In this sermon, the preacher recounts a missionary family's encounter with a strong wind that led them to a tragic event. However, the preacher emphasizes that this was not a tragedy but rather a test of their love for Jesus. The preacher then shares a personal experience of being in a fire and dancing on the hot coals, demonstrating the power of God's grace. He emphasizes the importance of believing in and receiving Jesus to avoid the consequences of hell. The sermon concludes with a reference to the power of Satan and the need for spiritual growth among believers.

Hello, this is Brother Denny. Welcome to Charity Ministries. Our desire is that your life would be blessed and changed by this message. This message is not copyrighted and is not to be bought or sold. You are welcome to make copies for your friends and neighbors. If you would like additional messages, please go to our website for a complete listing at www.charityministries.org. If you would like a catalog of other sermons, please call 1-800-227-7902 or write to Charity Ministries, 400 West Main Street, Suite 1, AFPA, 17522. These messages are offered to all without charge by the freewill offerings of God's people. A special thank you to all who support this ministry. Shall I pray? Now, our Father, we come into Thy matchless presence, and we come before Thee, our Father, awed and humbled that we have the opportunity to come before the awesome, mysterium tremendum of the universe. We don't understand, our Father. We cannot understand that love that came out of eternity and loved us even though we were unlovely. We don't understand why You reached down and by Thy grace brought us to know the Lord Jesus Christ as our Savior. But how we praise Thee that it's true. And how we praise Thee that we have the opportunity to come within the very veil and stand before Thee in the Holy of Holies and pour out our souls to Thee and find grace to help in the time of need. Our Father, as our brother has already prayed, we ask Thee once again that Thou be in our midst. Thou hast said where two or three are gathered together, there am I in the midst. And we pray that Thy blessed Holy Spirit will open our minds and hearts to listen to Thy voice from heaven, not that of a man, but a message from off the altar, a live call from the presence of God. May it be true. Exalt the matchless name of our Lord Jesus tonight. Cause Him to gleam before us. Cause us, O God, to fall down within our hearts and upon our very knees to worship and adore and magnify our matchless Savior. And send us from this place filled with Thy Spirit and burning, O God, with a passionate love for Thee that will reach out across this world to the lost beginning across the street from us and across the seas. We pray with thanksgiving and worship in the matchless name of our Lord Jesus. Amen. Why missions? I teach in three Bible colleges and a Christian university while up here in the States, each year coming out of the jungles. And that's the first question I ask my students in the schools in the missions classes. Why missions? Now, beloved, we're worried about a lot of different things in this world today. We're concerned about inflation. We see it reach five percent, five and a quarter percent, and suddenly the whole financial structure of the United States starts to tremble and the stock market begins to crash and we're trembling with fear. And the fact of the matter is, beloved, that every other nation in the world would be very happy, very, very happy to exchange our five percent inflation for theirs. You can put your money in the bank in the land of Brazil at a hundred percent interest and you would be a fool, a fool to put your money in a savings account in Brazil at a hundred percent per year interest. For by the end of the year, you'd have lost that money many times over. Argentina has inflation of a thousand percent. Suriname is running between fifty and a hundred percent. Do you believe, do you understand that a can of evaporated milk, the kind that we buy downtown in any one of our stores for forty-nine cents or fifty-one or fifty-three cents a can, that a can like that, by the purchase of the dollar rate in the land of Suriname, now costs three dollars and sixty-four cents? That is inflation. And yet we're frightened by it. We're frightened by the takeover of American companies by foreign interests. We're concerned about the buying of American land and the buying of American businesses and banks by foreign nations. We're concerned about AIDS. I heard the other day that one church wanted to take a group of people to the land of Africa and the moms and dads wouldn't let their teenagers go because they were afraid their teenagers would catch AIDS. Oh, we have to admit, beloved, that AIDS is a problem. We have to admit that AIDS may kill its thousands, may kill its millions, but, beloved, there's a plague far greater across the land, a plague across this world that will not kill just thousands, not just millions, but there is a plague, beloved, that can be spelled with three simple letters, S-I-N, a plague of sin that not only will kill millions, but will kill, beloved, tonight three billion precious souls unless something is done to reach them with the glorious gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. Sin, sin, beloved, the greatest and most terrible plague that afflicts this world, it sweeps like a flood carrying all before it. Sin, the death angel, sin, death. And that, beloved, is the reason for missions. Sin. Do you realize, beloved, that this book, this Bible, is a textbook of missions? Have you thought that this entire Bible minus four chapters, the first two chapters of the book of Genesis and the last two chapters of the book of Revelation is filled from chapter 3 of Genesis to chapter 20 of Revelation with the message and the history of sin and a mighty, powerful, righteous, holy God reaching down through the blood of the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ to save men from sin? An entire Bible, beloved, that is nothing but a textbook of missions, the history of the heartbeat of the God of heaven. Now, we were visiting a little church in North Carolina, Elk Park, North Carolina, up in the hills upon Roan Mountain coming near the border of Tennessee and North Carolina. I was invited to speak there. A special message, an extra message in a conference, and we just had a doubleheader that night. One of our dear friends, Ann Duckworth, stood to sing, inimitable Southern voice. Anyone here from the South? You know how they sing, don't you? There's a special way. She stood and sang before us until our hearts were broken, until tears were streaming down our faces. She sang, Oh, Tell Me That Name Again. Oh, tell me that name, that glorious, that matchless, that awesome, that beautiful, that magnificent, that graceful name of Jesus again. And our hearts broke before the power of that message. Well, beloved, do we exult in our Lord Jesus Christ. I see some who are accustomed to raising their hands. What are they doing? They're letting them know that they love Him. Some of us say it with our hearts. Others say it with our hands. They're exulting in that matchless, blessed, incomparable name of Jesus Christ. Why, we become so filled with it that even those of us who can't sing lift up our voices and say, My Jesus, I love Thee, and all Thou art mine, for Thee all the folly of sin I resign. And we turn to the world and we say, Please, look upon Jesus. Turn your eyes upon Jesus. Look full in His wonderful face, and the things of earth will grow strangely dim in the light of His glory and grace. Then when our hearts, beloved, are so full that we have nothing more we can say, nothing else, and we just have to lift our hands to Him and say, Just once. Just once. Three billion on their way to a Christless eternity who have yet to hear a single time the blessed message of the Gospel which we find in that matchless Word of God. Three billion of them. Now, how many is a billion? Well, a mathematician would say it's a thousand million. But how do we get our minds around a thousand million? Perhaps there's a better way. Perhaps if we could just imagine we have the power to turn history back. Just push the 1980s back into oblivion so they didn't exist anymore. Throw the 1970s in the skies as though they never happened. Push the calendar back into the 1960s. Five, four, three, two. Back into the 1950s. Begin turning the years of the calendar back. 57, 56, 55, 54. Beloved, when we turned history back to 1953 we would have turned history back one billion seconds. That's right. It takes 36 years to accumulate one billion seconds. What does that mean? That means that we have today, beloved, across this world lost souls who have yet to hear the message of the gospel for the first time crying, no man care for my soul. The equivalent of 108 years of seconds. And they're dying. 143 a minute. And they're dying of the plague of sin 8,580 an hour. And they're dying of the scourge of Satan a mid-205,920 a day. And they're dying of the wages of sin 1,440,400 every week. And they're dying, beloved, crying, no man careth for my soul. Why missions? Three billion who have stood shoulder to shoulder would circle this globe 44 times around. Three billion on their way to a Christless eternity. Do you think that's bad? Is that awesome? Is that almost mind-boggling? Then consider this. It took until 1830 for the population of the world to accumulate from the dawn of recorded history, as far as we know, until 1830 to accumulate until there are one billion people alive on the face of this globe at the same time. But it took only 103 years, 1933 to reach two. And then only 27, 1960 to reach three. And then only 17, 1977 to reach four. And then only 10, 1987 to reach five. By the year 1992, there'll be six billion people. And by the year 2000, there'll be seven billion people on the face of this globe. And at that time, beloved, unless something happens, there will be five billion people across this earth that are still crying, Oh, tell me that name again. Oh, tell me that name just once. Oh, tell me that name for the first time. Five billion of them, enough to circle this globe 77 times around. Why missions? Because the lost are dying. But there's a greater reason, beloved. Why missions? Because we love our Lord Jesus. Do you realize when you take this book, this matchless Word of God, and you begin to read it, begin to suffuse your life with it, you begin to be filled with the reading and the direction and blessing of the Word of God in your life, you begin to know Him. And as you begin to know Him, you begin to grow in His likeness. An amazing, matchless Lord Jesus that we meet in the Scriptures becomes the object of our love, becomes the object of our passion, becomes the very darling of our lives. It becomes the very root of our being, the very foundation of our very existence. And as we grow in grace and the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ, something happens to us. The heartbeat of God begins to throb within our very vein. I won't take time to preach a message like that to you tonight. We'll be here until midnight. But let me just summarize it. When it happens, young man, when it happens, dad, when it happens, mom, the very heartbeat of God begins to throb within your heart and you find blazing in your heart a passion that cannot be quenched. You find blazing in your very being a vision that cannot be dimmed. And what is that vision? The vision of the glory and exaltation of our Lord Jesus Christ. The vision of souls being brought out of the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ, into the life of the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. And it becomes an obsession that cannot be denied and a destination, the fulfillment of that task. The very heartbeat of God, a passion that cannot be quenched, an obsession that cannot be denied, a vision that cannot be dimmed, a destination, the enthronement of our Majesties with the people to worship Him for eternity that will not be abandoned. Now, beloved, that's why I'd like to talk with you tonight for a little while about love, because it begins right there. Not a pumped-up love, but a love that comes from being immersed in this glorious book and allowing the Spirit of God to accomplish in my life and in yours that which God has determined as mentioned here in the book of Romans, a verse with which we're all very familiar. Romans chapter 8 and verse 29, for whom He did foreknow. He also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of His Son that He might be the firstborn among many brethren. When the passion of God begins to burn in our hearts, then you young men, one after another, filled with a passion that cannot be quenched, lighted with a vision that cannot be dimmed, ablaze with an obsession that cannot be denied, filled with the destination of the exaltation of your God, will march across this world as an army. And you young ladies will be by their sides, and you dads and moms will be on your knees crying out for the power of God upon them and pouring out of the resources God gives you to send the gospel across the world because you love your Lord Jesus. That's where it begins. And that's where we begin tonight in chapter 21 of the book of John and verse 15. John chapter 21 and verse 15. So, when they had dined, Jesus saith to Simon Peter, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me more than these? And he saith unto him, Yea, Lord, thou knowest that I love thee. And he saith unto him, Feed my lambs. He saith to him again a second time, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me? And he saith unto him, Yea, Lord, thou knowest that I love thee. And he saith unto him, Feed my sheep. Verse 17. He saith unto him the third time, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me? Peter was grieved because he said unto him the third time, Lovest thou me? He said unto him, Lord, thou knowest all things, thou knowest that I love thee. And Jesus saith unto him, Feed my sheep. Now listen closely, beloved, to verse 18 and 19, for they are the key, I believe, to understanding that about which the Lord Jesus was speaking to Peter. Verily, verily, I say unto thee, When thou wast young, thou girdest thyself, and walkest whither thou wouldst. When thou shalt be old, thou shalt stretch forth thy hands, and another shall gird thee, and carry thee whither thou wouldst not. This spake he, signifying by what death he should glorify God. And when he had spoken this, he saith unto him, Follow me. Now, beloved, in the time that I've had the joy of preaching the gospel since I was 17 years old, 40 years ago beginning, well, maybe before that time, I remember when I was 12. I was called to be a missionary at 12 years of age, saved when I was 9. I remember at the age of 12 standing on the street corners and preaching the gospel to the neighborhood boys and girls. My doctrine wasn't too good. I told them that if they didn't believe Jesus right now, the sidewalk was going to open up and I was going to swallow them. Well, my doctrine wasn't good, but I had the right idea. Starting at 17, I began to preach and had the joy of seeing souls saved. The church started when I was 17. Then at 18, I went out to Las Vegas, Nevada and was instrumental in getting the church started there. And then Louise, she robbed the cradle. When I was 19, we got married. And we were on our honeymoon over in Jerome, Idaho. Some folks there wanted to have daily vacation Bible school and evangelistic services in a Grange Hall. And they wanted us to hold them, and so we did. And out of that group came the Grace Baptist Church of Twin Falls, Idaho. So, while still a teenager, we saw God bless and the salvation of many, many folks, mostly white folks, although we did go to a little place called Evergreen, a suburb of Los Angeles. And that was all the black folk. And we'd gather a big crowd on buses and bus them in, and I'd preach to them. And I learned there how to sing in the African manner, nice and slow, stately, as our people just enjoy singing. But most of the folks we saw saved before going to the mission field were white. I believe we've seen a number of different colors of folks who've come to Christ as their Savior. Over in Africa, God gave us several thousand, came to Him as their Savior. Back there in the deep jungles, saw God give us 13 churches and 7 schools and 36 preachers to train from reading and writing right up from scratch to serve and glorify Him. We were just jungle rangers. I mean, we lived in a mud-stick house, dirt floors, no screens or glass, just holes in the wall for windows and a big opening in the back for a back door. Ten billion, I don't know how many billion or trillion termites that were eating us out of house and home. And we had two resident snakes. We watched those snakes crawl across the top of the walls. Looked them all pretty good. We decided they were more danger to the cockroaches and the centipedes and the scorpions and the tarantulas and the rest of the things crawling around our house than they were to us. Now, we did kill the cobras when they came in the living room. And we killed the 10-foot vipers when they came in the kitchen. And we took care of the snakes in the pots. But we couldn't do anything about the leopard to come and stand and look through the bedroom window at us while we were asleep on our bed. Just jungle rats. Lived on $28 a month for six years. We bought enough flour to bake one loaf of bread a week. We baked it on Saturday and ate it on Sunday. We bought palm oil, that heavy yellow fatty oil. You're supposed to die from cholesterol from that. Supposed to be one of the worst. Didn't kill us. We ate the leaf of one of the plants, the cassava plant. That's their substitute for potatoes. We ate that leaf. They called it an impondo out there. We ate it six days, seven days a week for six years running. That was our vegetable. And I shot all the meat we ate. Everything from pigeons to elephants. I could tell you all kinds of horrifying stories of elephants and leopards and snakes and things like that, but that's not our purpose here tonight. Just jungle rats. What a tremendous time seeing black folk come to Oakland. Seeing churches established and trained. Glorious time. So we've seen a number of black folk. But then in 1965 went down to the land of Suriname, South America. And down there we have a church that has five races in it. We have blacks from Africa, yellows from Asia, browns from India, reds, the Amerindians out of the jungles, and a few whites. And that one church, red, brown, yellow, black, and white. Just like the little chorus we sing, Jesus loves the little children. All the children of the world, red, brown, yellow, black, and white. They're precious in His sight. So we've seen, beloved, a number. But I think we've only seen two kinds. I like to call one of those kinds Psalm 23 Christians. You can take Psalm 23 and put it as a circumference around. If you ask them their testimony, they speak of the joy of knowing God as their Father. Of knowing the Lord Jesus Christ as their Savior, the Holy Spirit as their Comforter and Guide. They talk about God's succor in times of sorrow. They talk about His strength in times of weakness. They talk about His supply in times of need. All of those glorious experiences that we have. 33 miraculous things, beloved, that happen in the life of everyone who is truly born again into the family of God. I like to describe it to the people in South America as a great lake. Deep and wide. Filled with the love and mercy and majesty and blessing of the God of Heaven. But damned by our sin. And then Jesus hangs upon Calvary's cross and cries, He's finished. And God reaches down a mighty fist and breaches that dam. And God's love and mercy begin to crumble and last that breach. Topples the entire dam. And we're caught up in the flood of the blessing and mercy of God. The advanced heaven, I believe, once described as the waterspouts of God. Glorious, glorious experience. But I'm here, beloved, to remind you that that's not all. But there's another kind of Christianity. And you read of it in Psalm 24 and about verse 6. Lift up your heads, O ye gates, and be ye lifted up, ye everlasting doors, and the King of Glory shall come in. Who is this King of Glory? The Lord, strong and mighty. The Lord, mighty in battle. And then it seems the scene shifts. Our Lord is hung upon Calvary's cross. He's been buried and raised again for our justification. And now He's headed back to glory through the realm of the principality of the powers of the air and Satanic forces descend upon Him. And He casts them from Himself in mighty triumph. And now He's approaching the ramparts of glory. And there are the angels by the myriad are seven. And the answer thunders. The Lord of hosts, Jehovah Sabbath, General of the hosts of the universe, He is our King of Glory. And that, beloved, is what Jesus was saying. Peter, Satan attacked me in the 14th chapter of Isaiah. He stood and declared to the universe five blasphemies. He summarized them in the 5th. In which He said, I will be as the Most High God. I will dethrone El-Elyon, Master of the universe. And I'll reign on His throne. And of course, the Lord threw Him out. And war began to reign. And now our Lord Jesus had died upon Calvary's cross. And purchased our redemption. And now the first salvo, the first return salvo of the God of heaven was being fired. Peter, we're going to war. I say to you, Peter, I'm looking down through the corridor of the time of your life. I say to you, if you take up the gauntlet of caring for my lambs, if you take up the responsibility of feeding my sheep, there's going to be scorn, ridicule, hatred, and persecution. In fact, Peter, I'm looking down toward the end of your life. That's verse 18 and 19, is it not? I'm looking down toward the end of your life. And Peter, they're going to take hold of you and they're going to tell you where you would not go. And they're going to do with you that which you would not have done. In fact, Peter, they're going to kill you for my name's sake. Now, Peter, do you love me that way? For he asked Peter, you see in verse 15, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me? Now, your Bible taught congregation, and you already know likely, that the word the Lord Jesus used when he asked Peter, do you love me? It's not the same word that Peter used when he said, yes, Lord, I love you. Two different words, both correctly translated, love, but two different kinds of love. We learned the definition of the kind of love Jesus was asking Peter for way back there in school. We call it commonly today, agape love. Listen to this definition. Love is a desire for and a delight in the well-being of the one loved leading to active and self-sacrificing efforts on their behalf. Listen again. Love is a desire for and a delight in the well-being of the one loved leading to active and self-sacrificing efforts on their behalf. There's a church down in Chillicothe, Ohio that has a tremendous ministry amongst the students on the campus of Athens and also at Ohio State at Columbus. They go on that campus and hold Bible studies in the dorms. They get the students together and teach them the Bible and they see the campus prostitutes saved and they see the dope addicts saved and they see the hippies saved and they see those that are doomed to death through drugs and alcohol saved and they bring them out assembled together each year by the hundreds and have a Bible conference. Dr. French of Grace Theological Seminary was the Bible teacher one year and I was the missionary speaker. Dr. French went back into the book of 1 John and he took this same love, agape, and he defined it this way, love with shoes on. Love with shoes on. Peter, there's war ahead. There's scorn and ridicule and beatings and stonings and jail and death ahead. Peter, I'm looking for soldiers. I'm looking for men who will suffer. I'm looking for men who will sacrifice. I'm looking for men who will separate themselves from the dream of this world. I'm looking for men who will subject themselves to my will. I'm looking for men who will serve. I'm looking for men, Peter, who will soldier. Now Peter, will you get on your boots and will you march for me? And it happened. In chapter 4, as soon as Peter had taken up the gauntlet of the service of the God of Heaven, he was arrested. In Acts chapter 5, he's arrested again and beaten. And in Acts chapter 12, he's in prison now, awaiting beheading in the morning. God's people are at the house of John Mark crying out, Oh God! Oh God, you let them kill James! Please! Please, Lord, don't let them kill Peter! Please, Lord, deliver Peter! And God hears and sends an angel in the middle of the night and leads Peter out through locked walls. Peter! There's war ahead! Now, will you get on your boots? Peter, is there a man here who will subject himself to the will of God? Peter, is there a man here who will suffer for the God of Heaven? Peter, will you sacrifice? Will you separate from the things of the world? Will you soldier, Peter? Do you love me? With shoes on. And Peter's response? Yes, Lord Jesus, I love you with a warm-hearted... And again, and again, and again, our matchless Lord comes to us and says, My daughter, my son, do you love me? How do you love me? And again, and again, and again, we give him Peter's reply. When it's time to separate from the things of the world, when it's time to sacrifice, when it's time to subject ourselves to the will of God, when it's time to serve, when it's time to soldier, so often, beloved, we give him Peter's reply. I've been thinking back on our experience for the past many years on the mission fields of Africa and South America the past 35 years ourselves, and I'd like to just bring some of those experiences to you where our Lord has come to us and asked us, Do you love me? How do you love me? Back in 1979, we had a prayer card. Something like the ones that are on the back table there. We had a prayer card across the top of which were written the words, Three Generations of Missionaries from 1917 to 1979. And I'd see young people pick up that card and they'd look at it, and they'd look at me, and they'd look at it again, and I could see the wheels turning. They're trying to figure out if that old geezer went all the way back to 1917. I plead innocent. That was my father-in-law, Daddy Grings, 1917. He sailed for the land of Zaire, Africa, then the Belgian Congo. On that same ship was a young lady who was to be his wife. After three years, they were married, and they began to raise a family back in the deep jungles. Beloved, situations that even we who have lived in primitive situations really cannot imagine. Virtually no money, living off the lands, traveling on foot and bicycle through the dark, infested jungles of Zaire, and they continued that ministry until the late 1920s, and then returned to the United States for a furlough. And there in Lynn Haven, Florida, my wife was born while Daddy Grings, as he was called, was helping Bob Jones Sr. establish the first campus of Bob Jones University. Then in 1933, the Lord spoke to Daddy Grings and said, it's time to go back to Africa. And they looked until they found an old wooden sailing ship, a four-mastered schooner, and they boarded that ship. It had no radio. It had no auxiliary power, nothing but sails. It had no refrigeration. They took live animals and chickens on board to eat on the way over, and they set sail. And for two months, they tacked their way back and forth, following where they could get the wind until at last, after two months, they were 200 miles off the coast of Africa, and they were filling with water so badly the captain came to them and said, we are leaking and our pumps are frozen and we're going to sink. You better pray. For three days they prayed. And on the third day, that ship was listing so heavily that the great masts of the ship were almost touching the water and they were in danger of turning turtle. And the captain said, we've got to get off today. No radio. They took everything flammable, piled it on the deck of that ship, and soaked it in kerosene. And then they tied long ropes to the two little inadequate lifeboats. One of them was just a rowboat in order to keep those boats from drifting too far from the blazing signal that they were about to set. And they got into those lifeboats and they set fire to that ship and that column of smoke going up into the sky was their only hope of rescue. And it was getting dark and the waves were huge and they were bailing for their lives. The water was swamping their boats. They were too heavy. Even just them with nothing, nothing but their clothes. And they were sinking and they were dying. And in the dark, they were crying out to God when at last, just at the last glimmer of twilight, they saw the mast of a ship on the horizon. They prayed God that it was headed their way. They bailed and they battled and they died until there in the pitch darkness of the billows of that ocean, they heard the rumble of that Dutch ship Hercules engines. And then he hoped to. And he began to play his beam spotlight over that billows and located still near that burning hulk of the ship, those two little lifeboats. And he took them aboard. They asked him, How did you find us? He said, Three days ago, such a strong wind began to blow on the bow of my ship that I couldn't maintain the course and I changed it. And that wind kept thrusting against me and I changed it again and it kept on pushing and I changed it again and it brought me right to you. And they stood on the deck of that ship and watched everything they had in this world burn up and go as ashes to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean. Tragedy? No. Just the Lord Jesus looking down upon a missionary family and asking them, Do you love me? How do you love me? And that ship brought them all the way back to Puerto Rico going the wrong direction. And now they were back where they had started and they had nothing but the clothes on their backs. And Mama Gring said, Daddy, maybe God doesn't want us in Africa anymore. But Daddy said, Yes, Mom. He wants us there. But He didn't want us there with all that baggage. He wanted us light so we can go out and reach people who've never been reached with the Gospel before and they're sold again, beloved, with nothing but the clothes on their backs. Tragedy? No. Just a missionary family looking into the face of the God of Heaven crying, Oh God, Oh my Lord, we love you with shoes on. And they made it the second time. And they trekked a thousand miles back in the jungle. Triumph sometimes. And they built themselves a little bark house. Stripped the bark off the trees and flattened it out and tied it with vines to the stakes driven in the ground with big cracks. The floor was dirt. In the center was a pit where they tried to store things and where Daddy Grings was bitten by a poisonous snake. The bedrooms were on top of a reed mat that was tied, reeds tied across to make a ceiling so that the leopard and the hyenas and the snakes and the other things that prowl at night couldn't get them up there. And that was home. And for the next three years they trekked that jungle land hundreds of miles on foot preaching the gospel in every village and after three years not one soul had come to Christ. And then the Lord Jesus came to them once again and asked them, Do you love me? Mrs. Grings became ill with malaria. And it turned into black water fever so called because you bleed to death through your kidneys and your urine is black with blood. They were thirty days marked from the nearest doctor and she died. They had no boards with which to make a coffin. And so they took a hollowed out log in which they had been catching rain water off their thatch roof and they cleaned it up and they laid the body of their beloved mother in that hollow log and they covered her with banana leaves. And the people of that area were terrified. This was the first white woman and the first white children they had ever seen. And they were petrified. And they came to watch but afraid to help. And they watched as that woman's son dug the grave for their own mother. They watched as that woman's husband held the burial service for his own wife. They watched as my wife then eight years old stood on the edge of her mother's grave and said, I'm not afraid of death. My mommy knew Jesus and she's up there in heaven. And I know him too and someday I'm going to see her up there in heaven. And the next morning five young men came and said, Missionary, we want to be Christians. Oh, why did you wait so long? We were watching you, missionary. And the message you preached sounded like it was good for living but we weren't sure it was good for dying. Now we know it's good for dying. Tragedy? Nah. Just the blessed Lord Jesus looking down to a missionary family and asking them once again, Do you love me? No. Then letters began to come. Daddy Grings, you can't raise five children in the jungle without a mother. And he got the children together. You know, letters like that come a lot. Every time there's trouble on the mission field. Every time there's war and we've lived through three of them. All of the villages within a 50 mile radius of where we live in the jungle have been shot to ribbons. They're, I wanted to say, they are wilderness. They're ghost towns. We're the only village left in a whole 50 mile area in the terrible war that we've been having to overthrow. A Marxist military dictatorship that took over nine years ago. And the letters come. It's too dangerous out there, they say. And they forget that we're serving Jehovah Sabbah, General of the Hosts of the Universe. It wasn't too dangerous for Daniel and the lion's den. It wasn't too dangerous for Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego in the fiery furnace. No, beloved, because the General was with us. And he got his children together. And he said, kids, they want us to come home. They say, I can't raise you here in the jungle without a mother. What do you want to do? And those children said, Daddy, we came to Africa as missionaries and we intend to stay as missionaries. And for ten years, beloved, they never again had a house. For ten years, on foot and bicycle, they trekked from village to village. Tragedy? None. Just a missionary family looking into the face of their Lord and crying, yes, Lord, with shoes. But they did finally come home so the children could finish high school. They had been having homeschool. You know what kind? This book. My wife read this book through by the time she was eight. She learned to read when she was four. Daddy Grings saw to it that his children learned whole books of the Bible, chapters and verses by the score. And they imbibed the very heartbeat of the God of Heaven. Daddy, we came to Africa as missionaries and we're going to stay as missionaries. Passion cannot be quenched. Obsession cannot be denied. A vision that cannot be dimmed. A destination, the enthronement of their Lord that they will not abandon. Finally, I came home to finish high school. Louise and I met and sailed in 1954 with our little son, a year and a half old, David. And as I mentioned, glorious, glorious ten years. But then our Lord came to us and He allowed the Simba revolution of 1964 to break out. They swept across the land pillaging and raping and murdering and destroying everything in their path. They separated us from our children. They swept in and burned all of our churches and seven schools and massacred twenty of our pastors and murdered hundreds, hundreds of our Christians. And we were separated. Our children were back there trapped with Louise's brothers and their families. And we were out here, the two of us at a landing strip, helping with the refugees. I was standing on the wings of the planes pouring the gasoline in, refilling these Twin Otters and these other planes that were coming in. And Louise was helping with the feeding and caring for these refugees. And I'll never forget those nuns would get off of those planes with the visions of their priests being hacked in pieces still before their faces and their buildings burning and the aluminum roofs turning into long aluminum bicycles melted down over the walls. And those nuns had been brutally raped and gang raped and bestialized and they'd come and they'd throw their own... And then across the airfield came one of our missionary brethren. Oh, Brother Champlin, it's awful, it's awful. They've just killed Irene Farrell, my wife's sister and our sister. Back in Zaire, still serving after they discovered she had a collapsed lung and couldn't reinflate it. Back in Zaire because her God had told her to stay there. They were with us just the day before she died. We sat around the table. They had just heard that their pastor had been murdered, their black pastor. And they said, we've got to go back. Our people are there. We've got to go back. And they got in their little Volkswagen and they went out into the maw of that awesome revolution where villages and towns were burning and women were being raped and men were being murdered and children being trampled and everything that was alive in danger. And they went through it until they arrived at their station. And that night, the rebels swept in screaming, Be mine! Be mine! Be mine! And they got those women and pushed them out on the steps and shot Irene through the neck with an arrow in her blood spur that soaked in Ruth. I want to tell you what they did to Ruth to try to find out if she were alive. They finally decided she was dead and when they were gone she aroused from her stupor and soaked in the blood of Irene who lay there dead. She crawled into a little hut where she found a heap, a bag of brown beans and she opened that big sack and dumped it on the ground and snuggled down in and covered herself with the beans and stretched that gunny sack over her body trying to get warm from the awful shock that held her. The next time that missionary came he said, Brother Champlin, I don't know how to tell you this, but we've just gotten word that your wife's families, her brothers and their families and your children have all been massacred and our hearts broke. And we heard the voice of our dear Lord Jesus saying, Do you love me? How? Will you give your children for the souls of these Africans? Somehow he gave us grace to look into his face through the tears streaming down our eyes and we cried out, Yes, Lord Jesus, with shoes on. And for a week they were dead to us. Helicopters came. We asked them, Would you please look? But the Canadian major in command, he pulled out of his back pocket a flashlight. He said, You see this flashlight? Look at the end. And there was a bullet hole in the end. He opened the top and there was the bullet jammed against the bulb. He said, Yesterday that bullet came up through the floor of our helicopter. If I had not had that flashlight in my pocket, that bullet would have gone through me. He said, Missionary, I'm willing to die for the living, but not for your family. They're dead. But after a couple of days, they said, Draw us a map and we'll look. And we drew a map. We watched them take off in three helicopters until they disappeared over the horizon. And the nuns continued to come in and hang on our necks and sob. And later that morning we saw those three little black specks appearing again and at last they hung over our airfield and they began to lower and we're almost afraid to look and at last they're on the ground and the door swung open and our loved ones started climbing out. All right, you gave them to me. Abraham, you put your Isaac on the altar. Now you can have him back. The question comes again and again and again. Beloved Dad, do you love me? How? Mom, do you love me? How? Young man, do you love me? How do you love me? We were evacuated then. Our field was gone. Our people were scattered. Our churches were burned. It was time to come to the USA. Oh, how we pled with him for a year and a half to let us go back. The carpet was soaked with our tears as we laid through the night on our faces. But it wasn't his purpose. He opened the field of Suriname, South America to us. It had been abandoned as a waste of time, men and money. And we found out why when we arrived there in May of 1965. They'd been under the power, under the absolute control of demon-empowered witch doctors. I'm talking about real power. I'm talking about a witch doctor that could go out here on this street and call lightning and thunder down out of a clear blue sky that would shake this building to the very rafters. And the sulfur smell would singe your nostrils. I'm talking about witch doctors who send little boys up thorn trees with thousands of steel, strong needles, sharp thorns in rings like this, just about four inches apart, this long, sticking straight up. Send a boy up over those and down through those picking fruit and not a single wound, not a drop of blood. And under that power they had lived for 250 years without a soul being saved. Oh, they persecuted us. As they had three couples driving them all out in less than a year, the last couple lasted five months. They burned us. You see, there are no roads between those villages, no trails even. You had to reach them, and still today you must reach them by boat. You're talking about a climate where we have, in our living room, when we sit down to lunch, the average temperature is 94 degrees. Humidity sits at about 70, 75%. That's inside the house. In the shade it's 110. In the open sun, I don't know because we haven't found a thermometer that will stay in the sun without breaking. And they made us sit in our boats and wait till they jolly well pleased to let us come ashore in any one of the villages, and they burned us and parboiled us and roasted us until my nose was covered with great blisters and my mouth was covered with great blisters again and again. The scars are still there. Sadistic people, you say. No. My blessed Lord Jesus asking one of his servants, Do you love me? No. Do you love me? But then miraculously souls began to be saved. And then a witch doctor was saved. And a whole fabric of their demon-possessed government was being shaken by a power that they could not imagine. A power they had never experienced. And in panic they began to up their persecutions and until at last all else failing, they brought out their trump card. They brought out a pole to the fire-dancing witch doctor. And they invited me to come and watch. We stayed home to pray. I went to the village and there a great crowd of people, 400 or more up in the trees and on the ground in a loincloth, bareheaded and bloated. He left that heap and he went into the glass. There he stood there clinging and picking up the fleece. He'd come to break the power of the gospel by demonstrating the power of Satan. Heartbroke. Oh God. Oh God, here are babes in Christ. Here are those who are counting the cost of losing their families if they trust Jesus as their Savior and being ostracized of their nation if they follow the Lord Jesus and they're being tempted to follow the devil again. Oh God, what can I do to stop them? And my Lord Jesus simply asked me, Do you love me? Yes, Lord. Then you just do the dance that He has done and show them that I have power. Yes, Lord. They got a couple of candidates and took them off to the side. They built, heated the glass again, built the fire. While they were doing that they didn't notice that I was able to slip through the crowd and before they knew what I was about to do I pulled off my shoes and saw it. I jumped on that glass and I have to admit, beloved, I jumped right through because I found God was protecting me. I stomped and it couldn't have helped me. You don't have to be charismatic to believe that. You just have to know that you serve Jehovah Sabbath, General of the Hosts of the Universe. People began to shout, Paklodena Toppo, the demons on the missionary, Dokodena Domene Toppo. They didn't understand yet. And they carried and went and left that glass. They didn't feel the glass but, beloved, when I went in that fire it was hot. I was a good Baptist boy and I never learned the dance. But I did some kind of dance on that fire. I stomped and jumped up and down and by God's grace a few minutes later it was out. And I looked down and I could see those hearts not in the business of the Lord Jesus. He could have sent you to hell. But God had mercy on you tonight to show you His power. Now you can follow this man Apolto and he'll give you this demonic power but he'll carry you to hell. He'll follow my Lord Jesus. He'll forgive your sins and he'll take you to heaven. Make your choice. And he made it just like that. The drummers got up and left the drums. Fire dance is over, they said. Crowd began to break up and go back into the village. Oh, that witch doctor and leadership of the village were furious. I've been stoned a couple of times but I thought that night they were going to kill me. Swarming around clenching their fists gnashing their teeth. A couple of our young Christians just saved came to help kind of protect me. Finally they let me go. And I went over that little trail that they just allowed us to cut through the jungle. Back over that swampy place and back to our house. My feet were hot. Got down and looked at them. Couldn't see anything wrong. They were so hot and I prayed, Oh God, if I wake in the morning burned and blistered You suffered an awful defeat. Lord, You've got to help me. Your people, Lord. Your glory, Lord. Your mission, Lord. Went to bed. About six o'clock in the morning I woke up and looked at my feet and they were perfect. Praise the Lord. No sooner had I been in bed came a knock at the door. But they don't knock like that. They call out, Go, go, go, go. I went to the door. Those people from the village. Missionary, how are your feet? Well, you just take a look. A couple of our young men just starting the training to serve came to me and they said, Missionary, if that's the kind of God we serve, you show us the way and we'll walk in it. Today, beloved, they preach 66 towns and villages across an area half the size of the state of Michigan. They're walking. Again and again and again and again. Our matchless Lord comes to us and says, Dad, do you love me? How? Mom, Grandma, Grandpa, son, daughter. Do you love me? How? Do you love me? I knew someone once who was so much in love with this Lord Jesus. We got a letter from him when he was 83 years old. He said, you know, the other day I was riding my bicycle up a hill in the jungle and I fell down. I didn't used to fall down. Do you think maybe I'm getting old? Yeah. He put on his boots in 1917 and he went to his grave with his boots on. Daddy grins at the age of 85 in Zaire, Africa. That, beloved, is a passion that cannot be quenched. That, beloved, is an obsession that cannot be denied. That, beloved, is a vision that cannot be dimmed. That, beloved, is a destination and enthronement of your Lord that will not be abandoned. That, beloved, is a man looking into the face of his God and crying, yes, Lord Jesus, I love you with true love. Do you realize, beloved, in verse 17 of this passage as we close that Jesus changed the question? He saith unto him the third time, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me? And when it says there, lovest thou me? That's Peter's word. Yes, Lord. You know that I love you with a warm-hearted affection. Young man, must he change the question? Dad, must he change the question? Mom, must he change the question? What a tragedy. But there's hope. For Peter learned. He learned. You go back to 1 Peter 4 and verse 1 and you find these words, Forasmuch then, brethren, as Christ has suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves therefore with the same mind. Peter learned. Can you imagine Peter preaching from John chapter 21? Can you imagine that? There standing before his congregation saying, Beloved? Beloved, I was there in John 21. My Lord Jesus had just risen from the grave and he came to me and he said, Peter, we're going to war. Will you get on your boots? Will you love me? Will you love me as I have loved you? And all I could see was him hanging upon Calvary's cross. All I could see was that beautiful face smashed into a pulp. Oh, it's true that the prophet said his message was more important than anything. I saw his back all torn and driven. All I could see was those spikes through his ribs. All I could see was him hanging naked. What a name for the Son of God who came to ruin sin. What a Savior. But I couldn't love. Beloved, I've been in jail. They've beaten me. They've scorned me and hated me just like he told me. And now, just as he told me, they're going to do with me that which I would not have done. Beloved, I'm going to die. Therefore, for as much then as suffered for us in the flesh, burn yourselves, therefore, with the same mind Peter learned. And that means, beloved, that perhaps I can learn. That means perhaps you can learn, son. And you, daughter. And you, dad. And you, mom. And you, grandma. Perhaps you can learn to say, God, take my grandson and make him a soldier. Perhaps you, mom, can pray over your children, even over your unborn child, as did my mother. Oh, God, give me a son and make a missionary of him and I'll be the happiest mom in all the world. She prayed 22 months later over my unborn brother, Russell. And she stood with the tears of joy streaming down her face as she watched me sail for Africa and my brother for Brazil in 57. Perhaps we can learn. Peter learned. I was preaching, as I do each year, for Bob Gray down at Trinity Baptist in Jacksonville. And he told me of an 83-year-old man who'd come to know the Lord as his Savior and about to be baptized. He said, Pastor, could I say just one thing in the baptistry? And he stood before two or three thousand people standing in the waters of the baptistry. And he said, Beloved, I'm 83, and I almost missed it. There are some dads here tonight who have almost missed showing your son, your daughter, what it is to have a son whose father was a soldier for Jesus Christ. Almost missed it. He failed to look at Jehovah's Sabbath, general of the hosts of the universe. Failed to watch Him put on His boots. Failed to watch Him strap on His buckler. Failed to watch Him take up His sword and go to war against sin and against Satan across this world and across this universe. You've almost missed it, Dad. And you miss it. And the possibility of your son finding it is almost gone. Almost missed it, Mom. Showing your daughter and your children what it means to have a mother who will separate from the desires of this world. Who will sacrifice and subject herself to the will of God and serve and soldier. Almost missed it, young man. You're making plans for your life. And you haven't asked Jehovah's Sabbath, Lord, general of the hosts of the universe for a place in the battle. Almost missed it. But there's hope. Peter learned. That means I might. And you. And I'd like us tonight in closing to stand together. And I wonder if some might feel like coming to the altar tonight or even bowing where you are. And say, my Lord, I've almost missed it. But tonight I'm coming to you and I'm asking you, teach me to love you with shoes on. Oh, God, I enlist tonight. I want to go to war. Give me a people. Give me a place. I love you with shoes on. Shall we pray? Our Father, now we thank Thee for the privilege once again of being in Thy presence. Oh, God, teach me. Teach us to love Thee with shoes on. For Jesus' sake. Someone here tonight unsaved. I have only one thing to say to you. Look at Him. Look at Him. Hanging, bruised and broken and bleeding on Calvary's cross because He loved you. We love Him because He first loved us. Can you resist a love like that? Some here tonight not accustomed to coming to an altar. Others, maybe. I suggest those of us who may be accustomed as we sing together, just a cappella, whoever would like to join me. My Jesus, I love Thee. I know Thou art mine. For Thee all the folly of sin I resign. Feel free to come.