All right, let's stand together. It's a privilege to be here. A few men at this conference. My job is to just accompany you for a number of the sessions as we sing the praises of our great King. In my church, sometimes we get a little rowdy, and since I'm leading, it's okay.

While I'm leading, because Jesus is worthy. Psalm 67 begins. May God be gracious to us and bless us and make his face to shine upon us. That your way may be known on earth, your saving power among all nations. Let the peoples praise you, O God. Let all the peoples praise you.

I love Abner's message. So many things about it. But at the beginning, this psalm sounds like we're just saying, Lord, just bless us, make us happy. Just make us do good things for us. But that's not what the psalmist is saying. Make your face to shine upon us, that your way may be known on earth.

Your saving power among all nations. Let all the peoples praise you, O God. Let all the peoples praise you. And we know that's not a prayer that God will not hear, because, as Abner reminded us, the results are decided. We know the battle will be won, and the gospel will go to the ends of the earth.

And what a joy to be a part of that. Jesus shall reign forever, son. God's intercessive journey's won. His kingdom spread from shore to shore. Yes, it will. Till we shall last and be no more. To him. To him shall endless praise be given, and endless praises crown his head.

His name, my sweet cherubim, shall rise with every morning's sacrifice. He holds the crowns of every tongue well on his love with sweetest song. And infant voices shall proclaim their early blessings on his name. Let every creature rise and bring honor and glory to our King. Angels descend with songs again.

And earth repeat the loud amen. Dwell on his love with sweetest song. Let's do that now. (SINGING) We know the deep, deep love of Jesus, as a measure boundless free, rolling as a mighty ocean in his fullness over me. Underneath me, all around me is the current of your love, leading onward, leading onward to your glorious rest above.

Oh, the deep, deep love, all I need and trust is the deep, deep love of Jesus. Oh, the deep, deep love of Jesus, stretching waves from shore to shore. How he came to pay our ransom through the saving cross he bore. How he washes o'er his loved ones, those he died to make his own.

For when he's interceding, pleading now before the throne. Oh, the deep, deep love, all I need and trust is the deep, deep love of Jesus. (SINGING) Oh, the deep, deep love of Jesus-- --are surpassing all the rest. It's an ocean full of blessing in the midst of every test.

Oh, the deep, deep love of Jesus, mighty Savior and friend. You will bring us all to glory where your love could never end. Never end. And oh, the deep, deep love, all I need and trust is the deep, deep love of Jesus. Oh, the deep, deep love. Oh, the deep, deep love, all I need and trust is the deep, deep love of Jesus.

It's a love like no other. This is how Paul talked about it in 2 Corinthians 5, verse 14. For the love of Christ controls us. Because we've concluded this, that one has died for all, therefore all have died. And he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves, but for him who for their sake died and was raised.

It's not manipulation that controls us. It's not guilt that controls us. It's not pressure that controls us. It's not a sense of our own importance that controls us. It's not a desire to do great things for God that controls us. It's nothing about us. It's the love of Christ.

And brothers, I pray that during this conference, our love for Jesus Christ grows to heights and depths we didn't think were possible because he's the king. We go back to our churches with that love in our hearts so we can sing together, "O Church Arise." O church, arise and put your armor on.

Give all the Christ our captain. For now we can say that they are strong in the strength that God has given. Let's still the faith and know the truth. Let's stand against the devil's lies. Let an army roll. Let's battle Christ's love. Reach out to those in darkness. Our call to war, to love a happy soul, to praise the grace of God the Lord.

And when the storm that makes the wounded whole, we will fight with faith and valor. And face the trials on every side. We know the outcome is secure. And Christ will have the price for which he died, the inheritance of nations. We'll see the cross, where love and mercy meet, as the Son of God is stricken.

Then the sea is closed by a crush beneath his feet, for the Comforter has risen. And as the stone is rolled away, and Christ emerges from the grave, his safe remarks, kept in which till the day, every eye and heart shall see him. So Spirit of God, your strength in every strife, give grace for every hurdle that we may run.

With faith to win the prize, a servant good and faithful, as saints of old still line the way, retelling triumphs of his grace. We fear the cost, and how we're for the day, when with Christ we stand equal. As saints of old, as saints of old still line the way, retelling triumphs of his grace.

We fear the cost, and hunger for the day, when with Christ we stand in glory. Lord, one day we will stand with you in glory, and it will be all because of your grace, as you receive the praise and the honor that you alone are due. Thank you that we can, by your spirit, give that to you now.

Amen. Let's take our seats. There you are. Well, in some ways, I feel like we could all go home. That was a real blessing for me, brother, and for many. And I do pray that the riches of this opening address may be with us for a long time. As you were speaking, I was thinking of Samuel Rutherford, who was once asked the question, what are the two favorite things in your life?

And he said, Christ, and preaching Christ to the salvation of souls. I was thinking of Sinclair Ferguson also, who used to tell us at Westminster in his lectures, spend the best energies of your life knowing Christ, loving Christ, preaching Christ, and then go do the work of an evangelist.

It's out of the love of Christ that we really are constrained to be faithful in evangelizing and doing missions, not just to the nations out there, but bringing the nations to us as well, as we see in an audience like this or in various seminaries. It's a wonderful thing to live in our day when we have so many opportunities to really do evangelism and missions, whether it's on an airplane, whether it's going to a conference in a far country, whether it's actually serving in another country, whether it's the countries coming to us.

It's a small world today. And by the grace of God, we have opportunities that our forefathers never had, many of them. So we need to do the work of an evangelist, looking to Jesus, the author and the finisher of our faith. Turn with me, please, to Matthew 28, 18 through 20.

Abner also gave a wonderful introduction to my text this morning. Matthew 28, 18 through 20, the Great Commission. And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. 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 you.

And, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. Let's pray. Lord God, Thou art astonishingly wonderful and beautiful and glorious and altogether lovely, kind and holy, just and merciful. And we pray that Thou wilt be extolled by every address in this conference. Thy name lifted up, our souls encouraged, that we may experience at this conference He, Jesus, must increase and we must decrease, and that the wonder of the gospel may be increasingly astonishing, increasingly amazing grace to us all our lifetime, so that the longer we serve as ministers of the gospel, the more we would be astonished that Thou wilt use us as ambassadors for the Lord Jesus Christ.

Humble us, Lord, and help us to live out of Thy promises, also this triple promise of the Great Commission. Bless us now and use this promise in its threefold dimension to encourage us to go out and do the work of an evangelist. We ask Thy benediction upon us and upon every pastor here.

Lord, no matter what our troubles, our trials may be, may we look to Jesus and may we experience that He is more than sufficient for our every need, for Thou dost do exceeding abundantly above all that we could ask or think. And for that, we praise Thy thrice holy name.

In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Well, these verses, obviously, are the concluding verses of the Gospel of Matthew. And just like the end of a sermon is often its most important part, so the end of a book, a gospel, is critical to understand the whole gospel. And it goes without saying, I trust, that everything Matthew's been doing has been leading up to these concluding words.

All 28 chapters have been filling and animating these final sentences. And they give these sentences this triple promise, its force and its glory. And so, no wonder these are very famous verses called the Great Commission. Because in them, Jesus is not only charging His motley group of 11 to go out and win the world for Christ by the grace of Christ, but He's also speaking by extension to us today and peculiarly so to ministers of the gospel.

So, Matthew wants this Great Commission to be sounding and resounding in our ears as his gospel closes. He wants to show us what it means. He wants to fill us with the weight, the glory, the promise, the beauty of the exalted and faithful Jesus who sends His ministers out into the world to do this wonderful work of baptizing, teaching all nations, making disciples by the grace of God for His name and for His glory.

So, Jesus is giving this Great Commission at a pivotal moment in redemptive history. The long-anticipated Messiah has come. The end of the history remains to be consummated, but the gospel must be preached to all the nations before He returns in judgment and glory. So, the disciples find themselves here on the cusp of an exciting new epoch in redemptive history.

Before Christ ascends to heaven, He instructs them about the mission of the church, and they see Him in His glorious resurrected body commissioning them as the exalted King of kings and Lord of lords to go forth and to bring the gospel to all the nations. So, our theme in this address is, "Go ye, therefore, evangelizing the nations." We could subtitle it "Christ's Triple Promise," a promise of divine authority, promise of divine delegation, and a promise of divine assurance of His presence.

Authority, delegation, assurance. We already heard a fair bit about His divine authority from this text, but notice in this verse that the church has the authority, the responsibility, the right, the warrant to spread the gospel because she receives this authority from the radiant, majestic, glorious Lord of glory who has supreme authority over the universe.

He says, "All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth." Today, of course, many people resist authority. They resent authority. But as heralds of the King of kings, we must declare the authoritative message of the King no matter the cost. And God is King through His Son.

Man is not. We are neither sovereign nor authoritative in ourselves, but we are heralds of God's truth. Our business is only to state what God has stated in His holy word. That's why Martin Luther once said, "As soon as I start preaching my own word and not the words of Jesus recorded in the scriptures, you have every right to stand up and walk out of here because I really have nothing to say." Divine authority stands behind this great commission.

And the beauty of this is that it's the King who's giving this authority, this promise of authority entrusted to them to go forth in His name. That's the foundation of the great commission. Now, the disciples had been used to seeing Jesus, of course, for three years in His seminary where He was training the 12.

They had been used to seeing Him in His humiliation, suffering, in agony at times, needing to be alone, needing to pray, needing to groan to His Father, bearing the sins of His people upon His shoulders, upon His heart. But you see, now He's risen from the dead. Now He's coming to them as the King, the King who has entered His kingdom, the King who's been rejected on every side but now sits enthroned over all the heaven and all the earth.

The King with no rivals. He owns everything. He is Lord of all heaven and earth and even hell by extension. He rules over Satan. He rules over men and women. He rules over, in His providence, every detail in your life and in mine. And so they see Him, and they receive this promise of delegated authority as the King of kings, as the one who has all authority in heaven and on earth.

And that's an allusion, isn't it, to Genesis 1.1, Jesus referencing both the highest part of creation, heaven, and the lowest part of creation, earth, to designate the entire universe, the entire created order. So as we heard last hour, while the first Adam tragically failed to exercise His authority over creation, the second Adam was victorious and now rules over the universe and tells His disciples, "Go everywhere and tell the wonderful news that I govern heaven and earth." So as the Father sends His Son, so the Son now sends His disciples.

The commission for the disciples to go out comes from the Father, through the Son, by the power of the Holy Spirit, giving them grace to do so. It's a Trinitarian authority in essence. It flows from the Father to Christ, from Christ to the head, to His body, the church, but is carried out by the Holy Spirit, whom He will soon send down to give them the strength, the energy, the power, the wisdom, the insight to go out and declare the name of Christ.

So dear brother, you have the warrant, you have the right, you have the responsibility to be the herald of the King of kings, to proclaim His kingdom to the world, to invite, yes more, to command men and women, teenagers, boys and girls, to repent from their sins and to believe the gospel, the gospel of Jesus Christ alone, unto salvation.

There's no more important vocatio in all the world than that. When I was called to the ministry at 16 years of age, my dad, who had been a ruling elder in the church for 40 years, started to talk to me often about the ministry, but I still remember what he said to me, more than on one occasion.

He said, "Remember, if God ever brings you "into ministry to proclaim the name of Christ, "you have a vocation more important "than living in the White House, "because the White House "deals with the secular needs, "the physical needs of the citizens, "but you will be dealing with their spiritual needs "that makes an eternity of difference." So we have an authority, we have a right, we have an amazing calling.

There's a 19th century pastor by the name of Pison, and he said this. He said, "Sometimes I just sit in my study "and I just clap my hands." I said, "How is it possible? "How is it possible "that the God of the universe, "the Christ of heaven and earth, "how is it possible he could call me, sinful me, "to proclaim his name to the nations?" It's unbelievable.

Who am I? Who are you? This is more fit for angels' work, not for sinful men. It pleases God to use sinful men like you and me to spread his gospel and to bless it through the word of God. Astonishing. And then when you think about the universal scope of this authority, that he is now exalted at the Father's right hand, and he has authority to teach as a prophet through the Holy Spirit, moving his apostolic witnesses, moving his ministers today so that the very words preserved in the written word of scripture, we have the privilege of expounding, making them understandable, and telling people that nothing is impossible for Christ to do.

He has the authority to forgive sins, Luke 5, 24, to rule his church, Matthew 18, to grant eternal life to sinners, John 1, John 17, to strengthen the church in her weakness, 2 Corinthians 12. He has authority over nature, Mark 4, over political kingdoms, Psalm 2, over both the old and the new creation, 1 Corinthians 15 and Revelation 22.

No fragment of space or time evades his dominion over the universe. The gates of hell cannot prevail against his kingdom, and you and I have the privilege of being ambassadors of this glorious king. Praise God for this authority. Secondly, we have in this great commission not only a promise of divine authority, but a promise of divine delegation.

We see here that we must persevere because Christ has delegated his authority to make disciples to the church. So the great commission means that we are commanded to make disciples. "Go ye therefore," verse 19 begins. "Go ye therefore." You see, Christ's authority is the foundation of the apostles' commission.

We go out and make disciples because Christ's ascension, his reign, and his delegation promises us that this task will be successful. His word will not return to him void. Yes, there are many times we feel it will fail, as we heard in the last address, and that we comfort ourselves with the fact, don't we, that we've been faithful to his word, we've proclaimed his word, and it's a savior of death unto death as well as life unto life.

But there's also many other times where we witness by the amazing grace of God that going and making disciples is not only not optional for the church, it's required, and we are to lead the church in that and exemplify evangelization from the pope as we preach, as we pastor, as we counsel our people, we are teaching them consciously, subconsciously, how to evangelize.

But we're doing this all knowing that one day, surrounding the throne of the Lamb, we will meet people for whom God has used us and stewarded our resources in obedience to his command to usher in their salvation. What a phenomenal thing it is that we are co-laborers with the Holy Spirit for the salvation of souls, and that this gospel will be preached to the entire world before Christ returns.

Matthew 24. Mark's version is even more emphatic. Preach the gospel to every creature. Matthew 16, 15. So as the people of God, we have the privilege of being part of that magnificent enterprise. Again, as we heard last hour, God doesn't need us whatsoever, but he invites us, he invites us to participate in what he is doing in the world, something far bigger, far better, far greater than ourselves, something that will endure forever in eternal kingdom.

Now, as I get older, I'm sure those of you who are getting in the upper end of your years, you start thinking a lot more, don't you, about whatever you do, whatever you say, can it last beyond you? You start thinking about eternal consequences. You start thinking about how you use your time.

I want to use as much of my time as possible for things that can last to all eternity. And that means I want to really work at evangelizing, because if sinners are saved by the grace of God, you see, that lasts to all eternity. So all the other kind of stuff in the ministry that doesn't seem to last beyond our lifetime, I want to delegate out as much as possible, because I want to use everything the Lord has given me for eternity, for eternal consequences.

And that is underscored here by this command. Go forth, go forth. Go here actually means travel, depart, venture out, proceed on a journey to execute a command. Now, evangelism doesn't always mean going to another nation, although it may, physically, but it does mean that it requires preparation, which can be often uncomfortable, exhausting.

It means hard work, preparing messages based on the word of God, persevering in evangelism, searching, begging, crying out to the Lord for wisdom to speak to that unconverted person sitting next to you on an airplane or wherever you go. You're called to do the work of an evangelist. Whenever I would go on vacation, I had an old elder who would always, when he shaked my hand and wished me well, he was happy when we would have a week off, but he would always lean forward and he whispered in my ears, "Don't go incognito.

Remember, remember your master." You see, yes, when you're on vacation, wherever you are, you're looking for ways. You see, every unconverted person is a mission field, and you're looking for such people, and you don't bombard them rudely or belligerently, as we also heard last hour, but you do. You do find ways of talking to them, getting to know them, and what do you do for work, what's your family like, and how many kids you have, grandkids, and then before you know it, they'll say, "Well, what do you do for work?" Well, you tell them you're a minister of the gospel, and you say, "Are you a Christian?" As soon as they feel that you care about them, they'll open up.

85% of people sitting next to you on the airplane will open up. Maybe it's because of anonymity, I'm not sure, but you can get them to open up very easily, and you can talk to them about the Lord. So as a minister of the gospel, we don't only evangelize, we don't only have authority to go forth in our own church and make disciples, but it becomes our nature to think gospel, to speak gospel, to declare gospel wherever we go, both authoritatively from the pulpit and unofficially in private.

And so it should be our prayer. Every morning when we get up, shouldn't it? "Lord, please send someone my way today "that I can bring the gospel to them. "Open a door that I can share the gospel "with someone today." Now, that sharing of the gospel, Jesus says, is not just a going forth with my whole lifestyle, but it's also a making of disciples.

Go forth and teach all nations. The word teach here literally means to make disciples. And in biblical times, disciples were students of a wise master. They were like apprentices. Discipleship requires an attitude of humility because it's a lifestyle of submission to the master. So unlike vocational apprentices, or students merely seeking instruction, disciples were lifestyle students.

They trained to resemble their master, to imitate their master, to assimilate the teaching of their master. In other words, true discipleship, Jesus is saying, is inseparable from submission to all my words. And so we're to teach Christ. We're to teach his word. Contrary to other forms of discipleship, Christ calls us to view him, not merely as a way of life, or a guide to life, but as life itself.

As life itself. So discipleship involves taking the yoke of the master, which is easy and light compared to what he bore, and disciples are then bound together with their master and are identified with him. And that's why, when we act like a minister of the gospel on the pulpit, but don't act in a corresponding manner in private with people, act in a way not befitting a minister, we are actually unraveling what we're doing on the pulpit.

Christ himself is the initiator in the disciple-master relationship, summoning us to discipleship through the call of the gospel, and then we are to go out and make disciples in his name and by the power of his spirit. So the goal of discipleship is not just for us to pass on intellectual knowledge to someone else, and not just for ourselves to know about Jesus intellectually, but the goal of discipleship is that we ourselves are with Jesus, and know Jesus experientially, internally, and love him, and that it oozes out from us, that the savor of Christ goes out from us, like it says of Paul, the smell of Christ was upon him.

I was really convicted when I read in Thomas Boston's diary that he made a resolution to the Lord, and here's what he said, "I make a holy resolve that by the grace of the spirit "I will leave the smell of Christ behind "in every preaching or pastoral duty, "but also in every relationship I have "with anyone in this world." To be a godly minister means to be conscious of the fact, not out of false, pietistic, negative motives, but out of true, pietistic, godly motives, "I want to leave the smell of Christ behind "wherever I go." Because making disciples isn't only about imparting knowledge to people.

It's not only talking about Jesus, but it's modeling him. It's showing who he is. By the way I talk, by the way I pray, prayer is a very important part of discipleship, especially as a pastor. You know, many people have a hard time praying, really a hard time praying.

God has gifted you with some words, and when you pastor people and you disciple them, don't close off that meeting with just some little short 30-second prayer as if, "Oh, we've got to pray at the end." No, pray earnestly. Pray through what you've talked about. Pray with compassion and passion, and that may well be the most important part of your visit.

That may be the most important part of your disciple-making, because they will be moved by your prayer to realize what they're missing and become jealous of it and seek the face of God. So disciple-making does not mean we call anyone to follow us, but instead we call them to become fellow disciples, and we point them to the person, the words, and the deeds of Jesus Christ as our Lord, but we do so in such a way that they can see the Lord in us.

Now that's a humbling thing, and we're all going to say we've come far short of that, but is it our passion, is it our goal, is it our longing that people can see Jesus Christ in us? Go ye forth and make disciples, and then baptize them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost.

The repetition of the connective and preposition in the original Greek makes the clause distributive-- in the name of the Father, the name of the Son, and the name of the Holy Ghost. And so the invocation of each name of the Trinity in baptism implies two things. First, it indicates that the one baptizing does so in the authority of the triune God, and second, it indicates that the one baptized does so upon profession of faith in the triune God.

So it's bookended, and both ends, by teaching, and through the invocation of the threefold name in baptism, we declare that the gospel is Trinitarian, and faith in the gospel must be a Trinitarian faith. We have a Trinitarian gospel, and we better have that in our preaching as well, or we have no gospel at all.

The triune God is the foundation of our salvation, willed by the Father, accomplished by the Son, applied by the Spirit. And so we teach with our words, we teach with our life, we teach with our prayers, we teach with our visits, we teach with our compassion, we teach even on those phone calls we make, asking people how they're doing and reminding them of certain texts, and they go search them out in the Bible, and often they're blessed, because the Word is powerful.

We spread the Word everywhere we go. Disciple. Make disciples. And then finally, this wonderful, great commission gives us the promise, the promise, of divine presence. "Lo," verse 20, "I am with you always, "even unto the end of the world." And notice it's in the emphatic tense in the Greek, isn't it?

"I Myself, I the Lord of glory, "I now the exalted Savior, "to whom all authority is given in heaven and earth, "who am going to now ascend into the heavens "and rule over the nations from the right hand of the Father." Daniel 7, 14. "I Myself am with you "as you go out in My name "to disciple the nations." Christ is present with us, with the Church, both in His divine omnipresence and in His communion with the Church through His Word by the Spirit, present with His people according to His divinity, as well as His humanity at the right hand of the Father.

And so what that means is He will never, no, never, no, never, Hebrews 13, forsake or leave us. So whatever we are going through at the present moment, whatever we don't understand, whatever we say, "Lord, this is confusion. "Why is this happening to me? "Why do I have to go through this trouble with this person?" Or, "Why did that family just leave the Church "and I only have a small church to begin with?" Or, "Why so much agony, so much trial, "so much emptying process "from vessel to vessel in the ministry?" The answer is, "What I do now, thou knowest not, "but thou shalt know hereafter.

"And all things work together for good "to them that love God." God wants to break you. God wants to weaken you. God wants to make you small in yourself, just a broken clay pot, so that He can get all the honor and glory through the ministry of His Word through you.

Because if you become something, it will go the wrong way. It will go the wrong way. We need to be humble, and God knows exactly how many afflictions to place upon us, how much our shoulders can bear. As the Puritan George Downing put it, "God doesn't measure afflictions He puts on us "by our desires, "but by the strength He gives us to bear." Have you ever noticed that most of the men of God who were greatly used in church history were also men that were sorely afflicted in one way or another?

You see, God afflicts His servants to make them exactly the kind of servants He wants them to be, and then He reassures them in all their need, "I will be with you. "I will be with you. "I will be with you. "My presence will never fail you." What you don't understand now, it's okay.

You'll understand it later. And how critical that is in our lives. I've been broken. I've been broken in ministry. You've been broken. And at the end of the day, we do have to say, don't we, it is good for us to have been afflicted. Because Christ is with us.

When are we closest to Him? When do we feel His presence the most? Most of the time when we are afflicted the most. "I will be with you. "Always. "Always. "Always." Now, it wasn't that God wasn't always with His people in Old Testament times, actually. He was always with His people from the beginning.

He was with Israel. He was dwelling in the tents of the tabernacle, residing in the temple. He was above them. He was beyond them. He was over them. But He was also with them. God is a God who is Emmanuel in Christ with us. In the very opening chapter of Matthew 1, Matthew said, "Emmanuel in the flesh "has come for this very purpose, "to be with us." But you see, now there's a difference.

Now it's bigger, fuller, richer, augmented, because now, now you see the radiant living King who stands before His disciples, Jesus Christ, in whom all the promises of God are eternally and irrevocably fulfilled, the God who has always been and always will be, the God who's borne the sins and put away sin of His people and risen from the dead and who's going to glory, this God says, "I will be with you forever in glory." Oh, what a faithful Jesus.

You know, the thief on the cross, just ask Jesus for one thought. Just remember me when you come into your kingdom. And what did Jesus say? "Verily, verily, I say unto thee, "today thou shalt be with me in paradise." Thou with me. You with me. That's the essence of what every Christian desires, and that's the essence of what every minister ought to desire.

That's fulfilling beyond anything else. Thou with me, this morning when I get up. Thou with me when I preach on the Lord's Day. Thou with me when I'm in a struggle with some member of the church who's being very belligerent. Thou with me in family difficulties. Thou with me in heartaches, in sickness, in health.

I will be with you always. Be faithful to my word. Go make disciples, and I will be with you always. Heidelberg Catechism puts it so well when it asks the question, "But what benefits do I receive from him going into heaven? "He'll be so far away." And it says, "Oh, no, no, no.

"With respect to his Godhead, his majesty, "his grace, and his spirit." Four things. "He is at no time absent from us." No time absent from us. What a delight it is to know that he's here with us now. That we seek no favor but his favor now. That we have no joy except in doing his will now.

Only redeemed humanity enjoys this blissful presence of God. When I evangelize people, I love to tell them that. I love to say to them, "You know, I've had the privilege of meeting tens of thousands, "hundreds of thousands of children of God "all around this globe, "and I've never met a single one "who was sorry they were a Christian, "who was sorry they spent so much time in the Bible, "who was sorry they spent so much time in prayer, "who was sorry they spent so much time "evangelizing someone else." You're missing the purpose of life, my friend.

You're missing the joy of a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, who's always with his people. Jesus Christ is at no time absent from you, dear brother, even when your faith does not actively grasp him. Even in your darkest hours, he's beside you. Like Robert Murray McShane said, "How would you pray differently "if when you bent your knees, "you knew that Jesus was standing right beside you?" His answer was, "He is standing right beside you.

"He's omnipresent. He's right there. "He's right there. "He's at no time absent from you." So the church can move ahead. You as a minister can move ahead in your work with great confidence, for all the powers of darkness cannot destroy the church. Church is the only institution that's survived for thousands of years, and it will go on to the end, because the Lord of heaven and earth, the one to whom all authority is given, the resurrected King of glory, the beautiful Lord of lords, is with you.

Now, that assurance of his presence is also a promise of enduring presence, even unto the end of the world, or as the Greek has it more accurately, all the days unto the consummation of the age. Do you notice in this text the fourfold all? What God is, God is all of what he is.

Notice that Christ first possesses all authority in the world. For this reason, the church must disciple all the nations by baptizing and teaching them to observe all the things that Christ has commanded, and he will be with us all the days unto the end of time itself. What does that teach us?

Well, the four uses of the word all teach us that the Great Commission is a time-spanning, globe-straddling project of comprehensive disciple-making that will keep the church busy and blessed until the Lord returns. So Christ declared that his presence would endure with his church until the consummation of the age.

So we live, yes we live in the now, not yet, we live in the overlapping of two ages, but we're soon going to experience, sooner maybe than we think, the age to come where we will be with Christ and he will be all and in all, and we will glory in his fullness.

We will be spiritual brides of the Lord Jesus Christ and have intimate communion with him beyond the intimacy of a man and his wife. Not physical, spiritual. There'll be a oneness with Christ that we will consciously experience in glory that will go beyond our comprehension. And so we wait eagerly for that day.

We long for that day to come where the church will be one multitude, where the promise will be fulfilled that all the church given to him will be gathered together, all the elect. Not one chair in heaven will be empty. Every place is reserved. Everyone will be brought there and all good will be walled in and all evil will be walled out.

And heaven, as Jonathan Edwards said in that famous sermon, will be a perfect world of perfect love. So brother, when you're discouraged in the ministry, remember your future. Remember the assurance of Christ's promise. He'll be with you always through the trial but also to the end and into everlasting glory where he will be all and in all and where you will be, by the grace of God, as holy as he is holy and where you'll never have to take your eyes off of him and you'll never be ashamed of him.

He'll never be ashamed of you. You will love him perfectly and he will love you perfectly. You know, speaking of Samuel Rutherford, he has this famous letter to a friend where he says, "Here on this earth, "we often get only glimpses and glances "and blinks of Christ "because we're so often drawn away "to other secular concerns.

"But there in heaven, "he will be all the focus "and you and your loved ones "and people from your church "will all recognize one another in heaven. "We will not be focusing on each other "but we will be focusing on him. "But our joy will be multiplied "as you will focus upon him "even with those you've ministered unto." You know why I keep thinking of Rutherford, but Rutherford said, "For other souls from Anwerth with me, "from my pastorate with me in heaven "will make heaven a double heaven for me.

"What joy, what joy "to worship the lamb forever "with those with whom you've been bounded "with spiritual bonds here on earth. "I will be with you always "even to the end "and then forever. "Christ will be all and in all." You know, here in this life, we just, we want to know Christ better, don't we?

We want to know so much more about him. We want to experience so much more of him. But we're so often hampered by so many distractions. "But there I will gaze upon him," Revelation 19 says. "Gaze upon him "and never have to look away again." The altogether lovely one.

Had a couple students walk into my study one day from Nigeria, a few years back now. And one was a third year student, the other had just arrived the day before. And he came to introduce him to me. And as he introduced him, he noticed, and I noticed, that the new student just kind of looked at me like this.

He just, he couldn't stop and look at me. And the older student said, "No, no, no." He said, "You've got things all wrong here." He said, "In Nigeria, it's an insult "to look your teacher too long in the face. "But in America, it's an insult "not to look him in the face." And so then the poor guy tried to look at me a little longer.

And was like... But isn't that the way you often feel? Oh, that I could just gaze upon him. Be enamored with him. And grow in him. Well, one day, it will happen. More and more, and more and more. As John Howell said, "Tis cumulative glory "to be with Christ forever." So if you have this bottle of water and you had a bottle that had twice the capacity, see, in heaven, both will be totally full.

Your cup will run over. But the capacity of knowing Christ and growing in Christ and delighting in the beauty of Christ and communing with Christ and relishing Christ and living Christ will just keep growing and growing. Forever. And it will never end. So this little mere life, this little short life, is just the beginning of everlasting glory of the fullness of Christ.

So do the work of an evangelist. Press on, live for him. And know, too, as Paul says, in fact, the New Testament says 13 times that God's faithful servants, ministers of the gospel in particular, will receive a reward for their labor, a gracious reward, on that great day and for all eternity.

What a wonderful thing. His presence is everything. No matter what he sends my way, if I can commune with him in it, it is well with my soul. What a promise. So we take this triple promise and we use it, divine authority, divine delegation, divine presence, as we go out and evangelize.

And how do we do that then? And so what I want to do in my remarks now, as I draw to some applications in closing, I want to look with you half at this address and then half tomorrow evening when I address you on the role of the Holy Spirit in evangelism.

I want to look at some practical ways that we evangelize to the nations through our own ministries and through other ways to reach out and how we can stir up our churches also to take on some of these ideas. And many of them you know very well, but maybe some of them you haven't thought of in terms of, well, this is evangelization.

Let me just give you a few of the typical ones today, traditional approaches, and then tomorrow night I want to do some more of the modern approaches very briefly. So first of all is a church-based evangelism where you go out and make disciples through the church. That begins with public worship, doesn't it?

Actually, every sermon we preach in one way or another should have evangelistic notes in it. Now, of course, if the text is more evangelistic than usual, the bulk of the sermon will be evangelistic. But we just don't assume that everyone in our church is saved, that all the boys and girls are saved, that all the adults are saved.

We preach in a discriminatory way, in an evangelistic way, we distinguish the precious from the vile, we teach people how the Holy Spirit converts sinners, and we teach people the necessity of repentance and faith in Christ. So preaching is a primary tool for evangelism, for going out and making disciples.

Most people who've been saved have been saved in world history through preaching. This is the most common way. And so we need to realize that we're not just, we're doing that, of course, but we're not just comforting God's people in our sermons, we're also reaching the unsaved, and even as we do that, even as we preach evangelistically, we're also stirring up God's own people to examine themselves and become more and more assured, "Yes, I do have some of those fruits of the Spirit "the Bible speaks about.

"By their fruits ye shall know them." And then, of course, you need to spearhead in your church support for mission work all around the world, financial support, prayer support, encouragement support. You need to talk about the Great Commission, and you need to talk to perhaps a young man who really feels called to ministry about, "Well, don't you perhaps feel to go out "and to bring the gospel to unreached people groups?" You may suggest those things as a minister to, now God has to confirm it, but there should be an eagerness, there should be a zeal in our ministry that is conveyed to our people, "Go ye forth, therefore, and bring the gospel." And then there should be all kinds of evangelistic community outreaches, whether it's a free conference, whether it's a vacation Bible school, whether it's a periodical you spread out in the neighborhood, whether you send men to preach at a homeless shelter or a soup kitchen or a nursing home or prisons or juvenile detention facilities or nursing homes.

Make use of all the opportunities from within your church to go out and bring the gospel to your community. And door to door. I don't know if that's possible in every area, but door to door was a New Testament way of spreading the gospel with a couple people going and having materials with you and just speaking to people from heart to heart, mind to mind.

Sunday school evangelism. In our church, we modeled it after the MetTab Sunday school program in London, England, and what a blessing. A couple thousand children have gone through our Sunday school program over the years, and some of them have been saved. Many not so. It's not easy work. 85% of them come from broken homes and many of them are not well-behaved.

But when you have a Sunday school program and you bring children into the church, young children, with proper permission from their parents, signed statements, everything done in a very orderly way, and you bring them the gospel, it will also be rewarding for your own people. It will bond your own people together in the gospel faith as they minister together to the children of the neighborhood.

And who can tell? Eternity will reveal what it will do. And then there's open air evangelism. There are many places you can still preach in many countries today. In the open air, people can hear you and you can have people help you, handing out things, talking with people. Who can tell what the Lord will do?

And a big one in my life is travel evangelism because I'm playing so often. And I had a fellow professor in Grand Rapids who told me, he was an elderly man at the time, when I was in my 30s, and he said, "Wherever I go, wherever I go, "be it a bus, a train, a plane, "or wherever I meet people, "if I sit next to someone, "no matter how busy I am, "I have a holy resolution with God.

"I will try to evangelize that person." It's astonishing. It is astonishing when you make that effort. And the first few times, you feel a bit awkward, perhaps. But as you learn how to engage people in conversation more effectively and then move it over into, "Well, what do you believe?" Or, "What church do you go to?" "Well, I don't go to church." But you talk to them about the Lord and what he means to you and what the Word of God means and what a blessing it is to have a guide for life and what I do on planes is I almost always, not every time, but where there's an opening, I will send them books in the mail afterward, free of charge.

And even if they don't want to read them, they promised me on the spot they'll read them, so I send them. You never know what it will do. Never know what it will do. And I could tell you many stories of things that it did do and, of course, many abject failures, and I'm on my part as well, even though, as I was reassured last hour, that it's not really a failure.

When you get rejected, it's really them rejecting the Lord. But there's one time in your life you're sitting next to that person. There's one more soul that's not saved, most likely. You've got to talk to them. That's your responsibility. Go forth, everywhere you go, proclaiming the gospel. And then there's media-based evangelism, be it through tracts, and I would suggest when you give out tracts, don't just hand them out like they used to do in ages past, but try to talk with the people you hand them out to.

Try to build a relationship. That's more effective in general than the other way. Radio, internet evangelism. There are so many possibilities for your church to get involved, or just even putting your sermons in your church on Sermon Audio or some other place where they can be listened to by hundreds or even thousands, who can tell what the Lord will do.

So use these forms of evangelism and whatever other ones you come up with, and then tomorrow I'm going to talk to you about some more personal forms of evangelism and community forms as well. So go forth and preach the gospel. Go forth and share the gospel. Go forth in every area of your life and ask, "How can I reach as many people as possible "with the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ, "to his glory and their salvation good?" I'm going to pray, and then I'm going to just talk to you about books for just a few minutes.

Great God of heaven, please bless this talk and do grant, Lord, that we would go forth as evangelists, do the work of an evangelist, according to thy divine promise, according to thy divine delegation, and according to thy precious divine presence. Help us to truly be ambassadors for Christ 24/7, to never fail to bring the gospel when opportunities avail us.

And humble us beneath this gospel and beneath the calling we have to be gospel bringers, gospel sharers, gospel declarers, gospel preachers, wherever possible. Help us to be faithful even unto death. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. Well, you know, under the tent out there, there are a number of wonderful books.

I wanted to mention just a couple of them to you that are evangelistic and helpful. One is "Turn and Live," "Turn and Live," by Nathaniel Vincent. This is a Puritan. It's in a group of books called "Puritan Treasures for Today," PTT. And we're doing 200 of these for Reformation Heritage Books, and the goal is to have them translated in the world's 25 top languages, and then we're going to distribute them free in all these different countries and languages.

And obviously we're raising donations for this task, but we're also editing each one of these Puritan titles so that a 13 or 14-year-old could read them. Every antiquated word is replaced with a modern equivalent. So gone are the days, forever gone are the days when people say, "I can't read the Puritans." 16 of these.

16 of these are now available. You can find them in the tent. There's a special price if you buy all 16. You'll love them, but they're just short books, 50 to 150 pages. They're in all different subjects. "Triumphing Over Sinful Fear" by John Flavel. "The Blessed Redeemer" by William Perkins is the last one.

They are so rich and yet so simple and so evangelistic that I recommend them to you. "The Gospel of Jesus Christ" by Paul Washer. This is just a wonderful booklet on what the gospel is. Longer than a track, I think it's about 25 pages, and it just gives you the basics.

And we sell these in packages of 10 and give them out to your church, put them in your church vestibule. God's used them mightily. Over 2 million of these have been printed and spread. And then for you as a minister, "The Complete Gathered Gold" compiled by John Blanchard. This came out a few weeks ago.

It's the best book of quotations, Reformed, Puritan, contemporary quotations, I believe has ever been on the market. And you're going to want to have that as a pastor to help you put more fizz in the coke of your sermons and be able to get a little more life in there.

And that will help you evangelistically as well. And then don't forget the Family Worship Bible Guide because that is a way to evangelize your own family. And we often forget that the most important part of evangelism is to start with our own household. And what this does, as a father, it gives you the two major takeaways with a question at the end of each of them from every single Bible chapter.

So when you read a chapter each day, and I hope you do family worship, then you just read these two paragraphs, ask these two questions, and it generates discussion. And by the time you get through the whole Bible in two, three years with this, you will have spoken to your children or your grandchildren about every subject under the sun because the Bible speaks about every subject under the sun.

So I call this the best evangelistic tool. It's by far our number one best-selling book, but the best evangelistic tool for the family. It will help you, Dad, Grandpa, Pastor, reaching out to people in your own family and your extended family. God bless you. Thank you so much. Speaking of books, you have a box of giveaway books for you for the conference.

You can pick them up anytime in the conference bookstore between Wednesday and Thursday from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m., and then Friday from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m., and the location is in the southeast corner of the book tent, just so you know. And also, speaking of books, not only are there books in the book tent, but also we have Grace Books, which is adjacent to the church office to my right, knowing that.

And as you're walking over there, you might notice that your shoes look shabby. It's very possible. And so we have a remedy for you about that. You can drop off your shoes to the new option that you have at the shoe-- let me say that quickly--shoe shine station, and that is you can drop off your shoes anytime or extra pairs of shoes that you might want shined on Thursday or Friday and pick them up by the end of the day, which is pretty amazing.

It comes with a new shoe travel bag and shoe inserts. So please refrain, however, from walking around barefoot. This is Southern California. I get that, but the '60s are way behind us. And also know that there is a seminar today at 1 o'clock in the Master Seminary Library titled "Called to Preach-- Discerning the Desire for Pastoral Ministry." For all of you or any of you that are interested, all other seminars will begin at 2 o'clock.

And here's the good part. Lunch today is Stonefire Grill, which means tri-tip. And so it's going to be a glorious time. Please refrain from eating or drinking inside the worship center or the chapel, and please avoid parking on Roscoe Boulevard, otherwise your car will be towed. Let me pray.

Father, allow these men to have a rich fellowship time together over this wonderful food, and allow their speech with one another to be filled with great gratitude, knowing Your Son stands right beside them. We ask this in Christ's name, amen.