God Calls the First Missionaries - Part 1

When the trumpet of the Lord shall sound and time shall be over And the morning breaks eternal bright and fair The Savior birds shall gather over on the other shore When the roll is called up yonder I'll be there When the roll is called up yonder We now present the Lord's Challenge Our weekly broadcast bringing God's invitation to people everywhere This is an international broadcasting ministry Which is being used of God to bring blessing to many people Joshua Daniel, who will be speaking in a moment Urges you to stay tuned and listen to the Lord's Challenge And to reach out and touch the loving Savior Please be seated folks, as you know One of my favorite subjects is the missionary call And the first missionaries that were appointed The 13th chapter of Acts gives to us the pattern You know, these days it's just somebody's recommendation Or some passing person who appears to be interested And it is very sad that anybody in this fellowship Who has had so much light Should just go by the recommendation of some passing person Now, did Paul and Barnabas do that?

If you turn to the 13th chapter of Acts You will find a church where there were prophets Now my dear friends, surely we should be ashamed of ourselves If we ever arrive at a time When there are no prophesying girls and boys amongst us You know? And here in the 13th chapter Now there were in the church that was in Antioch Certain prophets and teachers As Barnabas and Simeon That was called Niger And Lucius and Cyrene And Manian Which had been brought up with Herod the Tetrarch And Saul And they ministered to the Lord and fasted The Holy Ghost said Separate me Barnabas and Saul For the work whereunto I have called them So it was not just an individual suddenly popped Sitting up and saying Hey, I feel I ought to go to Alaska And get to many redskins there You know folks There are still neglected tribes And there are places which cannot be reached Some of the young men in our Bible school tell me That they will have to walk three days Before they can reach their places In the mountains But you know we are positioning our bookstalls Bible, Bibles In remote places So that even the places ought to reach Can be reached by these books and Bibles So here we see that it was The Holy Ghost said Separate me Barnabas and Saul For the work whereunto I have called them And when they had fasted and prayed And laid their hands on them They sent them away So they being sent forth by the Holy Ghost Departed unto Seleucia And from thence they sailed to Cyprus I have spoken to you already What transpired in the court In Cyprus Now my dear friends we started a work in Cyprus Being so close to Israel Unfortunately some of the visa problems As well as the lack of maturity In our workers Meant that they had to be withdrawn You know I preached in Cyprus To a very strange collection of people The Greek Orthodox Church Does not want lay people Ordinary people to preach They have got a system Which has produced great spiritual deadness How sad it made me You know looking across the barbed wire And standing on a high place I saw the place which by invasion The Turks had taken over The northern half of Cyprus You know and one could not enter there At that time Now in the court of this deputy Roman deputy Paul was able to testify In such a manner That the deputy began to turn To the Lord Now this was greatly resented By Elimas the sorcerer Now Satanism I hear of the spread of Satanism In several places And in England There is a place called Stonehenge And there at Halloween times And so on There are special gatherings Of the witches and others By law Those things had been once forbidden But today It looks like Like this deputy Roman deputy Who had this Elimas the sorcerer Right there But when Elimas tried to withstand Paul What did Paul do?

Did Paul back off? Ninth verse please Saul Who also is called Paul Filled with the Holy Ghost Set his eyes on him And said O fool of all subtlety And all mischief Thou child of the devil Thou enemy of all righteousness Will thou not cease to pervert The right ways of the Lord And behold The hand of the Lord is upon you And thou shalt be blind Not seeing the sun for a season And of course immediately he was struck blind You know But look at these forthright words Today you know We talk in such a way That Our Talk is not Really directed by the Holy Spirit Now you see the contrast Here is Paul Just recently converted And then he had his tint of training In the Arabian desert And he is able to address himself To the highest people in the land What has happened to us preachers?

We have become midgets Spiritual moral dwarfs It grieves me I tell you it grieves me to my heart That's why I cannot hold my peace Thou enemy of all righteousness You see you have to take sides And which side are you? Are you on the Lord's side? If you are on the Lord's side You will never be ashamed Of taking a stand for righteousness Today You know As in our earlier retreat In Göttingen Just about 14 days ago Or 10 days ago You know there was One who was lecturing To university students And it appears At some of the big meetings Of the staff members And professors They just whisper She believes She believes in Christ As though it is a black mark against her Ashamed of Christ You see my friends There's no need whatever For us to be ashamed of Jesus Christ So As these missionaries proceeded They went on to Antioch From there And there In Antioch In the synagogue They had to convince those people Now listen Jesus Christ is the culmination Of all the prophecies Concerning the Messiah And They declared Christ But You know There were those that would not believe The 39th verse And by him all that believed Are justified From all things from which You could not be justified By the law of Moses Beware therefore Lest that come upon you Which is spoken of in the prophets Behold ye despisers And wander and perish For I work a work in your days A work which you shall In no wise believe Though a man declare it unto you And when the Jews were gone out of the synagogue The Gentiles besought That these words might be preached to them The next Sabbath You know folks What I am discovering Some of those people who had been Ardent worshippers of idols Are at the forefront today Penetrating difficult and dangerous areas These fellows whom I call You know there is a big rodent Which is in the tropics I don't think you have it here And I call them a bunch of bandicoots Brought up in Christian homes You know bandicoot is the name of that big rodent Which goes about scavenging in the sewers You know folks When I see these men Who had formerly been idolaters Going to distant and difficult places I feel thrilled I say but where are these fellows Brought up in Christian families What are they up to They are accomplishing very little They are just satisfied Now my dear friends I have been stricken For many years With a deep dissatisfaction With my product Am I doing the very best for Jesus I don't believe so I don't believe so I feel sad Why?

I have had such a wealth of Christian teaching and training Such a wealth And how can I give an account to God You know Pray for my children Because all that I wish to give to them Is faith The heritage of faith Not bigness Not money Not anything else The heritage of faith Now We see therefore That some of these Jews Resisted the word But The 42nd verse please And when the Jews were gone out of the synagogue The Gentiles besought That these words might be preached to them The next Sabbath Who are the hungry You know recently There was a man Who was in my room In my office He had murdered Someone else And had been a lifer in prison When he was converted And he has positioned himself now That he has been released In a place which is renowned As a place of pilgrimage And to those idolatrous people He is declaring God's word You see they are a fanatic group They can just End his life in no time But As That place is very close That's almost A linking point Between India and Sri Lanka And he was beseeching me Please come to my place Our place There are millions of pilgrims Going into their idolatry You know I tried to communicate that To one of my Bible students Earlier Bibles But he has ensconced himself Very comfortably in some place Doing good work Just lacks the vision Where there is no vision People perish You know even in Christian work Just choosing the comfortable places What a mindset is that It's an ugly mindset When there are battles to face for Jesus Christ Am I just going to seek my comfort?

What kind of Christian am I? A false Christian No Christian at all So the Gentiles wanted the word of God Heathen men are begging us Please come Are we walking in his footsteps? Let's pray I plead with you that each one of us Will be revived and so restored In our hearts That we will not seek the Broadway Or the success syndrome of the world But rather walk in your footsteps So help us we pray To discharge our missionary duty In this short life of ours We beseech you in Jesus name Amen Blessed Jesus Blessed Jesus Hear O hear us when we pray Let us seek thy favor Early let us do thy will Blessed Lord and only Savior With thy love our bruises fill Blessed Jesus Blessed Jesus Thou hast loved us, love us still Blessed Jesus Blessed Jesus Thou hast loved us, love us still Blessed Jesus Blessed Jesus Thou hast loved us, love us still www.lef-beautifulbooks.co.uk www.lef-beautifulbooks.co.uk