Churches Are Being Planted

[00:00:00] This audio sermon is provided by AnabaptistSermons.com and may be freely copied and distributed. You may not sell or edit this sermon. Our prayer is that you would be blessed by this ministry. Anabaptist, Anabaptist, Anabaptist, Anabaptist [00:01:00] Just a brief break and a passage from the Bible that will perhaps pull things together a bit. Snapshot number one is one that I've already pulled out and gave you a look at. It's a snapshot of Jan Amos Comenius. For those of you who were here, you already heard me talk about this man. But I want you to see these pictures in one panoramic view. So I'll just give you the snapshot again so you can think about this man a bit. [00:01:36] It's the early 17th century. It says 1618. For church historians here, that's the beginning of the Thirty Years' War. One of the most terrible wars that Europe ever seen. Atrocious in nature. Master, there's a great song in the church hymnal. I don't know if it's in these song books or not. Now, thank we all our God. Written by Martin Rankart. Got the wrong name. Rankart. What's his name? Chester, you remember? Rankart. Martin Rankart. [00:02:14] Set in the same setting, same snapshot, Martin's church saw the Catholics and the Protestants, the religious people of the day, I'm being sarcastic, under the power and inspiration of the Holy Ghost, and the Holy Word sweep back and forth across Europe between 9 and 13 times over his village. [00:02:46] Every time the Protestants would go this way and when they went that way they would burn the village to the ground and it would grow back up. Remember this is a 30 years war. Then the Catholics would gain the upper hand and they would sweep across Europe the other way and again the village would be burnt. and back and forth across Europe devastation everywhere sometime when you have opportunity [00:03:17] look that song up now thank we all our God Martin Reichardt penned those words near the end of the 30 years war and sung it for the first time in his church house with the burned out roof over it there was no roof over the place it had burned another time He had tended to many of his dying parishioners, people who had lost family due to the war, due to plague, due to the devastation I forget, I think I read one time that he presided over as many as ten funerals in one day regularly [00:03:51] During this era of time Read that song sometime Sing it sometime here and remember the story of Martin Reinhardt He wrote that at the end of that devastation Now thank we all our God with heart and hand and voices. What a blessing. What is our problem? But let me continue with the snapshot. That's the world of Jan Amos Comanius. And he too felt the ravages of a war-torn Europe. [00:04:24] And as I explained to you, he finally was forced out of his native Czech Republic. It was not called that in that time. Called Bohemia. and particularly I want us to stop and see the picture that is taken as he crosses over the Carpathian Mountains from today's Czech Republic into Poland and from Poland over into Moravia and let's with him or let's see him kneel there in the snow [00:04:58] and the cold and the bitter, banished from his land, from his family, seeking some kind of refuge for the few who are left. And his prayer goes up and the prayer is, Dear God, please preserve a hidden seed to be planted in this land again someday. Fast forward to another snapshot. God. This one is a personal portrait. The man's name is Melvin in this particular case, and I am reading Christian History magazine. I don't know if you're familiar with that magazine or not. It's not the most perfect thing in the world, but if you want great, great biographical snapshots of Christian history and historical moments, it's a great piece. [00:05:55] I have always made it my habit, this is for you educators here, I've always made it my habit to find some of the best condensed works in the world. What they've done with Christian history is they take the finest scholars in the world on various subjects and condense the very best that they have on that material and put it into a magazine form and you can read it. And it's kind of available to lay people, it's easy for us to read. If I can read it, so can you. Here's the picture. I'm reading Christian History magazine, and I'm reading the article in Jan Amos Comanius. It's a whole magazine article on it. As I read through it, I'm reading this story, the snapshot I just gave to you. [00:06:40] And as I read that, this was back in about 1988, I just put my magazine aside, sitting there in my living room chair, and I bowed my head and I said, God, God, I pray, let me be a part of the answer to that man's prayer. Amen. And he went on and read the rest of the magazine. Snapshot three. [00:07:14] A man by the name of Jan Wierczewski. And I need to take some time with this. Born in the 1930s. A teenager during World War II. And during World War II, he was caught up, not in participation, but he was caught in the movement of the armies through Warsaw, the Nazi armies through Warsaw. And the Russian Red Army, for those of you familiar with the history, moving from the east. [00:07:49] Now, of course, a lot of young people don't know that, yes, the United States and Russia fought on the same side against the Nazis in World War II, only from two different sides, right? The Allies coming from the east, I'm sorry, from the west and moving east, and the Russian Red Army as they gained the upper hand against the Nazis moving westward from the east. Anabaptist and those armies are going to meet in the area of central Germany and that means that the Red Army is going to overtake Poland. During that time, 1944-1945, Jan Wiederszawowski, he told me this with his own mouth, I'm not telling you a story out of town, got caught in the so-called Warsaw Uprising which was an attempt to throw off the Nazi yoke and he [00:08:44] He just happened to be there in Warsaw at the time. He and his brother dug a foxhole outside of Warsaw and hid in it for three days. Nevertheless, they were captured. and Jan was taken off to Germany as a slave, slave laborer in the munitions factories. By that time the Nazis were so far beaten, they were out of natural resources so they were using sugar for munitions [00:09:18] rather than using nitroglycerin and that kind of thing to make explosives, they were using sugar. which you can do. I asked Jan, I said, well, what was life like? Hungry, hungry, hungry, Brother Melvin. What they told me, he said, was that they were not going to give us one scrap of meat to eat, but we could eat all the sugar we wanted to. So he said, for two years, I survived on sugar and water from the munitions factory that I worked in. [00:09:51] He survived the war. His father died at Auschwitz, but he didn't know that at the time. The war ended and he thought that he was, that all of his family had been killed. So he stayed in Warsaw, I'm sorry, in Germany for a period of two years. It reads like a storybook. One day he was in a train station and he happened to see posted on the wall there a number of letters and he saw a letter from his sister. So he knew that she was still living. [00:10:22] And hence, after two years, he packed his bags and went home to Poland, just east of Warsaw, where he was living at the time. And there, to his horror, he discovered a number of things. One of them is the kind of story you never hear. He had had a girlfriend that he was engaged to before the war began, or before he was captured. of course when he returned to Warsaw he hoped to meet her again so he knocked on her door [00:10:55] she came to the door and left him know that she didn't want to have anything to do with him the reason being the pastor of his church had developed a harem during the world during the war years and she was one of the harem war is a terrible thing it brings terrible Terrible, terrible things upon the face of the earth Far beyond the bloodshed and violence that you read about and that we cringe from It affects culture in a way that is not calculable [00:11:28] You can't add it up This is one of the terrible things that happened Most men would have turned bitter and angry at God after such things But not Jan He continued to serve the Lord He went to school. By the way, Jan Amos Comanius was a teacher and an educator. Jan went to school. This will fascinate you. He got a Ph.D. in music psychology. [00:12:00] During his studies, he also ran across the history of the Anabaptist and began to read it very carefully. This is the communist era, 1950s, 1960s. His job was very fascinating. What he was supposed to do was to, he was professor of religious music at the University of Warsaw under the communist regime. And his responsibility was when American or Western dignitaries came to Poland, he was to trot out the religious group there, [00:12:39] Not the religious group, but the ones who sang religious songs there at the University of Warsaw and demonstrate that after all, we do have freedom of religion here in Poland. And again, you hear the sarcasm. And he told me, he said, finally, I just got fed up to here with the hypocrisy of it all. And I actually researched this. He really was one of the leading intellectuals in Poland. particularly in the area of music [00:13:11] and he just in one day gave it all up he said I am tired of this he walked down to the university he walked out to his he had a little cabin out in the woods and there he parked himself and he continued to study and he continued to study and as he studied he studied about these Anabaptists and he said to himself you know this is about as close to the biblical biblical concept of Christianity is anything I've read about where are these people and so he began to actually do research in Poland and found out that the Anabaptist had been in Poland those of you familiar with the history will know that the we're here probably because of the western migrations of Anabaptist out of the Swiss German cantons down the Rhine River in in West however there was also an eastern migration [00:14:07] That eastern migration went across northern Europe. Why did it go that direction? Well, because these were the finest farmers in the world for that day, particularly in managing wetlands. And so leader after leader across northern Europe reaching all the way over into Russia, Catherine the Great and others invited these Mennonite farmers who were the finest farmers in the world of that day to come east and to farm the land. [00:14:41] and the Mennonites always had one question and it's that will you conscript us for military and if those leaders said no they would go and those leaders wanted farmers. Remember 1618 to 1648 wasn't all that long before a couple hundred years but the land was devastated and it took years to recover and so during those years as migrations occurred across northern Europe You can read this in secular history books. [00:15:13] Germans invited across. They settled down along the Vistula River. World War II came, as I just got done describing to you, and these people were German speaking. So when the Nazis were at first victorious, the German army says they swept eastward, They found a lot of camaraderie with these German-speaking farmers living along the Vistula River there in Napoleon. [00:15:47] And you can read the accounts. Unfortunately, some of those families even invited the soldiers in and sort of made them at home and made them feel comfortable and all of that. Well, when the tide of war changed and the Red Army began to gain the upper hand and sweep westward, those German-speaking people were not in a good place. So many of them died, many of them fled ahead of the Red Army, and those who did not flee were kicked out of the land by the Russians. [00:16:23] And hence, Poland was cleared of an Anabaptist influence in the 1940s. And so as Jan Wiatrzewski read this account and began to understand something about it, he said to himself, I am going to find a way to bring these people back to this land. We need them desperately. Wherever they are, I need to find them. And he told me with his own mouth, he said, it was nigh unto a miracle in the 1950s, 60s, and 70s to be able to get a visa to America by any Polish person, let alone an intellectual, but he got one, mind you, traveled over here and visited a bit among the Amish and among the Mennonites. [00:17:12] Years went by and November the 9th, 1989 was the fall of the Brittle Inn wall and suddenly the door was flung open as I mentioned to you before and so Jan Wierczewoski was ready to invite these people back. The first ones on the field were the New Order Amish. It was an organization, perhaps you're familiar with it, Solis Fiatlo, a salt and light organization The organization went over, I believe in about 1990, to distribute humanitarian goods among the people there in Poland. [00:17:53] And by chance coincidence, not chance coincidence, the sovereignty of God. Remember my prayer? Don't you know we get a call at Faith Builders that there is a group called Salt and Light who would like to meet there to discuss their work in Poland I thought nothing more of it Of course, you may have a room And so the New Order Amish gathered there from Canada and from maybe this area [00:18:25] I don't know where all they came from but they converged There must have been about 20-25 men there and Jan Wierzybowski was there to talk with them about their work in Poland and so forth and so on. I just walked down to the room and walked in and asked them if they were comfortable and if I could do anything to help them out. And they said, oh, well, we're just waiting here on several men yet. But by the way, tell us a little bit about Faith Builders. So I began to tell them about Faith Builders and explained a little bit of the vision [00:18:58] and the interest in capitalizing on education as a means of touching our world. Turn to walk out the door, tap on the shoulder. Brother Melvin, I need to talk to you, says Jan Wierczewoski. Never met him before, didn't know him at all. Came to my office, we sat down and talked and he said, Do you, my brother, need to bring a group of people that you have trained here at Faith Builders to Poland? [00:19:34] I said, Jan, I'm already busy right up to here. I mean, there is not another minute in my day. Well, he said, have it your way. But I'm telling you, you need to bring a group of these people to Poland. To shorten the story up here a little bit, I went ahead and made a trip to Poland, my wife and I did, in 1998 to see Jan and Eva, his wife, and the area where all of these things occurred and where Salt and Light had been at work. [00:20:13] He took me on a little trip down the Vistula River. He said, I want to show you something. I have here in my notes, if I had an overhead here, I would show it to you. You're welcome to look at it later. I have a picture of a church, an old church. It's a clapboard church. It sits up there along the Vistula River. He took me to it, and he said, that, my brother, is a Mennonite church right there. When I visited the church during the communist era, of course, they were all confiscated. [00:20:51] And when they confiscated those churches, the day I visited it, I saw there were two families, very poor families living there. What the communists did was they put a partition right down through the middle of the church and created two living quarters from each according to his ability to each according to his need. Somebody needed housing and we don't need churches, you know, under the communist regime. And so that's what they did with them. There sat that Mennonite church with the wall down to the center and I saw children running around there, took a picture of it. As I said, you could see it here, just let me at least hold it up so you can see what I'm talking about. You can see a bicycle there in the front of it, that's it. Right there. [00:21:30] From there he took me across the street to a back through the woods, underneath some bushes, and there I came across an old graveyard. Tombstones tumbled down, knocked around in various positions, and he took me around. He had done his research carefully, and he showed me the specific tombstones, and you could read the names on there. They were clearly Swiss, German, Mennonite names. [00:22:02] He said this was the graveyard for this church. And clearly the communists just simply came in and destroyed it, or tried to destroy it and knocked it over. And it may interest you to know that the Dutch Mennonites have, in the ten years since that time, have gone over and picked up all of those old tombstones, taken them up to Gdansk at a place called Mennonite Street, mind you. That's a city in northern Poland and there they are building a commemorative wall of some kind or memorial that has to do with the presence of Mennonites. [00:22:42] And so these snapshots give you a little picture of how things began to unfold. Through a series of events, I did not know how this, I said yawned, I have no idea how this would ever work. And I'll never forget, one night I was laying out there in that little cabin, it was dark, and it was cold, and I was lying on my back, and I could just see out the window. [00:23:12] So, I was in a land where they spoke a funny language I had never heard before. I couldn't pronounce the words. I didn't know how to even say the syllables. And I looked out the window and I saw the moon up there in the sky and I said to myself, Melvin, what in the world are you doing here? What are you doing here? What makes you think that there is any possibility that in fact God would raise up a testimony for himself again in this place? [00:23:47] And what do you think you would have to do with it? Well, it was a good humbling experience, but I remember looking at that moon and saying, God, if you could put that moon up there and keep it up there, I suppose I will be silly enough to believe that you can do this too. and so we persisted and after several years I didn't know where people were coming from but two families emerged some of you will know the Laverne Hersberger family from Storstraft and John Schmucker another teacher story [00:24:18] well these are all teacher stories because I'm a teacher too and mind you John Schmucker just as a little 18 year old boy came all the way in And so for the next two or three years, I kind of coached him along, and he coached me along periodically, and he finally got married and lived just across the street from us, and then by and by moved back to Oregon. and finally from Oregon to South Boston where he taught school for a while there in the southeastern school there. [00:24:58] And I was saying, God, if you want to raise up a people in Poland, you're going to have to provide somebody to go. I'd almost given up on it two years. Got a phone call from John Schmucker and he said, Brother Melvin, are you still looking for somebody to go to Poland? And I said, I think the Lord is. What do you have in mind? And he said, well, my wife and I have talked it over. And of course, there are a lot of things to work through, but we would like to at least consider it. [00:25:31] To make a long story short, they eventually ended up in Poland with their four children, along with Laverne and Lolita, who were students at Faith Builders. and some of my sons and daughters were there as V.S.ers. Oh, I forgot a little piece of this story that really is worth telling. For the young men here, there was a period of time in there we didn't know what to do. Since I've wondered what was the matter with us, but we chose four young men from our congregation. [00:26:02] My son was 19 at the time. He was one of them, and we sent them over there for one year to spy out the land. So this is a kind of challenge that young men need, by the way. We sent them over their almost cold turkey, and they can tell you some of the most terrifying and wonderful stories at the same time you have ever heard. They lived over their little cabin all winter long and into the spring, and they did a lot of research. [00:26:33] For whatever it's worth, foreign ministry is difficult work. It's difficult legally. We had a mess of paperwork to work through and how do you do this and how do you do that and that was a country in transition anyway. I remember of going into Warsaw to try to work out some, do some paperwork and the lawyer turned to me and he said for $4,000 I can get your paper in two weeks. I said what's the $4,000 for? [00:27:04] He said it's blood money. I said, my friend, I don't have 10 cents for blood money, let alone $4,000, and I would not give you any bribe whatsoever. Well, he said, it's not really a bribe, but okay, have it your way. We can do it the regular way, and maybe it'll happen, maybe it won't. I said, well, that's the way we'll do it then, because we're not spending one dime of bribery money, period. And I had the gall to tell him, if you were in the United States, you'd go to jail for this. And he had the brass to say, but we're not in the United States. [00:27:44] So we smiled at each other and went on the regular way, the way it was supposed to be done. And God honored and things worked out. It didn't happen in two weeks, but it happened in time. And we learned that the Lord does lead. He does move. He won't do it until we step up to the plate and begin to act ourselves. Then he just comes right in behind and in front and he moves. And there was nothing easy about any of this. I want you to hear that. It was all very difficult. I'll never forget when I took those four boys over there and took them out to that cabin and tried to outline for them the work that they needed to do, which was hard to outline. [00:28:26] What are you supposed to do? Okay, spy out the land. It was my son's birthday on the day I went home. I took a little walk down a country road there with him. There was a back road. And I walked along with him and we stopped down there and we prayed together. And you don't know how difficult it was for me just to walk away, go back, get on the plane and come back to the United States knowing that I had left these boys on their own to make a go of it in this land. [00:28:59] Well, bless the Lord. It all happened by according to his good grace and by his power. Today there is a church in Poland. I just got back from there. It's called Agape Mennonite Fellowship. And there are several under instruction. There have been two baptized. We're working through all of the very difficult things of how do you, how do you bring people to the Lord and how do you disciple them and how do you, how do you form a church that is not just a cultural adaptation, but truly does maintain the principles of scripture. [00:29:45] Through and through And I'm still learning If you think to it tonight when you go to bed Would you please pray For Laverne and John as they lead there And as they bring those brothers and sisters together To form a congregation A testimony, a witness for the Lord For they need it in these days What a blessing From there I would like to go to a passage Those few snapshots perhaps will give you an idea of what actually happens in such a land. [00:30:24] Oh, can I tell you about one answer of prayer? Just the way the Lord leads in these things. If you're doing international ministry, there's a big issue over the exchange rate. You can lose money or make money fast. One or the other. When we first went to Poland, the exchange rate for $1 you could buy four Zloty's. Okay? Six months ago, $1 would buy 2.2 Zloty's. What that means is if it took $4,000 a month, at the beginning it was taking $8,000 a month to do the same thing. [00:31:04] Almost $8,000. No gain. We weren't any further ahead, but it was taking double the money. and I don't mean to put our needs on the floor here so much except to say we just couldn't make ends meet and I'm praying, I'm saying, Lord, what shall we do? The American economy is collapsing. This thing can't go anywhere but the other direction, worse direction than 1 to 2.2. God, what are we going to do? [00:31:35] Lord, as we prayed, mind you, not more than a month ago, suddenly it reversed. Suddenly it reversed and the last I checked, which was just before I came out here, it was $1 could buy 3.04 Zloty's. That translates into $2,000, $3,000 more per month from the money that we were getting before in order to support it. So what I was hoping God, I was thinking, the only way God could answer this prayer is he would have to move on somebody to give more money. Oh no, he could do it differently. All he had to do was to touch the hearts of some people, not the hearts, but their crazy intellectual minds and have them do whatever they do when they're trying to figure out what these exchange rates are and change it from 2.2 to 3.04 and that solved it right there. [00:32:27] I was humbled. I said, Lord, you just do it. You know, however you want to do it, you do it. But praise the Lord. That's what he did in that particular case. I'd like for you to turn to Isaiah chapter 61. I would that this passage would strengthen your heart. Because remember my prayer that God would use us and maybe if he wanted to, he could use me to bring about an answer to Comenius' prayer. [00:33:06] And remember that old broken down church. Now the clincher came when one morning I was in my, I was up, I typically get up fairly early at night and I was praying and I was meditating and I was reading and I was asking God for direction and I read this passage. And I share with you the spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek. [00:33:39] He hath sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives in the opening of the prison, to them that are bound, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord, and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all that mourn, to appoint unto them that mourn in Zion, to give unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness, that they might be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that he might be glorified. [00:34:25] Stop there for just a moment. I know that this passage, we think of it typically as Christ fulfilling that when he came because we remember that he stood up and read this passage in the synagogue and said this day, this passage is fulfilled in your ears. And I believe that. But are we not called to the same kind of ministry by our master who went ahead of us? So I began to see a personal call here, particularly after I had visited Poland one time. [00:35:01] I don't know if any of you have ever been to one of those Nazi camps or not. I visited three, Treblinka, Majdanek, and Auschwitz. Look at verse three, to appoint unto them that mourn in Zion, to give unto them beauty for ashes. The oil of joy for mourning Poland is a dark and bloody land It really is, read its history sometime It has been knocked all over the place [00:35:34] And at Majdanek I'll never forget walking through that camp And seeing the crematoriums and the gas chambers And literally being there And standing there where the railroad tracks came in of course there was nobody there but just standing there and remembering the scene as I read it from history here comes the railroad in and the doors open of cattle cars and out stream the people and there stands a Nazi war officer with his hand [00:36:04] and if he points right you go to the right and if he points left you go to the left and one way or the other your skin would be saved for a while but the one direction was straight to the gas chambers and just on his whim Right or left Children would go this way sometimes And mothers this way Babies torn out of their arms And taken one direction While the other goes the other way Families separated You can't imagine the horrible things That took place I can't imagine why people would treat each other like this [00:36:38] Even if they hated each other I can't imagine it in my wildest But this is the kinds of things that happened there And I remember walking down through the building where they had all of those shoes. You probably have seen pictures of this before if you haven't actually seen it. And walking by there and seeing those little tiny shoes and just wanting to weep and say, God, how could this happen? to appoint unto them that mourn in Poland [00:37:11] to give unto them beauty for ashes the oil of joy for mourning the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness that they might be called trees of righteousness the planting of the Lord that he might be glorified. I began to think, God, God, I think you want to do this in this land. this land that has been under oppression for years and years and years and then in the same visit it was over it was in the fall of the year in fact we did this again just this year [00:37:47] November the 1st is All Saints Day I guess you know that October 31st is Halloween Day well in the Roman Catholic communities they particularly like to celebrate the next day as All Saints Day if you look in your calendars you'll see this that's what it's called and we went down to the graveyards the graveyard there in Minsk it must cover some 10 acres I would say 6 to 10 acres at least and there were the vendors sitting outside of the graveyard selling candles, selling candles [00:38:17] and that night we went down to the graveyard and walked down through the paths there must have been, I don't know thousands of candles all throughout the graveyard and all throughout the graveyard there were people praying for the dead and doing various things Because it's Roman Catholic, 98% Catholic, and they are not American Catholics. They are Polish Catholics, which means they are Catholic. It is a dark land. And so as I read this, my heart was stirred again, and I said, Lord, I see that you are calling us to this work. [00:38:56] Now, mind you, there are many places other than Poland, and I would have you just stop for a moment and think. Maybe it's a next door neighborhood here. Maybe it's in Shipshawana. I don't know where. The darkness, the mourning is happening, the spirit of heaviness is there, the spirit of darkness. And the Lord calls us to bring their salt and light and blessing, as he says here, the oil of joy for mourning. [00:39:29] maybe it's even the sister or the brother by your side or the neighbor or whoever it is but this is what the Lord has called us to and as I prayed there in my living room about this my heart was moved and by the way the greatest revival in my life has always been almost always in private devotion as the Lord moves in my heart and this happened in that case But there's more here. Look at verse 4. [00:40:04] And they shall build the old waste. As soon as I saw that, I began to read more. They shall build the old waste. They shall raise up the former desolations. And they shall repair the waste cities, the desolations of many generations. And you can believe, what did I see? Oh, churches, broken down graveyards, and I said, God, what would you have us do? [00:40:37] Oh, by the way, Jan Wierczewski told me, I think if you bring enough people over here and plant them in this land, they'll give that church back to you. Now, I need to be honest with you and say that I think there are more hoops to jump through than just that, because foreigners owning land up someplace else is a difficult thing. But I was moved by the possibility. build up the old waste places just leave Poland for a moment listen in our own land there's desolation all over the place [00:41:09] waste places some of our own churches are in shambles the walls are broken down the place is all but uninhabited some of you are from Amish background I know And I know there's some mighty fine Amish, but I do know there's some dark places here. Most of us have at least some association with the places of desolation. I have made it my life's work to see something, hopefully, maybe God would honor us with verse 4, they shall build the old waste. [00:41:50] They shall raise up the former desolations Back in the community where I grew up There is a place called Letterkenny Army Depot Right smack in the middle of that army installation Is the church that my dad went to It's called Upper Strasburg Mennonite Church You can read about it in the books, the history books. [00:42:24] Confiscated by the U.S. Army in 1942. My grandfather told me this story. He said they told us they wouldn't touch the place. But it was confiscated. And one year into the activity, they decided they needed places to store munitions. So they just took a bulldozer and rammed a hole through the side of it. and began to store ammunition in it. But bless the Lord, when the commander found out about it, he said, oh no, you don't. Take every bit of that ammunition back out of there and build that thing back. [00:42:55] Shut it up. We don't do that to those kind of places. In our day and age, I doubt they would say that, but that's what he said back in 1940. My dad is so irritated to this day. He said, you know, they offered to give us that church back. I believe it was in the 1960s and told us that if we kept it up, we could have it. And he said I was too young, too inexperienced and did not have enough vision. I said we don't care about that church. They tore it down. It was one of the worst things. What a blessing it would be to have that symbol of nonresistant godly love sitting right in the middle. That monument that says this is not the way it ought to be. [00:43:37] They shall build the old waste They shall raise up the former desolations These are the people we're talking about here in verses 1, 2, and 3 My dear brothers and sisters Not only are we called to do this But God has given us the resources and the grace to do so If you've heard nothing else I've said all weekend Please hear that He really has done this And so one of the reasons that I labor away at Faith Builders is because I want to be a contributor to a generation of people [00:44:16] that in fact will build up the former desolations. All this wreckage and all of this mess. And maybe some will go to Poland. And maybe some there will camp out along the Vistula River. and maybe they'll even settle there and bring an Anabaptist Christian worldview back to that dark and bloody land. Maybe they will. Two families are there. I'm hoping there are more go. There will be more. And I'm praying that the Lord will raise up among the Polish people themselves men and women who are dedicated to raising up the old waste, reclaiming what was always God's. [00:45:00] and has been stolen. Oh, let this word seek the desolations of many generations. Says this is what we shall do. This is what we are called to. We will continue in Isaiah here with a few other passages as soon as I find my notes here. I would like to turn for you to turn to Isaiah chapter 62. [00:45:40] And now I turn to a very practical approach to this. For it is one thing to be inspired. It is one thing to be moved. It is another thing to do. Remember, but be you doers of the word. and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves. And so as we began to engage in this work in Poland and there in Meadville, we began to ask ourselves the questions, but just exactly, what do you do? [00:46:15] What are we called to do? How, Lord, can you give us some direction? And here I found in this Isaiah chapter 62 on another day as I was reading and studying, I felt some at least personal direction on this issue and I would like to share that with you some of the things that I gleaned as I studied through this passage and thought to myself Lord how would you have this apply how would you have us apply this to raising up a generation of people who would reclaim the old waste [00:46:56] And I'd like to share just about four or five points here with you. Verse one, for Zion's sake, I will not hold my peace. And for Jerusalem's sake, I will not rest until the righteousness thereof go forth as brightness in South and the salvation thereof as a lamp that burneth and the Gentiles shall see thy righteousness. and all kings thy glory and thou shalt be called by a new name which the mouth of thy Lord shall call. [00:47:28] I'm going to skip through a couple of verses and go to verse, no, I'm sorry, I don't want to skip too much. Go to verse 5. For as a young man marrieth a virgin, so shall thy sons marry thee. And as a bridegroom rejoiceth over the bride, so shall thy God rejoice over thee. I want these verses. I have set watchmen upon thy walls, O Jerusalem. which shall never hold their peace day nor night. Ye that make mention of the Lord keep not silence. I had to stop there when I was a young man. [00:48:02] I heard this verse used very often by the older brothers who were urging us not to depart from the old paths. It was good advice and I agree with it and all of that. In fact, I'm not in disagreement, but I never saw the next verse in the same context. The impression I had was that these watchmen were people who were standing, they were the brothers among us who stood upon the walls, and when they saw the enemy coming, they shouted and they said, there he is! Watch out for him! [00:48:38] And you could name all of the things that could get named, but look at what these watchmen really do. Verse 7 And give him no rest till he establish, until he make Jerusalem a praise in the earth. Give who no rest? God. Give him no rest. Now listen, the Lord is not going to do what I just got done talking about [00:49:10] until he raises up a people who will pray diligently that this comes to pass. I have set watchmen upon thy wall. Who are the watchmen? They are the people in this congregation who pray regularly and consistently and persistently to God and give him no rest until he establishes work on the face of the earth. And without this, I don't know that we're going to get anywhere. And so the first, my first comment here is in developing a vision for today is let's become people of prayer. [00:49:46] Now I hesitate to say that because it's become such a cliche. Remember, if we say it enough and we preach about it enough, we think we're doing it and can easily be deceived. I would have you not, I would have you not say you're going to do something and not do it, than say you're going to do something and don't do it. But I tell you, we need watchmen. We need watchmen, watchmen that don't give him any rest. [00:50:19] They're just praying. Now, I know when you start talking about God, he doesn't need rest and such like, but you know what the passage is saying. it's saying you bring these petitions to the Lord and so it's been my daily prayer that God would raise up a generation to reclaim the old waste and I believe he's going to do it I believe he's going to do it I have set watchmen upon thy walls don't give him any rest until he establish until he make Jerusalem a praise in the earth [00:50:49] my primary point here we will not do this with the might of our own arm and while there are practical things to be done and I just got done telling you a few things we had to do in Poland to even get anywhere and argue with lawyers and do all kinds of other weird things it is not the arm of the flesh that accomplishes this purpose and as soon as we think it is, it's not going to happen it is when we bring ourselves to the Lord [00:51:19] and subject ourselves to Him and when we just continue to, pardon the terminology, bug Him I just read recently that story about Jesus teaching on prayer. His disciples came to him and said, teach us to pray. And he told him that. I always stumble over the story because he says, well, okay, I'll tell you how it is. What would you do? So here comes a man and he asks for bread. It's midnight. And you say, and you ask for bread. [00:51:51] And he says, well, I'm in bed. I mean, what are you asking for bread for? So you know what you would do if you keep bugging anybody. I mean, after all, the bread will come. And he kind of gives us the implication that that's the way we ought to pray. That's what the teaching is. I don't know how to make, I wouldn't tell you to bug God like that if it doesn't sort of say it in the scripture that you ought to persist in prayer. Particularly when we know what it is that the Lord wants to do. And we just get done reading there in Isaiah chapter 60, what he plans to do. [00:52:22] And what he wants to do with us. And so I call us to persistent prayer. Give him no rest. Verse 8. The Lord hath sworn by his right hand and by the arm of his strength. See that? Surely I will no more give thy corn to be meat for thine enemies, and the sons of the strangers shall not drink thy wine, for the which thou hast labored. But they that have gathered it shall eat it and praise the Lord [00:52:53] And they that have brought it together shall drink it in the courts of my holiness Let that sink in, I don't care if this whole economy goes to pieces in America If God finds a praying people who are setting out to do his will As I believe it was William Carrier, one of those people said God's work done in God's way will not lack God's supply And you can see it here There will not be waste And then verse 10 and 11 and 12 [00:53:30] I give you my five points First, go through, go through the gates Prepare you the way of the people And the first point comes from that first phrase Go through, go through the gates My dear friends, never have we lived in such a day of open gates and opportunity. Never. There has never been a people on the face of the earth. Now, I don't claim to know every point of history, but I have studied history with some care. [00:54:02] World history, and I am quite certain, never has there been a people who have had the opportunities that we have today. Listen, you have a government. You have a government that offers all kinds of freedoms beyond what typical governments have I can today go tomorrow, I can go to the nearest airport, take my American passport And very likely go to most countries in the world We have the resources, we have the means [00:54:32] Few generations, do you realize that for most of world history The typical man spent 95% of his time keeping bread on the table. I mean literally. Go to these third world countries that some of you are involved with and you know this. You see them out gathering the sticks and bringing in the corn and they just work and work and work just to feed their families. That's not true of you. I don't think it is. You might say I work and work and work to pay my bills, but I'm afraid we work and work and work to maintain a lifestyle that's nuts. [00:55:06] Really I do. The truth of the matter is we have resources galore. So it's not a question of resources. It's not a question of a government that's trying to suppress us. It's not because we don't have opportunity. It's because we are in neglect. And so the word I have here is take initiative. You have to step up to the plate. The opportunity is ours. If there is any judgment for this, if there is any sure judgment for this generation, it is their disregard of the opportunity that we've been handed. [00:55:45] I am not trying to scold as much as I am to make us aware and alert to the fact that we will be held accountable for this. That when all of the resources were there, and I mean the natural resources, it wasn't even you had to wonder where they're coming from. Listen, I just feel like I'm going to get into scolding mood here if I'm not careful, but you know, I have seen, interacted with Mennonite men who have millions. They do. And yet somehow we can't pay for our schools, LeBurn, to train up a generation of people and we can't keep our missionaries on the field and we can't, it's just like we can't get it done. [00:56:29] Now listen, something is wrong. Something is wrong is all I've got to say. And I don't mean to be pointing fingers. I mean to sort of be thinking about Melvin too. Go through, go through the gates. I have a question for you. Is there a gate ahead of you? Do you see the door open? I don't know most of the interactions that you people have, but I'm just asking, I just asked you the question. Think for a moment, what gate is ahead of you? Do you see it open? [00:57:01] The admonishment is go through it. Go through it. Can't help but tell you this little story. You know, I got involved in the prison ministry. It was the funniest thing ever. Some of you may know Warren Cluxton. I don't know. Warren Cluxton was at SMBI for a number of years, and he did Bible studies and had the prison ministry in a Franklin County prison for years. I was a young man of about 21 years of age, and I didn't know what to do with myself. and so I went down to Attenborough, Alabama, down there where those prison revival things are at. [00:57:34] I was at the very first one that they had there and got involved there. I could tell you stories about that, but we won't get into that. And I came back all inspired, and so I called up Warren Cluxton, and I said, Brother Warren, would you need any help in at the prison? Why, he said, of course, I could use some help. We go in Thursday evenings. Thursday evening came and he called me. He said, you know, Brother Melvin, I can't come to the prison tonight. I had never even been there. One time he said, I can't make it tonight. Do you think you could take the prison service? And I said, of course. [00:58:11] But I gulped, I went into that prison service and, you know, we did the best I tried to follow the directions I had been given. Next, we came along and Brother Warren called me, said, Brother Melvin, I can't, I can't make it tonight. So I called Brother John Martin, some of you know him, and I said, could you go along with me into the prison? So into the prison we went. Do you know what? I never went to one service with Warren Cluxton. Two months later he said, I am so busy, could you just take over? Go through the gates. [00:58:48] Look for some doors and some opportunities and go through them. I am here to tell you the Lord will sustain you and give you grace if you walk through the gates that he provides for you he wouldn't provide them otherwise take the initiative and seize the opportunity for now is the hour next phrase is prepare ye the way of the [00:59:18] people Prepare you the way of the people Alright, we live in a day of toleration Nobody's supposed to tell anybody to do anything Nobody's supposed to tell anybody that that's the wrong way to act If you slap somebody's fingers you're intolerant And you're not politically correct And a whole list of other things I don't buy into that one bit Not one bit I have children and I intend to train them up [00:59:49] I intend to prepare the way of my children call it indoctrination if you care to that's alright, then I'm going to indoctrinate them from what I can tell the scriptures yea, they urge us, they not only urge us, they command us to prepare and so beginning with our own and now we're back to the education of our own children Lord, my brothers, prepare you the way of your children. Do it in your homes, do it in your schools, do the things that you need. [01:00:21] The word I have here is educate. I don't mean just in the classical sense. I just mean in a general way, to train up a child in the way he should go. And when we have opportunity out here to interact with other people, prepare you the way of the people. I spoke to this earlier, so I don't want to hammer on it too hard, but I really believe that there's a preparation. I told the brothers and sisters over there in Poland, I said, you know, look, probably it's going to be, I don't know how many years until there really are people here in this land who rise up with the same vision you have. [01:00:57] It's going to be some work for you to teach some church history classes and for you to teach the Bible diligently and for you to demonstrate and care for and prepare and bless and eventually hand it over. But you are going to have to do some preparation You really are Folks, it isn't just going to happen It's going to take hard work Have you ever read the story of William Carey? You probably should I can't believe the things that man went through Until there actually was some activity happening in India [01:01:30] That was actively raising up churches there Be worth your time to read it Cast up, cast up the highway The next phrase that we're seeing here and again this harks back to the passage in Isaiah 40 that we read where it says prepare ye a highway for our God I have written in my notes example how what we need is godly examples we're finding this over in Poland we're struggling with this [01:02:00] those of you who have been involved in missions maybe you can help us out a little bit it seems as though you have to have even though we don't believe we're not sure if it's right to colonize That is to try to take about 50 families and send them over there and just create a Mennonite community and say now whoever wants to join it can join it. Even though we don't want to do that there, it's still true that you need some kind of a core of people around which you will build the church. You need example. Jan Wierczewski, he told me, he said, send families over here. [01:02:33] The Polish people need to see families at work. And here's this salt and light thing at work again. I tell you what, you'd be surprised at this. When we first went over there, the underground church that was so upright and holy that we reverenced so much was in worse shape than what you think it was. The fact of the matter is we went to the first churches in Warsaw that would have come through the communist years. We walked in and lo and behold, there were no children, zero, in that service. No children under 18 years old in that service. [01:03:06] We said, where are your children? And they looked at us kind of surprised and they said, well, at home. Well, we said, well, why are they at home? Hmm. Well, why are they at home? They kind of didn't know how to answer the question. They said, well, well. And what happened is this. During the communist years, they were just pounded and pounded and pounded and pounded [01:03:36] Okay, you can have your religion, but you can't propagate it Don't you be telling your children that? And of course the children had to go to public schools and so forth and so on And they actually had lost even the conviction to teach their children Bless the Lord, today when you go back to those same churches, their children are back in Why? They saw the example. They saw the example. And they said, well, of course, that makes all the sense in the world. Why in the world have we neglected our children? And now they're begging for Sunday school materials and other materials to use in order to train up their children. Example is needed. [01:04:14] Cast up. Cast up the highway. The fourth phrase here is gather out the stones. I have two words under that. The two words are discipleship and holiness. Listen, there's an awful lot of religious chatter all over the world, but very little gathering out the stones. us is hard work it's hard work to knuckle down [01:04:46] and find those stones and those boulders in our own lives in our own practices and then to draw together in discipleship toward the Lord discipleship means to become like Jesus gather out the stones We've had evangelicals over there tell us over and over again You know what you people bring here that is so unique among evangelicals Is just the hard work of teaching people how to follow Christ [01:05:18] They told us that the two things you do really well is you do family We're just astounded, we can't believe how family works And he said, the second thing is, is we can't believe how determined you are to actually help a person understand the will of the Lord, not just get saved. See, the great cry that the religious chatter throughout the world is get saved, get saved, get saved, get saved. Well, of course we agree with that. But what about becoming like Christ? What about taking the territory that has been given over to Satan back for God? [01:05:54] How do you do that? Do you just run around saying, get saved? No, you literally begin to act like Christ and be like Christ on earth and reclaim that area for him. This, I, oft times, right on my door of my house, if you ever come to my house, you'll see a plaque right there that stares you right in the face. As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. What that means, when you step inside of those doors, this is no brag, God knows my tremendous weaknesses, but it means the intention here is when you walk in these doors, we serve God here. [01:06:31] Oh yes, we're a mess, and oh yes, we make a lot of mistakes, and all of that type of thing, but this is God's territory. And on this land, God will be served. Gather out the stones. Gather out the stones. We believe in discipleship and we believe in holiness and I'm telling you it's the right position. It's the right position. God does call us to holy living. We could turn to passages and show that very, very clearly. [01:07:04] But let's go through the gates, prepare the way, cast up the highway, gather out the stones and do the hard work of discipling people toward the kingdom. And finally, he says here, lift up a standard for the people. And again, I'm tired of taking a back seat on this point. All the chatter about no standards and this and that and the other thing is wearing us down. [01:07:34] Oh, yes, there are standards of conduct. There certainly are. and we are called here to lift up a standard among the people. Let me give you a little example of this to help you understand where I'm at on this particular point. You can walk into any evangelical church you want to and ask them if they believe that a woman and a man should dress modestly and they will all say with one accord, yes. Well then why isn't there? [01:08:06] Why do you see among evangelical Christendom in America such brazen immodesty? Pray tell. It's because nobody has been brave enough to lift up a standard and say, but that is not modest. I hardly know how to talk about this because it sounds almost so arrogant or I don't know what it is. But listen, the fact of the matter is, again, you ladies, when you walk as an example in this world, [01:08:44] when I say to one of those prisoners or whoever it is, ladies are to dress modestly, they know exactly what I mean immediately. Why? Well, there's my wife. This is what I mean. This is, you know, she wears a dress down here close to her ankles. We got married and I said, Sheila, you know what? I would just, I would just, it would be a blessing if you just would lower those, those, those, those dresses a little bit. And this was before it was popular. And she said, really? [01:09:16] I said, yeah, I think so. I think that would be good. I think that would be a blessing. And, you know, she left them things down below her knees and then they started to get lowered. She thought she was modest before. She honestly did. Why did she think that? Nobody was lifting up the standard. Nobody was willing to define and say, but this is what it means. Now let us be fair. It's not like we will always get the definitions right. [01:09:49] But it is better to have a definition that is a little off than to have none at all. If you have none at all, there is no standard. And words become empty. The word modesty in our secular world means nothing. It is an empty word. Because there is nobody who is willing to define what it is. That we must walk away from. And we must be willing. As a leader, what I have said to our congregation is, look, I realize that in some ways I bring my experience to it. That's true. [01:10:29] And I realize that I'm bringing my personality to it. When I begin to define, I know that not all of you will agree with it. But what else am I going to do? Just let the definition float all over the place wherever it goes. I can tell you what they're that you end up with nothing the same thing is true about the way we handle our money it's exactly the same thing because when it says you don't lay up treasures on earth and so forth and so on if nobody gives any definition to that at all if they don't apply anything it ends up you really can do whatever you jolly well please with it and even though I'm not here to set all those standards I'm just saying at least we should begin to talk to each other about what it means [01:11:12] means to be good stewards under God and give some definition to it rather than just say we should be good stewards and give no definition. Because I'm telling you, it means nothing when you're done unless you begin to talk about what it really means. Now, up at Faith Builders is kind of a crossroads of things. And I am more and more aware that we live in a postmodern world. What do I mean by postmodern world? Well, briefly stated, it's a group of people. The modern thought is that there really are no absolute standards. [01:11:46] There just aren't any. And so don't try to corner me into it. There just aren't any. And there's no absolute truth. And I just disagree. And I think we have to resist that. We are called here in this passage to lift up the standard among the people. and let this be more than just words. So in Poland again we run into the same things you're always going to run into and that is well okay so what is modesty and how is it going to be [01:12:18] and some of the ladies who came to the Lord over there were wondering whether well what does this mean so they were in Poland they wear skin tight pants I'm telling you all girls do that it's very hard to see a dress anywhere skin tight and I know they do that here in America too I couldn't believe that Poland, Europe is pagan and brazenly pagan. If you've ever traveled over there at all, you would know a little bit about this. When their billboards, they're a notch further than what, a number of notches further than what the billboards in America would look like. [01:12:49] Now, I know billboards are kind of on the way out. But, yeah, it's just, it's brazenly pagan. And so when we begin to talk about wearing dresses, I mean, all the questions come up. Well, what about this? And what about that? And what about the other thing? There are good questions to ask, but somebody has to begin to explain, lift up a standard of conduct among the people. And by the way, I don't want to get stuck on dress. I mean, this is far ranging. [01:13:20] It ranges throughout the life, throughout the experience. What does it mean to walk before the Lord in holiness and in godliness? And how do we conduct ourselves in that fashion? I've written in my notes here, that standard is first that Jesus Christ is Lord of heaven and earth. And then its implications ripple all the way out through life. and we never get done talking about what it means for me to walk under his lordship today and tomorrow and the next day [01:13:55] and we talk with each other not in dictatorial ways but we help to define and bring lift up the standard I keep telling the people in our community that well you are contributing to the standard it doesn't matter what you do you either pull it up or you pull it down one or the other Okay, in your conduct, choose the issue, whatever it is, and then you bring something to that that contributes to the community consciousness and the community concept of what the standard really is. [01:14:28] And for my part, I just want to be a contributor. I don't want to take away. and the other point I have in my notes there is an authentic Bible model of holy living in community and I would underscore community one of the standards today or one of the things that has been lost is the concept of the Christian community and the commitment to the Christian community we need a revival there and we need to take it [01:15:00] And by the way, you don't go to a communist country like we were in, and you start talking about making commitments to community, and they immediately, what? You mean I commit myself to this community of believers, kind of my life and my, yeah, it's really a commitment to Christ, but it's worked out in the community of believers. This is a concept that even in our own circles is being lost. It needs to recover. It really does. It needs to recover. [01:15:37] I will close with a passage from the book of Hebrews. Hebrews chapter 11. This is such a wonderful passage. We could spend a lot of time here in Hebrews chapter 11. But I'm going to skip right on down to verse 13 What I'm going to share with you here is not original with me But it so inspired me that I often like to think about it And it has given me direction about vision [01:16:10] These all died in faith Not having received the promises And we could have read down through the list of people there They did not receive the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. For they that say such things declare plainly that they seek a country. [01:16:43] Herein I find the key reason as to why we have found it difficult to maintain the stranger and pilgrim concept among our people. I think it's because we have the order reversed. You cannot dictate to somebody the concept of being a stranger and a pilgrim. There is no button that you can push on people that makes that happen. [01:17:14] There is not a piece of clothing that you can put on a person that makes them a stranger in a pilgrim. Now, if there were, that's what I would preach. I would say, get that, whatever that piece of clothing, let's get it out and let's just all get it on because then we'd all be strangers in pilgrims. But we all know in our heart of hearts, it's not true. I want you to look at the order here. These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off. The one word I would give to that phrase, having seen them afar off, is vision. [01:17:51] Our young people will continue to languish until we give them a vision. They really will. If we try to pound them on the stranger and pilgrim thing and get them straightened up on that but don't give them a vision It's a lost cause It really is These people first saw the promises afar off They got a hold of them They read the word of God or they studied therein and they heard it and as they did they were moved [01:18:25] And the Lord gave them a vision of what he wanted to do I tried to share with you a little bit tonight the vision the Lord gave me. And as the Lord gives them a vision, then what happens? Once a vision is in place, they were persuaded of them. Have you ever heard of conviction? Why is there a lack of conviction in our day? Well, because there is no vision. If there is a vision, then there is a reason for conviction. [01:18:59] and they embrace them and the word that I have written in my Bible not in this one but in my old one where I have lots of notes is the word motivation then they'll be moved you see that? a vision and then conviction and then motivation you can holler all night about the lack of motivation among the people of God but if they have no vision there will be no motivation. [01:19:31] Give a vision first. Cast the vision forth of what the Lord wants to do. Then will come conviction. And then will come motivation. And then you won't have to tell these people to become strangers and pilgrims. They will be strangers and pilgrims. They just will be different. I can tell you that young man who walks out onto the streets and passes out a tractor So who takes a little time to go to a prison. He is so different from the people of this world that it's unbelievable. He's a stranger and pilgrim just by that act alone. Give them a vision and have them walk in that way and then you will see them become strangers and pilgrims in the land. [01:20:16] And it says in verse 14 For they that say such things declare plainly that they seek a country This question of worldliness Well, people will be worldly if they're not seeking a country They just will be That means they're fastened on this world So they're not looking for another country That means they're looking around here If they're looking around here They're looking around at the way the world does things That's what they do. And so again, you can't just preach worldliness out of people. You can't just knock it out of them. You can't write regulations and regulate it out of them. You just cannot do it. That won't work. But you can do it. It will happen of its own if you cast a vision. [01:21:07] Brothers, the older brothers here particularly, I just want to tell you, the burden that rests on us is to chart a course, to cast a vision ahead, and to call our young folks to that. And it really, it honestly has been my experience that our young people are actually very good people. They really do want to serve the Lord and it is a shame that often we have left them out there just kind of meandering around trying to figure out what they're supposed to do and how to spend their money and what to do with their energy and all that while we're crying out loud. [01:21:45] They're looking to us to cast a vision and chart a course and start a little work in Poland and start a little work in Central America and one in Brazil and one up in Chicago and one next door. and have what? You know the things that need to happen. They're looking for some leadership in terms of vision. And to that end, as small as I may be and whatever little I can do, that has been my life's passion, is to say, let's, as a group of people, come together under the fear of God to accomplish His purposes. [01:22:20] They that say such things declare plainly that they seek a country. I'll wear you out if I go much longer I'll stop there and just have you hear the word of the Lord Remembering that they shall build the old waste They shall raise up the former desolations They shall repair the waste cities The desolations of many generations May God grant this in our day Let's pray