We have a divine mandate to spread the gospel to every corner of the earth. The mission transcends borders, our cultures, our languages, uniting us in a common purpose to make disciples of all nations. So we're going to explore that. We're going to be looking at our role in fulfilling this divine calling. And we are going to now read from Matthew 28 from verse 18. And Jesus came and spoke to them, saying, All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth. Go, therefore, and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you. And lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age. Amen. Let us pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you for your perfect word. We thank you, Lord, for your amazing grace. We thank you for choosing us to be your children. And we thank you, Lord, for this command to disciple the nations. We thank you that you are with us when we do this. And we pray, Lord, that each one of us will seek to be obedient to this, your law. Amen. Well, there's obviously urgency in world missions. Billions of people around the world, half the planet, haven't heard the gospel yet. And so we have a great job to be done. People are living in spiritual darkness. The Lord says they're dead. People are spiritually dead. And so we have to get out. We've got lots of work to be done. We've got a lot of people to speak to and take the Gospel to them. And so, we often get really bogged down on what the Gospel is, but the Scripture speaks to us and makes it very clear for us. We have the Gospel of Salvation, it's used in different contexts, but in the Gospel of Salvation, which is the message of the salvation of God's Son, Jesus Christ. He was born, crucified, and resurrected for the salvation of men from sin. And then the Bible also speaks about the gospel of the kingdom of God. And that's the comprehensive application of God's word to every area of life, basically running from Genesis 1-1 all the way to the Revelation 22-21. And so, in different times, I'm going to look at different times of things that happened in my life and where I would need to speak to people about the gospel of salvation, be very specific to them, of God's saving grace and how amazing that is. And then the other times where we're discipling the nations, where we're teaching God's law, his word, in every aspect of it, in the situation that we find ourselves in. And so on the 25th of July 1993 we had some terrorists stepped into our church and they started shooting us and they threw hand grenades into the congregation. You can just imagine the chaos inside the church. Everybody went low onto the ground, got down as low as possible. and that people try to hide behind benches. And I had a little revolver with me, and I returned fire at the attackers. And then I realized that I'm far too far away. It was a large church, could easily seat 1,500 people. I was fourth row from the back, very far, and the terrorists came in at the front door. And after two shots, I realized I'm far too far away. I'm going to have to get in behind them and shoot them in the back to stop the attack from going ahead. And so I ran out the back door of the church. And as I came running around the corner of the church, the attackers were already at the getaway car. And what I didn't know then was, of my two shots inside the church, one had hit one of the attackers. And so they ran away. And the other shot was embedded in the church wall. And so I stepped out from behind the wall, I took three more shots at them, and they jumped in the car and drove away. Long story short, I ended up in the Cape High Court as a witness against them. I struggled with the issue of unforgiveness, of hatred and bitterness towards these people. It was a long walk for me to get through this, and eventually I did forgive them, and that led to me going to meet Kaya Makoma is the young man that I shot inside the church and so his blood got onto the seats of the getaway car and through forensics the police managed to arrest Kaya. So off I went to the prison to go visit Kaya and while I was speaking to him he said to me, I'm going to heaven because I've been fighting for a just political system. And I said to him, but Kaya, the scripture's really clear. We save by God's grace through faith. The grace comes from God. The faith is a gift from God. There's nothing you can do to work to earn eternal life. And I said, on top of that, what you did was evil. It was wicked. We can't even work our way into heaven with good works. Your works are terrible. I said, there's no way you can go to heaven by doing these evil things. And so I could explain to him the true gospel of Jesus Christ, the salvation that comes through Jesus Christ dying on the cross, our repentance, our giving of our lives to Christ, and the whole idea of God's saving grace through faith and through God's amazing grace. I don't believe he ever put his faith in Christ, but at least he knew the truth. Well, I also met through this time the commander of the attackers. So this was the head of the organization that murdered our people. Eleven people were murdered and over 50 were injured. And Letlapa Bekhlele was the commander. And Letlapa and I met many times. We had press interviews together. And one day we were having a chat. We spoke about all the things you're not allowed to speak about in good company. Politics, philosophy, religion, all those sorts of things. A very, very bright man. And he told me that he used to be an evangelical Christian. the commander of the terrorist organization. And he wasn't just a pew warmer. He used to do door-to-door evangelism. Can you imagine? And these were his words to me. He said, Charles, my people were suffering economically. They were suffering politically. And the Bible had nothing to say about politics or economics. And so I needed to find out more about these things. And so I started reading Marx and Engels. Now, this is where the gospel of the kingdom of God comes in. And so we could talk about God's kingdom, the application of God's word, his law to every area of life. And so we had many, many discussions on these issues. And after we went for lunch one day, I stood there with him. He's a very tall man. He's like Adam's height. And so he was standing in the street and I was on the pavement, so I could look him in the eye. And I said to him, Letlapa, everything you're fighting for, your Stalinism, your communism, all your goals, everything you're working towards, is going to come to nothing. I said, we Christians are going to win. And he looked at me very seriously, very intelligent man, very philosophical, and he turned and walked away. On another occasion, I came across a young man and He had also been involved in an attack at our church, but I'd never met him before. And so I met him for the first time, we shook hands, and I said to him, Busey, it's great to meet you. And I said to him, you're going to go to hell for what you've done. It's the quickest gospel presentation I could do under the circumstances, there were lots of people around, there was chaos, there was press everywhere, and so I had to present the gospel to him really quickly. And his eyes went very big and he said to me, we've got to talk, we've got to talk. But we didn't get to talk, unfortunately, that day. Well, as you can imagine, there's all kinds of Gospels that are going around in Africa. Some are promised great wealth by giving their little bit. The poor people, their little bit they have, they're promised great wealth. It's not the true gospel. We have this gospel of this young man that shut up our church believing that he's going to heaven. A revolutionary gospel that gets spread around. And we know what the Apostle Paul thinks of people that are spreading a different gospel. He is calling curses down on them. So we need to have our understanding of God's Word correct in our minds when we want to take it to other people. And so we have this reality, billions of people that we need to reach, we have a window of opportunity, and we're so connected today through, or connected to be able to take the gospel to people with the advances that we have in technology and transportation, the world's become smaller, we can reach more people and be more effective in our evangelism. And we obviously, as the body of Christ, have this responsibility. And one of the big responsibilities is prayer. But what we're finding in Africa so often is that people are saying that they're using their prayer as an excuse for doing nothing. Whereas we're trying to explain to people that they must use prayer as a launching pad for action. So prayer, Bible study, understand God's Word and then apply it in our lives and not use our prayer as an excuse. And that is the foundation of all missions. We need to pray for God's guidance, His protection, and we pray for provision for missionaries. And so we can all be involved in that. There's no excuse for us to not be involved in world missions and local missions through prayer, which God has blessed us with. Obviously we have the financial support also, supporting missionaries and mission organizations in tangible ways that makes a big difference and one can participate in that, giving generously. We can commit to the Great Commission in this way and we can all partner in this way. And then, of course, there's the going. That's the big challenge. And everybody thinks that while going means I've got to go off into some wild jungle. That's very exciting. And I've been in some of these areas in war zones and that. And yes, it is very exciting. But one of the most pre-enhancing moments I've ever had was dealing with child soldiers in the Congo. They're young boys. And they were screaming and shouting at us. They were high on drugs. They had AK-47 rifles. And they had their fingers on the trigger. You can't discuss anything with them. You can't talk to them. You can't give them a gospel presentation. They're high on drugs. They're nuts. They're going crazy, screaming and shouting and performing. And your prayer life goes from down here to up here really quickly. Because all of a sudden, you're really serious about your prayers. And so one has to think clearly when you're dealing with these situations. What does the gospel teach us? What does it look like in the present situation? And the young men that shot up our church were teenagers. They were youngsters. And when I met with them and spoke to them, they could give me a full philosophical rundown on why they were involved in the war, what they were doing, what their goals were, and why they put their lives on the line for this message. And what are we doing with our teenagers generally in Africa? Playing games in the church. That's what we're doing. We're playing games. And you have camps to see who can date each other and silly little things like this. And we're not preparing our children in any way to be able to deal with the communists who are raising up idealists who are at the top of their game and can cream our children any time with their philosophy and their theology. Because they are theological. Their god is Stalin. And they believe very much in his teachings. And they're willing to die for his teachings. And so we've got a big lot of work ahead of us in training and discipling the people of Africa. Well, we have lots of unreached areas too that we need to get out to, and the going requires sacrifice. And it is a powerful way to obey God's command. We need to overcome challenges in world missions. We have cultural sensitivity. Understanding and respect in diverse cultures is crucial for being effective. And sometimes the weirdest of things happen in cultures. You just don't understand what's going on. Crazy things, like for instance, dealing with these kids that are on drugs in an area where you can't speak the language. And so it can really get crazy out there when we have to deal with this. But another issue that we've been dealing with in Africa is people don't understand standing up against wickedness, and you might take that for granted. Even liberals in America understand that, well, from their moral perspective, that you don't just obey everybody, and Adam's just spoken about that. There are times when the answer's no, because what you've been told to do, or what your leader's doing, is against God's word and his law. And so we have this big challenge, nobody really understands this, because in Africa, the big chief is the one that calls the shots. And the big chief will allow you to say whatever you want. Everybody has their say. You don't get left out. But at the end of the day, he'll make the decision, and everybody will keep quiet and do what they're told. But you've had your time to speak, and so you've had your say, and everybody's happy with that. And so this is a big challenge, because there's a lot of wickedness around us, and nobody is dealing with the wickedness. And there's a pastor, Matt Truwella, who's written a book called The Doctrine of the Lesser Magistrate. And we asked him if we could published this in South Africa, and I've been handing it out to a thousand, two different pastors, and to some government officials. And so the African National Congress government in South Africa decided a few months ago that they wanted to register churches in South Africa. Well, there's only one reason that you register a church. That's to be able to control the church, the body of Christ. And they tried this before, and we had a wonderful Christian leader who's now passed on, he's with the Lord, his name was Dr. Ed Cain, and he ran an organization called United Christian Action. And so when they tried this before, Dr. Ed Cain rallied everybody together, and all the Christian churches in the whole of South Africa just said, no, we're not going to register. And that was it. What were they going to do? Go arrest every pastor in the whole country? No, they didn't. I kid you not, 30 years later, they started this again. So they started their first meeting in the east of our country in a province called Mpumalanga. And here the pastors went. I was told by a lawyer who's also a pastor in South Africa. He said, I've handed out the books of Pastor Matt, the Doctrine of the Lesser Magistrate, and a bunch of pastors went to the government's first meeting. and opened up the book and quoted from it, and basically said to them, you are not God's servants to do us good, you are wicked, you are evil, and we will not be doing any registration with you, you are outside of your biblical jurisdiction, and we will not relent on this issue. Praise the Lord for that! I was so excited about it, because the government had offered the churches money if they registered. You didn't pay for registration, you got money if you registered. And they promised them tax money to support the Christian cause. Well, can you imagine what that would look like? They'd be writing our sermons for us pretty soon. So praise God for these men who understood the gospel of the kingdom of God through this book that they read and could apply it immediately. And the bad guys ran off. They only had this one meeting, apparently, and all the roadshow around the country was canceled straight after that. So praise the Lord for that. Then we have my colleague Cosmo in Zimbabwe, who's had a couple of struggles there. It's really tough to disciple people there because he gets hated by a portion of the population. And you might think, who on earth would hate the missionary? The person who's loving, he's helping the widows and the orphans, he's serving the community. Oh, it's the young, able-bodied men who are upset that the widows and orphans are getting food and not them. The lazy ones. They're upset with Cosmo. Now, some of the widows are very young. They're 22 years old. They're not all elderly ladies. And we expect people, if they're going to get food and finance and help and support from our ministry, that they actually need to come do some work. We're not going to let the old ladies work in the fields, but the young need to. The able-bodied young men can come work and earn money. They're not going to get anything for free. And we have to be very circumspect. with what God has bested us with, our resources. So, cut a long story short, Cosmo's been dealing with us and he finds out one day that there's some strange things happening outside our mission base. And there's a very large tree outside our mission base. And he writes to me and says, Uncle, everybody's an uncle if you're over 30 in Africa. Uncle, there's some funny things happening outside our mission base by this very big tree. I said, really, what's going on? He said, yes, the other night I was looking at the tree and there were people, women, showering under our tree. He said, I ran to get my camera. When I pulled the camera out, they were gone. He's speaking about witchcraft that's going on in the area. And then he said to me a few days ago, late at night, there was a government official under this tree. And then he carried on. He said, the people are telling me that there's a big snake that lives in this tree. But Cosmo said, I know. They're saying that just to scare me off, because the snakes get used in witchcraft in Africa. They're trying to scare me off. But then he remembers the great reading in 2 Kings chapter 23 with King Josiah who brought out the asherah poles. He bent them to smithereens, took the ashes and threw it out over the graveyards. And he thought, this is a great gospel opportunity for me. So out he went with a saw and axe. He cut the tree down. He took the clothing that was being used in the witchcraft and the pots that were being used in the witchcraft, and he threw it all into the fire and burnt everything to smithereens. I kid you not, within a week, he was attacked by a snake. Now, you can imagine in that world of ancestral worship and the use of snakes in witchcraft, the people are probably thinking, oh, we warned him. We told him. But Cosimo was wearing boots, and the snake couldn't get through his boots. And so Cosmo survived. But if Cosmo had been injured by that snake, or if the snake had killed him, we would have had to close our mission based on. Because the people would have argued, well, the gods of the ancestors and the witches are far more powerful than the god of the Christians. They would have argued that, and we might as well have closed down, or we would have become irrelevant to them in the spiritual realm. What a great opportunity to make a difference for Christ right there and then. And soon after that, a village leader came to Cosmo. And these were his words. He said, you've set a great example to the men in the village by breaking down the strongholds of witchcraft. Now, one might think this is crazy in the West. This is just nuts. A guy burns a tree down? What difference is that going to make to anybody's life? Well, where we work, this is a big deal. This shows that the God of the Christians overshadows every other God, that this is the true God, and that Cosmo is a man of God, and that he is not going to compromise anything. No witches, no ancestral worship, no compromise whatsoever. And this was recognized by one of these village leaders. We also had a young man who was at our previous mission. He was a very lazy young man. He would sleep under the tree when he was supposed to be doing the gardening, and he would be talking to his friend when he was supposed to be working. And I said to him, You are very lazy. In fact, I'm going to fire you soon. I've already given you two letters for being disobedient. I can't find you when I need you. You're sleeping under the tree. You're chatting to your friend. He says, yes, but my friend and I had a problem. We needed to discuss it. Now, that's very normal in Africa. People can't get on with their work if they have a problem. They've got to first sort out their problem. So I said, sort out your problems when I'm not paying you. Don't sort out your problems on my time when I'm paying you." I said, but I'm going to fire you. I've got one letter to go and you're going to be gone. I said, but you don't have a father. I'll be your father. I'm going to be hard on you, Sipu, but you can decide. Either I'm going to disciple you or you can carry on in your way and I won't see you anymore. So he said, no, no. He said, I want you to disciple me. I said, but it's going to be hard, Sipu. It's not going to be easy if I disciple you. I'm not going to play games. We're not playing games with the gospel. Okay, no, I want you to disciple me. Well, to cut a long story short, Seeper, with no education, didn't finish his schooling, with leadership skills and blessings that God gave him, became a city councillor in the city of Cape Town with four and a half million people. And he was on the housing committee. and did a wonderful job, and was a great gospel influence. And after his political career, he ran a church. He was never a preacher. He wasn't a pastor. He was an administrator. He was blessed with administrative skills, and he ran a very successful church in Kaya Lecha, where Adam has also ministered and visited. Another friend of mine also was up in Malawi, And he came across a pastor there who said, Mr. Missionary, I've got a big problem. I borrowed money from a businessman and I owe him the money back. Would you please give me the money so that I can pay my debts? And my missionary friend said, it'll cost me nothing to give you the money. The dollar's strong. I could give it to you and you can pay your debts. But everybody here is going to know that the pastor wasn't responsible with his money and that he didn't pay his debts back. Are you going to set an example where everybody's going to know what happened? The missionary bailed out the pastor. He said, you need to take your son, and you need to go work in the fields of the businessmen, and you need to go pay back in hours what you borrowed. Bo, my friend, went on with his ministry. He carried on, came back down to South Africa, to Cape Town later, and he received a letter, and the letter read, I'm free, I'm free, I'm free. The pastor, you can just imagine, he had worked with his son in the hot and the heat of Malawi, in the fields of this businessman. They'd finished the hours together, they could do it quicker with two of them working together, and he had no more debt towards the businessman. And that is part of the gospel of the kingdom of God, where we're applying God's word to every area of life. I'll speak into a presidential advisor to President Felix in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. And I said to him, I've got some interesting information for you. We all know that your prisons are terrible. People are dying there. They don't have food. They don't have medicines. It's a big, big challenge. I said, the whole world knows about the malnutrition and the disease that's going on in your prisons. It's terrible. I said, I've got a win-win idea for you. He said, tell me about it. I said, well, can't we have a system whereby families can pay restitutions to the victim of their family member's crime. So somebody's in prison, the family says we'll pay the victim, so if they stole a bicycle they get back two bicycles from the family, and then the prisoner gets released to his family. I said it's a win-win, the government doesn't have to keep them in prison, doesn't have to pay for food or medicines, the victim's got two bicycles instead of one, they're ecstatic, they're so happy, the family's happy to have their family member who's sitting in prison doing nothing back with them. Now sitting with three bishops around the table, the advisor is also a bishop, and he said to me, But what happens if this prisoner runs away from his family? And I said, what do you think is going to happen to this young man when he runs away from his family? And they all burst out laughing. I can't tell you what they'll do, but it's not nice. It wouldn't be nice. And so it was just funny. It was incomprehensible that a person would run away and leave the family in debt. And so he said to me, this is a great idea. Where did you come across this? We really need to look into this. And I said, it's from the Bible. Imagine that. So exciting. I was speaking also to a leader in Zimbabwe, a tribal leader, and he asked me to please get capitalists to come invest in the area. They have amazing minerals in the area. And I said to him, but there's a big challenge. Your people lie, cheat, and steal all the time. I said, no investor, the risk is too high, no investor is going to want to come here and invest with you. And I said, if your people aren't lying, cheating and stealing, your government's going to steal their means of production and all their capital and their machinery and all this. People that have wealth, they've built it up over a long time, they've put their houses, they've used their houses as collateral to get loans to be able to build up their businesses. They don't want to have a risk where they're dealing with liars, cheats, and thieves. That's far too high risk. They're intelligent people, that's how they made their money. And so that's not going to happen. But there again, that was a gospel issue. The people need to understand if they're godly, they're responsible, they don't lie, cheat, and steal, that investors will want to work with them and come and make a difference in their lives. And so two of my Soldiers for Christ young men, we have this group of youngsters. And I love these young guys. We're teaching them God's Word and the application in their lives. And two of them stole from our ministry. They stole food. And the food is for the small little children. who don't get fed. The older ones get fed at school. So we're helping the little ones. We're trying to get to them in their first thousand days of life, the most active time of the development of the brain. We're giving them good vegetables to be able to enhance their brains so that we can teach them to read later, so that they can read the scriptures and apply it in their lives. That's part of our gospel outreach. And these two young men took it upon themselves to steal food from the kitchen. So I said to them, well, this is a public sin, we're going to have to deal with this publicly. Now publicly means that we discuss this amongst the 12 soldiers for Christ. They were very embarrassed having been caught. Sometimes the issue in Africa, the sin isn't the stealing, the sin is being caught. So we got to explain the details to them and how this works. So I said, what you two are going to do is, first of all, you're going to pay back the food that you stole. Almost half the country is on some kind of government grant. So they get about $15 to $17 a month anyway. So I said, well, you're going to have to pay back the food. And then for a week, you're going to have to work to supply food and support and help the children you stole from. And they said, OK, they will. I thought they're going to run away and I'm never going to see them again. Well, I phoned after the week to the lady that was running the kitchen and the feeding ministry. I said, I'm going to see these boys on Wednesday. I want to know if they've finished their responsibilities. And she said, they've done over and above what was expected of them. So I was very happy. I said, I'm not happy that you stole in the first place, but I'm happy that you fulfilled your God-ordained responsibility and did what God commands of us when we do evil things like this. We have to deal with these sorts of things all the time, and some young men are just lazy, and they expect just to be given things for doing nothing. And so we've got to keep training and keep teaching and keep discipling people all the time. And I'm one of those weird missionaries that believes that we can disciple everybody, not just the Christians. And so when we have that opportunity, we will even disciple those who do not know Christ. And so there's these cultural sensitivities. And we need to understand, we need to respect it, and that's crucial for being effective in missions. How do we apply God's Word at the time when these issues come to our, when we have to face these issues? The other thing is perseverance. Missionary work can be challenging. We need to endure through trials and setbacks. I've got friends, Christian friends from America up in Zambia. One of my friend's wife said to me, you know, we just can't keep anybody here. People come, they sign up for two years, and within three months they're gone. They just can't handle the work that needs to be done. Other friends are complaining that short-term missionaries, missions are coming out into Zambia to come work at the orphanage, and they saw them for one day in two weeks, or ten days that they were there. and the leader and his son flew off to South Africa while the others were supposed to be working and helping at the mission, and they went hunting. Not that there's anything wrong with hunting, but this seems to be part of the ploy here. Somebody else paying for your holiday in a five-star hotel in Lusaka. And so these are big challenges that we need to deal with too, but God strengthens us, he sustains us through our difficulties, and we need to persevere. Then we have the promise of God of his presence, Jesus Christ's presence with us. Jesus assures us, he promised us, that I am with you always, even to the very end of the age. We can rely on his presence and empowerment in our mission, and he says further that all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to him, and he, with all that power, is with us. We encounter God in our missions. Many missionaries share stories of remarkable ways that God works in their lives. But this isn't something just for people that go somewhere else. If you're involved in fighting the terrible things that are happening in your society, the abortions that are happening, or taking on the homosexual agenda, you'll see spiritual warfare working out right here in front of your own eyes. I've got an acquaintance who's sitting in prison in Washington, D.C. right now. He's facing 11 years of imprisonment for fighting to protect life of the unborn, right here in America, in the D.C. area. And this is a massive challenge. We can rely on Christ's presence and his empowerment in our ministry and our mission. God will show us how to do his work. When we step out in faith, God reveals himself in profound ways. to us. The Great Commission is not a suggestion. It's a command from God. We need to get involved. We have to get involved. And we're trusting that God is with us every step of the way. And we need the fire of the Holy Spirit burning brightly within us, igniting a passion for the lost. We can ask God to give us a passion for the lost and a commitment to making disciples of the nations. We command it to be salt and light. And we need to share the hope and love of Jesus Christ to all the ends of the earth. This is a big challenge. There are lots of problems on the way. There are lots of things that go wrong. Some people get major sicknesses. The challenge is just with eating food. If I go into Central Africa, I can't even eat a salad because we don't know what water was used to wash the vegetables. And so it's a challenge to even go into these areas, even if you're staying in a hotel. Somebody was saying to me last night, your bed, the mattress must be so uncomfortable. I said, well, you've clearly never slept in a hotel room in the Congo. So there are challenges. There are difficulties. But God has told us to persevere and that he's with us while we go out and take part in these ministries. So I encourage you to get involved. I know you guys are involved, but we need to encourage others to get involved right here in Virginia and also worldwide across the world. So thank you very much for having me. It's been wonderful to come here. Thank you for your hospitality. I'm going to pray for us right now. Heavenly Father, we thank you again, Lord, for your command to disciple the nations. We pray, Lord, that as we interact with people, that you'll give us wisdom through your Holy Spirit to understand how we can disciple people in the circumstances that we find ourselves in, even in just everyday circumstances, whether we are meeting with our family or in churches or dealing with civil government. And most of all, Lord, we pray that your Holy Spirit will work in our own lives, that we will be godly people who are set apart from sin, Lord, a holy people who worship and honor you in our lives in every area. And we pray, Lord, that your will be done, that your kingdom will come here on earth as it is in heaven. We thank you for your amazing grace, and we pray, Lord, that we will take your grace to others as we tell them about the great gospel of the kingdom of God. And we pray this in Jesus Christ's precious name. Amen.