August 1, 2018 Show with Vince & Samuel Ward on “Pursuit of Glory: A Disciple’s Journey with Jesus”

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Live from the historic parsonage of 19th century gospel minister George Norcross in downtown

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Carlisle, Pennsylvania, it's Iron Sharpens Iron, a radio platform on which pastors,

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Christian scholars and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today.

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Proverbs 27 verse 17 tells us, Iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.

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Matthew Henry said that in this passage, we are cautioned to take heed whom we converse with and directed to have in view in conversation to make one another wiser and better.

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It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next hour and we hope to hear from you, the listener, with your own questions.

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Now here's our host, Chris Arnton. Good afternoon

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Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida and the rest of humanity living on the planet

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Earth who are listening via live streaming at Iron Sharpens Iron radio .com. This is

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Chris Arnton, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron radio, wishing you all a happy Wednesday on this first day of August 2018.

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I'm so delighted to have on the program for the very first time a father and son team.

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They are a father and son Reform Presbyterian veterans of South Sudan's mission field and they are co -authors of the book we are going to be discussing,

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Pursuit of Glory, A Disciple's Journey with Jesus, a publication of Crown and Covenant publications.

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And it's my honor and privilege to welcome you both for the first time ever to Iron Sharpens Iron radio,

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Vince and Samuel Ward. Thank you so much. Well, first of all, let's get an overview before we enter into the topic of your book and even enter into your personal testimonies of salvation, which

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I always have included, or at least most of the time I have included when

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I'm interviewing first -time guests. But before that, if you could give us an overview of the book

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Pursuit of Glory, A Disciple's Journey with Jesus that Crown and Covenant has just recently published.

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Sure. So this is a deal. It's two books in one. So I wrote about two -thirds the length of the book and then my son

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Samuel wrote the last third. And for my part, I'm telling the story of my life, my journey with Jesus.

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And it begins with my youth and how God saved me by sovereign grace and then called me to the mission field.

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And that was a long journey to get to South Sudan, but involved equipping, getting married, and finally getting established as a team in South Sudan and serving there for almost 10 years.

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And so Samuel can share a little bit, just summarizing his part of the book. Yeah, so my part of the book is,

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I wrote it about three years ago when I was much younger, and it basically just gives an overview or description of my growing up years in South Sudan, just to give people an idea what missionary life was like from the eyes of a child.

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And so there are many different stories in there and just different experiences that I share about that can give a person a better idea of what that was all about.

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Terrific. Well, now I would like to have each of your salvation testimonies in summary form.

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We typically ask our first -time guests to describe what kind of religious atmosphere, if any, they were raised in.

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And obviously, although many people don't recognize this, even if you are raised in an atheist home, you were raised with a religious upbringing.

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It was just a very wrong one. But if you could tell us about that, what kind of religion you were raised in, if any, and also what providential circumstances did our

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Sovereign Lord bring about in your life that drew you to himself and saved you? Sure.

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Just maybe to situate our learners, sorry, the listeners there, I was born in Quebec City, which is the

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French province of Canada, and my parents raised my sister and I in a Christian home, leading us to a

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Christ -centered home, Christ -like example, bringing us into the means of grace in local church.

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But it's interesting, I wasn't baptized, even though my parents are Presbyterian, I wasn't baptized as a child, because at the time they were going to an

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Anglican church in Quebec City, and my father was remembering how the minister would say to the parents that with baptism a child is regenerate, and that was not fitting with his theology.

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But, so I was not baptized as a child, but we moved to Ottawa when I was five, and for those listening,

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Ottawa is the capital of Canada, and my parents found a

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Presbyterian church that we attended as a family throughout my youth, and as I mention in the book,

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I was a young, driven boy seeking the prize of glory in competitive swimming in particular as my main sport, and pursued that for 12 years, and yet fell far short of my dreams.

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And as I was clearly not achieving my goals, I had anger with God, and I sought comfort in distraction, in other ambitions, but also immoral relationships and partying, all to escape from reality.

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The reality was that I was lost, and later in my teens I stopped going to church.

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I remember one day my mom asked me if I was going to come with them, and I said no, and she looked at me with real obvious loving concern, and she said,

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I fear for you that you are spiritually dead. And she was right,

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I was spiritually dead, and though I thought I was alive, I assumed that I was a Christian, but really there was no evidence of that at all.

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I had conviction of sin, I would confess my sin, I had seasons in my life where I would redouble my efforts to to live, as many young people say, on fire for God, but I was still bound to my own lust, uh, carrying the burden of sin, and I didn't know what to do.

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I, as though I knew I was shackled, and I didn't know how to be set free. So it really was in the summer of 1996, and I was in the middle of my university studies, where God regenerated me,

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He set me free, and it was at a Christian camp, a camp that I would go to every summer, and this time

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I was a counselor, and I was listening intently to the speaker, and he used very simple terms, but he was describing substitutionary atonement, double imputation, all the doctrines that I now come to know and love, and God opened my ears to hear the glorious gospel.

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And immediately coming back from that camp, I dove into Christian fellowship with the university group there, and I tried to find the most committed

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Christian I could find to latch onto, and I invited myself to a person's church, and it was the

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Reformed Presbyterian Church of Ottawa. And the following summer, I was baptized and came into membership, and that's where my formation began.

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So that's the story of God giving me a new heart, new affections for His glory. Amen. And before we go on to Samuel's personal testimony, how was it that you specifically came to embrace, by the grace of God, the doctrines of the sovereign grace of God?

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How did you come into Reformed theology, and even more specifically, the Reformed Presbyterian Church of North America, otherwise known as the

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RPCNA, and the Covenanters, they were also nicknamed.

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Tell us about that. Sure. Yeah, so it was interesting, I was a new believer at this church that I started attending,

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Reformed Presbyterian Church of Ottawa, and I was clueless. I mean, honestly, I grew up going to church, but I didn't know the

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Bible at all, so it was starting from scratch, and just soaking in the good teaching there.

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And that following summer, as I'd just been baptized, I started listening to tapes from the pastor on Julep and the doctrines of grace, and so that was my first introduction to it.

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I was, again, soaking that in, and at our church, there's a small seminary called

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Ottawa Theological Hall, and that's where I received my theological formation, and I came under care, we call it coming under care as a student, and also going through the presbytery exams and being ordained in 2006.

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So I received all my equipping and my theology there at that local church in Ottawa.

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Now, how did you know that the Lord placed it upon your heart to enter into the mission field?

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Sure. Well, I finished University of Ottawa with a degree in physical therapy, and I thought this was a great location to serve people, but God really started to impress on me that I, people that would really benefit from that kind of care in needy countries like Africa, and so I took a trip in 1999, a summer mission trip, and I saw how

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I could use physical therapy in hospitals there. I came back from that experience wanting to go back to Africa right away, and so I put together a proposal to my elders saying,

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I'd love to go back to Africa, preach the gospel, and also do physical therapy.

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They said, well, what are you going to preach? And, you know, are you going to be planting churches when people get saved?

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And so they encouraged me to go through the whole theological formation process at Ottawa Theological Hall, and I really struggled with that advice, because I wanted to go back to Africa right away, but I submitted to the

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Lord's sovereign will again, and it was the next day on my way to the clinic when

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God just impressed on my heart very strongly that God was calling me to Sudan in particular.

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These were people that I had met in Ottawa. I'd met also in Kenya on that trip, and so God was giving me a people to serve, and so over many years,

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God directed us to a particular place in Sudan, and that was the beginning of a ministry that we launched formally in 2006.

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Praise God. And before we move on again to Samuel, can you give us something, a description about the

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Reformed Presbyterian Church of North America that sets it apart from not only other Calvinistic, Reformed, and Sovereign Grace -believing bodies, denominations, and fellowships, and congregations, but it even is set apart in certain ways from other conservative

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Presbyterians. Sure. We trace our heritage back to the

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Scottish Covenanters, and I know there were splits there, and basically when

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Scottish and Irish Reformed Presbyterians settled in Canada and America, they formed themselves as a synod, as the

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RPCNA, and the distinction, I would say, in terms of how the other

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Presbyterian churches have streamed in as well. Basically, we believe in the mediatorial kingship of Christ, that's a term that's very common within our circles, in that Christ is sovereign over church and state overall, and also the worship, where we have exclusive psalmody, so singing of the

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Psalms, we have our own Book of Worship, where it is the Book of Psalms without musical instruments, and the preaching of the

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Gospel. I think what had happened in the RPCNA in the early 1900s, there was a liberal stream that was flowing through, and mid -1900s, it began to turn around.

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There was tremendous decline, but now there's a real emphasis on the Gospel and discipleship in our denomination.

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Oh, praise God, I wasn't even aware that there was at one point a liberal turn in the

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RPCNA, I didn't know that. Yeah, there was some moralism that was creeping in, and there was definitely significant decline.

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There were almost 100 churches in Canada at one point, and now it's dwindled down to one church in Canada, and now it's revived to,

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I think there's seven or eight congregations in Canada. So yeah, definitely turning around.

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And if I'm not mistaken, I think you're also one of the few Presbyterian denominations that believes in total abstinence from alcohol, am

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I right on that? That definitely is part of our history, where elders were asked to make a vow of abstinence, but that was turned in the early 2000s,

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I believe, so that's no longer there, and so that's part of the history, but no longer present.

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I see. And I don't know if you even know this, and I believe that is historically accurate, but I was told a number of years ago that the

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Reformed Presbyterians were the first Christian denomination in the

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South that were opposed to slavery, openly. That is correct, definitely part of our heritage.

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They were involved in the Underground Railroad, and speaking out politically against slavery, and very strongly so.

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Praise God. All right, now Samuel, we'd love to hear your testimony, of course an abbreviated version of it, on how the

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Lord got a hold of you and saved you, and also convicted you in the beliefs of what we call

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Reformed theology. Yeah, so all my life, really,

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I'd grown up in a Reformed family, so all those doctrines, we were taught those things, and it was a really big emphasis on Reformed theology.

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So I learned it at a rather early age, and but in terms of salvation itself,

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I would, I knew about God's presence, I knew He was there, but, and I knew how much

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I needed to repent because of my sin. And so there was a period in my life where every single sin

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I committed, I was paranoid about, you know, repenting before God, and I didn't feel like it was enough because I doubted my salvation.

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There were many times I can remember, I just become a Christian again, because I felt like up to that point,

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I was not a Christian, and I needed to recommit my life to Christ, and it happened over and over and over.

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And somewhere along the line, that changed, and honestly, I don't remember when, but there came within me just an assurance of salvation that I was saved by grace in Christ through faith, and that I no longer needed to continue to come before God and ask for salvation, because it was already granted to me.

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And so, it was just this reality dawning upon me, you know, when

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Jesus Christ, 2 ,000 years ago, said, it is finished. He was meaning that all the sins of the elect, past, present, and future, were paid for, and those included my sins.

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And so, I was really thankful for that. Honestly, I'm not sure when that happened, but it did, and I stopped doubting my salvation, and I was freer to pursue

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Christ. Another big thing that affected that was when I moved back to Canada, I felt like I was almost having a war with God, because I really did not want to move back.

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Are you saying move back from the Sudan, you mean? Yeah, moving back from South Sudan to Canada.

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Wow, you wanted to stay in South Sudan. Wow. I certainly did, yes. I was struggling with the painful reality of leaving the mission field, and I really just didn't want to submit to God's will because of that, but I've been back three years now.

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It was a rather smooth transition, and it's amazing, because I'm not really fighting

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His will anymore. He's given me the peace and resonation to that, and just that, you know,

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His will is best. He has the best plan for my life, and He knows what's gonna happen.

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And so, that was really wonderful. It was a really wonderful realization in my life, and so even now, you know,

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I don't know what's gonna happen, but I'm praying that God would use me for His name and His service, and that I wouldn't take my eyes off Him, whatever

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I do. Amen. And please forgive me if you already said this, but Samuel, were you born on the mission field, or were you just brought there as a young child?

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I was born in Canada, Ottawa, Canada, and I moved to the mission field when I was two. Okay, so you probably don't remember anything but the mission field from when you were two to when you left

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Sudan. Yeah, pretty much don't remember anything, yeah. Wow. Except the mission field. Well, I'm gonna give our listeners our email address if they would like to join us on the air with a question of their own.

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It's ChrisArnzen at gmail .com, C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com.

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Please give us your first name at least, your city and state, and your country of residence if you live outside the

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USA, and please only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter.

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That's C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com. We already have a question for the both of you.

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We have Arnie in Perry County, Pennsylvania, who asks,

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I am dying to find out exactly what the circumstances were like in Southern Sudan where you were ministering on the mission field.

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Please give us as much of a vivid, detailed description as you can, including the culture and religion of those that surrounded you, the friendships that you may have made, and so on.

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We can start with Vince this time. Sure. That's a big question.

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That will take us to the rest of the program, I guess. Or you can just read the book. Yeah. So let me give a bit of a historical geographical picture here.

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So Sudan was one country since independence in 1956, and then in 2011,

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Sudan divided in two, with South Sudan now as the new country, the newest country, and Sudan remaining.

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It's own country. And we lived in one location just near the border of Sudan.

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And so that's what we know best in terms of what Sudan, South Sudan was and is.

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And we lived in a village. So if you can picture all around, it's savanna, it's a lot of tall grass and trees.

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It has a rainy season where everything gets very muddy. But you have crops growing very tall, like sorghum way over your head, and other crops, groundnuts, peanuts.

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Now, is sorghum the crop that you get bubblegum from? Chewing gum?

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Oh, I'm not sure, actually. But that's what you said the crop was. I don't think so. Okay.

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Did you mention, that was what you mentioned, right? Sorghum? Yeah, sorghum. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. You may get bubblegum from it.

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I'm not sure at all. Okay. Well, I'm sorry. That's okay. So that's their staple grain, and then peanuts as well for their sauce.

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They have fish, they have rivers around. And in terms of the dry season, that's really when it's very parched, very hot.

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It gets into the 50s Celsius and 120, up to 120

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Fahrenheit. So very dry and hot. It is a beautiful landscape.

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It has lots of beautiful birds, and it can be a very beautiful place.

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Now, the beauty of the place is really the people, and that's why we were there. The Dinka people, the ones we were working with, they were very much localized in that area.

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It's quite a densely populated area compared to other places in South Sudan. And the

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Dinka tribe are the largest tribe in South Sudan, about 40 % or so. And we learn their language, we learn their culture.

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We lived in a village like them for four and a half years, in a mud hut with grass thatched roof.

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And if you were to pass by, you wouldn't think that any Westerners lived there initially.

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And we wanted to really integrate ourselves within the community there.

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And Samuel is better at painting pictures than I am.

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So that's a picture landscape of the place.

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Did you remind me of similar aspects of that question again? I'm sorry, your voice began to become garbled.

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You have to repeat what you just said, I'm sorry. Could you ask some of the parts of that question again?

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Oh, the religion and elements of the culture of those surrounding you, and if you made any friends and so on.

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Obviously you must have made friends along the way. Sure, yeah. So the religion of the people there is

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Christian, primarily in name, but only recently in the last ten years where people really have come to true faith in Christ, and in large numbers.

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Before that, it was people identifying themselves as Christian or just Catholic, because that's really the church that was there for the last 50 years, and yet still practicing their traditional religion.

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And in that place, the Catholic Church allows for witchcraft and for them mixing in.

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We talk about syncretism and missions, that's very much the case there in that area. Yeah, I think that historically the

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Catholic Church has been involved in that for centuries, in syncretism with all kinds of pagan cultures.

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Exactly. So that's the case there, but more evangelical churches have come in, including the one that we helped to plant.

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They have brought in the true gospel, and that has brought Reformation in many ways to the area.

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And because we had a radio station that was reaching far and wide, we have hundreds of thousands of listeners, and bringing the gospel every day, morning and evening, with the programming there.

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So the religious landscape has changed dramatically in the last ten years.

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So the surroundings wouldn't be so primitive that people didn't have radios and so on,

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I'm assuming, from what you just said. Well, initially, very few radios were found in the area.

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Only those who were rich and working with the government or with NGOs could afford a radio. But the organization that we partnered with, called

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Every Village, they have brought in, I think, maybe 60 ,000 solar -powered six -tune handheld radios, so that if these radios are shared and listened to by several others, that brings tens of thousands of people listening to those radios.

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And then also, with cell phone companies coming in, people can listen to the

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FM station on their phone. And like right now, it's pretty much the case.

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Most adults in that area would have a phone now. Even if they're still living the traditional life in the village, they'd have a phone, so they'd have access to radios like that, radio stations.

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Now, when you said that the average family were nominal

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Catholic or somehow influenced by the Catholic Church, when you were there laboring in the mission field in South Sudan, were there right nearby you remaining

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Roman Catholic missionaries? Had they abandoned that area? Obviously, if they were present, they would become aware that you were teaching people that a

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Romish gospel was a false gospel, and that they had to abandon any concepts of trusting in their own works, trusting in the merits of Mary and the saints, praying to Mary and the saints, praying that you were opposed to praying to images, kneeling before God.

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Or images bowing to them, viewing them as having power infused in them somehow, and enabled to create miracles, all kinds of things, superstitions, and idolatrous teachings of the

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Church of Rome. Tell us about that kind of conflict that may have existed there. Well, there were missionaries.

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There was one American missionary in another county. He left, and the ones that are really there are priests that are coming from Uganda or Kenya, and unfortunately, they've really given a terrible witness to the

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Catholic members with lifestyles of immorality and drunkenness.

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This is the missionaries? These are priests. Wow. And Kenyan priests, yeah.

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Wow. And you know, the good thing, you mentioned a lot of what is part of Rome, and because it's such a primitive, or let me say, undeveloped area, the churches that are started, these

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Catholic chapels, they call them, they will listen to the radio station, and we have so much more influence on these catechists than the

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Catholic Church, their priest or whoever, because they might see them maybe once or twice a year, but they're listening to this gospel radio station, and they model their preaching often after the men that we've trained to be pastors and are preaching on the radio.

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And so, there aren't too many images in these grass -thatched chapels, though they will have celebrations for the former pioneer missionary of Sudan, his name is

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Daniel Kamboni. They'll have a Kamboni Day, they'll have a Mary Day, they'll have their

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Holy Days, let me call them, but when it comes to the message that is preached, there's been a tremendous influence, and an open door to influence these catechists.

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Well, we have to go to our first break right now, and by the way, Arnie in Perry County, you have won a free copy of Pursuit of Glory, A Disciple's Journey with Jesus, the book written by both of our guests today,

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Vince and Samuel Ward, compliments of Crown and Covenant Publications, and also compliments of CVBBS, Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, we'll be shipping that book out to you, so please make sure we have your full mailing address in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, I'm sorry, in Perry County, Pennsylvania.

30:17

We're going to our first break right now, if anybody would like to get online and ask a question of your own, our email address is chrisarnzen at gmail .com,

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C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com. As always, please remember to give us at least your first name, your city and state, and your country of residence if you live outside the

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USA. Don't go away, God willing, we'll be right back after these messages from our sponsors. Chris Arnzen, host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio here,

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Solid Ground Christian Books is honored to be a weekly sponsor of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. Hi, I'm Pastor Bill Shishko, inviting you to tune in to A Visit to the

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Pastor's Study every Saturday from 12 noon to 1 pm Eastern Time on WLIE Radio.

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www .wlie540am .com.

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We bring biblically faithful pastoral ministry to you, and we invite you to visit the Pastor's Study by calling in with your questions.

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Our time will be lively, useful, and I assure you, never dull. Join us this Saturday at 12 noon

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Eastern Time for A Visit to the Pastor's Study, because everyone needs a pastor. Welcome back.

35:13

This is Chris Arnzen. If you have a question for our guest today, Vince and Samuel Ward, father and son

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Reformed Presbyterian veterans of South Sudan's mission field and co -authors of Pursuit of Glory, A Disciple's Journey with Jesus, then shoot us an email at chrisarnzen at gmail .com,

35:32

chrisarnzen at gmail .com. By the way, that voice that you just heard, my dear friend

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Pastor Bill Shishko of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church denomination.

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He is also the domestic missionary for Reformation Metro New York.

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In addition to being host of A Visit to the Pastor's Study, my guests might find this interesting.

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Vince and Samuel Ward, although Bill Shishko was a pastor for many years in the

36:03

Orthodox Presbyterian Church denomination and still is a member of that denomination, even though he's retired from pastoral ministry, he was the first person to introduce me to one of my favorite preachers of all time, who happens to be in the

36:18

Reformed Presbyterian denomination, and that's Ted Donnelly. I'm sure you're familiar with Ted from... Oh, really?

36:23

Of course, yeah. Ted Donnelly, who ministers in Ireland. By the way, how's

36:29

Brother Donnelly's health doing these days? I heard that he was turning around for the better and improving in his health.

36:37

Yes, he has definitely improved significantly, and he has, in the past year, taken on more speaking engagements.

36:50

But I can't tell you the update yet in terms of how he's doing more recently. Well, I just urge anybody listening to look up, perhaps on Sermon Audio or some other places where Ted Donnelly's sermons might be archived.

37:06

He is an extraordinary preacher, a powerful preacher of the gospel, and I truly enjoyed hearing him in person at the

37:14

Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Franklin Square, Long Island, New York, where I first met him probably back in the 1990s,

37:20

I believe. But going back to our discussion, in fact, we have a listener who has a question about what we were already discussing regarding the physical description you were giving of the villages in the

37:42

Sudan where you were ministering. We have CJ from Lindenhurst, Long Island, New York, who says,

37:50

Did you ever start to reconsider your move to the Sudan from Canada when life was obviously a lot harder for you?

37:59

Tell us something about the physical conditions of the area, including indoor plumbing, electricity, or anything like that.

38:07

How did you manage to become so accustomed to living without these luxuries that we take for granted in more modern societies?

38:19

Well, I would give credit to my wife, Julie, who was at home, and she made home in this mud hut.

38:30

We did not have any running water at all. Actually, we enjoyed not having it.

38:36

We had water brought from the water well and put into a reservoir inside the house, and used jugs to just pour into our water filter or into our dishwater basins.

38:52

So we enjoyed the simplicity of living in that hut, and the hard parts were the heat.

39:00

During the dry season, at times, it just wouldn't seem to let up until 3 o 'clock in the morning, and then it would break for a little bit of a cool time, and then it would get hot again.

39:12

So that was very taxing on the body. The hardest part was the cross -cultural interactions, and that's the way ministry is.

39:23

That's what trains us the most. So it was compounding of the physical environment plus the cross -cultural conflict at times, and yet just trying to communicate, trying to live at peace with people, and definitely the people work was the hardest work.

39:45

Now, when you say the difficulty of living at peace with people, what was the hostility or tension involving?

39:55

Well, we really love the Dinka people, yet you could generalize to say that the

40:01

Dinkas are an aggressive people. An aggressive people? Did you say an aggressive?

40:08

Aggressive. Yes, aggressive. They can easily be set off with anger.

40:15

And violence? Yes. I mean, if you look at what's happening in South Sudan today, you'll see a lot of violence in the news, and that is a real reality of the situation in South Sudan.

40:30

If someone has a gun, and most people do, that's when people lose their lives, if it gets to that point of conflict.

40:43

And yet we had, just in living in the village, we had some interactions with people where it got physical, but generally it was just mostly at the beginning where it was just very hard to communicate because we're learning a new language, and later on we really started to have some very strong advocates in the village to help us if there was any conflict, especially with the church that was planted, and people who are now transformed by the gospel and renewed in their minds, and just a real dramatic transformation in the community there since the church was planted in 2009.

41:22

And also another aspect of that I think would have been culture shock, and just the adult missionaries, when they came to the new culture, they didn't understand everything about the new people they were serving with, and the same with the people that didn't understand the missionaries, and so there was a lot of confusion and hurt that could have arisen because of misunderstandings in that area.

41:45

CJ, you have won a free copy of Pursuit of Glory, A Disciple's Journey with Jesus. Please give us your full mailing address in Lindenhurst, Long Island, New York, so that CVBBS .com

41:55

can ship that out to you, no charge to you or to us. And once again we thank Crown and Covenant Publications for providing these free copies for us.

42:05

We have Susan Margaret in Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, who says we have heard a lot about the

42:13

Muslim persecution of Christians in the Sudan. Was this type of persecution going on in the area of South Sudan where you lived, or was that in another area?

42:27

Well, if you look back at the history of the two wars in the latter half of the 20th century, you definitely have very strong persecution of Christians.

42:41

So it was the Khartoum government, that's the capital central government in the north, that was sending jihad fighters, so they were fighting holy war against the

42:53

Christian South, and that was a reality leading up into the early 2000s.

43:00

And then when there was a peace, a comprehensive peace agreement that was signed in 2005, there was an interim period leading up to the vote that all southerners voted to separate from the north to be their own nation.

43:19

And then there's freedom of religion in South Sudan. Though you have a small minority of Muslims in South Sudan, there is now freedom of religion.

43:33

And so that has changed the dynamics. Now in Sudan, since the independence of South Sudan, Sudan has really reacted with strong persecution, wanting to make

43:48

Sudan to be an Islamic state. And so they have been persecuting

43:54

Christians, especially Christian leaders in Khartoum, the capital city, destroying church buildings, imprisoning pastors, and so there is systematic persecution going on right now in Sudan.

44:09

Well thank you CJ, and actually that was Susan Margaret.

44:15

Susan Margaret in Dauphin County, Pennsylvania. Please give us your full mailing address so that you can also have a free copy of the book that we are discussing today,

44:23

The Pursuit of Glory, by our guests Vince and Samuel Ward. John in Bangor, Maine says,

44:30

I am intrigued by the fact that Samuel did not want to leave the

44:35

Sudan, even though it must be a much more comfortable way of living in Canada.

44:41

I would love to hear more about why Samuel was so discouraged by his move to Canada, at least initially.

44:51

So I grew up in South Sudan from the age I was two, and apart from brief vacations we had in Canada or in larger cities in East Africa, that was pretty much all

45:04

I knew, and so I really did get used to it. And honestly at first when I heard we were moving about two years before the actual date we left,

45:14

I was rather excited because we had family and some friends back in Canada, but then that was just in the past two years that I lived in South Sudan, and I started forming real relationships with the local children in the village, and so that's when things started changing for me because I began to identify our village in South Sudan with home because I had those relationships that were developing with the friends there, and so pretty much like that's when

45:47

I started feeling uneasy about the move because I didn't want to leave them, I didn't want to leave the way of life

45:52

I had in South Sudan, and I mean I was used to everything. I really didn't care much about the luxury of things.

45:58

It was all quite normal to me, and yeah, in those relationships I was really, I didn't want to lose them at that point, so that's what made it really hard for me to make the move.

46:10

Now did you speak fluently as a child, the native language?

46:16

I'm assuming you must have if you were raised there since you were two. And that's another difficulty because when

46:22

I moved there, I was kind of, I would say in a sense isolated because we had other missionaries, and those are the people

46:32

I associated with, and so I never ended up gaining a fluent understanding of the language because by the time

46:39

I started having local friendships, all my friends were in school, and they had started learning English.

46:44

They wanted to practice English with me, and so I guess

46:49

I was being lazy and I just spoke English. That's one of my big regrets. That's one of my big regrets that I never learned the language fluently.

46:59

I mean I know how to speak some, but really not much. But I know I learned to speak African English, so it's different, much simpler with a thick accent, and so that helped with communication, but there were still some bridges, some walls there that I don't think we, yeah.

47:21

Forgive me for asking you to repeat this if you've already said it, but do you, sorry

47:30

I was just distracted by a question from a listener coming in. First of all, what is the name of the language, the common language in South Sudan?

47:41

I'm sorry if you've already said this. Well, with South Sudan becoming an independent state, they have chosen

47:50

English to be their official language, but there are approximately 64 people groups, ethnic groups in South Sudan, and each of them having their own language.

48:00

Wow. So the area we were in had the Dinka tribe, so that would have been the

48:06

Dinka language, but they call themselves the Munjang, that's the name of the language, and it was by far the biggest tribe in South Sudan.

48:14

Approximately 40 % of the people in South Sudan are from this Dinka tribe, so it was a pretty large language.

48:21

Wow. And as far as you as a child growing up and making friends there, how much of the customs and tradition that were intrinsic to South Sudan were part of your life as far as games you would play, perhaps sports, or anything else that would involve day -to -day life with other kids?

48:46

And was any of that nearing the border or crossing the border of being inappropriate

48:55

Christian custom and tradition and so on? Obviously there are rituals and ceremonies and all kinds of things that a culture may have that are benign, that they can even be enjoyed amongst converts to Christianity, but there are also others that would be crossing the line, perhaps in an idolatrous sense or something like that.

49:19

Tell us about that as far as your day -to -day life with other kids. So, as I mentioned in the early days,

49:27

I wasn't playing much with the other kids, but later on I played a lot of soccer, and that's really important to the children there.

49:34

All the boys love to play soccer. Everywhere but America, that's important. Everywhere on the planet

49:39

Earth. And we'd climb trees, we played small games together, but in terms of things that were inappropriate for a

49:48

Christian to do, I can't think of anything, really, that would have crossed the line of being inappropriate.

49:56

How about you, Vince? I could add. Go ahead. Yeah, so, it's a good question, because as missionaries, we want to help, we were discipling the new believers, and we want them to be discerning what is good and evil, and so that involves looking at their traditional ways, and I can give you some examples of how they had to choose.

50:22

You know, this is something that we will not participate in, and an example of that would be, they would call the drum, so at night the drum would be beating, and the youth would come, and at those, it's really kind of like a dance party, it's not as bad as a lot of the high school dance parties, but the culture has really shifted, and there's a lot of immorality at those parties, those dance parties, they call the drum, and that is something that the pastors are telling the youth, that this is not the place for you to go, and so that's clear, but for the women, at night they will gather together, and they will clap their hands and sing songs, and generally those songs are acceptable, but the good thing is that a lot of these women are now composing songs that are

51:18

Christ -centered, and so instead of singing about their clan, they're now singing about God, and the

51:24

Kingdom of God, and the Gospel. Praise God. We're going to our midway break right now.

51:32

Our midway break is longer than our normal break, because Grace Life Radio, 90 .1 FM in Lake City, Florida, requires that we have an elongated break between our two major segments, because they air their own commercials, and public service announcements, and other things, so please be patient with us as we take this elongated break, and take this time not only to write questions for our guests,

51:56

Vince and Samuel Ward, but also take the time to write down the information provided by our advertisers, because the more you successfully patronize our advertisers, the longer they are likely to advertise on Iron Trip and Zion Radio, and their advertising dollars are what helps keep us in existence, in addition to the generous donations of those of you listening.

52:21

So our email address again is chrisorringen at gmail .com. chrisorringen at gmail .com. Please give us your first name, your city and state, and your country of residence if you live outside the

52:30

USA. And Vince and Samuel, I forwarded to you a question from Brad in Houston, Texas, he actually asked two questions, and I thought

52:40

I'd forward those questions to you, to your email addresses, so that you could look them over during the station break, and have time to think about them when we return from the break, so that you can answer them.

52:54

Great, thank you, got it. Okay, great, and don't go away, God willing, we will be back shortly with Vince and Samuel Ward, and more of our discussion on their experiences as missionaries in South Sudan, and also their book,

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The Pursuit of Glory. Don't go away, we'll be right back. Iron Sharpens Iron welcomes

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That's chrisarnson at gmail .com. Hi, I'm Buzz Taylor, frequent co -host with Chris Arnson on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

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So please mention Chris Arnson of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. We also have a few events that we've got to mention before we return to our guests,

01:06:04

Vince and Samuel Ward, in regarding to their experiences on the mission field in South Sudan and also their book,

01:06:11

Pursuit of Glory. First of all, coming up tomorrow, August 2nd, through Saturday, August 4th,

01:06:18

Fellowship Conference New England returns to the Deering Center Community Church of Portland, Maine.

01:06:25

And my dear friend, Mack Tomlinson of Providence Chapel in Denton, Texas, is one of the key figures who spearheaded this annual conference.

01:06:36

And he is also one of the speakers. He is a pastor at Providence Chapel in Denton, Texas, and an author.

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And he will be joined by Pastor Tim Conway, Pastor Jesse Barrington, and Pastor Nate Pikowitz.

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Pastor Nate is also an author, in addition to being a pastor. And all four of these men have been guests on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

01:06:56

If you would like to register for this conference, go to fellowshipconferencenewengland .com, fellowshipconferencenewengland .com.

01:07:04

And then, coming up in November, the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals is having their annual

01:07:09

Quakertown Conference on Reformed Theology. The theme is The Glory of the Cross.

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It will be held November 9th and the 10th at the Grace Bible Fellowship Church of Quakertown, Pennsylvania.

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And the speakers include David Garner, Ray Ortland, Richard Phillips, Timothy Gibson, and Carlton Nguyen. To register for the

01:07:29

Quakertown Conference on Reformed Theology, go to alliancenet .org, alliancenet .org.

01:07:37

Scroll down to the Quakertown Conference on Reformed Theology, and you can register there.

01:07:43

Then, coming up in January, an event that I look forward to every year.

01:07:50

This will be my third year attending and also manning an Iron Sharpens Iron Exhibitors booth.

01:07:55

I'm speaking about none other than the G3 Conference, which stands for Gospel, Grace, and Glory.

01:08:01

Which is being held from Thursday, January 17th, through Saturday, January 19th.

01:08:06

And it's being held, once again, at the Georgia International Convention Center in College Park, Georgia, which is a suburb of Atlanta.

01:08:14

They are expecting between 4 ,000 and 5 ,000 people to be there. In fact, perhaps my guests,

01:08:22

Vince and Samuel Ward, might want to urge every village ministry to have an exhibitors booth there.

01:08:31

So that they will be seen by the crowd of between 4 ,000 and 5 ,000 people milling around. Just as I will be benefiting from,

01:08:38

God willing, at the Iron Sharpens Iron radio booth. The theme is The Mission of God, A Biblical Understanding of Missions.

01:08:46

And their long roster includes John Piper, Stephen Lawson, Vody Baucom, Conrad M.

01:08:53

Bayway, who is my favorite preacher of all time. Conrad M. Bayway is pastor of Kabwatha Baptist Church in Lusaka, Zambia, Africa.

01:09:02

And he's also the Chancellor at African Christian University. I've known him since 1995, and he is my favorite living preacher.

01:09:10

Tim Challies will also be on the roster, or is on the roster. Phil Johnson, the Executive Director of Grace to You Ministries, the ministry of John MacArthur.

01:09:21

Todd Friel of Wretched TV and Wretched Radio. And by the way, Todd Friel is my guest tomorrow on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, so mark your calendar.

01:09:28

If you love Wretched TV and Wretched Radio, he is my guest once again. Stephen J.

01:09:35

Nichols, who is the President of Reformation Bible College in Sanford, Florida. The college founded by the late

01:09:41

Dr. R .C. Sproul and Ligonier Ministries. And many other people are on this roster of speakers.

01:09:47

If you would like to register not only to attend, but you could also register to have an exhibitors booth, like I am manning,

01:09:53

God willing, go to g3conference .com, g3conference .com. And then, finally,

01:09:59

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And as long as whatever it is you want to promote is compatible with what we believe here, it doesn't have to be identical, it just needs to be compatible with what we believe here, then we would love to help you launch an ad campaign.

01:11:34

Send us an email to chrisarnson at gmail .com and put advertising in the subject line. And that's the same email address that you can use to send in a question to our guests,

01:11:45

Vince and Samuel Ward, who are veterans of the mission field in South Sudan and they are also co -authors of the book we are addressing,

01:11:55

Pursuit of Glory, which is a publication of Crown and Covenant Publications, a publishing house of the

01:12:02

Reformed Presbyterian Church of North America. And we are now back with our conversation that we're having with Vince and Samuel Ward.

01:12:12

And as you know, Vince and Samuel, before the station break, I forwarded an email from Brad in Houston, Texas, who had two questions for you.

01:12:23

The first is, what was your best cross -cultural relationship formed during your time in South Sudan and how did that impact you personally?

01:12:32

And you can both answer that question. I will ask

01:12:37

Samuel to go ahead with that question. Yeah, so around two years,

01:12:44

I think, before we left, my brother and I, we started going out of the compound where we lived and interacting with a neighbor boy.

01:12:52

His name was Tang. And I developed a pretty close relationship with him, especially considering the different cultures that we were a part of.

01:13:03

And I think in terms of impacting me personally, it just gave me a greater love for the culture that I lived in, the situation

01:13:12

I was in life at that time, and just a more of a reluctance to leave

01:13:19

South Sudan when the time came in 2015. My probably best relationship was with someone called

01:13:29

Jacob Majakin. And when I first met him, he was in a very dark place. He was suicidal and yet still clinging to the

01:13:39

Lord. And I began to disciple him. He became part of a church plant and began to lead the church.

01:13:49

And during that whole time, just the bond that was created or built was really affecting...

01:13:56

It wasn't so much that I was training him, but it was more that he was going through such a dark and difficult time.

01:14:05

He was separated from his family, and the whole process of getting his family from one end of the country to another when they were really caught in the crossfire of war, and then seeing them reunited, and then moved to their home area where they're now serving.

01:14:22

He's now a pastor and planting a church and training church planters. So that relationship being built over many years from where he was in that dark place to now where he is in a place of deep trust in the

01:14:36

Lord and seeing the glory and grace of God every day, that I would say would be the person

01:14:43

I think of the most for that close friendship. Well, you could also both answer

01:14:49

Brad's second question. What was the greatest challenge you faced, and I assume he meant faced, while church planting in South Sudan?

01:15:00

Sure, I'll answer that. So, church planting is very similar around the world, and it's always where the challenge is with the men.

01:15:13

Finding men who are faithful, available, teachable. You've heard maybe of the FAT acronym there.

01:15:19

I use the 5 C's, so they need to be converted, have Christ -like character, the commitment to Christ and his church.

01:15:30

They need to have the competency. That grows through training. And then also to be changeable, so have that teachability to continue that relationship that there's always someone who's training them and that they're accountable to.

01:15:50

And so finding men like that is rare, and that's the case around the world. And so that's always the greatest challenge.

01:15:58

The extra challenge is cross -cultural discipleship and leadership development. But just through perseverance, by God's grace, seeing some men that are shining brightly as stars in that place.

01:16:14

I thought only Baptists used alliteration when they were giving praise. Yeah, well, 5

01:16:22

C's, F -A -T, I think it's pretty common around Germans.

01:16:30

Oh, by the way, thank you, Brad in Houston, Texas. Please give us your full mailing address there in Houston, so that CVBBS .com

01:16:38

can ship you a free copy of our guest book, Pursuit of Glory. And also, and this goes for our other listener that I believe was a first -time listener,

01:16:50

I think I forgot to mention. Not only are you winning the book, Pursuit of Glory, you're also winning as first -time questioners a free

01:16:59

New American Standard Bible, compliments of the publishers of the NASB, and also CVBBS .com

01:17:05

will be shipping that out along with your book, Pursuit of Glory. We have another first -time questioner,

01:17:17

Mater, M -A -T -E -R, I don't know if I'm pronouncing that correctly, Mater, from Houston, Texas as well.

01:17:25

The question is, what was your greatest success during your time in South Sudan?

01:17:34

Well, the greatest success would be always the success of the gospel spreading and being glorified and magnified, and that is through the airwaves.

01:17:46

I would definitely say having a radio station in our partnership with Every Village was a huge breakthrough in the kingdom of light shining in that darkness.

01:17:58

And I would just say that the success can be broad like that, but also can be in individuals, just seeing the transformation through the gospel in many people's lives, especially the women in our village.

01:18:14

We see how their love for the

01:18:19

Lord and their commitment to the Church runs so deep, and you see how far they've come from being drunkards and violent women and now being so gentle and peaceable.

01:18:34

We can only attribute that to the success of the gospel in their hearts and their lives. But also there's a school that was started, and to see the success of Christ winning the hearts of these young children and digging deep roots in the gospel and being built up in Christ through their education, it's very discipleship -focused, and that just gives so much joy to my heart when

01:19:03

I see those children whenever I visit. Great. Well, thank you, Mater. And once again, excuse me if I'm mispronouncing your name.

01:19:13

Well, I obviously must have at least mispronounced it once because I pronounced it in two different ways. But please give us your full mailing address in Houston, Texas, so we can also mail you a free copy of Pursuit of Glory.

01:19:25

And in addition to that, since you're a first -time questioner, a free New American Standard Bible, and CVBBS .com

01:19:32

will have that shipped out to you as soon as possible. We have Harrison in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, who wants to know, among the conversions that you experienced while in South Sudan, were most of them nominal

01:19:48

Christians being converted to true, born -again belief in Christ, or was there also a competitive number of Muslims that you witnessed come to Christ?

01:20:03

Yeah, so I would say a good number are people who perhaps thought of themselves to be

01:20:10

Christian and heard the gospel and were thoroughly converted.

01:20:17

In terms of the Muslims, they're a minority in the area. I've built relationships with people that are coming from Sudan, and most of them are business people when they come down.

01:20:27

And I've set up shops there, so built up relationships with some, especially young people from Sudan, and there have been some that have come to faith.

01:20:36

But again, because they're a minority population in the area, they have been few, and the majority are people from that area, the

01:20:43

Dinka people. And most of them having some perhaps background in the church when they start to attend one of the churches that is planted in the area and come to faith.

01:20:58

So I would say half would be considered Christian before, and the other half would be coming out of a

01:21:04

Dinka traditional religion background. Now just one other question of my own.

01:21:10

You were mentioning before the prominence of violence in the area where you were ministering as a missionary.

01:21:18

Were these predominantly these violent people, those who were professing to be Christian, or were they Muslims? No, they would not be

01:21:27

Muslims. The Muslims in the area, because they're a minority, would not dare to cause a fight because they would be overcome.

01:21:39

So, I mean, there are crimes that Muslims will commit there in the area, as common in urban areas.

01:21:48

But the violence at all levels, you have domestic violence, which is very common for men to beat their wives.

01:21:56

You have violence with drunkenness, people who get in fights in the market with other men, or they start to shoot their guns in their drunken state.

01:22:14

And then you get full -blown violence in certain areas of Sudan where it's a war zone, and it's very dangerous where you won't find missionaries.

01:22:24

It's just a war -torn area where you have the government forces fighting the rebel forces.

01:22:31

Now, when you have these nominal Christians firing guns and being violent, is there any equivalent to a tribal police force or anything like that in the area that does anything about it?

01:22:44

Or do these people typically just get away with it unless their fellow tribesmen restrain them in some way?

01:22:53

So, there is a government in place with a police force and a military. And in certain places, they're very disciplined.

01:23:01

Other places, less disciplined. And they try to enforce the law. It's not always a just system.

01:23:08

But you do have people being arrested for crimes and small domestic or local violence being quelled by these police or military forces.

01:23:25

You had asked a question whether they're coming from Christians. Again, no. I think the people that are in those violent situations, they might think that they're

01:23:37

Christian and either baptized in the Catholic Church. But, obviously, there's no fruit in their lives.

01:23:45

That's why I use the adjective, nominal

01:23:50

Christians. Sure, exactly. But just so that our listeners won't, especially if they tuned in late, they might be thinking immediately you're talking about Muslims because there are stereotypes, especially those in the

01:24:04

West, that Muslim equates violence. But you have many people who profess to be

01:24:10

Christians who are just as violent as Muslims are. And, again, I use the term profess to be

01:24:17

Christians, meaning that the outward verbiage does not necessarily reflect any inward reality.

01:24:27

And we have Gordy, another listener in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania. Gordy, who asks, which culture did you find most challenging in your walk with Christ?

01:24:40

And I'm going out on a limb here and speaking for Gordy because I don't know specifically what he means by that.

01:24:46

But I'm assuming he's including in Canada. I don't think he's only talking about the

01:24:52

Sudan. He might be, but I'd like you to include both places. Because it's interesting.

01:24:59

You can have more of a difficulty reaching religious people who are even, from a human standard, wonderful citizens of the community where you live.

01:25:14

They may be wonderful neighbors, wonderful friends, wonderful blood relatives.

01:25:20

Sometimes they are the most difficult to reach with the gospel because they react with ambivalence or disinterest to what you're saying, or they may even think that they don't need a savior or think that they already have one because they think that their lives are just fine and dandy.

01:25:40

Sometimes you might have a more difficult time than actually getting into a heated verbal challenge or confrontation with somebody who is from a culture that is far different from yours and is actually more perhaps interested in hearing what you have to say, even if they disagree with you.

01:26:02

But is what I'm saying making sense to you? Sure. Yeah.

01:26:08

I can think of the two cultures. So in South Sudan, if you compare the two, evangelism and church planting in South Sudan generally is much quicker and easier, in a sense, than it is in North America.

01:26:23

Because people are... It's a new... South Sudan is almost like a last frontier with the evangelical faith.

01:26:32

And then now I would say even a need for reformation of a lot of these churches.

01:26:38

But you really see a hunger for the Word of God. There's no opposition to it.

01:26:43

There's an acceptance to it right away. And if there's good teaching, you will have a strong church.

01:26:50

And when we come back to Canada, you'll find what you're describing there where there's a hardness of heart, there's despondency, lack of interest.

01:27:00

There's very little hunger for the Word here in Canada at least. Let me speak for Canada. And there's an open hostility.

01:27:08

And that's a huge difference. In South Sudan, it's welcome, the Word of God, and missionaries.

01:27:15

And here it's an antagonism against the gospel and the truth.

01:27:21

Well, thank you, Gordy. Since you live so close to Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, cvbbs .com,

01:27:33

on North Hanover Street in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, instead of having that mailed out to you, please stop by there.

01:27:42

But this is the caveat here. Our dear sister Danielle from Crown &

01:27:48

Covenant Publications just mailed the books out today that we are offering.

01:27:54

So they won't be there yet. I would give it a week before you stop by cvbbs .com

01:28:00

to pick up your book there that will be waiting there for you. So please be a little patient on that.

01:28:05

Or call Todd and Patty Jennings at cvbbs .com before you go there to make sure that the book has arrived.

01:28:13

So I just wanted to give you that little caveat before you race down there to pick up your free book. But thanks so much for contributing such a great question,

01:28:21

Gordy, and continue to spread the Word about Iron Sharpens Iron Radio there in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania and beyond.

01:28:30

Let's see here. We have Brandon in Franklinton, North Carolina.

01:28:38

Thank you for your ministry. You probably don't remember me, but we met briefly at the

01:28:46

G3 conference. But actually his question has nothing to do with the interview today, so I won't read that on the air.

01:28:55

But thanks for writing in, Brandon. We're going to our final break right now. And if you'd like to join us on the air with a question of your own, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com,

01:29:06

chrisarnson at gmail .com. Please give us your first name at least, your city and state of residence, and your country of residence if you live outside the

01:29:15

USA. Please only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter. Don't go away,

01:29:21

God willing. We'll be right back with more with our final half hour of Vince and Samuel Ward and their experiences on the

01:29:31

South Sudan mission field and also their book, The Pursuit of Glory. Don't go away. We will be right back,

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01:39:01

We are now back with our guests, Vince and Samuel Ward. Oh, we got disconnected.

01:39:08

I don't know how that happened. We're going to have to go to another station break until our guests call us back.

01:39:17

I don't know how they got disconnected, but if you are listening,

01:39:23

Vince and Samuel, please call us back and we will be hopefully connected with you right after these final messages, hopefully, from our sponsors.

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And again, I apologize to our listeners for this unfortunate mishap here.

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01:41:10

Are we joined again by Vince and Samuel Ward? Yes. Sorry about that.

01:41:17

We had a power failure. Oh, wow. Well, I'm glad that you are both back with us. And let's see here.

01:41:28

We have a couple more listeners who are already waiting to have their questions asked and answered by you.

01:41:36

We have B .B. in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, who asks especially of Samuel.

01:41:44

Samuel, it seems to be, from what you have said, that the culture shock for you was returning to a more modern society in Canada.

01:41:54

I was wondering how you are holding up now and how much you may still long to return to the

01:42:00

Sudan. Oh, yeah. It was a pretty big of a shock culturally,

01:42:07

I think. But that was three years ago. And so I've pretty much fully settled in now.

01:42:14

But I really do want to return and work there as a missionary in the future.

01:42:21

In fact, I was there just a few weeks ago, and I did a short mission trip serving at the school that the missionaries there helped start.

01:42:31

So that was really much of a blessing. And in the future, I hope to go and serve in Sudan in whatever way

01:42:38

I can. And forgive me for asking this if you've already said it, but how old are you now?

01:42:45

I am 14 years old. Oh, wow. You're a very mature young man. I had no idea you were that young.

01:42:52

Well, you're handling yourself extremely well. In fact, better than many of my guests about three or four times your age.

01:43:02

Okay, thank you. Let's see here. We have an anonymous listener who asks,

01:43:14

I am praying about becoming a missionary myself, but I was wondering what your list of words of advice might be to somebody who is contemplating such an enormous step in their lives.

01:43:28

I'm assuming there should be some very serious things involved in somebody's life before they make such a move.

01:43:36

There must be also certain character traits and other things that you would believe are most profitable for one entering into an enormous issue like going abroad with the gospel.

01:43:49

So if you could please give me some advice before I make this final step. Great. It's my pleasure to encourage this brother or sister who is sensing a call to the mission field.

01:44:04

I would say that, first of all, to pray with all your heart and to be completely abandoned to the

01:44:12

Lord's will, because if the calling comes to you, it's going to keep you on the field.

01:44:19

You will face so many challenges and so many temptations to give up and to be discouraged, but through prayer and a life of prayerful faith cultivated here before you go, that is essential.

01:44:40

So the second thing would be to be very much integrated in a local church, be under the authority of your elders, to receive the support of your elders, and to have their prayer support and their counsel so that when you're sent out, you continue to have their shepherding ministry of you and so membership in the church and being very active in the church ministry, whatever you're doing here on this side of the mission field, is foundational.

01:45:16

It is a preparation for you and your ministry there on the mission field. And I would really encourage you strongly to find a good training that is available.

01:45:28

There are various training institutions or schools that are sometimes longer or shorter before you go to the mission field so that when you get there, you're well -equipped.

01:45:37

And so look online, and you should be able to find those. Now, you train missionaries, don't you, with every tribe?

01:45:46

Every village, I'm sorry. Every village, yeah. Right now I'm writing a missionary curriculum specifically for South Sudan missionaries.

01:45:56

But in our denomination, I've been involved in training missionaries going to the field. Why don't you tell our listeners something more about Every Village?

01:46:08

Sure, Every Village started in 2000. It was initially called

01:46:14

Aid Sudan. And with the change of the country and no longer

01:46:21

Sudan, they changed the name to Every Village. And over the years, it's certainly grown in their focus.

01:46:29

And now they're focusing primarily on three different ministries. You have radio, water, so drilling water wells and sustaining them, and then sending missionaries to South Sudan.

01:46:43

So Every Village being based in Houston, Texas, only being focused in South Sudan. You can get more information at everyvillage .org

01:46:52

and find out more. everyvillage .org Yes.

01:47:01

And we apologize, folks. We're getting some feedback here out of the blue. Not sure why that's happening.

01:47:09

But thank you, Anonymous. And if you give me off the air, of course, your full name and mailing address, you have also won a free copy of Pursuit of Glory.

01:47:20

And that will be shipped out to you as soon as we get them here from Crown &

01:47:25

Covenant Publications, and that will be shipped out by our friends at cvbbs .com.

01:47:31

Thank you very much for asking such an important question. In fact, let me ask you a question.

01:47:37

Some people might think that if you are initially interested in going on the mission field, the foreign mission field, and if you back down from that or change your mind or whatever, that you are somehow in sin or you are a second -class

01:47:57

Christian or a third -class or fourth -class Christian as a result of this decision not to go abroad on the mission field.

01:48:07

But that is not the case, because not everybody... I mean, everybody is called to be an evangelist in the sense, or even a missionary in the sense that we are to be proclaiming the gospel boldly to everyone we meet.

01:48:23

And we are not to be ashamed of the gospel. We're not to hide our light under a bushel. We're not to be monastery

01:48:30

Christians where even evangelicals can hang out with only other evangelicals who agree exactly like they do, and they get their aluminum siding or their vinyl siding from the

01:48:41

Christian guy, and they only go to the Christian bookstore, and they only do this and that with Christians, and they isolate themselves.

01:48:48

But I remember, and of course I'm paraphrasing because I don't have the quote in front of me, but I remember a memorable quote by Martin Luther or a story about Martin Luther that involves a quote where a man who was a cobbler asked

01:49:05

Martin Luther if he should uproot his family from Germany, leave his cobbler business behind, and move abroad with his family to become a missionary.

01:49:18

And I don't know if it was because Martin Luther knew the personality and character traits of this specific cobbler, but Martin Luther's response to this man was,

01:49:28

I suggest that you make a good shoe and sell it at a fair price. But obviously this is a wonderful and sacrificial and beautiful and glorious thing for Christians to have the heart and compassion to reach the laws of the

01:49:47

Gospel, to become missionaries, but it is not for everybody, am I right? Mm -hmm. Well, as you said, the call to preach the

01:49:56

Gospel, to make disciples, is for everyone, and the question is where. You know, when Jesus says go and make disciples, you need to seek that very place where God is calling you to be and to make disciples.

01:50:10

And it could be the very place where you live, in that neighborhood, or it could be to the ends of the earth.

01:50:17

And so every Christian is to be open and abandoned to do whatever the

01:50:23

Lord calls them to do in any place, in whatever vocation. And every vocation is spiritual, is to give glory to God, and that's with excellence, as you just sort of mentioned with that story.

01:50:37

Great. Well, I want you, before we take any other listener callers,

01:50:43

I'm saying callers, I'm thinking back to years ago when I used to have a live call -in show.

01:50:51

I take my questions by email now. Before I take any more of our emailed questions, I want you to have five minutes of time uninterrupted where you can summarize what you most want to leave etched in the hearts and minds of our listeners today before we go off the air.

01:51:11

Sure. I will give Samuel... So each of us five minutes? No, we don't have that much time, but each of you could have two and a half minutes or so.

01:51:19

Two and a half. Perfect. Yes. Great. So I would say that God is faithful.

01:51:26

That's really the emphasis of our book. If you want to get it from Counting Covenant, Pursuit of Glory, you will get the story of a

01:51:33

God who is faithful to us. It's a very personal story, and it is magnifying the faithfulness of God in our lives, where we were in very dark places, in deep valleys, and yet God sustained us by his grace and we persevered by his grace until we saw the fruit.

01:51:59

I think of those who sow with tears and then will reap with joy. That's a story of God's faithfulness, where the sowing of seed through perseverance and the pain of toil in kingdom ministry will bring the fruit in the end.

01:52:18

And that's the pattern of life now that I live, that the kingdom work is hard.

01:52:25

It requires a deep commitment and faith in God, and yet God is the one who upholds us to persevere until the end.

01:52:37

And Samuel? I'd say two things, the first of which would just be having an appreciation for all cultures, because there is beauty in all cultures.

01:52:51

And when you have that appreciation, you can bridge many walls that you would not have been able to do before, and you can understand other people so much better.

01:53:02

Also, I'd say on a more spiritual note, just that whatever God does, it's his will, and it's the best plan, whatever it seems like at the beginning.

01:53:13

And especially as I already mentioned with the move back, that was a very excellent lesson that I learned from God as he just showed me that his ways are not our ways, and his thoughts are not ours.

01:53:28

And that was just leaving with you the fact that whatever it seems like now, whatever does happen,

01:53:37

God has in mind the best in the end. Amen. And I'm assuming that you would agree when you said there is beauty in all cultures.

01:53:47

You have to be careful how you define culture, because obviously there are some people that will use culture in connection to the

01:53:57

LGBTQ community. Not to say that there are not beautiful aspects of somebody's life, no matter where they are, even if they are unregenerate.

01:54:11

I'm not saying that we should discount anything that is good and decent and honorable in the life of somebody who is even a part of that, quote, quote, community.

01:54:20

But the prominence of the pushing of cross -cultural mindsets and activity today, it means something different than what we would say, as I said even earlier in the discussion, when we are in a foreign land or even in a community or neighborhood in our own land that's different than ours, there may be aspects that is prominent in the ethnic group of that particular area or some other type of specific group of people that they have something that is a benign thing that is not dishonoring or offensive to God that we can embrace and enjoy and appreciate.

01:55:18

I'm assuming that's what you meant by that, that there's beauty in every culture. Yes, certainly.

01:55:24

That's to say beauty in the culture. The culture is not completely beautiful. It's not perfect.

01:55:30

There are many things that are opposed to God's law. And so it's not... I think most cultures, as you said, they're not wholly wrong in all the different aspects of them, but none of them are perfect either.

01:55:42

And so when you can understand both sides, you know what to embrace and what to leave out. That's really important.

01:55:50

Amen. Let's see here. We have an anonymous listener who wants to know, what is your advice to help rid one's heart and mind of bitterness and hatred that can boil up against those of different religious groups that seem to predominantly have a hatred for us and may even seek to cause us harm, like some within the

01:56:21

Muslim community. I'm not broad -brushing here. I know that there are good and decent

01:56:26

Muslims, as far as a human perspective is concerned, knowing that no one does good, no not one.

01:56:34

But how do we, as Christians, constantly bring ourselves to a point where we are trying to cleanse our minds and hearts of hatred that may rise up in our own lives?

01:56:48

Because we are not perfect. We are still sinners, even though we have been given the gift of eternal life.

01:56:55

We still struggle while on this earth with sin, and I believe hatred can be one of those sins.

01:57:03

Absolutely. Thank you for the caller. Such an important question, in Africa especially, where there is so much tribalism and hostility, it comes out of a heart of pride, and that's the root of so much of that hatred and anger and violence against others.

01:57:25

And when we look at the persecuted church, we observe how believers who are mature and really understand the

01:57:33

Gospel, that they can forgive because God has forgiven them. And that is the

01:57:39

Gospel message that Jesus Christ initiated in coming to this world through Jesus Christ, in giving of himself as one who comes to his enemies.

01:57:53

You know, while we were still sinners, while we were still haters of God, Christ died for us.

01:58:00

And so we have that Gospel message that is such a powerful word to our hearts.

01:58:08

They're full of bitterness and anger. I think all of us can experience that on a personal level, maybe someone in our life that we need to forgive.

01:58:16

And the only way we can is coming to the cross and recognizing what we have received in Jesus Christ and the forgiveness that we have in his name.

01:58:25

Amen. And we're out of time, and I want to make sure our listeners have the website for Crown & Covenant publications. It is crownandcovenant .com,

01:58:33

crownandcovenant .com. And I believe you said the website for Every Village is everyvillage .org,

01:58:40

am I right? Yes, that's right. Do you have any other contact information you care to share?

01:58:49

You could go to the Reformed Presbyterian Global Mission, that's, I believe, rpgm .org,

01:58:56

and find out about this mission that was started called Push for Christ as well. You'll get that in the book as well.

01:59:03

All right, great. And don't forget you can also order the book from cvbbs .com, Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, and they have a lot of books from Crown &

01:59:12

Covenant publications there as well. I want to thank you two for being on the program today so much. I want to thank everybody who listened, especially those who took the time to write in, and I want you all to always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater