May 15, 2018 Show with Joseph Jacowitz on “Christian Missions: The Call to Them & Endurance in Them”

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

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

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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.

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

Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida, and the rest of humanity living on the planet Earth who are listening via live streaming at ironsharpensironradio .com.

This is Chris Arntzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Tuesday on this 15th day of May 2018, and I'm delighted to have back on the program someone who has become a very special friend and also who is the founder of First Love Radio, the network that Iron Sharpens Iron Radio has recently found its home, and he is also founder of First Love Publications and pastor of Christ Bible Church in Dublin, California.

We are addressing the theme Christian Missions, the Call to Them, and Endurance in Them, and it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Pastor Joseph Jakowicz.

Oh, good to be with you, Chris. Glad you're pressing on in this great work that God has called you to.

I really appreciate it, and I know that you have been on the program before, as I've already said, but there are new listeners, it seems, joining the

Iron Sharpens Iron audience every week. I'm hearing from people that I've never heard from before from all over the world, so for their benefit, why don't you let our listeners know something about Christ Bible Church in Dublin, California, and then we'll move on to First Love Publications and First Love Radio, because if I'm not mistaken,

I have a feeling, and I could be wrong, but I have a feeling this is the first time that you've been on since the launching of First Love Radio, or at least since the addition of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio to the roster there.

That is correct. Great, so let's hear about Christ Bible Church in Dublin, California, and then we'll hear about First Love Publications and First Love Radio.

And First Love Missions. Yes, that's right, because the theme today is very connected to that, yes.

Yes, Christ Bible Church was founded in 1990 by four families, myself and my wife being one of them.

I've been the pastor here for 28 years, and we're located about 25 miles east of San Francisco in northern

California. We're a commuter church. We have families coming from all over the

San Francisco Bay Area within an hour to an hour and 15 minute drive, and we are distinctively

Reformed Baptists in our theology, and we are aggressive in evangelism, reaching out with the

Gospel through street evangelism, Bible studies, foreign missions, one -on -one.

For a Reformed church, we are very proactive when it comes to evangelism, but we also have a strong emphasis in our teaching and in our ministry on practical

Christian living and holiness and godliness. So we seek to strike that balance in our church between reaching out with the

Gospel and a very close walk with the Lord. We believe in expository preaching in the pulpit.

We go through the scriptures one verse at a time, one book at a time, generally speaking, and we have a cross -section of people from different ethnic groups, which is really reflective of the melting pot that is here in the

San Francisco Bay Area. And so we, if anyone is in this area or knows someone that lives in the

San Francisco Bay Area looking for a church home, you certainly are welcome to visit us.

You can find out more information about Christ Bible Church on our website at christbiblechurch .org.

That's christbiblechurch .org. We do have a plurality of elders. There are two pastors, myself and Pastor Owen Alford.

We have four deacons, and we have a very biblical structure in our church.

And I know that you meet at the Pleasanton Evangelical Free Church.

I said Dublin, California earlier, but that's your mailing address. Your actual physical location where you worship is the

Pleasanton Evangelical Free Church on North Valley Trails Drive in Pleasanton, California.

That's correct. The actual physical site where we worship is in Pleasanton, but if people want to mail things to us, our mailing address is listed in Dublin, so that's why it's a little confusing between the two cities.

But those two towns are right next to each other. By the way,

I'd like to ask our listeners for a word of prayer right now as you're listening that we remain on the air because there is a pretty hairy thunderstorm brewing outside as we speak, and who knows if we lose power or not during the midst of our program.

If we disappear from the airways, you'll know why that happened. But now let's hear about First Love Publications.

I was so thankful and so thrilled that your team, or at least a portion of your team for First Love Publications, made the trip all the way out here to Carlisle, Pennsylvania in,

I believe it was January, for my last or most recent, I should say, pastor's luncheon.

You set up a booth there giving away thousands of dollars worth of books for free, and that is nothing unusual for you because First Love Publications always gives away everything that they publish for free.

If you could tell us about First Love Publications. First Love Publications is a ministry of our church, and the roots of our beginnings go back to 1988, even a little earlier, when

I developed a relationship with the folks at Chapel Library, a ministry of Mount Zion Bible Church in Pensacola, Florida, founded by Pastor L .R.

Shelton Jr., and currently is headed up by Pastor Jeff Pollard.

Yep, a friend of mine. Yes, yes, mutual friends. It's a small world, isn't it? Yes. And out of that,

I developed a fondness and love for a literature ministry, and so we obtained our publications mainly from them, and then in 2006,

I felt a burden to start our own literature ministry, and we began printing books and booklets and tracks.

Our first book was titled The New Testament Missionary, which is the theme of our program today here on Iron Sharpens Iron, and since that time, we've printed 51 publications, books, booklets, and tracks.

We distribute them free of charge all over the world. We go on missionary trips two or three times a year.

We bring usually tens of thousands of our books and our publications. We ship a lot of them over to the conference locations because there are too many to bring with us, plus we bring many with us in our suitcases as well, as much as the airlines will allow us to without paying extra.

Sometimes we do pay a little extra to bring publications with us as well, so we will hold pastors' conferences and Bible conferences, usually in third -world countries, and we will go in and preach for a week or two, usually on themes that help pastors be equipped in the disciplines and activities that they are called to as pastors in the local church.

Most pastors in the third world are ill -equipped to face the challenges of the pastoral ministry.

Many of them cannot afford formal education and books for their libraries, so they're in need of great supplementing of information on the pastoral ministry, so we'll go in and teach on subjects like hermeneutics, homiletics, church history, theology, biblical theology, systematic theology, pastoral theology, counseling, many, many different subjects doctrinally and pragmatically to equip them to be better pastors in their churches.

And then at the end of the conference, we will bring out usually 10 ,000, 15 ,000, 30 ,000, in some cases even more than that, plus 30 ,000 books and booklets and tracts, and we will have all of the attendees of the conference line up and just go through our book tables and take a copy of each one, and most of them will leave with a stack of their publications.

In North America, we have a warehouse location in Versailles, Kentucky, where we receive orders from folks who visit our website, which is firstlovepublications .org,

firstlovepublications .org, and on our publications website, people in North America, in the 50

United States, not only the contiguous United States, but also Alaska and Hawaii, since they're also connected with our postal system, they can order books free of charge from our website.

Again, that website is firstlovepublications .org, and a description of our books are on the website.

We have five categories of books that we send out from doctrinal, pastoral, evangelistic, devotional, and apologetics, and we have a number of books under each title, and we're adding new books to each category, rather, the categories all the time.

We have 40 more books besides the 51 publications we presently offer at the printer right now, and God willing, in the not too distant future, we'll be adding those titles, so we're always in the process of looking for good books to print, not just any books.

We want each title to pack a punch, to meet a need, to reach down into the heart of the reader and the mind and inform the mind and really challenge the heart to know

Jesus Christ more deeply, to be grounded more thoroughly in the knowledge of the faith, and to have their lives transformed into the image of Christ.

So that's what First Love Publications is all about. We also visit local churches upon request.

If a pastor wants us to come, we'll put on a PowerPoint presentation. We'll bring a sampling of our publications with us as well.

We've done that. Actually, we have a growing amount of opportunities to present First Love Publications in local churches, and then after the presentation, we will have the attendees take publications free of charge, just like we do overseas when we present

Bible conferences and pastor's conferences and have the attendees take publications.

So if anyone listening would like to have us come and do a presentation of First Love Publications, we'll show you what our outreach is all about with the publications, and we'll bring books with us.

So we have missionaries with First Love Missions, which is a separate organization, who will come to your church and will do a presentation of both

First Love Publications and also First Love Missions. First Love Missions is an arm of the ministry that works hand -in -hand with First Love Publications, and so that's what

First Love Publications is all about. We also have brochures and catalogs. You can request a catalog, a hard copy of our publications.

You can also see the various titles we have on our website, the full catalog is posted on the website.

And for people who might be thinking in their minds, well, if they're giving these books away for free, they must be pretty shabby looking.

They must be printed on the real garbage as far as the paper and stuff.

These books really rival in their appearance, the quality of their appearance and the cover artwork and everything.

They rival the biggest publishers out there. Right. No, they are very high quality books.

We have worked hard, and God has helped us to find a very cheap source of printing of our books overseas, but at the same time we have a high standard for the quality of the design, the cover design, as well as the font size, the appearance, and the easy readability of the text itself.

Each book is printed with high value and high quality in mind. People have asked us, well, how can you do this?

We are supported by donations, so even though we give them away free,

God lays it on the heart of people to support us either with one -time gifts or regular monthly support.

And I was delighted that you had the booth right next to mine at the last

G3 conference in Atlanta, Georgia, and it was so great to be able to have fellowship with you.

And that's where, over lunch, you gave me the honor and privilege of extending an invitation to me to join the roster of the broadcasting lineup there at First Love Radio, and it is such a joy to have joined your lineup, knowing especially that the fine brethren in Christ that you work with, and the fact that we all share in common the same doctrines of sovereign grace and same passion to spread them.

Yes, well, I feel very strongly as you do, Chris, that it was a providential match that God made in ministry between you and I, since not only do we basically embrace the same theological perspective from the scriptures in the major teachings, even in many of the secondary areas of the faith, but also you and I are from the same area of the country, from the

East Coast, New York City, New Jersey, metropolitan area. I was born and raised there, and we know so many of the same people.

It's amazing. Many of our friends are the same, and we never met until about a couple years ago,

I think. So yes, and I feel that you coming on board with First Love Radio was a real blessing for us, because though I have 30 plus years experience in Christian broadcasting, yet in starting our own worldwide global radio outreach on the internet called

First Love Radio, we really needed an anchor program to establish our radio ministry.

And I'm very familiar with the multitude of Christian programs that are out there, and after listening to your program and being a guest a few times and getting to know you and the outreach of Iron Sharpen's Iron Radio as a program,

I was just delighted when you agreed to come over to First Love Radio, and really your program is our bread and butter program.

It anchors the whole station, and we have a growing number of programs that we are adding on a regular basis, and so we invite our listeners to tune in every once in a while, visit the website firstloveradio .org,

that's one word, firstloveradio .org, and check back and see what new programs are being added.

Actually, I think this Saturday we're starting a new program that's hosted by our mutual friend

William Shishko. Oh, great. I knew it was coming, but I didn't know it was coming this Saturday. Yes, so it's scheduled to air this

Saturday at one o 'clock, I believe that's Pacific time. Well, no, it would be one o 'clock

East Coast time, and then... Actually, it's... Oh, you're airing it at one o 'clock

East Coast, West Coast time, or the show airs live between 12 noon and 1 pm

East Coast, so I don't know if you're airing it live or not. I don't think it's going to be live. We inquired about that being live, but William Shishko said that probably it would just be a week delay program for now.

Okay. We certainly can host it live on our server, that's no problem.

Okay, but until then, the pre -recorded version will be airing at what time on First Love?

One o 'clock. One o 'clock Pacific time. Right, one o 'clock Pacific time, I believe so.

Okay, then that would be four o 'clock p .m. Eastern time. Right.

Well, that's a great program. Pastor Bill Shishko is a dear friend going back to the 1980s.

I met him not long after he first took or accepted the call to the pastor at the

Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Franklin Square, New York. He has since retired from that post and is now running

Reformation Metro New York, which is a parachurch organization under the oversight of the

Orthodox Presbyterian Church, and I'm just thrilled that you two now know each other, and I know that you were aware of him from your old days with Family Radio.

Yes, yes, I knew of him during the 80s, 1980s and 90s on Family Radio.

Never met him, but had a, you know, respect from a distance for him, but it's amazing how

God brings people full circle back, and we've met on the phone, we've had a couple of good conversations, and we're looking forward to his program, which is called

From the Pastor's Study. A Visit to the Pastor's Study. Yes. A Visit to the

Pastor's Study. Yes. And I am delighted about that, and our listeners should know also about your history in radio, and you can hear more about that.

We've had other interviews with Pastor Jackiewicz on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, so if you go to the

Iron Sharpens Iron Radio website, ironsharpensironradio .com, and you go to the archive and type in Jackiewicz, J -A -C -O -W -I -T -Z, that's

J -A -C -O -W -I -T -Z, you can hear all of the interviews we've had, and there was one in particular where we go into his history of involvement with Family Radio before Harold Camping became a full -blown apostate, and also we've had mutual involvement with Salem Media.

I worked for Salem Media for 15 years, and I know that you were employed there as well.

Yes, I have. Their San Francisco Bay Area station, KFAX, and their sister station,

KSFB, for a few years had a talk show there, but we may have to do a follow -up program on Family Radio, because there are some rumblings and things in the works going on at Family Radio.

It's just amazing, and I'm not going to go too much into it. I'm going to tease our listeners with just the tidbit that there are some really, really good changes taking place at Family Radio.

I've had some meetings recently with the top leadership and the president of Family Radio, and I'm very encouraged by the course correction and change that has taken place over the last couple of years.

Chris, you and I need to talk off the air about some of those details, and then possibly discuss another program where we might even be able to have the president of Family Radio, Tom Evans, join me on a future program with an update.

Well, I'm very excited about that, and you know that I am all on board with that. Well, I am going to go to our first station break right now, because I don't want to interrupt you mid -sentence, and we might as well take the break now, and when we return,

I want to hear about your trip to the Philippines, because it makes perfect sense to talk about that in regard to our topic today,

Christian missions, the call to them and endurance in them, and then we'll move on from the

Philippines trip specifically to our general discussion on this issue. If anybody would like to join us on the air, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail dot com.

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

USA, and please only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal private matter, and I just had a humorous comment from Ted in Tuscaloosa, Alabama.

He says, wow, I couldn't even make it 15 months with Salem, let alone 15 years.

Well, yeah, even the folks at Salem thought it was unusual that I remained there that long because of the high turnaround rate in the

Christian radio, or in radio in general, but anyway, uh, so give us an email with a question at chrisarnson at gmail dot com.

chrisarnson at gmail dot com. Don't go away, God willing, we will be right back after these messages with more of Joseph Jakowicz and Christian missions.

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Iron Sharpens today. Hi, I'm Pastor Bill Shishko, inviting you to tune in to A Visit to the

Pastor's Study every Saturday from 12 noon to 1 pm Eastern time on WLIE radio, www .wlie540am

.com. We bring biblically faithful pastoral ministry to you, and we invite you to visit the

Pastor's Study by calling in with your questions. Our time will be lively, useful, and I assure you, never dull.

Join us this Saturday at 12 noon Eastern time for a visit to the Pastor's Study, because everyone needs a pastor.

And that was the voice of the man you just heard, Pastor Joe Jackiewicz, speaking about a host of A Visit to the

Pastor's Study, Pastor Bill Shishko, not only on wlie540am .com,

but now coming up this Saturday, God willing, starting off with a pre -recorded version on First Love radio, and I hope that you begin listening to both.

And we are back now to our discussion with Pastor Joe Jackiewicz, founder of First Love Publications, First Love Radio, First Love Missions, and one of two pastors at Christ Bible Church in Pleasanton, California.

We are discussing, or are going to begin discussing, I should say, Christian missions, the call to them and endurance in them.

And by the way, I am elevating my prayer request earlier to the fact that I just received on my cell phone one of those automatic warnings that there is, there are tornado warnings in my area until 4 45 p .m.

Eastern time, so that's 15 more minutes. So please pray that we remain unscathed as a result of this, if indeed the tornadoes come through here.

But, Pastor Joe, you just returned from a missions trip to the Philippines, and I'd love to hear about that before we go on to the broader subject of Christian missions.

We've been going to the Philippines since 2008, almost every year, and each time we go, the door opens wider for us to preach in churches and hold conferences and distribute literature free of charge.

There is a tremendous need and a hunger for the

Gospel and for sound teaching in the Philippines. Out of all Asian countries,

Filipinos, I think, understand and communicate the best in English.

Tagalog is one of several main languages. They're native languages, but everyone learns

English, and they're really able, quite competently, to communicate in English.

So it's really helpful for us in our conferences. All we have to do is just slow down a little bit in our teaching and in our delivery, and we can speak

English really well there. And they're very respectful, the people who attend the conferences, people that we witness to, whether it be in the streets or anywhere we go, in the hotels.

People are very willing and eager to discuss the things of God, unlike in America and Western countries where so many have hardened their hearts against the

Word of God and the Gospel and wouldn't give you the time of day to talk about the things of God. Not so in the

Philippines. And the door has been open for quite a while, and while the door is still open, we want to walk through it.

Well, our latest trip, which was held on April 14th through the 24th, just a few weeks ago, we were hoping that this year, out of all the 10 years we've been going there, we would be able to launch our radio outreach and our radio teaching and Gospel preaching ministry there.

And when we found out what the rates would be, when we received price quotes on the cost of the airtime on local stations, both in the

Manila area and about five hours north of Manila, on the island of Luzon, which is the largest island, most populous, in an area, a tourist area called

Baguio City. So we were in those two areas, in Manila and five hours north of Manila, in Baguio City.

And I received price quotes from radio stations in those two areas, and the cost was prohibitive.

It was something like $300 for 30 minutes on the air. And so I said, well,

Lord, I guess it's not your will for us to be on the air this year. And I told our folks in the Philippines, our branch leader there,

First Loves branch leader, that we're not going to be on the radio this year because we're not going to borrow money to do the

Lord's work. So when we got to the Philippines, we did not do any radio in Manila.

And then we drove north for several days' ministry in Baguio City. And then as soon as we got into the hotel, our contact pastor there met us.

And before I could even put my bag down, he said, oh, there was one more price quote that we forgot to give you.

And it ended up that it was something like $60 for 30 minutes.

It would have been around $100 an hour. And I said, well, that's much more affordable. So we were there at 1 o 'clock in the afternoon.

We arrived. And I said, well, can the radio station folks get us on the air by 4 o 'clock, which was three hours later.

And it turns out that not only were they able to accommodate us and preempt their regular programming, which was just pretty much

Christian music at that time, but we were able to get on the air for, I think it was six consecutive days for anywhere from an hour and a half to three hours per day doing a live program.

I called the program Open Forum, which we took questions from the listeners on any topic whatsoever.

We had a very qualified team with us of missionaries. We went with a team of 10.

Most of them were pastors and teachers and churches, but we had two or three believers who became missionaries with us with First Love Missions.

And if you're interested in becoming a missionary with First Love Missions, I can give the listeners more information about that later.

So we were able to do mass evangelism for about six or seven days consecutively on a radio station in the

Baguio City area. Baguio City has a population of about 500 ,000 people.

Very, very congested area. Many people. And as each day went by on the radio, and this, of course, our radio ministry was besides the daily conferences we were holding for about six to seven hours a day with pastors, and we had in the

Manila area a conference there for 300 showed up for one conference, 150 for another, and then in Baguio City it was almost 200 for one conference and about 100 for another.

So we were able to hold four conferences in our trip. But on the radio, the amount of calls we received grew exponentially day by day when people by word of mouth told others of the program.

It was amazing to see the program grow with so many listeners in just one week.

We could not answer all the questions even though we were on average on the air two hours live programming each day.

It was an amazing opportunity. And for me it was a real measure and test of the hunger and the thirst for truth that is there in the evangelical community of churches as well as just people in general, unsaved non -Christian people are hungry for the gospel.

And it's been my experience, Chris, that the gospel has virtually disappeared in the third world.

Over the last 30, 40, 50 years with the purpose -driven church philosophy and easy believism and the onset and increase of all the cults and the fear of man causing publications and tracts and gospel tracts to be watered down in its teaching, we're left with basically the four spiritual laws type of tract or less.

And the full -orbed gospel of Christ with the doctrines of Christ being out front and the work and the atoning work of Christ on the cross being described in something of its fullness lacks so much.

And it's a grievous burden on my own heart to see that you have to look very, very hard and long to find a true gospel message not only understood by believers and presented by believers in their personal evangelism outreach, but in churches as well.

So we're not the only mission organization that's bringing literature into the

Philippines and conducting conferences and seminars in churches to try to bring our evangelical brethren to a higher level of knowledge, not only of the gospel but of the basic doctrines of the

Christian faith. It's an uphill challenge, but we have a wide open door. Another thing is that one of our books, if our listeners go on our website, firstlovepublications .org,

they will find a book called Addiction and the Grace of God. Many have heard about the new

President Duterte has of the Philippines has basically declared an all -out war on drug users and drug dealers in the

Philippines and pretty much gave citizens carte blanche to do vigilante justice and kill drug dealers and drug users.

Well, upwards of 20 ,000 people have been killed in the last few years, last couple of years actually.

And the response of the rest or many of the remaining drug dealers and drug users to try to avoid death was to go to the government and get on a list, an amnesty list, and many have and they've been proved they have not been persecuted or attacked, but it's a requirement that if they want to get off that amnesty list and just be returned to a normal citizen, they would have to take a course on drug addiction and how to be free from drug addiction.

Well, one of the authors in our publications ministry, Dr. Stan Merrill, I asked him to write a book on addiction.

Well, not only did he write a book where addiction was one of the main topics, but he included five addictions in that book, not only drug addiction, but alcohol addiction, texting addiction, sex addiction, and one more,

I can't remember the fifth one. And he wrote it in the form of that could be used as a course and he wrote a study guide with it.

It's a textbook study guide. It has a student study guide and a teacher study guide that has all the answers.

So this last trip, three weeks ago, I went, I made an appointment with our team and I, we went to visit the mayor of Baguio City.

And I said, Mr. Mayor, would you give me permission to distribute this addiction book in your public schools on all levels?

And after some discussion, he said, yes. And he's, and one of the city council members is writing an ordinance for first law publications to give us the rights to distribute this book.

The only, the only organization that's going to have the right to distribute it in all the public schools in Baguio City. Well, my hope is

I want to print 150 ,000 of those books. That's my, my vision and to distribute them free of charge in the schools.

Now, Dr. Murrow, who wrote the book, he is of course a, he's a sovereign grace believer, very reformed in his theology.

And he wove the gospel in every chapter of, of the book, a very strong, profound, clear gospel message woven throughout.

And so I'm hopeful that a couple of hundred thousand children in the Baguio City area from high school on down, we'll get the gospel of Jesus Christ through that distribution of the book,

Addiction in the Grace of God. But we're praying that the Lord would provide those funds for us to print 150 ,000 copies and take them back on our next missionary trip to the

Philippines on November 30th. That's when we're returning. And my ultimate plan is to get a three prototype cities in the

Philippines, Baguio City being one of them, and two other cities, perhaps a large city in the

Manila area, and maybe one on the island of Mindanao. And to get three letters of reference from these, from mayors of these large cities and take those three letters of reference to, to, and make an appointment with President Duterte and, and say,

Mr. President, here, here are three reference letters from mayors of three of your largest cities.

Would you give me permission to distribute this book in all of your schools? It will help you in your desire to see many leave, leave off drug use and, and drug addiction and so forth.

And in doing so, it will, it will give them really the, the, the only powerful solution to help people be free of addictions, which is through the, the power of the gospel that, that is able to change lives.

Well, if you could please, please, please arrange an interview with Dr. Stan Merrill and me on Iron Trip and Zion Radio, I would love to do that as soon as possible.

As you may remember, the subject of addiction is near and dear to my heart because it unfortunately affected my own personal life and witness for Christ.

After having come to Christ as a, as a drunkard, when

I was in my early mid to mid -twenties, I was sober for 18 years and then tragically fell back into the sin of drunkenness.

And I just thank God for his mercy and grace for, for delivering me from that sin.

And that was largely due to his using a wonderful ministry in, in Boone, North Carolina called

Hebron Colony Ministries, which is what I understand the oldest continually running addiction center that is

Christian, especially for men in the United States. And they also have a female edition of this ministry in Santee, South Carolina called

Grace Home. But this is a subject that's near and dear to my heart. So I definitely want to interview

Dr. Stan Merrill as soon as possible. In fact, I've heard of him for years. I have just never to my memory interviewed him before.

Well, it would be a great interview for you. He's a dear friend and a partner in ministry. And I know he has a lot to say on the subject, so I will connect him with you.

Great. And one of the other things I wanted to ask you about is specifically involving the Philippines. What is the theological climate there?

I know that there is a lot of spiritism and occultism and paganism and false religion and Islam and all kinds of things going on there.

And I know that it's, while some areas may be safe, I also know that there's some areas that are very dangerous to visit.

Can you tell us something about these things that I've brought up? Well, President Duterte is very aggressive in trying to track down and eliminate terrorist cells and radical

Muslim groups. They're mainly found in northern Mindanao on the island of Mindanao.

That's one of three main island groups in the Philippines besides the Luzon and Visayas island groups.

But the theological atmosphere and situation there is pretty sad because poverty and other reasons have left the church in a very weakened condition theologically.

Pastors are not challenged to study, and they rely much on their emotions and experience.

But it's not because they don't want to study and to show themselves approved unto

God, but the lack of availability of curriculum and seminaries and Bible colleges to train them.

And so we find a very uneducated pulpit ministry there, and the people in their churches, the members, are suffering from that as well.

So we have developed, we're in the process of developing a school called Free Grace Bible Institute.

Dr. Stan Murrell is on the board as well as Dr. Bill Downing, whom you know, and several others, where we are putting together courses that can be provided free of charge for pastors there, as well as online.

We'll have an online version where the training for the pastoral ministry will be free, and it will be a quality orthodox type of training.

So we can offer this to the pastors free of charge. We set up a prototype of this school in Nigeria in our outreach to Lagos, Nigeria.

Our sister church there, Sovereign Grace Bible Church of Lagos, Nigeria, has been training pastors for the ministry since 2006.

They've graduated, I think, 15 or 20 men, and they're using a lot of our material there.

But we're going to do the same thing in the Philippines, God willing, here in the next couple of years.

We're in the preparation stage right now for that, to do that. But in the meantime, we're going in and doing short -term missions work, going in for a week or two, having survey courses, presenting survey courses on all the major disciplines of the pastoral ministry to help strengthen the doctrinal foundation of these pastors that we meet with.

And each time, it seems like the last three years since we've been there in a way, it's the last three years that word is starting to spread.

And each year we go back, we're doubling the size of those who attend our conference.

And I usually like to bring new folks on every missions team that I bring over there.

I bring over anywhere from five to ten people with me, and I train all the team members on how to do the short -term missions.

This last trip, I trained, let's see, seven of our team members on how to do missionary radio.

It's one thing to go into a radio studio and to do pre -recorded teaching where you can edit out what you want and make yourself sound really good.

But it's another thing to do live radio, which you do every day for two hours, Monday through Friday, and you sound like a seasoned professional that you are, but you've been doing it for so many years and it's just second nature to you.

But doing missionary radio, you've got to keep in mind the heresies of the nation, the community, the culture, all of the problems.

And what I like to do is I go in and I like to push all those hot -button issues that concerns the church and heresy and these types of things, and get people stirred up, get them calling in with questions, and address these doctrinal problems and these heresies right up front.

And so during our time there, we did just that. The two main helpers of mine on the radio, two co -anchors, were

Dr. Edward Dalkor, who was an apologetics expert, and so he brought the Greek and Hebrew, as well as a vast knowledge of the majority of the cults all around the world, with him into the studio.

And then the assistant director of First Love Missions, my right -hand guy,

Pastor Austin Huggins, and both of these men are gifted now, at least, on radio, and they were able to help me.

And we addressed the major cults of the Philippines, which are, the main one is

Iglesia Ni Cristo, which was founded in the early 20th century by a man named

Felix Manalo. And then we also addressed the heresies of the Mormons, Jehovah Witnesses, and two or three others, and we were able to deal with that directly on the air.

We also discussed the biblical perspective on marriage, divorce, dating, and the issue of dating, rather.

Yeah, so, and many other topics as well, relationship issues, and so doctrinal questions we dealt with, questions about the meaning of certain texts, and so we addressed a diversity of topics on the radio, including the cults.

Yes, I believe the Filipino cult that you mentioned before all of the others,

I believe Dr. James R. White had a debate recently with one of the proponents of that cult.

Iglesia Ni Cristo? Yes, I'm almost certain that he did. But I will confirm that later on, but yeah,

I'm almost certain, I'm almost absolutely certain he did. Very quickly, I know that you would want this caveat to be mentioned, when you said that you call the institute there the

Free Grace Institute, if I'm not mistaken? Free Grace Bible Institute. Right, right.

I think we have to make the caveat that you are no way connected to a heresy that is growing in popularity, that it goes under the name of Free Grace, where they absolutely deny the necessity of repentance for salvation.

In fact, they would even call that heresy to say that repentance is necessary for salvation. I know that you're just using the old beloved term that Calvinists used, especially in bygone eras, referring to the doctrines of grace, and I know

I had to make the same clarification when I had Jeff Pollard of Chapel Library on the program, because he has the

Free Grace broadcaster that he publishes. Yes. No, we absolutely deny that, that meaning of free grace.

Repentance is necessary. Yes. I just brought that up because when I've used the term in the past on this show,

I've had complaints and I've had to clarify to listeners what I was speaking about. But we have to go to our midway break right now.

It's a longer than normal break because Grace Life Radio in Lake City, Florida requires a 12 -minute break in between our two major segments.

It's 90 .1 FM in Lake City, Florida, who airs this program every day in a pre -recorded fashion.

So please be patient with us as we take this elongated break. Take this time to write questions for our guest,

Joe Jackowitz, and we already have a number of people waiting to ask their questions and have you answer them, Pastor Joe.

But also take this time to write down information that our advertisers provide so that you can patronize them whenever possible.

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Don't go away. We'll be right back with Joe Jackowitz and more of our discussion on missions.

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Chris Arnzen on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. Before we return to Joe Jacobs for our discussion on Christian missions, the call to them, and endurance in them,

I just have a couple of very important announcements. First of all, the

Banner of Truth Ministers Conference is coming up at the end of this month, May 29th through the 31st in Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania at the

Elizabethtown College. And the theme is Ministers of Christ.

The speakers include Alistair Begg, Johnny Gibson, Mark Johnston, Al Mohler, David Strain, and Craig Troxell.

I intend to be there, I am registered to be there, and look forward to meeting many of you in the

Iron Sharpens Iron Radio audience. And I would love to have fellowship with you, share a meal with you, and just spend a relaxing time of edification during those three days at the

U .S. Ministers Conference for Banner of Truth. If you'd like to register, go to BannerofTruth .org,

BannerofTruth .org, click events, and then click on U .S. Ministers Conference. Make sure you click

U .S. and not U .K., because they also have several U .K. Ministers Conferences, and they just completed one very recently, so you'll be directed to the wrong information, obviously, if you click accidentally

U .K. This is the 2018 U .S. Ministers Conference on the theme Ministers of Christ, May 29th through the 31st.

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chrisarnson at gmail .com is also the email address where you can send in a question to our guest, Pastor Joseph Jakowicz, founder of First Love Publications, First Love Radio, and First Love Missions, and one of two pastors at Christ Bible Church in Pleasanton, California.

We are discussing Christian missions, a call to them, and endurance in them. That's chrisarnson at gmail .com.

And I know that you are having an event, Pastor Joe, this week, so I would love for you to let our listeners know all the information they need to know about that.

Pastor Joe, are you there? I think so. I'm here, sorry about that.

First Love Missions is having its second East Coast conference in conjunction with Sovereign Grace Baptist Church of Dale City, Virginia.

So if you live on the East Coast and you're within driving distance, or even if you're not, even if you have to take a plane in, we're going to be holding our second annual

Bible conference that is First Love Publications and First Love Missions at this church,

Sovereign Grace Bible Church in Dale City, Virginia. If you can get information on this conference on First Love Publications' website, you can actually register for the conference as well.

It's a free conference, believe it or not. I will be there. I'll be one of the speakers, along with Dr.

Robert Doom and Dr. David Dickerson representing the, there's going to be four or five missions organizations there.

I'll be representing First Love Missions and First Love Publications, as well as Austin Huggins, Pastor Austin, our

Assistant Director will be there. And the, let's see, it'll be held this

Friday, Saturday, Sunday, May 18th through the 20th. And if you go to firstlovepublications .org

and when you're on the homepage, scroll down halfway and you'll see the advertisement for the conference.

It's the Missions God's Way conference. The message means methods and motive of biblical missions.

You see, God has given his people the great commission to go into all the world and preach the gospel and to make disciples of all nations.

How are we to accomplish this task? And what's the message we're to preach to the world? Well, we invite you to come and participate in this conference to answer these questions and to learn how every

Christian can biblically fulfill this commandment of the Lord Jesus Christ every day of our lives.

We're commanded to be involved in personal evangelism, sharing the gospel with everyone, as well as missions work, which is a synonym for evangelism in many ways.

It begins Friday night at 7 p .m. We're going to be having some special music put on by the

Master's Chorale, which is based at the Master's College, John MacArthur's College there in Southern California.

Dr. Paul Plew is the conductor of the Master's Chorale, and that will take place 715 to 815

Friday night. And then on Saturday, it begins at 930 with coffee and fellowship, and we'll have messages by myself on the call to missions and Dr.

James Esser, and there'll be missionary reports given, and the priority of missions will be addressed.

And then on Sunday, Dr. Robert Dume on stewardship for missions and preparation for missions given by Dr.

Erskine Dotson, and then I will conclude the conference with endurance in missions.

And then for those of you who want to attend, Monday there will be an optional trip to the

Museum of the Bible in Washington, D .C. I hope to meet many of you and that you can come, but you can also register for this conference online.

If you go to firstlovepublications .org and scroll to the bottom of the home page, click on more information, that link for more information, that will take you to Sovereign Grace Baptist Church website, and then you will be able to register there for the conference.

Again, the conference is free of charge in terms of the seminar part of it. I think they will be serving lunch, even some of the food will be free, but the folks need to hear from you if you want to register and come so they know how many to prepare for.

There are hotels in the local area, and that's listed on the website that you will go to once you click on the link on firstlovepublications .org.

Scroll to the bottom, click on more information, and that will take you to the website that you can register for the conference.

And we will be giving away tons of free publications. We will be giving mission reports.

You'll meet Pastor Bob Gifford, who pastors the Sovereign Grace Baptist Church. And actually for today's program,

Chris, if I might, we do have two free books that we are giving away. If you will go to that same website, firstlovepublications .org,

we're giving away two books. The first one, actually all of our publications are free, but I wanted to highlight two of them.

The first one is primarily for pastors and teachers and preachers. You don't have to be a pastor to get this book, but I encourage you to get it and give it to your pastor.

It's titled Prayerful and Powerful Pulpits, written by E .M.

Bounds, the author of all those books on prayer, those little paperbacks on prayer. Well, First Love Publications took all of those paperbacks, and we put them together in two volumes titled

The Complete Works of E .M. Bounds on Prayer. And then what I did, I took every chapter and article in those two volumes that Bounds wrote on the pastor and preaching, the pastor and ministry, the pastor and prayer, the pastor and teaching, and I put it together in one book titled

Prayerful and Powerful Pulpits. You can order that book from our website.

The second book we're highlighting for the program today is called Holiness by J .C.

Ryle. Oh yeah, what a classic. It's a classic, Chris. Many of your listeners are familiar with Ryle.

Ryle is well -loved in most evangelical quarters. We reprinted the original version of Ryle's book on holiness that contains the three appendices dealing with controversial topics connected with sanctification.

It is the best book on sanctification that I ever read. It's the most comprehensive book dealing with every pragmatic issue that you can think of relating to holiness and sanctification, and I would urge your listeners to order that book.

Again, go to the website, firstlovepublications .org, one word, firstlovepublications .org,

and order the book on holiness. It will change your life. I'm reading it myself right now for the third time, and I recommend a reading of it at least once every couple of years to get you stirred up in your faith.

Also, remember at the bottom of the homepage on firstlovepublications .org, click on for more information on the conference, and that will take you to the website,

Sovereign Grace Church's website, where you can register for the conference which will be held this

Friday night, Saturday, and Sunday. If you're in Virginia or in the area, neighboring states, come on down and visit us.

I'm trusting that it will be worth your while. And what a tragedy it is that so many

Episcopalians and Episcopalian ministers, or as some of them call themselves priests, are totally unaware of the existence of J .C.

Ryle. I mean, it's just mind -boggling. And, well, you could understand why those who are either in the left wing of apostate

Episcopalianism or in the Romish Oxford movement would not be aware of him since he was a solidly sovereign, grace -driven man.

And what a biblically -saturated work that you are promoting by him.

In fact, my grandmother is an Episcopal priest who's a very

Romish man, very nice man, very opposed to the liberalism and apostasy in regard to homosexuality and all these other things within the

Episcopal Church. So he is right on those issues. But he had never heard of J .C. Ryle, so I popped a booklet that Chapel Library, one of the booklets that Chapel Library publishes by him,

I popped that into his mailbox, hoping that something would happen. But to my knowledge, he's still a very

Romish Episcopalian priest. You never know what could happen. But, well, thank you for that,

Joe. And before we go into some of your own commentary, I think it'd be wise for us to at least take a couple of our listener questions first.

Sure. We have Murray in Kinross, Scotland, who asks, on the basis that someone doesn't suddenly become evangelistic when they arrive at where they have been sent as a missionary, would it be fair to say that they should be seen to be actively engaged in evangelism, etc.,

in their home situation before being considered for service elsewhere? Hmm, that's a very good question.

Well, yes, I would agree that the premise of being trained and being equipped and developing the skills and the character traits necessary to do extended missions work overseas or somewhere else, even in your own hometown, is a prerequisite.

We need to be proven and tested. We need to be equipped to do the work in whatever capacity and with whatever gift

God gives us. It's very, very important. Does God use perfect people? No. He uses those of us who are fragile and imperfect, but there is a minimum level of equipping that needs to take place that will help us endure the conflicts and the trials that will come against us and test our characters while we're out in the mission field.

It's critical that missionaries and those involved in personal evangelism have staying power, stamina, and endurance, because so many launch out when they're not tested, when they're immature, and they go a thousand miles an hour for a month or two or a year or two, and then they burn out because their doctrinal or character foundation is very, very weak.

So yeah, there needs to be a minimum level of preparation, both doctrinally and spiritually, in any long -term commitment that we would serve the

Lord, and in most capacities in which we would serve the Lord. And we also have

Ted in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. Does Joe speak Tagalog, T -A -G -A -L -O -G?

How difficult is it for English speakers to learn it, and how important is the knowledge of that language to your ministry?

That language is not important to our ministry, to the Philippines, because as I mentioned earlier, we're able to speak in English, and pretty much every attendee of our conferences and our church meetings and seminars understands our

English, our American English. I have found that most folks that we minister to at our conferences in the third world appreciate

American English, because there's not as many idioms in American English as there is, say, in British English and other forms of English that are kind of twisted because the native slang and vernacular and accent kind of mutilates the

English a little bit, and it's difficult to understand that form of English in third world countries.

But everywhere I go, people love in the third world the American English, but I have to tell our team members, look, slow down, because Americans tend to speak fast, most

Americans, and slow down, enunciate your words carefully, and usually we have no problems in being understood.

And what was the other part of that question? He was just saying how important is the language to your ministry, and you obviously, you answered that right off the bat.

You said it's not important at all. It's not that important. Tagalog is a Latin -based language. It's a mixture of Spanish and other, another part of the language, which

I don't know the roots of, but any, most languages that are rooted in Latin, like German and French and English, are not that difficult to learn.

German is a little hard for me, but otherwise, I think

Tagalog would not be too difficult to learn. I know of American missionaries in the

Philippines who have picked up Tagalog and pidgin English. And we have, let's see here, we have

Christopher from Suffolk County, Long Island, New York, who asks, I know that there are many missionaries in lands where Christianity is a tiny minority who are tempted to work hand in hand with others who would deny the doctrines of sovereign grace.

I know that there might be some level of cooperation that you might want to have with brothers in Christ who disagree on non -essential issues, even if they are

Arminian, but is it not very important that there are certain lines that cannot be crossed when it comes to the gospel itself, like those who work hand in hand with Roman Catholics and others who deny the biblical gospel of Christ?

Absolutely. Very, very good question. This is a relevant question for us at First Love Missions, because everywhere we go, we are dealing with non -reformed churches.

Either we preach at conferences where most of the attendees and the pastors are word of faith or charismatic or Pelagian, Arminian in theology.

And so we go in there and we seek, with God's help, to use a combination of wisdom and diplomacy and discretion without compromising on our beliefs.

We go in there and we sift our presentation of the teaching from all jargon and catchwords and cliches and terminology related to Calvinism.

We don't use those words. We, because so many of our hearers have been prejudiced against the doctrines of grace because they've been conditioned by their teachers that Calvinism is bad.

And so anytime they hear the word Calvinism or a similar word that would evoke the memory of what they've been prejudiced against, they immediately turn us off and they walk out of the meeting.

So we just don't use those terms of Calvinism and the like to cause people to not stumble unnecessarily.

We just go in there and we teach the truth. We teach it in its natural context from Scripture and we let the

Scriptures form their convictions. And so that's basically how we do it.

We bring our publications there. We hand them out when the attendees of the conference, which mostly are pastors, bring the books home that we give them and they read those books in the privacy of their homes.

Usually they're much more objective to be and receptive to the truth instead of verbally conversing on those topics.

And we find that we get many who are won over to these deeper truths of the doctrines of grace and other related truths because they don't have anybody to argue with.

They're reading in the privacy of their home. And so through the book distribution and through in our seminars presenting the sermons and the teaching and the theology without the trappings of cliches, we're able to get into their minds and hearts with the truth.

And if we only preach at Reform conferences, we wouldn't have very many conferences overseas because there's such a dearth and an absence of doctrine and truth that you don't find many churches that are

Reformed there. But the zeal and the energy of the Charismatics, the

Word of Faith people and the Fundamentalists, they are able to go into the farthest reaches of the world and the third world countries and bring their teachings to these people who are like blackboards.

They're like blank slates where the first one who gets to write on those blank slates gets the hearing first and gets a foundation laid in their minds.

So many Reformed churches are not zealous. They're not aggressive. And in disseminating the truth through missions work, they're not proactive.

And so we find that we go in there and we have to unteach them and unlearn them and challenge them in their preconceived ideas and their assumptions and then try to rewrite on a blank slate the truth of God's Word.

Now I assume that you would differentiate between non -Calvinistic

Christians that you would have some level of cooperation with and anti -Calvinist

Christians. Right. There aren't too many anti -Calvinist

Christians overseas because they're so weak in their understanding of the issues and the controversial theological battles between, say,

Calvinism and Arminianism. They have such little background and understanding in even the basic fundamental doctrines of the of the faith, let alone these other polemical discussions about the nuances and the finer points of theology, that when we bring up some of these terms, most of them have never heard it before.

Okay, we have to go to our final break. It's a much briefer one than the last one. So if you'd like to join us on the air with a question, we do have a couple of questioners waiting to have their questions asked and answered.

So please be patient with us. But if you'd like to get in line, do so now or forever hold your peace because we're running out of time.

Our email address is ChrisArnzen at gmail .com. ChrisArnzen at gmail .com.

Don't go away. We'll be right back with Joe Jakowicz. Have you been blessed by Iron Sharpens Iron Radio?

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

We are discussing Christian missions, the call to them, and endurance in them with our guest, Pastor Joe Jakowicz, founder of First Love Publications, First Love Radio, and First Love Missions, and also one of the two pastors at Christ Bible Church in Pleasanton, California.

If you'd like to join us on the air, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com, chrisarnson at gmail .com.

Give us your first name, city and state, and country of residence. Only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter.

We do have an anonymous questioner for you, Joe. The anonymous questioner asks, those of us overseas who listen to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio in the

UK and other places around the world, very often when we submit questions, we cannot receive the free books that are shipped out because of the understandable high mounting costs of shipping that involves sending books overseas.

So it's not like I'm complaining, I'm just stating a fact because I know Chris Arnzen has repeated that whenever he gives out books to listeners in the

United States after they submit questions. Does First Love Publications provide free books upon request to those of us in the

UK and other places when we need them? Well, it's very, very sad,

Chris, and it's one of my own particular burdens and a goal of mine is to start branches of First Love Publications in other countries.

We do have two branches, one in the Philippines in the host church in the

Marikina area of Manila and Mount Holy Christian Bible Church pastored by Leo Galanza.

He is our Philippines branch leader and we have another branch in northern

Philippines and the books and inventory there are able to be distributed to walk -ins as well as to those who request it by email but they can only be mailed from the

Philippines to the Philippines because once you get outside of a country and you're seeking to mail to another country the cost becomes prohibitive and so my hands are tied in the sense that I'm limited by the by the mailing costs.

I can mail from a place in the United States to another place in the

United States and the costs are pretty uniform and reasonable especially when we mail by media mail.

The media mail rate, there's a discount rate there for printed materials and educational materials but for me to mail from the

United States to the Philippines by air mail which pretty much everything is by air mail now.

The U .S. postal system switched to air mail. They don't do anything by ship anymore.

It's either air mail or by ground transportation like a truck but so I have a cheap source to mail to the

Philippines via ship but it takes six to eight weeks for delivery and I have to send it to my branch leader there and I cannot mail to an individual, a person who orders.

So it's difficult. The only thing I can say to this listener is pray for us at First Love Publications and First Love Radio that God would provide the finances to be able to start branches of First Love Publications in your country like the

U .K. and elsewhere. We do not have a U .K. distributorship yet. That would be one country we'd love to be able to get into but we don't yet.

So the only other option is to print our books locally in particular countries and set up a branch there that way but again when we print in most countries the costs of printing are very high.

So our printer right now is in India and it is very, very inexpensive for us to print there but the only way we can get our materials overseas to dear folks who love the word, want to read and study and would love to be able to read our materials is if we start a branch there.

The only other way besides that would be if we go there to a particular country and conduct a seminar close enough to your area where you can attend and get free books that way.

Well I think we should begin to delve into the topic at hand in greater depth.

The call to missions. There are some people who might think that they should go on a mission trip or become a missionary just because of a feeling of guilt.

They think that every Christian is obligated to do this kind of thing and in fact I remember and I'm paraphrasing because I don't have the quote in front of me but a

Lutheran pastor said that I was very close to the actual quote of Martin Luther but there was a shoemaker apparently that a cobbler that that approached

Martin Luther. He had a wife and children and he said he asked

Martin Luther if he would be living in greater obedience to God if he were to uproot his wife and children and go overseas to a mission field and Martin Luther's response to this specific man was you're a cobbler make a good shoe and sell it at a fair price.

So I don't know if you would respond the same way but what are your feelings about missions and the call to missions?

How do you know you have a call to missions and you know some people use the cop -out that they don't even share the gospel with their neighbors or their colleagues at work or anybody in their family because that's not their calling and that's of course ridiculous but tell us about the call to missions and who you think has that and how should they know that they have that call?

Well Martin Luther had a lot of truth in that response to this individual although I think it's a partial truth and I believe a lot of missions work and evangelism work is to be done right in your path of life where God has called you in the station of life that he's called you whether it be in the home if you're a homemaker a wife a mother or if you're an employee a christian worker we don't have to go out of our way to find unsaved people to share the gospel with and to reach out with the truth too because everywhere we turn unless you're living like John the

Baptist in the wilderness and there's nobody around and yours is the only voice crying in the wilderness so I just tell people and I just wherever you are in your life just share the gospel with people through word and through your lifestyle let your lifestyle be the sermon that would that would lead people around you to ask more questions and have more inquiries about the gospel through your holy life so you don't have to go out of your way to share the gospel or even be a missionary but as far as the call to missions is concerned there's no official position in the church of missionaries there's no office of missionary in the new testament but the actual work of missions is is there it's taught and the calling to do missions work is there you don't again have to feel like you have a calling or a burden or you don't need to sell all your possessions and move to the philippines to do missions work when you're sharing the gospel and reaching out with the gospel on your job in your community where you're doing missions work there's there's missions and evangelism have so much overlapping to them that you are doing missions work in if you're evangelizing in your own backyard at your job in your home at the marketplace among acquaintances america needs missionaries uh just like any other country so if you don't if you feel guilty that you're not selling everything and candidating as a missionary and and giving up your life for christ uh by moving to a foreign country then uh you've got a false guilt trip uh because missions work is god's looking for a willing heart he's looking for you to go to him and say here am i send me here am i use me and so the the calling to do missions work is there we see it in scripture there's more of a formal setting apart as we see in the book of acts where paul and barnabas were set apart by the church after the holy spirit said to the church at antioch set apart paul and barnabas for the work i've called them to do so in god's providence the holy spirit does lead believers to go to places outside their hometown whether it be the next town or to china a foreign country the church also is in is involved in the process of affirming someone's readiness and call to missions but there there's no actual office in the church where there's a list of qualifications that someone must meet and fill to to do the work of missions uh the work of church planting and preaching the gospel and discipling the nations based on the great commission in matthew 28 where the lord jesus said all authority has been given to me in heaven and earth go therefore and make disciples of all the nations baptizing them in the name of the father and of the son of the holy spirit teaching them to observe all things that i've commanded you and lo i am with you always even to the end of the age that's the generic great commission given to all of us to go out to the ends of the earth with the gospel but it also begins as we read in actual uh one eight with our own jerusalem he said and you shall be witnesses to me in jerusalem and in all judea and samaria and to the ends of the earth so missions work is done in our own jerusalem our hometown where we live where we are that's our jerusalem and it goes out from there to the ends of the earth but the the work of of uh missions is the work of sharing the gospel reaching out with the gospel church planting uh discipling people into the faith having one -on -one meetings with people or small group bible studies with unsaved people and when we talk about the calling to missions again the calling is really the burden for the lost that's the innermost calling that the holy spirit gives us uh to have a burden to reach out with the gospel to people because we see them in their lost estate our hearts go out with to them with the love of christ the holy spirit melts our hearts for their unregenerate condition with pity with pathos and compassion and we share the gospel with them does the holy spirit put a special burden or calling if you will on our hearts to go to other countries to other cultures yes the history of missions reveals how god in his providence have have raised up missionaries both men and women placed on their hearts a special burden a heaviness of heart to reach out to a particular people group and culture and we see the lord's blessing of their efforts in in such a situation yes he does that but if you're looking for a specific office of missionary the bible doesn't have that so there's there's more of a subjective providential burden and leading of the lord when we talk about the calling of a missionary to go to a particular location and culture and share the gospel let's see here uh we have another anonymous listener who asks if you genuinely have a call of god to be a missionary do you think that it will be a very clear and unwavering conviction that a person has and there will be little doubt about it especially after the one prays and contemplates the situation for a considerable period of time well i don't know what kind of confirmation and definite affirmation somebody's looking for i don't know of anybody regardless of your calling or your spiritual gifts whether it be as a pastor a missionary or a teacher or whatever spiritual gift you have that doesn't have some doubts mingled in with it there's always an element of doubt even among those who are called in god's kingdom to serve him with whatever gifts he's called us to but therefore because you have doubts doesn't mean you're not called on the other hand yeah they're god god doesn't give us a burden he doesn't gift us with skills talents and abilities and then not affirm it by giving us a liking to do it a desire to do it and a gratification a spiritual fulfillment in doing it um those are yes subjective feelings but the holy spirit does give us the assurance in our hearts to some degree that the calling and the path and the gifts are of the lord do we have them in a perfect level no we don't but god doesn't play with us he doesn't tease us and mock us and leave us guessing and wondering all of our life after 20 years of serving him or 30 years of serving him in a particular capacity as a missionary or whatever gift we're still wondering i wonder if this is god's calling no uh the bible says in james chapter one if anyone lack wisdom let him ask of god who gives to all men liberally and upbraideth not but let him ask in faith god doesn't want us wasting his time our time his resources by pursuing a false hope or uh some delude you know elusive or um deluding a false uh calling uh he if if you are walking with him closely and you fulfill the conditions he lays out in his word for direction uh in knowing his perfect will for your life the lord will reveal to you um not only through your study of scripture um and through prayer through his providence but the bible teaches if we lack wisdom we ask him in faith he will give it to us the holy spirit is our teacher he is the one who leads us he is the one that affirms the will of god uh to us in our hearts as well as objectively he affirms god's calling through the advice of others through the opinion of others yes joe you know joe you have this gift you don't have this gift through the various half a dozen sources laid out in the scripture he gives us direction and confirmation about the gifts and the calling that we have uh he also gives us a great sense of gratification that we are doing what he's called us to do so the combination of all of these sources of direction and leading and the actual um assuring work of his spirit in our hearts combined to affirm and to confirm our calling one thing i think you should clarify uh you were discussing a little bit earlier about living a godly life that's always very important obviously and that will be used by god to draw people to you to begin conversations about why you are living this way why are you making these specific decisions in your life and and etc etc i think that we have to be careful that that we don't confuse that with some who use the phrase lifestyle evangelism where they don't use words i really dislike intensely a quote that is often attributed to saint francis of assisi preach the gospel and if necessary use words i really intensely dislike that because that gives a lot of people a cop -out to warn people specifically about their need for christ and their need to repent and embrace his atoning death as their one and only hope for salvation because if people did not do that if for instance the apostles and christ's disciples only used a quote quote lifestyle evangelism none of them would have been martyred in fact christ never would have been executed other than the fact that it was a decreed act of god uh you know if people were just being nice and kind and godly and benevolent and humble and sacrificial and so on without preaching the gospel they would have remained unscathed am i right oh absolutely correct lifestyle evangelism by itself is unscriptural in other words if we believe that through my lifestyle people will be able to see christ in me and that's all we do do we don't speak up we don't share a gospel message we are deluded into believing that that is a legitimate path for evangelism by itself lifestyle evangelism is always combined with the word of god in other words the bible does say let your light so shine among men that they may see your good works and glorify your father in heaven so yes in our behavior in our attitude in our demeanor in our godly godly holy lifestyle people can see christ in us but that is only part of our responsibility the scriptures teach that our holy life should lead us to an open door where we share the message of the gospel how shall they hear without a preacher the bible says it's the message of the cross that people must hear so lifestyle evangelism is not a singular uh end unto itself it must be used in conjunction with the message of the gospel and the message itself must be accurate and faithful to scripture well i want to give you now about uh two and a half minutes just to summarize what you most want etched in the hearts and minds of our listeners today before we run out of time we're going to have to have you back on the program to delve into endurance and missions but if you could just summarize what you most want our listeners to remember well endurance and missions is a very important element of missions work because many start out well but they don't finish because you know it's not how you start that matters it's how you finish and not only in our salvation but also in serving god god's purpose and will for us is to finish uh he makes sure that we finish both in our christian walk and life because our our salvation and our sanctification is by grace alone including our service and our ministry is by grace so we need to pace ourselves and we need to realize we're in this christian life and we're serving god for the long run don't give up it is by the grace of god that we start and it's by the grace of god that we finish the bible says that jesus is the alpha and the omega and do not take too much upon yourself whenever you're in doubt whenever you wonder about your gifts your calling and your preparation for ministry and you find yourself frustrated or confused go do what i do always go back to the lord jesus christ and lay out your frustrations and your needs for direction and clarity and to know the will of god lay it out before him and keep praying about it until he gives you an answer 99 of the time there's no crisis forcing you to launch out in ministry a launch out in service right now that as a matter of fact the longer you wait to make sure you have clarification and confirmation on your calling and your gift uh the better uh until you receive it from the lord but i would also like to remind our our listeners that the two books that we offer today that we highlighted can be found on our website at firstlovepublications .org

scroll down look at the catalog and find the book prayerful and powerful pulpits it's the best book on ministry i've ever i've ever read because the secret of successful ministry is a faithful prayer life the other book is holiness by jc ryle that book is a classic as chris said you're you're welcome to attend first love the east coast bible conference which will be held this coming weekend may 18th through the 20th on the same website firstlovepublications .org

scroll to the bottom you'll see the bottom half of the home page will describe the conference which is titled missions god's way if you're a missionary or interested in missions i would encourage you to be there i will meet you there i'm one of the speakers along with four others there'll be five missions organizations represented there click on the bottom of the home page for more information that will take you to a second website where you can register for this free conference i hope you can make it especially if you live on the east coast in the virginia washington dc area please come out to the conference again the website is firstlovepublications .org

if you're interested in missions our missions web website is missionsfirstlove .org

that's a missionsfirstlove .org you can get information on being a first love missionary and our church website is christbiblechurch .org