10 Years of Beholding God: Conrad Mbewe, pt 1

Welcome to the Whole Council Podcast. I'm Jon Snyder, and I'm here to commemorate the 10th anniversary coming up for our

Behold Your God study, Rethinking God Biblically. So ten years ago, we were right in the midst of filming and traveling and writing and editing and getting all the hundreds of little details together in order to make this study available.

It has been more widely received than we ever expected. I only half -jokingly say that I expected the men who contributed to the study who pastor churches.

I did think that they would probably want to get the study and use it in some small groups, and I thought my mom and dad would buy some, but I thought that would be about the end of it.

And ten years later, we are still getting letters and comments from around the world, from Africa and Asia, from Australia, from Canada, South America.

It's just been really quite humbling and encouraging at the same time to see the kindness of the

Lord to use this material. Now, whenever you do videos like this with contributors, the interviews are much longer than what we were able to include in the study.

We had to leave by far the majority of their comments out, and so Teddy has been working over the last weeks, and he will continue to work to get all these interviews in their entirety available to you.

And we think that really that's a great way to celebrate the ten years, and I hope that you will be as benefited by them now as we were ten years ago listening to these men talk about such important topics.

You're about to hear the interview with Conrad Mbewe, and Conrad is the only man that contributed to the study that I did not know prior, to asking him to contribute.

Just a little background, when we were considering making the study, and then we thought, you know, we kept adding elements to it, and AFA, to their credit, would just say, well, go ahead, do whatever you think would make it most beneficial, the best kind of study that we could do.

So we thought, well, perhaps we should add men who could answer questions and contribute.

What we wanted to do was, using the introduction to each week by going to a historical figure, we wanted to show that men in the past, leaders in the past, and ladies,

Amy Carmichael, that they had lived on the truths that we were saying today.

It wasn't anything new or novel, but we also wanted to show it wasn't just old people, but it was also modern men who were living on these truths and ministering according to these truths.

We asked a number of the better -known names, and they did not know us from Adam, and so I don't blame them for saying they weren't sure that they could contribute to a study, that they didn't know who was writing the study.

So we kind of backed up and asked the question, well, who should contribute? And we came up with this answer.

What men do we know who, to the best of their ability, by the grace of God, they are really risking everything to minister based on these principles?

And even though they may not be as well known as other people, we could at least say that. And so that's how we came up with the list.

I began to write down the names of people that I felt fit that description. Someone recommended

Conrad. I think it was Anthony, and so I trusted Anthony, and Conrad was going to be in the

United States from Zambia, and so he came. Conrad is the pastor of Kabwata Baptist Church in Zambia since 1986,

I believe, in Lusaka, the city of Lusaka. But Conrad is so much more than that.

Conrad really is the hub, the center of a wonderful work of reformation, of careful

Christianity in Zambia and throughout a lot of Africa.

I think of Conrad as kind of the Lloyd Jones of Africa today, not just pastoring one church, but pastoring pastors throughout the nation, throughout the continent, but also, in a sense, like a

John Calvin, helping in that culture the great truths of Scripture to be rethought and the church to be reformed according to those truths.

Conrad has just the most beautiful voice, you know, it's like liquid molasses, and when he talks, you know, you think even if he weren't saying true things, it would be pleasant, but the things he says are true.

We were able to have Conrad spend the night with us when he was here and filming, and he preached at the church, and one thing

I want to say about Conrad's visit here, when he filmed for us, he also preached on a Wednesday evening, and his sermon was on repentance,

I believe it was on Psalm 51, and A .C. Floyd, one of the employees with Media Grazie, his wife,

Chelsea, was converted through the impact of that sermon. Conrad spent the night with us during that time, and, you know, he was very gracious, very kind, but I noticed about Conrad, there was no downtime for Conrad.

As soon as he finished supper and speaking with us, he excused himself, and he went to his bedroom and got his computer out, and he wrote an article for the city newspaper, he wrote something else for the churches, he wrote this for that, you know, he answered emails.

He really is a man who God has entrusted with extraordinary influence, and so I hope you benefit from his interview, but as you do, remember to pray for Conrad and the wonderful work

God is doing through him in Africa. A .W.

Tozer claimed that what a man thinks about God is the most important thing about that man. Can you explain to us why he would believe that, or why we should believe that today?

All right, yeah. First of all, it's pretty obvious that what A .W.

Tozer speaks about is true, it's correct, primarily because we are, first of all, moral creatures.

God has made us, and he, in making us, has given us a purpose for our own existence.

It's meant to also fulfill our intellectual beings. In other words, we are to relate to him, conscious of who he is, and then relate to his creation, conscious of who he is.

So clearly, as we are relating to all issues of our lives, as we are processing that intellectually, we need to think in terms of God's own thoughts about that particular area or those areas of our lives.

The moment we banish the thoughts of God, who he is, his moral being, if we banish all that from our minds as we are dealing with any area of life, we are the losers.

Because ultimately, when we meet him on the day of accounting, on the day of judgment, we will find that we will be punished instead of rewarded, because we dealt with that area in a way that he was either not pleased with or in a way that he was pleased with.

So although we live in a period of time, ultimately we will be in a state of eternity.

It's important that we are always reflecting on how that ultimate end is going to relate to what we are processing in the now.

So I definitely agree with him. Now, you've spoken about how that is dealt with in sort of church denominational structures and so on and so forth, and I think that's primarily to do with church leadership.

Anybody who is in a position of church leadership ought to recognize that they are fulfilling a role of stewardship.

They are God's regents on the earth. The church is

Christ's church. He is the head. The church in 1

Timothy 3 is referred to as the household of God, and consequently, we are merely looking after it.

That's all we're doing. And anyone who is a steward, managing an institution on behalf of someone else, must constantly be thinking, what is the owner wanting to be done in this place?

The moment he forgets that and then simply begins to think in terms of what is it that I want to see happen, what do

I enjoy, what is that which will add to my reputation?

He's thinking wrong thoughts altogether. So that's the way that I put it at that level of church leadership.

It's always important to think in terms of I'm a steward, I'm a manager on behalf of God, and therefore, would

God be happy with this? Speaking about my own experience back home in Zambia and relating it to the thoughts of God, who he is, related to my own life,

I can primarily think in terms of two specific areas where this was burnt into my own being.

I think the first was as a very young Christian, probably a year old in the things of God, having been converted in 1979 in Lusaka, Zambia, Central Africa, which is where I grew up.

I think my first year as a Christian was really lost because I did not have any sense of direction.

I was still very much responding to the friends around me and what they would think about the kind of decisions

I would make. Until one Sunday, I was in church. The preacher was basically showing how

God instructed Moses to prepare the tabernacle, basically.

The little phrase later on about this being done as God had commanded him, that little phrase, almost like a chorus being repeated, really came home with fresh meaning for me.

It was essentially the fact that God wants me to live my life and to do things as he has commanded.

It's not so much about what I want as what God wants.

That really broke me. I remember listening to this message and simply saying to myself,

I need to change. From now onwards, it must not be about what people want or about what

I want, but as to what God wants. That was a major change in my life.

I went home and made drastic changes to the way

I went about a lot of personal issues. The second was when, coming to the end of my university days,

I was in courtship. I think the courtship must have lasted between three to six months.

The lady that I was in courtship with discovered I was contemplating becoming a pastor.

The last thing she ever wanted in her whole life was to be a pastor's wife.

So she confessed that to me and said we needed to part ways.

I was really heartbroken, and I had a quarrel with God. The main quarrel being that here

I am yielding my life to him to serve him, and then this is the way he treats me.

It was a real disappointment. I'm not sure how

I ended up with A .W. Pink's Sovereignty of God in my hands, but I finished my studies, barely managed to pass because I was in this emotional whirlwind during that period.

I was now making my way to this new town where I was to start my life now as a working young adult.

As I was traveling, I was reading this book. The main message that came out of that book was essentially life is not about me, it's about God.

He has the right to do with my life as he pleases. Now that was first of all a very bitter lesson.

It's like the wrong thing to be given when you need comfort.

You're now being finished off. But I think having come to the end of that book, it was a sweet lesson because it was not an arrogant, tyrannical leader, ruler, just wanting to squash me in his hands.

It was a father with a purpose for my life, and therefore taking me through this difficult path in order to make me a better servant in his hands for years to come.

I would like to testify that I learned more in that extremely difficult period.

I think it was extremely difficult simply because I was a young adult and at that stage, the love affair was the biggest thing for me.

But having lived another 20 to 30 years after that,

I know there are bigger issues in life than a broken love affair.

But it still helped me to be a gracious, caring pastor.

And often as I sit with somebody who's whipping buckets because of what's transpired in their lives,

I'm sitting there thinking that's where I was. And then the medicine is to point them back to God, not to themselves and the circumstances.

It is to the fact that God has a bigger picture than all this.

And if you just yield to him, you may find that looking back, what transpired in your life was actually a blessing to God's glory and not simply feeding your desires for the pleasures of life.

So I think those two events were major events in my own life, sort of just making me appreciate that life is about God rather than about myself and teaching me, as someone has said, that providence is like Hebrews.

It's best read backwards. And that's what I really learned.

Without denying there is healthy growth and healthy churches, can you respond to Tozer's claim that the

American church is 2 ,000 miles wide, but only a half inch deep? Yeah.

I think to some extent, what you are seeing in America is precisely what's also happening in Africa.

There is what may be seen as revival in terms of the number of apparent conversions, the openness of the

African people to the gospel, to the word of God, to church generally, the levels of consciousness of the spiritual world in the

African context. I'm sure you come across reports from those that travel to Africa and come back about thousands of conversions and so on and so forth.

And so people are speaking about the growth of the church in Africa in glowing terms.

Coming from there as a church pastor, I'm not as excited as perhaps the reports would want me to be.

And that's because although, again, like the American situation, you have a lot of people in the churches.

I mean, on Sunday you see thousands of people heading out to places of worship, which is very different from mainland

Europe and perhaps the United Kingdom. And yet during the week, it's the exact opposite.

Levels of crime and immorality, lack of integrity, corruption, levels of AIDS, and so forth, all speak about a fragmented spiritual situation.

And so the issue of so many thousands of miles wide and yet an inch deep is very true back home.

And I think, first of all, the pioneer missionaries that came out to Africa from the reading that I've done did a good job.

The conservative evangelical missionaries, no doubt, deliberately were seeking to confront us as Africans with the true

God of the Bible. Somewhere along the line, there's been a shift. There's been a greater emphasis on quick results, decisionism.

There's been a greater acceptance of whatever it is that looks spiritual.

And just covering it with a thin veneer of Christianity. And the result of that has been what to me is basically the loss of the

Christian faith, almost altogether. So you do have your buildings.

You have what is deemed as worship, but it's basically entertainment.

You have what is supposed to be preaching, but it's again just man -made, man -centered messages, psychological quick fixes.

And again, the health and wealth kind of gospel has been taken in hook, line, and sinker over on our side of the

Atlantic. And so what you're having as the main form of Christianity back home is not the

Christianity of the Bible. And certainly the God that is being promoted and preached is far from the

God that comes across to you in a faithful and sincere study of the

Word of God. So it is a sad day rather than a day of rejoicing.

I read books like Operation World, and I think they are very sincere in speaking about the spread of the

Christian faith. But sometimes I wish they would visit some of the big churches where Christianity is supposed to be spread through because they have the main access to the airwaves on TV and so on.

And I'm sure they would come home dismayed if not disgusted because it's a far cry from the

Christianity of the Bible. So I would agree with Toza's sentiment.

There's need for drastic measures to be taken. Many people see problems in the church.

But what do you diagnose as the true root issues that must be dealt with? Yeah. You know, thankfully,

God has given us His self -revelation in the Bible. And anyone who just takes the

Bible seriously soon discovers that the issue is not to begin with us as human beings.

The moment you begin with us, you're starting in the wrong place. You need to begin with God.

In the beginning, God created. So the moment you begin from there, you're already seeing nobody makes something for its own end.

We all make the things we make for our end. I'm wearing braces at the moment.

These were not meant for their own end when man made them.

So that we should be thinking in terms of what would be nice for the braces to be on.

It's the other way around. What would be nice for the man? And then we deal with them in the same way.

God has made the world. He's made it for a purpose. Sin has entered into the world.

And therefore destroyed the things that God has made. God has provided a savior to bring the whole situation back.

And that's the way we ought to constantly be thinking. The problem with a lot of the solutions that are being brought up in Christian circles, and I'm not doubting the sincerity, is that we're often thinking in terms of human beings wanting this.

Therefore, let's bring it into the church so that we attract them to the church.

Really, we need to realize that from God's perspective, human beings are in rebellion.

They want to be the center of creation rather than God being the center.

Those of us who are genuine Christians, those of us who are preachers, need therefore to confront human beings so that they realize the claims of God upon their lives and come back to Him in genuine repentance and faith.

And clearly, therefore, they need to come back to Him on His terms. And God doesn't call them to a negotiating table.

He basically calls them to surrender. Now, if they don't, well, they're the ones to pay the price in eternity.

If they do, it is in being reconciled back to Him that they find, as Jesus put it, life more abundantly.

And so, to me, the issue is always where should we start.

And I think often those that are seeking to cure the ills of the

Christian church are starting in wrong places. We need to begin with God. Yeah, when

I thought hard concerning the question, I found that my mind constantly went back to simply one word, and it was the word meditation.

And I find that generally speaking, I think a lot and consequently appreciate seasons when

I'm away from everybody else. It gives me time to think, to reflect, and as I said, the phrase that kept coming back is meditation.

And that's where I think my own relationship with God, and more specifically with the

Lord Jesus Christ, has developed over time and over the years. And in a sense, therefore,

I'm a little reluctant to think of it in terms of a method, because it's just been life.

I finish preaching. I go back into my study, waiting for individuals that have good questions to come and meet with me there.

And invariably, my mind is going through what worship was like, what disturbed me about it, what brought joy to my own heart.

But even when I'm thinking like that, I'm thinking in terms of the Lord himself, as he has revealed himself in his word and what he would have been happy with concerning the time that as a corporate body we spent in his presence.

As I'm relating to my own priorities in life, again, I'm thinking, you know, what are

God's thoughts about what I'm doing? How is this relating to my walk with him?

My life will soon be over. Again, I'm thinking, am

I living every day in such a way that when

I meet with him in eternity, this life would have added something to that eternal existence that I will have with him?

And these are just thoughts that are going through my mind. A few days ago,

I was crossing the Atlantic. And again, the same thing. I'm meditating.

I'm saying, is this the best way for me to spend my life?

I'm crossing the Atlantic. I'm a husband, I'm a father,

I'm a pastor of a flock that I think comprises my primary stewardship in life.

So how does this fit into that bigger picture in my relationship again with the

Lord? So it's things like this that tend to, I think, enrich my enjoyment of my savior and my

God, my relationship primarily with him. And then the rays of that sun meeting all these other areas of life.

So I would really say meditation. So when I'm studying the word, when I'm praying, when

I'm working, when I'm relating to all other spheres of life, every so often

I'm closing myself in and thinking and meditating, responding not only to his word, but also just providence round about me.

We recently lost our foreign missionary. Our church sent him to Malawi.

He battled with cancer for a year and died on the very last day of March, rather of February.

And I had to process the whole congregation through that the following Sunday.

Again, it was in my walk with God and thinking, again, meditation, that the appropriate messages were given me to minister to the congregation.

And again, it wasn't just dealing with that as an item in the agenda.

It was, Lord, what is it you would want me to say at a season like this to your people?

And so it's all in meditation. And that's really the plea that I would make to God's people,

God's servants. It's that God is a personal being. We ought to shun away from treating him like a computer.

You punch in the right things and outcome what you want. Rather, we should think more in terms of relating to him.

And in our relationship with him, therefore, doing what we see to be pleasing to him.

How do you personally use the Bible to grow an awareness of God's glory or to promote lofty views of God among the people around you?

Yeah, that's a very valid question. Perhaps the best way to put it is that from the very, very early days of my

Christian life, I was discipled to ask the

Bible a number of important questions whenever I read it. And the very first question that I was discipled to ask is, what does this teach me about God?

So it doesn't really matter which part of the Bible I might be in. The very first question that is now like my default mode is, what does this teach me about God?

For instance, it might be a passage to do with Israel going into battle.

And perhaps in the process of that battle, some of the soldiers die.

And I think, again, getting back to meditation, I think for a moment that imagine that all

I was was a soldier in Israel. The battle is over.

The soldiers have come back, perhaps victorious, but I'm one of the slain. So my life has come to an end.

And yet the battle has been won, or maybe even lost. But the point is,

God's purpose has been accomplished. So here

I am thinking, my life is gone in the battlefield.

But what does this teach me about God? And it's amazing that I come away from there thinking,

God must be great. He must be big. I mean, He must have a transcending agenda, that in the midst of these details of life,

He's still carrying on this great purpose that will finally mature into the knowledge of God filling the earth as the waters cover the sea.

It's this great ship crossing the

Atlantic. And while it's crossing the Atlantic, there's so much happening in its details.

The engineers working in the engine of the ship, the passengers dealing with the details of their lives, the captain thinking in terms of the wider effects of where the ship is at this time, and so on.

And yet God is like that bigger picture crossing the

Atlantic and finally arriving on the other shore. So because the most important question in my mind is, what does this teach me about God?

Although the passage is about some soldiers having died in the battlefield while others come back to report the loss or the victory, it leaves me worshipping.

It leaves me thinking, thinking, wow, there's this vast difference between my little life here on earth and this great majestic God carrying out

His wider purposes. And it also leaves me not really thinking of myself as a little tiny cog in a wheel, but leaves me with a sense of significance in that little role

I'm playing as a soldier that's died in the battlefield and everybody's come back home.

It's not just my wife receiving the bad news back home and therefore mourning the death of a valiant soldier in the battlefield who is a husband, but it's also the fact that this great majestic being then still comes into that minute moment in my life or better still in my family's life to minister me.

So you've got this God who's taking the ship across the ocean and yet at the same time this

God who's dealing with the engineers there and the individual passengers there and it's just magnificent.

So I think for me that's what's been a great help so that it doesn't matter what part of the

Bible I'm in, I'm still wanting to learn about the main subject of the