In my previous post, Calvinism, TULIP, missions and prayer to the Lord of the harvest, I shared the first plenary talk from the Ekballo Midwest Conference held April 19-20, 2013, given by Scott Anderson. The second talk at Ekballo Midwest was given by David Sitton, President of To Every Tribe (http:/www.toeverytribe.com). (You can read more about Sitton and his wife here and here.)
http://youtu.be/6JBqc29qmkA
Here's an excerpt from Sitton's talk. . .
"There are some other important words, like obedience, and responsibility, and obligation. All of these are good words. They have their place as well. But I just feel compelled to focus and to center upon that word privilege. That's the word I want to emphasize. Because God has given us the unspeakable privilege –– oh yeah, it's a responsibility and an obligation. It is that. It is a command. But isn't it, more than anything else a privilege?–– That we get to do this. That we get to go into all of the world with the Gospel. Are you kidding me? We get to do this. We get to go and we get to take territory for the kingdom of God. That's what we get to do, and as we do it, we do it as the army of God. What a privilege! Don't ever forget it! Don't ever take it for granted. It's a privilege."But at the same time, you need to keep this in balance: we are still in spiritual warfare. We need a warfare worldview. We need to understand that we are not civilians, Christians. We're not on Christian cruise ships. We are on battleships. And we are going into dangerous territory. Places where Satan has been in control for thousands of years. Do you think he's gonna to let them go easily? Think he's gonna let them go without a fight, without a struggle. He will let them go, but it will through a mighty warfare. And so, we are an army. Everything about us is a picture of being in this army. We are soldiers. We wear armor that soldiers wear. It's spiritual armor. We fight with spiritual weapons. And we go and win spiritual territory or the Kingdom of God. . . .
"We're the army of God. We don't fight as the world fights. We don't blow up marathons. [Note: the Boston Marathon bombing took place earlier that week.] We don't strap bombs on to little children and run them into crowded malls. We don't burn Korans. We don't do any of that physically violent stuff, because people are not our enemies. Muslim are not our enemies. Hindus and Buddhists –– they are not our enemies. We're not after, like some of the Muslim extremists, who go, and their intent is geographical conquest.
"No, our strategy is different. Our strategy is not killing, but our strategy is dying. That's the warfare of the Spirit. We're not going after geographical strongholds, we're going after spiritual strongholds.
"These places where Satan - - Here's a name of Satan. Many names in Scripture, here's one of them: he's called the deceiver of the nations. That's his name. That's who he is, and that's what he does.
"But we're going into his territory. We're going after him. Hear that language: that's military language. We're going after him. We're targeting him. We're going after the hearts and the souls of the people for whom Christ dies. We're going after ... lost sheep who are scattered among all of the people groups and languages on the planet. These are the regions, not geographic so much, but spiritual regions.... and we want to win these places for Christ. And we're going after them aggressively. Unapologetically we're going after them.
"Once again, we don't go as marines with physical strength, but we go as lambs among wolves. And through us, through the Gospel, Jesus destroys spiritual strongholds. That's how it works. We don't go with strength, we go with weakness. We don't go with killing, we go with dying. Isn't that what Jesus did? He came and He died and He conquered. And now that's what we do."
* * *
- Missionary martyrs to go
- Thousands of intercessory prayer martyrs
- Thousands of financial martyrs
In other words, some of us will be called to go, while others will be called to stay –– but as Christians, no matter where we are and no matter what our calling, each and every one of us must remember that we're not civilians, that we are not Christian cruise ships, but rather we are on battleships.
Or, as John Piper put it, all Christians must be engaged:
Know this: God's purpose for your life is that you engage in His being known and praised and enjoyed and feared among peoples where He is scarcely, if at all, known at all. He wants you to be engaged.
You've got three options:
Go
Send
or
Disobey.
That's all.
~ Source: John Piper's message based on Psalm 67, "Pursuing the Glory of God in the Gladness in the Nations in God"
May our God strengthen us to comprehend the width and length and depth and height –– to know the love of Christ which passes all knowledge, that His love might constrain and compel us, so we might no longer live for ourselves, but live for Him who died for us and rose again (to live for Him really is true life, is it not?!), and joyfully respond to our Master's call to be His ambassadors, and to count it a privilege to be engaged in His mission that He be might be known and praised and enjoyed and feared among all the nations. God forbid we bow down to the American dream and gain the whole world, but find our souls languishing and withering as we waste our lives lounging on Christian cruise ships. God be merciful to us sinners, for the sake of Your name! Amen.
Here's the video which David Sitton mentioned in his talk...
http://youtu.be/FzIkh6qfbRY
Photo credit: Work found at http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Gastineau_Channel_with_anchored_cruise_ship_23.JPG / CC BY-SA 3.0.
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