Lessons from the Middle East
00:00:00.000 | (upbeat music)
00:00:02.580 | - Pastor John, you're back home in Knoxville
00:00:07.200 | after a lengthy trip to the Middle East,
00:00:09.360 | your first trip to the Middle East.
00:00:10.760 | Can you give us a summary of your travels
00:00:12.480 | and share with us some of the things
00:00:13.720 | that you did along the way?
00:00:14.940 | - It was a three week trip, Tony.
00:00:16.680 | We went to Ethiopia first and spent a week there,
00:00:21.680 | spoke in four churches and did a Bible conference
00:00:24.880 | with Jason Meyer, who has replaced me at Bethlehem.
00:00:28.200 | It was thrilling to do the tag team preaching
00:00:30.920 | with Jason in a conference on 2 Corinthians
00:00:34.240 | and to be a part of the churches there
00:00:36.120 | and see what God is doing in Ethiopia.
00:00:39.360 | I was so encouraged in several of these churches
00:00:42.560 | and how God is at work and saw the importance
00:00:46.320 | of the sovereignty of God and saw the cry
00:00:49.700 | of the Ethiopian church to help them train pastors
00:00:54.000 | because the spread of the gospel is huge
00:00:58.360 | in Southern Ethiopia and probably 80% of the pastors
00:01:02.560 | there have no theological training
00:01:05.200 | and they are very good at evangelism,
00:01:07.960 | they were telling me, and yet the need
00:01:10.160 | for ongoing training and equipping and deepening
00:01:13.320 | of the leadership for the sake of the people is just huge.
00:01:16.080 | So I would just encourage any listeners
00:01:18.280 | to give your life away in Bible teaching
00:01:23.200 | and pastoral enrichment and world missions in this way.
00:01:27.560 | Then we went over to the UAE, which is on the Gulf,
00:01:32.560 | the Arab Peninsula, so the peninsula that has Saudi Arabia
00:01:37.960 | in the middle of the huge mass and then Kuwait up the top
00:01:41.360 | and then come down to the horn, there's Qatar and UAE
00:01:45.280 | and then around the corner is Oman and Yemen.
00:01:48.160 | These are the Gulf oil states and all kinds
00:01:52.880 | of revelations were happening to me
00:01:55.080 | about things I did not realize here
00:01:57.380 | that basically these countries are more friendly
00:02:01.840 | toward the United States and just across the Persian Gulf
00:02:05.320 | to the north and the east is Iran
00:02:08.800 | and Iran is the adversary, both of the US
00:02:13.080 | and of these states and when you think
00:02:16.120 | of the Islamic surveillance on the people
00:02:21.460 | in the UAE where I was, I was told they're not worried
00:02:25.740 | about Christians, they're worried about radical Islam
00:02:29.940 | who could upset the balance of good relationships
00:02:34.940 | between them and the United States who provide so much
00:02:38.820 | of their help in the oil drilling
00:02:40.340 | and in the selling of their oil.
00:02:43.420 | It's a hugely rich land, the UAE is.
00:02:47.220 | The country 40 years ago was sand.
00:02:50.840 | Today, Dubai is probably the most modern city in the world.
00:02:55.860 | It's got the tallest building in the world.
00:02:58.300 | There are 450 skyscrapers, meaning over 40 stories tall.
00:03:03.300 | It's got huge malls, it's got sophisticated infrastructure
00:03:09.300 | and all of that is largely provided by the expertise
00:03:16.340 | from the West and therefore,
00:03:19.140 | they don't want those relationships messed up
00:03:21.340 | by the Muslim Brotherhood coming in here
00:03:23.740 | and producing another Arab Spring.
00:03:26.220 | So when the Arab Spring happened in the other countries
00:03:28.500 | and the people rose up and started to throw off
00:03:30.280 | their leaders, the wealthy leaders in UAE
00:03:34.580 | upped the salaries of all their emirates
00:03:37.140 | and made everybody happy because they produce
00:03:40.860 | about 3,000, I mean, 3 million barrels of oil a day,
00:03:45.820 | each of them worth about $100.
00:03:48.140 | And so this country is owned and led
00:03:50.780 | by a benevolent dictatorship of about seven sheikhs
00:03:55.780 | who are the landed powerful families
00:04:01.860 | and one of them is the main one
00:04:05.260 | and so they have all this money
00:04:07.020 | and they have used it to make their people very happy
00:04:09.340 | and they've built these huge cities
00:04:10.880 | and it's built on sand in more ways than one.
00:04:14.060 | I mean, a lot of people look at the Burj Khalifa
00:04:18.380 | which is the tallest building in the world
00:04:19.780 | and they say it's just like the Tower of Babel
00:04:21.580 | and it is because they built it
00:04:23.020 | to make a name for themselves.
00:04:24.540 | The word Khalifa is the name of the sheikh
00:04:27.380 | who provided the money to finish it
00:04:28.880 | when they ran out of money in Dubai.
00:04:32.140 | And so it's fragile in the sense that it's oil money
00:04:37.140 | and the expertise is coming from elsewhere.
00:04:39.980 | So that about 85% of the people who live in the UAE
00:04:44.860 | are from outside that country
00:04:49.020 | and therefore the expertise and the manpower
00:04:52.620 | both at the lowest levels of labor
00:04:56.320 | that are almost like slaves
00:04:57.740 | and the highest level of expertise in the high rises
00:05:01.580 | are coming from outside UAE.
00:05:04.340 | So what they have is money
00:05:05.660 | but they don't have a lot of expertise.
00:05:07.780 | They're trying to rectify that
00:05:08.980 | with a lot of education.
00:05:10.700 | The upshot of that from mission story was just phenomenal.
00:05:13.620 | The Christians are not looked upon disrespectfully there.
00:05:18.620 | The sheikhs have provided land in several of the Emirates
00:05:24.500 | in order that the Christians might build churches on them.
00:05:28.060 | They know that since they have 85% people
00:05:31.140 | coming from outside the country to work there,
00:05:34.500 | they need to provide for them and make them happy.
00:05:37.260 | So they know lots of them are Christians
00:05:39.220 | so let them have churches.
00:05:40.660 | Well, that means that there are in Dubai,
00:05:44.300 | I talked to several people off this,
00:05:46.020 | there are probably a thousand churches in Dubai.
00:05:48.820 | Now there are only half a dozen of those
00:05:51.180 | that are landed and provided for by the sheikhs
00:05:53.540 | but they all know, the sheikhs know,
00:05:55.820 | the authorities know that these churches are there.
00:05:58.220 | They know where they meet, when they meet
00:06:00.320 | and they are just turning away and letting them be.
00:06:04.820 | What's against the law in UAE is proselytizing
00:06:09.820 | and if you ask people, what does that mean?
00:06:11.580 | You get a lot of different answers.
00:06:13.420 | One Christian will say, it means paying a Muslim
00:06:15.700 | to be a Christian.
00:06:16.980 | Another will say, it means giving them a Bible
00:06:19.280 | if they don't ask for it.
00:06:20.660 | In other words, it's a pretty ambiguous law
00:06:24.380 | and the reason I think it's ambiguous
00:06:26.980 | is because they're happy to leave it ambiguous
00:06:30.460 | so that they can kick out anybody they want
00:06:32.380 | and keep anybody they want.
00:06:34.780 | And so there's amazing freedom.
00:06:37.340 | I preached in Abu Dhabi, which is the capital,
00:06:41.660 | in the National Theater.
00:06:44.260 | It was about half full and up at the top
00:06:46.940 | were these white-robed authorities
00:06:48.860 | making sure I didn't diss Muhammad
00:06:51.180 | or something that I shouldn't do
00:06:53.260 | and I preached the gospel there as clearly
00:06:56.500 | in terms of a propitiation and a substitutionary atonement,
00:07:01.300 | the death of Christ, the resurrection of Christ,
00:07:02.940 | the necessity to believe on Christ
00:07:04.780 | and they were listening to all that.
00:07:06.100 | So here you have a whole line of Muslims
00:07:08.000 | who heard the gospel because they provide for Christians.
00:07:13.000 | We had to advertise that event as for Christians.
00:07:18.020 | Well, a guy told me the day before,
00:07:19.500 | I'm bringing six of my Muslim friends with me
00:07:22.140 | so I know that the gospel is being heard
00:07:26.320 | by the local Muslim people.
00:07:29.220 | And one other observation maybe,
00:07:31.800 | I was just so thrilled with the kind of vision
00:07:35.780 | that some church planters and pastors have,
00:07:40.020 | in Dubai in particular, but across the Emirates.
00:07:43.300 | I'm thankful for John Fulmer.
00:07:45.100 | What an inspiration he was to me.
00:07:46.420 | He's the pastor, or one of the pastors,
00:07:48.260 | at the UCCD, United Christian Church of Dubai.
00:07:52.180 | And that church has had a reformation,
00:07:55.220 | a theological transformation in the last nine years
00:07:57.660 | and then he's had a vision for filling the region
00:08:00.500 | with gospel preaching churches.
00:08:02.600 | So they planted a church across town called Redeemer.
00:08:05.560 | They planted a church in Ras Al Khaimah
00:08:09.560 | and a fourth church in a nearby Emirates.
00:08:12.540 | So there's a vision for filling the region
00:08:16.600 | with gospel preaching churches.
00:08:18.500 | And in those churches are the most diverse gatherings
00:08:22.540 | of people that I've ever preached to.
00:08:24.020 | I preached in two churches there
00:08:26.480 | and both of them had between 60 and 70 different nations
00:08:31.480 | in the service.
00:08:33.500 | And those people then work here for a season.
00:08:36.780 | Many of them go back to their countries
00:08:38.920 | and all those people work hand in glove, usually,
00:08:43.920 | with local Muslim Emirates.
00:08:48.840 | And if you go to joshuaproject.net,
00:08:51.720 | there are 28 Muslim peoples
00:08:54.920 | that are engaged in that region.
00:08:57.640 | And this is at least one remarkable way of reaching them.
00:09:01.840 | So the trip, Tony, was just incredibly encouraging to me
00:09:05.180 | at what God is doing there
00:09:06.360 | and was an education about the Middle East affairs
00:09:09.040 | that I hadn't realized.
00:09:10.560 | And it just caused me to assess my own life
00:09:13.660 | and wanna throw it out to everyone else.
00:09:16.160 | One of the missionaries we've had there
00:09:17.240 | for almost 20 years said,
00:09:18.480 | "John, if you can just find me people
00:09:21.720 | "who would need to be men, in this case,
00:09:23.820 | "men who have been in their careers in engineering
00:09:27.440 | "for five years and have them send me their CVs,
00:09:30.500 | "I can put them to work here teaching engineering
00:09:33.560 | "in a school and they would have contact
00:09:36.480 | "with Muslim students every day."
00:09:39.100 | - That's wonderful.
00:09:40.280 | It sounds like the trip was wonderfully productive
00:09:42.560 | and how providential that the cross-conference
00:09:45.800 | on missions is right around the corner.
00:09:47.440 | - Well, it's interesting that the Lord would ordain
00:09:49.440 | that I spend three weeks overseas
00:09:51.400 | just a few weeks before the cross-conference
00:09:53.320 | because my sense of its strategic importance
00:09:58.320 | has skyrocketed.
00:10:02.580 | I mean, in principle, I always know
00:10:05.020 | that when you gather students together,
00:10:07.280 | historic, you have a tinderbox of potential
00:10:11.680 | for explosive world impact
00:10:14.460 | because God in the last several centuries at least
00:10:17.680 | has done amazing things through students
00:10:20.080 | when they've gathered together for mission deliberation
00:10:25.080 | and agitation and education and outreach.
00:10:29.000 | And so it's always been high,
00:10:32.000 | but having seen what God is doing in just one little pocket,
00:10:37.000 | I mean, if you went to different places,
00:10:39.040 | you'd have the same thing happen,
00:10:40.800 | makes me want to hold out to students
00:10:43.920 | a possibility of dreaming a dream in missions.
00:10:48.960 | I sat beside the leader of SIM, I believe, in Ethiopia
00:10:53.960 | and asked him, "What could I do in my last 10 years,
00:11:02.520 | say, if God gives me 10 years,
00:11:04.840 | what could I do that would help you?"
00:11:07.480 | And he thought for a minute and he said three things.
00:11:13.040 | I'll just mention one.
00:11:14.320 | He said, "Send us, if you can,
00:11:18.640 | missionaries with lifetime commitment.
00:11:24.460 | It's hard to accomplish long-term goals
00:11:27.760 | with short-term commitment."
00:11:30.120 | So one of my dreams, Tony, for the Cross Conference
00:11:32.840 | is to hold up the beauty of a life laid down
00:11:37.840 | and poured out in a place for Jesus.
00:11:43.120 | I think the mentality for the past decades
00:11:47.440 | has been that in America,
00:11:49.200 | everybody will have five different vocations.
00:11:51.760 | We're all very mobile.
00:11:52.920 | There's nothing wrong with that.
00:11:53.880 | It's a good thing.
00:11:55.160 | Moving along, and there's nothing,
00:11:57.280 | there isn't anything intrinsically wrong with it.
00:11:59.920 | But what it does is minimize the beauty and the power
00:12:04.920 | and the beauty of staying at something.
00:12:09.280 | And in missions, it takes a long time to learn a language.
00:12:14.280 | It takes a long time to be at home in a culture.
00:12:17.440 | It takes a long time to win trust.
00:12:19.720 | It takes a long time to see things strategically
00:12:22.000 | from inside another world.
00:12:24.160 | And if you go there with the sense of,
00:12:25.520 | "Oh, I'll give a couple of years
00:12:26.640 | and then I'll be off to do another thing,"
00:12:28.920 | it's not the same.
00:12:30.160 | And so that's one of the excitements I have
00:12:32.480 | is that maybe God would be pleased in our day
00:12:35.680 | to turn that whole mindset around
00:12:37.720 | so that young people could start to say,
00:12:40.840 | "It is a beautiful thing.
00:12:42.400 | It is something I really aspire to,
00:12:44.520 | to lay down my life and give myself in one place,
00:12:48.040 | to one people for one great, glorious, eternal cause."
00:12:53.040 | - Yes, amen.
00:12:54.560 | And speaking of the Cross Conference,
00:12:55.960 | it all begins on December 27th in Louisville, Kentucky.
00:12:58.800 | And for more information about the conference online,
00:13:00.600 | you'll wanna check out the website at crosscon.com,
00:13:03.920 | crosscon.com, C-R-O-S-S-C-O-N.com.
00:13:08.400 | I'm your host, Tony Ranke.
00:13:09.320 | Thanks for listening.
00:13:10.400 | (upbeat music)
00:13:12.980 | (upbeat music)
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