Let me again thank the Board of Trustees for electing me to be the third General Director of BIMI. This is a great honor. But when Dr. Davis, on behalf of the Board, asked me, I had to be sure God was in it. God is in it, and I begin my leadership with BIMI with a great staff serving in the World Missions Center. I thank God for all of them and for the self-motivated Directors and a dedicated Board of Trustees.

Our lives have been an incredible journey — from Hardison Baptist Church, Byron, Georgia to a ministry including: Illinois, Alabama, Australia, England, Russia and Eastern Europe. Brother Payne spoke of the time when I was 17 years old and walked down the aisle in that country church. When I took those 15 steps and said yes to God’s call, I never dreamed those steps would lead me over two million miles in the service of Christ. You never know what 15 steps can mean to you.

BIMI is in its 42nd year with over a 1,000 missionaries serving in more than 80 countries in the world. It has been a long time since Dr. Tom Freeney got in that little Volkswagen and traveled all over this country telling people about Baptist International Missions, Inc., a new independent, fundamental mission that was started in 1960. We owe a great debt of gratitude to Dr. Freeney. But the question is: Where are we on the time-scale of history?

Where do we go from here?

I. WE ARE ALIVE IN THE GREATEST POPULATION ARENA OF ALL AGES.

There are more people alive today than have ever lived before. Think about the world population. During the time of Jesus Christ, 170 million people lived in the world. One thousand years later there were 254 million. When Columbus sailed the ocean blue in 1492, there were 400 million people. In 1800, the count climbed to 813 million. In 1950 it had gotten to 2.4 billion, and today there are 6.2 billion men, women and children that need to be reached with the Gospel. If the 12 apostles had known that there were 170 million people living when they were called, they would have been staggered when Jesus told them to go into all the world and preach the Gospel — so FEW apostles and so LARGE a task. How could so few people reach so many with so little?

Years ago I had an uncle, Joe Kelly, who lived in Louisville, Kentucky, who had a great restaurant. He would grill and barbecue and cook excellent fried chicken. He told me there was a man, who came to town driving an old car, who came into his restaurant and tried to sell him a chicken recipe. The man told uncle Joe, “If you will just give me a nickel per order, then I will let you get in on this.” My uncle laughed him out of the store. That man was Colonel Harland Sanders. Harland Sanders took his first social security check of $105 and started the business called Kentucky Fried Chicken. He didn’t have much when he started, but the man had a vision. Today, two billion chicken dinners are sold every year. Just think, a man with a vision and a social security check of $105 touches the lives of two billion people a year with chicken.

Dick and Maurice McDonald pooled their few dollars to start a little hamburger stand. They did not have much money. Years ago I came through Hopkinsville, Kentucky, and saw for the first time a McDonald’s Hamburger Restaurant. I remember watching the signs: 100,000 sold, 200,000 sold, and then 400,000 sold. I thought that restaurant was really doing things. Then of course the day came when the sign said 1,000,000 sold. Now I go to Moscow and see McDonald’s, I go to London, I go to Paris, and to the Ukraine, Australia, Romania, and different places of the world, and I find McDonald’s.

What if we could hang a sign out here on Compassion Lane — 50,000 souls saved, 75,000 souls saved — 20,000 churches started, 50,000 churches started. There are so many people alive today. If you lined up the population of the world, there would be a line 37 to 40 people deep going all the way around the world. But if you took every Bible-believing missionary that even borders fundamentalism, there would not be a single line going all the way around the earth. It would only be a single line 20 miles long. Now you think about 6 BILLION people — and a 20-mile line of missionaries. We must remember the five loaves and two fish and Andrew’s question, “But what are these among so many?” When God touched those meager rations, five to twenty thousand people were able to eat.

Where are we on the pages of time? We are living in the greatest population arena of all ages. Every second four human beings come into the world. Every second two human beings leave the world and go into eternity.

II. WE LIVE WITH THE GREATEST NUMBER OF OPEN DOORS SINCE ADAM AND EVE.

Of all the centuries of time, this century presents the greatest opportunity of all. Think of Russia, 300 million people. These 300 million people were locked in a geographical prison of terror for 73 years. Think of a billion more now in Europe, and the billions more in South America, Africa and China.

In 1792 William Carey, with a group of pastors, organized the first mission board in Kettering, England. That event ushered in the modern day missionary movement. William Carey could not sleep for thinking of the millions without Christ. When he closed his eyes at night he visualized the perishing multitude. There were 700 million people on earth in Carey’s time. Today we live on the earth with 6.2 billion people. Here is the tragedy; the church is like a person creeping through life on its hands and knees. A. B. Simpson wrote, “Oh church of God what will thou say on the awful judgment day when they charge you with their doom.” Where are we on the pages of history? We have the greatest number of open doors. We live in the greatest population arena of all time.

III. WE HOLD IN OUR HANDS THE GREATEST TOOLS.

Today we have the wonders of technology: the Internet, the speed of travel, the printed page and other great technological resources. We have the means and the tools to take the Gospel to all the world.

• We could evangelize the whole earth with our pet food money.

• It took William Carey 5 months to get to India — no telephone, no telegraph, no electricity, no Internet — yet he translated the Bible and evangelized in 34 languages. Look at the tools in our hands — what a day to be alive!

• BIMI is endeavoring to utilize these tools, but so much more must be done.

Where are we on the pages of time? We are living in a time when…

IV. WE MUST BE THE GREATEST SERVANTS!

D. L. Moody said, “The world has yet to see what God can do with a man who is fully committed.” Then he said, “I will be that man.”

• We have some great servants serving in far-away DARK places — men and women who are literally pouring out their lives to reach others.

• In the recent Europe and Military Field Conference held in Switzerland, Mary said to a missionary wife from Romania — “I know it is not easy in Romania…” She replied, “But we are happy there — you can’t buy a lot of things — but when you meet the people and love the people, that doesn’t matter.”

• Look at THE WALL OF FAME in THE WILLIAM CAREY ROOM in THE WORLD MISSIONS CENTER — you will see men and women of all ages who died fulfilling the great commission. These were GREAT SERVANTS!

• You have heard the song entitled, “My house is FULL but my fields are EMPTY….” Pray for more great servants for this hour of greatest opportunity.

Where are we on the Pages of Time?

• We are Alive in the Greatest Population Arena of all time.

• We are Alive with the Greatest Number of Open Doors.

• We have in our hands the Greatest Tools ever to reach mankind.

• We must dedicate ourselves to be the Greatest Servants.

V. WE FACE THE GREATEST DARKNESS OF HISTORY.

You say, “Oh, No — what about NERO or HITLER?”

• We live in a country that kills its own by the MILLIONS.

• All over the world Christians are being MARTYRED today as never before.

With every breath you take two people die somewhere on earth — every hour 15,000, every day 361,000 — most of them without a shred of hope or a ray of light. The Bible speaks about a darkness that can be felt in the last days.

Years ago in Dundee, Scotland I walked through an old church once pastored by Robert Murry M’Cheyne. Robert Murry M’Cheyne was just a tremendous preacher. My interest in M’Cheyne was kindled by Dr. Lee Roberson years ago when I was a student at TTU. I was thrilled to see that church. He read the Bible through a hundred times before he died at the age of 30. He was a great man of God. Once Robert Murry M’Cheyne held special meetings in the little town called Newton, in Scotland. The meeting was not in the church. It was on the grounds a few yards away where the cemetery was located. Great numbers of people came out to hear M’Cheyne preach. His subject was “THE GREAT WHITE THRONE.” As he preached, the sun set behind the mountain tops. The people could no longer see his face. Listen to the testimony of one who was there, “As the darkness fell, M’Cheyne compared the shadows with the setting of time and the ending of life. Soon the speaker could not be seen for the darkness, but the power of God was present as the preaching continued. The voice of M’Cheyne penetrated the blackness with a burning earnestness. Through the darkness came the pleading voice of the preacher, and it almost seemed as if it were the voice of God himself.”

A voice as if it were the voice of God penetrating the blackness, that is what we need for this hour. That is what we need for BIMI — to penetrate the blackness and the darkness of this hour in the greatest darkness of all history.

In closing, let me read a letter from one of our missionaries. It illustrates penetrating the darkness. It was written to Bob and Judy Van Sant, our missionaries in Simferopol in the Ukraine, from a man who had lived under Godless Communism all his life.

He wrote: “There are no words to express our thankfulness to you, who carry the light of kindness and love for ordinary people with complicated destinies. We never before knew about God. We did not understand the reason for life.

We had no hope and sometimes, we became cruel. And you are towards each of us, like to children, patient and kind. You carry the truth about our Creator, and bring God’s Word to us. You teach us how to follow His paths, how to serve Him, and how to become better in this life.

Every day and every minute you only think about the people of this church. You pray for them. You are interested in their lives, their destinies, and most important, you saved their souls. You opened our eyes and ears and we now understand what it says in John 3:16 that God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten son and that whosoever believeth in Him, shall not perish but have everlasting life.

Also, you do this free of charge with great love, our dear pastor and teacher. You help show us the way to our Lord. Thank you very much for that!

And now, day after day, we grow in the Lord. We have become free from our sins and are thankful for your ‘sacrifice’ that you have come to Simferopol voluntarily. We will believe, like you, to love the Lord God with all of our hearts, with all of our souls, with all of our minds and love our neighbors as ourselves.”

Where are we on the pages of time? Piercing the darkness. We live in the greatest darkness of all history. Where do we go from here? We follow the steps of Christ into the shadows, penetrating the darkness with His glorious light.

Tuesday, February 7, 2012

John 15:5 I am the vine, ye [are] the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing.

Jonathon & Mandy Crews -  BRAZIL
Joel C & Brooke Daku -  KIRIBATI
Paul W & Martha Daku -  FIJI ISLANDS