Shall we bow in prayer?
Our Father in Heaven, we lift our hearts
to Thee tonight to thank and praise Thee
as Thou has given to us the privilege
of being laborers together with Thee.
And now we're asking that the sense of
Thy presence will become more real than all
else besides.
We do rejoice, Father, that Thou art here.
Minister to us.
Grant to us, Father, that it will not
just be a meeting when we've met with
one another about Thee, but that we've heard
from Thee.
For what Thou didst do will give me
all the praise of Jesus' name.
Amen.
Now I want you to turn to Acts
chapter 1 and verse 8.
I want you to turn because I'm going
to read it, and I wouldn't be surprised
at what I make in error.
And I want to be checked up if
I do.
Hi, Brother Duggan, how are you?
It's so nice to see you.
Now, I want you to listen carefully because
there is a possibility there could be an
error, and I don't want to have it
get stuck through.
Now, you're listening, aren't you?
You're cued up.
But ye shall receive power, after that the
Holy Ghost is come upon you, and ye
shall be witnesses unto me, either in Jerusalem,
or in Judea, or in Samaria, or unto
the uttermost part of the earth.
Now, I'm wondering if you would agree that
that was a correct reading.
You don't.
You disagree.
How strange.
That's the way the Church is practicing it.
Why don't we change the Scripture to conform
to our practice if we're unwilling to change
our practice to conform to the Scripture?
I think it's foolish for us to read
something and do something else.
Now, it's an either-or situation with most
of God's dear children.
I believe the reason is that most of
us don't understand the difference between either-or
and both-and.
I think we think they are the same.
Now, that's at a certain age that occurs.
Younger, they know.
For instance, my little four-year-old son,
when he was four years old, that was
a long time ago, knew the difference.
I came back from a missionary conference where
I'd been out, well, several conferences.
I'd been away for about five weeks.
And Jimmy had been asking, when is Daddy
coming, when is Daddy coming, and his mother
had been telling him a certain day.
And he was there to meet me.
Oh, I never had such effusive warmth from
my little son.
He was clever to me.
He was a shadow.
If I went into the house, he was
there.
Out, he was there to the car.
He just was right with me.
And when I'd gotten the call that I
had to take out of the car, in
the house, he said, Daddy, let's go for
a walk.
Just a bright idea.
It just occurred to him for about a
week.
And so we started to walk.
I said, which way, Jim?
Now, we could have gone to the left,
which was a pleasant walk, up around a
little hill and come back to the front.
There was a...
We were living on a hill, and he
could have gone around us.
Or we could have gone to the right,
or we could have gone down the front
steps.
And he looked for a minute and he
said, Let's go this way, which was around
the house, down the steps to the road.
Now we could have turned right and gone
up around the other way and come back.
Or we could go left.
Which way should we go, Jimmy?
Let's go left.
This way.
Which was about a half a block down
to Brainerd Road, which was a busy therapy
there in Chattanooga, Tennessee.
And there was a stoplight, and we came
to it.
He said, Should you want to go here?
No, let's cross the street, Danny.
But you've got to wait, because you've got
to wait for that light.
He was already teaching me how to cross
the street.
And I said, Well, you tell me whether
we should go.
He said, Now we can go.
So we went across the street.
Now we could have gone right, which was
up to the tunnel under Missionary Ridge.
There.
Or we could have gone left, which was
further down Brainerd Road.
It wasn't much up toward the hill, but
there were some stores down the other way.
So we said, Oh, let's go this way.
And so we went down there about a
half a block.
And all of a sudden, my little four
-year-old said, Daddy, there's a drugstore.
Can I have an ice cream cone?
Well, I realized I'd been caught by an
expert.
I mean, this was the set-up job
if I'd ever seen one.
The whole idea was to get that ice
cream cone.
So when you've been caught, you better just
roll, go with the flow, you know.
So I said, Sure.
You can have an ice cream cone.
I went in.
I told the woman behind this fountain.
I said, Pack it, because he's a rower,
you know, flips them like this, and they've
got to be pretty well anchored, or they're
going to roll down the floor.
So she's there trying to screw that ice
cream down into the cone so it'll stay.
And Jimmy's there.
No air conditioning.
Hot, hot day.
And they put some Hershey's, little Hershey's kisses
there in a plastic bag.
And he has these.
And he's coming to me, and I can
just see him squish because it's warm.
And he said, Daddy, can I have these
Hershey's?
Now, I know why he wanted the chocolate.
He didn't particularly like it.
But his brother loved it.
His brother, if his brother had been Esau,
it wouldn't have been a mess of potage.
It would have been a box of chocolate.
He loved it.
He just wanted it.
And Jimmy could trade him out of his
ITs for that.
So he wanted to take that back and
get some of the things that his brother
had that he wanted.
Well, you've got to stop somewhere, don't you?
So I said, Now, Jimmy, you can have
either the chocolate, which was now in my
hand, or the ice cream, which was also
in my hand.
So my little four-year-old looked at
the ice cream, which he'd wanted so badly.
And he looked at the chocolate, which he
realized he could trade with his brother.
And he looked back at the ice cream,
and then he looked at the chocolate.
And just then, a big blood drop of
ice cream hit the back of my hand.
Well, you better understand when you're licked, you
know.
And I bought them both, regardless of what
happened.
So I became magnanimous.
So I said, Jimmy, just this once, you
can have both.
His face lightened up.
His eyes brightened.
His little hand reached out, and he took
the chocolate in one hand and the ice
cream in the other.
Both.
That started us.
But he knew the difference between either or,
or both hands.
But how sad that the Church of Christ
doesn't know the difference.
We think the Lord said, either in Jerusalem
or unto the uttermost part of the earth.
And he never said that.
He said, after that the Holy Ghost has
come upon you.
You shall be witnesses unto me, both in
Jerusalem and unto the uttermost part of the
earth.
And he didn't use the words carelessly.
He intended it to be just the way
he said.
Now there's a biblical, historical, scriptural reason for
it.
I want you to turn over to Romans,
the fourth chapter.
You must understand why the Lord Jesus said,
both and, not either or.
I think it will be sufficient if I
begin reading with verse 13.
Romans 4, 13, and we'll conclude with 17
and comment on the way.
For the promise that he, Abraham, should be
heir of the world was not to Abraham
or to his seed through the law, but
through the righteousness of faith.
For if they which are of the law
be heirs, faith is made void, and the
promise made of none effect.
Because the law worketh wrath, for where no
law is, there's no transgression.
Therefore it is of faith that it might
be by grace.
To the end, the promise might be sure
to all the seed.
Not to that only which is of the
law, the natural generation, the natural heirs or
successors of Abraham, but to that also which
is of the faith of Abraham, who is
the father of us all.
As it is written, I have made thee
a father of many nations before him whom
he believed, even God, who quickeneth the dead
and calleth those things which be not as
though they were.
Now what was the promise made to Abraham?
In thee and in thy seed shall all
nations of the earth be blessed.
And that promise is not just to Abraham's
literal physical seed, the Jews, those of Israel,
but we're told here, those who like father
Abraham believed God and their faith was counted
to them for righteousness.
We too therefore are the children of Abraham
through faith and heirs of the promise.
And thus it was consistent for the Lord
Jesus Christ to say, after that the Holy
Ghost has come upon you, you shall be
witnesses unto me, both in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria,
and the uttermost part of the earth, because
every one of Abraham has an heir to
the promise.
In thee and in thy seed shall all
nations of the earth be blessed.
We all therefore that are in Christ are
expected to have a worldwide ministry for Christ.
Now that's the word of God.
That's not something Paris Reid had invented.
That's something that God has made clear in
his word.
I was at Monterey, Massachusetts, New England, Keswick,
when Robert McQuilkin, the founder of Columbia Bible
College, came to visit his sister, who was
Mrs. Thomas Lambie.
Tom Lambie was a great missionary doctor from
Ethiopia.
And Tom Lambie had a cottage right near
Monterey, New England, Keswick.
And Robert McQuilkin was there and the director
of the New England Keswick asked Dr. McQuilkin
to speak to the Sudan Interior Mission candidates
that were there for their month of in
-house examination.
We were there being tested as to whether
or not we would be accepted as missionaries.
And I'll not ever forget, as long as
I have memory, I'll remember the afternoon when
Dr. McQuilkin stood before us with his open
Bible and unfolded to us the promise that
was made to Abraham coming to us as
the heirs of salvation.
That every one of us were heirs of
that promise and had the privilege of a
worldwide ministry for Christ.
And he took us to that Acts 1
-8 and said, And here are the spiritual
resources with which this is to be accomplished.
After that the Holy Ghost is come upon
you.
You shall be witnesses in all the world,
both hands.
Now how does it work?
What are some of the ways by which
this is to be accomplished?
Some of the methods that God uses to
accomplish it.
One of the early records of missionary ministry
was an event that occurred in Scotland many,
many decades back.
Nearly 200 years ago, not quite.
But there in Scotland were some people that
had an awakened missionary vision because of what
God had done through the Moravians and through
John Wesley and through the revivals that had
taken place.
There was a growing missionary interest.
In Scotland was a church that had a
missionary-minded, missionary-hearted pastor.
And in that church was a woman, an
unmarried woman, caring for her parents who was
burdened about a country just beginning to come
to the attention of the world, China.
And she wanted to be a missionary to
China and she prayed every day for China.
Her heart was breaking for China.
But of course being a woman with family
responsibility she couldn't go to China.
But she said, Lord, somehow use me to
bless China.
Well, that was before the Lord was her
burden.
One Saturday afternoon she had gone downtown shopping
to get the things that the family needed
for the Lord's Day, which was a very
important day in Scottish Christian families.
She was walking down one of those cobble
paved streets past a little narrow alley that
led off into some rabid warren type housing
for the poor.
And a little boy burst out of the
alley running, sobbing, crying and bumped into her
leg and fell down on the cobble and
lay there sobbing.
And she reached down, took a handkerchief from
her pocket, wiped his face, wiped his runny
nose, raised him up, looked at him, smiled,
first kind word he'd heard for a long
time, I suppose.
And she said, Well, what's the matter, laddie?
What's the matter?
Oh, he says, My father is drunk again
and he's been beating me and he's chasing
me.
And he hasn't found me, isn't he?
No, he's not.
No one's chasing you, lad.
You got away from me.
So what's your name, lad?
Well, my name is Bobby, ma'am.
And she talked to him a little while.
She said, they walked down the street, they
passed the church.
She said, Bobby, do you ever go to
church?
Walk, me.
These are all the clothes I have to
my name, ma'am.
Look at me.
I've got the rags and dirt.
Only the swells go into the church.
Sometimes I hold the horses for the people
that are there.
I couldn't go in there.
They wouldn't have the likes of me.
And so she said, Bobby, would you like
to go?
Yeah.
I hear the word and I like the
music.
I'd like to go.
And so she said, Well, I'll get you
some clothes.
So she detoured, went into a store, bought
him clothes all the way up.
Underwear, socks, shoes, a little pants, shirt.
Gave him the bundles.
Said, now take it home.
Take a bath, put them on and meet
me right where we bumped into each other
there by the alley tomorrow and go to
church.
So for several weeks, that's what happened.
Then one Sunday when she came, he wasn't
there.
And she looked for him.
He wasn't there the next Sunday.
He wasn't there the following Sunday.
And then she spied him and she called
him and he came and said, What's the
matter, Bobby?
Well, he said, You know, I hid the
bundle with my clothes.
When I get home from church, I take
them off and wrap them up and I
put them under my bed.
But my father was looking for something to
pawn so he could get a drink.
And he saw the little bundle and he
took it down to the pawn shop and
sold it for enough to get drunk again.
And I was ashamed to tell you.
He said, Bobby, that's all right.
Come, we'll go to the store.
So she took him back but she said,
This time we'll do it differently.
This time I'll keep them at my house.
And you come to my house and you
can take a bath and put the clothes
on and then we'll go to church.
So for months and months and years, Bobby
would come, he would use their home, put
on the clothes, go to church.
She helped him go to school.
Helped him, she tutored him so he could
go to school.
And then he went on and on and
one day he came to her and said,
You know, I've asked Jesus to come into
my heart.
And he has.
That's what she'd been praying for.
And later on, he said, I feel the
Lord Jesus wants me to serve him but
I'll have to be trained.
She said, I'll help you, Bobby.
And so she helped him get the preparation
so he could go and get the training.
Stayed with him, helped him all through the
year.
Well, the scene changed.
Many, many years later, this dear woman is
going to be with the Lord.
It's out in China.
Late at night.
A bare table, a candlestick, and a large
pile of paper.
Kneeling on the floor with his hands against
the side of the table is a man
whose face is flying, his hair is prematurely
gray, and he's got his hands on that
paper and he's dedicating it to the Lord.
Who is it?
It's Robert Morrison, first missionary to China.
The first transgression of the Bible or part
of it into the Chinese language.
Who is Robert Morrison?
He's the re-body of Edinburgh.
You shall be witnesses, both in Edinburgh and
out of the uttermost part of the earth.
He understood.
She realized that she was an heir to
the promise made by Abraham.
And I see all nations of the earth.
You're to be a witness for Christ where
you are.
You can't buy escape from the responsibility to
witness because you give to mission.
Not a license to disobey.
Not indulgence that permits you to lose concern
for the people that live next door to
you because you give to somebody in some
distant land.
We've heard said, the light that shines the
farthest mosque shines the brightest at its face.
And he who's got a heart for the
uttermost part of the world must have the
burden for the people that he knows and
sees.
It's a lot easier to give money to
someone whose face you've never seen than it
is to talk with someone whose lawnmower goes
where yours go right side by side.
But the Lord Jesus has said you're to
be witnesses both in your Jerusalem and Judea
and Samaria and out of the uttermost part
of the earth.
Well, we understand our to be witnesses here.
We know what we're to do for the
lost neighbors.
You know that there are certain things that
you must do if people are to come
to Christ.
You've got to live before them as a
sample of God's grace.
We saw that Sunday night.
You must intercede for them, legally represent them
before the throne of God because God gave
men the power to choose to go to
hell and he doesn't take that power away
from them until either the sinner or the
sinner's legal representative asks them to.
And we have been made to be kings
and priests under God.
He didn't ask us if we wanted to
be.
He said, unto him who loved us who
washed us in his blood and made us
to be kings and priests.
Made us.
And consequently then for these people next to
us we must not only live Christ before
them realizing that to some we're the very
best Christian they've ever seen or will ever
know.
We not only must do that we must
also intercede for them and to intercede is
to legally represent the sinner in this fashion.
Oh God, this man, this woman, these people,
these children are no worse than I.
They don't deserve hell any more than I
did.
They are just as bad as I was
and I worse than them.
And Father, you were merciful to me.
I ask you in Jesus' name to be
merciful to them to awaken them to their
need and convict them of their sin.
That's the responsibility we have as being their
kinsmen and having been made priests.
To go into the presence of God on
behalf of the sinner and plead with God
as though we were the sinner.
To pray what the sinner must pray for
himself but in his behalf.
Confess his sin, acknowledge his guilt and plead
for mercy.
This we must do.
And then the third thing we do for
the lost is to witness to them.
We're not only to be intercessors in behalf
of sinners but we're to go from the
presence of God into the presence of the
sinner and plead with the sinner as though
we were God to plead with them to
be reconciled to God.
Now that's our task.
That's what he meant when he said you
shall be witnesses unto me.
Live Christ before them, intercede for them and
then plead with them to be reconciled to
Christ.
What's a witness?
A witness is someone who tells what he's
seen and heard and experienced.
Have you seen the holiness of God?
Have you seen the sinfulness of your own
heart?
Have you been convicted of the lostness that
if God didn't have a hell and you
were to die you'd have to make one
because if you went to heaven as you
were you'd ruin it for everybody else?
You were lost.
Have you ever seen your lostness?
I asked a company of people, about a
hundred people, I said how many of you
have ever been lost?
Four hands went up.
I said how many are saved?
Every hand went up.
I said this is a miracle.
I don't understand.
The scripture says he came to seek and
to save that which was lost.
Only four of you have ever been lost.
All of you claim to be saved.
Either he's wrong or you're wrong.
I don't know which.
But he only saves lost people.
And the biggest task we have in our
witness is to let people know how lost
they are.
And the only way we can do that
is to let them discover how lost we
were.
You can witness and tell them what you
saw, found out about yourself.
And the witness can not only tell what
he's seen but what he's heard.
Have you heard God speak an invitation to
your heart?
Come unto me and rest all ye that
labor and are heavy laden.
Have you come?
Have you received Jesus Christ as your Lord
and Savior and found rest in your soul?
Well then you heard something.
So that's a witness' privilege to tell what
he's seen, tell what he's heard, tell what
he's experienced.
Have you experienced the witness of the Spirit?
Has God's Spirit borne witness with your spirit?
Why you can cry Abba Father?
Well that you can witness to.
You see you're the world's greatest expert on
you.
Nobody in the world knows anything about you.
Nobody can say you know.
If you say this is what I heard,
this is what I saw, this is what
I experienced, there isn't a philosopher anywhere in
the world that can argue with you because
you're the world's greatest expert on you.
The Lord Jesus didn't say you to be
philosophers for me and metaphysicians for me and
great arguers for me and debaters for me.
He said you'll be witnesses unto me.
You'll tell what you've seen and you've heard
and you've experienced.
That's the whole of it.
When you go beyond that it's hearsay and
it's inadmissible.
Don't worry about having words to say.
If you know yourself and you know what
you've seen and heard and experienced, that's all
God wants you to say.
He'll do the work from there on.
No.
You shall be witnesses unto me both in
Jerusalem and in Judea and in Samaria and
unto the outermost part of the earth.
Well, how are you going to do it?
We got this thing on Jerusalem fixed up,
haven't we?
We understand what we're to do here.
What about this Judea and Samaria and the
outermost part of the earth?
How are we going to handle that?
Well, God's got a plan.
God's got a plan.
Of course, you can go there by prayer.
Instantaneous travel to any part of the globe,
any place in the universe.
Instantaneously by prayer.
By the gifts of the Spirit, the word
of knowledge.
If God pleases and you're concerned you can
know what's going on around the world.
Have you ever tuned in on somebody around
the world and asked God to show you
what's happening to them?
That woman that you're talking about woke up,
she saw something, she felt something, she knew
something.
God was communicating from way down there in
South America to a woman somewhere and telling
her, pray for your friend.
We've got instantaneous communication around the globe.
Most of us have never learned to use
it.
We should, we should learn to.
We're not just praying about things, we're praying
for participants and we're laboring together in prayer.
That's a good way to do it.
But then there's something else.
Ye shall be witnesses unto me.
We come to another matter of money.
And I'm going to talk about it for
a minute because I used to have some
very negative ideas about money.
My, what I think is some of the
things I said to churches when I was
a young preacher, I'm ashamed of myself.
I had packed in more nonsense about money
because I'd been through it.
You know what I'd been taught?
Nobody said it, but they just, just, it
was, that was what we had.
It's, to be wealthy is carnal, to be
poor is spiritual.
Now, I grew up in that atmosphere.
I grew up in Minnesota, so I must
be here.
I wasn't the only one.
And then the other thing was to be
successful was carnal.
To be a failure was spiritual.
So if you could be poor and a
failure, you were going to be one of
the most spiritual people in the community.
But if you were wealthy and successful, then
you really had problems.
Because money was very dangerous.
Well, it was dangerous to me.
I didn't have any.
I was hoping I'd get a little of
the danger they talked about.
But back in the Depression, when I was
going to Bible school, a dime was the
biggest piece of money I'd see from one
week to the next.
Now, I learned some things along the way.
God, that's great.
You know, I'm still learning.
I'm still learning.
I'm a student.
I'm a disciple.
A disciple is a learner.
And you never outgrow your learning process.
And God's teaching me every day.
Now, what about money?
What is money?
Well, it's a filthy looker, no?
It isn't.
It can be, but that's not what it
is.
What is money?
Well, let me put it this way.
You go, everybody works for somebody.
I don't care whether you run your own
business or you're employed.
You work for somebody.
Everybody works for somebody.
And at the end of a certain period,
weekly, bi-weekly, monthly, however you get what
you work for, it's put in your hands.
And what is it?
Well, it's money.
What's money?
Well, money is education.
Money is time.
Money is talent.
Money is energy.
And you trade a certain amount of time
and a certain amount of talent and a
certain amount of training and a certain amount
of energy and somebody puts in your hand
what they think your time, your talent, your
training, and your energy is worth.
Well, what's money?
Money is fluid life.
Money is crystallized training.
Money is liquid time.
Money is what you are.
You have traded it.
This equals that.
This equals one week, two weeks, one month
of that.
And what's this?
This is money.
And what's that?
That's your training, your talent, your time, your
energy, and you've traded it for this.
Now it has become liquid life, fluid life.
And the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ
and the work of God floats around the
world on fluid life.
We've got to take a whole new view
of money.
Now, it represents time, I said.
Here are missionaries from Mexico, my dear friends,
and here are missionaries who are routing around
the world.
Here's somebody that's going for the first time
to some distant tribe.
They're to sit down with them, learn their
language, and give them the Bible.
And they stand before you and they say,
I'm going and I need your support.
I can't go unless you help me, unless
you pray for me, unless you support me
and give because I will have needs.
I must have money.
Now let's make a hypothesis.
I want to illustrate.
Let's suppose that you work for one dollar
an hour.
Now that's pretty good because when I worked,
the last time I got paid by the
hour was when I was a student in
college and I got up to 37 cents
an hour and I was one of the
highest paid guys in ARP where I was
in that factory.
I started in at 19 cents, went up
to 24 cents.
That was an awful long time ago.
I don't think so.
It went awful fast.
I just know, but I know that there's
some folks that get a dollar an hour.
It's illegal if they're still paying you that.
You've got to get three dollars and 35
cents an hour or 65, whatever it is,
or else they're going to be in the
poking.
But the fact is, let's use a dollar
an hour, shall we?
So what happens?
You go to this missionary and you say,
I'm going to support you and every week
I'm going to give a dollar.
I'll give four dollars a month for your
support.
So, she goes, she lives there, she witnesses,
you're here.
You are giving, you get paid 40 dollars
a week and you give one dollar to
send her.
Now what's happening?
What's that?
You say, well, one hour a week.
Oh, that's not very much.
But there's 168 hours in a week and
that means there's four times, we'll drop the
eight hours because that's goof off time.
We won't even count that.
Let's just say 160 hours.
So that's four.
So you work one hour and you live
three hours so that you can work one.
And therefore, what you're really doing is giving
four hours of a week to keep that
missionary there.
One hour of your working life.
All right?
Now, over next to you is somebody that
makes a munificent amount of money.
Ten dollars an hour.
And they say to their missionary, I'm going
to give you a dollar a week.
Now, both of them gave the same dollar.
Buy the same amount of food, same amount
of whatever.
I don't care what the missionary is.
But what about the person that's here?
One hour, but in 40 hours they make
400 dollars.
The other one made 40 dollars.
And they gave, each gave the same dollar.
Well, how much is a dollar when it's
an hour?
Ten dollars an hour.
That bought, how much?
Six minutes.
Times four is 24 minutes.
So the one person is getting four hours
of witness time on the field.
The other is getting 24 minutes.
You see, to whom much is given, from
them much is required.
As you are prospered, as you are enabled,
means that you're giving time.
Now, obviously, you can do as much with
one dollar as you can for the other,
but it doesn't do as much for the
donor.
The donor has to give a lot more.
Has to give ten dollars to equal that
one dollar the other one gave.
Now, you say, well, I don't understand that.
I don't know where you get the Scripture
for that.
It's a lot of your own personal nonsense.
Well, maybe, maybe it is, but I'm not
stupid enough to come here unless I've got
something figured out to answer that question.
So I want you to go to Luke
chapter 16 and verse 9.
Luke 16 and verse 9, and I want
you to hold onto your hat.
Make to yourselves friends of the mammon of
unrighteousness, that when you fail, finish, die, go
to be with the Lord, they may receive
you into everlasting habitations.
Who are they?
The friends you've made with money.
So you die, and you're there in heaven.
Somebody comes to meet you and says, brother
or sister, I've come here, the Lord told
me he was bringing you home, and I
was to be here to meet you and
receive you, and I want to thank you
for leading me to Christ.
And you say, well, look, I recognize a
lot of family, a lot of friends, I
recognize everybody I knew that's here that I've
seen so far, but I don't think I
ever saw you all through my life.
And how in the world did I ever
lead you to Christ?
That's true, you never saw me.
I was where Mary Ann went, down there
in the interior of Brazil.
And she came and she lived among us
and she learned our language and she gave
us the scriptures and she talked to us
and God broke my heart and brought me
to Christ and I was born again.
But you see, she couldn't have come without
you and God, who kept the books on
that great computer in the sky, He just
put me down to your account as one
of the friends that you've made.
And I want to receive you and thank
you for leading me to Christ.
You say, well, I don't think that's what
that scripture means.
Well, here's the difference.
I'm here and you're there and I think
it does and you've got to prove I'm
wrong.
And until you prove I'm wrong, I'm going
to say that's what it means.
That's what it means.
Make to yourself friends with the mammon of
unrighteousness that when you fail, they will receive
you with everlasting hesitation.
I close with this.
My wife and I were in the Sudan
along the Ethiopian border and we came to
the Dabus River.
We were there.
I had met a boy over at the
Doro Medical Compound who wanted a ride back
to the Dabus.
I came in and he came up.
The director said, will you take this man
and his wife and baby back to the
Dabus in your truck?
I said, I will.
And he came up.
He said, this is Saleha.
I did something so that his people, as
most of the tribes in the area, didn't
shake hands.
They snapped fingers.
That was how the greeting was.
And he held his fingers out for me
to snap them and I reached over and
I took his hand as he had seen
us do with the English and with others.
And I held it and I prayed for
him.
I said, oh God bless this boy and
his wife and his family while holding his
hand.
Something happened.
Later on, when another missionary came, he said,
my heart was bound to that man.
Because he shook my hand.
I didn't realize that just that, doing it
my way, not his, would make such an
impression on me.
Well, we got back to Dabus and I
told Saleha that I wanted him to help
me translate the Bible.
I had to get a sample of his
language and he was to be my informant.
So he would come day after day and
he walked six miles to get there by
six in the morning.
And he would stay there until just time
enough to get home before dark.
And he would sit there and I'd go
over it again.
And I chose John 3.16. Third day
came.
We got up.
They were quiet.
Nobody was there.
When we awakened, there was two women with
two babies.
My wife said, oh honey, it's going to
be a hard day.
We looked out and these little bodies were
totally covered with what we knew to be
syphilitic sores plus yawn.
You couldn't have put a silver dollar anywhere
on the baby's body when they didn't know.
We didn't have any other medicine needed.
We weren't trained in medicine.
All we had was a tube of uncontaminated
cotton.
Please.
My wife went out and she cleaned the
sores so we could let them know we
loved them.
Pray.
And I'm sitting there with Celia while she's
there tears streaming down her cheeks trying to
help these women.
And I'm getting it for God, you know
what I mean?
So love the world.
Trying to get this into their life.
Oh, it was poorly done.
Poorly done.
And I was looking for a word in
love.
I've gotten most of the words in love.
And then Celia used a word about one
of the babies that had come had died.
And used a word that says as a
mother cries for her baby when it dies.
That was the only word I could use
for God love the world.
God so cries for the world as a
mother cries for her baby died.
That He gave His only begotten Son.
And Celia looked at me eyes wide of
God love.
And she said, I want to talk to
Him right now.
So we bowed.
First time God has ever, to my knowledge,
heard anyone in that language utter the name
of Christ and ask God to forgive and
pardon and give them eternal life.
It was that day in that little restaurant.
Well, I went back and said, God, you've
got to send somebody here to live.
Two things were happening.
When we were praying, God send somebody here
because I couldn't stay.
Back at Wheaton College was a young fellow
by the name of Charles Goose who was
an expert commercial artist even though he was
a student.
He wrote a letter to his pastor that
same week.
And he said, Pastor, you know, I've had
this opportunity to go with this good job
of that commercial art firm.
But I've just heard that there are some
tribes on the eastern part of the Sudan
that need someone to live with them and
witness to them.
My wife and I have agreed that we're
going to go to the Sudan.
I found that out from the pastor who
heard me tell what I'm telling you.
And he came and we checked the week
and it was the same week that he
got the letter.
Back in Minnesota was a woman who had
been moved to the Lord.
She wrote to the mission and she said,
just about two weeks before my letter, the
letter came asking for $2,500 to build
a house for two missionary families.
Build just a small little temporary, not temporary,
but small house.
Not a full station.
And we could do that.
And I got a letter back quicker than
I'd ever expected one from New York and
it said, you have received, we're transmitting a
gift of $2,500 for the houses at
the Yabu's for Mrs. Kordekan.
Just the name.
When I got back I wanted to find
out about Mrs. Kordekan.
Didn't see her, but I talked to the
mission, talked to Hal Street about her.
And Hal told me how when he was
down at Spirit Lake at a S.I
.M. missionary conference this woman from nearby Spirit
Lake, Iowa had come in.
And she was there.
And he didn't know much about her.
Only this, is he talked with her one
day and found out that she and her
husband had had a fine farm, an Iowa
farm, a 160 acre farm, all corn land.
And they had made a lot of money.
They raised corn and hogs and sold them.
And they got an excellent price for the
farm.
And they bought a little house in town.
And they were going to take their ease.
Oh, there was a Methodist church that they
met, went once in a while.
They went to their banker and they said,
what do we do with our money?
He said, well, I advise you to put
it into, and he named the bonds that
they should put it in.
And they lived there for a year or
so on the income from this investment.
And then one day, when they got up,
they heard on the radio that the Samuel
Install stocks and bonds were valued.
And everything they'd labored for and saved for
and worked for was gone.
Well over $100,000 evaporated.
Gone.
They had about $1,500 in their checking
account.
House was free and clear.
Nothing else.
Mr. Kordekamp went to bed that day.
Six weeks later, they had his funeral.
Never got out of bed.
Just died.
Willed himself to die.
Mrs. Kordekamp couldn't do that.
She had to take care of him.
She opened her home.
She got three teachers from the school to
come in to take the three bedrooms.
She put a curtain up and slept in
one of the rooms on the first floor.
She cooked for the teachers.
And now she had come to an S
.I.M. conference at Spirit Lake.
She wanted a vacation, and she could afford
that.
She went over.
And at the end of the week, Mrs.
Kordekamp came to Hal Street.
She said, Hal, Mr. Street, God has spoken
to me that I am to sell my
house and build a mission station in Nigeria
to give the gospel to 500,000 people
like you told us.
Said, You can't do that, Mrs. Kordekamp.
You're a widow.
That's all you have.
She said, Mr. Street, will you let God
mind His business and you mind yours?
I'm not saying you told me.
I'm saying God told me.
And I'll do what God tells me.
All my life I've lived and I've not
done what God told me.
And I'm going to do what God tells
me from now on.
My husband told me what to do, and
he's gone.
But I'm not going to let you tell
me what to do.
I'm going to let God tell me what
to do.
And if God tells me to send you
a check for a mission station, you build
that station for me.
He said, I've got to have fruit out
of Africa.
The lay of Jesus' feet.
So hell, got a check for $5,000.
Which in those days would build a station.
That's all he knew about it.
And then she wrote the same letter and
sent the check.
She said, Praise the Lord.
Isn't it just like the Lord?
I've been given a privilege of being a
missionary.
I'm going to go to Oak Hill Fellowship
up at Bemidji and they're asking me to
come to be their laundress.
So I don't need the house anymore.
Two years later she was back at Spirit
Lake and she went to the down the
street and she said, You know, I've got
$2,500 I've saved.
God's told me I've got to give it.
There's going to be a need for a
station somewhere else.
Not in Nigeria, but either in Ethiopia or
Sudan.
And when that is let me, I want
that money to go there.
So, that's where we got the money.
Well, I told this and when I finished
the man called a very fine looking man
obviously a professor of some sort came, stood
there, tears streaming down his cheek.
He said, You've got part of the story
about Mrs. Kortekamp but I want you to
know the rest of it.
I worked for many years in the Bible
school and on the staff at Oak Hill
Scholarship and I want to tell you about
her.
She was a laundress all right.
She was the greatest laundress the world has
ever seen.
She collected clothes from people all over, all
her friends sent her clothes.
She washed them and sorted them sized for
boys, for girls, for different ages.
She collected bedding and towels, everything a house
would need.
And whenever there would be a need for
one of the Jack Pine savages, these were
people who lived there, collected blueberries, killed deer,
raised a little something as poor as could
be, they'd get a call, come in, so
-and-so has gone to the city to
get work and his wife is sick and
the kids are sick.
Can you help?
We'd tell Mrs. Kortekamp.
And she'd go, she had some boxes there
and she found out the ages of the
children she put in, two plain changes of
clothes and then she'd take her mops and
her dust cloth and her soap and her
pails and then she had some big insulated
containers that she'd put in soup and stew
and boxes of bread and food.
We'd take her out.
She'd bathe the sick woman, bathe the children,
give them clean bedding, give them a hot
meal, scrub the house, then she'd sit down
with her brother and say, I'm not a
missionary, I'm just a laundry.
I want to tell you about Jesus and
what he's done for me, for Mrs. Kortekamp.
Mrs. Kortekamp has led more people in our
area to Christ than all the rest of
us.
She lives all of her career, all of
her life for herself.
Had nothing to show for it.
Then she took God seriously.
He shall be with Mrs. Bowes and one
day when we see her in his presence,
she'll have so many from Minnesota, from Nigeria,
from the Sudan that will be there to
receive her.
She was a witness where she was.
By the means of God here at home.
After that, the Holy Ghost has come upon
you.
You shall see and you shall be witnesses
both in Jerusalem and in Judea and in
Samaria and unto the uttermost.
Everyone in Christ is the heir to the
promise made to Abraham as the privilege of
a world-wide princess.
So how will you do it?
Tell us, Brother Brian.
Our heads bowed and our eyes closed.
I want you to, just in a moment
of silence, talk to the Lord Jesus.
Ask him just one question.
Lord Jesus, if I were to meet you
in the morning, could I hear you say
you have done what you could?
Could I hear you say it, Lord?
Have I been a witness to you in
my Jerusalem, Judea, my Samaria, the uttermost part
of the earth?
Have you gotten out of my life the
full reward for your suffering?
Is there more that I could have brought
if I had loved you as much as
I wanted to try to convince you I
loved you when I sang Oh How I
Loved You?
Lord Jesus, what do you want me to
do?
How do you want to use my life
differently?
What must I repent of?
What must I ask forgiveness for?
What must I commit to thee?
How can I honor thee and glorify thee
in the way and the manner thou dost
deserve?
This is the prayer of our hearts, our
Father, tonight, as we're bowed before thee.
We're asking that somehow thou, by thy Spirit,
will move upon us and that thou will
be willing to be able to get through
all of the complacency that we might have,
satisfaction about what we've done, and give us
that judgment-day perception so that we'll know
in our heart of hearts whether it is
true that you could say you've done what
you could.
Lord, we don't want anyone to imitate Mrs.
Kortekamp.
We don't want anybody to imitate anybody else.
We just want each of us to treasure
this marvelous gift of life and the high
and the holy privilege of being witnesses for
Christ.
And I ask thee by thy Spirit so
to empower us, so to equip us, that
these blood-bransomed lives will indeed bring to
the Lamb that was slain the full reward
of his suffering, that everything that he deserves
out of us he will receive.
So to that end, Father, we're asking that
you will bless us.
While our heads are bowed, eyes are closed,
we're waiting before the Lord right where you
are.
If you would like to pray, please pray
aloud, express your concern, your burden, your desire,
your heart and respect to this unfinished task
and the message you've heard.
We open it now so that right from
where you are, stand if you wish your
voices low so that others can hear.
And let's just turn this for a few
minutes into a time when you voice your
desire and your burden to the Lord.
There's nobody here but just us and the
Lord so just take your liberty.