Missions Conference - Part 3 — Paris Reidhead

Matthew, chapter 9. I want you to have the Scripture open, because I wouldn't be surprised that there might be an error somewhere along the way. I think it's important that you should catch those errors.

You should not let a preacher get by with it. And if you find one, make note of it. So I'm going to begin reading. Verse 36,. But when they saw the multitude, they were moved with compassion on them, because they fainted and were scattered abroad as sheep having no shepherd.

Is that correct? Oh, I wonder why. Why couldn't the Holy Spirit have said these disciples that had been many months with the Lord Jesus felt the same way about the lost as he felt? That's not what the text says, is it?

Don't you think that if that had been the case, that Matthew would have been inspired by the Spirit of God to write it the way it happened? Don't you think that when you find that it is not referring to the disciples, that there's a reason for it?

Christ's Compassion for the Scattered Multitudes

I read it again correctly. But when he saw the multitude, he was moved with compassion on them, because they fainted and were scattered abroad as sheep having no shepherd. 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. Verse 35 declares,. And Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every sickness and every disease among the people.

And when he on this particular day, in this particular place, saw the multitude, he was moved with compassion. Think for a moment now as to what we know about the attitude of the disciples. I think it's important that we should get acquainted with them, know all we can about them.

The Disciples' Expectations of an Earthly Kingdom

Now, I think you get a secret of what is in the mind and in the spirit and heart of the apostles when you remember that evening of the resurrection when our Lord was on the way to Emmaus. And he joined himself to the two that were walking.

And you remember that significant statement that they made when they were talking about the events that had happened in Jerusalem. Then they concluded by saying,. And we thought that it had been he that would restore the kingdom to Israel.

That is what they were expecting. Now, these men were fishermen, laborers. None of them were politicians. But it doesn't take a great deal to turn a laborer into a politician if he has an opportunity.

And they were very much concerned about what was going to happen when the Lord came to the throne of David and gave back to Israel the glory that Israel had under David. Obviously, he had to have helpers, didn't he?

Obviously, somebody had to assist him. And who was better than the ones that had helped him get to the throne? And so, where you recall that the mother of James and John came to the Lord, I see that picture this way.

James and John are walking along with the disciples from village to village. And James says, You know, John, it isn't going to be long until we're near home. Let's ask mother to invite the crowd home for a big meal at noon.

And you know these fellows love to eat. They enjoy a good meal. She's the best cook we got around here. And when they're all out under the wall, sound asleep in the shade, taking a nap, why, we can get mother to go to the Lord.

Now, he'll be grateful because she picked such a fine meal. And we'll get her to say something like this, Lord, when thou comest into thy kingdom, let James sit on thy right hand, and John on thy left.

And John remarks, Now, wait a minute, older brother. Just because you're two years older than I am doesn't mean that you should have that honor. After all, you've always admitted that I'm smarter than you are.

I learn quicker. I'm better with people than you are. Now, let's change that and have it sound like this. When thou comest into thy kingdom, let John sit on thy right hand and James on thy left. Oh, yes, they were very interested in what they were going to get out of serving the Lord.

That was what they were concerned about. Well, you recall, don't you, that occasion when our Lord was in one of these villages? He'd been teaching, he'd been preaching, he'd been healing the sick. Not everybody in the neighborhood came to the meeting.

Jesus Welcomes the Children and the Needy

I see one village where there were about four mothers who didn't come. One was the mother of the little baby that was born blind. The other one was the mother of the baby that was paralyzed from the waist down.

Another was the mother of the baby that had cerebral palsy. And the third one was that little baby that they said was demon-possessed and howled and cried and screamed. These mothers didn't go because they knew there wasn't any reason.

They'd never heard of a baby born blind being healed or someone really paralyzed being healed, so they stayed home. But along the middle of the afternoon, a man came running through the village saying, I see, I see, I was born blind and I see.

And the other three mothers went over to the mother of the little blind baby and said, it's still time, why don't you take him? This fellow that just went through here praising God, he was born blind and he lived many years and the Lord healed him.

Oh, I don't know, I don't want to go. Then just about then, the man that had been crippled from the waist down had to be carried around, wheeled around or carried on a litter. It's through there leaping and praising God.

And so the three mothers, well, why don't you take your little crippled baby? And so finally the four mothers decide to go. Well, off at the side are Peter and Matthew, the two old men of the disciples.

And I can hear Peter say, you know, Matthew, I think this whole time we're spending here in Galilee is a pure waste. Doesn't the Lord realize that that adage that says nothing good will come out of Galilee except maybe us, but other than that, nothing good comes out of Galilee.

There's no political influence here. We can't do anything here. Why doesn't he just leave this place and go down to Jerusalem? That's where the movers and shakers are and that's where we got to go. Why don't we go down there?

Well, the people are coming and there you see them as they come. Mother's bringing them and Lord Jesus is saying, suffer the little children who come unto me. But Peter and John say, now wait a minute, Peter and Matthew, listen, the Lord is tired.

He's had a long day, a lot of sick people. We've been doing this now for several weeks, going from village to village throughout all of Galilee, teaching and preaching and healing the sick. And he has had it.

He's tired. We'll be back sometime. Please go home, ladies. It's real late. And the Lord Jesus looks over their heads and sees them and says, suffer the little children. Let them come to me. Bring them here in the way parts and they come.

That's what's happening there. That's what's taking place. This man, the Lord Jesus, loves the little children and he loves the people. And so he wets his two fingers and lays them on those blind eyes and when he lifts them, the first sight in the eye of that little child is the mother whose voice he's come to love and to trust.

And those paralyzed, palsied arms reach out and touch the cheek, the first controlled motion that the little child has ever been able to make. And the disciples, well, what's all this about you poor babies?

We've got to get on with this kingdom business. We ought to be down in Jerusalem. What I'm trying to get you to see is what's in the heart of the disciples. You see, you can be a follower of Jesus and know him so well that we don't know him at all.

We can be so pally with Jesus that we haven't any idea in the world who he is or how he feels. And that's what was true with the disciples. They knew him so well, they didn't know him at all. So on this day, as the Lord Jesus is coming, I see it as market day.

There's a little swale there, perhaps some trees about, and all the people from various villages have gathered on this one day a month market. And so there is quite a crowd. He calls it a multitude. And as he walks up over the edge of this little rise that shields the market scene from view as they were coming, the Lord Jesus comes to the crest of this little rise and he looks down and he sees just from far as he can see people and all that goes on in an open air market.

And as he sees them, the disciples notice that he's beginning to sink. The words in that verse said, he was moved with compassion, but the literal in the Greek is, he almost fainted with compassion. Now who was he looking at?

Seeing the Lost in Our Own Communities

Was he looking at the people from distant lands in China, in Africa, in South America? Who was it that moved him so? Of whom could he say, sheep scattered without a shepherd? I'll tell you who they were.

They were the people that lived in his own community. They spoke the same language he spoke. They ate the same food that he ate. They lived in the same area that he lived. Perhaps he knew many of them, or some of them at least.

And when he saw them, he saw these as sheep scattered without a shepherd. It's very easy for us to be deeply moved about the people in Latin America or in Africa or in Asia because they're there and they look so pitiful.

But when we look on the people that live on the same block we do that drive good automobiles and mow their lawn with a power mower, eat with silverware and sleep between sheets, we see them. It's a little bit hard for us to think of them as sheep scattered without a shepherd.

But it wasn't hard for the Lord Jesus. And sometimes we who are his servants and follow him, name his name, get the feeling that the service from God takes place within the four walls where we meet. This is not the place where we serve God.

This is the place where we're taught, where we're instructed, where we're refreshed, where we're guided into the resources that are ours in Christ. And we begin our service when we leave, not when we come in.

The problem is that so many of us are like the disciples. We've got some other agenda, some other program, some other priority that we want to use the Lord for. And instead of letting him live through us and love through us and win through us, we're trying to use him to forward our agenda and our program as were the disciples trying to use him to get him to the throne, get him into office because they were going to benefit from it.

Believe me, they were. They were practical men. And they knew that you don't go fishing unless you expect to bring back fish. They made their living that way. And you don't leave your nets where you can catch fish every day and follow somebody that you'll believe is the next king unless you're expecting that when he gets to the throne, he's going to remember who helped him get there.

The Great Harvest and the World's Unreached Multitudes

So here we have a picture of the disciples. Here we see the disciples. When he saw them, he was moved with compassion. And he knew their hearts. He knew all about them. And so he turned to them and what should have been his force became his field.

And the first thing he said was to his disciples, the harvest truly is plenteous, but the laborers are few. I don't want to dwell on how extensive the harvest is, give you statistics. I could do that.

Give you statistics of the number of missionaries and so on. You're familiar with that. Oh, I'd just like to bring to you the words of that song that were sung by Dr. Simpson a hundred years ago. Remember it?

You've heard it. You've sung it. Heard it sung. A hundred thousand souls a day are passing one by one away in priceless guilt and gloom. Without one ray of hope or light with future dark is endless night.

They are passing, passing to their doom. That was true when Dr. Simpson sang it. A hundred years ago it was about a hundred thousand souls a day, but the population of the world has nearly trebled since that time.

And with all of our television, with all of our radio, with all of our printing presses, with all of the means we have of communication, the fact is that it's nearly three hundred thousand souls a day that are dying without ever having heard the name of Christ.

Nearly three times as many as there were. In 1950, as deputation secretary for the Sudan Interior Mission, I was having a Bible and missionary conference in the Mikado Baptist Church in Macon, Georgia.

The pastor had invited for this particular day of the week ten other pastors in the neighborhood where I was already had had a missionary conference or was scheduled to have a missionary conference for a day of seminar in which we discussed, and I tried to share with them, how they could make their missionary conference more effective than what they had known.

Some of them had never had one. Some of them had had one, but they wanted it to be more effective. ...going to happen...travel...learned about the past...on the best projection we could have. I was very discouraged about it.

I went to that group, and I hoped they wouldn't ask me about it. I had promised I'd have it. I had the information. I had the projections worked out. They were available for them if they wanted me. But they did ask, and I told them.

And they said, what does it mean for you? I said, all it means is we're going to have to run as fast as we can to stay in place. Just to keep up, we're going to have to run very, very fast. But I said, I do not know how to break this chain.

That was what stirred my heart with hunger. And I went back again to the Word. And I discovered that we had a program, we had a plan, we had methods, we had everything except the power of the Holy Ghost.

The Holy Spirit's Power for Gospel Witness

And I began to read the Word of God again. And I had discovered that, for instance, in John 17, the Lord Jesus said, Father, I in union with them, thou in union with me, that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and then that the world may be able to believe that thou hast sent me.

And so I had to conclude that the only way that we could possibly complete the task given to us by the Lord was for a mighty outpouring of Christianity. Then I saw the charismatic movement come, and I said, here it is.

The Holy Ghost has come upon you. You shall receive power, and you shall be witnesses unto me. There seemed to be a contentment just to play with the supernatural. Father, games with the Holy Spirit rather than to get out to the ends of the earth with the message of my Savior.

There is only one possible way that this vast harvest of new labor can ever have the task completed, and that is if we have the prayer of the Lord Jesus Christ answered, the provision of the Lord Jesus Christ appropriated, and the plan of the Lord Jesus Christ followed.

And he said, if we did, the world would know, and the world would be able to believe. That's the only hope. That's why I rejoice to be in a church with a new beginning, because I dare to believe that you're going to go to the Word and find out what the provisions of God's grace are.

That's one of the reasons I had the temerity, the rashness, to put those tapes out there, because not here but elsewhere, to make them available, because I've spent fifty years trying to find what the Word of God teaches that will enable God's people to become the kind of missionaries, the kind of witnesses that the Lord wants them to be.

And I can't go everywhere, throwing the burden on every community. So we're taught by this man, Francis, the whole purpose, listen, everything God provided for his children was to enable us to be effective witnesses for Christ and to complete the task that he gave to his church of getting the gospel out to the ends of the earth.

Praying for Laborers to Enter the Harvest

So he said, the harvest is great, and the labors are few. I won't dwell on that longer. I move to the next verse. Pray ye, the Lord of the harvest, that he will thrust out labors into the harvest. I was here on debt and furlough.

I had the opportunity, I had matriculated at Southern Baptist Seminary. I thought I was going to attend. I told you I looked at the books, saw that there were books in which I, some of which I'd read, wasn't interested, and the others, which I wasn't even interested enough to read.

I was supposed to study them. So I matriculated one day and dematriculated the next day. They told me I had to pay one month's room rent, so I said, well, in that case, I'm going to stay here and use it up.

I'm just going to live here. If I was good enough to be a student, I'm good enough to stay in the dorm, I want to have spiritual influence. So during that month there, I was invited to speak to the church, and I began, and the Lord led me to this day.

And I had brought with me from my library, Zayer's Speak English Lexicon, Strong's Concordance, and I was there at the library of Southern Baptist Seminary where I had all the help. And I started to parse every word or to analyze every word in that text.

I'll never forget the day when I saw what this verse really says. I'm going to read it to you, give it to you. And I said, it's right, but I wouldn't touch it with a ten-foot pole. I said, why? Because he said, the implications of it are explosive, and I don't want to get involved with anything like that.

I said, is it correct? He said, it's correct. That's what the text says. You've analyzed it properly. Pray the Lord of the harvest. I used to wonder why, when God loved the world and gave his son, and the son loved the world and gave his life, and God raised his son from the dead, why he turned around and says, now you pray that I'll thrust out some labor.

It didn't make sense to me. It didn't make sense at all. If God had gone that far, why didn't he go the rest of the way? Then it says, so that he may be able to thrust out. Oh, I began to ask questions.

You can believe I began to ask questions. What have our sinners, savingly embraced Jesus Christ as Lord and as Savior, and have been translated into the kingdom of his dear son? He's saying, look, out there are your kinsmen, if you wanted to do it.

God loved us and washed them into sinners. And it's our responsibility to legally represent those sinners before God. I'll give you a picture. Years ago, when the missionaries first went from the Sudanterian mission into Nigeria, there was very little support, very little interest, very little cooperation.

Intercessory Prayer and Missionary Breakthrough

Walter Gowan, Tom Kent, and Bingham stayed here at this end to hold the ropes while they went in. And within just a few months after they landed in Lagos, Nigeria, both Walter Gowan and Tom Kent had died, because they were in Satan's territory, and there had not been an intercessory breakthrough.

They could be slain. They were vulnerable. They were vulnerable. Some years later, Dr. Andrew Stewart worked his way to England on a cattle boat, went down to Nigeria, but he had, in the course of getting ready to go, been getting a group of people to intercede, to turn back the power of darkness in Nigeria.

And Dr. Stewart went in, and he began to witness. He began to preach, and God began to honor him. One missionary in the Sudan interior mission, just one. And then there was a fellow that applied to the Christian Missionary Alliance and was turned down because he had a mother that needed to be cared for.

And he didn't have the right education. But he spent a little time there with Dr. Simpson, and God infused his heart with a great love for the Lord Jesus and the belief that signs and miracles were for today.

And Tommy Titcombe began to get people to pray, to pray, to pray, to pray that God would turn back the power of darkness, and he could go into a tribe of which he'd learned the lure of a tribe. And they interceded, and they cried out to God.

Tommy Titcombe finally got to Nigeria, carried his entire outfit on his back, made it into a pact. He had straps over his shoulders. Everything he was going to have from then until he came back was on his back.

And he went in, and he met Dr. Stewart. They had a staff meeting, a field meeting, and it was unanimously decided that it was unfair for one tribe to have two missionaries when the big Yoruba tribe didn't have any.

Tommy Titcombe went in to the Yoruba tribe. When he left the main path, the trade path, and went off into Yoruba country, there was a vine across the path with human skulls. And as he went under, the top of his back hit the vine, and all he could hear was the rattle of those skulls as he walked down the path.

The skulls said, don't come in here, or your head's going to be up here along with the rest. And some of them were pretty green, hadn't been there very long. They'd been eaten in cannibal feasts. Tommy went on, because he had prayed, and there were people praying and interceding.

And he said, I'd have never dared to have gone if I didn't know that there were a group of people that had promised to pray continuously around the clock, interceding, to turning back the power of Satan so the gospel could get planted.

Tommy Titcombe's Bold Witness in Yoruba Country

He walked into the village where the paramount chief lived, walked right up to the chief, who was sitting there with a lot of his people around him. He threw his pack off his back, and he said, where am I going to sleep?

I've come to live with you. And his arrogance and his boldness took him by surprise and probably amused him. He said, what do you mean? He said, I'm going to stay here. I'm going to live with you. And I want to know where I'm going to sleep.

I'm tired. I've been walking a long way. And the chief said, well, over there is the widow. Her husband died, and his grave is right in the middle of the hut. You can sleep on the grave. So Tommy went in, laid his bedroll out on the grave, and that's where he slept.

He said, I never asked what I ate, but I knew that some of the things I saw around there didn't look like any animal I'd ever seen that had worn hair or looked awful. I never asked. God said, whatsoever you eat, just give thanks.

So I didn't have to worry about it. I had to live. And he said, they wouldn't let me preach. I told them I was there, and they said, we don't want to hear that talk. Which doctor said, you ought to be killed anyway.

We ought to eat you. You shouldn't be here. He said, well, I'm here, and I'm going to stay here, and you can't touch me. So at night, Tommy couldn't preach in the village, but at night, he'd sneak out of the hut, and he'd crawl up, go up on the rocks overlooking the village, and he'd lay down at the precipice where there's sharp rock, and he'd lean down, and he'd shout the gospel down, midnight.

And it would seep through the straw of the roofs, and people would hear it. They called him a yimbo egbe, the little peeled man of egbe. They thought his skin had been taken off. That's why he was white.

And here he is, the yimbo egbe's up there, and he's preaching the gospel at midnight. Midnight. And he's doing this for a long time, and there were twelve people that came to him that became disciples.

And he moved outside of town, and he built a little hut, and every morning, these twelve would come and have prayer with him. This particular morning, while they were at prayer, they heard war cry. They heard chanting.

They heard death call. They heard crying out to the evil spirits. As Tommy and these twelve were there in prayer and worship, they heard and knew what it was. The witch doctor had stirred up the people.

They were going to take all twelve of them up to the hill and sacrifice them to the evil spirits. They stayed there for thirteen days. They had a little water. They rationed it. They had a little food.

They rationed that. And they just stayed there and worshiped the Lord. Tommy said during that time one night, he saw the Lord Jesus. It was the only time he ever saw him, ever was revealed. And the Lord Jesus said, It's all right.

Just stay here. This is going to be the greatest victory they've ever had. On the thirteenth day, the Lord told them that when the people go up to the hill to pray, because they hadn't been able to break into that little house, they had flaming arrows and they wouldn't shoot them.

They would rush and stop. They didn't know why. Later on, one of the men who was converted who had been calling for their death said, Well, of course we couldn't get in there. All those men in white were standing around you, and they wouldn't let us get to you.

Well, we didn't see any men in white. You didn't? Well, we sure saw them. They wouldn't let us get anywhere near you. They were there. And the Spirit of God said, Tommy, now is the time. Take them out.

So they went out. The people, the warriors had all gone up to the top of the hill. And Tommy went down into the center of the village under the spirit tree where all the skulls and bones of those who had been eaten in cannibal sacrifice were hiding.

And he stood under that sacred spirit tree. After a little while, the people came back. They saw the footprints of those who had gone out of the house. The house was empty. And they saw them under the spirit tree.

And the people were afraid, these twelve men with them. They hadn't eaten very well. They were under an awful lot of strain. Tommy said, That's all right. Don't worry. Everything's fine. And with the witch doctor in the lead in the front and the warriors coming with their upraised spears rushing at these thirteen men standing there, Tommy waited until they were just about ready to throw their spears.

And he stood up and said, In the name of Jesus Christ, Son of the living God, stop! And he said they leaned over like they were on a cable and just stopped in a straight line. And then they'd been using words of one of their chants, and he took the same chant and he began to give the gospel.

He said, Do you like that? Yeah. If you like that, make your mouth like a crocodile. Open your mouth. Then he went on. The witch doctor said, Listen, you're finished. You're gone. You're done. You leave, or else you get down here and pray to Jesus Christ to save you.

Well, the witch doctor crept off, and later he came to Christ. Tommy preached the gospel. A miracle had happened. And he went back, and he stayed there. He said, If any of you would like to meet Jesus, come tomorrow morning, and I'll talk to you.

He thought maybe one or two would come. When he woke up and got up the next morning, and he looked outside, light enough to see, there were over 400 people, a group of 10, a group of 12, 3, a husband and wife, all around the station.

And in the next six weeks, 1 ,500 people professed faith in Jesus. There came a time when there was a smallpox plague in the area. And the elders of the church came and said, What are we going to do? And he said, Lord, what are we going to do?

And the Lord said, You tell them that anyone who moves onto the mission compound will never get smallpox. Can you imagine? So he said it, and the drums carried the message, Anyone who moves up with the Yimbo Egbe on the ground of the mission will never get smallpox.

And hundreds of people moved on, and no one got smallpox. Another time, there was a terrible drought. They planted their corn when the rains came, and then it dried up. They planted the rest of their seed, it dried up, and now they were hungry.

No rain. They were going to be hungry, they were going to starve. And the elders came and said, The Yimbo Egbe, the Muslims have sacrificed, they've prayed, there's been no rain. The pagans have sacrificed, there's been no rain.

When are we going to pray? He said, What promise do we have from God to pray for rain? Why? said the elders. Elijah was a man of like passions, and he prayed and it rained. He said, Call for a prayer meeting tonight.

We will pray for rain. So the drums, which were the media of the area, carried the message out. The Muslims prayed, no rain. The pagans prayed, no rain. The Christians are going to pray. Now we'll see whose God is the Lord.

Miracles, Healing, and the Demonstration of God's Power

The hour was set for the prayer meeting. Tommy went down, the sky was still light early in the evening. There wasn't a cloud anywhere in the sky. There wasn't a cloud the size of a man's hand. But when he stepped inside this large shelter where they met, he knew there'd be rain.

Because the side aisles were filled with rain hats, the big hats of the rain that kept them from getting wet. They'd stoop over and they had this woven mat on their back. They went to prayer. After they'd prayed for about a half an hour, Tommy said we heard on that tin roof, blink.

And then a little later we heard, blink, blink. And then a little later, blink, blink, blink. And he said in less than two minutes we couldn't hear who was praying. The thunder of the rain on the roof.

It rained all that night. It rained all the next day. It rained the next night. It rained the next day. And that afternoon the elders came and said, Elijah also prayed that it wouldn't rain. Don't you think it's time we said, Lord, we've had enough for a little while.

And so they prayed and the rain stopped. Tommy was working in the dispensary. He reached up to get a bottle of sulfuric acid. It slipped out of his hand and he had a protrusion on the shelf. It burst and raw sulfuric acid came into his eyes and on his face.

He immediately put water in it, went to the house, put some milk in it, went to bed, and sent a boy 40 miles to the next missionary to have him come to help. And the message went out in the church. He woke up.

He had had rest. He was in great pain, but he slept a little. And then he heard a voice outside the window. Two elderly women had started to pray. They prayed all that night. They prayed all the next day.

They prayed the next night. They stayed there in prayer. And it was the following day, the next day, that the missionary got there. And he said he came. He was so sorry. He just laid down by Tommy on the bed and took him in his arms and started to sob.

And Tommy said, No, no, no. Don't sob. I want to have my sight. He said, How do you know? These women have asked Jesus and He's going to give me my sight. But Tommy, your eyes have been burned away. Oh, what's that with Jesus?

He can put them back again. And when they took the towel off, Tommy's eyes had been restored. They'd been burned away. It was so good. When he was with me, we were outside a good bit. He'd get his face tanned, but where the skin had been burned away, there was no scar tissue, it never tanned.

Authority in Christ and the Ministry of Intercession

What had happened? Tommy learned one thing. That you have to pray the Lord in the harvest so that He'll be able to thrust out labors into the harvest field. He didn't go until he had a group of people that would intercede, that would claim the blood of Jesus, that would stand on the victory of Calvary, that would resist the enemy, that would exercise the authority that's ours in Christ to open the way into the ear of a tribe.

Money is bound by the God of this world. Tribes are bound by the God of this world. Hearts are bound by the God of this world. And they're all released by intercessory prayer, by the authority of the believer in believing prayer.

We've got to teach our people this. We've got to learn this. That it's not by mind, it's not by power, but it's by that which God has given to us and invested in us, that which the Lord Jesus purchased with His poured out blood.

Tommy Titcombe's Final Return to Nigeria

Tommy told me he was going back to Nigeria. It's going to be my last visit, I know. The Lord has told me I can go once more. He labored there for over 40 years. The church had grown to thousands and thousands and thousands of believers.

Sunday morning he spoke in the church. Unknown to him, the church leaders, the national church leaders, had said to the people, come and see a yinboegbe. We'll never see his face again until we see him in the presence of Jesus.

Some people had started on Saturday walking. Others started on Friday. Some had their service in the morning and walked in. Tommy had just seen the people at the local church. He'd preached to them. Gone to the missionary's home for dinner.

Everything was very quiet. The people had been instructed, don't make any noise. There was a truck. They pushed the truck back right in front of the mission house. They put a chair on the back of it, a sofa chair.

Tommy had his dinner and said, well, we'd better go. I've got to get into Lagos so I can leave to go back to Toronto. That's right, Tommy. And when they came out, the whole village was filled with people.

Not a sound. Who were these? Tommy looked. There were the elders. There was one of the men, very old now, who'd been a young man with him those 13 days in that house. There was another elder who'd been one of the warriors that had called for his life.