In this sermon, the preacher emphasizes the urgency of spreading the gospel to the nations. He criticizes the comfort and self-centeredness of American Christians, who are oblivious to the cries of the nations in their sins. The preacher challenges Christian parents to teach their children to live for the glory of God instead of being influenced by American pop culture. He highlights the fact that billions of people have never heard the name of Jesus Christ and calls for a radical commitment to fulfill the Great Commission.

about world missions and what we're giving ourselves to and what we're spending our lives upon. We're going to turn our Bibles in a moment to Matthew, but before we do so, we want to pray. Father, you know the weaknesses of the man standing behind the pulpit today. Father, you know my fears, my anxieties, my frustrations, my sins. Lord, you know them each one. Father, I don't come to the pulpit today, Lord, professing strength, but only weakness. Father, I don't come to the pulpit today, Lord, proclaiming perfection, Lord. I come proclaiming and admitting to gross imperfection. Lord, I don't come to the pulpit today with a proclamation that I am filled, Lord. I come to the pulpit today confessing and acknowledging I am empty. Father, help me for the sake of your glory, for the sake of your kingdom, for the sake of your elect. Lord, I pray that today, Lord God, that you would shake the foundations upon which we stand. Today would not be a day till we fall into the rhythms and the patterns of religious practices that we've known to this moment. But Lord, let this be a day to where everything begins anew and afresh in our lives and reconstruct what we see, what we perceive, and how we live, and with what aim in sight. We focus, swallow up the enormity of my weakness. With the enormity of your strength. Swallow up the enormity of my folly, with the enormity of your glory. Prepare the ground to receive the incorruptible seed of thy perfect word. Father, challenge us to be doers and not hearers any longer. Father, for too long, we've been professors of truth while ignoring the practicality of it in practical obedience. Cauterize the past to whereby we never can return to it again. In Jesus' holy name. Amen. Turn with thee and your Bibles to Matthew chapter 10. We're going to talk today about world missions, about shaking the dust from our feet within the beginnings, all through the context and to the very end of this message. None of it has been purposed to anger us. With an unrighteous anger. But to stir our hearts and to a righteous anger against our own. Fraudulent. Grasp of truth. To provoke an anger of our of our wasting of the years of our lives away into the portals of history for not. And for us not glorifying God with our lives in the way that he has challenged and called us unto as revealed in the sacred scriptures. In Matthew chapter 10, verse five. And I don't know if you can read the text on the screen because of its smallness, but maybe you can. The 12, these 12 Jesus sent forth and commanded them saying, go not into the way of the Gentiles and into any city of the Samaritans in or you not, but go rather into the lost sheep of the house of Israel. And as you go, preach saying the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out devils freely. You have received freely. Give provide neither gold nor silver nor brass in your purses, nor script for your journey, neither two coats, neither shoes, nor yet staves for the workman is worthy of his meat. And into whatsoever city town that you shall enter inquire who in it is worthy and there abide till ye go fence. And when you come into a house, salute it. And if the house be worthy, let your peace come upon it. But if it be not worthy, let your peace return to you and whosoever shall not receive you nor hear your words, when you depart out of that house or city, shake off the dust from your feet. Verily, I say unto you, it shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of judgment than for that city. Behold, I send you forth as sheep amidst of wolves. Be therefore wise as serpents and harmless as does father. Give us an anointing today to receive these truths, plant them deep within regenerated hearts. And father, by your grace and spirit, we will glorify you with lives that are lost for your glory in Jesus name. Amen. John Keith Falconer said this, I have but one candle of life to burn. I would rather burn it out in a land that is filled with darkness than in a lot, a land that is flooded with light. Timothy Laughlin while at my house engaged in a discourse with his four year old son, Jacob, and said, Jacob, what are you doing with your life in a non rhetorical sense? Challenging his four year old training, his son, Jacob, what are you doing with your life? How many of us as Christian parents have muttered those words to our children? How many of us have taught our children that they are to expend their lives for the glory of God? Beloved, I'll get into a moment, but we're teaching our children to fall underneath the spawning spell of American pop culture. And we wonder why our children act like devils. We have trained them to become devils. We are living in an hour. And even in this moment of time, as we are sitting here in a perfectly climate controlled facility, there are billions that have never heard the glorious and splendid name of Jesus Christ. One man said this, that no man deserves to hear the gospel twice until all men have heard the gospel once. And beloved, there are mass multitudes that have never heard the gospel of Jesus Christ or even the mention of his name. One time, this message that God has given to me, this series has a purpose. That purpose is divine in nature. That purpose is to arouse us to a purposed self-examination regarding the value of what we are extinguishing our lives upon. The nations of the world have been opened for the gospel of Jesus Christ, but it seems that as America and as Christianity in America, we have chosen to burn our candles out in a land that has been flooded with light rather than take it to lands that are filled and permeated with darkness. In our opening passage in Matthew, we hear our Lord instructing his disciples. Beloved, we claim that we too are disciples of Jesus. We too have a commission from his sovereign decree and his sovereign prerogative go. They received their instruction as his disciples to go into all of the house of Israel and to preach the gospel. And within this challenge, we find an interesting statement. Whosoever will not receive you or hear your words when you depart out of that house or the city, shake the dust off of your feet, go somewhere else. What I have to say to us this morning is going to be strongly controversial. Even amongst those of you that are sitting here today that love Jesus, the beloved, it has powerful scriptural authority. It also has powerful cultural necessity. The United States of America has indeed over the last 50 years cultivated and intense and vehement love for unrighteousness. Also they've cultivated an intense hatred for righteousness. In 1962, our nation made a decision to file for a divorce, a writ of divorcement from the Lordship of Jesus Christ and our court system handed down that indictment. From that year until this date, our schools, as well as our government has bidden farewell to any covenant that had been ratified in the past regarding the Lordship of Jesus Christ and his rightful place in parliament or any intrinsic subsidiary of government directly stemming from this national writ of divorcement has spawned a national cultural mood of atheistic detachment from the sovereignty of the Lord Jesus Christ. What I mean by this is that the effect of this national writ and divorcement handed down from the Supreme Court has infiltrated the very root of this nation's peoples, this nation's subjects. Families at the family level have adopted a philosophical creed that was etched by our nation's gavel, which gave an order to purge God from all of our national affairs and educational institutions. And with the adoption of a godless philosophy, families have now become intolerant to biblical truths or any practices that might identify them with righteousness. What I am inferring is that Christianity in America is being rejected and despised abroad. We, as those who belong to Christ, continue to try to sow seeds into the very barren soil of this nation. Our labors are stirring up so much dust, but there is no fruit coming from our arduous labors, nor can it. Moreover, beloved, here we stand with sweat soaked brow and dust covered feet bearing no fruit. And our Lord's message is ringing in my ears. And whosoever will not receive you nor hear your words when you depart out of that house or city, shake off the dust from your feet. The fields of missions of the nations are white and they're ripe unto harvest, but the laborers are indeed few. American Christianity is too busy roaming over millions of acres of land from field to field just to find one cotton blossom that has whitened for a harvest. But yet, beloved, the nations such as Burma and other nations of the world are right where blossoms are blooming in every field, but yet, beloved, there are none to harvest. Church, can't you see this? America has rejected the gospel. Our nation has handed out a decree, an indictment to purge God from our land. And the subjects of our nation has put these men in office. This mood and philosophy has flowed down to the subject of the land in so much that there is a violent response to the gospel. We're laboring our hands to the bone for the gospel. The fields are barren. There is no fruit. And we spend our lifetimes toiling fields that are barren, that will not, nor can they produce fruit. And we're wasting valuable moments, wasting valuable years. The nations are calling. The voices of the lost are groaning while the church in America is asleep as the eternal clock ticks. And as the hours of our lives are ebbing into the portals of history to never dawn again, is the fruit that we are presently bearing going to shrink into shame of what we could have borne? Let me say that again. As the eternal clock ticks, as the hours of our lives ebb into the portals of history, never again to dawn is the fruit that we in Christendom in America are presently bearing going to shrink into shame as to what we could have borne for the Lordship and the glory and majesty of almighty God in the nations that are ripe. America has heard the gospel and thereby rejected the gospel. There are nations of the earth that have not heard. Beloved, as we passionately sway to the rhythms of synchronized selfishness, ascending to the pinnacles of a normative cultural bliss, while the lesser nations around us sink into an abyss from which they will never surface again, what are we living for? While we delightfully enjoy the palatable cuisines of delectable, exquisite untold multitudes are either dying of starvation or existing upon rations with substance rarely sufficient to support daily life. And we either are accruing the dust of a gospel that's been rejected or a gospel that's being neglected by this. I mean, you and I are in one category or another. We're either laboring in fields that are rejecting the gospel message or we're gravely neglecting the gospel altogether by doing nothing in its regard. I posted this quote not too long ago. The hour has struck. God has opened the doors unto the nations, but the American church is asleep, dreaming the American dream. There's like, oh, pal, they're socked out asleep. We're spiritually that way in the, in the modern Americana Christendom. Love, look how we as Christian parents are training up our children. We're not training them up. We're training them down. Doesn't the Bible give us a demand and a command from God train up a child in the way that they should go. But as Christian parents in American Christianity, that's being bound by, by fetishes of American culture. We're training them down, training them to give their lives for the gospel of Jesus Christ, going to the ends of the earth to make disciples. That's what, that's what we're to train them up into. Shouldn't listen, should not. We as Christian parents being introducing our children to the divine calling and purpose and the glory of God through their lives. But what we've done is that we believed in them. We believe the lie. We believe the lie. We've settled down here within the culture of Americana, settling down, making a good life for ourselves. When was the last time that we told our children that the greatest experience in life is for them to give their lives away in a foreign land for the glory of God and the gospel of Jesus Christ. When was the last time that we Christian parents sat down with our children and systematically walked them through the scriptures as revealed to them in God's grand design for their lives, which includes suffering, hardship, rejection, and the loss of all for the glory of God. We may have been too busy prepping them for the American dream, which is a violent assault against our heavenly call. We've been too busy playing sports with them, playing games, taking them to the mall. Parents listen to this, fulfilling everything in them that we couldn't experience when we were as them. All the while, vast millions of ethno-linguistic groups have never heard the name of Jesus Christ. We talk about people that pick and choose out of the Bible what they believe and obey, but we are guilty. Their children are digging through the rubbish of toxic city dumps just to have an unwholesome meal just to survive another day in a miserable existence, and many of which will die awaiting Christ's message, which will never arrive because His church is asleep dreaming the American dream. We are called to go to them. We are called to a pastor. I don't feel the calling. It's here. You don't have to wait God to speak to you. He's spoken to you. The issue is not God speaking. The issue is you were not hearing and responding. We are called to go to them. Matthew chapter 28, verse 19 and 20. Go ye therefore and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded of you. And lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. Mark chapter 16, verse 15. The Bible says, and he said unto them, go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. He has called us to go. The famed Charles Haddon Spurgeon, great preacher in the last century, said, I remember one who spoke on the missionary Christian one day saying, the great question is not, will the heathen be saved if we do not send them the gospel? But are we saved ourselves if we do not send them the gospel? That's the question. That's the question. We're victims of an anti-Christ culture. Just this past week, the revered and beloved Franklin, Franklin Graham was denied to minister to our nation's soldiers because he made a statement that the Muslims and the Muslim faith was evil. It is intrinsically evil. Maybe we need to return back to what took place which is only a drop in the torrents of their flood, of their viciousness and vileness to what happened on the 11th day of September in the year 2001, where over 3000 Americans succumb to their violence and anger and hatred of truth. Why do they hate America? Because America is a nation that's founded upon the fundamentals of the gospel of Jesus Christ. And we are born again and we are supporters of Israel. God's elect. Brother Graham spoke the truth. It is an evil system. And if you don't believe that, you don't understand anything about God, anything. And if you hold fast that they are righteous, then you are, you nor can you be saved. That's true. That's true. They're evil. No more evil than we were whenever we were without Christ and hopeless in this world, because evil is evil. But he was denied. Our nation said that you cannot go and minister and pray over our soldiers because you said something that might make somebody mad. Beloved, these are only the beginnings of what's going to take place in our nation. The nations are calling us to mass exodus of these bitter lowlands and to ascend into the mountains of the Lord and to take the gospel of Jesus Christ to the nations. I made mention this morning to two of our pastors. I am inches away. From resigning this church. Selling everything I have, every gun, every knife. Every piece of furniture that I have. Everything and leaving this nation and going to the nations. For 20 years, this pulpit has been permeated with truth and look what it's done. If the next 20 years measured the first 20 years, we might have double what's here and it's nothing. And I could expend my life for the glory of God in foreign lands and see fruit for the glory of God as I lay my life down and lose my life for his name. We are too attached to American subculture Christianity. The only thing that has not broken this toothpick holding me on is my commitment to my mother and father that are aging and my love for you. The only thing. But there may come a time when the passion for the Lord Jesus Christ may override both of those things and break that stick in half and you may never see me again. And I'm not speaking into the wind that my heart is so burdened. My heart is so broken. Every pastor I see asked me how many people I'm running. How much money we're bringing in and I'm sick of it. I'm not in competition. I'm a man of God living for his glory and I'm wasting my life quite possibly in a land that is going to produce nothing for his glory. And I'm fighting every moment with every breath to stay where I am and not go to the nations. Beloved, I can't live anymore with us running our kids from soccer game to soccer game for you to program them that this is what life is for. The American dream. Not even knowing the unspoken dangers that you're building in their hearts. You find me a scripture that says children need to be children in that light. We're believing a lie. We need to set our children down and show them that God has called them unto greatness. What are you doing with your life? The nations are awaiting you to come with a message that saves from sin and glorifies Jesus Christ. And you may be sitting there getting bitterly mad because you are in those chains and you're unaware, unaware the chief command of our commander in chief, his name is Jesus Christ, goes unheeded in the vast majority of Christian circles. And the question before us as believers is to whom is the commission given? To whom is the commission given? I agree with brother John Piper. He made a statement regarding this commission that there are only three types of Christians when it comes to world missions, zealous goers, zealous senders, and disobedient. I'm not naive enough to believe that every Christian is supposed to pack his or her suitcases tonight after booking their flights into a dark land. But yet among us, there are those who are called to go, but they're not going because the spirit of this age has convinced them that their lot in life is to cover up with the blankets of American security and comfort. Moreover, there are those who are called to go to the distant lands personally, called to connect, called to live sacrificially, and there are those who do indeed go. They may be effective for Christ. There are many of you younger families here in this local church that are wasting your lives, wasting your lives, absolutely throwing them away into the abyss of the culture that has rejected our Savior's gospel. We're wasting our lives, and what value can you find in this land of few opportunities for the gospel? Are not your labors producing little to no fruit for His majesty? Beloved, shake the dust from your feet. Abandon the luxuries of this wicked nation that has rejected Jesus Christ and pray for God's guidance regarding where you should go for His son. God has greater things for your life than these temporal years of self-absorbed interests. God has greater plans, greater things. Why not abandon your collegiate aspirations and intermissionary training centers whereby your life can become the essence of Christ in which has been created and designed? Young people in the education system, are your dreams so low? Are your dreams so low that you would settle down and enter into a common workplace and draw a paycheck every month so that you can buy a house and a car and so as to mimic the futile frolic of the former generation? Have you prayed and asked God what He desires for you to expend your life upon? Have you thought of asking God? Maybe you're afraid to. Are you certain, young people, all of us, that our God from eternity past predestined you with such low and futile ends? Beloved youth, at best you might be laboring with your hands providing a mundane living and every Sunday go to the same church that has two inches of dust covering their feet. Examine your heart. Examine God's calling. Examine your future and do so in light of the 28th chapter of Matthew. The Bible says in Jeremiah chapter 8 verse 20 that the harvest is past. The summer is ended and we are not saved. Will this be the cry of the nations? Will this be the cry of the nations? Will this be their end? Will the church of Jesus Christ shut up her bowels of compassion and bury her talent into the ground giving it no heed as she pursues her own dreams while we educate ourselves to make our mark on the material world? The nations around us languish and lament while we educate ourselves to make our mark on the material world. The nations around us are in languish and they lament. Missionaries around the globe, beloved, are faint because of their labors. The American church has all but forgotten them even to the point of withholding their rightful support to increase their own pleasure and to increase their own entertainment and feed their own religious lust. You may ask, Pastor, what's in it for me? And the answer is absolutely nothing. But yet there's something in it. You may ask, Pastor, what's in it for me? And the answer is nothing. But yet there's still yet something within it. Most assuredly, most assuredly, beloved, are you with me? Most assuredly, your life being laid down is the hope of God being glorified amongst the nations. The Bible says in Malachi 1, 11, from the rising of the sun even unto the going down of the same, my name shall be great among the Gentiles and in every place incense shall be offered unto my name and a pure offering for my name shall be great among the heathen, saith the Lord of hosts. There is no greater employment than the missionary employment. One man said that when you're a missionary, don't stoop to become a king. We have the call of Jesus Christ, go. But beloved, the church is asleep. We are saturated with a devout commitment to temporal employments, temporal fascinations, temporal desires. I see parents that get more worked up about their kids going to a ball game or to a stupid dance than they are about their own children's baptism. They said they're glazed over at a baptism, but we go and we spend hundreds of dollars on things that are frivolous, that make no sense in the eyes of a holy God. You may think, Pastor, you're over this, you stepped over this time. I've stepped over and brought to you the truth of the gospel. And if you can't live with it, maybe you need to go search your heart and see if you're even in the faith, friend. And I'm not trying to make you mad. I'm telling the truth. I'm shining light on a dark situation in America that is so dark, no one wants to step into it with light and reveal it. It's too popular, it's too beloved, it's too loved. It's too loved. It's too treasured, especially when you start talking about children going into the mission field. While you were sitting around in Christmas four or five years ago, opening presents, having a great time with your kids, Timothy Laughlin and his kids were being held up at gunpoint for taking the gospel into Burma. Rifles were stuck in their children's face in a malarial infected zone while we were gathered around the Christmas tree thanking Santa Claus for visiting us. And the reason that you don't want to subject your children to that is because you don't understand the gospel. When those children stand before God and their parents on judgment day, God will say, welcome in good and faithful servant. And I tremble at the thought of what's going to happen to American families. We've not been told the gospel. My chief concern is that we are either too entangled with this present world and loving the spirit of it that enslaves us even loving the very spirit of this world that enslaves us. And thereby, we're either unwilling to become a missionary or we're wasting our breath trying to reach a nation that's already rejected the gospel of Jesus Christ. And we're accruing dust upon our feet and it is robbing the nations of their hope. Can you not hear the cries of millions that have not ever known? And maybe we're not hearing their voices because our ears have become deafened to everything except that which brings us pleasure. And I pray that our sovereign opens up our ears to the shrilling cries of others that are languishing. That he will open our ears to hear their suffering and do something in our hearts where we will go. And if you don't believe that America's rejected the gospel today, when you leave the servant service, go to the streets, go knock on a door and try to present the beloved savior and see if you don't get the door shut on your face. And what do we do? We go back home, we turn on the television and we go back to sleep while the nations are in languish, crying out in their sins to hear the message of the gospel of Jesus Christ. But we can't hear their cry because we're too inoculated with comfort in America. I pray that his holy fire consume our selfishness in so much that we abandon our our pleasure centered lives to fulfill the gospel commission to go ye into the nations and preach the gospel and their lose your lives. The nation's call from sea to sea extends the thrilling cry. Come over Christians, if there be, and help us ere we die. Our hearts, O Lord, the summons feel. Let hand with heart combine and answer to the world's appeal by giving. What is thine? Say to thy gifted servant, speed, behold the world's your field. Say to the gold thy Lord hath need till hoarded treasures yield. Say to the slumbering soul, awake, ere wanes thy noon away. Lo, soon I come, the count to take ye stewards of the day. Savior, forgive. Ashamed we lie. Thy gracious will we know. Behold, while we delay they die. Bid, bid us send.