Biblical Missionaries

The Ambassador Group

0. Biblical Missionaries: The Great Commission

Welcome to an in-depth exploration of biblical missionaries, written by Borge Shentz, edited for audio and produced by The Ambassador Group.

Introduction, The Great Commission And Jesus came 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 of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I How much plainer could it be?

Here is Jesus, the resurrected Jesus, the Jesus whom they worshipped, giving his people in even the earliest days of the church the calling and mission, make disciples of every nation of the world, period.

It's not hard either to see the link between these words spoken to the 11 in Galilee and the words spoken to John on the island of Patmos years later.

Revelation chapter 14, Then I saw another angel flying in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach to those who dwell on the earth, to every nation, tribe, tongue, and people, saying with a loud voice, "'Fear God and give glory to him, "'for the hour of his judgment has come, "'and worship him who made heaven and earth, "'the sea and springs of water.'" Then another angel, a second, followed, declaring, Fallen, fallen is Babylon the Great, She who made all nations drink of the maddening wine of her passionate unchastity, idolatry.

Then another angel, a third, followed them, saying with a mighty voice, Whoever pays homage to the beast and his statue and permits the beast's stamp, mark, and inscription to be put on his forehead or on his hand, he too shall have to drink of the wine of God's indignation and wrath, poured undiluted into the cup of his anger, and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb.

And the smoke of their torment ascends forever and ever, and they have no respite, No pause, no intermission, no rest, no peace, day or night.

These who pay homage to the beast and to his image, and whoever receives the stamp of his name upon him, here comes in a call for the steadfastness of the saints, the patience, the endurance of the people of God, those who habitually keep God's commandments, and their faith in Jesus.

1 could say that the 3 angels' messages of Revelation 14 are the Great Commission contextualized for the last days of Earth's history.

God has told his church, his people, to reach out and spread the gospel to the entire world.

Listen to 3 verses from the Amplified Bible.

They help us understand the 3 components of the gospel.

I will say the component, followed by its scripture verse.

We start by spreading the truth about Jesus and what he has done for us.

For God so greatly loved and dearly prized the world, that He even gave up His only begotten, unique Son, so that whoever believes in, trusts in, clings to, relies on him shall not perish or come to destruction or be lost but have eternal or everlasting life.

Component number 2, What he is doing now for us?

Will Christ Jesus, the Messiah, who died, or rather who was raised from the dead, who is at the right hand of God, actually pleading as he intercedes for us.

Component number 3, and what he will do for us in the future.

1 Thessalonians 4, 16, For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a loud cry of summons, with the shout of an archangel, and with the blast of the trumpet of God.

And those who have departed this life in Christ will rise first." Spreading this gospel is truly our mission.

The word mission itself means ascending or being sent to perform a service.

That is, people go away in order to do something.

In the case of the Great Commission, what they do is to spread the gospel to the world.

In these 13 explorations, We will look at mission first and foremost as God's means for communicating the gospel to those who don't know it.

Mission is a core part of God's sovereign activity in the process of redeeming humanity.

So, we will explore how God's eternal purpose has been accomplished in the lives of individuals in the Bible whom he has used to be missionaries to the lost.

In the end, the Christian mission is God's mission, not ours.

It is based on the love of God, and it is accomplished by the will of God.

To better understand God's mission commitment and involvement, our explorations are based on the following model of salvation history.

Number 1, God created men and women and gave them free will.

Number 2, the first man and woman abused their free will by disobeying God and they had to leave paradise.

Number 3, God could not use force to bring them back to paradise.

Number 4, God sent his son on a mission to die in their place and reconcile them to him.

God's mission is to make the offer of salvation known to all people and thus open the way for them to have redemption.

At its most basic level, mission is letting the whole world know about Jesus and about what He has done for each of us and about what He promises to do for us now and for eternity.

In short, we who know about those promises have been called to tell people about them as well.

Our explorations were co-written by Borge Shantz, Ph.D., and Stephen Wayne Thompson.

Borge Shantz, PhD from Fuller University, was a professor at Loma Linda University.

He and his wife Iris served for 14 years as missionaries in Africa and the Middle East.

Co-contributor Stephen Wayne Thompson, before retiring, was president from 1984 to 1990 at Newbold College in England, and then Dean of Theology Faculty and a lecturer at Avondale College in Australia from 1991 to 2008.

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Wes Peppers

Lansing SDA Church

What’s Floatin’ Your Boat?

Well, we're going to do a study this morning called, What's Floating Your Boat?

And you've heard the expression, whatever floats your boat, right?

And we're going to see this morning, we're going to ask the Lord to open our hearts and our minds so that we can examine ourselves, and we can look within our own hearts, and hopefully open our hearts so that the Lord can look in there and find out what is floating our boats this morning.

So let's just invite the Lord's presence to be with us.

We'll pray, and then we'll open the word together.

If you would, just bow your heads wherever you are.

Father in heaven, we thank you so much this morning that we can come together.

We're thankful today for the Word that brings life.

And the reason, Lord, that the Word brings life today is because Jesus is the Word, and He brings life to everything that He touches.

And so, Lord, this morning we pray that as we examine the scriptures, that they would speak to our hearts, that we would be convicted, we would be encouraged, we would be drawn to Jesus, and our lives would be surrendered to Him this morning.

This is our prayer, we pray this morning that the Holy Spirit would accompany our study today that you, he would convict every heart and Lord that you would speak to our minds, speak to our hearts this morning, change our lives, make us more like Jesus.

It's our prayer today in His name we ask, let all God's people say, Amen.

You know, I deal with, I have dealt with, in fact in my own life, I used to be a skeptic of God, a skeptic of the Bible, a skeptic of Jesus, a skeptic of Christianity, and in my own walk I've only been a Christian now, Seventh-day Adventist Christian, for about 12 years.

And I'm going to share my testimony in full with you coming up sometime soon.

I haven't set that exact date yet, but stay tuned.

And in my own walk, I wanted nothing to do with God and the reason I didn't want anything to do with God because I didn't feel, I didn't sense, I didn't believe that there was any real evidence for God's existence.

And so therefore I thought that the Bible was a book of fairy tales.

I thought that Christians were in some fantasy world and therefore I didn't want anything to do with God.

And I won't say too much more about that, but I've dealt with my own experience since being a Christian, a number of skeptics.

I remember a few years ago we had a fair at the, at Kalkaska, the county fair, we had the, you know, the little 7 steps to health, the fresh air and all that kind of stuff, the Weimar, New start, right?

And then the last station was trust in God.

And there I was manning the booth as the pastor.

You know, no 1 else wanted to man that booth, you know.

And there was this young girl in her early 20s.

She's a nice girl and she was she was just so happy about all the new start stuff and the nutrition and the water and the sunshine and she was smiling.

I watched every person because I was observing them, seeing how they would respond to all the different things.

So that way when they came to me they would talk to me and I would have a little idea of who they were.

And Some of the people would just pass me on by.

They would just go, they would just smile, and then they would look at me and just, and then just duck their head and keep walking.

This young girl, she was smiling the whole time, and she came around and remember, what's the 1 before T, Erwin?

She was smiling because she was so restful.

And then she turned and she saw the sign, Trust in God, and she went...

And I thought to myself, You were looking so restful when you came from the rest booth, and now you come to the trust in God booth and you're scowling.

And she comes up to me and she says, I don't believe in God.

And you're probably some sort of a pastor." I said, yes, I'm a pastor.

And she said, well, I just don't believe in all that nonsense.

Please tell me something that points to that.

And she began to ramble on, and I will tell you all the details of the conversation, but she was telling me this, and then I would answer with something.

And she would tell me this, and I would answer with something.

And finally, she got flustered, because everything she was saying, I'm not claiming to have all the answers you understand but every time she would say something I would have an answer for her and she says you're the first Christian I've talked to that had answers to these things and I said well I said all the answers are there you just have to look and then I started to talk I started to ask her a question, I said, have you ever considered this?

And I don't even remember all the details, but I do remember how the conversation went.

And she said, you've given me some things to think about.

I said, so why don't you like Christianity?

You know, I've heard you rant and rave about Christianity, but I haven't heard you say anything about Islam or Buddhism or Hare Krishna or any of those other religions.

Well because Christians are always like this and they're always like that, and Christianity's corrupt and look at the dark ages.

I says, oh, yeah, I says, I can't blame you there.

I said, but did you know that the Bible actually foretold that those things would happen before they even happened?

And that the Bible foretold that there would be those claiming to represent God who weren't actually representing God who would do those things.

I said, here's a wonderful book that will tell you all about it.

I said, you'll be absorbed because it goes through great detail about the crusades and the wickedness that went on in Christianity for a long time and what God's actually doing about it.

I said, here, take a couple more for your friends.

And I said, if you want to read it, if you read it and you have questions, just call me up.

She was in college, she might be in Texas, live in Texas somewhere and be going to the Adventist church, I don't know, we'll find out in Heaven.

But there's lots of skeptics, and the question today is, Where's the evidence?

Now I'm not talking, my whole sermon is not about the evidence, my sermon is actually about faith, but we're going to just examine real quickly a thought about the evidence.

You should already be there because of the scripture reading this morning, but we're going to back up just a few verses.

We're going to see what the Bible says here.

Anil Kanda

Ceres SDA Church

Sodium Chloride

Why don't we bow our heads for a word of prayer and then let's get started and ask God for the Holy Spirit Father we just thank you so much God for blessing us in so many ways and Lord, thank you that you put around us a hedge of protection But we thank you Lord most of all that our salvation is secured in heaven, not in earthly things.

And right now we just want to pray for our brothers and sisters that are hurting.

We know that some are starving for food right now.

Jesus we pray and ask that your angels would feed them as they fed Elijah.

God that you would take care of your people And you would help all those that are suffering right now in the Philippines.

Jesus, as we prayed during prayer meeting this week, we ask that you would bring something good out of this destruction.

Alright, the name of the sermon today is called sodium chloride.

Sodium chloride, who knows what sodium chloride is?

And what we're going to be doing is we're going to take a very good look in the Bible about a particular story That had to do with salt.

Let's go to 2nd Kings chapter 2 verse 19 and you're gonna be learning about a very unusual circumstance that took place.

Now the context is this, Elijah had just been translated.

And this is immediately after the translation of Elijah.

Now the difference between Elijah and Elisha, Elijah was this great public rebuker of sins.

He was this mysterious individual who showed up on the scenes and he rebuked the king for his idolatry and all of Israel and he started a great Revival that took place But at the same time this man after he did his job mysteriously disappeared His predecessor came on the scene.

Now the difference between Elijah and Elisha is that while Elijah was this great public rebuker, Elisha was this man who would come close to the people of Israel.

In fact, when you take a good look in the New Testament, you hear the story of a man who had the spirit of Elijah and that was who, ladies and gentlemen?

But then after him Came somebody by the name of who?

Jesus and Jesus's ministry not only consisted of public ministry, but mostly a personal ministry and Here you have the story of Elisha who was this man that would go and be around people.

He entered into Israel and he mingled among them.

In fact, you find many different stories of his personal encounters with people.

1 time he was with his school of prophets and while they were chopping wood, apparently 1 of the axe heads fell into the water another time he was spending time with the the king of Israel at that time right before his death personally counseling him another time he was helping out I assume my widow over and over again You see Elisha's ministry consisted a personal one-on-one contact However in this particular story, this is right after the translation of Elijah You have the story of Elisha and this is the very first thing that happens in his ministry Elisha 2nd Kings chapter 2 starting with verse Chapter 2 starting with verse 19 if you're there go ahead and say Amen.

Okay let's see what the Bible is saying right here.

Then the men of the city said to Elisha, please notice the situation of this city is pleasant.

This school of prophets was located in Jericho.

Jericho was this place that had been destroyed earlier on by the Israelites.

And so this place had a lot of issues but people began to rebuild it.

And so there was a school of prophets that was also located in this area and they said hey look this city is doing really great Elisha it's very right for something big to take place but then watch what he says next this man to Elisha verse 19 please notice the situation of this city is pleasant as my lord sees but the water is bad and the ground what Baron apparently there was something wrong with this place You see while there were a lot of people who were interested in rebuilding this area They had a very significant problem and that problem was this that their well source was not good Something was wrong with the water It doesn't quite say but we know something was wrong with that water and because of it People couldn't take that water and they couldn't grow things and so the land was barren in fact What's so interesting the word barren actually means in Hebrew 1 that cannot give children 1 that cannot give children And Here this school of prophets is set up in this place that had some idolatry in there they were trying to counteract the influences that were there and So while this situation takes place Elisha is there and he begins to come up with the solution.

Look what the Bible says next, this is remarkable.

Verse 20, and he said, Bring me a new bowl, and put salt in it.

And then they went out to the source of the water, and cast in the salt there, and said, Thus says the Lord, I have healed this water, from it There shall be no more death or barrenness So the water remains healed to this day according to the word of Elisha, which he spoke Elisha told these men He says give me a brand new bowl They brought him a brand new book bowl and then he says put some salt in it He they took some salt and they put in that bowl and he walks over to where the source of this fountain was He pours it in there and all of a sudden the water itself Becomes good again This was totally a miracle of God.

There is nothing scientific about putting salt in this water.

Ladies and gentlemen this was a miracle of God and Here God used Elisha to help the school of the prophets during this event that happened.

Now as we're looking at this lesson ladies and gentlemen there is something very powerful for each and every 1 of us.

When salt was poured into this water it became good.

This same exact well is known as n s Sultan It is named after a sultan who realized how good what this good water actually was that he actually Purchased the land and still to this day.

It is 1 of the most agriculturally rich areas of that area and that water still flows and Here you see this miracle at the root of it.

And the reason why is Because it lies shall put some salt into the situation, you know, Jesus said something very interesting Matthew chapter 5 verse 13 He says this let's read it together.

I know some people are misinterpreting said we are the pepper of the earth.

Salt of the earth, but if the salt loses its flavor, how shall it be?

Seasoned Here you have a bite a symbol Jesus using a symbol to describe how His people are to be in the world today.

It's very interesting when you look at some of the common uses of salt.

It preserves, it flavors, it heals, and it produces thirst.

And in every 1 of these Actions, this is what Jesus is calling his people to be to this world salt was often used for preservation during that time They had no refrigeration So they would pour salt into it.

In fact, when you read the book of Leviticus, salt was always used in the offerings.

In every single offering, it says in Leviticus, they were to add salt in it.

And the salt represented the covenant of God.

In other words, it represented a continuity that God would be keeping his end of the covenant salt also flavors Sometimes if someone cooks for you It's always good to have the salt and pepper nearby, amen?

You know, me personally, I grew up in a very Indian household, and so generally my taste is, it needs to be a little bit hotter.

And so when I'm making food, even bland food, it still tastes hot for people.

And then when I taste it, it tastes like just real cold food But ladies and gentlemen, this is the purpose of salt it is to flavor it is to adjust the taste So It becomes so unique and distinctive.

It's no longer ordinary or plain Salt also, excuse me.

Let's go back So also heal salt was oftentimes used on wounds and it worked kind of like an antibacterial It also was something that produced thirst as Well salt produces thirst If you eat a lot of salty foods you want to drink more what?

And ladies and gentlemen when you think about this God is calling His people To be salt in a hurting world in fact Ellen White says something so powerful here blew my mind away Hearts that respond to the influence of the Holy Spirit are the channels to which God's blessings flow Were those now get this were those who serve God?

Removed from the earth and his spirit withdrawn from among men this earth would be left to desolation and destruction Though the wicked know it not they owe even the blessings of this life to the presence to The presence in this world of who?

God's People whom they despise and oppress there are many examples in the Old Testament Describing this in fact law and his family were preserved through the intervention of who?

Abraham In fact when you read about the people before the flood it was so bad ladies and gentlemen That not even 8 righteous people could buffer the evil that was there.

That's how bad it got before the flood But if all The righteous war removed ladies and gentlemen, this world would fall into complete chaos and would be utterly destroyed God preserves this world because his people are still in it and this is what's so amazing about salt God is calling His people to be salt.

Whenever you take some dish or something like that, and you add some nice salt to it, it changes the flavor of the dish.

And this was Elisha's first miracle that he did.

And his ministry was to be far different than Elijah this scary rebuker And this is what God is calling his people to be in this world to infuse to penetrate to mingle to become Part of this world not of this world Ladies and gentlemen, but to be in this world that God's grace may be felt and experienced.

I had 1 time this experience that took place.

I Was starting a new job and it was at a warehouse Now I had just become a Seventh-day Adventist Christian and I was just like I was so excited I was like, I'm so excited about sharing my faith.

I can't wait till do this But I said Lord, I want to be careful because I don't want to come across too strong So you've got to help me help me to be salt to these people and it was totally a God thing so I got to this job and I started working hard I did my best I said you know what I'm gonna skip my breaks I was actually working 2 jobs I said I'm gonna work really hard I was going to be going to a evangelism school pretty soon but I wanted to be a witness so I said to myself I'm going to work really hard not as a man pleaser, but as a God pleaser And then I said I am going to be so respectful towards anybody who's older than me over there I'm going to respect those who are in position and then I said I'm going to be the most loving and lovable Christian in this area.

I didn't say the most annoying Christian but the most loving and lovable Christian I'm going to go out of my way to help people and it was so amazing like this was again God's thing So while we were there at this work, sometimes the men would be really depressed.

And I would just do my best to try to cheer them up.

I wanted to be a positive encouragement to them.

During break time, when some of them were tired, I said, hey, give me your order.

And I would go as fast as I could but what's so interesting my supervisor came to me he said hey you know what's so interesting ever since you started to work here everyone's been picking up the pace more keep going at it and I began to realize like this was a God thing.

In fact, I begin to pray with people on their lunchtimes and This was totally God's work I believe God was using me in that experience to be like salt and ladies and gentlemen That is to be our experience in the daily intercourse of life whether with be with your family It be at your work or it goes when you're going to the grocery store or wherever you are at you are to change the situation by your actions You are to be salt You are to add a pleasant flavor to the circumstance Amen, in fact 1 thing we do need to be careful about is that when you're cooking food You're cooking a lot of food If you just pour salt in the same place, what happens when you take a bite of that food?

What do you want to do after you take a bite of it?

You know, God's people need to be spread out Amen, they don't be fully concentrated in 1 area.

Sometimes it doesn't taste good when all the sauce right next to each other, right?

But God is calling us ladies and gentlemen.

God is calling us to spread our influence all over the world Salt is supposed to be spread all Over the dish and just like we are ministering ladies and gentlemen, we need to minister in various capacities Next year, we're gonna be attempting a lot of different things.

We have 4 Bible workers that are gonna be coming in to do their internship.

Reading Revelation

Shawn Boonstra

Voice Of Prophecy

What Jesus Looks Like (Reading Revelation- 7)

Artists have been painting pictures of Jesus since the earliest days of the Christian church, and as a result, we all kind of have this generic idea of what Jesus looks like.

Today on the Voice of Prophecy, I'm going to have a closer look.

Well, welcome back to another edition of the Voice of Prophecy, which is 1 of the longest running broadcasts in broadcast history.

My name is Sean Boonstra, and because we are the Voice of Prophecy, well, we've been spending quite a bit of time lately going through the book of Revelation.

Now, of course, that's not all we study on Voice of Prophecy, but in recent weeks, if you've been following along, you've probably noticed that we're going through the last book of the Bible very carefully.

In fact, we're not even done the first chapter of Revelation, and today might just be the sixth or seventh show that we've already spent on this subject.

Now today, I'm going to actually try and finish that first chapter.

You might be wondering, when am I ever going to get to the end of the first chapter?

And I think the way that I want to introduce the subject we're going to look at is to ask you an age-old question.

Now, if you're a believer in the Shroud of Turin, you probably already know what Jesus looked like.

I mean, he looks like the image on the Shroud, right?

But honestly, there's enough doubt about that particular artifact that you can't really say for sure that's Jesus.

So I want to start from scratch and ask the question, what does Jesus look like?

Back to Menu

All Teachings

0. Biblical Missionaries: The Great Commission

10m

What’s Floatin’ Your Boat?

49m

Sodium Chloride

44m

What Jesus Looks Like (Reading Revelation- 7)

30m

What Jesus Said About Angels

28m

What Is Depression?

29m

What is Present Truth?

1h

Decoding the Mystery of Death

1h 19m

Our Day in Prophecy

1h 33m

The First Postmodern

1h 10m

The Elusive Fountain of Youth, Part 2

1h 14m

The Elusive Fountain of Youth, Part 1

1h

Sound Doctrine