Evening For six weeks I have been non-stop and I have never had that kind of a schedule Peter and I Mean I had a lot of meetings not like this. Oh, so, six weeks ago, missions conference in Maryland, and then in Martinsburg another conference for six days in Martinsburg, West Virginia. And then from Martinsburg, where did I go? Came back to the house overnight and went straight down to Beaver Springs, Pennsylvania. And I I'm forgetting something, but then flew to Austin, Texas and was there seven days and preached day and night. And then flew from Austin, Texas to Kansas City and then Kansas City to Minneapolis and Minneapolis and so forth and so forth. Detroit today, been on three planes today. And started today, started in Lawrence, Kansas, and left my room that they had rented for me for the past week in Lawrence, home of the Kansas Jayhawks. And so left there at 3 o'clock this morning and got here at, thank you so much, got here at, when did I get here? 5.30. I think I did. And went over and had some supper, and here I am. And went upstairs and sat down in the chair and fell fast asleep for about 15 minutes. I never slept last night. I haven't slept since what was it Friday night or Saturday night something like that and so Preacher I am NOT waking up till 10 o'clock in the morning after this is over. I'm going down and That's all she wrote. I did have time when I landed and I landed in Elmira, Corning Airport, and my wife picked me up and took me to my car, and I threw my luggage in my car, kissed her for the first time in six weeks, and then came here. And so... Oh, let me just, uh, yeah, collect myself for a minute. I am glad to be here and, uh, glad that you're here and, uh, been having some wonderful meetings and God has been good to me. Of course he can't help it. That's just his nature. And so God has been doing some marvelous things within GLBM, Golden Land Baptist Missions. And we've had a lot of people saved. You will recall that we, I don't know, do you know about the booklet? Tomorrow night I will bring, I'll have at least one video. I'll probably show video from Burma and then I'll show another video and I'll tell you about that in a little bit here. And, um, um, come on brain. Oh boy. Uh, let's see. Tomorrow we'll show you a video and I'll probably, uh, bring some of the newsletters. Did you pastor, did you get the. The newsletter in the mail, certainly you did. Yeah, the big fold out. Yeah, well, I have one for everybody if you'd like one, and brought some with me. And I do have some more books in case anybody wants a book, Golden Land Chronicles, 20 True Stories of Missions in Myanmar over the last 15 years, forward by Dr. David Gibbs of Christian Law Association, so forth, so forth, so forth, so forth. And anyway, so the booklet, you'll recall that years ago, I was walking the streets of old Rangoon in old Burma, now called Myanmar on the exact opposite side of the planet between India and Thailand, south of China. And during that time, it was a military dictatorship killing millions of its own people. And I had a shoulder bag on and I had Thammaschenza or Holy Bible inside the bag. three different copies of the Holy Scriptures in Burmese. And so I was greeting people, especially Buddhist monks. And as I was walking down the sidewalk, you know, I greeted, you know, I said, hello, how are you? To a Buddhist monk, red robe, bald head, bare feet, has his begging pot, black begging pot in his arms. And of course, every morning, Every single morning, seven days a week, the Buddhist monks go into the streets with their pot. If you're a Buddhist monk, you're a beggar. So you go into, if you're a Buddhist monk, you take your shoes off and you take your begging pot and you go into the streets and you go door to door, residents or businesses or anything, and people put a handful of rice or a handful of vegetables or whatever they have and put it in your pot and when you get your pot then you can go back to the monastery, combine and dine and have your one meal of the day. And when you've cleaned up, you can put your shoes back on and go have a good smoke. And that's their life, you know? And so as I was walking down the sidewalk, which was totally broken up and heaving in every direction, you had to really watch your step to keep from breaking your neck. And a monk comes my way, he's coming this way, I'm going that way, and I see him, I know he sees me, and I say, mingalaba nikaula, hello, how are you? And he looks away. And I'm thinking, how rude. And so I keep going, and another monk is coming with his begging pot in his arm, mingalaba, he looks away. Another one, mingalaba nikaula, he looks away. So finally I said, I got right in the path of this Buddhist monk. He was a little older, about 38 years old maybe. And so I said, he stops dead in his tracks. He looks me right in the eye and he says, how you know my language? I said, how you know mine? So now we sit down on a street bench that's about to fall down of its own. And he says, why are you in my country? And I began to tell him about Jesus. He says, I'm Buddhist. I said, I understand. I know. I'm Christian. You're Burmese. I'm American. We're different. We already know this. But I want to tell you about Jesus. And so we sat there and compared the teachings of Gautama, the Buddha, and Jesus Christ. And so in the conversation, I opened my shoulder bag, Burmese woven, all kinds of colors, Burmese shoulder bag, opened it up, and I took out Thammachenza, Holy Bible. his eyes got this big. I held it out to him like this because this is the sign of serving or humility to him. And he said, for me, I said, shide, shide, yes. And so he took that Holy Bible back to his monastery. What I didn't know was that he was a high priest in charge of one of the biggest monasteries in the entire city of Old Rangoon, now Yangon, city of 9.5 million Buddhists and Muslims, Hindus, tens of thousands of temples, and idols everywhere. And so he took that back to his monastery and in the privacy, in the secrecy of his quarters every night he read Thammachenza, Holy Bible. And the first thing he saw, he says, oh my goodness, he said, this book tells how the world began. I've never seen any kind of a book like this. And so as he's reading, he continues to read. Later on, he told me, he said, Baji, he says, I read Tamachenza, and as I open the Bible and begin to read, it is like God give me light. Well, you know, Peter, that they are, the Buddhists seek what? Enlightenment, right? And so he says, it's like, God, give me light. But the thing is, is that the Buddhists don't believe in a God. It's an amazing thing. They believe they're becoming gods, but they don't believe in God. How is that? So anyway, he says, it was like, God, give me light. He said, I open again, and God, give me more light. And I open again, and God, give me yet more light. Until he found Jesus Christ in that Bible, realized that Jesus Christ was not just the Savior, the Messiah of the white man in the West, but He was the Savior of the whole world. And because of the power, not because of a soul winner, not because of a Gospel tract, not because of some external thing, but because of the power of the Holy Scriptures of our God, He got down on His knees, confessed His sin to God. and believed in Jesus Christ and asked Jesus to come in his heart and save him. He said, I believe in you. I want you to be, I believe you died for me. I believe you rose again. I believe you're alive. And I believe that you created this world and created me. And I want you to be my savior. Would you please make me your child? And then he began witnessing to the other monks and they beat him. They beat him bloody. They threatened his life. He ran for his life. And so then he ended up calling the number on the card that I gave him. And Pastor Tong Nguyen there at the Bethany Baptist Church and the Cornerstone Baptist College, the GLBM Bible College we have there, and our orphanage and all of that, Christian school, he called that number. Tong answered the phone and he told him who he was and he said, is Baji Bob there? And he said, Baji is in America. So Tong went and picked this monk up and hid him because there was a price on his head. And he ended up graduating, four-year bachelor's degree from our Bible college in Yangon. He is now planning his third church. Say amen right there. And so now I took his testimony. Morlite, Morlite, Morlite, Morlite, and I wrote his gospel track. And at first, I think I've showed you before, big fold out 11 by 14, four fold gospel track. We printed them all in over there in Yangon. We printed 45,000 of them and they were gone almost overnight. But thousands of people professed Christ through that gospel track. So, Micah McCurry, the director of Bible Tracks, Inc. A ministry started by Paul Levine, Dr. Paul Levine years ago out in Illinois. He called me and he said, Baji, he said, we want to print a track for Burma because that's what they do. They give free tracks to ministries. And I said, well, that's great. And he said, what track do you want to print? And I said, I'll get back to you on that. So I called some of my preachers in Myanmar, GLBM pastors, and I said, I said, we're going to do some tracks, a lot of tracks, like a million tracks. And they said, oh, praise the Lord. I said, which track? They said, Baji, the only track, the best track that's ever been written for Burma is your track about the monk. So I called Micah back and I said, this is what we want to do. He said, okay, we'll print them here and ship them over to you. I said, why? He said, well, what do you want to do? I said, I want to print them over there. He said, can we get the quality? I said, if we're willing to pay for it. So we did a trial run and it was beautiful, it was sharp, it was crisp, it was very colorful. And so we printed a million over there. I asked God for a miracle. How many believe that God answers prayer? Well, James said, the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth what? Much. So I asked God for a quarter million dollars. because it would take $250,000 to print four million of those. We redesigned that gospel track into a 16-page full-color glossy booklet. And all the pictures are mine that I've taken over there in the mission strips that I've made over the last 15 years, and they're from different provinces so that people can identify and say, oh, I know where that is, and I live near there, and so forth and so on. and very vibrant. And so people receive that book and they say, oh, because of the quality, they say, oh, this is important. So they get, they sit down or squat down in the Burmese squat, in their longi, you know, the men's skirt, and they begin to read immediately. So we have already distributed one million of those booklets. They're already in people's hands. We have not only had more than 10,000 professions of faith from that booklet, but we have just baptized our 13th Buddhist monk. I preached a message, I ought to save this for this week, but I preached a message from Exodus chapter 35 and 36. You remember where God told Moses to build the tabernacle? He says, I want you to build me a house. Well, it's going to be a temporary house. Can you get this? In the Old Testament, God built, no, in the Old Testament, the people built a house for God. In the New Testament, God builds, God makes his child, he makes the believer his house. And we become, you know, his temple. Temple of the Holy Ghost. So, um, where was I? My brain just stopped working. Um, so, um, where was I? Uh, yeah. Huh? Yeah. Besides that. So anyway, uh, I, yeah, yeah. I told you I'm beat. I am just shot. How's it going? Good. 13 months and got baptized. And this past, oh, here's what I was saying, Exodus 35 and 36. All right, so anyway, I preached the message from Exodus 35 and 36 where Moses, God told Moses to build him a house, the tabernacle, temporary house. God said, have the people bring the materials to build the tabernacle. So the Bible says they brought rubies, sapphires, and purple. Remember, purple is so costly. And they brought wood, and they brought stone, and they brought brick, and so forth and so on. And then in Exodus chapter 36, they had brought enough. Matter of fact, they had brought too much, remember? And Moses said to the builders, he said, make the people stop bringing. He said, we have enough stuff, stuff. We have too much stuff. So I preached this message actually here in Pennsylvania in a preacher's meeting that God does stuff. God does stuff, folks. So then I went to Pittsburgh and I preached in the church, and as I walked in there, they were giving out bumper stickers that said, God does stuff, dot, dot, dot, amazing stuff. And I'm here to tell you tonight that God does stuff, big stuff, wonderful, amazing stuff. And I am blessed and privileged, honored, to be a part and be able to experience and see God do that stuff. And save a lot of people, a lot of souls for Christ. And a lot of churches are being built over in Myanmar. And this year, Um, this here we are in November. So this year is, uh, almost over, but we have started five brand new churches this year. Preacher through the preacher boys that we trained in our Bible college. And, uh, there's more preacher boys on the way that are being trained right now in the midst of, uh, military coup and civil war, civil war ensued after the coup, the dogs That's what the Burmese call, that's what the Myanmar peoples, the Chin, the Karen, the Shan, the Mon, the, you know, that's what the Burmese, the Myanmar peoples call the Burmese military. They call them the dogs. And it's very derogatory in their culture. And they call them that because these, this military led by this demon possessed general is killing indiscriminately. I mean, they will go with choppers and fighter jets and just carpet bomb an entire village just to make a point and kill men and women and children and infants. And it's just demonic, nothing less than demonic. And so in the midst of all of that, and of course there is not warfare in all over the country all the time, but there's pockets. You don't ever know where they're going to show up next. But everybody in Myanmar, they have power a maximum of four hours a day. A maximum of four hours every day. And sometimes two. Sometimes not at all. And when it's 110 to 120 degrees, you know what they do? They take a car battery, And they hook it up with jumper cables to a fan so they can keep the air moving inside their bamboo hut or their apartment building. You know? So the next time that we think that we have it rough and we have challenges and, and problems and so forth here in America, we, you and I, we better count ourselves blessed by God. Go like this. It'll help your neck. Yeah, it's the truth. And so in the midst of all of that, we're planting churches. In the midst of all that, we're distributing the booklet. In the midst of that, we're baptizing monks who have turned from their idols and their spirit worship to a living Savior. This is the most real stuff I have ever seen and ever been a part of. And it's not me folks, you know, uh, I'm, I'm not even the horse that takes it to the, to over there. I'm like, I'm like the kid that doesn't know how to ride. And, and somebody throws me up on top of a bucking Bronco, you know, and when you're in a situation like that, what do you do? You hold onto the horn for dear life. I'm glad we have the horn of salvation. So I'm just holding on for dear life and watching God work in the place where God's called not only me, but so many others. Now we have American families there on the ground, then we have a couple of hundred national pastors. We don't support all those national pastors all at once. now we're supporting about three dozen. And, you know, we've got not only the college, we have seven schools and almost 400 orphans presently that we're caring for every single day. And I've gone over there, I've bought, I have, I have purchased not only Bibles and school curriculum, but I've purchased, oh my goodness, I've purchased eyeglasses and shoes and underwear and I've, and long jeans. and I have purchased, I have paid for medical procedures, I've paid for surgeries, I've paid for, Pastor Alin had cancer in his eye. for two years I begged Pastor Alin, I said, Seya, Master, Teacher, Preacher, Pastor, all the same, Seya, S-A-Y-A, transliterated from the Myanmar. And so I said, Seya, you need to have surgery, that eye is dead. He wouldn't let us take it out. I said, I'll pay for the surgery. He wouldn't let me take it out. So he literally, and the pain was unbearable. I mean, he would preach with his eye in a homemade hammock on his cheek because the cancer had pushed the eyeball out of its socket. And he would cry and he would lay around, he would lay at night and hold that. And, you know, because of the pain, but then in the morning he would suck it up, if you will, and start knocking doors. understand why these are my heroes? I'm talking about Tong Lien who has been beat with steel rods, jailed, and stoned many, many days for years. He's had malaria for seven years. Nothing stops him. He's not only with all the persecution, he's not only built the Bethany Baptist Church in Yangon, but he has trained other preachers and started 16 churches out of his church when he was being persecuted, stoned, beaten, jailed. My hero. And so finally I paid for, I convinced Alin to have the surgery. And then I paid for a glass eye. So mission's money, yeah, it goes to plant churches, but sometimes we have to take care of business and help a brother, you know, or a sister. You know, and our orphans, I've bought truckloads of rice, shoes, all kinds of clothes. And sometimes I go over there and I'll have, you know, whether I have a little, an orphanage of 20 kids or I have an orphanage of 160 kids and I have both, I'll load everybody up in the truck and sometimes a dozen trips to get to a little cafe where I can buy them all ice cream. And so I say, everybody gets ice cream. And everybody goes, what is ice cream? And now they, after their first little bowl of ice cream, they know what ice cream is. And so I go to them when their bowl is almost empty, I stand up and I said, how many want more ice cream? And they look at me like, excuse me, sir? I say, more, more, you want more? Raise your hand. Like this. And so then I tell the owner, I said, bring it again. And so now we have seconds for everybody. And so they get about this much in the bottom of their bowl. And I stand up and I said, how many? And they all raised their hand. And now they have thirds, they have three bowls. And so now they get down to the bottom of their bowl and I just stand up and they raise their hand. Yeah, and it is just such a thrill to be in God's will and do His work, you know. And on one of those trips, here I am in Ong Lan, the place where I was arrested and jailed back in 2009, you know, by military intelligence with a camouflage and the white helmet. And now I'm back, and my pastor Hack was with me, you know, Pastor Hack, Richard Hack. And he is scared to death, he was scared to death at that time. And he's following me around, and he's looking over his shoulder, you know, and he's seeing all the soldiers with AK-47s in their hands, up and down the street. So we've gone up the Ayawadi River, and we've gone into the village of Vong Len. We've stayed overnight in the bamboo hut out in the Tainwanese compound. And so now I decide we're going to take all these children across the river. Well, we have to come out of the jungle, down through the village, and go to the boat landing. And I'm going to rent about 10 different longboats. We're going to put all these children, 160 children, in those longboats. And it's three miles across the river, at that point of the river. And so we get in the boats, and now the way across the river. And there's big tankers in the river. But we maneuver our way all the way across there. And then we land. And then one boat after another they disembark and then we walk up the landing there and into the village. And then we walk about a mile or two and finally come to this. And as we're going to this little cafe where I know they have ice cream. Now it's not like Perry's, all right. And it's not like Breyer's. But it's pretty doggone good for the Orient. And so, you know, as we're walking and we can see the cafe, I look over my shoulder and the soldiers and the local police are following us. I knew they'd come. And so now we keep going and we get our ice cream and we go through first, second, third, fourth, you know, and the owner comes to me and he says, Baji, we have no more ice cream. I said, yeah, you get to go home early. He said, yes. And so we start back through the village. And we're going towards the boat landing, and all the children are like in this parade, and half of them are, you know, they're hanging on me. You know, when we were back there at the cafe, half of them were climbing me like a tree. But now we're walking through the village, and we come, and we're about halfway through, and I look behind me, and the soldiers are coming. soldiers, and then military intelligence with the white helmet, and then the local police, and some are on motor scooters and they are hanging back, but many are on foot and they are just following, following, following. So, we get down to the boat landing and the head military intelligence officer he says to Pastor Tane Nguyen E, he said, he points at me, they've already collected, they've come to a whole group and And they've collected all of our passports. They want to see our invitation letter from the tribal council in that area. And they are scrutinizing all of our paperwork. They have it all in a big pile. And they can't understand English. They don't read it. So they're just looking at it. It's just a powered thing. And so the head guy, he speaks English a little bit. And so he comes and he's found my passport because my picture's in it. And he, he, he comes and he hands it to me and he's, uh, I'm getting ahead of myself. So he, he goes to pastor Tane Winnie and he says, he points at me and he says, this is the same man. This is the same man that I arrested years ago. Why is he back? You know? So now he comes to me and he has my passport and he hands it back and he says, enjoy. I said, he said, oh, you learn my language. I said, you learn mine. So now we get in our boats and we go across the river three miles over there and the current and all of that and the splashing and so forth. And the kids are just having a ball and I'm having a ball. So we make our landing, we get back to the village where we started, and we disembark, and we go up the landing and into the street, and we're walking down the street, and my plan is we're gonna go to another little cafe for a bowl of soup now. And so I look behind me, and here come the soldiers. And so I pause, I just stop right in the middle of the street, let the kids go on, and the pastors and so forth, and Pastor Hack, my pastor, who's still scared, And because he thinks we're all going to the who's cow, you know, and I pause and I stop and I wait for the military intelligence officer and he walks up to me and now we're face to face. And I said, are you going to follow me all day? He says, yes. I said, well, then come on. I buy your lunch. You like soup. So they followed us to the cafe. So now after every everybody's eaten, and not only the children, but all the soldiers and everybody. And I haven't spent 30 bucks yet. So, as we finished eating, I stand up, military intelligence officer stands up. The kids stand up, the other soldiers stand up. I walk into the street, the military intelligence officer walks in the street. And he said, where will you go? I said, Yangon. He said, good, just leave my town. He said, will you come back? I said, will you follow? He said, will you buy lunch? I'm telling you, God does stuff. You know, you just gotta You know, when you know beyond any shadow of a doubt that you're in God's will, there's a peace, a calm, a faith that takes over and you just enjoy. And it's a wonderful thing to be in the will of God and to serve him. I recommend it. And you don't have to go to the mission field to serve God. You don't have to, you know, you don't have to be a missionary. You don't have to be a preacher. You'd be a plumber. You can be a carpenter. You can be a farmer, a truck driver and serve God, but it's the best life. There's nothing like serving the Lord. Say amen. Yeah. Amen. And I could go on and on and on. Um, let's look at some Bible, shall we? You know the passage very well, but let's look at it anyway. Turn over to Hebrews chapter 11. It's a starting point. Just keep your Bibles open, because I'm going to look at a few. Is that all right? The Old Testament had been a long time since they had the public reading of the Word of God, and I think that we need to read the scriptures publicly in America. I'm hoping our new speaker will do that in the house. Hebrews chapter 11. You very familiar portion of scripture. Look at verse six. And, uh, it says there without faith, without faith, it is impossible to please God for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him. It's impossible to please God without faith. Look over Luke chapter 17, Luke 17. Luke chapter 17 look at verse 5. We are going to start in verse 1, Then said He unto the disciples, It is impossible but that offenses will come, but woe unto them through whom they come! If it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he cast into the sea, then that he should offend one of these little ones. Take heed to yourselves, if thy brother trespass against thee, rebuke him. repent, forgive him. And if he trespass against thee seven times in a day, and seven times in a day turn again to thee, saying, I repent, thou shalt forgive him. And the apostles said, because of that, because of what Jesus had just said to them, they said, Increase our faith. Lord, increase our faith. And Jesus said, the Lord said, if you had faith as a grain of a mustard seed, well, that's really tiny, isn't it? You might say under this sycamine tree, be thou plucked up by the root and be thou planted in the sea and it should obey you. I don't know about you, but I want that kind of faith. Then look over at James further on in the new Testament book of James. James and chapter 1, and beginning in verse 2. My brethren, my brethren, count it all joy when you fall into divers temptations, different kinds of temptations, knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience. But let patience have her perfect work. may be entire, or perfect and entire, wanting nothing. If any man, if any of you, rather, lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and abreath not, and it shall be given him. But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering." And then go over to 1 Peter, 1 Peter chapter 1. 1 Peter chapter 1, look at verse 3. Blessed, blessed, blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, amen, which according to His abundant mercy hath begotten, or borne us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance, yeah, incorruptible and undefiled and that fadeth not away reserved in heaven for you who are kept. Thank God. Thank the Lord. We're kept by the power of God through faith. We're kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation, ready to believe that salvation ready to believe to be revealed in the last time wherein you greatly rejoice. Though now for a season, if need be, look up here, there's a lot of times I need, I need heaviness, I need trials, I need suffering. Why? Because especially in our country where we have so much, we need to need God. I need to need God. And in our country, comparatively to the places I go around this world, Americans don't need Him. And that's why the churches are empty. But we need God. There's coming a day in America where we're really going to need faith in God. We're going to need that daily, vibrant, alive walk with the Savior, where we're going to cherish the times of meditating on the Word of God. You know, we're quickly coming to that place here in our country. So we're kept, verse 5, kept by the power of God through faith. Then verse 6, wherein ye greatly rejoice, though now for a season, if need be, ye are in heaviness through manifold temptations. Why? That the trial of your faith, your faith being much more precious than of gold that perishes, though it be tried with fire, might be found under the praise and honor and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ. And let's go on to verse 9. Whom having not seen, talking about Jesus Christ, whom having not seen ye love, yes, absolutely. And whom, though now ye see him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory. Receiving, now here it is, receiving the end of your faith. Say that with me, the what? The end of your faith, even the salvation of your souls. Tonight, for just a few more minutes, I want to talk to you about the future of faith in your life. And somebody might say, well, I have faith. No, I'm talking about the future of your faith. future of your faith. Your faith is like grass. If it doesn't grow it's going to get brown, and ugly, and maybe even die. Your faith might have been good enough for you to get saved, but is it good enough to carry you through this life of trials and tribulation? Is it good enough? Do you have enough faith to get from here to eternity as a child of God in this world? In this world? understand what I'm saying? We need faith. We need faith to get saved. We need faith to—some people need faith just to get in the baptistry because they're scared to death of water. How many have seen somebody like that? We need faith to understand the Word of God. We need faith to obey God's commands. like tithing and witnessing. We need faith to be different than the world. We are different than the world. Therefore, if any man be in Christ, he's a new creature. Something's changed, we've changed, and we're not like we used to be, and we're not like all the ones out there. That's why we have a different philosophy, and we have, there's different rules for our lives. These people out there, they have no rules, and they are their own God, but we have a God. So we need faith just to be different than the world, the crowd. We need faith to find and follow God's will or plan for our lives. We need faith just to do right, just to do right. All of life, all of life is about growing our faith in God, growing our faith in Christ. I want you to look with me at the life of Abraham. We're going to just trace it a little bit. Go over to Genesis chapter 22, just for a springing off place in the life of Abraham. Genesis chapter 22. And there, Genesis 22, just look at those first two verses. And the Bible says, and it came to pass after these things, that God did tempt Abraham. Who tempted Abraham? God did. Does He do that? Yes, He does. He tests us. He tries us. He tries our faith. Let me read that again. And it came to pass after these things. What does that mean? It means that Abraham had already been through a lot. And some people say, I've been through enough already. Really? How do you know? And it came to pass after these things that God did tempt Abraham and said unto him, Abraham. And he said, behold, here I am. And he said, take now thy son, thine only son, Isaac. And then he says this, whom thou lovest. Folks, God knows what, who and what we love. What's really bottom line important to us. He knows. And in the life of Abraham, Isaac was it This is his only son is in in in his heart and his mind. I mean, I understand There's another you know But in Abraham's mind, this is the promised seed This is the one that was promised. This is the one that's going to carry on the family. I And so it says, God said to Abraham, take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah, and offer him there for a burnt offering. There's no mistake, folks. Abraham knew exactly what God meant. There's no misunderstanding here. He knew what God was telling him to do. him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of.' And Abraham rose up early in the morning, and saddled his ass, and took two of his young men with him, and Isaac his son, and claved the wood for the burnt offering, and rose up, and went unto the place which God had told him, and so forth and so on." Now, Abraham, He is given to us all through the scriptures, especially in Hebrews chapter 11, as the example of faith, the epitome of faith. But he, can I tell you, he didn't automatically have faith. He wasn't automatically a man of faith. His faith came to him because of his belief and walk with God, but his faith was maturing and growing and it was changing. And so, I want you to see this. Abraham's life was a journey of faith just like our lives. Consider this. God called Abram out of the Ur of the Chaldees, where he was comfortable, where he had a home, where he had a family. And Abram followed his father to Haran, or Haran. And Abraham there in Haran loses his father, his daddy dies in Haran, and he journeys southward into the land of Canaan. And when they arrived in Canaan, there's a famine. God told him to go there, but there's a famine. And Abraham and Lot take their families to Egypt. And when they realized that that was a mistake, they returned to God's country. but then they have a huge family feud and go their separate ways. God judges Sodom and Gomorrah and Abraham intercedes for Lot, but Lot loses his wife and really his whole family. God continues to reveal himself to Abraham and promises him an heir, a son, even in his old age. But Sarah, his wife, is barren and cannot conceive a child biologically. God asks Abraham to believe. He's been asked by God to believe before. This is different and new and this is fresh. Abraham and Sarah try to take matters into their own hands and Ishmael is born. but he's not the promised seed. Finally, Isaac is born. Again, God proves himself to Abraham, but then God tests his faith and tells him to kill or sacrifice that son, Isaac, and this is what Abraham really loves. Really, this is a test of Abram's heart. This is really a test of his loves, of the love of his life. God proves himself again, and just as Abraham is about to plunge the dagger into his only son's little body, God provides himself, I say God provides himself a sacrifice instead of Abraham's son. Abraham's family is tried and tested over and over, not for God's sake. but for Abraham's sake. And God doesn't test our faith for his sake. He tests our faith for our sake, because he wants us to grow and he wants us to become like him. And looking back, I'll bet that Abraham regretted many things in his life, just like you and me, don't we? I mean, Even at 15 years of age, at 13 years old, when I got saved out of the gang near Washington, D.C., I already regretted some things in my life. But looking back on Abraham's life, I'll bet that Abraham regretted a lot of things. Like the two times he lied about his wife, Sarah, saying that she was his sister. Can I tell you, I don't think that he, I don't think he was doing that for her sake, but I think he was doing that to save his own hide. But now look at, look at Genesis chapter 23. And in the very first two verses, the Bible says, and Sarah was 107 and 20 years old, 127. These were the years of the life of Sarah. As Sarah died in Kirgith Arba, the same is Hebron in the land of Canaan, and Abraham came to mourn for Sarah, and to weep for her. And Abraham stood up before his dead, and spake unto the sons of Seth, and said, stranger and a sojourner with you." And on and on. Folks, Sarah is 127 years old. She passes away. And Abraham, who didn't love her enough to tell the truth or to resist temptation and say no to Hagar, he now stands over his wife's grave and weeps like a little girl. You know why? Because Abraham is different now. He's changed. He's changed a lot. What has changed him? His faith. His faith has grown. Go to 1 Samuel chapter 17. 1 Samuel chapter 17. The life of David. David is just a young man. In 1 Samuel 17, I want you to look at just one verse of Scripture. I want you to see verse 37. David said, moreover, the Lord that delivered me out of the paw of the lion, And out of the paw of the bear, he will deliver me out of the hand of this Philistine, talking about Goliath. And Saul said unto David, Go, and the Lord be with you. David's just a young man, but he's already started his journey of faith, which is the process of his and our Christian life. And when he finds a cause, and what a cause it was, And it's not just a cause. It's not just for Israel, but it's for his God. When he finds a cause, he has just what he needs for that cause. No, it's not a slingshot. It's not five smooth stones. It's not a warrior's armor. It's his faith. It's his faith. David points back, in verse 37, David points back to an experience in the past that has grown his faith for the present need in his life. Can I say that again? David in 37 verse 37 he points back he points back to a Experience in the past that has grown his faith enough to meet his present need God does that for us And I can remember things in my past that got me ready for the youth detention centers in New York. I can remember experiences in Ukraine that prepared me for experiences in Burma. I can remember experiences of fighting sin. I can remember experiences of failing to conquer sin. I can recount Experiences in my life of losing people I loved, people I counted on, mentors, companions, preachers in my life that I depended on on a daily basis and now they were just gone. But those things in my past, they prepared me for what I am doing and going through now. And God does that. God didn't send me to Burma first where I would be arrested and jailed for the preaching of the Gospel to Buddhists in a Buddhist land. God sent me first to Ukraine where I would see the soldiers but I wouldn't be affected by them. They were everywhere in Ukraine. I went there before the fall of the wall. We passed out Bibles. The people almost turned the truck over trying to get the Bibles out of our hands. We couldn't pass them out quick enough. But the following year We went right back with another truckload of Bibles, and we couldn't give one away. Why? Because the people had become westernized. They now had money. They didn't need God anymore. They had everything they wanted. And our window, our window of opportunity to reach the Ukraine people was closed. So you know what? When God sent me to Burma, Bless God, we're gonna do it as big and as fast as we possibly can because we've got a window of time. There's no time to lose. We must win everybody we can. We must print the gospel. We must give it out. We must preach. We must sing. We must plant churches. We just gotta get it done right now as fast as we possibly can. I was on, in Ukraine, I was on a train. I was going, I was on my way to Mikhalayev in the Russian language. It's, they changed the letter M to an N and it's Nikolayev. It's a, they paint these trains army green and they're very old. And clackety clackety clackety clack down the tracks and very slowly from village to village and from Kiev in the north all the way down to the Black Sea, Nikolayev is right next to, it's just about an hour's drive from Odessa down there. And so here I am on this train and the conductor, when we first bought our tickets, he said, you want the looks. You want the looks. I said, I got the looks." He said, no, you need the looks, the looks. What he was trying to say was you need the deluxe. So the deluxe wasn't the cattle car with all the men stacked up. You know, I didn't mean the stench in there was just overpowering. I stuck my head in and almost lost my cookies. I mean, they don't know about deodorant. and you mix the raunchiest BO with alcohol, and you begin to get the picture of how it smelled in this cattle car of men, Ukrainian men, all day and all night on this train for 18 hours, going across the country, clackety clackety clackety clack. And so about nine o'clock at night, the conductor comes and he says, I've got a companion with me from the States, and he and I are in this cubicle, And I mean, it's tiny. And there's two benches on either side, a little window that you can look outside, but you can't get any air from. And these two little benches have vinyl covering, but there's no padding. It's just wood with vinyl. And you're gonna ride 18 hours on this thing. And it gets really old and it gets very tiring. And so now I'm literally laying with my back on the board and my legs up the wall straight in the air. Well, that didn't last long either. So there's a little fold down table between us, but our feet, us big Americans, we didn't have anywhere for our feet, so we couldn't use the table. So I've got my DSLR, my briefcase, my suitcase, you know, and he's got that, and we're all stuffed into this little compartment, little tiny thing that's half the size of your walk-in closet at best, and the conductor comes and he says, put this steel bar across your sliding door, you know, after nine o'clock because of the train pirates. I said, train pirates? And he says, if you leave this compartment, don't go alone. So you know what that means. If we go to the little boy's room, we have to go together and we have to haul all of our stuff. all our luggage and everything. And one of us has got to stand outside because there's only room for one to taking care of business. And so you're out there with all the luggage and there's trained pirates. And so we get down to make alive at about six 30 in the morning. And by seven o'clock, I'm dragging my suitcase down the road. And the children are coming out of the business alcoves at seven o'clock in the morning, trying to sell themselves to you for a dollar, a us buck. And I'm talking little children and every one of them's got AIDS. And that's how it was. And you say, man, that's awful. I don't want to go to that place. Yeah, but God sent me there. God sent me there. You know why? Because he was trying to build my faith. Not that he was going to put me in Ukraine, but he was going to send me to Burma. And I could go on and on and on with that. I was in Myanmar one year, old Burma. I was on a bus, tour bus. I was on my way from Yangon down to Monmien in Mon State near the Thai border. And as I'm down there, as I'm on the bus rather, I'm looking out the window and all of old Burma is going by. with the great big baskets of fruit on their head, and laundry baskets on their head, and ox carts pulling huge heavy loads of hay, and all kinds of vegetables, and sticks that they make houses out of. They're not boards, they're sticks. And so I'm watching Burma go by, And I've got my Bible open on my lap in this tour bus and the road, you know, I'm trying to read my Bible on this road. It's not a, it's not an interstate highway like we have here. You know, it's more like your back County road in Pennsylvania, in Pennsylvania here. Yeah. And, uh, so. I was trying to study, going down the road, and I bowed my head and I said, Lord, thank you for letting me come here. Thank you for letting me come back. Because it was a day, even before the military coup, that I didn't know whether I was going to be able to go back. And with all my heart and everything in me, I wanted to go back to my people in Myanmar. Because God had put his love for them in me and it changed me. Changed my ministry, changed my life. And you know what I found out? The changes God does in our lives are good. I want God to change me because I know God will not hurt me. He will always do me good. Are you listening? So as I'm praying and writing, that still small voice, it says this, trust me more. Trust me more. There's a new level coming. You're going to need more faith. Trust me more, there's a new level coming. It was just clear as if you were talking to me in this sanctuary. Hundreds of invitations from India. Oh, man of God, please come, please come. I will pray for you, but I'm not coming. Oh, but why, man of God, we need you. Please come to India. I will pray for you, but I'm not coming. Hundreds. Pakistan. So many. Please come to Pakistan. I'm not coming. Oh, but why? Nepal. Bhutan. Bhutan is a very tiny little country. It's totally Buddhist. It's very Buddhist. And it's totally closed to any missionary, all missionaries. They will put you under the jail for preaching the gospel in Bhutan. It's up over north of Burma between Burma and China border. And I've had invitations to go there and preach the gospel. And I said, I will pray for you, but I'm not coming. Why? I said, my daddy always taught me you can be a big fish in a little pond or a little fish in a big pond. What do you want to do? So preacher, I interpreted that in my ministry as meaning I can make small impact in many place or large impact in one. There's nobody on this planet that doubts that Bajibab is meant for Burma. So the Philippines, Cambodia, Vietnam, they're all coming. And then a bishop Pentecostal Church of God Bishop a Pentecostal Church of God Bishop from Kenya Africa Starts talking to me on messenger Man of God, please come I Will pray for you, but I'm not coming and he wept He didn't argue. He just wept and And about a month later, man of God, please pray about coming to Kenya. A month later, please pray about coming to Kenya. I said, wait a minute, we're different. Oh no, we're the same. I said, no, we're different. We're running two different tracks here. I'm a, I'm a independent Bible believing, historic Baptist. It's what I am. Pentecostal Church of God. We believe in grace, you believe in works. That's right. A lot of them. And so he said, no, no, no, no, no. He says, we don't want to be Pentecostal Church of God. I said, well, you are. He said, we want to follow you. And I said, yeah, right. And I logged out. And then a month later, man of God, please, Baji, we want you to come to Kenya. For two years, he said, we'll be what you are. And I'm thinking, shut up. That's what I was thinking. And the other thought that came to my mind was hogwash. You know? So after two years of these Pentecostal Church of God bishops coming to me and begging me to come to Kenya, I'm in Boston, I run into Kenyans. I'm in South Carolina, I run into Kenyans. I'm in Florida, I run into Kenyan people. I was in Oklahoma, and I'm standing in a restaurant, and in comes this lovely black couple, and they're from Kenya. And I said, oh, jeepers. A friend of mine in West Virginia, he says, Baji, you probably need to go to Kenya. I said, just quit it. I am not for Kenya. I am for Burma. So now I'm in Petoskey, Michigan, at the very top of Lake Michigan, way up there near the peninsula and the Mackinac Bridge and Strait and all of that. And the pastor that I'm preaching a missions conference for, he has emergency. He says, can you fend for yourself at lunch? I said, certainly, you just go on, don't worry about me. So I go to Burger King and I'm standing at the counter and I order my Whopper with cheese minus onions because we have church tonight. You know how you feel a presence behind you? The little girl is getting my sandwich and I turn around and there's this lovely black African family, mother and father and three beautiful children. And they're dressed in all the African yellows and greens and reds and all of this. And I said, I said, hello, where are y'all from? They said, Kenya. I said, shut up. Really? The man said, is there a problem? I said, God wants me to go to Kenya and I don't want to go. Oh, you should go to Kenya. I said, I didn't ask you. So finally I called Boyd Collins, a friend of mine, a tent evangelist. He has over the mountain tent ministry in West Virginia. He has two tents on the West Coast and three on the East Coast. And great man, I love him dearly, good friend of mine. And I said, pray about, he's helped me get two tents into Burma, both 1600 seat tents. And so now I called him and I said, I want you to pray about going to Kenya with me. He said, Kenya? I said, not only that, I want you to pray about taking a tent into Kenya. He said, why Kenya? I said, I don't know. So long story short, we booked the flights and we say, we're gonna do a two week survey trip. And in my mind, I'm thinking God is gonna show us that he's not 100 miles from this thing. We're gonna get over there and realize it's all a bunch of hooey and we're gonna come back and I'm gonna continue with GLBM and so forth and so on. So I get over there and God gives us Holy Ghost revival. And 450 souls get saved. Now, I had planned to go in April of this year. happened and I couldn't go. And then we planned to go in May and something happened and I couldn't go. So these African bishops and all of their preachers, Pentecostal Church of God preachers in Kenya, western Kenya, up against Uganda and Lake Victoria in the mountains, the West Virginia of Africa, they thought that I thought they weren't serious. So you know what they did? They resigned their churches, walked away from their properties, their churches, their salaries, their benefits, their people. Of course, half of their people followed them, and they started new churches under tarps in open fields and in the jungle. And when we got there, I preached to 300 people in the street. I have the pictures. Souls saved everywhere. I met with 600 people in a field because they wouldn't fit in the church house. And when I gave the invitation, nobody moved. And I turned to the bishop and I said, they don't understand. Oh yes, Baja, they understand. I said, no, they don't understand. I said, wait, wait, wait, wait. And so I went around the barn again and I said to them, I said, if you've never been saved, if you have no confidence that if you died today, you'd go to heaven and you want to be saved, I want you to stand where you are right now. Just stand up. Everybody's sitting in the grass and under the trees. And it was like dead airspace. And all of a sudden a lady stood up and she's weeping with her face in her hands. And then another stands up. And now 16 stand up. And I said to them, and I went through the plan of salvation, and they all prayed with me. And then I said, sit down. I said, now you're turning from your way to God's way. You're turning from your sin to the Savior. I mean, this was the real deal. So now I went back around the barn again and I said this, I said, now maybe you were scared, maybe you didn't understand, maybe you were waiting for somebody else, but now you've seen these and how it's done and what you need to do. And now you're convicted that you are lost and you need to be saved and you need a savior. I said, the Bible says today is the day of salvation. Behold now is the accepted time. If this is your day, you stand where you are. 40 people stood up. I said, come to me. They wrapped themselves around me in the field. We prayed. I dealt with every single one of them. I took the microphone off. I said, is this your day? Had my arm around. I said, is this your day of salvation? Tears running down their face. They said, yes. I sent them all back to their places. I went around the barn again, and I did it again, and now another dozen stand up, and I did it a fourth time, and more stood up, and now a sixth time, and an old man over here is weeping in his hands, and the tears are seeping between his fingers. He has just broken to pieces, and I go over to him with the microphone, and I say to him, we've got this portable microphone system, And I say to him, is this your day, sir? And the bishop walks over to us and he says, this is the man that donated the property for this church 20 years ago. And I took the microphone and I said, sir, what do you need to do? He said, I thought that I could do good and go to heaven. But now I know the only way to have eternal life is not through anything I can do, but through what Jesus did for me on the cross. And I accept him as my savior. And he stood there and wept in my arms. And I led that man to Christ. And another 25 people got saved. 450 had been saved. Last month I sent Boyd Collins and his wife back to teach Baptist Distinctives, Bible Doctrine, Trail of Blood, Baptist Heritage and History, and the King James Bible. There was a moment in that first trip that when I had 40 of these, 40, 4-0, 40 of these Pentecostal Church of God pastors that want to become independent Bible-believing historic Baptists and follow me and GLBM. And one of the young men stood up and he said, Baji, they're calling me Baji in Kenya. He said, Baji, he said, can you teach us what this means in 1 Thessalonians? I said, Boyd, take his Bible and read that passage for all of us. Boyd began to read. After a sentence or two, he closed up the Bible. He said, I need a real Bible. He said, Baji, he said, hand me my Bible. Instead, I handed him my New Testament that was already opened to 1 Thessalonians. He read that scripture. The men's eyes got this big. We put them side by side on the table. They all filed by and looked. And the bishop, the head bishop, he looks at me and he begins to weep and he says, I don't have a Bible. He says, some of the other preachers on the other side of the room, they said, our people don't have Bibles. So we called Lansing, Michigan and had 40 Thompson Chain King James Study Bibles, $70 a piece, sent all the way over there. Cost me $1,900 to get them shipped over there. Now they've got Bibles. Now I've got 20,000 King James Bibles on their way over to Kenya. with vinyl covers for all the rest of the people. And God is doing this huge unexplainable thing in Western Kenya. And while Boyd was over there teaching doctrine, a dozen Assembly of God elders showed up and they said, after the teaching, they said, We've never seen this before. We've never heard these truths, but you show us in the Bible, we know it's true. Six Pentecostal Church of God pastors from Uganda on the other side of Lake Victoria, they came five hours on some of the worst roads to learn what it means to be an independent, fundamental Baptist, historic Baptist. And now they're coming from Tanzania. And folks, I stood in front of those people, crying like a little girl and said, I'm so sorry. I did not want to come here. Because 15 years ago, I gave my whole heart to the Myanmar peoples. And I gotta tell ya, I didn't wanna go, Peter. Didn't wanna go. But God has built my faith and changed me again. And it's so good. Really, it's so good. So I've said all of that to say this. Your missions conference, not mine. This is your missions conference. For the next couple days, what are you willing to trust God for to make an eternal difference in the people's lives whom Jesus died for worldwide? Let God build your faith. Ask him to change you. all of His changes are good. You say, I don't need change, I'm already, you just sealed your fate. We all, none of us have arrived yet. Yes or no? We're still being made into the image of Christ. Christ is being formed in us, as Paul said. We are learning Christ. And it's a journey of faith. Let's stand together. Preacher's coming. Piano player is going to come. We might as well have an altar call right off the get-go here. I don't know what you do. I can't remember. But it's here. I think America needs to get back to it, don't you? Maybe you just want to ask God, like the disciples did, increase my faith.