Well, thank you, Pastor, but that vice president thing, that B-I-M-I, that means more work and less pays, what that means. I said last night, and I really mean it, being a servant for Christ is the greatest thing in the world. Amen. Before I get any further, let me mention to you, my wife is with me tonight. She flew in today, and I picked her up at Gainesville. We're working on 44 years together. And I think I'm probably the only man in the world that for 10 years, I took my wife on her anniversary every year to the Orient. We were going anyway, but we usually were in the Philippines, sometime in China or Japan, but we have enjoyed a wonderful life together, and God's given us five wonderful children and 14 grandchildren, and she's been called a lot of things. over the years, so have I. For 16 years she was Fatou Ba. The Africans couldn't say, the Senegalese couldn't say Godfrey, so they gave us names. I was Assan, she was Fatou. And we had more fun. It took 15 minutes to greet somebody there. And you know, please never feel sorry for missionaries and their kids. We had more fun. So we didn't have TV, we didn't have video recorders, we didn't have computers. We had a family. We got to do things together, and they got to be involved in our ministry, and we watched the lizards do push-ups on the wall at night for entertainment. And our girls never played with baby dolls. They would come home with a little African baby on their back, just bouncing around, having a good time. And we just, we loved it there. And honestly, we've been all over the world, and God's given us the privilege of preaching. And I don't really know 30, way over 30 countries that I preached in. I get to go now to countries all over the world and preach to them about faith-promised missions giving. even in some of the poorest countries in the world. We had one church last year in the Philippines. Their fake promise, preacher, last year was $92,000 in the Philippines. One church. And I get to go out and be within those churches and I love it, but we left a big part of ourselves in Africa. We loved it there. 16 years up in the desert and then living out in the jungle. When Linda went to take a bath and wash clothes, you had to walk two kilometers down the mountain to a river or to a pond where the elephants wallowed out a water hole and Africans dammed it up and we baptized and went fishing and washed our clothes and everything else down there, but we loved it. Let me tell you one story and then I'm going to give you my message tonight. How many of you believe that what you do here at Central Baptist Church in the light of eternity is worthwhile? Let me tell you tonight, there are many reasons why that's a true statement. Let me tell you why supporting missions is not a waste of your prayers, effort, sacrifice, and money. In 1917, a young family, American family, left Moody Bible Institute and headed out to the southern portion of Africa. The first ship they were supposed to take, they didn't make it in time to catch the ship. The ship was sunk by the German Navy. They took another ship a few months later, going down to the Atlantic. It had 30,000 gallons of gasoline in it. It caught on fire. They had to go into port in Brazil, and then finally made it to the southern portion of Africa. In 1920, how they ever found this village, I don't know, but they made their way out to a village on top of a mountain in the middle of the old Belgian Congo, a village named Chene. They had never heard the name of Jesus Christ there. And that missionary and his wife, Anton and Viola Anderson, they started, first, of course, to learn the language, and they started to pray, and they asked God to help them see 10,000 people come to know Christ before they died or Jesus came back. Well, the Andersons worked there through the 20s and the 30s and the 40s. In 1956, Anton Anderson died in that village. If you walk down the mountain from the village, down beside that pond, I've already mentioned there are four graves. Anton Anderson and three of their children are buried there. When he died in 1956, they had gone many times over the 10,000 people who had come to know Christ. His son Fred Anderson and Fred's wife and Barton Browning and his wife and missionary Martha Kuhnberger, they stayed on and worked until 1960. There was a big rebellion in the Congo. Those missionaries had to leave there. They came back to America. They couldn't go to the Congo. They met with Dr. Lee Robertson and 160 independent Baptist pastors in Chattanooga, Tennessee, because those missionaries couldn't go to the Congo. And Dr. Robertson said, it's time to embrace the world. And Baptist International Missions was started to help those missionary families get back to the mission field in some other place. And from that handful, now a thousand missionaries. But in 1990, 30 years after the missionaries had to flee that village, Linda and I had the privilege of going back to that village and working there. Now let me tell you what we found. 30 years no missionaries there. We got out there, and in a 50-mile area, there were 12 churches that would run 700 or 800 or even 1,000 people in church every Sunday. Every one of those churches would have 10 or 12 or 15 village churches in their area. And I'm here tonight to tell you that one missionary family changed their world. And that's what it's all about, and this week you have the privilege of having other great missionaries with you here. I'd like for you to open your Bibles tonight to John chapter 20. I will promise you not to be long, but you wouldn't believe me anyway. But I will do my best to get you out of here as soon as I can. John chapter 20 verse number 10. This is one of my favorite passages. How many of you feel that way about everything you read in the Bible? But this is one of my favorite passages. John chapter 20 verse 10. Then the disciples went again unto their own home, but Mary stood without the sepulcher weeping, and as she wept, she stooped down and looked into the sepulcher. Now this is not the same Mary that I preached about last night, and I really didn't plan it this way, but anyway, verse number 12, And seeth two angels in white sitting, the one at the head, the other at the feet. at the feet where the body of Jesus had lain. And they say unto her, Woman, why weepest thou? If you're here and you weren't here last night and you wonder what's happening to me, I had surgery on my throat last week. I'm all right, I will get through this. It doesn't hurt. It just hurts to listen to me. But I read that phrase, Woman, why weepest thou? Now this has nothing to do with my sermon at all. But how many of you men remember when you've been married about a year? And you came home from work and you entered into the house and your little wife is sitting, maybe sitting on the bed or sitting at the kitchen table, just crying. And you say to her, woman, why weepest thou? And what's wrong with you? And she'll say, oh, it's all right. Everything's going to be fine. I'll make it. And then some of you have been married as long as we have, you know, 25 years, 30 years, 40 years, so long. And you come home one evening and your wife is sitting on the bed at the table and she's crying, not since the last time. This is a new episode. And you say to her, woman, why weepest thou? And I don't know what happened since that first year and the 30, 40 years, but I guarantee she'll tell you then it has nothing to do with my sermon at all. But anyway, verse number 13. And they say unto her woman, why weepest thou? She saith unto them, because they have taken away my Lord, and I know not where they have laid him. When she had thus said, she turned herself back and saw Jesus standing, and knew not that it was Jesus. Jesus saith unto her, Woman, why weepest thou? Whom seekest thou? She, supposing him to be the gardener, saith unto him, Sir, if thou hast borne him hence, tell me where thou hast laid him, and I will take him away. And Jesus said unto her, One simple word he said, Mary, She turned herself and saith unto him, Rabboni, which is to say, my master." Folk, I don't know about you, but there's some words that I love to hear. And one of the things we all like to hear, how many of you like to hear your own name? Here was a woman who came into this garden, her life had fallen apart. The Lord Jesus had saved her, changed her life. She believed he was going to be the Messiah, save the world. And just a few days before this, she had watched them take that man that she had been following and drive those nails into his hands and into his feet, hang him on a cross, and all that Excitement and all that hope she had was gone. And here she comes into the garden, her hope shattered, her life seemingly falling apart. She was crying so much she could not even recognize that it was Jesus standing there. And Jesus simply said one word. He said, Mary, and everything's alright when He knows your name. She said, by the way, she had the right response when Jesus speaks your name. She said, Rabboni, that is to say, master. Look, I love the Lord Jesus for many reasons, but I love him probably more than any other reason because he is so personal. Did you know tonight that the Lord knows everything about you? He loves you as a person. He knows your weaknesses. He knows your strengths. He knows what you really consider important. And I just want you to think about with me tonight, just in a few moments, do you remember those times when the Lord maybe in your own life was calling you? I remember as a little country boy, Linda and I both grew up on the farm, grew up country. By the way, country people make some of the best missionaries. So people say to us, how do you all eat all that stuff you eat out in Africa, the grub worms, and the termites, and the jungle rat, and the monkey, and pollutants? How do you eat that? And I always say, man, we grew up on the farm. We ate pork brains, and scrambled eggs, and souse meat, and pig feet. If you can eat that, you can eat anything else in the world. But anyway, I remember being a little country boy, sitting in a country church. And I didn't even go to church for the right reason. I'm just going to be honest with you tonight. The reason that I went to church, when I did, I didn't go every Sunday. When I went to church, I went because after church we played touch football. And I thought it might be a pretty good place to find a girlfriend. But I had no spiritual thoughts. I didn't go for anything. I had no concern about God. But I went to a country church as a little boy. And God, in His mercy, one day, not one day, actually many days, it's almost like I can remember it now, sitting in a church, listening to a plain, simple gospel message being preached. And the Holy Spirit of God began to whisper my name. Now, you know, names are funny. J.B. is not my name, but I've been called that. They named me after my grandfathers. My dad was out of the picture, so they were not going to call me J.S. Jonas. That's for the Godfrey side. They weren't going to call me that, so they started calling me J.B. Well, it doesn't matter what part of the world you go to, what your name is, but you remember the night when you were sitting in a church, or maybe you were at home, or maybe some soul winner came by, and it's just like the Holy Spirit of God began to say, Robert, or Jill, or Sue, or Linda, or Fatu, or Ahsan, or Kimio, or Segora, or whatever your name is, and the Holy Spirit of God begin to whisper your name and remind you that you're on your way to a devil's hell, and you could be saved if you'll call upon His name. And He begins, you remember that day? I hope you do. And if you don't know that in your own life, God sent a preacher tonight to tell you that the Lord loves you. For God so loved the world, but more than that, tonight God loves you, and He calls your name. I remember one of the first times I was in Japan, I was in our Bible college in Japan listening to testimonies of some of the Japanese people, and I'll never forget hearing one of the Japanese ladies, she was a pharmacist. Her dad was a pediatrician in Japan from a very strict Buddhist family. But she got saved, and she was in our Bible college, and she gave a testimony. Here's what she said. She said, the day that I realized that I was precious to Him, I trusted Him as my Savior. Can I tell you tonight that you're precious to Him? And I don't know, he doesn't speak out loud, but can you just remember that time, or maybe right now, he's reminding you that the bride and the Spirit say, come. and he's calling your name, and I'm thankful I had to start there for that call of salvation. But I'm glad that not only does God call us for salvation, but he goes beyond that. He begins now to call us in another way, and I don't know exactly you can call it service. I'm just glad, well, I don't know exactly how to say what I'm going to say, but Linda and I grew up on what I would call camp meeting Christianity. Anybody remember going to the sawdust brush arbors and tabernacles. So we grew up on Dr. Harold Seitler and Oliver B. Green and Billy Kelly and Bobby Grubbs. And we went to the Greer camp meeting on our honeymoon. And I love, I grew up on that and I kind of liked those folk, got a lot of good friends. But one thing I remember, and I don't mean this to be critical of that, but one thing I remember of going to that kind of group very often, they had two themes that they preached on all the time. One was, thank God I got saved. Well, that's good. And the other one was, thank God I'm going to heaven. Well, I like that too. But between that thank God I got saved and thank God I'm going to heaven, there's a lot of good times to be had in that. And they kind of miss out on that. But you know, when the Lord, when the Holy Spirit whispers your name about salvation, He may also start whispering your name, Baha'u'llah. Linda. Linda was a common name. I got too many stories to tell you. I'll have to tell you another time. We have three daughters. Every one of them marry guys from different parts of the country, and every one of them, their mama's name is Linda. That's scary weird, but anyway. I don't know. Look, I'm not the Holy Spirit. I'm not God. I can't call you. I would not if I could. But I know this. God is still in the name-calling business. He looks down at churches and that's where he gets his missionaries. It's not from mission boards, it's from local churches where God gets his missionaries. And God will look at a crowd like this and these fine young people and things we've seen tonight, and God may begin to whisper their name and say, I want you to be a preacher of the gospel or a preacher's wife or a missionary. And I have preached over the years. I have no idea. I wish I'd kept better records of how many people. Everywhere Linda and I go, it seems somebody comes up to me and says, Brother Godfrey, you were preaching in my church and God called me to be a missionary. Just a few days ago, well, more than that, a few months ago, the Hearst family, Christopher and Ivy Hearst, one of your missionaries, I'd been preaching in Delaware, I was flying back to California. When I got back to California, I had a voicemail from the Hearst. They were in Texas in a conference, and they said, Brother Godfrey, do you remember the name Robert Hall? I had not heard that name in 35 years probably I preached one time in a church in Miami back in the early in the 70s and that afternoon I preached that day on the call of God to ministry and that afternoon this businessman from Miami came up to me and he said brother God I need to help my wife and I need to have a conversation with you I said well alright no problem I'd be glad to talk with you so we met and he looked at me and he said brother God I have two questions for you number one how did you know my name And I said, sir, I've never met you before. I didn't know your name. He said, my second question is this. How did you know the name of my wife? I said, sir, I didn't know you, let alone your wife. He said, you preach today on the call of God to missions. At every point of your sermon, you call my name and my wife's name. He said, we went home at lunch, and my wife put the lunch on the table, and it was quiet, and I looked over at my wife, and tears were coming down her cheek, and she looked over at me, and tears were coming down my cheeks, and he said, Brother Godfrey, I'm a businessman, and I don't understand it, and I wasn't looking for it, but God spoke my name today, and I believe he wants me to be a missionary. That was so many years ago. I saw them one more time just a little while after that. They were going off to Bible college. I had not seen them in all those years until a few months ago. Brother Hurst called me from Texas. He said, Brother Godfrey, Robert Hall and his wife are in this missions conference. They have been missionaries in Mexico for all these years. I don't know if you know what that does to a preacher's heart, but here's what I'm saying to you tonight. You think it'd be possible if in a great church like this one, the Holy Spirit might tonight just sort of... reach over and get a hold of your heart and say, wouldn't it be wonderful if you would go to Senegal, or if you would go to Japan, or if you would go to Brazil, if you would go to Mongolia, if you would go to the Dominican Republic or Haiti. I don't know where it might be, but would you be willing tonight if the Holy Spirit of God spoke to you and said, I want you to go, would you go? That's my second point. Let me hurry on. There's a couple more calls I want to mention to you. I won't take a lot of time about this. I'm glad that God calls us to be saved. I'm glad that God calls us to serve Him and be in ministry. Aren't you glad also that God calls you with what I'll name it, the call of encouragement? Did you like this passage tonight? Here was a heartbroken Christian, a lady who came into the garden and her life had fallen apart, and it just took one word, her own name. You know, I don't know when you bring your kids. When your kids are little, maybe they sleep in your bedroom for a little bit, and you move them into another room. How many of you parents remember that day when you had to move your kids into the other room, and they're afraid to go over there? And every once in a while, they'll call, and Mom would just say, Susie or Billy or whatever, everything's all right. Linda and I have been in Africa for a long time. We came home on a furlough, and while we were on furlough, we had gone to And back in that time, I don't know if there were as many Walmarts then as now, I think it was Kmart, but we had gone shopping at one of those places and we had two children and we left our kids, this was when it was safe to do this, we left our kids watching the fish in the aquarium in Kmart and we told them to stay there and we did some shopping. We came back, couldn't do that anymore. We went back and our handle wasn't there. We began to look for her. We were going down every row, every aisle, and we were calling her name. We couldn't find Hannah. Finally, we were beginning to panic a little bit, and after a while, we saw one of the clerks come down through there with Hannah and holding her hand, and she's just sobbing and crying, and that clerk brings her up to us, and Hannah looks out through her little fingers and her tears and sees Mama, and Mama says, Hannah, and everything's all right because Mama knows her name. I read somewhere, I don't remember, about this man who was in the mall, and he was sitting outside while his wife was in somewhere shopping, and he had the baby in the baby buggy. I know y'all don't call it that now, but y'all just read between the lines. And his wife was in there shopping, and look, you know, have you ever noticed babies don't cry at home too much, but take them somewhere? take them to the restaurant, take them to the mall. And this guy was sitting in the mall. Mama was shopping. Daddy was sitting out with this baby in this baby carriage. And that baby begins to scream and scream. And this guy is so embarrassed. So he gets up and he starts to push that baby up and down the mall. And he said, now, Albert, everything's going to be all right, Albert. And he's pushing that baby. Now, Albert, everything's going to be all right. Finally, some lady saw him and felt sorry for him and came over and stopped him and turned the blanket down, patted the little baby on the head, said, now, Albert, everything's going to be all right. And the man said, wait a minute, lady, that's not Albert. I'm Albert. I'm having fun, but how many of you, seriously, how many of you have been going through some really difficult times, and the Lord of glory sort of leaned over and said, hey, I know all about it. I know your name. I know what you're going through. Linda and I have been out in our first term in Africa. We were green, dumb, young missionaries, and we were trying to reach Muslims with the gospel. I had a Bible study in my courtyard every Sunday afternoon, had a group of young Muslim men come in. One day I had my Bible study and we heard this noise. After everybody had gone home, we heard a riot going on. It sounded like people on the other side of our wall, they were screaming and crying out, and we thought there was a fight going on or somebody had broken into a home. And as we listened, though, we heard, we kept hearing a word that we understood. They were speaking in Wolof, and the word we got was Tubob. 2 Bob this, 2 Bob did that, 2 Bob, well, 2 Bob meant white men and there was no doubt where we lived who they were talking about. And we stood there in our courtyard and we listened to that mob of people come around down this street, around the other side of our house, knocked on our gate, and I went out there And here was this crowd of people, and there was a woman at the front of it. She was the meanest woman in our neighborhood. She wore a big leather belt with a knife hanging on it all the time. She cussed me. She called me names. That's one advantage of not speaking the language well. I didn't get a lot of it. She said, my son Abdu was here today and I sent my daughter to get him and he didn't come home and you're trying to make a Christian out of him and we're Muslims and you ought to go back to America and leave us alone and Abdu can't come back anymore. She finally got it all spit out and slammed that gate in front of me. And they left and I went in there and Linda, we just had two kids back in those days. It sounds real spiritual, but I didn't really have a lot of confidence. But I said, Linda, we need to get down on our knees and pray and ask God to help us. And I was so discouraged. I was ready. That's the only advantage of not having enough support. I couldn't buy a ticket and come home had I chosen to. We got down on our knees in the Sahara sand and prayed and cried out to God and said, dear Lord, we're so discouraged. We need your help. So we went to bed that night, and we didn't have TV and all that, so again, we're watching the lizards on the wall, and I'm reading, and about nine o'clock, somebody comes out there outside my house, and they say, Kong, Kong, Kong, knock, knock, knock. And I said, out the window, I wasn't gonna go out there. I said, Koku, Kanla, the person who's knocking, who is it? And a voice comes back and says, Manla, it's me. And I recognize the voice. It was Abdu's mother. My heart fell all the way down to where my stomach's supposed to be. And I'm thinking, Lord, you know I'm afraid of that woman in the daytime. She's going to kill me. I slip my trousers back on. I went out to that gate, and I went out there, and I opened that gate, and there stood that Muslim lady. And this time she's by herself, but she has a chicken, a live chicken in her hand. The mind can really play tricks on you. My thought was, she's going to beat me with that chicken. I opened the gate. She stepped inside of that chicken. She closed the gate. And something happened that night that never happened in all of our other long years in Africa. That lady stood there and apologized to me. She said, I'm so ashamed of the way I acted today. I was upset. I know you're doing what you believe is right. She says, Abdu can come back. And she says, and here's a chicken. And she gave me that chicken. Now listen to what I'm saying. I'm saying I had been down there so discouraged and ready to quit. But when I get there, the Holy Spirit of God will call my name and say, JB, I know about it. I understand. I've been there. He's been through worse than we've ever thought about. All of our sin was poured out upon Him. I'm glad there's a call of encouragement. Let me give you one more and I'm finished. First time in Africa, I went down to the post office. We had post office box number three. That's how many people had post office boxes where we lived. And I opened my post office box and inside that box was a letter from my pastor in South Carolina, from my pastor's wife. That was unusual, because my pastor would write us, but didn't usually get one from his wife. And I stood there in the post office. I should have waited till I got home, but I didn't open that letter. And in that letter, my pastor's wife told us about her husband, Bob Brooks, Robert Brooks. He'd been out cutting grass with a tractor and a bush hog in that area, and it hit a piece of metal on the ground, and it flew up like a bullet into his back, punctured his liver. And my pastor, who had been such a mentor to me, His wife said, Bob's in heaven now. And I read that and for a moment or two I was sad about it and thinking about it, but then as I thought about it, I remembered what happened there in Africa when we would go out to villages when somebody died. There's no way I can describe it to you and I certainly can't imitate, especially with this voice, what they did, but when somebody died there, the women would scream. I still, if I had nightmares, it would be about that. They would scream and they would beat their chest and they would hit their heads on the side of their houses when somebody died. But I thought that day, my pastor, I can almost see God just leaning over the banisters of heaven and say, Brother Bob, I know you're sick. I know you're tired. I want you to just come on home. I wonder tonight, are you ready for that call? Are you sure that you've answered that first call, so that when that soft call of death comes, you'll be ready? Walter Lander said, death stands above me, whispering low, I know not what into my ear. Of his strange language all I know is, there's not a word of fear. Are you ready tonight for that call? But you know there's a call that may come before we get out of here tonight. And that's the call, or actually the sound of the trumpet being blown. I had a missionary friend down in Liberia many years ago and he was telling us the story that he had been working there, things were hard, he wasn't seeing the fruit that he thought he should, and he just had a small group of believers, had a church started, and one day the Africans came in and they said, would you come and help us? There's a cow here, and these cows have big long horns. It's gone crazy, and it's trying to gore people." And the missionary went in the house, and he got his rifle, and he went out. And the people in the village made a semicircle, and they got their pots and pans out, and they started beating on the pots and pans, making a noise, trying to scare that cow out of the bush. And as he stood there in terror, That cow ran out of the bush, ran right into that group of people, gored one of those men, and ran on by. And the missionary goes over there and looks down on the ground, and there is one of the few Christian men in his village on the ground, dying. And his thought was, dear Lord, why have you done this to me? I've tried to be faithful, Lord. I want to see people saved, and why only one of my men, one of my men, and here he is. And the man's name was Nia. He didn't know what would happen. They took Nia home. Out there, they have to bury right away. So they prepared his body for burial, and they went up on the side of the hill over the village, and they dug a grave. And that missionary watched those African Christians stand beside that grave. You know what, friends? They didn't scream. They didn't beat their chests. They didn't beat their heads on the side of the house. Those African Christians started to sing. And everybody in the village was watching them and listening to them. And here's what they sang. They sang, goodbye, Nia, goodbye. Goodbye, Nia, goodbye. We'll see you again when Jesus comes. We'll see you again when Jesus comes. Goodbye, Nia. Goodbye. I want you to know tonight, friends, that the Lord is in the name calling business. I don't know why He sent you tonight, but maybe it's just to remind you that if you're not saved, you need to be saved tonight. If you're willing to serve God, would you surrender tonight? Maybe you're here tonight and you're so discouraged, and the Lord sent you to remind you that He knows everything about you, and He loves you, and He cares for you. And if you belong to Him, even thinking about death, it's not a sad thing, but it's a wonderful thing. Let's pray together. Father, I pray that You'd just help us tonight as we conclude this service. Thank You, these people, they've been really patient. We've seen some wonderful things tonight. Would You stir our hearts, help us to be willing to respond, in Jesus' name.