The Tasks of Missionaries, Part 2

Introduction and Review of Missions Policy Foundations

0:00 This Adult Sunday School class was held on July 2, 1989, at the Trinity Baptist Church in Montville, New Jersey. Now, as our own church family is well aware, we have a goodly number who have made an exodus on their way down to the family conference, which begins in Dayton, Tennessee, on Monday. And we have a good contingency meeting in several churches. The largest will be meeting with our dear brethren down in Roanoke, and they've structured their whole day and its worship around the presence of a goodly number of visitors from our own assembly.

0:44 We have others away on vacation, and no doubt there are some visiting with us here over the holiday weekend. I'm trying to fix my eye on I see a visitor there. One or two. Two others that I saw on the way in, and we do cordially welcome you, and you help fill up our ranks a little bit while so many of our own are away from us.

1:08 Now, having recently completed an extended series of studies on the doctrine of the divine covenants, I have been asked by my fellow elders to take a much briefer period of time in leading the adult class and focusing your attention on the subject of the missions, possibly. I'm going to start with the mission policy of Trinity Baptist Church. And last week, I tried to show you the very natural transition from the study of the covenants into the study of missions. And in our initial study last week, I tried to introduce the whole concern by drawing your attention to four introductory matters.

1:48 First of all, the precise limits of our study. We are studying the missions policy of Trinity Baptist Church. That is, seeking to take out of the scriptures general principles and precepts concerning the whole matter of missions. We are concerned to see how we are attempting to apply them specifically to Trinity Baptist Church.

2:15 This is not a general theology of missions in which we are seeking to articulate principles which necessarily will apply in precisely the same way in every other. But rather, we are focusing upon principles, many of which are inflexible and are non-negotiable. But in their application, there would be a diversity in terms of gift and opportunity and many other variables. So we must not forget that this is the precise focus of our study.

2:50 And then secondly, I tried to apprise you of the origins of our policy as a church. It is an origin, or they are origins, that have their roots in the cumulative practice of 20 years. And formally, we articulated them at an elders' retreat in February of 1987. So these policies have not been hastily formulated.

3:18 They have not been formulated in the ivory tower of mere theoretical thought, nor are they infallible nor inflexible. No doubt some of them will undergo. There may be some where God will give us fundamentally and radically new light in given areas. And then therefore, our policy will adjust accordingly.

3:39 Then thirdly, we looked at the fundamental conviction undergirding our study. And that conviction is the absolute inerrancy and sufficiency and binding authority of Scripture. 2 Timothy 3, 16 and 17. And then we considered briefly a crucial area.

3:57 We have difficulty in undertaking such a study since most of the data will be taken from the book of the Acts. And the book of the Acts is the Acts of the Apostles. The presence of these men with a unique office, with unique authority and power, and a unique place in the Church of Christ makes it difficult in sorting out the materials to distinguish what are abiding general precepts and principles and what are the unique...

4:27 prerogatives of apostolic authority and office. And that difficulty is very real, and if any of you did your homework assignment, you soon discovered how real it was. Now, throughout the week, two people, one approaching me personally, one by means of a letter, were concerned that in my introduction I gave no definition of missions. Well, that omission of a formal definition was deliberate.

4:55 It is my desire that I... let our concept of missions be framed by our study of the Word of God itself.

5:03 And rather than have an artificial or an inadequate definition of a term that is not biblical in itself, though it is not improper to use it, I felt it wiser not to give a formal definition, but to let our concept of missions be defined by our study of the propagation of the gospel to the ends of the earth in the book of the Acts of the Apostles in particular. However, I should have stated two things. In using the word in the title, our missions policy, I should have indicated that I was obviously taking up the subject of our policy in seeking to fulfill the Great Commission, especially

5:44 as it relates to cross-cultural and usually cross-linguistic and most often distant geographical settings. Now, that's what I assumed you would understand. I was talking about our efforts as a church to fulfill the Great Commission most frequently in cross-cultural, cross-linguistic and cross-geographical settings. And then secondly, I should have indicated that a definition is not essential in order to survey the biblical material, but you're so accustomed to having me define that some of you are spoiled.

6:23 And I wanted to show you that as well, I'm not bound by my own... method.

The Three Essential Tasks of Missionary Endeavor

6:28 All right? Then we proceeded to take up the first of seven categories relative to our missions policies, our mission policy, and that is the identity of the primary tasks involved in the work of missions. And in opening up this line of concern, you as a congregation brought forward several of the crucial passages, and then I introduced a third of these crucial passages, Matthew 28, 18, to 20, Mark 16, 15, and then Acts 14, 21 to 23. Now, please turn to the Acts 14 passage, because we will be spending a good bit of time this morning in Acts 14

7:12 and in some surrounding passages. Having looked at the crucial passages, which set forth the missionary mandate of the church, the mandate to take the gospel and make disciples and establish them into churches, even to the ends of the earth, the essential tasks set forth in the passages we considered are three. Acts 14, 21, to make disciples by preaching. And when they had preached the gospel to that city and had made many disciples, so disciples were made by preaching.

7:52 Much could be said there, but we'll hold off on some of the implications. Secondly, we see a work of organizing and strengthening the churches. Verse 22, they confirmed the souls or strengthened the souls of the disciples, exhorting them to continue in the faith, and that through many tribulations we must enter into the kingdom of God. They went back to the places where they had made disciples, and they now strengthened those disciples and organized them into churches.

8:22 And thirdly, they secured qualified and permanent, permanent residential leadership. Verse 23, and when they had appointed for them elders in every church and had prayed with fasting, they commended them to the Lord on whom they had believed. As long as the apostles were there, they functioned as the overseers and the elders. But when they moved on, it was their concern that there should be an established, qualified, permanent residential leadership.

The Primacy of Evangelistic Preaching: A Homework Assignment

8:56 In the churches, Titus 1.5 is an example of the prominence of this concern. Then as our time was getting away from us, we were noting some vital observations and emphases coming out of these passages, which describe and articulate the essential tasks of apostolic missionary endeavor. And the first one we noted was the primacy of evangelistic preaching in the work, of missions.

9:28 And I gave you an optional homework assignment to go through speed reading the book of Acts and seeing what it says about what these men did in fulfilling the great commission, seeking to make disciples, organize them and strengthen them into churches, provide them leadership. Well, at least one of the saints did his or her homework assignment, and I tried to call this individual, to get permission to read the letter and the fruit of the study and got a busy signal. And so I'm assuming there will be no objection. Thank you so much for the homework assignment in our adult Bible class this past Lord's Day.

10:11 Isn't it wonderful to have somebody thank a teacher for giving them homework? Some of you who teach the young ones, if you got a letter like that, you'd probably faint and have a heart attack. How I wish you would do it more often. More surprising yet.

10:25 What a blessing. It's been to go through the book of Acts, looking for the words describing the activities of the Apostles and disciples of Christ. I was amazed at the variety of words used to describe what they did, and I want to study the meaning of the words more fully, though it's a very rough draft. I'm enclosing a list of the words I found, though it is not perfect.

10:48 I saw things I never saw before in Acts. I noticed almost every time they preached, people believed. Almost all the time, if not every time, they believed there was great opposition from the unbelievers. They preached in public, privately, went from house to house, preached in the marketplace, and in the synagogues.

11:09 I've often heard you say that God's appointed means of spreading the gospel is by preaching, not drama, etc. Well, I saw with my own eyes. There's a key word for key phrase. In a new way, as I read the book of Acts, how clear it is.

11:29 What a blessing it has been to read the entire book within the space of a few days. And here are the fruits of this individual study, all on one page. From an English Bible, the words speak and said 25 times, every text listed, preach, preaching, preached 20 times, all the text listed, witnessed nine times, all the text, nine times, teaching, taught, seven times, reasoned, five times, testify, four times, exhorted, three times, proclaimed, and then two, four, six, eight, nine other words used one time. And then very interesting, with real apostles, with real authority to perform real miracles.

12:14 Here are the references to signs and wonders and miracles. Five references to healing, two to miracles, one to raising the dead, and four to signs and wonders. So what was the predominant activity, even with people who had real power to perform real miracles, with real authority? 25, 20, 9, 9, 7, 5, 4, 3, and 9 uses of the one.

12:40 And you see this person's faith in the statement that preaching, in all of its various forms, verbal communication of the gospel is the primary means ordained of God to accomplish the Great Commission. This person's faith, is not secondhand anymore. And that's what I mean when I tell you again and again, believe nothing till you see it with your own eyes, in your own Bible, and then when you see it, believe it, not because someone pointed you to it, but because God said it in his own holy word. And that was our first observation, that in the work of missions, in all of its multiple faceted dimensions and activities,

13:25 there is a primary, unison to evangelistic preaching in the work of missions. Therefore, it is not surprising when the missionary task is summarized in a passage such as Romans 10, whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. How shall they call on him whom they have not heard? How shall they hear without a preacher?

13:49 And how shall they preach except they be sent? How beautiful are the feet of those that publish, good tidings. And then as the clock was really racing and we were coming to an end, we noted the ancillary task of healing and benevolence that's found in the book of Acts. And then a number of you came up to me and said, what was that other point you made very quickly?

The Relationship Between Preaching Manner and Results (Acts 14:1-2)

14:15 I said, well, that's going to be the focus of our study next week. And here it is. Our review now is done. We must note as our observation and emphases of these passages, we must note, the relationship between, let me erase some of this, the relationship between the manner of the preaching and the results that followed.

14:48 We want to note the relationship between the manner, the spirit and the places of these evangelistic preachments and the blessing of God, upon that ministry. That's our third major observation of the various lines of emphasis in these passages. And now follow as I read Acts 14, 1 and 2. And it came to pass in Iconium that they entered in to the synagogue of the Jews.

15:24 Now look at the next three words. And so spake that a great multitude, both of Jews and of Greeks believed, but the Jews that were disobedient stirred up the souls of the Gentiles and made them evil affected against the brethren. Long time, therefore, they tarried there speaking boldly in the Lord. Now it says here that they so spake in the Greek, you have two particles, who toast, and we could render it.

16:05 They spoke in such a manner that a great multitude believed. Luke, by the inspiration of the spirit, ties together the manner of their speaking and the results of their speaking. Now, lest we misunderstand and say, well, speaking technique and speaking, circumstances are the ultimate determiner of results. Let's remember what Luke is already revealed in his account of the success of the gospel.

16:41 He's made it abundantly clear that ultimately the results of the gospel are rooted in God's sovereign electing purpose and in the sovereign operation of the Holy Spirit. Look right back to chapter 13 in verse 48. He's already made this abundantly clear. And as the Gentiles heard this, they were glad and glorified the word of God.

17:08 And as many as were ordained to eternal life believed. Now, nothing could be plainer. It's a text that grinds the socks of those who refuse to accept the biblical doctrine of election. But there it stands.

17:24 Ultimately, the results of the preaching are rooted in the sovereign, electing purpose of God. Way back in chapter 2, he said, and the Lord added to the church daily such as should be saved. Later on, he's going to say when the gospel is being preached to Lydia, whose heart the Lord opened so that she attended to the things that were spoken by Paul. So Luke is unashamed in tracing the ultimate cause of the results of the gospel to the sovereign, electing purpose of God.

18:00 And to the efficacious call of God through the gospel. However, since God works by means, Luke is not at all embarrassed to emphasize that there was a direct connection between the manner in which they preached and the results of their preaching. There was a certain kind of preaching that resulted in a multitude believing. Now my question, and this is where you cease to be listeners, to a lecturer and become participants in the class.

Characteristics of Apostolic Missionary Preaching: Boldness

18:34 The question is this. What were the dominant characteristics of the manner, the spirit, and the places where they preached? We've seen that preaching in all of its various and rich descriptive aspects in the book of Acts, reasoning, arguing, testifying, witnessing, speaking, saying, all of the richness, but the emphasis upon verbal proclamation of the gospel, that's the dominant emphasis. And we've seen there was an ancillary ministry of healing and benevolence.

19:14 But now we're saying that there is an emphasis upon the manner, the spirit, the places in which they preached, demonstrating a direct causal relationship in the sovereignty of God between the manner, and the results. Now my question is, if you have read through the book of Acts recently, familiar with its content, what are the dominant characteristics of the missionary preaching as described in the book of Acts? Anyone want to venture a suggestion? I have listed seven.

19:52 There may be, well, maybe more. Some of these may perhaps, maybe distinctions without a difference, as some would say. But anyone want to venture? What were the characteristics?

20:04 George? Exhortation, but that would really be one of the ways of preaching. Preaching with exhortation, and thinking more now of the characteristic of the exhortation. Exhortation would be part of the content, all right?

20:26 But now we're looking more at manner, the spirit in which they preached. Yes, Elmer? I should just add, they spoke boldly. Where do you get that idea?

20:36 14 verse 3. Okay, here we are. 14.3.

20:39 Long time therefore they tarried speaking boldly in the Lord. All right? So at the top of the list, their preaching was marked by boldness. 14.3.

20:55 And even if you have to use the center column reference, any other places in Acts where boldness is emphasized, as the characteristic of their preaching. Any other passages? All right? 13.46.

21:14 All right? And Paul and Barnabas spoke out boldly and said, it was necessary that the word of God should first be spoken to you. Seeing you thrust it from you, and listen to this language, and judge yourselves unworthy of eternal life, we turn to the Gentiles. I mean, they faced these Jews, in all of their hatred of the Gentiles, and their arrogance and pride, and said, you judge yourself unworthy of any further efforts at this time.

21:45 That is speaking boldly into the face of one's enemies. All right? So 13.46.

21:52 All right? Any other passages in the book of Acts where boldness is emphasized? Miss Hiller? All right.

21:59 4.31. You remember the situation? They had been opposed for their preaching, and after being opposed, they went back to their company, and they had a prayer meeting, and they reminded themselves in their prayers of the absolute sovereignty of God, and then God's omniscience.

22:21 Verse 29. Look, Lord, upon their threatenings, and grant unto thy servants to speak thy word notice of all the things they could have asked. They didn't say persuasiveness with cleverness, nor did they even say with gentleness or compassion. The one thing they asked for was what?

22:42 They asked for boldness. And did God like that prayer? Verse 31. He said, I like it so much, I'm going to shake the prayer-meeting house.

22:52 And when they had prayed, the place was shaken. Wherein they were gathered together, they were filled with the Holy Spirit, and what was the primary result of being filled with the Spirit afresh? They spake the word of God, with boldness. So 4.29 and 31,

23:13 the emphasis again falls upon boldness. Now, we could find other references. I think these are enough to the mouth of two or three witnesses. Let every word be established.

23:26 When Paul is asking people to pray for him, what is one of the qualities that he asks them to pray that God will give him? And then give me the text that proves your answer. I'll give you a hint. It's in the book of Ephesians.

23:47 I'll give you another hint. It's in the chapter that describes a Christian warrior. All right, Eric. 6.20.

23:59 All right. We can back up, perhaps, to verse 18. The Christian soldier, having put on his armor, is then to wield his armor and engage his battle with all prayer and supplication, watching for all the saints. Now, notice.

24:21 And on my behalf, this is what I want you to pray, and this is an amazing statement, that utterance may be given unto me in opening my mouth to make known with boldness the mystery of the gospel for which I am an ambassador in chains, that in it I may speak boldly as I ought to speak. Now, isn't that amazing? Of all the things he could have asked them to pray for, he gives them a double-barrel shotgun prayer request for boldness. Now, that doesn't mean that's all he longed for in his preaching.

25:05 It doesn't mean that that's all he manifested in his preaching. But surely, surely, any concept of apostolic missionary preaching, or to put it in our present context, any preaching that is done by an authorized, sent messenger of Trinity Baptist Church, if it's marked by anything else, it better be marked by spirit-wrought boldness, or we've got no business sending out such a man. You see that? Now, that word boldness, we could go into a word study.

25:41 It doesn't necessarily mean loud, though sometimes boldness will demand some decibels. It doesn't mean pugnacious. Stick your chin out, you know, and you're ready to go. You don't like it?

25:54 All right, too bad. Some men, they seem to preach with their chin three feet out. Like Pinocchio had a pointed nose long, they got a pointed chin, and it just, they preach in a manner that it's almost daring you to take a shot at their chin. And I'm just carnal enough to get in a fighting mode when that happens.

26:11 That's not what it's talking about. The word literally means unfettered pouring forth. The concept of boldness, is that what a man believes and feels in his heart has an open, unhindered conduit out from his mouth. That's the concept of boldness.

26:31 All right? So the characteristic then of the preaching, the missionary preaching, preaching which was central to missionary endeavor, was boldness. All right, another characteristic. All right, we've got boldness up at the top of the list, and you get A plus for that.

Characteristics of Apostolic Missionary Preaching: Wisdom and Volume

26:47 That's where it belongs. All right? Second characteristic. Jerry?

26:52 Wisdom. Wisdom. Very good point. All right.

27:03 Acts chapter 6. You remember Stephen in the face of men who hated his Christ and hated him because of his attachment to Christ, and he was arguing, disputing in his ministry, verse 9 of Acts 6, and they were not able to withstand the wisdom and the spirit with which he spoke. Now, because that word is not mentioned frequently in the book of Acts, let me put it over here as certainly something that we ought to pray for, and we have that one example. And now let's see if we can call out the ones that have a more evident and a more frequent emphasis,

27:48 though that certainly is a wise one. I mean, it's certainly a valid one, Jerry. Someone had his hand raised over here. Yes, Doug?

27:59 Volume of voice. Acts 2.14. All right.

28:03 Acts 2.14. I said loudness, but that's in volume. All right.

28:09 But Peter standing with the eleven lifted up his voice and spake forth unto them. Now, why did he need to lift up his voice? Where was he? No.

28:26 They've come out from the upper room, and they're out in the open place where people hear them speaking in these various languages. So he's in either some what we might call a covered, like a covered, what do you call them when we have picnics, pavilion-type thing, or he could have been right out in the open air, so there were great multitudes. He wasn't in an enclosed thing. I mean, this is not what you do when you're in a ten-by-twelve study and someone comes for counseling.

28:59 You don't lift up your voice with boldness. You'll scare the poor soul clean out the door. But if you're preaching to thousands, as he was, because three thousand came to faith, and you're preaching out of doors, you can't stand up and say, Brethren, I have a little message from the Lord that I'd like to share with you. You don't mumble in your beard.

29:21 You lift up your voice. And there are other places in the book of Acts where you find that term used, with Paul stretched forth his hand and then lifted up his voice, so they spoke with sufficient volume. All right, let's put that here as well. Spoke with sufficient volume.

29:39 So if God hasn't given a man the ability to cultivate sufficient volume to speak so as to be heard in evangelistic settings, we must seriously question whether God's called him to be a missionary. A man comes to me, can't hold a hammer, can't set a nail, can't teach him how to do it, he always hits the wrong nail, and if he hits the right one, it always goes in crooked, yet he's convinced God's called him to be a finished carpenter. I say, Buddy, you've missed your call. If God called you to be a finished carpenter, he'd either give you the ability, or you'd be enabled to cultivate the ability to set a nail, hit the right nail at the right place, and put it in straight.

30:20 So if someone says, God's called me to be a missionary, but God has withheld the ability to speak so as to be heard distinctly in missionary settings of aggressive, evangelistic preaching, he has mistaken his call. Some other characteristics of their preaching. Yes, Howard? Courage, which is more coming into the realm of an inward disposition, isn't it?

30:57 Courage, Paul says, I did not shrink, I did not hold back from declaring anything that was profitable, Acts 20.20, and then verse 26, I did not shrink, I did not keep back, indicating that there was something in him of remaining sin, or temperamental weaknesses that left to himself, he would have shrunk from preaching the whole counsel of God. So courage. All right, some other characteristics.

Characteristics of Apostolic Missionary Preaching: Biblical Basis

31:25 Let's see, someone else had his hand raised over here. All right, Parnell, and then we'll come to you, Louise. Yes. It was essentially Biblical-based proclamation, argumentation, reasoning, etc.

31:45 Now give me some text. This is where we really start getting oodles of them, all right? All right, Acts 17, let's look at it together. Acts 17, and verse 2, Paul, as his custom was, went in unto them, and for three Sabbath days reasoned with them from the Scriptures, opening and alleging that it behooved the Christ to suffer, to rise again from the dead, and that this Jesus, whom, said he, I proclaim unto you, is the Christ.

32:23 Now here you have a summary statement, of Paul's general pattern of ministry, was to go to the synagogue and reason with people out of the Scriptures. He did not simply stand there and quote text willy-nilly to impress people he had a good memory. He approached them as rational thinking people who were vulnerable to being persuaded by clear argumentation. And some of you wonder, why do the preachers labor to have headings and transitions and develop arguments?

32:57 It's because as image bearers of God, God has made us, he is a logical God, and he's made us with that sense that our minds are persuaded when an argument carries our judgment. And the Holy Spirit does not despise that. And so the apostle reasons, but it is always biblically based persuasion, argumentation, reasoning. Some more texts that demonstrate this.

33:24 Yes. All right, Acts 24 and verse 25. And after certain days Felix came with Drusilla his wife, who was a Jewish, sent for Paul and heard him concerning the faith in Christ Jesus. And as he reasoned of righteousness, and of course he would have used the law of God as the standard of righteousness and self-control and the judgment to come, a fact which is only given to us by divine revelation, though there is in every man the sense of his accountability to God.

34:03 The clear doctrine of judgment is a matter of special revelation. Felix was terrified and answered. All right, some other passages now which clearly state that they reasoned, they preached out of the scriptures. All right, Jim.

34:18 Oh, I'm sorry, Louise, I was coming back to you. Did you have another text? Okay, can we hold off on that? All right, another text, Jim.

34:28 It doesn't explicitly say out of the scriptures. All right, chapter 19 and verse 8. And he entered into the synagogue and spake boldly. Ah, so we've got another bold text.

34:46 All right, verse 8. Acts 19, 8, under boldly. He spake boldly for the space of three months, reasoning and persuading as to the things concerning the kingdom of God. And here we do not have an explicit statement to the use of scripture.

35:05 I want one or two more. We want at the mouth of two or three witnesses every word to be confirmed. Pete? Philip, when he was explaining.

35:13 All right. Verse 35. Acts 8, 35. And Philip opened his mouth, and beginning from this scripture, he preached Jesus to him.

35:30 All right, excellent text. And Philip opened his mouth, and beginning from this scripture. That wasn't the end of it. He used that as his taking off point from the scriptures.

35:39 He preached unto him Jesus. 8, 35. All right, let's find at least one other clear testimony to this. All right, Barb.

35:48 18, 28. All right, Acts 18 and verse 28. And speaking of the ministry now of Apollos, he powerfully confuted the Jews, and that publicly, showing by the scriptures that Jesus was the Christ. Okay?

36:12 Now, we could multiply many references, but we see that the manner of their speaking was not only marked by boldness, pouring forth from the heart and mind without any impediment, pouring forth from the mouth this unfettered declaration of the truth as it is in Jesus, and it was essentially Bible-based proclamation, argumentation, argumentation, disputation, reasoning, a broad spectrum of words used, but it was always Bible-based. It had to do with God's revelation in the scriptures

36:56 and, of course, in their own witnessing of the work of Christ. There's the uniqueness, you see, again, of the apostles. Remember when they needed to replace an apostle? They said, We need someone who's been with us from the baptism of John until now to be a witness of his resurrection.

37:15 And it was that apostolic tradition or testimony as eyewitnesses that became the backbone of our New Testament scriptures. All right? So when it says the scriptures, it's referring to the Old Testament, but the very framers of the New Testament scriptures, their content was the apostles and the tradition, the body of truth that was gathering through their instruction. All right?

Characteristics of Apostolic Missionary Preaching: Dependence and Spirit-Power

37:40 Now, what's another characteristic, Louise? All right, in 14.3, the text tells us that they spoke boldly in the Lord, that is, in virtue of their union with Christ, their preaching was born out of a context of dependence upon the Lord. All right?

38:11 And that, obviously, is a characteristic of any true servant of Christ, of any true Christian. Dependence upon the Lord. All right? But now I'm fishing for some more major characteristics that would be seen in the preaching.

38:24 Maybe that's where my question was not quite precise enough and why we're getting a broader input, because everything you've contributed is right. But let's state things that would be evident in the preaching itself. All right? Yes.

38:39 Rich? They spoke in the power of the Holy Spirit, actually. All right? They spoke in the power of the Holy Spirit.

38:49 Now, would that be evident in the preaching itself? Is that something you could measure? Or would you measure that by its effects? The power of the Spirit, and not or not from the power of the Spirit.

39:09 All right. So that you would be willing to put that in that. When I think of 1 Corinthians 2, my speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of men's wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power. And 1 Thessalonians 1, our gospel came not unto you in word only, but also in power, Peter being filled with the Holy Spirit's spake.

39:29 Yes, very good. I think that would have to be one of the major ones. I didn't have that in my list. Let's...

39:35 Acts 8.51. Yes. And he says, You sit next to an uncircumcised in part of the earth and you always resist the Holy Spirit.

39:51 Yes. That was the ending of his whole preaching. Yes. 7.55.

39:59 Yes. Not 55, 51. 7.51.

40:06 You stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart, you do always resist the Holy Spirit as your fathers did, so do ye. And this explains what resisting the Holy Spirit is. Which of the prophets did not your fathers persecute? In other words, when the word of God is preached in the power of the Spirit as it was with the prophets and now with Stephen, a resisting of that word is a resisting of the Holy Spirit.

40:31 So, yes, I'll have to work that into the notes. I think we would say that is one of the dominant characteristics of the preaching of these who were engaged in missionary endeavor. It was characterized by the endowment, by the power, by the unction of the Holy Spirit. All right?

Additional Characteristics: Earnestness, Compassion, Joy, Zeal, Aggressiveness, Doctrinal Content

40:48 Another characteristic. Yes, John? Disputation of error, Acts 17.17.

40:52 All right. That would be part of the content, that they would dispute error. That would be in the broader context of one of the many ways that they preached. All right?

41:03 But let's try to hone in on the characteristics. Any others that you see? Yes, Donnie? And what would that be?

41:15 And would that not be a part of boldness? How do you usually tell a coward? Right? Come and get at you.

41:30 When a man looks you straight in the eye and is walking at you, you better wait to see if his fingers are twitching to get his guns. Right? Right? In the old Western, eye contact, so I think it would be one of the nuances of boldness.

41:43 All right? Now, believe it or not, we've got ten minutes left of class, so I must very quickly, if we're going to finish this point, give you some. But see, this is just to stir you up to see. You've got the same Bible I have.

41:54 You may not be able to compare the subtle differences in the Greek Testament, but it's really irrelevant. The emphasis is so clear. They spoke with boldness. They spoke with earnestness.

42:08 Not only boldness, but earnestness. Romans 1, 14 and 15, Paul says, I am a debtor to the Jew and to the Greek. I am ready. And you remember in our expositions of Mark, we pointed out the only other place in the New Testament where that word ready is used, except in the Gethsemane account.

42:26 The spirit is ready or willing, but flesh is weak, is in this passage. Paul says, I am ready. I am eager to preach. And then you see the evidences of that in Acts chapter 14.

42:40 The very chapter we began with. Let's go back to it to see this eagerness. Paul, in the name of Christ, has healed a man who was lame from his mother's womb. Verse 11, when the multitudes saw it, they were ready to call them gods.

42:57 All right? They were ready to sacrifice. But look at verse 14. But when the apostles, Barnabas and Paul, heard of it, they rent their garments, sprang forth among the multitude, crying out and saying, Man, why do you do these things?

43:15 They were unashamed to show the emotion and the passion and even the physical accompaniments of blood earnestness in their preaching. They rent their garments, jumped into the crowd and said, Stop! They were all alive with this holy passion of earnestness. You see it in other passages.

43:36 Paul says in 2 Corinthians 5, 11, Knowing the terror of the Lord, we persuade men. 2 Corinthians 5, 20 and 21, We then are ambassadors for Christ as though God were beseeching you by us. We beseech you in Christ's stead. Be ye reconciled to God.

43:58 Earnestness. Another characteristic. Compassion. Acts 20 and verse 19.

44:04 Paul says, You know from the first day I set foot in Asia, how I was with you, serving the Lord with all humility of mind and what's the next thing he mentions? And with tears. There was compassion. Later on in that chapter, verse 31, he says, I warned you day and night for three years with tears.

44:28 Romans 9, 1 to 3. He speaks of the heaviness of heart that he has. That he could wish himself accursed from Christ for his brethren according to the flesh. His fellow Jews.

44:41 You see, they mirrored our Lord Jesus who when he saw the multitudes was moved with compassion. They preached with joy. Acts 16, 25. They're in jail.

44:53 They've been beat up. Their hands and feet are in stocks and they're singing psalms of praise to God at midnight. And it's as though God is so tickled with the whole thing. He says, I've got to let the whole bunch know what I think about this and he sends an earthquake.

45:07 They preached with joy. Look at Acts 5, 41 and 42. Same emphasis. They therefore departed from the presence of the council rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer dishonor for the name.

45:23 And every day in the temple and at home they ceased not to teach and to preach Jesus as the Christ. The kingdom of God is not eating and drinking but righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost. And so one of the characteristics of their preaching in the Spirit was not only boldness, biblicalness, but there was also this element of compassion on the one hand, joy on the other. There was zeal for God's glory.

45:55 I can only give you the text, Acts 14, 11 through 18. We just looked at it. When anyone would divert attention to the messenger, to elevate them beyond the place of mere human messengers, what did they do? They didn't suck that to themselves and put it into some sick vacuum of an overinflated ego.

46:18 They said, We're merely men. Don't sacrifice to us. We're merely men. And then in chapter 17 when Paul saw the whole city going over to idolatry, what does it say?

46:31 It said his spirit was stirred within him when he saw the whole city given over to idolatry. Zeal for God's glory. Six, there was sanctified aggressiveness. They'd go into a synagogue and because the framework of the synagogue was such that any recognized teacher, the leader of the synagogue, could call on him to speak and to give a word of exhortation, they seized that opportunity.

46:58 But they didn't just preach in a synagogue where they were called upon. They went out into the marketplace. They went to the Agora in Acts chapter 17. They would go down by a river bank in Acts chapter 16, found a few women having a prayer meeting, preached the gospel, and that's how God began the church at Philippi, with a woman's prayer meeting.

47:17 Very interesting. But that's how the church at Philippi was begun and that became Paul's favored church in that whole section of his missionary endeavor. Acts 19 says for two years the school of Tyramus, they got kicked out of the synagogue, so he found a school that he could rent. And it says from that point all of Asia heard the word of God.

47:38 There was aggressiveness, there was innovativeness in their preaching, and then there was clear doctrinal content to their preaching. Some of you have already alluded to this. He says in Acts 20, we kept back nothing that was profitable but showed you publicly and from house to house repentance toward God, faith to the Lord Jesus. Verse 26, we preached unto you the whole counsel of God.

48:01 In Acts chapter 15, they called a council of the church at Jerusalem with leaders from the church at Antioch. Why? Because someone was messing around with the doctrinal content of the gospel and the mark of their preaching was clear, unmistakable, doctrinal precision. Now, in the light of all of this, and we've just run through and only touched the surface, these characteristics, they so spake that a multitude believed and involved in that manner of their speaking was speaking with boldness, essential biblical content, compassion, joy, zeal, aggressiveness, clear doctrinal content, wisdom, sufficient volume,

Implications for Discovering, Training, and Sending Missionaries

48:45 courage, dependence on the Lord. Here's my question, in the five minutes we've got that remains. What are the practical implications of these observations and emphases for us as a local church as we seek to discover, train, prove, and send men to do the work of missions? What are the implications of all of this for us?

49:18 You're Trinity Church, you're involved in Trinity Church's missions policy. What are the implications of all of this for us? Yes, George? Should we hope that they have them?

49:34 And how are we going to know that they have them? All right, so what you're saying is they must be men who have proven gifts of utterance marked by these major characteristics. Is that what you're saying?

49:52 How many would agree? All right, now, let me ask you a question. Have you ever come across this mentality? Well, if a guy doesn't have boldness enough and a grasp of the Bible enough or ability to think clear enough or speak up enough, if he would be as flunky as a preacher at home but he feels he's called to preach, what should you do with him?

50:14 Send him overseas to the mission field. That's right. What a tragedy! What a horrible, wretched tragedy!

50:24 They send out their flunkies. They sent out their best men. The Holy Ghost said, Separate for me. He didn't say some flunkies that couldn't make it in Antioch.

50:39 He took their two best, Barnabas and Saul. Proven men! Men who spoke with boldness, with biblicalness, with compassion, with joy, with zeal, with aggressiveness, clear doctrinal content, wisdom, volume, courage, all of these things. That's the first great implication.

51:04 We must not send men who do not have a manifest gift of utterance marked by boldness, earnestness, compassion, the unction of the Holy Spirit. And they must be men who are well grounded theologically. One man said years ago, If only all our missionaries and evangelists were theologians, and all our theologians were missionaries and evangelists, a glorious day would have dawned upon the Church years ago. So you see the implications for us as a Church.

Biblical Precedent for Proving Missionaries: Jonathan Walker and John Mark

51:43 All right? Then my next question and final question as our time draws to a close. What relationship do these perspectives have to our present activity of fully supporting Jonathan Walker, he's on the payroll, laboring in Moorestown with Pastor Ruther? What relationship does all of this have to that?

52:06 George?

52:09 All right. Not only being trained, but what else? Tried and proven and pruned. I want you to turn to Acts 16 to show a biblical precedent for this.

52:25 For some of you who may be visiting with us and not aware of what I'm talking about, one of our graduates from the Academy, who is not a boy, he's in his early 30s, who has had a passion for missionary work for many years, has completed his work in the Academy, is presently laboring with one of our church planting works in South Jersey with a proven man. He's on the payroll, he's working full time, preaching, teaching, knocking on doors, evangelizing, working one-on-one with some weak believers, cultivating the art of strengthening believers. Very biblical thing. Look at Acts 16.

53:05 Speaking of Paul, he came to Derbe and to Lystra and behold, a certain disciple was there named Timothy, the son of a Jewess that believed, but his father was a Greek. The same was well reported of by the brethren that were at Lystra and Iconium. Him would Paul have to go forth with him. Paul made a choice to take Timothy because he had earned a good report, not just of one person, but of a broad spectrum of brethren, not just in one church, but in several churches.

53:50 Now, you see the implications of that for our practice with Jonathan Walker right now? This is not an arbitrary thing that we're doing. Believing that the principles and precepts of the word of God must regulate our missionary endeavor, we do not want to send a man to Steve Hoffmeier as a co-laborer who becomes a burden on his back. And if there are areas in Jonathan's public ministry, his private ministry, in his character, that need refining or that in the actual harness of ministry would show he were disqualified, then we've got to say, not now.

54:29 Can you think of one man who got in the harness, proved he was disqualified, and after a period of time then proved he was qualified? John Mark. If you want to look it up, if we had time, I've got all the text, Acts 12.25, 13.13, 15.36,

54:51 and then 2 Timothy 4.11. You have his initial choice, Acts 12.25, his initial activity, 13.13,

55:00 and his breaking down under pressure, and then Paul refusing him, Acts 15.36, and then Paul saying in 2 Timothy 4.11, Bring John Mark, he is profitable for the ministry. Now you see, though if an apostle Paul didn't bat a thousand, we don't think we're going to bat a thousand.

55:20 But we sure don't want to send a man out with the bat broken who can't even get up to the plate and swing. And as best we know, we want to be able to send Jonathan with this conviction, say to Steve, Steve, as best we are able to discern, Jonathan is a proven man of character, as a preacher, as a man flexible in dealing with people, aggressive in his evangelism, marked by boldness, biblicalness, joy, compassion, flexibility, wisdom. He can speak up sufficiently to be heard, courage, etc. But we want to send a man upon whom the Holy Ghost rests.

Critique of Conventional Missionary Training and Conclusion

56:03 That's our desire because we believe it is that missionary policy which the word of God imposes upon us. Now I don't mean to be unkind for any of you who have friends and relatives associated with mission boards, but do you see how utterly unrealistic is the idea that you can send someone who says, quote, I feel called to the mission field. They sat at the Urbana Missionary Conference sponsored by IVF out in the Midwest, responded to the call to go to missions, they finished college, go to seminary, and now they apply to the mission board and all the papers are done, then they go off for six weeks to candidate school. How in the world, in the artificial setting of candidate school, can you truly prove a man?

56:46 God's place of proving is his church. And that's what we're committed to because we believe this is what the word of God directs us to do. Well, that's completed unit number one of our missionary policy, and that policy is, as we've articulated it to you, if I can find page number one here again, that the work of missions, here we are, that the work of missions, its essential tasks, are making disciples, organizing strengthening churches, providing qualified permanent residential leadership, and since preaching is primary in that task, healing and benevolence,

57:29 benevolence ancillary, then there is a certain kind of preaching and preacher who must be discovered as the Lord molds and shapes him, who must be recognized and thrust forth to the work, and we've at least had an outline of his portrait here this morning. Let's pray. Our Father, we thank you again for the absolute sufficiency of Scripture. Do bless the things we've studied today as we attempt to walk in the light of it.

58:05 We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.