, they need to be rebuked. Rebuke with all authority, don't let anyone despise you. Presumably he is younger than the people he is rebuking, but he was told to do it with all authority. Let a righteous man strike me, it is kindness. Let him rebuke me, it is like oil to my head. My head will not refuse it. So King David is saying that it's better to have the wounds of a friend. The kiss of an enemy is deceitful, but the wounds of a friend are faithful. A fool spurns his father's discipline, but whoever heeds correction shows prudence. We all need to be corrected. There's all things where we fail or where we can do a lot better, and we need to be open to correction. It is better to heed a wise man's rebuke than to listen to the songs of fools. There's so many songs that are just songs of fools, especially those on the hit parade. But a wise man's rebuke is better than a pleasant song. Do not make light of the Lord's discipline. Do not lose heart when he rebukes you. And so part of the adventure of discipleship is getting rebuked and corrected, which can take the role of a vehicle accident, being hospitalized, being sick. There's all kinds of ways that God can rebuke people. He's got a multiplicity of ways of dealing with us. He who heeds discipline shows the way to life. Whoever ignores correction leads others astray. Whoever loves discipline loves knowledge. He who hates correction is stupid. Now the Bible tells us not to call people stupid, but Proverbs says a person who hates correction is stupid. We all need to be corrected, we all need words of rebuke, and it can actually be a way to life. Just like there's nothing wrong with shouting and tripping up a person who's about to head over the end of a cliff, because that could be destructive. So anything, even if it scares the person, you know, he shouted really loud, that scared me. Well, sometimes we need to be scared. If you're about to touch him, that's going to electrocute you, you're about to do something that's going to be destructive to yourself or someone else. And I think one time I took my children up to Zimbabwe and they were in the Zimbabwe ruins and while I was about to take a picture of my daughter I saw the snake coming out of the rocks right next to Andrea's head. I had to shout to tell her to step away and yeah I mean this was a real snake, real threat. Next thing my son comes running down the path there with a whole troop of baboons chasing after him, and he had his packet of chips in his hand. Obviously the monkeys were after his chips. He's running to just throw the chips down. And of course that's all they were interested in. They weren't after him, they were after the chips. But you know, he's running along there, this little four-year-old boy, running with his packet of chips clutched in his arm, and he's... big monkeys and baboons chasing after him. You know, you don't always like to be shouted at, but sometimes it's necessary to prevent one from getting injured. A man who remains stiff-necked after many rebukes will suddenly be destroyed without remedy. You certainly see that in army. A lot of the things the sergeant major is trying to drill into our heads is to save lives, and if a person doesn't pay attention, it can literally Kill them, you know, landmines, all sorts of problems. Now it's required that those who've been given a trust must prove faithful. A trust, we've all been given all kinds of trust, and we've got to be faithful. Huge faith on small matters can be trust with large matters. A man's own folly ruins his life, yet his heart rages against the Lord. Now I saw this Proverbs 19, verse 3 principle at work in Hilbra. came across a woman who was furious with God. She's so angry with God, cursing God. She is born with a baby that was brain damaged. And it was God's fault. And then it came out, she'd been mainlining LSD while pregnant. Well, that can have an impact. A mother who's pregnant, mainlining LSD, yes, you're gonna have a child that's gonna be damaged. And then a man's own folly ruins his life. Yet it's hard to rage against the Lord. I mean, how many people have come across that? They've ruined their life, drunkenness, drugs, and so on. And then they all scream, God, how can you allow this to happen? Well, what you sow is what you reap, for goodness sakes. Why should any man living complain when he is punished for his sins? Lamentations 339, Jeremiah is writing about the fall of Jerusalem, absolute national catastrophe, and the destruction of Jerusalem, destruction of the temple, but it's a natural consequence of generations of ignoring God's warnings and of immorality, idolatry, ingratitude, injustice, interfaith, and now all of the consequences are going to come down on this generation's head. And why should any man living complain when he's being punished for his sins? Stop grumbling amongst yourselves, Jesus answered. So John 6, verse 43, they grumbled his teachings were too hard. The hard words of Jesus, we looked at it the other day. Well, stop grumbling amongst yourselves, Jesus said. And I think grumbling is a sin that many people don't recognize how bad it is. But God so detested the grumbling of the people of Israel after they'd been rescued from Egypt that he sent a plague of snakes into the camp of the Israelites because he is so sick and tired of their grumbling. And it's amazing God doesn't send a plague of snakes and other things in amongst many of our communities today because there's just so much complaining, whining, whingeing. Do not grumble as some of them did and were killed by the destroying angel. So 1 Corinthians 10.10, do not grumble. There are some in history who grumbled and then God sent the destroying angel to get rid of them. We should do everything without complaining or arguing. What is God's will? 1 Thessalonians 5, 16-18. Be joyful always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances. This is God's will for you in Christ Jesus. I've learned to be content whatever the circumstances, says the Apostle Paul. Learn to be content whatever the circumstances. I can face all circumstances with Christ Jesus who loves me. Godliness with contentment is great gain. But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with that. That's not a very high standard, just food and clothing. And the Apostle Paul says, we'll be content with that. Let's be content if we've got food and clothing. The whole idea that God's not fair, this isn't right, I deserve more, and give me, give me, give me. I didn't win the lottery, I didn't get this and the other I meant to get, and God's not come through for me. You have people complaining because he's not fulfilling the Health and Wealth Prosperity Cults promises. Be content with what you have because God has said, never will I leave you, never will I forsake you. Be content with that. Go from strength to strength. So you can see a consistent theme in the scriptures is to learn, be willing to take rebuke, to develop, to grow, to, you know, as you can see outside, I've got a picture of the mission house from the front from many years back. The hedges are so much lower. When we moved near those, nothing really above the bottom windows, plants in front. Now we've got these massive trees. You can just see the growth. of the garden. But hopefully you cannot see growth in the mission, in the publications, in the bookshop, in African stores. But people should be able to look at us and see growth in knowledge and in grace and skills, ability. Flourish like a palm tree. Grow like a seed of Lebanon. That's another reason why I like our palm trees outside. We'd only moved in here for a few months when we had people from Canal World came in wanting to buy our two palm trees. They wanted fully developed palm trees for this new shopping center to promote the exotic appearance they wanted to foster. And I said, not for sale. And then people asked me for a long time afterwards, but what were they offering? I don't care. It's not for sale. We're not selling our palm trees. And yes, but what were they going to offer? It doesn't matter. We weren't going to sell. I like the idea of having biblical trees in the garden, reminding us of how we should flourish like a palm tree, and how they just keep growing higher and higher, and the palm fronds come out, and, well, if they're even better trees, they'd be producing coconuts and all that, which would be even better, but we're happy with the palms that we have. The path of the righteous is like the first gleam of dawn, shining ever brighter till the full light of day. So, you should see improvements and progress in every Christian's life. Every day, every week, every month, every year, we should be getting stronger, brighter, more effective, and just like as the sun comes over the horizon, how it just gets brighter and brighter. Be diligent in these matters, we are commanded. Give yourself wholly to them, so that everyone may see your progress. As Paul's encouragement to Timothy, we should be growing in knowledge, in grace, in skills, in ability, in effectiveness. Therefore, let us leave the elementary teachings. Let us go on to maturity. We need to be mature as Christians. And the maturity growing as we continue in the faith and this discipleship walk should be seen in many different ways. Crave pure spiritual milk so that by it you may grow up in your salvation. You can see some Christians in the church, some pastors and elders even, have not progressed much. They stay at a very low level of spiritual development and don't progress. That can't work. You should see a clear difference from children in sub-A, sub-B, primary school, pre-primary school, going through to high school and so on. There should be a clear evidence improvement in their knowledge, in their skills, in their abilities, in their wisdom, in their grace. But in some cases in spiritual salvation, you don't see that growth. Some people stay like, I think Anthony was talking about these, you still need to be bottle fed and nappy changed. And honestly, it's disgusting to see an older Christian still acting like a baby Christian. No one who puts his hand to the plow and he looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God. You can imagine if you are plowing in a field and you're looking around, well, watch where you're going, you're going to go where you're looking. And that field's going to be very zigzaggy if a person keeps looking back. You can't do that. You shouldn't do it on a motorbike. You shouldn't do it on a bicycle. You shouldn't do it in a race. You can't do it in a spiritual life. A curse on him who is lax in doing the Lord's work. I remember the Lord speaking through Uncle Olo at a minister's conference. I think it was the year 2000 minister conference. And he preached in Jeremiah 48 verse 10. A curse on him who is lax in doing the Lord's work. A curse on him who keeps his sword from bloodshed. And that was such a word of rebuke. I think every minister there was convicted and so was I. I came back and fired four members immediately from frontline. Another four fled before I could get to them. And there was an immediate improvement to the mission because, you know, you don't want to often do the unpleasant things, just like no doctor should want to amputate a gangrenous leg or things like this, cut out cancer, but a curse on you if you don't do your duty. And sometimes that involves using the sword or the scalpel. May the Lord make your love increase and overflow for each other and for everyone else, just as ours does for you. So again, we should increase and overflow. It is said that in ministry, you can only minister on the overflow. What you're full of will overflow. You're blessing people with overflow. And so we're not called to be buckets, we're called to be hosepipes, we're called to be channels. Blessed not to be a blessing, saved in order to serve. Too much is given, much is required. Too much more is given, much more is required. Until we all reach unity in the faith and the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ. That's what you're called to. That's a high standard. Our standard can't be, we bet on the mission down the road. It can't be, well, I'm not as bad as that false teacher down the road. I'm not as bad as that blatant sinner and apostate over there or that backslide over there. That's not the standard. Our standard is Christ, attained to fullness of the measure of Christ. Speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into him who is the head. That is in Christ. So Romans 12, 11, never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor serving the Lord. Just like you can't boil the kettle if you have the temperature down too low, you can't keep the fire going all night if you don't keep putting fuel on it. And so we need to keep our spiritual fire burning. We should be on fire for Christ, not lukewarm. The goal of the mission is to glorify God in all areas of life. And so we've got a series of office procedures and priorities that we've looked up, which should be regularly, consistently adhered to. The first priority in any mission is to maintain a balanced devotional life. Everyone's personal study of God's word and our personal prayer life and our walk with the Lord is foundational. It affects all of our work. As General Mulder says, your walk with the Lord is even more important than your work for the Lord. Yes, our work is what we focus on here, but our walk is something we need to be focusing on at all times. We must maintain a healthy lifestyle. Enough sleep, enough exercise, and a balanced diet will affect our health, our emotions and stability, and our productivity. People who party all weekend, or who are endlessly on the internet, or who are playing endless video games, eating junk food, never exercising, things like this, they're going to be less effective, it's just a fact, and we can point to a few examples in history about that. And dare I say it without sounding like I'm being judgmental, but there have been some great saints of God who have burned themselves out. And do you think of the American missionary to the Indians, who was it, Elliot? Jonathan Edwards almost had him as a son-in-law. David Brangley. Now David Brangley burned himself out. He died at about 29. Then we've got others like Martin, Henry Martin, who died in his 30s. Again, he burned himself out. And, you know, burning yourself out is not a good idea. You think of someone like Charles Spurgeon, one of the greatest preachers of all time, the greatest Christian author in history, more books and words in print than any other author in history. But he died in his 50s. And you can only think that how much more of a blessing could he have been if he had paced himself a bit better. But you can see he did a few foolish things, like smoking pipes, cigarettes, and cigars, which was not considered a great health threat at that stage, but he undermined his health. He plainly didn't turn up exiles. He burned himself out. He was so focused on his work, and he did great things. One doesn't want to criticize a giant of the faith like Spurgeon, but Spurgeon could have lasted another 20 years in the faith. But no, he didn't have body, mind, and spirit balance. His mind and his spirit was phenomenal. but the body didn't keep pace. And so maintaining a healthy lifestyle, yes, you can say, praise God for David Brainerd who burned himself out to the Lord, but how much better if he could have kept the flame burning for a couple more years, decades, how much more he could have accomplished? Cultivate a positive attitude. Optimism is contagious. Nothing great is ever achieved without enthusiasm. And enthusiasm comes from the word spirit. You've got to be filled with a spirit. That's what enthusiasm really means. And negativity is destructive. And it's also contagious. But positive attitude makes a huge difference. And what do you need for health? Good health needs five things. Healthy food, well, actually, the first priority is fresh air, which masking people up, of course, violates the first priority, or smoking also. So fresh air, clean water, healthy food, regular exercise, positive attitude. Those are the five essentials for good health. And without a positive attitude, well, a cheerful soul is, medicine for the bones, but a negative attitude is like cancer to the bones. Ensure that your motivation is to do everything as unto the Lord. It's obnoxious to have people who come along and talk about things like they're doing you a personal favor. If someone wants to be doing you a personal favor, then they shouldn't be here. In a mission, we are here as unto the Lord, we're serving Him. The whole idea of, you know, I'm doing this for you, I've fixed you all this. No, it's not my, this is the missions, or this is the Lord's, or this is the kingdom, this is the work of. of the Lord that is involved, and our motivation always needs to be as unto the Lord. If it's not as unto the Lord, then it's going to fail. That's building on the rock. Be committed to excellence. If the job's worth doing at all, it's worth doing well. If it's not worth doing well, it's not worth doing at all. Constantly desire to improve. We should be ready to listen to rebuke and to graciously receive a correction. We won't improve otherwise. We've got to be constantly reading, learning. There's always people who know more than us that we can learn from. There's always people who know less than us that we can teach. But we've got to aim to improve. The sermons I preach this year should be better than the ones I preached last year. And the books I write this year should be better than the books I wrote a few years ago. Maintain honest, open communication with other members of the ministry. Do not allow problems to fester, or should we say, metastasize or turn to cancer or bitterness or gangrene. At the first convenient moment, we should bring issues to the light, following the biblical method of conflict resolution in Matthew 18. Go to a person alone. If there's a problem, take another person next time. Only then involve more people in the general church. But we should try and deal with things with people directly as soon as possible. As a team priorities, how urgent is it? When must it be done by? How important is it? Is this the best way to do it? Should someone else be delegated to do it? Sometimes I'm not the best person for the job. If I'm going to solve your IT problems, you're going to be waiting a long time, and so on. So again, we've got to decide who's the best person for this job, and when must it be done by? Sometimes a more urgent matter can get delayed because we've got a wrong idea of our priority and we're busy on a secondary thing that could be dealt with after we first do this first priority, if it's more urgent. Plan ahead. So if we always have enough stationery and toner and CDs, DVDs, where that data doesn't, we don't use those that often these days, cartridges, flashcards, SD cards, whatever they might be now, to meet the upcoming projects. We've got to remember to plan errands and inform others in office in case they need something. So if I'm going out to, let's say, to the macro, I should let people know so that they know They can add other things to the list of things to purchase, and so on. If we're going down to SARS, someone else might have someone they want you to shoot while you're there, and things like that. Maintain a discipline of reading. Reading is the magic key to take you where you want to be. A reading Christian is a growing Christian. If you want to lead, you must read. And most important, we should read the Bible. If you just read four chapters of the Bible a day, you can get to the whole Bible in a year. There's only 1,187 chapters in the Bible. So it's not that difficult if you do four chapters a day, you're on track to finishing the Bible in one year. Read good Christian books. Emphasize good. One should be reading at least one book a month, but preferably we should do more. And every frontline news, Christian Action, Gospel Defensely, whatever we produce internally, we should have read so that we know who to recommend it to, who to pass it on to, or how to answer people's questions. This means always carrying a Bible or a newsletter, some reading material, booklets, whatever, with you wherever you travel and where you might need to wait. Like if you're going to a government department, you will be in a queue. If you're going to Home Affairs, you could spend the whole morning there, so you might as well take a good book. Redeem the time with reading. I've found if I've got a good book, it can keep me in a much better state of mind than if I'm just wasting my time waiting for these creeps to get on with their duty. Keep the mission neat and tidy. Also ensure that all the food in the kitchen is sealed, insect controlled, nothing more obnoxious than to find that ants or cockroaches or whatever's got into some food. And that became more important in the field. I can tell you when you start to get rats coming into your kitchen and devouring things, it's very obnoxious. And of course we've had squirrels coming in trying to get our cat's food sometimes, our cereal. We've had squirrels going after our rusks. File important materials and correspondence immediately, which on a computer means you have a separate folder for these things. Forward or make copies of other material especially relevant for the work. I find it's important with a computer to file things in more than one place. If it's a really important document, I've sometimes got a separate file for this, but then I can't just put it in the general admin folder. I've got to have insurances, medical, pets and vets, different folders for a whole range of things. Sometimes it's worthwhile making up a new folder, because when you're hunting for it, it can save a lot of time if you've got a good filing system. filing all relevant information, both electronically and in suitable folders for easy retrieval, keeping hard copy records of everything important. That's helped us when the computers went down, that we had some hard copy backups, like our admin folders and so on. And regularly backing up our computer, of course, which is what I think Vaughan's all busy with right now, that we're having. And what's the name of the new system following Synology? I was calling it the new server, but the server's name is SSCore. Assess tool. A-S-U-S-T-O-R. Okay, think of it as an assistance. So keep backups on hand and give dated information. One of the most frustrating things is when people don't name or date their pictures or picture folders. That is super frustrating because dates make a big difference sometimes, and when you're trying to find it, the worst errors I've found done by generations of staff is new folder, new picture. Well, define new. I've got folders from the 1900s that are new folder, new picture. That's not helpful. And then some things need to go off-site. Be an efficient steward of the resources God has entrusted to us. We've got to identify money wastes and eliminate them. The biggest money wastes are lack of planning, carelessness, long-distance phone calls when a fax email letter would have sufficed, excessive use of the photocopier. Some people have photocopied far more than is ever needed. And we've got to sometimes phone ahead, check the best price for items ahead of time, wasting electricity, leaving Lights on all day when you don't need it, like the men's dorm, there's no need to have a light on during daytime because no one's there, or shouldn't be there. Heaters on in a room after it's been heated up, absolute money waster. Heaters and urns and kettles and so on are the biggest electricity guzzlers. So we should only use them when needed. And again, it's not necessary to have the kettle or the urn filled to the top when you're just making tea for two people or something like that. So just thinking about how we can save money, switching off what's not needed, and planning, OK, this is how much water we need for this urn or this kettle before we start to eat on and so on. And then the time wasters. Identify the time wasters. Procrastination is the worst. You know, at the end of it, even after you've procrastinated, you're still going to have to do it. And now you won't even have the satisfaction of feeling like I've achieved it. It's a guilt of, I procrastinated for weeks before I finally got to do what needs to be done. Focusing on a low-priority task, unnecessary travel, like driving all around town to find something that you could have phoned in to find that's not available in any of those places you're going to anyway. Failure to phone ahead to confirm details. I've raced off to a meeting that wasn't happening in Fishhook before. You know, all that time wasted, all that petrol wasted to get there, and if I'd confirmed ahead of time, I would have known, well, the meeting was cancelled. Would have helped as they communicate too, but nevertheless, time wasted going to a meeting that's been cancelled is very frustrating. Failure to delegate when appropriate. Lack of organization. Interruptions. I think that's the bane of Nick's life. He hates interruptions, hates the gates. Oh, hates the phone bill. And you can blame him. But the biggest time waste is actually sin. Sin takes all sorts of time. It wastes time, wastes opportunity, kills opportunity. Then you still gotta take the time to solve the problem, talk through things. Time need for repentance, restitution. I mean, sin's the biggest time waste of all. To be effective, we need to eliminate the least important tasks and concentrate on the most important tasks. We should also discourage long phone calls and just sort of drop in uninvited guests. There's people who pop in, you know, I know it's not a collection day, but, and coming in. You said, could you not put your proposal, your concerns in an email? No, I'd rather talk to you personally. So they come here, they just drop in or something, and they don't actually know what they want, but they just want to waste your time rambling using it as a sounding board. And these sort of people, one thing I think that helps on the phone, in particular when people are rambling all over the place, Good afternoon, how can I help you? And sometimes when a person's rambling, you can reiterate the question, how can I help you? Or what can I do to help you? Bring it to the point. What do you need? What books are you looking for? How can I meet the needs of your upcoming outreach or whatever it is? We've got to get the person to the action item so that we can deal with the issue. And be security conscious. Keep the front security gates locked. Always look for the security gates at the mission each night. Make sure they're all locked in our inner security gates. If you're the last one to leave, be sure to set the alarm. Security is important. Over the years, by God's grace, we've only had a few bicycles stolen. We've never had an actual break into the mission house itself since we've been here for 22 years, so we can praise God for that, but that takes effort, putting on the lights at night, locking the doors and the gates, keeping alert, keeping the security cameras on, looking at the security cameras sometimes, that'll all help. And with each newsletter, Proofread carefully and thoroughly, and as Carida points out, it's best if before it's typeset, it's sent around for proofing, because so many of the corrections can be done so much easier before it is formed into a document. So what's the format you need normally? Getting it as a Word document to proof before it's typeset, yes. And before sending it to the printer, you certainly want it to be found accurate, complete, readable, flawless, effective, the right website, the right email address, and so on. It's such a pain when the item's already there, it's back on the printer, and then you find people proofreading and finding mistakes. Don't proofread after it's printed. Proofread before it's printed. A person who does this proofreading after it's back on the printer is just frustrating and irritating. You just want to flog them. because if they could have proofread before, it might have helped, but proofreading afterwards is extremely unhelpful. The common fault is the wrong date. Many times people just get things printed with the last date. That's especially a danger when it comes to Reformation letters that you just keep in the last date instead of updating it. wrong page numbers in the book, inconsistent type fonts, the wrong scripture reference. Avril's very good at picking those out. Incomplete sentences, missing sections, wrong grammar. Sometimes sections are hidden behind a picture. A picture got put in and it's now covering the text. A person didn't move it around, so you've got to... Really look for that sort of thing. And then spelling, absence of now what, what to do guidelines, absence of the web address or contact details for response. These are things we find. Rather than delay, rather than send out a full publication, it's better to delay the printing for a day if we have to. Not that we want to, we'd rather proofing be done earlier. Be innovative. We need to continually creatively think of better ways to be effective, how to save money, how to save time, how to do the work in the best possible way, or on the platform that's not going to expire in a few months, and things like that. Don't hesitate to suggest improvements in procedures. You see something that looks wrong or you can think of a better way of doing it, speak up. We don't want to slip into the rut of doing things mindlessly just because that's the way we've always done it. You hear that in churches. You know the difference between a rut and a grave? The depth. But a rut and a grave is going in the same direction. You don't want to get in a rut. and make responding to correspondence a priority. Those who subscribe are our most interested, most motivated supporters. We need to cultivate them on the case of the bookshop, people who purchase books, and in the case of Litch Vavka, people who distribute and give feedback and report back. Now, for repetitive requests, we need to formulate a standard reply, frequently asked questions, When the delay is unavoidable before the letter can be fully answered, at least send an acknowledgment. Like some people give you 20 requests and 15 theological questions and define the universe, give three examples and a whole lot of this sort of thing. And when it came to his wife and so on. Now, maybe you could just acknowledge the letter, answer the one thing you know how to answer right now, and I'll get back to you on the other ones. Once we have time to study the... Encyclopedia Britannica and speak to a few major theologians and pray for an improvement of my attitude towards you for sending all these things, I'll get back to you. But it's better to have some answer than nothing. And there are times that I've asked too much in a letter written to some important person and realized I should have just dealt with one thing. The average person only wants to deal with one thing at a time on a letter. If it's important, if it's number 16 out of 20 different things you've got in your letter, they'll probably ignore that one. They'll just deal with the easy ones. So it's better to have another letter for the other request. Never leave completed mail in the office overnight. Today, I suppose, would be never leave an email that's ready to go out unsent or unscheduled. Logging, stamping, posting letters on the way home is key. We used to have 8,000 hard copy newsletters to mail. We wouldn't want to put all in one box either, so we'd often drive to different places and be filling in different letterboxes because we wanted to. And we'd have to check, is this letterbox still current? Some letterboxes were outside post offices that no longer existed and might have only been checked once a week or a month or something. But sensitive dated material, like advertising for an event, whether it's a seminar past and so on, no good having piles of those leaflets to distribute to advertise the event after the event's over. So that's actually criminal. That's just wastage. We've got to distribute them no matter what before the event. And be persistent. Do not allow projects or assignments to get buried. Steadfastly, we need to continue to keep at it, keep on keeping on, persevere, until the obstacles are overcome and the task has been completed. To do all this, we need to stay focused. And for men, that normally means one item at a time, one project at a time. Women can handle multitasks, but most men can't. Be resolute. Don't allow disappointments or opposition to discourage you. We need to maintain a sense of humor and a song of praise to God in our heart. It's good when you get up in the morning, first thing, start quoting scripture, singing hymns or choruses, having hymns in the background, whatever, but we've got to chase away the despondency, keep focused on the Word. Again, time matters. Get to the time, man. Time wasters. As we've got to the Luther Rose in the Stay well. Scripture alone is the ultimate authority. Salvation is by the grace of God alone, received by faith alone. Let's keep focusing on the great solace of the Reformation. So, questions, comments, complaints, criticisms? Any other shoes? Open up the earth. Swallowed Korah and his rebels. It's a good thing God's more gracious with us these days, isn't it? Can you imagine some churches, if you suddenly had a whole lot of snakes crawling around in the congregation, or the earth opens up and the whole church disappears into the ground? That would be a bit discouraging. We are very grateful that the Lord is more gracious to us these days because he obviously doesn't like grumbling. And whenever we see the symbol for a paramedic or the ambulance service or even the veterinary surgeons, the serpents on a stake, reminding us that the Lord sent plague of serpents to wipe out the grumblers and the complainers in Israel. Any other questions, comments? Yeah, I love the Lutheros. It's such a meaningful. Scripture now, somebody had put word alone at the top, but the trouble is, word could these days be misinterpreted, like the rhema word. And some people, by the rhema, mean the spoken word spoken by somebody on the floor of the church, as opposed to logos, the scripture, the infallible, inerrant word of God, which is objective in the scripture. So we change it from word alone to scripture alone because the word in many people's minds. I've even heard people say the Rhema is more powerful than the Logos. But Jesus is the Logos. In the beginning was the Logos, and the Logos was with God, and the Logos was God. The Logos is superior to the Rhema, surely. So evidently the Rhema they're talking about is the word of God spoken. Not even that. In Peter, if you look it up, if you look in Greek, he uses both words. My understanding is the rainbow normally is spoken of meaning the spoken word of God. As opposed to a person in church, I have a word. Yea, verily, forsooth, behold, thus saith the Lord. Last night when I was shaving and looked at myself in the mirror, the word of God appeared to me, or I experienced the fullness of the Godhead bodily, quote unquote. What does that even mean? I mean, these people in the King James English, normally Americans, and yet they can quote the King James in this way. The fullness of the Godhead bodily appeared to me, and God said to me, and I said to him, and he said to me, and then I said to him, I said, no, God, that's not going to work. And I mean, literally this is quotes from People like Kenneth Pagan and Kenneth Copeland and these other Word of Faith speakers, and they speak about the word that comes to them as the rhema. But of course, in the Bible, I'm sure the rhema is the spoken word of God, not my imagination. So yes, in that sense, rhema and logos can be interchangeable, but the way most people do it today, they're talking about the rhema as, like this brother had a rhema word from the floor, so it can say, yea, verily, behold, and as the dew drips down from Mount Hermon, as the oil from the head of Aaron and the Honey from the beard of Jacob and Simon. So I'm well pleased with your offering this morning. It's sweet smelling my nostrils. And you know, there's backbiting and all kinds of things going on in the congregation. You know, God's all knowing. So if this is a word from God, he wouldn't actually be smearing honey around their mouths. He'd be clapping them over the head for their stupidity and selfishness. But that's often called a rhema. So any other comments or questions? Let's pray, especially for our performance, our attitudes, our actions, what people see with the mission. Let's commit the sword to the Lord in prayer.