April 2022 Supporter Update

Media Gratiae iconMedia Gratiae

1 view

0:00 Update on projects, podcast, and studio. 6:04 Conversation with Dr. John Snyder and Calum MacCleod. 49:28 Why does Media Gratiae have supporters?

0 comments

00:09
Hi, I'm John Snyder, and this is the Supporters Update for Media Gratiae. We do this every quarter to kind of just keep you abreast of how things are going and what things are coming up and maybe some of our further off plans.
00:23
First of all, I want to say that you probably noticed if you follow us or if you listen to the whole
00:29
Council podcast that we are in a new studio, and it's taken some time, but we have finally gotten moved in, and this part is pretty much finished.
00:38
If you could just turn the camera and see Teddy, you would see that the rest is still in boxes, and so while it's functional, it's not all the way finished.
00:48
Well, we want to give you an update on some of the things we've mentioned in previous episodes, which now are available, and one of those is
00:57
Judges. Judges is a mini -study, so it's a slightly shorter study, kind of a more handy size.
01:03
It doesn't require as much commitment from the folks as the larger studies, the
01:08
Behold Your God studies. Our mini -studies are designed to be between six and eight weeks long.
01:15
They have a video component. They also have a workbook. The workbook is about half the size of the
01:22
Behold Your God workbooks. We don't travel, and we don't have interviews at the end, so it is a study that's able to be done in a shorter slot of time.
01:32
If you're doing it at a church, you know, with small group studies in your home, whatever. Judges, the theme is the believer living with the living
01:42
God, not with a God that we've imagined, and we look at Israel and how she failed to live with the living
01:48
God, and in the midst of all that decline, the shocking pictures in Judges give us some enduring lessons.
01:55
How do we see the root problems as we're looking at a national decline or a decline in the church, and how do we return to the
02:04
God of the Bible? The Judges mini -study is now available in a digital form.
02:10
The physical form will not come out until we expect mid -June, so two months from when
02:16
I'm filming this. That in part is due to the fact that there are shortages, paper shortages with printers, and so everything has been slowed down.
02:26
We're also finishing up work on Behold Your God, Seeking Him Early, the children's curriculum that has been created by taking the two first Behold Your God studies, combining them into a 26 -week study for young people, and we have three different age groups for this material.
02:43
The oldest age group is now with the typesetter or the layout designer, and the other two will soon be there.
02:50
These three children's studies will be manufactured as the Lord provides money. We continue to do a number of our podcasts, and the whole council podcast will be a little different this year.
03:03
Not just different in where we're filming it, but we're going to work in our guest speakers more frequently.
03:08
We tend to kind of overwhelm the ones that come and sit for a long spell of time. So we're going to be seeing
03:15
Jeremy Walker and Andy Christofides from Britain, also Albert Bisson, a
03:21
Brit, but who is pastoring in mid -Mississippi. We also have
03:27
Steve Crampton back, Chuck Baggett, and Jordan Thomas. So we look forward to doing that.
03:32
I think that Steve is the next one who's slated to come on our show, and we're going to be looking at a topic that we think is important, the
03:40
Christian, the gospel, or grace, and the law. And we're going to be using a wonderful book written a few decades ago by a man named
03:49
Ernest Kevin, a British evangelical leader. And I think his book is really just very balanced and helpful.
03:58
So what's coming up? Well, right now I'm working on another mini -study. It's on Psalm 119, and obviously that 176 verses, we can only kind of pick some of our favorites.
04:10
And over about eight weeks, we're going to be looking at the dynamic between the believer and the speaking
04:17
God. It is such a thrilling thing to realize that of all religions, Christianity is the only religion that has a
04:25
God whose mouth works. The idols had mouths that were carved into wood and stone, precious metals, and never spoke, never said anything beneficial, and never said anything terrifying.
04:39
But our God is a God that speaks to us. And through His Word, we have this wonderful declaration, particularly a path is laid, the most enviably happy life lived on a path of obedience.
04:54
And so we're going to be looking at that in our next mini -study. We wanted to introduce you to a friend of the ministry, and you're going to be able to hear from him.
05:06
We filmed an interview with him about a week ago at my house, so you'll see that I'm in a different location.
05:12
The audio won't be as good. It's a Zoom call, because the friend of the ministry, his name is
05:18
Callum MacLeod. Now he's Scottish, but he doesn't live in Scotland. For most of his life, he's worked and lived in the
05:25
Netherlands with his family. Callum came into contact with Behold Your God through listening to Paul Washer on the internet, and then finding that Paul had been one of the contributors to the first study.
05:37
And the study made such a difference to Callum that he then kind of spearheaded the translation of Behold Your God into the
05:47
Dutch, and not just Dutch, but now also into German. And he's also translated other teaching materials that we have, other videos into the
05:56
Dutch language. And Callum is really just a joy to listen to, and so we hope that you enjoy the interview as much as we did.
06:06
Well, Callum, thank you for joining us, and we would like for our listeners to be acquainted with you and some of the things that the
06:16
Lord has done through you, and especially the connection with Mediagratie.
06:21
And so we wonder if you would mind just giving us a quick introduction of who you are, where you are, and what you're doing.
06:31
So it's great to talk with you, John. It's been, you know, this is a 2016.
06:37
This all started with Mediagratie for me. So, yeah, this has been a really, really great six years, to be honest.
06:45
So who am I? Callum MacLeod. I'm originally from Scotland, which is somewhere north of Wales, and I found myself in a country called the
06:58
Netherlands, which I suppose many of you have heard about, but the
07:04
Netherlands in 1986 with my family, and we've been here ever since. And, yeah, it's been an interesting time because my background is,
07:16
I was brought up in a church called the Free Church of Scotland, a very godly,
07:22
God -centered Presbyterian church in Scotland, very based in the Westminster Confession, and ended up with the
07:30
Dutch. And, yeah, that's a whole story in itself, the church life and Christianity in the
07:38
Netherlands today. So probably not very different to the United States, but certainly it's not a big highlight at the moment anyway.
07:46
But, yeah, so here we are. How did you get introduced to the
07:53
Mediagratie teaching materials? To be honest, I was trying to remember that.
07:59
So it's late 2015, early 2016. Somehow I've come across Paul Washer, probably sermonaudio .com
08:10
or somebody shared a link with me. I think the first sermon from Paul Washer I heard is the one where he's talking to the students at Virginia Tech, I think it is.
08:22
And the thing that always, or no, it's the one where he's talking about the sermon that everyone in America hates or something, but he's got the classic line where he says something in the sermon, and then you all start applauding.
08:35
And he says, I don't know why you're applauding, I'm talking about you. Yeah, I don't like sharing this with people and saying, you've got to listen to this guy, this is the best thing
08:47
I've heard in years. And I started googling Paul Washer, and then Mediagratie comes up, because he's obviously,
08:56
Paul was obviously in Behold Your God in the first study.
09:03
And then I tried to get access to the study. And it was very, very difficult, because at that time, beginning of 2016,
09:09
Mediagratie was not shipping outside the US. So I was back and forth with a general called
09:15
Matthew Robinson, who I harassed that guy to death. Late 2016,
09:21
I got the study that was delivered. So I ordered it online, I got the DVD pack and the study book, went up to my office, plugged in the
09:31
I already watched the intro DVD online, and plugged in DVD one. And I think, as I said to you,
09:38
I had a session of 12 DVDs without a break. And at certain points,
09:46
I think, especially a DVD four, where it's going on about Christ is central in the
09:54
DVD four, and then the DVD 11, where, you know, the yes, but.
10:01
And I'm literally, I'm thinking, my chest is going to burst. I'm going to have a heart attack.
10:06
Well, something's, something's going to happen here. And it was just, I can't remember, you know,
10:12
I remember telling my wife, she's like, oh, this is just, this is the best thing I've heard in years. And it was immediately then a conviction that people in my own church, people that I know in the area that I live, and I maybe need to explain that they need to hear this.
10:33
So the Netherlands is a very, although it's a small country, it's a country that is divided by the rivers.
10:41
It's the rivers define not just the geography, but also spiritually how the country stands.
10:48
The north of the country is the reform part is Dutch reform part of the country. The southern part of the country is traditionally
10:57
Catholic. And people from the north wouldn't come to the south.
11:03
It was very much the Dutch reform people stay in the north and the Catholics will stay in the south.
11:11
That changed a little bit in the last century, because one of the major employers in the country's company called
11:16
Philips, it's also well known in America. So Philips was and still is originally a
11:22
Dutch company. And they were encouraged in, I think, after the First World War, they were encouraged by the government to come down to the south because the south that had been ravaged during the war was ravaged in both, both world wars.
11:35
But there was a lot of poverty. And so they were encouraged to come down south of the country, government gave them a lot of money to start manufacturing things in the southern part of the country.
11:44
They brought people with them. So they brought factory workers, they brought management.
11:50
And it was interesting, the factory workers were predominantly Baptists. The management were predominantly
11:56
Dutch reformed. And so you have a you have a smattering of Dutch reform churches and Baptist churches in the southern part of the country.
12:06
But very, very vast majority is still Catholic, or nominally Catholic.
12:12
And what's Protestant is pretty much nominally Protestant. So I was very much, you know, the people, the church that we're part of, they need to listen to this, they need to hear this study.
12:24
We need as a church to become a God -centered church.
12:29
We're not a God -centered church, we're a me -centered church. And I think that's just very much, you know, it's, it's not, it's not, the
12:38
Netherlands is not any different to any other place, I think. But everything, you know, the services are very much choruses where, you know, you sit there,
12:52
I would sit there, my wife and I would sit there and you go, do we actually really understand what we're saying? God, God, I'm prepared to give you everything, even my whole life.
13:01
And we repeat that like a mantra 10 times, or whatever the chorus might be. And it's like, do we actually even think about what it is we're singing?
13:08
You know, we don't, we don't even know, we never even talk about who this God is. Yeah, apart from the fact that he's there to fix our problems.
13:17
He's there to, you know, we'll, we'll have a time of prayer in the service and we'll, you know, do we have prayer requests?
13:23
Yes. My, my dog is not feeling well. My next door neighbor's, you know, best friend, you know, who doesn't believe in God, but maybe we can pray for her as well, because she's got to go to the dentist next week.
13:35
You know, this is, this was kind of like, so, and then you go home and you carry on with your life for the next week, you can come back again next week.
13:42
And don't talk about, you know, in the churches, don't talk about sin. You know, one, you're going to upset people.
13:50
And number two, there are no sinners in the church, because everyone in the church has been baptized. They've done their profession of faith.
13:58
You know, they've ticked all the boxes because in many ways, the Dutch reformed churches in the Netherlands, and I'm talking in a very broad spectrum, there are very good, there are extremely good churches as well.
14:09
But in a large, large proportion of the churches, they're very traditional. They, they're really, it's all about tradition.
14:18
And if you've done everything by the book, it's, you're okay. And because we're living in a part of the country that is
14:25
Catholic, you can see the influence of the Catholic church and Catholic traditions in the Protestant churches.
14:32
So this is why Behold Your God became for me, just like this grabbed me, this had to be, we had to do something with this.
14:40
And so, but then of course, you run into the immediate problem of the language. So the challenges with the language is that although, and especially within church circles, although people may be, in most cases in the
14:56
Netherlands, most people are fluent in Dutch, or should be fluent in Dutch, they're
15:02
Dutch. But they're fairly fluent in English, or you think they are.
15:08
Although sometimes they speak English really well, but they don't understand it quite as well as they speak it, which can all sometimes lead to very interesting situations.
15:17
But you make assumptions that we actually understand what you're saying to them. But that's not always the case.
15:23
But certainly in church circles, there's a whole, Christianity has its own vocabulary.
15:33
So what are words like sanctification, or justification, or adoption? Or so, for example, in the
15:41
Dutch language, you don't have as many words as you have in English to describe, for example, the various, you know, if you take something like sanctification or justification, it's just like one word.
15:59
So I think that's a bad example, but there's certainly a lot of cases where theologically, what is what we would have different words in English, they'll have the same word in Dutch.
16:09
So you can't just use, you can't expect that people are going to understand it, even if they're fluent in English.
16:15
So then became the challenge was to, how do we get from Behold your
16:21
God in English to Behold your God in Dutch, with the first study. So I'll pause there, because once I start,
16:28
John, I go, you know, that's... Oh, no, no, we're glad to hear it. So you have been really leading in translating some of these works, the
16:44
Behold your God studies, the first and the second, into a couple of languages, into Dutch and into German now, right?
16:53
German is the latest project. German is a real challenge, because at least with Dutch, I'm reasonably okay with Dutch.
17:02
And I can read it. And, you know, today, you know, for the last several years, my
17:07
Dutch has been my church language, so to speak. I still kind of sit down and read a
17:14
Dutch book, just I can't get it. But German is the latest project.
17:21
And so German came about, German's come about just at the end of last year, where, again, it's a request that came from somebody in the
17:31
Netherlands, who said, do you happen to know if Behold your God is available in German? And I said,
17:37
I'll check, and I discovered, I think I exchanged emails with Teddy, and no, it wasn't available in German.
17:44
But then, of course, that plants the seed, and it's like, okay, so it's not available in German, how are we going to fix this problem?
17:51
So, yeah, so the first Behold your God study has now been translated into German, from, that I've done it, working with two
17:59
Dutch people that are, one, a lady who works in Germany, and another gentleman in our, in the church we attend, who does translation work from German to Dutch or German to English or something.
18:16
So we finished the draft of Behold your God one, and now we're waiting, we're hoping that some people in Germany that, in fact, that you've helped me, helped introduce me to,
18:28
John, that are working with a majesty, that they can go through the draft of the
18:34
DVDs and also the book, and then come back to me with the changes. And then once that's done, you know, and they're working with a majesty, so hopefully, you know, within a matter of months, both studies will be available in German, which, of course, has a tremendous, very big reach, because once you get the
18:54
German version, you're not just looking at Germany, but you're looking at Austria, Switzerland, you're looking at large parts of Eastern Europe, where, you know, places like Poland or Hungary or the
19:06
Balkan area, all those areas will speak German as a second language, as opposed to English.
19:14
So, you know, the potential is a much bigger reach for, you know, able to reach a lot more people, you know, than, you know,
19:21
Dutch. My mother -in -law, who's no longer with us, said, she said,
19:27
I don't understand, you're going to move to a foreign country. Why didn't you move to all the useful language, you know, like French or German or Italian or something.
19:36
So, but yes, so, and then the other side is, Behold, Your God is translated.
19:43
The first study, Weight of Majesty is translated. The Church has now been translated into Dutch, plus a whole series of videos.
19:52
The Logic on Fire, the Matthew Henry documentary, the
19:59
Spurgeon documentary, Spirit and Truth, the
20:04
American Gospel, Luther. So, obviously, through MediaGratia, I also got contact with Stephen.
20:14
He's now at Legionnaires Ministry. So, we did a whole series of videos. The videos were great for me because I had this very helpful,
20:23
I had this person help with the translation. So, a young lady who I've never actually met, we only communicated by email, but she was introduced to me, a young Christian girl living in the north of the
20:36
Netherlands called Marika de Water. And Marika is a Christian, and she is a professional translator from English to Dutch.
20:46
And I was introduced to her, and she actually did all the translation work. So, what
20:52
I did was I made sure that I paid her for doing the translation work because that way I could have access to her.
20:58
So, when I was having pauses between Behold, Your God and Weight of Majesty, I would send her the subtitles of the various movies.
21:06
Right, right. Keep her busy, yeah. Yeah, it's interesting, you know, certainly when we worked on the
21:14
Behold, Your God studies in particular, I'm sure that none of us had an idea that it would ever be, you know, reaching people outside of North America, but it was written.
21:27
You mentioned the spiritual context that you're in. You know, it is in many ways similar to ours, probably further along in some of the, you know, the impact of drifting.
21:43
Our culture where I live is still extremely religious, but we're seeing that fade quickly as nominal religion, you know, is moving toward post -Christianity.
21:55
So, a nominal Christianity is of no use to anyone. And so, you know, it only takes a few generations before, you know, the grandchildren say, well, we're not even going to show up at church on Christmas and Easter with grandma, you know, because what's the use?
22:12
And so, it's fading, you know, apart from an intervention of the Lord, we expect to see that continue.
22:18
But, you know, so the studies were written with that kind of a context in mind, you know, people who have a head full of religious phrases and they're fairly, they're favorable to those phrases, but they don't have the substance of the phrases and they don't know it.
22:38
So, it's very encouraging to hear that the Lord has used it here in the
22:44
States, but elsewhere. And we have others who have contacted us to translate similar to your situation.
22:53
One in particular was in Russia. And so, it's been translated, the first study into Russian.
23:00
And we often use the heart cry missionaries in that region to help, you know, guard the theological translation.
23:07
So, we're very grateful, but particularly grateful for how the Lord has put it upon your heart to do that and to all the work and the expense you've gone to.
23:19
You've, in our emails back and forth, there have been times where you've shared a few things and with Stephen before, how you've seen the
23:27
Lord using that in some of the churches. So, can you tell us, you know, what you've seen?
23:34
So, yeah, so it's the, so in our own church, the church we're part of, we, so we did the study.
23:43
One of the things we did was a small group of people, about 12 people in the church that we attend, we started a
23:50
Sunday evening Bible study using the Old Jew God as a basis. And the idea was, we're not as focused as Americans, so it takes us two weeks to do a one -week section.
24:04
So, and we would do two weeks and then we'd get together on Sunday evening, we'd discuss the chapter and then watch the
24:11
DVD and discuss the DVD. I remember one lady, she was so touched by the first DVD that she actually left the room in tears, thinking that she was, that she wasn't a believer.
24:32
She's thinking, okay, this is, this is the impact. This is, this is what you want to happen.
24:37
You want to have people examine their faith, examine why they believed, why do they believe the things that they believe.
24:45
And the interesting thing was, what we saw with that group of people was that they became very,
24:50
I wouldn't say, they wouldn't become critical of what they were being fed Sunday after Sunday, but they became a lot more discerning and a lot more questioning about what was going on.
25:04
So, that was an immediate impact that we saw in ourselves. What we saw generally in the
25:11
Netherlands, we saw everything from complete congregations doing the study to families.
25:20
We'd actually reached, I'd reached the point, we'd done the first study, we'd finished, done the translation work
25:28
September 2017 on the first study. It was finished. And, you know, there was no,
25:35
I tried to speak to our own pastor and the church elders and they weren't interested.
25:42
So, it was going, it was, you know, in a sense, going nowhere. And, but then, it's funny how
25:50
God works in things. So, I was trying to find out, trying to reach out in the
25:59
Netherlands to some people, and I found this organization in the Netherlands called Heartcrime. And I thought, oh, this must be like the same as Heartcrime Mystery Society.
26:07
Well, it's not. It's a Christian publisher called Arjen Ban, and Arjen has published several works from Paul Washer and others translated into Dutch.
26:18
But he introduced me to a missionary called Marius Storm. And Marius is a
26:23
South African who's a missionary in the Netherlands working with Dutch Reformed churches.
26:30
And I shared the introduction DVD with Marius, and Marius was like, this is amazing. So, what
26:37
I didn't realize was I put the DVDs, I put them up on Vimeo.
26:42
So, they were all password protected. Nobody can download them. But then,
26:47
I started getting emails from different people I'd never met. And what started happening was, because the videos were on Vimeo, and people had the password, and they couldn't download them, they were sharing them.
26:58
So, they were sharing the links with other people, right? I had no idea about it, you know. Matthew, you know, well, unfortunately, they couldn't be downloaded.
27:07
Otherwise, I'd have had real problems with mediagracia because it's like, wait a minute, this wasn't the deal.
27:15
But we had, there's all over, just from all over the country, Dutch Reformed churches, where they're running multiple groups at the same time, where they've got youth groups doing the study, which is really encouraging because for the youth groups to be doing the study is really giving them a grounding from all denominations.
27:39
It's Reformed Baptist denominations, Pentecostal churches, Reformed churches.
27:44
I mean, there's no, you know, you discover, you know, you suddenly discover that wherever you go, there are those who love the
27:52
Lord are all over the place. And they're under every denomination you can imagine. I remember, you know,
28:00
I remember the first time I was introduced to somebody who, my wife met her in the supermarket, she came home and said,
28:07
I met this lovely lady. She's a, she's Christian, but she's Catholic. And I said, that's impossible.
28:13
You can't be Christian and Catholic. That's like, you know, that's a contradiction in terms.
28:19
But then you, we spent many years with people from, in an international
28:24
Baptist community here in Eindhoven, and people come from all over the world, all kinds of denominations,
28:32
Orthodox, Eastern Orthodox people, people from India, from Orthodox background, people from South America with Catholic backgrounds, good old
28:43
Southern Baptists from Texas, you know, who couldn't understand why we didn't all know the hymns they sang in Texas, because everybody in Texas knows the hymns, you know, from just from all over the place.
28:55
And that was the same thing with Behold the God, people from all walks of life, all different churches in the
29:00
Netherlands were watching the studies. Seminary started using the studies.
29:08
So the seminary is training young pastors, using the studies, a group called
29:17
Veritas, and they train young pastors. They've added Behold the God and Weight of Majesty to their curriculum. You know, and then these students go back to their churches and say, you know, they bring it back with them.
29:29
So it's suddenly it's taken on a whole life of its own. And then in mid last year, the organization
29:37
HeartCry in the Netherlands, with your permission, were able to publish. So now suddenly, the study became available to a whole new world of people that, you know, because suddenly there's thousands upon thousands of people in the
29:55
Netherlands that are subscribed to HeartCry's website because they buy fresh material from them. Now the study is available to them.
30:03
HeartCry works with a radio missionary society that supply materials to people all over the world that usually people that have in places like Ethiopia and, you know, name it in the world, places that have no access to material.
30:22
They're now broadcasting Behold the God studies to these people that, you know, would never, ever have an access to it.
30:28
So the reach, you know, you know, especially this ministry, and I can't remember the name of it off the top of my head, but it's particularly focused on getting the gospel out to places that are, you know, that don't have access to materials.
30:48
I know of countries in Africa where there are, where I've had to set up a very secure
30:56
Vimeo link for certain government officials who want to watch
31:01
Behold Your God and do the study. So, you know, it's kind of, I've lost control.
31:08
I have to confess, I no longer have control over the study. It's gone. It's gone.
31:15
I did my best to keep the toothpaste in the tube. But yeah, that's okay. Yeah, we're, oh, it's thrilling to hear those things.
31:22
Some of the, some of those that you just said, that's the first time I've heard them. And so, you know, really, it is encouraging.
31:30
We have had emails a number of years ago from the first study from South Africa, the,
31:39
I don't know the official title of their chief legal officer. So in the
31:44
United States would be the attorney general. But whatever the title is for South Africa, I get a letter from Pretoria and their chief legal officer in the nation attended a church that was going through that study.
31:59
And he wrote me a letter to tell me how much it had helped. And of course, that was shocking to me.
32:05
I think I was in a small town in maybe Missouri that weekend preaching, you know, and I was in the preacher's basement, praying and preparing.
32:14
And then here comes this email. And it just, you know, you could have knocked me over. And then maybe a week later, we got an email from a group that was doing it in a church, a different group.
32:27
And so they took a picture and it was a group of men sitting around, you know, a church table, so a long table.
32:34
So down one side of the table was a number of gray haired, gray haired gentlemen, all wearing military uniforms.
32:44
So I don't know how high, you know, I don't, I don't recognize them, you know, colonels, majors, whatever, but high ranking men in their army.
32:53
And on the other side of the table was all black pastors and they were meeting together and working through the study.
33:01
So quite shocking, you know, really very encouraging to see the gospel do what we know it does.
33:07
As J .C. Ryle says, you know, it creates churches that are a gallery of humanity, you know, every every tongue and tribe gathered together around the king.
33:21
Well, Callum, how can we pray for you and the, you know, the work you still do in the kingdom and, you know, for the churches there?
33:29
Is there anything specifically that we can recommend to our listeners? I think, generally for the
33:37
Netherlands, I think it's a, I think compared to the United States, the
33:43
Netherlands has the best, the highest standard of living of any country in the world.
33:52
This is an extremely rich country. And this is a country where you talk to our neighbors about God, they go,
34:04
I don't have got everything right. I got three cars, you know, it's a country where, you know, drive down the road and try and see that a car that's not a
34:15
BMW or Mercedes or an Audi. It's a country where people can, most people can afford to go two or three times abroad on vacation every year.
34:24
It's, you know, and this is not, it's like, if you look at the
34:29
Netherlands and compared to the US, this is not, this is not a country where you have a small group of people that are very rich and a large majority that are, you know, just trying to get by.
34:38
This is a country that is rich beyond most people's imagination. So it's a country that doesn't feel the need for the gospel.
34:47
It's a country where the church as a result has become very cold because people within the church are very comfortable.
34:59
Mission work is extremely difficult. It's extremely difficult to try and bring the gospel to people in this country. It's, and within the churches where people think that, you know, we've ticked all the boxes, we're good.
35:11
You know, it's, you know, when Christians get together, they'll talk about which pastor baptized their child or which pastor married them and which pastor, you know, it's like, that's how you judge how
35:25
Christian somebody is by, you know, which reverend did what, you know. So the church here is in dire need.
35:33
It's a, and it's a country where, like the biggest, the biggest
35:38
TV program here, so here's the irony of this country. On Easter weekend, every year, the main television channel in this country, so, you know, you lived in Wales, you're familiar with the
35:54
BBC one and BBC two, the national broadcaster. The national broadcaster, they broadcast
36:02
The Passion. The Passion is a live, you know, it goes out live.
36:10
It's held in different cities every year. It attracts hundreds of thousands of people go to see it live. It's broadcast live on television.
36:17
And it's primarily a platform for non -believing performers to get a great stage to perform their acts.
36:26
So, you know, you could say it's almost like Jesus Christ superstar on steroids. You know, and the church goes happily along with this thing and that's it, you know, so, you know,
36:37
The Passion is a big thing over here, but this, it is, but you see it and it's like, you kind of go, whoa, if you were an
36:43
American coming to the Netherlands at Easter weekend, you go, whoa, this is a really Christian country. Yeah, like, are you gonna go?
36:51
No, I mean, they decided, they decided this year that one of the key performers for the last couple of years will not have his songs performed in the event because he's been charged with inappropriate behavior with young ladies, you know, and his songs are being used as part of the performance of, you know, reenacting the crucifixion.
37:15
But for the outsider, it's a really Christian country. So, yeah, the country definitely needs prayer.
37:23
It's, and the church needs prayer, because the church is, is very, there are some very good churches, but the church, for the large part, is either dead or liberal.
37:35
So that definitely needs prayer. I think prayer for the study, I think prayer for the, for HeartCry that are now publishing the study, and we're hoping that they'll also publish
37:44
The Weight of Majesty, and maybe even the church further on. I've got a very nice Dutch reformed church that's currently started the church study, and I warned them ahead of time,
37:56
I said, look, you're gonna, you're gonna have some challenges with this study, because it is,
38:01
I said, it is a little bit Baptist. Yes, yeah. So I said, you know,
38:07
Kobe, you know, just expect there are going to be some things you're going to come across here that may not be quite the way you understand them.
38:13
But, but they love it. They're loving the study. Well, you know, it's good, it's good for them to, it'll teach them to be merciful toward us
38:23
Reformed Baptists, who, you know, all my bookshelves are full of Presbyterians. And, you know,
38:29
I mean, there are very few, you know, the older Reformed Baptists, I do have some, but so, you know, all my favorites, you know, they're, you know, it's
38:36
Rutherford and McShane and those guys. And, you know, so I have to accept that I will differ from my heroes occasionally.
38:47
So it is, it is interesting. I think that's, I think there's also, you know, the challenges we face now with the situation in Ukraine.
38:57
So we've got a lot of, a lot of refugees coming from the Ukraine. The Dutch Bible Society are now distributing copies of the gospel in the
39:07
Bible in Ukraine. So they're free for all Ukrainians and free for anybody who wants to have them to give
39:14
Ukrainian refugees. So, you know, that's very much in the forefront of our minds.
39:20
So that whole situation is, is playing out because, you know, it's actually, if you think about it, it's,
39:28
I'm trying to think, American geography, I'm trying to think how far it is, but it's, we're like, by car, 24 hours drive from Kiev.
39:38
You know, we're, we're, we're kind of, we're about, I think, about 1500 miles.
39:46
You guys still work in miles. Yeah, if you say kilometers, you're going to lose us. Yeah, I think we're probably about a thousand miles from Kiev.
39:54
So, you know, and then you go the other side, Lisbon's a thousand miles away as well. So it's actually, it's, you know, it's relatively close to us.
40:03
And, you know, the impact in terms of, you know, how it's, how we're seeing people coming in every day, it's very challenging.
40:10
So that's, that situation is, is always a difficulty. But yeah, for the publishers,
40:18
Hard Cry that are, that are published in the Dutch study and for the people that are working in the German study as well, they need prayer, especially by the time they work through my translation, they definitely need prayer.
40:29
Yeah, yeah. It's going to be a challenge. So, but, but, you know, as you said earlier, you know, verifying that the quality of the work, there's a number of pastors that in Germany that are associated with Hard Cry Missionary Society and they're both, and members of their churches are involved in the, in checking the translations and looking for the mistakes and making sure that they're accurate.
40:54
So, you know, the checks and balances are there. It's very, very important. Yeah. Yes. Well, thank you so much for joining us today.
41:04
And we're very grateful again for how the Lord has used you in the kingdom and, you know, and just out of the blue, how, how you've been a friend to Media Gratia and help us to get those materials into churches that we probably never imagined that they would go to.
41:24
Oh, there's been, you know, it's one of these things, John, where, you know, I don't,
41:31
I don't see it as God using me. I think it's just, God used Behold Your God as a kick in the backside for me, or a punch in the stomach or whatever you might call it.
41:43
It was a wake up call. Because I think like many other Christians, you become complacent, you become, you just go with the flow, you're ticking the boxes, you're doing all the, you're doing all the right things, in a sense.
42:01
But you can be as dead as anything on the inside. And he woke up a lot, and he's woken up a lot of other people that study as well.
42:07
So yeah, it's been, it's been a real blessing for people. I don't think, I don't think, I don't think people,
42:13
I don't think you realize or Media Gratia realize, or, you know, most people who support you realize just what a blessing this study has been to, to so many people.
42:23
You know, and, and also the, you know, the videos, Logic on Fire. I actually, you know, so not long after I became a
42:33
Christian, I was in a service that was led by Martin Lloyd -Jones. Cannot remember anything about the fact,
42:40
I was just told he was this really famous guy from London. And he stood up in the pulpit.
42:46
And then I think back, and I watched the DVD, and I think, what an opportunity was presented to me, and what an opportunity
42:53
I just threw away. You know, not that I'm saying that I was one servant,
42:58
Martin Lloyd -Jones is going to change my life. But, you know, I recently started a series that's trying to work through his, was it 300 -odd sermons and Romans?
43:08
Well, up to Chapter 5. It's, I would, my usual method was go, I had to go on the bicycle, go on the treadmill, and plug in Martin Lloyd -Jones.
43:19
But yeah, that was a great, it was, and that was also one of the things I think also why these little bios that you do in the videos were really so good.
43:30
Like McShane was such an amazing, an amazing bio, and the Rutherford one.
43:36
You know, we don't, we have no perception. I think most people as Christians have no understanding of the heritage that we have.
43:46
Of what the likes of Bunyan, and Martin Lloyd -Jones, and Rutherford, and Spurgeon, and, you know, all these men and women that have gone before.
43:55
We have no understanding of just, you know, what they went through, what they suffered, the price that they paid, the sacrifices they made, but the awesome way in which
44:04
God used them, and how much of what they've done is actually, we are the recipients, we're the beneficiaries of what they did.
44:14
I think these small bio parts are, they're so good. It's just, yeah.
44:19
And then the little bits at the end, you know, there's always the ones that stick with you.
44:28
For some reason, Paul Washer always sticks with me. You know, yeah, I was going to say, yeah. Sometimes I feel Paul reaches through the
44:36
TV screen, and grabs me, and, you know, shakes me. Yeah, so his one, where he's,
44:43
I think it's on D11, where he's talking about the, he's making the analogy of his bride, and he goes.
44:50
Oh yeah, yeah, that's terrifying. It's like, and it doesn't matter how many settings where he's used that analogy.
44:58
It's terrifying every time. Yeah, yeah. He certainly scares me.
45:05
I love listening to him, but it's just the passion. Yeah. Just the passion there. But it's, yeah.
45:12
And also, Anthony, there's so many good things. So these little snippets at the end are also so great. They're, yeah, just like the one -liners of catch you and everything else.
45:21
So it's a, no, it's great studies. They're absolutely amazing studies. So yeah, waiting for part three.
45:29
Yeah, well, we'll see. When are we making part three? Well, you know, we just finished a couple of months ago, a smaller version, what we're calling mini studies.
45:41
So they don't include the travel and the commentary from other people. They're much reduced. They're, you know, six to eight week studies.
45:50
So we just finished one that I did on judges. And, you know, particularly in light of the kind of the modern
45:59
Western scene spiritually within the church, how easy it is to, you know, how easy it is to craft a religion that is not rooted in the reality of God.
46:13
And then you come up really with a very fine imitation. And, you know, you see the moral decline in judges and the many wonderful expressions of God's mercy.
46:24
So those cycles of decline and restoration. But as they go, they become more, you know, it's not what we call a merry -go -round where you just go in a circle, a downward spiral.
46:38
So, you know, as you progress through judges, even after the restoration, a period of reviving, the people are not quite where they were before.
46:47
And we see the, you know, the continual impact of sin and the mercy of God.
46:54
And so a lot of things, I think, in judges that are pressing for us. And right now we're working on a mini study on Psalm 119.
47:06
And we've just found that very beneficial here at the church. But yes,
47:12
Behold Your God 3, where we look at the Lamb of God, a Christology.
47:18
We really feel like that needs to be done. Now that the COVID restrictions, you know, are lifting more, it's just a matter of me finding time and making sure the men that we, you know, for the first study in particular, the men that were used were not our first pick.
47:36
We called some people that maybe were better known. And these, they were good men, but they were busy and they didn't know us from Adam.
47:46
And so they said, no, thank you. And then, so we pulled back and we, I asked this question, what men do
47:54
I know who not only believe these things, but whose ministries reflect these things.
48:00
So whether they're well -known or not. And we went to them and they were willing to contribute.
48:06
And I'm very glad that we did. You know, whenever we teach that study at the church where I pastor,
48:12
I try to go to the restroom, to the bathroom when I come on television and I stay there until I'm gone.
48:18
And then I come back out because I don't want to miss those final comments.
48:24
You know, I, yeah, they still, they still haunt me in a beneficial way.
48:30
No, they're good. No, there's also things like, you know, in the study, you know, your study where you had, you know, three examples of the, you know,
48:42
Jeroboam and David and Christ. And, you know, the Jeroboam one is like, it's so, you just, you hear it and you think, we keep repeating that same thing over and over and over again.
48:55
Yeah. Yeah. That's the yes, but one, that's number 11, isn't it? Yeah. Pragmatism.
49:01
Pragmatism. Yeah. One, one historian said pragmatism is the only home grown philosophy in America.
49:09
So, well, it's very good to spend time with you, Callum, and to find a face to your voice and your emails.
49:16
And again, we're so grateful for the Lord's use of you. And thank you for sharing that with us.
49:22
The feeling is more than mutual. We wouldn't be here if you hadn't done the work in the first place. So, we hope you enjoyed that interview.
49:31
We could have gone on a lot longer with Callum, but we want to bring this update to a conclusion.
49:39
This is an update for the supporters of Media Grazie, and it might kind of raise a question in people's mind.
49:46
If we sell materials, then why do we have supporters? And the reality is that as a very small 501c3 ministry, we are a not -for -profit ministry, and our focus is pretty tight.
49:59
We try to put out studies that are focused on the experiential side of Christianity.
50:06
There are so many good ministries putting out good materials, and many of them focus on the very timely questions of the day, and these are important.
50:16
We tend to focus on the kind of the enduring, timeless issues, and we hope that together the
50:22
Lord uses what we do with the other ministries around us to benefit the church. And to honor
50:28
Him. But as a small ministry, the materials that we print, while we're grateful for how they've been received, they do not support the ministry on their own.
50:39
And so, we are thankful that many people contribute throughout the year. Please pray for us that God will make the path so very clear to us exactly where do we need to spend our time, and our resources, and what needs to be said.
50:54
If we're not going to approach studies with the thought of, well, what's most marketable, then the question has to be, what would the
51:04
Lord want us to do? And what is most significant? What thing has to be said right now, where we live?
51:13
And so, we ask that you would pray for us that we would be wise, diligent, that we would make good use of our time, and that the
51:19
Lord would continue to use our teaching material throughout the world for His glory. Thank you.