Welcome to the 2014 Shepherds
Conference. The Great Commission as a Theological
Endeavor. Paul Washer. Let's begin in verse
16. But the eleven disciples proceeded
to Galilee, to the mountain which Jesus had designated. When they
saw him they worshipped, but some were doubtful. And Jesus
came up and spoke to them, saying, All authority has been given
to me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples
of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father
and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all
I commanded you. And lo, I am with you always,
even to the end of the age. Let's go to the Lord in prayer.
Father, we come before you in the name of your Son. We come
before you knowing that you know us. The deepest part of our heart
and mind, you judge all things. And therefore, Lord, we thank
you for grace. We thank you for the finished
work of Christ on our behalf that strengthens us to stand
before you when nothing else could do so. We thank you for
your promises that encourage us. Lord, help us today. So many words and so many deeds,
but Lord, we would ask that your spirit would move among us. That
he would open up our hearts and minds to a greater reality of
the task that has been set before us. That we would realize that
we are some of the most privileged Of all men who've ever walked
this planet. Such a day to live in, Lord. So many open doors,
Lord, work in us that we not have tight spirits and narrow
minds and dull hearts, but that we be bold for you in your strength,
your wisdom, that we serve our generation and then that we be
forgotten, Lord. All glory and honor and praise
be unto your son. Now in this place and forevermore
and everywhere, Lord, to him be the glory. In Jesus' name,
amen. I want to point out four things
from our text, and I'm striving to stick very close to my notes
because there are some things that I definitely want to say. But there's four things in particular
that we're going to look at. First of all, in this text, we
see a reflection of our weakness. Then we see a declaration of
Christ's absolute authority and power. And then we see the preeminent
task of the church set before us. And then if that is too much,
if that overwhelms us. Then we have the promise of his
presence and power. And for any man that's ever gone
out taking the Great Commission seriously, this last promise
is the thing that holds us. It's the thing that strengthens
us and makes us go on. Now, let's look, first of all,
at a reflection. of our weakness. When we look
at this text, let's read again verse 16. But the eleven disciples
proceeded to Galilee to the mountain which Jesus had designated. When
they saw him, they worshipped him. But some were doubtful.
Here we do not see great men of faith. What do we see? We
see men like us, a mixture of faith and obedience, doubt, and
uncertainty. The word that is used here for
doubt is distaso, meaning a double standing, an uncertainty, a hesitancy
about them. And it's the same word that is
used to describe Peter when he is commanded by Christ to come
out of the boat to walk upon the raging sea. Now, I want to be fair at this
moment to these men. I want to be fair to them. We
shouldn't just attribute this doubt to their weakness, but
we should also attribute this doubt to the magnitude of what
they are being called to believe and to do. Let's look for a moment
at the Sea of Galilee. Let's look for a moment at Peter
being called to walk out on that sea. That was nothing compared
to what they're being called to do at this very moment. And
what is that? To walk out into the sea of humanity,
a radically depraved humanity. They are being sent out as lambs
in the midst of wolves. They are being called to cast
down every earthly power and authority. And to do so by faith
in the word of a carpenter and by the proclamation of the most
scandalous message that the world has ever known. So we can see
at least that there is something of a reason for their doubt. Now, I want you to see some things. They were men like us. They were
men like us. One of the greatest things I
have ever learned from scripture with regarding the apostles is
that they were like us. But we see here that they were
they were or would be transformed. They would be changed. They would
become something more than mere men. And how would that happen? by grasping the reality of the
absolute authority of Jesus Christ. And as we will see in the book
of Acts, by the power, the powerful life and ministry of the Holy
Spirit. Now, when we talk about missions
and we talk about all the things that must be done, let me put
before you three things that are absolute essentials in missions. First of all, we need men. who are constantly growing in
their knowledge of the person and work of Christ, who he truly
is and what he has truly done. What else do we need? Men who
will renounce once and for all every fleshly means of planting
churches and doing missions. And then men who are constantly
Unceasingly. Crying out for greater and greater
manifestations of the life and power of the Holy Spirit in their
life. Gentlemen, listen to me. Do not allow false prophets to
rob you of your inheritance. Just because there are so many
wrong men teaching so many wrong things about the Holy Spirit. Don't overreact against them. And turn your Trinity into something
less. We cannot do the Great Commission. Do you understand me? We cannot
do the Great Commission. Apart from the power. The teaching. The righteousness, the holiness,
the life. Of the Holy Spirit, we cannot. Now. Here we see in verse 18,
we've talked about a reflection of our weakness. Now we're going
to look at a declaration of his power. Verse 18. And Jesus came up and spoke to
them, saying, All authority has been given to me in heaven and
on earth. Jesus knows their weakness and
Jesus goes out to meet them. How many times in my 30 years,
how many times in your ministry has this been true? He knew your
weakness at that moment, but he did not leave you. He went
out to meet you. He came for you. What a blessed
savior. What a broad shouldered God we
have. He came out to meet you. He knows
our frame. He knows that we're dust. There's
never been a great man of God, never will be. Only tiny, little,
faithless men of a great and a merciful God. He went out to
meet them. He knows our frame, he knows
yours. Some young person comes to me and says, but the Great
Commission is so great and I'm so weak. My response is yes. Yes, but as Augustine said, Christ. Does not call men who are worthy.
Christ makes men worthy. By virtue of the call. And here we can see what does
Christ do? He comes out and he counters their doubt and uncertainty.
And how does he do that? With a declaration of his absolute
authority. Absolute authority over what? Over everything without limitation,
jurisdiction, or exception. His power. I want to quote from
David Brown, a used to be well-known Scottish theologian and exegete.
And he said, what must have been the feelings? What must have
been the feelings that were awakened in these men by this commission? Lord, we go out and conquer the
world for thee who have scarcely conquered our own misgivings.
Lord, fishermen of Galilee, without letters, without means, without
influence, even over the humblest creature, nay, Lord, mock us
not. And the Lord responds, I mock
you not, for all authority has been given unto me in heaven
and on earth. Go ye therefore. All authority
has been given to me in heaven and on earth. And lo, I am with
you always, even until the end of the age. Go ye therefore. John Trapp. Go ye, Jesus said. And this, my strength, is Gideon
against the Midianites. And though ye be but a barley
cake, coarse and contemptible, yet ye shall overthrow the tents
of this world. Yea, ye shall overthrow even
the stronghold of Satan. And though you have but a lamp
and a pitcher in your hand, yet you will attain to great matters. You see, our strength, our everything,
none of it is found in us. It is all found in Him. A wonderful
illustration of Christ's authority in Genesis chapter 41, verse
44. Moreover, Pharaoh said to Joseph, though I am Pharaoh,
yet without your Permission. No one shall raise his hand or
foot in all of Egypt. The exalted, resurrected, exalted
Christ stands before the Father and all authority is given to
him in heaven and on earth. It is though he said to him.
Without your permission, son, no one will raise his hand or
his foot in all the cosmos. Even the hand that was raised
to throw the first stone at Stephen was under the sovereign jurisdiction
of the Lord Jesus Christ. This is the kind of stuff that
will make a very weak man very, very strong. What does this kind
of authority mean for our missionary endeavors? It means this. He who goes to and fro, weeping,
carrying his bag of seed will come again with a shout of joy,
bringing his sheaves with him. What does it mean, this authority? Is it just some theological speculation,
something to be talked about in a seminary? Absolutely not.
It is essential for everything we do in world missions. What
does his authority mean? I'll tell you what it means.
There shall be a great multitude, which no one can count standing
before the throne and before the lamb. They will be clothed
in white robes and each one will have in his hand a palm branch
and they will cry out with a great and unified voice, salvation
to our God who sits on the throne and to the lamb. That's what
it means. We will win because he has won. What an open door
lies before us and what strength is given us. In his name. In his name. Let's go on. Now, most involved in missions. Now we're going to turn this
around. Most involved in missions would give a hearty amen to absolutely
everything I have said thus far. Jesus is Lord. Jesus has authority
and power. Here's what we must understand.
We must understand the implications of this. And oftentimes the church
does not understand the implications of the sovereignty of Christ.
Now, listen to me. If we are to go out. In his authority. Then we must go out under his
authority. What does that mean? Everything
that we do in missions and church planting. Everything that we
believe, everything that we practice and all our so-called strategies
and methodologies, they must be warranted by the scriptures
or we have no authority at all. Our authority comes from Our
conformity to what this mighty Lord has commanded. And I want
to submit to you something very, very important. I believe that
this is the Achilles heel of modern evangelical missions.
Everyone is doing what is right in their own eyes. Furthermore,
let me say this. Our mission methodology. Our
church planting strategy is not, is not, is not to be the invention
of the anthropologist, the sociologist, or the expert in leading cultural
trends. Then from where should our strategy
and our methodology come? It should come from the scriptures
drawn out of the scriptures by the exegete, the theologian and
the church historian. But they have all been but removed
from modern evangelical missions, and that, as I've said, is our
Achilles heel. Now, remember what Moses heard
from God. He said this, Moses. See that
you make everything in the tabernacle according to the pattern that
was shown you on the mountain. Now, if you can say that about
the tabernacle, how much more? The greatest of all causes. See to it that you do this great
commission. according to the pattern that
has been shown all of us in the holy scriptures. Now, God has
given the church and her ministers the scriptures so that we might
be equipped, not for some good works, not for certain good works,
but for every necessary work of the kingdom. What do we need? The scriptures. Also, God has
given the scriptures to the church and to her ministers so that
we might know how to conduct ourselves in the household of
God. The church of the living God,
the pillar and the support of the truth. Let me share something
with you very quickly. And hold your stones before you
throw them, just listen. The Reformation, the Puritans,
Spurgeon, Calvin, Jones, all of them. The whole thing wasn't
wrapped up in Calvinism. Let me tell you what it was wrapped
up in. The sufficiency of Scripture. And so, yes, part of that. is a right understanding of soteriology. But here's what you've got to
see all over America. I'm seeing guys that are supposedly
going back to the truth, but they're only doing it with regard
to soteriology. If I look at their church planning
and their way of doing missions, it looks just like every other
evangelical. It's not just reforming your
soteriology. But the Puritan genius was this. They sought to take every aspect
of life and ministry and submit it to a book. The scriptures. And that's what we must do. But
especially you young men. Listen to me. There's this idea
of you're going to take the Puritans and you're going to take the
reformers and then you're going to dress it all up in some cultural
thing that other people today will appreciate. No, you don't
understand. We must cling to what is written
and we must do our church planting. Our church life, our missions,
everything, our families, according to what is written and not what
is right in our own eyes. Let me say this. It matters.
Someone comes to me and they say, Brother Paul, I believe
in the inerrancy of Scripture. I go, I don't. So what? Good
for you. Because the inerrancy of Scripture
means nothing unless you also practice the sufficiency of Scripture.
They are twin sisters. It is a deformed coin that has
only one side. Inerrancy, you can hold on to
that without being changed, but then to take that doctrine of
inerrancy and move on to sufficiency. Now, that's a whole nother ballgame,
isn't it? What must we do? We must lay
aside if we're going to do The Great Commission, if we're going
to plant churches, what must we do? We must lay aside every
fleshly strategy and methodology. And what must we do? We must
go into the scriptures. And what must we do? Follow the
pattern that is given to us there. The more we as a people hold
on to the works and the strategies and the methodologies of the
flesh, the less that we will see God. What must we do? We must rip from us like a poison,
like a plague, like a scab. We must rip from us Saul's armor
and we must go out and pick up the smooth stones of the gospel
that if for too long have been neglected. And that is the only
way we are ever going to go out and slay this Goliath called
world missions. It's the only way. The only way. The only way. Now, I want us
to look at the communication of the church's preeminent task.
Verse 19, go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations,
baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the
Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded
you and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age. First, I want you to notice that
in the title I said this is the church's preeminent task. I did
not say it was the church's preeminent command. The church's preeminent
command is to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul,
mind and strength. And the second command is like
it to love your neighbor as yourself. Only men who through the regenerating
work of the Holy Spirit and the renewal of their mind in the
scriptures, only these kind of men can have a love For God that
propels them to do great things in God's name. The Great Commission is a labor
of love. We love God and therefore what
we desire. that the knowledge of the glory
of God be upon this earth like the waters that cover the sea,
that the name of God be great among the nations from the rising
to the setting of the sun. We love Christ and therefore
we desire that the Lamb receive the full reward of his suffering. We love men, all kinds of men. And if you don't love men, then
you need to get out of the ministry. We love men and we cannot tolerate
their suffering. And we want to see God glorified
in their salvation. It's a labor of love. He says, therefore, again, just
bringing us back to the reality. And what is that reality? We
have no inherent authority. That we must remain under His. We must. Constantly, daily, not
only in our public life or our pulpit ministry, but we must
remain under his authority in our private life. He owns you. He bought you. You are not your
own, so take that and drive it like a stake straight through
the heart of the flesh. You're his. And the matter must
be settled. Young men, if you have not settled
that matter before you graduate from here, all the degrees in
the world will not help you. We're his. We go out in his name
because we love him and we love him because he loved us. Listen
to me, my dear friend, when you go out and preach on that street.
And those people turn on you in about five minutes and they
grab your little pulpit and your little megaphone and all your
tracks and Bibles and they pick you up and they throw you out
in this off the plaza and back into the street. It's going to
take a lot more than simple love for people to have you pick up
all your stuff and march right back in that plaza again and
preach. It's going to take the love of Christ manifested in
your life, a reality of what he has done for you, pastor. Though your suffering might not
be that dramatic, it is oftentimes more intense. And to keep you
going, serving, blessing, unknown and unnoticed and unappreciated
by men, it's going to take this standard, this comprehension
of the reality of Christ. Let's go on. He says, make disciples. The phrase make disciples translated
from the Greek word method to which has the prominent idea
here is instruction. It's in teaching. It's in making
disciples by means of communicating truth. Now, in Christ's own words,
what is a disciple? It is someone who is like his
master. So the end of church planting in the end of the Great
Commission is not recording decisions or counting converts. But what
is it? It is taking the gospel of Jesus
Christ and boldly proclaiming it to the lost. And when those
lost are soundly converted, then we enter into a lifelong labor
with the full counsel of God's word for their sanctification.
That's what it is. That is what it is. That's what
we're called to do. And it's hard, men. You will
leave this conference, this glorious, wonderful conference, necessary
conference, edifying conference. But the reality is you will go
home. And it will be tough. I will
leave this conference and I will go home and it will be tough. The work of making disciples
is just hard work. But I would take one sound disciple
over 10,000 so-called converts that evangelicalism is producing
today. Now, this idea of making disciples
is further clarified by Paul in his letter to Timothy, 2 Timothy
2.2. The things that I have taught
you, that I have shared with you, that I have communicated
to you, that I have exemplified before you, these things, entrust
these to faithful men who will also be able to teach others.
You know, this text is so often used out of context, it's unbelievable.
It is used to talk about how the moment someone's converted,
they need to go and disciple someone else who's been converted
more recently. And yes, discipleship and that
type of discipleship has its place, but that's not what Paul's
talking about here. Paul's telling Timothy, raise
up leaders, raise up men of God, raise up men who qualify to be
elders and biblical deacons. Isn't it amazing that Jesus never
said the harvest is great, but the money is few? Everybody always whining about
money. Money is not the problem. Men of integrity, biblical men,
men who have lashed them down themselves down to scripture.
Now that's the rarity. That's the jam. And that's what
you're to be producing. And although these kinds of men
are being produced here and other good seminaries that the Lord
has raised up, never forget, man, it is the primary task of
the church, of you men to do that work. Let's go on. He says this is to be done in
all nations. Now, let me just say this. If
you've had a measure of success in the ministry, and so you're
just content, it shows you have a very, very small, shriveled
heart. There is a sense in which the
man of God who has been obedient, regardless of so-called success,
that man ought to be able to lay his head at bed at night
and sleep. And he also ought to be able
to be called home with great joy on the day Christ calls him
home. But we should not be content
just because there's some little measure of success in our little
fishbowl. We should not be content until
the name of Jesus Christ is proclaimed to every person of our generation. Until his flag flies on every
hill, mountain, and valley. Until his name is glorified in
every inch of this planet. Then we can be content. But until
then, no. No. Never. Never. All nations. And here's the thing,
men. There's never been a time in
the history of the world, there's never been a time. Where a door,
an effectual door has been so opened. And I'm not the prophet
or the son of a prophet, but studying church history and human
history, secular history, I would tell you this, a shadow is growing
in the West. And I don't know how long that
you and I will have this privilege to go out to all the nations.
It could be very soon we're running for our lives. So while it is
day, let us work for night comes when no man labors. He says, go, go. I used to write all the time
in the back of our magazine, just what part of go do you not
understand? And then I realized that with regard the evangelical
community, most of it they don't understand. Go. Now, you all know that that's
not the primary command, the command is to make disciples
and Craig Blomberg and his commentary on Matthew, New American commentary
has a great insight here. He says this observation that
the command is not go, but make disciples has been emphasized
too little and emphasized too much. It's emphasized too much
that the emphasis is on making disciples when a church and a
minister thinks that they're only called to bloom where they're
planted, that you're doing the work because you're doing ministry
in your Jerusalem. No, you are not granted that
luxury. You must minister in Jerusalem. Yes. And you must put your force
there. But you cannot forget the nations.
Now, too much or too little of this has been made, too much
emphasis placed on go and not enough on making disciples when,
and this is the great sin of evangelicalism today, when we
frantically give in to blatant pragmatism, when we look at the
need of the world and that pushes us to act in a way that is not
biblical, primarily by sending people into the mission field
who should not be on the mission field. who do not meet the requirements
set forth in Titus 1 and 1 Timothy 3. And you say, wait, Brother
Paul, that's for elders. No, you wait. Listen to me. What Paul is setting forth, and
you need to understand this, this will be good for the men
of your church, what Paul is setting forth is this. He is
describing a mature man. And then he's saying an elder
and a deacon must be a mature man. They must be spiritually
mature men. And that goes for all of us.
You can't just apply that to the minister. It goes to every
man must be a mature man. But if that mature man desires,
aspires to be an overseer, then glory to God. All of us should
reach that level. We can't keep sending teenagers
that don't even understand the word propitiation to the mission
field. We must send qualified men to
the mission field. This is absolutely an absolute
necessity. Another way in which we make
too little of this observation by emphasizing go too much is
when we succumb to the carnal strategies that are being put
before men today in missions with regard to how to do missions
and how to plant churches. These strategies are absurd.
These strategies are made by little boys who know nothing
of the power of God, know nothing about intercessory prayer and
do not believe in the power of proclamation. We need to lay
aside these strategies once and for all and use what the scriptures
give us to use now. The missionary enterprise is
actually quite simple. You can divide it up into two
ministries, you are either called to go. Are you are called to
send those who are going? Either way, the same devotion
is required, William Carey told those men, I will go down in
the mine that is India, but you must hold the rope. So missions
is either you go down the rope into the mine or you hold the
rope for those who go down. Either way, there will be scars
on your hands and exhaustion on your faces. Where's your scars? Where are the scars of your church? Where's the exhaustion? Where
is the labor? Pastors. Can be the greatest
catalyst to involving people. Bringing people to sacrifice
for missions. Our pastors can be the greatest
hindrance. Churches looking at you. Are
you concerned for the Indonesian without the gospel? Are you concerned
for countless good men genuinely converted, trying to labor in
some jungle somewhere, but do not have a clue how to interpret
the scriptures because they've not had the privileges you have
possessed? You must involve your people
in missions. You must go or you must send. Now, another thing I'd like to
say is we live in an age of media, of cyberspace, of computers,
Internet technology. And I praise God for that because
we're able to send books, literature and things into closed countries.
It's absolutely amazing. But we cannot fulfill the Great
Commission online. It must be incarnational missions. When God decided to send the
gospel, God became a man and dwelt among us, and now he is
calling the church to do the same. To send flesh and blood
to flesh and blood. To preach the gospel. There should
be no reason why. We have not missionaries all
over the world. There should never be a reason
why a missionary is walking around beggarly trying to find a few
books or raise a little money. Where's our faith? Where's our
boldness? I embrace fully Westminster Confession,
the 1689 London Confession with regard to its Statements regarding
the sovereignty of God, so don't label me a heretic when I say
what I'm going to say. Sometimes when I'm praying. God,
what do you want me to do in this situation? No, I don't hear
a voice. But sometimes this thought comes
in my head when I go, God, what do you want us to do here? Seems
like, well, what can you believe me for? What can you believe
me for? How far do you want to take this?
Just how big is your God? I think it's years of scripture
and years of reading about the patriarchs from which that voice
comes. When I look in the Bible, that's
always the case. God, what will you do? What can
you believe me for? What can you believe me for?
I'm so tired of men in all their using sovereignty to hide behind
it. Don't ever hide behind the sovereignty
of God. It is not a catalyst to make
us passive. It is a catalyst to make us fight. Fight. I do not need a light
bulb to explode in my study while I'm praying to know that the
gospel needs to be preached more in Indonesia. He has said go. And to every nation, but go,
go properly now also baptizing and I have to hurry here baptizing.
There's just three things I want to say quickly. First of all,
our converts must accept the full, the whole of unique Christian
teaching. You say, where do you get that
out of baptizing? It says baptizing in the very
specific name of the father, the son and the Holy Spirit.
The God of the Bible is not the God of the Koran, the God of
the Bible. is not just like all other gods
with a different name. The God of the Bible is not an
option among many other religious options. He is the name. He is
the way. He is the truth. He is the life.
You see, you and I can end the 2,000 year war between the secular
world and the church by just changing an article. Did you
know that? Changing an article from an definite article to an
indefinite article. All we have to do to be the toast
of the secular world is to say that we believe in Jesus. That
he is a way, a truth and a life. And brothers, understand me,
I'm in the world of missions. This is going on a lot more than
what you know. But if we say things like that,
we destroy the power of the gospel and we damn our own souls. There's
no other name. Another thing about baptizing
here, and I want to be very sensitive, but it's true. Our converts must
publicly profess Jesus Christ as Lord. You say, and so many missionaries
respond to me, but if they do that, they'll suffer. I don't
say this lightly, but yes, they will. They will. I'm not saying we should lay
aside all wisdom, I'm not saying we should go out and try to be
persecuted or that we should demand these things from brothers
in persecuted countries, but my brothers, listen to me, missions
and suffering go hand in hand. And much of the missionary strategy
being designed today is designed so that missionaries and their
converts do not have to suffer. But suffering is a part of it,
you need to understand, in many of the most persecuted countries
in the world, if you go home and tell everybody you believe
in Jesus, they won't have a problem with it. Really? Even in Muslim countries, just
go home and tell them you believe in Jesus. They won't have a problem
with it. It's when you identify with Jesus Christ and his church
through baptism and renounce all other religions and gods
and doctrines. That's when all hell breaks loose.
They must identify with Christ publicly. The apostles never
sought The apostles never saw it. To teach people how to avoid
suffering, especially if you read First Thessalonians, but
they predicted suffering and then sought to prepare people
for that suffering. The last thing about baptism
that I want to say is this, that we are not called to leave in
our wake a bunch of disconnected individual disciples, but we
are called to bring those disciples together in a church, not a Bible
study, not a worship group, but a church. And we are to labor
until that church has a mature leadership, mature doctrine.
It is autonomous and strong and biblical. And another thing,
missionaries have spent the last generation going around this
world trying to build culturally sensitive church instead of biblically
faithful churches. We should not go over and take
Western culture and force it on another culture. We should
come to the West and challenge the West and its culture. But
when we go into every other culture, we must do the same. The standard
is the scriptures. It's the word of God. Now, since
teaching primarily the Great Commission, it's didactic. It
is a theological endeavor. It is not about sending missionaries.
It's about sending the truth through missionaries to teach
them to observe, teach them to observe. The Great Commission
is not teaching is not just about gnosis. It's about praxis. It's not just about orthodoxy. It's about orthopraxy. And this
is very clear in the teachings of Christ when he says, take
my yoke upon you and learn from me. The two always go hand in
hand. To learn from him is to submit
to his sovereignty. And then he says, teach them
all that I commanded you. I want to give you a... I want
you to listen. What is the source? From where
are we to teach people? What is to be our book, our source
of information? said, teach them everything I
commanded you. It is the words of Christ. It
is the word of the living God. And I want to give you a quote
from Broadus that is absolutely phenomenal. Broadus says this. Jesus Christ did not foresee
or perceive of a time or a circumstance when his teaching would be antiquated
or untrue. inappropriate or unnecessary. Furthermore, our Lord did not
perceive of a time when extra revelation would be added. Teach
them what I've said. Teach them what I've said. Now,
I want to give us some truths to be gleaned, and that's where
we'll come to an end. First of all, missions is not
about sending missionaries. It's about sending God's truth
through missionaries. But the biblical way to send
God's truth is through missionaries. I say it that way because you
can have all the missionary activity in the world, which we have more
missionary activity today than probably any other time in the
world. And yet most of it is smoke and mirrors. dust, and
when it all settles, I don't know how much fruit will truly
remain. Another thing that I want to
say is that the missionary must be a man of the word. He must
be the missionary, must be an exegete. The missionary must
be a theologian. The missionary must be both a
proclaimer and a scribe. One of the best illustrations
of a missionary, even though to his own people, was Ezra.
For he set his heart to study the law of God, to practice it,
and to teach it statutes and ordinances in Israel. That's
a missionary. A young man came to me years
and years ago. He called me by the phone. And years ago, I was
in Peru, and he said, I want to come down there, Brother Paul.
And I want to work with you. And I said, well, talk to me
about your time in the word. Talk to me about your knowledge,
your study of the scriptures. He said, I'm not really that's
not my area. I just want to come down there
and give my life away. And I said, well, then talk to
me about intercessory prayer. He said, well, that's really
not he goes, Brother Paul, I just want to come down there and give
my life away. Now, I said something. I did
take the young man under my wing, but this is what I said to him.
I said, young man, nobody in Peru needs your life. They need someone who can come
here, open up their mouth and proclaim to them the word of
the living God. So much romanticism. Now, the command to make disciples
through teaching proves something very important, what? That the
Great Commission is, again, I'm going to say it again, a theological,
doctrinal endeavor. But if we look at the great majority
of missionary work in the world today, we see that doctrine,
although at one time was the queen of all sciences, that doctrine
does not have a high priority. And because of that, mission
work today, in many cases, has become a glaring contradiction,
even an absurdity. Now, I want to give you four
ways in which that's going on. Number one, it's become the popular
opinion that Christians should lay aside their doctrine and
rally around a common confession of Jesus. There's only one problem.
There are multiple Christs being preached in the world today,
not only in so-called Christendom, but even within the realm of
evangelicalism. And so. Are we to preach a Christ
that is so vague and so general that we literally fill the world
with an undefined Christ and contradictory opinions with regard
to His Word? Absolutely not. Now, the second
statement, and this may be the most absurd thing that was ever
birthed in the mind of a man. It is this. We need to lay aside
our doctrine and rally around the Great Commission. Now, here's
what I want you to say. The Great Commission is a doctrinal
or theological endeavor to lay aside doctrine and theology to
carry out a doctrinal and theological endeavor is suicide. It's absurd. You see, that's the problem.
This is the problem today. And it's the same problem that's
happened in every generation of the church, a depreciation
of truth. But Christianity is a truth religion. And the Great Commission is about
the proclamation of the truth. Another thing that I would like
to say is it's a common thing that we should reduce all our
doctrinal statements down to only the essentials. You know,
the phrase that is attributed to Augustine, although there's
evidence that maybe he never said it, was, in essentials,
unity. In matters, doubtful. In matters,
doubtful, liberty. And in all things, charity. That's
true, but there's some inherent dangers there. And what is it? Have you noticed that in every
generation, in every decade, especially the last few decades,
in evangelicalism, there's more and more doctrine being relegated
to the small stuff category. And that doctrines that at one
time were considered fundamentals of the evangelical faith are
now considered not even worth talking about, and especially
arguing about. My dear friend, that's dangerous.
It's very dangerous. Now, if you want to be an ivory
tower theologian who just wants to sit there and pontificate
and meditate, then you can have all kinds of undefined doctrine.
If you want to be a seminary student just arguing in the student
center, you can have all kinds of undefined doctrine. But when
you go to plant a church and you're dealing with real people
with real problems, defining the small stuff becomes very
important. Now, another thing, and it's
this, it's the common practice of missionary organizations to
reduce their doctrinal statement down to the lowest common denominator
so that they can bring in more candidates for the mission field
and more supporters for those candidates. Now, in many cases,
that is done by men with at least their desiring to do something
right. But it is a blatant surrender to pragmatism, and in the end,
we lose our soul. We lose our soul. Now, I want
to finish with this. Jesus said, Lo, I am with you
always, even to the end of the age. From the Greek, edu, which
communicates the idea of look, see, behold, take notice. It's as though Christ is looking
at these men and saying, look at me. Look at me. I am now going to give you the
greatest of all encouragements. Lo, I am with you always, even
to the end of the age, Levertov said. It is the greatest conclusion
that any book ever had. And I want to finish with Calvin. By these words, as I have formerly
suggested, Christ shows that in sending the apostles, he does
not entirely resign his office as if he ceased to be the teacher
of his church. For he sends away the apostles
with this reservation, that they shall not bring forward their
own inventions. but shall purely and faithfully
deliver from hand to hand, as we say, what he has entrusted
to them. That is the work of missions
to faithfully deliver to our hearers what has been entrusted
to us. That's the work of missions.
God bless. Paul, thank you. You've served us well this morning
by giving us a biblically clear perspective on the Great Commission
and missions itself, and there's much for us to take home. Paul's
agreed to just take a few minutes with us here at the end of this
seminar to talk about some practical issues in missions, particularly
in cultivating a biblical strategy for your church. And I have a
few questions for you, Paul. The first is this. Can you please
explain the difference between cross-cultural missions and indigenous
missions? It's something we're beginning
to talk more about. Cross-cultural missions has to do with sending
a man from one country and one culture to another country and
culture. For example, an American being
raised up by God to go preach the gospel in Russia, that would
be cross-cultural missions. Indigenous missions is realizing
that there are also qualified men in those other countries
who were born there. and who are worthy of being helped
in the ministry. You alluded to some of the, let's
say, misdirected efforts in cross-cultural missions today. Can you expand
on that a little bit further? First of all, we always want
to appreciate anyone. who desires to, in the name of
Christ, sacrifice something to do something of benefit to people. But here's what we have to understand.
Doing what is right in our own eyes is so dangerous. We must
define what a missionary is by the scriptures. We must define
what a missionary does. And I believe that the anthropologist,
the sociologist and the psychologist has taken over the work of the
exegete and the theologian. Not only must our doctrine come. from proper exegesis of the text.
But our methodology, we were never given a right to go do
things the way that we want to do them or to borrow from secular
thought because it works. That's the great problem, the
lack of belief in the sufficiency of Scripture. I absolutely agree
with you. Based on your ministry experience
in Peru, the Lord certainly from the Scriptures gave you this
conviction, but what you saw in practice and what you tried
to encourage in Peru, could you just illustrate that for us?
And then what led you to really developing your ministry, HeartCry? Well, when I went to Peru, I
was 26 years old, and as all of you who are in the ministry
know, I was definitely on a learning curve. And I didn't graduate
from a seminary where the things I now believe were taught. And
so I do believe that more than anything in Peru was learning.
And although churches were left, churches were helped, we're still
supporting men there. I can also look back and I can
see quite a few mistakes that I made. And that's why the students
that are here, you ought to praise God that you don't have to go
out and reinvent the wheel. you can learn to do what's right
so that when you get out there, you hit the ground running. The
one thing that I think more than anything that I learned in Peru
was that even though you have good men and even though you
have good intentions, you must still lash yourself down to Scripture. Also, it's All of you, a lot of you probably
look at what's happening here with this church and the missionary
endeavor, and you want to do that in your own church. And
I applaud you for that. But here's what I want you to
see, and I learned this in Peru. What you're seeing right now
is the result of decades of work by dedicated men. And I don't
think anyone here, when they started, probably had an idea
that they would end up here in this way, doing these things.
And for missions, You must, in church planting, dedicate yourself
to the hard work of studying the Scriptures, proclaiming the
Scriptures, and trying to conform everything in your ministry,
your churches, to the Scriptures. That's what I'd like to share.
In working with national church leaders, particularly in Peru,
I know that you've expanded around the world through the ministry
of HeartCry. What is so effective, in your
opinion, about focusing on equipping and training national church
leaders? JOHN, here's what we've learned. There are national leaders,
they don't...you know, national men, they don't have to learn
the language, they don't have to learn the culture. No one's
going to come to their church because they're the rich American.
It starts out from the very beginning avoiding a lot of the problems
that you have with cross-cultural missionaries. But now here's
what you must understand. There are some places in the
world where heart cry can do indigenous missions. But there
are other places in the world that we cannot. This does not
work everywhere. Now why? My dear friend Conrad
Mbewe in Zambia, a man of integrity, a great preacher of the Word,
the elders in the churches that are there with him, we can do
indigenous missions with him. Why? Because we know his integrity,
we know his theology, and we know all those men are going
to be held accountable. But there are other areas in the world
where that cannot be done. And that's why the mission ministry
here of starting training centers is an absolute necessity. And
one of the reasons why we kind of are following you guys around,
and here's the thing, unless you have these leaders on the
field, trained, equipped, and dedicated, it's really hard to
help the church overseas. It's going to take men who are
trained here or other good seminaries and that go over and actually
do the hard work of raising up leaders and then holding those
men accountable. For example, In Samara, if the
ministry in Samara called us tomorrow and said that they had
three or five or whatever men to support, we wouldn't even
send anybody over there to check on them because we've seen the
leaders in Samara and there's no need. We just, yeah, let's
do it. Well, I appreciate that. And
just to be clear, what you're not saying and what we're not
saying is there's not a place for American or North American
missionaries to be involved in the missionary enterprise is
defining what is a biblical model for that and what the priority
is. Is that correct? JOHN HATHAWAY Yes, brother. What we need, we
need men. who embrace the weapons of our
warfare. Men who see it as their task
to study God's Word in order to proclaim God's Word through
the pulpit, on the street, and in the counseling chair. Men
who will raise up leaders with the exact same convictions. That's what is necessary. And
it's not that we should have a moratorium on sending Americans
or people from Western Europe, not at all. But they must be
biblically equipped and they must really have these convictions.
You know, if I talk to someone and I say, look, for example,
if we send out someone from our church and we've known them,
they're friends, we bring them in, they have to stay with our
church for a bit of time. Why? Because many of them have
given this testimony. They say, when you said that
missions was all about proclamation, intercessory prayer, sacrificial
service and suffering, I agreed. But now that I've been in your
church for a few months, I realized I didn't know what I was agreeing
to. There's so much stuff that has to be cleaned away to get
to the essentials of true ministry. We were talking yesterday just
about the reality that we can be focused on the work of evangelism
in missions, but in doing so, the issue is what kinds of churches
are we bringing those converts back to? And are they churches
that are governed, first of all, by a pastor and a pulpit that
speaks with clarity with regard to biblical convictions? And
somehow we got the cart before the horse. Can you just comment
on that maybe mistake that we make? Everywhere I go in the
world, everywhere, I was just in Brazil. and countless individuals
who are just Christ people. They're not pastors. They're
not. They're just they've been converted. And it's just like
a mighty chorus of all of them saying the same thing. There's
no church in our area. that believes anything of what
you've been proclaiming or what we've heard from other teachers
that you've recommended. We listen to Dr. MacArthur, we
listen to these men and everything, but we have no place. And when
we go to our pastors, they either become angry or they say they're
doing the same thing when we know they're not. Brothers, the
great need is the training of leaders. It's the great need. There is no greater need. So
that churches that God's people can go to and That's work, but
it must be done. You're looking at an audience
here of, well, several thousand pastors and elders. What would
you say to these men with regard to where their church should
focus their mission's effort? What's the opportunity that we're
looking at together, Hearts Cry, the Master's Academy International?
What would you say to them? I would say for just a moment,
let's not talk about Heart Cry. We don't need to talk about Heart
Cry. If you men are here, you don't need heart cry. If you
men are here right now and you believe the things that are being
taught in this pulpit, the convictions that are being stood for, then
I would tell you to focus your missionary endeavor on what's
going on here. Again, There's so much missionary
activity going on, and it's not biblical, and it's not producing
biblical churches. There are horrendous things going
on in missions today, even by so-called conservative evangelicals.
Do you believe that the primary thing that we must do is study
God's Word, to proclaim God's Word, to live God's Word, intercessory
prayer, sacrificial service, suffering? Well, that's what
the men are being taught. I'm not a flatterer and I'm not
getting anything for being here. It's not why I'm here. I'm here
because I know that through my own experience, there is a dearth
of men that can be supported in this world. Now, that's a
shame. After all these years of missionary
activity, there is a dearth of men. Theologically, with regard
to integrity, And when I've talked to the men here, when I've gone
to places where men are being trained, I'm telling you, if
they tell me there's some men that need to be supported here,
then we'll do it. If we can, by God's grace, we
don't have to worry about it. Because I've seen, you know,
there's a film that I keep telling him about. I want him to see
in which this samurai sword guy, he says, all my disciples that
I teach, he only teaches one at a time for like 15 years or
so. He says, all of them must be
at least as good as me, but really they must be better. If not,
in a few generations, my craft is lost. When I was in Samara,
I couldn't, I'm sitting there preaching and I had students
opening their Greek New Testaments. When I was in Samarra, I had
people who were genuinely concerned about expository preaching, and
then I was blown away to know that the men were all trained
in biblical counseling, and I mean real biblical counseling. Brothers,
you're not going to find that in other parts of the world.
So at HeartCry, we have a principle. We don't make our needs known.
But I'm not talking about HeartCry today, and you don't need HeartCry.
You don't need to support HeartCry. But if you really want to do
missions and you want to know that men are being trained. And that they're being held accountable.
Then focus on this missionary enterprise of Masters International.
Focus on it. I have as much confidence as
you can put in men. I have confidence in what I've
seen. And again, I'm not a flatterer and I'm getting nothing for this.
I saw this and I want it to happen because it's not about heart
crying. It's not about Masters Academy. It's about the advancement
of Christ's kingdom. Let all of us perish. Let our
names be forgotten. But let the truth continue on.
Roll on like a mighty sea. We also have attending our conference
here over 500 international pastors, the very men that we're talking
about, getting behind, supporting, equipping and encouraging in
their work. What would you say to them this morning? The men
that have come from…brothers, do not give in to the lie of
pragmatism. Don't give in to the worldly,
secular ideas that have invaded the church with regard to We
have all the facilitators, movers and shakers, schemers and dreamers
that we need on the mission field. Spend your mornings in intercessory
prayer and laboring over the Scriptures. Spend the rest of
your time living it and making it known. The first time I ever
came here, I remember Dr. MacArthur got up and I was in
the it was in the chapel. I got to visit a chapel and he
got up and he said, Never forget, man. Never forget, man. You do
two things here. You learn how to study the Bible
in order to proclaim the Bible. That's what we do here. And that's
what I would tell you to do. I would beg you to do. There
is a dearth of men of God. We're not businessmen. We're
not schemers. We grab a hold of heaven. We
pray, we proclaim. That's what you must be. Amen. Well, Paul, thank you for
being with us today. We've been greatly affected,
greatly blessed, and encouraged to make sure that our mindset
about missions is governed by the Word of God. That's the authority.
You made your point very clear. It has been convicting to us.
Amen? All right. Amen. You've reached the end of this
audio presentation. For more audio or for more information
on the Shepherds Conference, please visit shepherdsconference.org.