Appendix to Report on Trip to Australia/Philippines

Context and Purpose of the Appendix

0:04 This report was given on Wednesday evening, September 18th, 1985, at the Trinity Baptist Church in Montville, New Jersey. This past Sunday night, when I gave the report on the recent trip to Australia and to the Philippines, I had hoped to have an appendix to that report that would be a word particularly geared to the church family. But when I looked at the clock and found that, even though we shortened the forepart of the service, that I had already spoken for some one hour and ten or fifteen minutes,

0:44 and also saw the number of visitors, I felt it was the part of wisdom to bail out where I bailed out, and in some different circumstances, to bring the appendix of the message or the report of this last Sunday night. And as I reflected, upon what might be the most appropriate time, I decided that tonight would be that appropriate time. Now, those who may be visiting with us, it is not our pattern to have lengthy exhortations or even any stated ministry of the word on Wednesday, but to give ourselves exclusively to prayer and praise and reports that stir up both prayer and praise.

1:26 But there were some matters that had more particular application to us as a church family, that I felt it would be wiser to say in the more intimate context, either of a prayer meeting, even though we know there are visitors with us and not all of you are members of the assembly generally, there is a more intimate family climate to our midweek service. And I did not want to violate the biblical injunction, let not your good be evil spoken of, that some of the things that were upon my heart to say could very easily be misconstrued by people, those who were the members of the House, who were people, even if they were인데agonal members of the Such as the消 �agement held to me by my own mind,

2:10 and who would be able to say how I returned to it in person, Do not remember us as a Church, and do not know us anywhere, especially from a more personal perspective, as if I am one of the elders in this church. And it was those concerns that I thought would be better to keep tonight. And so briefly, let me remind you of what and then, to do last Sunday night was to set the report in a scriptural framework in which I drew your attention to the biblical doctrine of the centrality of the local church, in the purposes of God, the sovereignty of Christ, in the giving and directing of gifts within

2:49 the church, some of these basic principles that constituted the framework for this recent ministry, and also have conditioned the things that I've emphasized in framing my report. That's what we did, basically, on Sunday night, interspersed with reading several pages of my wife's perspectives on her time there, particularly her time alone with Carol in shopping, in the situation in which Carol shops, and in sharing some of the peculiar concerns that Carol shares as a missionary.

The Awesome Stewardship of Influence

3:26 Now, what I want to do in this appendix is to underscore several other things that came home with tremendous power and freshness to my heart, both in conjunction with the ministry in Australia, as I was privileged to minister in these five pastors' conferences, these public meetings, and as I indicated Sunday night, meet so many people who have been not in a surface. way, but in a very profound and extensive way, influenced by the life and ministry of this church as it has spilled out upon them, particularly through the tape ministry.

4:09 Remember I mentioned meeting whole families in which Trinity Church and its ministry are a constant factor. People have been converted through the ministry and nurtured through that ministry, and then in going on to the Philippines. And going into a situation where my previous contact was only that, again, of tapes and finding in an alien culture, with the people in so many ways different from us, such an openness and a receptivity to the ministry that I sought to exercise both with pastors and with the general Christian public, God brought some things home to my heart with freshness. And I want to underscore those for you in the time that remains.

4:53 Thank you.

4:56 First of all, I was struck afresh with what I don't know what else to call it, the awesomeness of the stewardship of the influence that God has given to us as a church in general, and to this unworthy sinner in particular. The awesomeness of the stewardship of influence that God has given to us as a church in general, and to this unworthy sinner. To go into places where one has never been, and to see people's eyes light up, and before

5:37 one can hardly be introduced, to have their full hearts spilling out all that the ministry of this church has meant, and pleading with me, please tell your people, please tell your fellow elders how thankful to God we are for the vision, for the ministry, for the sacrifice, for the willingness to give themselves to helping others in need, and helping others who are not blessed with the deposit of gift that God has given to Trinity Church. Please tell them how thankful to God we are. I didn't ask for this. I wasn't out seeking for accolades for myself or for the church, but it poured out upon

6:21 me spontaneously wherever I went, tell your people thank you. They'll never know. What those encouragements have meant. Pastors who said to me, please tell your people how thankful we are for their willingness to share you with others.

6:38 You will never know the impact of the conference of six years ago. You'll never know the encouragement of that ten minutes you took to speak to me. It was a watershed of guidance in my life. I didn't record these things.

6:51 Had I done so, I think it would have been embarrassing to read them. Unsought. Unsolicited indications that God has given to us as a church, a stewardship of influence that is nothing short of awesome in the truest sense of that word. It is something that ought to fill us with a sense of wonder, for surely that's part of awe, wonder that God would take the likes of us in all of our weakness and failure, limitation, bunch of ordinary people.

7:25 And cause our influence to extend, not just so far, but so deep. And that's the thing that came home to me with fresh force, that the influence was not a surface influence, but a molding influence. And to have pastors say when I've been discouraged and wondered, is it worthwhile to press on for thorough biblical reformation? I think of the things that you said at that conference.

7:54 I think of the things I've picked up. I've picked up on the tapes and the nature of the life and ministry of Trinity Church. And I took courage that it is possible. I need not quit.

8:05 I need not settle for mediocrity. I need not accept low standards. And just your being here has been the means God has used. And I don't want to go into the other ways that this came home to me.

8:19 I hope I've given you enough specifics that you'll understand what I mean when I say the stewardship of influence. The stewardship of influence that God has given to us is an awesome stewardship. Because of our Lord's words in Luke chapter 17, it is a call to the entire church to feel the weight of that stewardship. Our Lord said in this passage, it is impossible but that occasions of stumbling should come.

8:55 Men being what they are. Sin being what it is. Our Lord says in the present order of things, there will always be occasions of stumbling. That is, circumstances that will precipitate sin in others.

9:11 It is impossible but that occasions of stumbling should come. But woe unto him through whom they come. It were well for him if a millstone were hanged up on the ground. It was well for him if a millstone were hanged up on the ground.

9:26 It was well for him if a millstone were hanged up on the ground. But woe unto him who was fandered in a early season. It was well for him if a millstone were round about his neck, and he were thrown into the sea, rather than that he should cause one of these little ones to stumble. Take heed to yourselves.

9:38 politique. Barak, when you read 1 Corinthians 20, in verse 18. it bears repetition. posses with the spirit sanctification.

9:47 and to go to this world with care, but players, to offer him introduce of the Lord the thing which ought to fraud, inasmuch as theathers seekingcodic sense of humility on the one hand, nepotism pratique. Once on the other. Come forth! a messiah.

9:58 Come forth, come unique, to pet the replicate. coin in the皆. but wholly dread lest we should ever from that place of stewardship of influence become more than a little stumbling block. There are literally thousands of God's people, at least I've met them in Australia and in the Philippines, whose hearts would be broken if anyone in leadership in this place were to fall into gross and grievous and scandalous sin.

10:27 If this church were ever to pass through a period of severe division, schism, heterodoxy, false doctrine, and I believe there are thousands of imps and demons in hell that would dance for glee. And dear people of God, I plead with you, as I have had to have fresh dealings with God, to cry to him that rather than that you as an individual ever be such an occasion of stumbling, that God would remove you and take you home to be with him. I have prayed dozens of times over the past years,

11:10 Lord, don't let me live long enough to become a song in the mouth of your enemies or to do anything that would cause the chambers of hell to echo with glee. Lord, take me home. Give me a heart attack. Let a truck hit me.

11:28 Lord, take me out of the world. But don't let me live long enough to be a stumbling to your people. God has granted this stewardship of influence. I have not sought it for myself.

11:42 We have not sought it as a church. But we cannot, by wishing it away, take it away. You remember what God called the man who took his talent and out of so-called fear of the master's harshness hid it in a handkerchief and buried it? He was called a wick.

12:00 He was called a wick and an unprofitable servant. And it is the part of spiritual maturity for us simply to acknowledge that God has sovereignly deposited this awesome stewardship and then in the light of it to seek to fulfill it in faithfulness to God, ever remembering, let him that thinks he stands take heed lest he fall. And as we had occasion to remark, I believe it was a week ago, it is the individualism. It is the individual in Trinity Church who thinks I could never be the devil's tool to make Trinity's testimony a stumbling block.

12:40 I could never be the one. You are the one who is most likely to be used of the enemy of our souls. Be sober, be watchful, for your adversary the devil is a roaring lion, walks about seeking whom he may devour. And so I urge you, my brothers and sisters, to thank God that he has granted this stewardship, the privilege of it, to pray that we will feel the awesome weight of it, and that by God's grace we will never betray it and become an occasion of stumbling.

The Humbling Privilege of Missions: Steve and Carol Huffmeyer

13:15 Then the second thing that struck me and my wife as well with tremendous force was the humbling privilege that is ours to have missionaries such as Steve and Carol Huffmeyer serving the Lord under the overseeing of the Holy Spirit. It is a great privilege to be a part of this church in the Philippines. I said a few things Sunday night, but knowing that they would receive that tape, I doubt we will send this appendix to them because it would have appeared like a proud father bragging about his son's accomplishments way out of proportion perhaps to reality. But as I think back upon the development of Steve and Carol

13:57 and particularly think of Steve's development as a man and as a preacher, I certainly did not view him with rose-colored glasses. In his period of development when he came into the academy, he said, I want every bit of influence that can be exerted upon me. I want you to put me in my place when I need it. I want my faults to be pointed out.

14:21 And he gave me a special invitation to become his spiritual father. And we used to have a cute little saying between us. He would come to me and say, Pastor, can you put on your Pops hat? I'd say, all right.

14:33 I'd take off my elder's hat. I got on my Pops hat. Now let's sit down and talk, son. And then we'd talk.

14:39 And as my own son will tell you and my daughters, when I'm talking as a Pop, we don't skirt around using euphemisms. We talk eyeball to eyeball, very frankly, very openly, in a spirit of mutual trust and love and respect. But we call a spade a spade. And we call issues what they are.

15:01 And there are times when Steve's red hair was made a little more red, as well as his face. So it isn't that Steve was my pet personally or the pet of the elders. He was a man who longed to be all that God by grace would make him through the appointed means that God had put around him, the people of God and his overseers. And seeing Steve come, in his own personal development, to the place where he's entered into that alien culture, in a situation where he has more formal education than the man he submitted himself to,

15:45 Mr. Ellis, more formal education both in secular field and theologically, to put himself in a situation where he has come out of a church where the truths they hold together have been worked out for years. And Steve had the privilege of some four to five years of exposure and absorption in that context. And Mr. Ellis said in my own hearing,

16:12 he said, what a joy it is to have someone like Steve. He said, many of the truths I've hammered out alone with my Bible, but in a context where I've never seen them worked out. And he said, Steve has lived in such a context and I feel that he knows so much more than I do. And yet, to see Mr. Ellis say

16:33 that there's been no friction, that Steve does not conduct himself like a know-it-all, and Steve sharing with me areas of concern that eventually he hopes he will feel at liberty to introduce into their weekly sessions as matters of discussion and prayer, but to see the level of maturity manifested in Steve's humility and in his godly restraint, I was proud of him as a father would be of a son whom he sought to nurture to maturity, in the right sense, recognizing that whatever Steve is, he is by the grace of God. And then, to see how he's adjusted to being sensitive

17:15 to the special needs of his wife. She's never known anything but Trinity Church and its life, its fellowship. This has been her family, a tight-knit church family, a close, tight-knit family, a close, tight-knit, earthly family, and now to be uprooted from all of that, and then to be passing through what for most women is a very rollercoaster experience emotionally. Pregnant women can feel funny things and think in funny ways.

17:44 Not all, but most of you women who've been down that road will acknowledge you can look back between pregnancies if you're still having children or if you're past that time, you'll acknowledge. And to see Steve in that home, sensitive to Carol's needs, responding like hand in glove. I just sat back and I said, Lord, I've seen men married 20 years who don't have one-tenth the penetration into the psyche and the soul of a woman and know how to minister to her needs. And it was a lovely thing to see.

18:19 And I thought, what a privilege that we have there in the Philippines a couple who are manifesting the biblical standard of the husband and wife relationship. To see Carol embracing her domestic role lovingly, joyfully, and obviously as under the eye of God. In that, Steve and Carol Huckmire and the way he has enabled them to adapt. I don't know how else to say it, but that we should be filled with a sense of humble gratitude for the privilege that God has given us.

18:57 As one of the men said Sunday night, he said, I think I understand now for the first time what biblical missions is all about. Here is a couple nurtured in the womb of this church and that additional nurture in the home of one of our elders, half of that couple and sent forth and now taking their place in a way that so glorifies and magnifies the God of grace. My prayer is that some of us will live long enough to see dozens go out from this place. And the appeal came.

19:29 Not only from the Philippines, but from Australia. Send us men. Send us men. Not boys, not dreamy-eyed, starry-eyed, ambitious young theologues, but send us men.

19:42 Men with a heart. Men with a passion for the souls of men. Men with a zeal for God's glory. And I've come back, not only sensing anew the awesome stewardship of the influence God has sovereignly given to us, but a humbling sense of the privilege, that is ours, to have Steve and Carol as our missionaries.

20:03 And the practical upshot of that is we must continue and abound in doing everything that will encourage them. You say, what does a letter from insignificant me mean to them? Oh, when they see a letter that's got New Jersey stamped on the postmark, their hearts leap within them. We saw some of them arrive when we were there.

20:24 Just a letter, talking about ordinary things, and if you haven't sent a picture of yourself and your family, even though I know no picture does you justice, no one ever... Have you ever heard anyone look at a picture and say, you know, that thing really does me justice?

20:38 In fact, it flatters me a little bit. No, no picture ever does. Oh, that's a bad picture. I don't know what's going on.

Renewed Determination: Purity of Biblical Worship

20:44 So, even though you can't find one that does you justice, send it anyway, and it'll go up on the bulletin board, where they fondly stand and look at your faces and think of the ties that knit them to you, the people of God, the people of God here in this place. And then the third thing that has come home to my own heart with freshness as a result of the visit to Australia and to the Philippines is a renewed commitment and determination in my own heart, and I believe this is shared with my fellow elders. One of them said, tell the people you speak for all of us when you say these things. As I went over them with one of the elders several days ago,

21:28 but a renewed determination in three specific areas. Number one, the determination to maintain the purity of Biblical worship, to maintain the purity of Biblical worship. As I indicated in my report Sunday night, though I'm thankful for what we experienced in the Philippines and in little measure in one or two churches in Australia, by and large, the experience in those two weeks in Australia was most grievous at this point, the absence of the sense of God in worship. And that wasn't an accident.

22:10 There was a direct relationship between the absence of the sense of God and the introduction of elements in worship for which there was no warrant in the Word of God. God the Holy Spirit will not come with power upon institutions that He has not authorized. It is strange fire offered upon God's altars. And there is a direct relationship between the purity of worship and the sense of God in worship.

22:44 Now it is possible that people can maintain the purity of the form and lose the power. I'm fully aware of that. The purity of form does not guarantee the presence. That's why we pray.

23:01 We cry to God that He would come upon the forms that He has instituted. And unless He comes, we have nothing. You see, in biblical worship, there's no backup chute. A responsible skydiver never jumps out of the plane with just one chute.

23:20 He's got a backup chute. If the main chute doesn't open, he's got a backup chute so he doesn't bounce on the deck. Well, you see, God has so ordered the life of His church that there's no backup chute. When we jump out, when we launch out at each stated gathering, whether for praise and preaching and corporate intercession as we do on the Lord's Day or here on Wednesday when the focus is upon intercession and corporate prayer, if God does not come and grant life to what we do, we've got nothing.

23:52 And I mean the smell of death will literally ooze out of the closed windows. And it ought to. There should be no backup chute. Either God comes upon His own institutions with power and then it's glorious or it's the most miserable thing this side of hell.

24:10 And I've come back with a renewed determination and I'm confident this determination is shared by my fellow elders to maintain the purity of God's worship which means the simplicity of His mandated elements of worship alone. None of this foolish experimentation. None of this that would move aside the centrality of public teaching and preaching by responsible, proven, credible men. On these issues there will be no negotiation.

24:47 None whatsoever. God giving us strength. If you've seen the film on Martin Luther and you remember the closing scene when he stands and says, Here I stand, so help me God, I can do no other. And his jowls shake.

25:09 Well, picture me like that. If I had jowls, if I had jowls I'd shake them. But I don't have them so I can't shake them. But that determination, the horrible price paid for entertainment worship, the absence of God.

25:29 And who but God can satisfy the deepest longings of the human heart? O God, Thou art my God, earnestly will I seek Thee. Thou hast made us for Thyself, Saint Augustine said. And our hearts are restless till they rest in Thee.

25:47 And some of us are determined. And I hope the whole congregation is. And when someone begins to give specious reasons for experimenting with this and that and getting away from this old, simple, puritanic worship until they can demonstrate from a responsible handling of the Word of God that there are elements that ought to go and other elements that ought to be introduced, may we stand intransigent because it's God's honor that is at stake. God's honor.

Renewed Determination: Increase Biblical Ministries

26:21 God's glory. God's purpose. Then there's also been renewed determination not only to maintain the purity of worship but to increase the ministries of this assembly. We might begin to think, well, we've taken on the ministry of training men in the providence of God, the ministry of books, and God willing we'll hear next Wednesday Mr. Huebner's preparing a report

26:51 to tell you what's happened. That book ministry has just exploded. And we have had for years the ministry of the tapes and there's much talk about not directly overseeing the ministry of an elementary school as a church but having such on these facilities. Well, isn't that enough?

27:12 No, dear people, it's not enough. One of the things that stirred me when I was in Australia, and I didn't say this in the report, do you know that Bob Shiller with his gospel of stroke yourself and feel good and you'll be saved, that that gospel, he is determined to spread all over Australia. And he's already started a campaign with a little slogan to raise the first half million dollars in order to erect the first buildings that will give him his toehold. And then he moves from there to his next campaign to raise, I think, what, something like two million.

27:45 And it's coming. It's coming in right on schedule. And that horrible, horrible, heretical gospel of Shiller will inundate that country of Australia. Wherever I went, people could see Shiller.

28:03 All they needed to do was flick on the television. Well, it takes some enterprising for Shiller to extend his empire from California over to Australia. Dear people, if men in the pursuit of such horrible, unbiblical things are willing never to be satisfied, how much more we who are motivated by the gospel. And when I was there in Australia this time and could look at the map and realize that in a very real sense it's the key to that whole Southeast Asian area and doors that are still open right up a little bit north in Papua New Guinea, I had a man who has spent years as a missionary take a walk with me one morning pleading with me, pleading with me,

28:47 Brother Martin, are there no men in the academy that you can send? He said, I'll take time. I've had to return to Australia because of family concerns, but I'll take a month to go in with them on their first trip and put them in contact with four men who are reformed in their theology, who'll be willing to get them acclimated to the culture and help them to get a hold on Pidgin English until they can apply themselves to the local dialect. He said, are there no men that you can send to us?

29:16 Then you go a bit further north, and you think of Hong Kong and Malaysia, those areas where there are open doors of ministry. And dear people, a couple in the Philippines, bless God, but why should there be but one? We can't rest content with the major expenses of building behind us and the legitimate preoccupation with those concerns behind us. What a wonderful time to plead with God for renewed expansion of vision, renewed expansion of heart, renewed determination to be poured out and lose our life, as Jesus said,

29:58 for His sake and for the gospel. And so I've come back, and I trust it's not a fleeting thing. That's one reason I wanted a space of time before I gave my report, to let the dust settle, let my emotions get disentangled so that I could think and speak clearly. And I do believe I can say that this is a settled, settled determination, not only to maintain in this context the purity of worship, but that under God we should see an increase of our ministries.

Renewed Determination: Resist Grieving the Holy Spirit

30:31 And then thirdly and finally, a renewed determination to resist with every biblical method and means, anything and everything that would grieve away the Holy Spirit from our midst. Ephesians 4.30, Believe not the Holy Spirit of God, an imperative given to the people of God, and in a special way. Your overseers are responsible to be sensitive to and aware of anything and everything that would grieve away the Spirit, and with every biblical means to go after that,

31:14 like we would go after a murderer who was intent upon killing our children. If some madman came in, came to my home with murder in his eyes and upon his lips the declared purpose he's going to kill my wife and my children, I would not deal with him tactfully. I would not be overly fastidious about how I neutralized his expressed intention. And something of that sense of holy zeal has come home to my own heart with freshness at a time in my life when I'd like to coast a little bit.

31:51 I fought a lot of battles. Some of you didn't get baptized into the battlefield until you were in your mid-twenties or late-twenties or early-thirties or mid-thirties. I got baptized at age eighteen. I was no sooner out of the womb spiritually less than one month when I had to start fighting battles, feeling the sword of division in my own family, then feeling the sword of division with friends of many years.

32:17 And I get weary, thirty-four years of fighting. I'm weary of fighting when God's given me a fresh nose for gunpowder and a fresh sense of determination not to grow weary in well-doing, for in due season we shall reap if we faint not. And I believe that concern is shared by all of your elders that we are not going to capitulate to the things that would grieve the Holy Spirit. And I'm not going to mention names, but, dear people, men that I esteemed and looked up to when I was in my twenties and early thirties

33:00 as pillars of biblical integrity in life and doctrine, they're falling one by one all around capitulating to the ecumenical movement. One highly esteemed man capitulating to the charismatic movement, coming out in print and saying, though what's going on has no basis in the Word of God, we just have to believe that God the Holy Spirit is doing this new thing because of the peculiar problems of the twentieth century. A man who for years has been known as a careful theologian who would only go as far as the Bible went, but was prepared to go as far as it went. And one wonders

33:44 if they just didn't get weary of fighting, fighting, fighting, having to take a stand here or a stand there. It gets weary. You remember there came the time when it spoke of that warrior. He got so weary it was as though his hand had become fused to his sword.

34:00 God has renewed. I'm not a scrappy spirit. I'm not a fighter in the sense that I like to fight. I'm a man of peace.

34:09 I don't like opposition and I don't like what is distasteful. But it is God's glory and God's honor and God's kingdom that is at stake. And with that has come a renewed determination to resist anything and everything with biblical methods that would grieve and quench the Holy Spirit, would turn us aside from our task, that would leave our children cynical because they didn't see reality. They didn't feel reality.

34:42 They didn't see passionate, tearful, earnest preaching. They didn't sense God's nearness in public worship, the reality of biblical priorities in their homes that will make it relatively easy for them, as we said Sunday, to leave this land and all of its privileges and go to different places and all of its difficult circumstances for Christ's sake and the gospel's sake. Dear people, I hope you share that determination to stand with the leadership of this church, not with a chin out and a chip on the shoulder, but with a gracious but firm resolution. Anything that grieves the Holy Spirit is our enemy,

35:24 no matter how fair its face or form may be. It's our enemy and we're going to look it straight in the eye and call it what it is. If you're looking your enemy in the eye and you know he's your enemy, you're safe. Begin to look at him as your friend or just a neutral companion and you're in danger.

Call to Prayer and Commitment

35:42 May God help us. It took more than my 20 minutes, but I'm not blethering, dear people. I'm choosing my words carefully and I trust the Holy Spirit will own them to rivet these things to our hearts. Let us give ourselves then to a season of prayer, asking God to help us as a congregation.

36:02 In the light of the things I've laid before you that are more particularly family concerns, that we will feel the weight of and be faithful to the awesome stewardship God has given to us, that we will be grateful and increase in the demands of the privilege that is ours with Steve and Carol, and then that that renewed determination shared by your leadership will become part and parcel of our common conviction to maintain purity of worship and to increase and abound in biblical ministry to the ends of the earth and to resist all that would grieve and quench the spirit. Several brethren now lead us, will you, and seek to be the mouthpiece

36:45 of the heart and desire of God's people in these matters. Several lead us now as we pray together.