Well, good morning. Pray for me. I will have to be much more conservative in the use of my voice today. With this cold, I'm on the verge of losing my voice and I want to be able to preach. So do pray for me. The two messages that we'll have today are out of the ordinary, the style that I would usually preach. And this one I guess you would call a topical message, but really it's about 17 topics, if we put it all together the way we look at it, because what I would like to share with you today is a prayer list. I'm always asked, how can I pray for you? How can I pray for missionaries? You know, any missionary, every missionary has a lot of specific things that he would like for you to pray about, but then there's some broader principles that we need to keep in mind when we pray for missionaries too. This is something that I've learned both through study of the scripture and through many years in Mexico that I would like to share with you. So we'll make a prayer list is what we're going to do. In 1 Thessalonians 5.25, Paul writes back to the church at Thessalonica and he says, brethren, pray for us. That was the apostle. Well, if he needed the prayers of the Lord's people, certainly we need the prayers of the Lord's people. So let's pray. We'll bow and ask the Lord to bless this study together, and then we'll look into the word. Father, we do again bow before you. And Lord, we express our dependence and our need. Lord, we need your blessing upon me as your servant to stand and preach and teach your word. Bless and use me. Give us ears to hear. And Lord, stir up our hearts and teach us, Lord, that each of us might be better instructed and more zealous in prayer for the work of missions around the world because Lord we know it is your cause. Those who have gone forth have your power upon their life and Lord their desire is to serve and glorify you. We think of brethren that we know specifically and pray your blessings upon them today. We know that many of them at this hour or even sleeping Resting in preparation for the Lord's Day that it's soon to dawn upon them Lord. I pray that you bless those brethren prepare and use them With great fruit in this Lord's Day. That's soon to dawn Lord. I pray that you strengthen us now for your glory in Jesus name Amen If I turn To 1 Thessalonians 1 and verse 5, Paul as he's speaking to the Thessalonians says, well in verse 4, knowing brethren beloved, your election of God for our gospel came not unto you in word only. but also in power and in the Holy Ghost and in much assurance. You know, he realized, the Apostle realized that whatever he does, whatever we do as missionaries, when we go out to the field, we're totally dependent upon the Spirit of God. This is not our work. There's nothing that we can do that will produce lasting effects, eternal, God-glorifying effects. We are dependent upon the blessing of God, upon the work of the Holy Spirit, that He would bless His Word as we go forth in obedience to Him. And so, we have to depend upon Him, but we call upon you to pray. As I preach to the Spanish-speaking peoples in Oklahoma City, or as we go back to Mexico, or brethren who are around the world, they are depending upon you to pray for them. And we are in a partnership. You know, you've heard the expression that Andrew Fuller mentioned about when they were first discussing with Carey about Carey going to the field and these others who would be staying behind. They said it was as if God had impressed upon us. Well, you Carey will go down into the well, but we will hold the ropes. They didn't actually say that in their conversation, but then that was their impression of the discussions as they were thinking back on it. So those who are staying back here are holding the ropes. For those who have gone down, they are holding the ropes. They're lifting those up to the Lord in prayer. So I want to give you a list. We'll just, I mean, you can write out this prayer list and I'll give you a scripture for each of these things and give you an experience to illustrate the need of each of these things as we think about praying for missionaries. So let's begin with number one on our prayer list. Turn to Matthew chapter 9 and look at verses 37 and 38. Matthew 9. Here the Lord Jesus Christ is speaking to His disciples, and He says to them, Then saith He unto His disciples, The harvest truly is plenteous, but the laborers are few. Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that He will send forth laborers. into His harvest. Let's put that number one on our prayer list. Pray for laborers for the mission field. And certainly we would pray that God would call us in more missionaries, but really that's not the emphasis that I want to give to you here. It's that in those fields that God would call men from those peoples, from those tribal indigenous peoples or from those nations. men who are born and raised in that culture, who are native to that language and that culture, call laborers who would go forth preaching the gospel. Now one thing that we did, especially early on in our years in Mexico, was, well, we've always distributed tracts by the thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, and we would put an address and sometimes a card there for people to send back to us and request Bible studies so that we could mail to them. And then when we had people studying by mail, we would send out a letter about once a year and say, do you have a church there where you live that you could attend and study the Word of God as we're teaching you here in these studies? If not, would you like to have a church there where you live? And if so, what could we come meet you and begin Bible studies in your home and try to gather a group there towards establishing a church? You know, back when we were doing that, there was never a time when I didn't have at least 30 or 40 letters in my file saying, we don't have a church, we want a church, and you can begin meeting with us. You realize that if I could go and preach one time in every one of those homes and leave and go to the next, it would probably take me three months just to visit and preach to every one of those homes one time. There's a need for laborers. The Lord is working many hearts and there is interest out there, but the Lord Himself He says, and would God say that there's something that is lacking? Well, these are the words of the Lord Jesus Christ Himself when He says, the harvest is plenteous, but the laborers are few. So pray. Christ says pray for laborers. We always had too many invitations, too many open doors that we could never follow through. So pray for laborers. Number one on the list. Number two, turn over to Acts chapter 16, verses 6 and 7. And here, I want us to put down as this prayer request for your missionaries, pray for guidance as they go preaching. Acts chapter 16, verses 6 and 7. This is Paul's second missionary journey, and they're out in the field, and they're seeking the Lord's will, where they should go preaching next. And it says in Acts 16, verse 8, Six, it says, now when they had gone throughout Phrygia and the region of Galatia and were forbidden of the Holy Ghost to preach the word in Asia. Forbidden, they were wanting to go there. Lord, can we go? We're going to head this direction. And the Spirit says no. Then after they were come to Mysia, and they had said to go into Bithynia, but the Spirit suffered them not." So here they are, wanting to go into Asia, and the Lord says, no. Wanting to go into Bithynia, but the Holy Spirit says, no, you can't go there either. You see, they can look at Asia, or they can look at Bithynia, and they can see, those are needy fields. Cities and lands and peoples that don't have the gospel, surely we need to go there and we need to preach the gospel to them right there. And the Holy Spirit says, no, you're not going there. It's more for missionary to consider that there's more than just the fact that there is a need, because there's a need everywhere. But the Lord has a place where He has a people prepared and it's not just that we'll strike out and go anywhere and everything's gonna work out. No, the Lord has to direct us to the place where He wants us now. You see here in the second journey, He didn't get to go to Asia, did He? But in the third journey, where did He go? Ephesus, Asia. There was a time to go to Asia, but it wasn't right now. And so pray for your missionaries to have guidance that they'll see more than just the need. And I like to think about how easy it is for a missionary to say, well, God's called me to the city of Tokyo, Japan, and print up our missionary card to hand it out to all the churches we go to, our prayer card, and say, God's called me to Tokyo, Japan. And it might not end up being Tokyo. Because we just can't tell that. What we see Paul doing, he prays and he assays and he tries and he preaches broadly, but then he stays, he plants himself where God's giving fruit. And that missionary needs that liberty to be able to do that. But pray for guidance for your missionaries, number two. Then number three, pray for the nations. This is something that we can do more specifically, much more precisely than has ever been possible. In Psalm 67, verses 3 and 4, the Scripture says, Let the people praise Thee, O God, let all the people praise Thee. O let the nations be glad and sing. The nations. The peoples. You know, when the Lord gave The Commission, Matthew 28, he says, Go ye therefore make disciples of all nations. Do you know what that word nations is? When he says all nations, he says pantata. Ethne. Do you recognize that? Does that sound similar to anything in English? Ethne? Ethnic. That word nations, the Bible word nations is not what we think of as geopolitical countries. That's not what that word is. It is ethnic peoples. And he says go and preach the gospel to every ethnic people, not just countries. When you see ethnic peoples, then the numbers are multiplied exponentially over what it is when you're just seeing countries. And we have resources through Wycliffe. We have resources through the Joshua Project. And you ought to look that up online. And you'll just find all kinds of information, joshuaproject.net. And you can see the countries. We think about Mexico. Well, Mexico, and so the people there, they're Mexicans, right? Well, yeah, their citizenship, their nationality is Mexican, but their ethnicity is not Mexican. over 300 there's more like 325 different ethnicities of Mexicans. I've read in the news reports the struggle that they were having in certain school districts here in the United States and they said we have over 50 different dialects of Spanish spoken here in our school district. And I just laughed at that. There's no such thing as dialects of Spanish. Those dialects that they're talking about are specific, distinct, nothing to do with Spanish at all, Indian languages that they're talking about. Every one of those were pre-Hispanic, there before Spanish ever existed. They're not dialects of Spanish. You see, these are all different ethnicities. In Mexico, I've been blessed to be able to preach among the Tzeltal, and the Tzotzil, and the Chol, and the Zapotec, and the Mexicano, the Pamis, Chinantecos, Mazatecos, Totonacos, Purépecha. These are all people who speak different languages, and they recognize themselves as separate peoples. Yeah, their nationality is Mexican, but they are a different people. They are not that next people over the mountain. They know that. They speak a different language. They have a different culture. And the Lord says, preach the gospel to every ethnic people, every nation. Pray for the nations. You can find the list, multitudes in every country. Number four on our prayer list, let's go to 2 Thessalonians chapter three and verse one. Pray for spiritual fruit. That's every missionary's desire. Every missionary's desire is to see souls. Come to the Lord and save. In 2 Thessalonians 3 and verse 1, Paul writes back again to the church of Thessalonica and he says, Finally, brethren, pray for us that the Word of the Lord may have free course and be glorified even as it is with you. May it have free course and may it extend. May it move rapidly. Speedily. bear fruit. That was His desire. It's interesting, to the verse we read earlier, He says, No one, brethren and beloved, your election of God, because the Word of God came into you in power, not in word only. God, bless the Gospel, bless the Word that we preach with the power of your Holy Spirit, so that souls might come to the Lord Jesus Christ. I have been I've seen myself in John chapter 4 many times. It's interesting how the Lord speaks to His disciples there, and usually we don't think of this side of the equation that Christ refers to here in John chapter 4, but we should observe it in John chapter 4 and verse 38. Christ is speaking to His disciples when He sends them out, and He says, I sent you to reap that whereon you bestowed no labor. Other men labored, and you were entered into their labors. He talks about how that you've gone out and you've seen fruit and souls have come to Christ. But do you notice what went before that? I sent you to reap where? Whereon you bestowed no labor. You just walked in and preached and the Spirit was poured out. But he says other men labored before you got there. And many times that is the case. We're there preaching and we're there sowing seed. And it might be a long time that you're preaching and you're sowing seed and you're laboring and crying out to God. And maybe it's just not God's time and God's purpose yet, but you're part of the work. But somebody's gonna come, and I may see it, or it might be somebody who comes after, as the disciples did right here, and just step up and preach, and God will open the doors, open the floodgates. So be it. But pray, God, bless your Word. Give fruit, save souls. Attend the Word with the Holy Spirit. Number 5 on the prayer list, go to Colossians chapter 4 and verse 12, please. Colossians 4 and verse 12. Pray for spiritual maturity, stability of the believers in those churches in the mission field. Colossians 4 and verse 12, here Paul says, Epaphras, who is one of you, a servant of Christ, greets, salutes you, always laboring fervently for you in prayers, that ye may stand perfect, mature, and complete in all the will of God." Epaphras is with Paul in Rome as he's in prison. But he's remembering the brethren back in Colossae. And so he's praying that they would be mature, that they would be complete, that they would be strong in all of the will of God. This is, should be a goal and desire of every missionary, is to see those believers maturing to the point that they're not dependent on the missionary. Now sadly, believe it or not, this is not always the case. Because it's easy to have a kingdom mentality where I'm the king. And I can go out preaching and everyone sees how God blesses me. And I can go out and establish churches and they see how God has blessed me. And then if something has to be done, I come in to take care of it. And we foster a dependence on the missionary, which is exactly the wrong thing that we should ever be doing. But I've seen it happen over and over again in the mission field. But here Epaphras is praying that they would stand strong and complete. And so, you know, just like when you're parenting, there's a point when you're teaching your children how to tie their shoes or to do, just to wipe the table. And you know, it would be so much easier just to do it yourself, right? But they've got to learn. And so you show them how to do it and just let them do it and make their mistakes. And do it again and make their mistakes. But every time they do it, they get a little bit better at it. And the missionary has to learn how to back off, tell them how to do it, tell them what has to be done, show them how to do it, but then back off and let them do it even if they're going to be sloppy. And even if it's not going to be perfect. And even if you could do it easier and quicker and better than they could do it. Because we don't want to foster dependence. Pray that they would be strong, that they would be mature, they would be complete in all of the will of God. Pray for the stability, maturity of believers in those churches. Then, Mark chapter 10. Pray for your missionaries' family. This is number six on our prayer list. Mark chapter 10, verses 29 and 30 was already referred to. This verse is here in Mark 10, 29. Jesus answered and said, Verily I say unto you, there is no man that hath left house, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands for my sake in the Gospels, but he shall receive a hundredfold, now and this time, houses, and brethren, and sisters, and mothers, and children, and lands with persecutions, and in the world to come eternal life." You know, there is a certain Sacrifice mentality maybe if you know we leave family behind and we go off to the mission field and here I had Janet in Mexico City while she was still a teenager 19 years old you know and family left behind in the United States and that separation there's some anxiety and there's some some pressures because of that, but we do it for the cause of the gospel. And the Lord says when you do that, that you receive a hundredfold in this time houses and brothers and sisters and mothers. You know, it's amazing. There's so many places in the jungles and in the deserts that Janet and I could walk in there today. And doors would just be thrown open and arms would be thrown around our neck and we would be kissed and we would be loved and they would just say, you're home again and we're so glad to have you back here. And family, how it just multiplies. And we're blessed by that. But do you notice something here that it says, as he's talking about leaving, he says, it's not just leaving house and brethren and sisters and father and mother, but he even includes their wife and children. You know, we get down to the mission field and there's a lot of places that we go and there's a lot of responsibilities that are required in the home that don't allow the wife to leave home every time the missionary husband leaves home. She stays home. And especially when there's kids, then there's other responsibilities, and there's illness, and there's this or that, and you have to go out to the jungle to preach, and she's got to stay home and take care of sick children. And so there's not only a separation of leaving behind parents in the United States, but there's separation of even leaving your family behind within the country at many times and many occasions. There is that pressure and so she is left there in a foreign land in the city while you're going out to the jungle and she knows what goes on out in the jungle and it's not always safe. And you know, some of those places that I would fly into, I had to go into with bush pilots. And they don't have a board saying departures and arrivals and all of that stuff because you're flying into dirt airstrips back into the mountains and you never know what the weather's going to be out there. You don't know when you're leaving. And so whenever they fly you into those villages, you say, I want to leave next Friday. And they say, well, I'll try to be here. There might be a two-week storm blow in, and those planes don't get back. And he might be on a two-week drunk, and he doesn't get back. And so whenever we leave home to go out to the village, I say to my wife, I love you, sweetheart. I'll see you when I get back. Pray for me. Pray for your missionary's family. There is separation that takes place even within the field. But then, you can add so many things on to that because when you are living in the mission field and, well, so many of us have maybe a English or Scandinavian background, and all of our children are blond-haired and blue-eyed, and you get down to a mission field where everybody is black-haired and dark-eyed and dark-skinned, well, you know, those children stand out on that place, in that field. They stand out. You walk down the street and everybody turns and looks at you. And where there is rampant immorality, they seek to take advantage of pretty little targets. Even your wife. I've had people, when my wife goes down the street to the market to buy vegetables and she's walking home, men stop on her bicycle or go along beside her on the bicycle, hey, you want to come with me? Because they see an America who's different. And you see the implications of all of that. There's pressures. Those children raised in a foreign land. They're Americans, but they're raised in a foreign land. And so they're one thing, but they're really not that. And they're the other, but they're really not that. They're somewhere in between. And they're never quite home anywhere. They're misfits. Pray for your missionaries' families. Then, number seven, on the prayer list, Philippians 2.25, pray for your missionary's health. This is not a small thing. Philippians. 2.25, it's interesting to see how all these things come up in Scripture, and then we see all these things taking place right in the field for us today. But Philippians 2.25, Paul writes to the church in Philippi, he says, Yet I suppose it is necessary to send to you Epaphroditus, my brother and companion in labor, and fellow soldier, but your messenger, he that ministered to my want, so they had sent from Philippi to Paul in Rome, to help take care of him. But in Rome, what happened? Romans 1.26, For he longed after you all, and was full of heaviness, because that ye had heard that he had been sick. For indeed he was sick, nigh unto death. But God had mercy on him, and not on him only, but on me also, lest I should have sorrow upon sorrow. I sent him therefore that more carefully, that when you see him again, you may rejoice, and that you may be the less sorrowful. Receive him, therefore, in the Lord with all gladness, and hold such in reputation, because for the work of Christ he was nigh unto death, not regarding his life, to supply your lack of service toward me." Here he went to serve the Lord, but he found sickness. Nigh unto death. It's amazing to read some of the stories And those early men going to Burma to join Adonai and Jetson, for example, they prayed, they felt the burden for the field, they raised financial support, a husband and a wife team, they made all the preparations, they got on the ship, they spent those months crossing the oceans to get over to Burma. They landed there on the shores of Burma and they were just eager and they ran into the arms, receiving and welcoming arms of Adoniram Judson and his wife and they were there to serve the Lord. And the first thing after they had eaten their first meal, the parasites hit and within two weeks they were in the grave. Lord, why? Pray for your missionaries, as they face in foreign lands, cholera, hepatitis, amoebas. When we lived in Mexico City, I forget the number now, it's been too many years, but the number of how many millions of people it was that did not have bathroom facilities in their house. Just stop thinking about that. They did not have bathroom facilities in their house. So whatever open fields there are scattered around the city become open latrines. And you have the wind and you have the sun and you have all of this drying out and stirring up and being blown and scattered over the city, carrying amoebas, carrying parasites, carrying bacterias and rampant illness. Pray for your missionaries, their health. Our brother in Papua New Guinea, after dealing with all the sickness that they dealt with here, got back, and as soon as they got back, what did he say, three of them have already been down with malaria? Pray for our missionaries. Pray for their health. Then, number eight on our prayer list, 1 Corinthians 14, 7. 1 Corinthians 14, you know this is language speaking about the first century gift of tongues, and we're not seeing it in light of what it was, but a principle that he stated here at 1 Corinthians 14 and verses 7 through 9. Paul says, but I would that all men were even as myself, no, I'm in the wrong chapters. Chapter 14, verse 7, it says, And even things without life-giving sound, whether pipe or heart, except they give a distinction in the sounds, how shall it be known what is pipe or heart? Hear what he's saying? When you speak, you have to give a distinction in what you're saying and the sounds. For the trumpet give an uncertain sound, who shall prepare himself to the battle? So likewise ye, except ye utter by the tongue words easy to be understood, how shall it be known what is spoken? For ye shall speak into the air. Pray for your missionaries, this is number eight on our list, and their language acquisition. Not every country speaks English. Praise God if you go to a country that does, and you don't have that challenge of learning another language, but most missionaries have that challenge of learning another language, and they have to learn that language adequately to be able to clearly state the Gospel. You have to give a certain sound. In all honesty, brethren, I have met missionaries in Mexico who had been there 10 years and still could not conjugate a verb. They still could not speak in tenses. They still could not speak in I, you, we. They still could not conjugate a verb. And so they might have to say I to go to the store yesterday. And you just have to try to figure out that they mean I went to the store yesterday. You cannot preach the gospel that way. Spanish. comparatively speaking, is an easy language to learn. It is a western language, very similar grammatically to English, and so there's so much that we can just transfer over. But when you get into the eastern languages and the Asian languages, and you see something there that just doesn't have anything at all to do with the way we think language. And you have to learn to be able to express the gospel in totally new thought patterns that have nothing to do with the way we think. Pray for your missionaries in their language acquisition. Hilarious things happen when you're learning a language. If you've tried, you know that's the case. You know, one of the first mistakes that everybody who goes to Mexico makes is, you know, you're trying to speak, and you know you're making all kinds of mistakes, and so you want to say, oh, I'm so embarrassed. This is a mistake that everybody makes. And you know that a lot of words sound the same in English and Spanish, and so you just say, well, I am so embarazada. But you just said, I'm so pregnant. You didn't say, I'm so embarrassed. There are simple mistakes, funny mistakes. You know, there's only one letter difference between the words sin and fish. And it's easy, I've done it from the pulpit, say that Christ died for all of our pescados. It's not pecados. It's a class diet for our fish. Another funny one, I know a brother who was still learning and he was in a new town and he was trying to find a little grocery store. And so he said, well, what word is groceries? I'm not sure. And so he walks up to a policeman on the corner and he says, where can I buy some groceries? Well, that's foul language, vulgarities. Well. That's funny. And you can say a lot of funny things from the pulpit, but you can say vile things from the pulpit too, making those same kinds of mistakes. And pray for your missionaries and their language acquisition, because we must be able to convey the gospel honorably, clearly, understandably. Many missionaries and are in circumstances where they have to conduct their missionary just through an interpreter. And God bless them when they have to do that. In fact, I was so elated whenever I finished language school in Mexico City, I'd finally learned enough Spanish to be able to preach the gospel in Spanish. And we got in the car, we drove to southern Mexico, to the state of Chiapas, out to preach the gospel to Celta Indians. And I had to preach with an interpreter, preaching in Spanish with a Celta interpreter. God will bless interpretation, but there's always a barrier there if you're having to preach with interpretation. So pray for your missionaries and their language acquisition. Number nine on the prayer list. Pray for your missionaries' discernment in the culture that they're ministering to. 1 Corinthians 10.32 says this, Give none, give no one offense. Neither to the Jews, nor to the Gentiles, nor to the Church of God. Give none offense. You know, a missionary goes into a culture, he's in a totally foreign mindset, way of thinking, way of doing everything that they do. And there are certain things that you could do that just seem you never give a thought about in our lifestyle that are highly offensive. in those languages. There's certain things that you do not do with your right hand or with your left hand. You may not cross your legs in certain cultures. There's things that just never dawn on us that are highly offensive in some cultures. You know, I know of a case of a missionary who was in the Aranjela. And he needed an airstrip So he hired some men to go out, chop down trees, take out your shovels and your picks, and go out and level off an area. And I'll pay you for a day's work if you'll just come out and help me build this airstrip, so we can get bush pilots in here, in and out. And so he got some men, he agreed with him, you know, I'm going to pay you so much for a day's work, and you guys go out and work and do the job. Everything's going along great. And one day he walks out there, and all the guys are out there working the airstrip, but here's one guy over on the side, and he's got a hammock strung up between two trees, and he's propped up in the hammock. What is going on here? You know, he's a good American boss man. I'm paying you for a day's work. I expect a day's work, so you just get back out there and you get to work. Okay, so he goes back to work. A few weeks later, he goes out there and here's another guy doing exactly the same thing. He's over in the hammock while everybody else is working. Well, I paid you to work. I expect you to work. Okay, get back to work. Well, you know, after many years in the culture, he found out that immorality is rampant within that society. And anytime a mother bears a baby, it was part of that cultural thinking that the father would publicly declare, that's my baby. Because if he didn't publicly declare, that's my baby, then that why he was in fact saying, that's not my baby. I don't believe that's my baby. And so that wife was shamed and the baby would be killed. And the way that he publicly declared that it was his baby was when everybody else was going about a day's work, he was sleeping in the hammock, or at least laying in the hammock. And everybody said, oh, he's a new dad. You see what happened? Because he didn't know the culture? Pray for your missionaries' discernment in the culture that they go to. Number 10 on the prayer list, 2 Corinthians 11, 25. Pray for your missionaries' safety as they travel in the mission field. 2 Corinthians 11, 25. Paul is talking about his own experiences and he says, three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. Three times I suffered shipwreck. A night and a day have I been in the deep. In journeyings often, in perils in waters, in perils of robbers, in perils by my own countrymen, in perils by the heathen, in perils in the city, in the wilderness, in the sea, and among false brethren. An awful lot of that. You see, he's just talking about how dangerous it was to get from place to place. Pray for your missionary's safety in travels. We were talking last night about the Mexicans who go back to Mexico at Christmas. This is a big deal. There are just masses of people going back to Mexico for Christmas. Because of that, there is just an enormous amount of traffic, much more than usual, on the highways than there is the rest of the year. And so you know what they do in Mexico? This is great. They go out to every highway intersection through almost every highway in the whole country and they take wrecked cars and they set it out on one of the corners of the highway intersection and they stack them up, three or four of them, on top of each other. It's a monument to highway accidents. To tell people slow down and be careful. You see it all through the whole country there. Every Christmas season, they're all going back and there's so much extra traffic on the roads because it's dangerous. I mentioned a while ago I used to fly in with bush pilots and sometimes they wouldn't get back because they might be on a two week drunk. Well, that's true. In fact, every one of the bush pilots that I flew with going out into Usila is no longer alive because they did fly drunk or they didn't maintain their planes. In fact, when I would fly into Usila, all of those planes had, you know, these were four or five seat little Cessnas, and they had taken all those extra seats that the pilot didn't sit in out of the plane. And so when it's time to fly into a village, they take commercial supplies, they take burlap bags of beans and boxes of supplies that are going to the stores, and they cover, you know, a couple of feet deep, the floor of the whole airplane, and then they will put six, eight people in on top of those boxes in an airplane that was designed for five people. You know, there's weight limitations on those planes. And when we would take off, we would just get up high enough to skim the tops of the tallest, the trees on the tallest hilltops between here and where we're going. Not always safe. I know one of the airstrips, it was just a gravel road through a sugarcane field. And of course, that gravel road through the sugarcane field being used for airplanes is also being used for other things. And the pilots don't always see what those other things are. And I know of one pilot who was coming in on that same airstrip. I flew in and out of many times, and he'd come in to land, and he didn't see that there was a little pickup running down the road. the same direction he was, and so he was kind of under him, and he didn't see him. And he'd come in to land, and as he was coming in to land, he knocked, he hit that car, hit that pickup. And he pulled up just fine, you know, and he just went back up and circled around and come back in to land. And the guys who help out with the airplane, they saw he was coming in to land, and they run out into the stairs and they're waving their hands. And he looks down, and one of them's holding up his landing gear. Well, you know, he had to pray about that one, even though he wasn't a Christian. And he decided to go and land it in the river, and I think he did survive the landing. Pray for your missionary's safety in their travels. It's not all that it is here. Then pray. Number 11 on the prayer list, pray for timely presence in particular places. Does that sound odd? Well, just pray, Lord, put us in the right place at the right time. 1 Thessalonians chapter 2, 17. But we, brethren, being taken from you for a short time in presence, not in heart, endeavor the more abundantly to see your face with great desire. Wherefore, we would have come unto you, even I, Paul, once and again, but Satan hindered us." You know, there's so many needs. so many places that we have to choose, and sometimes Satan does hinder. So just pray that we will, in a timely manner, be in the right place at the right time, that we can be the most effective in accomplishing the Lord's will. There was a very unusual case in Osceola. And I had, early on I used to go there frequently, but then after they got to a certain place and I was living in a different area, or they had a certain maturity and I was living in a different area, I didn't go back for several years. And I always had to fly in with bush pilots. Well, they had in the interval, they had actually built a a road, a very simple dirt and gravel road cut through the mountains and through the jungle to get into the village. And without even telling Brother Mateo, I just decided, you know, I'm going to Usila and just I want to see him. And so we drove into Usila, over the mountains, through the river valleys, down into the village. And I drove right up in front of my brother Mateo's house. First time I'd ever done that. And brother Mateo walks out. And he says, hi, good to see you, brother Dan. You're right on time. He didn't say, wow, what are you doing here? He just says, yeah, you're right on time. I said, what? And he says, I've been praying for you, brother. I've been praying for you to get here because Grandpa died, and I need you to preach the funeral. And that's the only funeral I've ever preached in Mexico, because usually, I mean, they bury immediately. And it said, I've been praying, and I was expecting you to be here, and the Lord put me there without us having any coordination whatsoever. But pray the Lord will put us in the right place at the right time. Then number 12, pray for deliverance from those who do not believe. Romans 15 verse 30 says, I beseech you, brethren, for the Lord Jesus Christ's sake and for the love of the Spirit that you strive together with me in your prayers to God for me, that I may be delivered from them that do not believe in Judea, and that my service which I have for Jerusalem may be accepted of the saints, that I may come to you with joy by the will of God and may with you be refreshed. Pray that I may be delivered from those that do not believe. So many times, it's not true everywhere, not every mission field is a hostile culture or environment. But many times, it is. And we need you to pray that we might be delivered from those that do not believe. Paul mentioned in Thessalonians that there are men out there who are unreasonable. that we deal with. You know, as I was in a place called Limon one time, drove in there and we were just going, I wanted to preach out on the street and so I went down to the mayor's office of the little town, this is just a village, but went down there, the mayor wasn't in town, the top guy, but number two was there, and he said, you know, we want to preach out here in the street, and would that be a problem? And he says, no, that's fine, you go ahead, you can do that. And I told him, well, we're going to announce then that we're going to do that. And he said, that's fine, no problem. And so we went out, we're driving down the streets, we have a little loudspeaker, a megaphone, that we're driving down the streets and we're just saying, we're going to meet such and such time, such and such place, and we're going to be preaching the gospel. We all come here. And so we're doing that. going down one street and turning on one corner there's a guy standing up leaning against the building here and he looks up and he sees us and he comes running over to the truck that I'm driving, the pickup, and he grabs hold of the megaphone. So I slam on my brakes and Whaley standing firmly so and I said, please let go and then I try to drive off and he goes running along besides the vehicle yelling. Why are you pulling me? Why are you pulling me? And so I stopped again and he reaches into his pocket and he pulls out a revolver and he sticks it in the window right in my face. I didn't know, but he was a policeman in town, but he was drunk. Now I said, we have permission from the mayor's office. We're not breaking any laws. Please, let's just back off and we'll go about our business. And all he's doing is yelling and yelling. He's drunk, he's unreasonable. No way to talk to this guy at all. And so finally, I said, look, we have permission for what we're doing. And he says, well, then let's go down to the office and find out. And I say, well, get in. Let's go. And so he jumps in. He hasn't let go of his grip on the megaphone yet. But he gets in, and we're driving down to the office. And then that gives him opportunity to think, you know, I just pulled a gun. I'm a man, and I'm drunk. And he has permission for what he's doing. And so he says, why don't you stop? You know, if you'll just say you were wrong for pulling me, then I'll let you go. I said, oh, that's no problem. I shouldn't have pulled you. Pray that God would deliver us from wicked and unreasonable men. You know, I'm not a really calm person by nature, but when I had that gun in my face for quite a while, I wasn't nervous. That was only in the Spirit of God. But pray the Lord would deliver us from unreasonable and wicked men. But, you know, if we think about how you could develop that, we realize that there's all different kinds of aspects of that. You look in Paul's ministry, sometimes there's financial interest. Remember the girl who brought monetary gain to her masters and Paul cast out the spirit? And it led to an uproar, didn't it? Well, you go into drug areas or Slavery areas, that's a problem. Preaching the gospel. Sometimes it's religious interest. Greatest Diana of the Ephesians. I remember the day that I was handing out tracts right in front of the Basilica of the Virgin Guadalupe. In Roman Catholicism that's considered the second most holy site in the world. And the Pope had just walked through the gates for the first time and I was out in front handing out gospel trash. And I had a crowd around me that was not happy. Burns. the tracks and the street. I'm looking around thinking, what am I going to do? And a man leans over my shoulder and says, you know, it would probably be a good idea if you left. I said, I think you're probably right. And I left and they opened up the way and let me leave. There's religious interests. There's governmental interests. And Paul says, pray for those that are in authority. Sometimes it's a matter of visa. Sometimes it's a matter of corruption. But pray for those that are in authority. Spend a night under house arrest just because of a crooked mayor. had visa problems when for so many years you could not legally be a missionary in Mexico. One time when I was out on that same airstrip, and this was back before there was such thing as a visa for missionaries, and so anybody preaching there was preaching illegally, no foreigners could come to preach. And I'm sitting here on the airstrip, my turn is next to get on the bush plane, and this big Ford black, dark windows Bronco comes pulling in, A man in a suit gets out and these other guys with guns on their hips get out and they walk over to the little shed that runs everything. And then when the airplane lands, they all walk over and get on the plane and they take off. And of course, they've been looking over at me and looking over at me. And I was next in line, but they bumped me. So after the plane has gone, I say, what was that all about? And they say, well, that was the Secretary of State. president sent him out here because there's a Catholic foreign priest out here preaching and foreigners aren't supposed to be preaching and the president said to get rid of him because he was causing not only he was using that because he didn't like his politics but he was using the law against foreigners preaching which what was I but a foreigner they're preaching and they knew that Governmental interest there's political prejudice against Americans just because they are Americans and nothing else doesn't have anything to do with the gospel Pray for your missionaries and then of course captivity There are brethren in jail missionary brethren in jail in foreign countries there was a Presbyterian pastor in Turkey right now just a couple of months ago who was Arrested and is sitting in a jail and we need to be in prayer for him Then pray number 13, I'm praying to get through this but I don't want to Cut it short Ephesians 6 Paul prays for boldness in Ephesians chapter 6 18 He says praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints and for me. Pray for me that utterance may be given unto me that I may open my mouth boldly to make known the mystery of the gospel. You know, there is a time to be quiet and there is a time to speak up. And we need discernment in when to speak and when to be quiet. When to walk away and when to be bold. There was a time, I recall, living in Coatepec when the fair was in town and we were out among the fair crowds distributing gospel literature and the priest didn't like us doing that. And so he sent a bunch of men over to where Brother Humberto was. And they were trying to raise a little riot around him. And so then, of course, this was all arranged. Then the policeman walks up, and he arrests Humberto for causing a riot. And all Humberto is doing is standing there, and he attracts the people. It was these other people who were doing the riot. And so I go down to the police station and pay a fine to get him out of jail. And we go back to, my office, my library, and we get on our knees and we pray, Lord, what should we do? It's legal to hand out tracts in Mexico and to witness, it's not illegal. So is this a time when we should just be quiet and walk away or should we be bold and go right on preaching? And we got up from our knees and we felt from the Lord bold. go preach, go hand out tracts. And so we went right back down to the fair, and we went right back to handing out tracts again there. And you know what happened? Nothing. You see, they were testing us with the pressure that they were applying. But since they didn't shut us up, then they just ignored us after that. So there is a place for boldness. There's a place to walk away, but there is a place for boldness. Pray for your missionaries' wisdom and boldness as they witness. Then in Colossians 4 verse 2, This is number 14. Pray for opportunity through difficult situations. Colossians 4 to continuing prayer and watching the same with thanksgiving with all praying for us that God would open unto us a door of utterance to speak the mystery of Christ for which I am also in bonds that I may make it manifest as I ought to speak. So many difficult situations turn out to be situations that multiply the fruitfulness of the gospel. Souls are brought to Christ as they see boldness in sharing. Even like I mentioned last night, this is going on in Syria. Pray that God would give fruit through the faithfulness of his Christians in difficult situations. Number 15, pray for your missionaries in the relationships that the Lord would give co-workers. In Acts chapter 13, 13 and verse 2, it says, they ministered to the Lord and fasted and the Holy Ghost said, separate me Barnabas and Saul for the work whereunto I have called them. He sent them out two by two. How many missionaries do you know that go out two by two? Not many. You may know of a team in Papua New Guinea where two missionary families are working together. I'll be surprised if you know of very many others. You see, churches have this business mindset, you know, we have to get all the bang for the buck that you can, right? And supporting two men in the same place is just too much. It's redundant. The Lord sent them two by two. We need co-workers. We need it for accountability. We need it for encouragement. We need it for help. We need it for so many things. Pray the Lord would send two by two, and the churches would send two by two. But then, when you go two by two, or when you're around other missionaries in the field, I read Acts 15 and 38. It says, Paul thought not good to take him with them, that's Mark, who departed from them in Pamphylia and went not with them to the work. And the contention was so sharp between them that they departed asunder one from the other. So Barnabas took Mark and sailed to Cyprus, and Paul chose Silas. Here was a missionary team that was divided and split and went two different directions. You know, the Lord blessed that, and it was in His providence that that happened. But there's not always harmony between missionaries and a field. And especially if they are not working as a team, and maybe if they are working as a team, but there can be a spirit of competition between missionaries in the field. You think, oh, these men are the cream of the crop, right? That would never happen. Don't kid yourself. There can be a spirit of competition between them. And because of that, unethical practices between them. And I've known of more than one occasion where I'm working in an area, working with a people here, and another missionary comes in and they say, well, how much does Brother Danny pay you? Well, Brother Danny doesn't pay me. Well, you know, if you would just preach for me, I would give you a salary. Does Brother Danny show films out in the centers of the villages? Well, no, he doesn't do that. Well, if you would just work with me, I'll supply you all the films and generator and projector, all that you need. So to buy off, there's many unethical practices that go on in mission fields. Pray for harmony between missionaries in the fields. Then pray for your missionaries' finances. Paul in Philippians talks about how you sent once and again to my knee. Missionaries face financial struggles in the fields, and it's not just because they don't have enough support necessarily. They may not have access to that support, even when it's there. But the missionary will face deflation going on, and inflation going on, and then fluctuating exchange rates. And then if he does need additional support, he has to leave the mission field and come back and do deputation and furlough time so they can get additional support to go back to the field. Pray for your missionaries' finances. Well, there's 17 things. That's a pretty long prayer list. You know, there's times when we pray, Lord, bless the missionaries. Well, amen. We need to do that. And in a service, I would never expect anyone to go down the list. But you know, when you get on your knees, here's some concrete things to pray. God, you know, brother so-and-so, this brother in this country, bless him. Bless his family. Bless his health. And go through these things and pray for specific missionaries and specific needs. Besides just those things that they might write about people and names and places, well, here's plenty of biblical principles and things that we can and should pray for, for our missionary brethren. Pray this will be a blessing and encouragement to you, brethren. Thank you, brethren.