It's great to be back at Illyria. Before we look into the Word, we want to take a trip, a very quick trip in the history, starting to see 50 years of ministry for God's glory. The Lord, for 50 years of ministry, for God's call to Italy, for a family who loves and follows God, for the opportunity to share the gospel in TV and radio, for humble beginnings with believers willing to sacrifice all, for the birth and growth of a local Baptist church, for a church building bought and remodeled for God's promises for the future. 50 years of preaching the word, beginning with the anchorman from Baptist Bible College of Pennsylvania, Clark Summit University. We first heard the challenge to serve God in Italy through a former baptism missionary to Italy, Bill Fusco. But we were married and were candidates for Liberia when the call to Italy came loud and clear. I thank God for Rachel, who shared my call to ministry in Italy at this time. We thank God for our family, a family that loves God. Jonathan, born in 1975, is now a co-pastor of the church we founded. The Whitmans, Noah, Jonathan, Melody, and Ava. Jeremy, born in 1978, is now a deacon in the church. The Whitmans, Francesca, Sophia, Giacomo, and Jeremy. Joshua, born in 1980, is now starting a church at Imola. The Whitmans, Josh and Sarah, Rebecca, Samuel, Naomi, Abigail, and Benjamin. Elizabeth, born in 1983, now the wife of Daniel Ransom, who also pastors the church. Here she is with her future sister-in-law, Francesca. The Ransoms, Daniel, Elizabeth, Christina, Elisa, Mark, Sarah, and Anna. We started all alone in 1975. We've preached the gospel in every possible way. Right when we began to get discouraged, God opened to us an incredible door, a daily gospel program in television. Since February 1979, our program, The Bible Today, has aired an average of twice daily. That is nearly 30,000 telecasts. In 1980, God provided finances to start Radio Luce. On June 30th, 2019, We were forced to close, partially due to the lack of $3,000 a month support. We praise God for many people who came to know Christ through Radio Luce in these nearly 40 years. Nearly half of our church came that way. After 10 years of ministry, we had our first two baptisms, one of which was Jonathan. Our children very early served in church with the music. Little by little, the church grew and after 33 years, our hall of 950 square feet was just too small. In 2004, our 20 members voted to buy a corner lot of 45,000 square feet with this 9,000 square feet building for $500,000. Miraculously, my bank offered us a $400,000 loan and many of God's people sent in gifts which enabled us to go forward by faith. Many brothers, Italian and foreign, came together to make a wonderful place of worship out of a sweater factory. On January 31, 2020, we made our last payment. Now that we have a lovely church building, we need to build up the Church of the Saints in number and in maturity in service for God's glory. We desire to be an army of God's servants that presses on in holiness and service. The preaching of the Word takes preeminence. There are many ways to grow and serve, but we must start with worship, Bible study, and prayer. We serve through our ministries, our Sunday School ministry, presenting the gospel to these littles, one by one, and together, growing and maturing in their faith. Then there's our summer day camp ministry. These are our most important investments for the future of our church. The theological academy is also of utmost importance in training our men for future ministry. The prison ministry currently in two prisons is demanding, but very rewarding. Three people have been trained to carry on in my absence. I will continue to help in my retirement. Our ministry to the elderly is also important. There are always shut-ins that need to be visited. We have an active hospital visitation ministry. We also have a soccer outreach ministry. and our latest ministry group plans for a new church in our province. This project is currently on hold as the church and pastor consider my status as Pastor Emeritus. We are committed to build a strong local church for which to branch out as the Lord leads in the future. Each person is a trophy of God's grace. Our congregation is half Italian and half from 15 nations of the world. With God's help, we will carry on until the Lord's return. Jesus may come today. Are you ready? Greetings from the next generation of missionaries to Italy. Thank you for your support. As you noticed, we made that presentation for our furlough, which was last year interrupted by COVID. So this is our 10th furlough part B. And it was interrupted this year by COVID as well. So we have to come back next year to finish up. So But God has been good. I want to just call your attention to the display table in the foyer. If you don't have one of our prayer cards, please pick one up. There's a brochure about the Christian History Tour, which you're not strangers to. You know all about it. But if you never experienced it, you don't know what you're missing. I have to say, I just found out from my tour agent that probably they will require the vaccine to come to Italy. And I know that the Vatican is already shut down for anybody who does not have the vaccine. So that's another concern of ours. But that's next October, a year from now. And there also is a sheet of paper. If you would like to receive our monthly prayer update by email, sign your name, address. Please write legibly. You know, an email address is much like the Bible. Jesus said, Not one jot or tittle will disappear from the law before it's all accomplished. And if we can't read a jot for a tittle, when we write these, type these in, we say, is that an I or is that a T? Is that a L? What is that letter? If we get it wrong, you will never hear from us. So please write legibly. And if you do that, please pick up one of these little pins. It's got Italy and America on it. And so it could be a prayer reminder for you to pray for the ministry in Italy. I just also wanted to mention tonight, I'm gonna be bringing a study, Reflections on 50 Years, What I Wish I Had Done Differently And what I would, I praise God that I think we did well as well. And it'll be an encouragement. I'm gonna challenge the young people. Children, I trust, will be here at the service tonight. I'll be playing a number for them on my funnel horn. And if you don't remember that from before, you need to come out and check that out as well. You're gonna say, what, this guy is so brave to preach a message. on the Great Commission in the church where Baptism in Mission was founded, okay? But that's where we're gonna go, Matthew 28. And we wanna consider our security in service for the Savior. As God calls us to serve Him, it's a wonderful thing. It's a wonderful thing to live in the security that we have. in serving Jesus. Now, speaking of things I would have done differently, one of the biggest mistakes I made as a young missionary on deputation, and I can't remember if they ever really told us about this at seminar, but they probably thought it was a no-brainer. I actually turned down support from your church. We were here for your fall mission conference in 1972, and after a couple weeks I got a letter from the mission saying, congratulations, you have reached your 100% minimal support. I said, okay, we're going, we're going to Italy. That next week, I got a phone call from Pastor Hall, Willis Hall. He was so excited. He said, Freddie, we voted to support you guys. I said, well, you know, to tell you the truth, we just got a letter that says we have 100% support, so give it to somebody else. I really did that. But praise God, you have been supporting Jonathan and his family and Daniel and Elizabeth as well. And we just praise God for you, for your involvement in the ministry. Well, what I want to talk to you about is some last words of Jesus. And I know all of us have probably had experiences of losing loved ones. and remembering those last treasured words that they said. In my family, we have a couple of wonderful cases. An aunt who died long before I was born, died of a locked jaw in the 30s, but as she was dying, my grandparents were in the room with her in the hospital, and she opened her eyes and she said, can't you hear the angels? It's so beautiful. and she went to be with the Savior. Some years later, my dad had just come back from, they always went to Florida, and a little side note, I put in my book this time, the new revision of it. By the way, if you would like a copy, they're not for sale, but if you wanna give a free will gift, you can do that. But my dad, while he was in Florida, he got a pacemaker put in his heart, And then they came home and they slept the first night in their house in New York State. And the second night, he woke up during the night and he said, he woke my mom and he said, honey, I'm going this time. Cause he'd had several heart attacks. He said, I'm going this time. I love you. And he was gone. Well, my brothers and sisters, when they were cleaning out the house, thankfully we were in Italy, so I didn't have to be involved with that. As they're cleaning out the house, they pull out this new mattress that's on their bed. They just bought it before they had gone down to Florida. On the mattress was a big caution. If you have pacemakers, do not sleep on this mattress. It has special magnets and stuff on it for your health. But anyways, that may be what the Lord used to take him home. But that was an interesting thought. But those last precious words are very important for our family. Honey, I love you. And think of the last words of our Savior as we see them here in Matthew 28. And they should be very important for each of us who know him and love him. I want to read from verse 16 in Matthew 28. Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. And when they saw him, they worshipped him, and some doubted, but some doubted. And Jesus came and said to them, All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always to the end of the age. Heavenly Father, I ask that these words, so well known by each of us, would penetrate our hearts once again. And you speak to us through your spirit, we pray. In Jesus' name, amen. As we read this portion, the first thing that strikes us, this is the 11. There had already been one defector. And you know, it's so sad in God's work, how many people get all enthused, get all excited, and believe me, in our years in Italy, we've seen 20 missionaries with our mission come and go for various reasons. But here they are, ready to receive this mandate to evangelize the world, and already, they're one less than had been chosen. First of all, we see our authority as we are sent out by God. Our authority. And this is a mission's message. But you know, each of us are missionaries. I remember the phrase here, either a missionary or a mission field. And we all have a responsibility if we know Christ. So we have authority. Jesus says, all authority is mine in heaven and in earth. I remember we went through some situations in Italy where they weren't going to renew our permission to stay. I can't imagine why. Well, as one policeman told me, he said, Fred, if you had just come to Italy and gone down a little alleyway and opened up a little hall and preached in that hall, no one would bother you. But you had to go and go on television, you had to go to the radio. You've done so many things that have disrupted things here in Italy. Well, as we were discussing my permission to stay, I said to him, sir, there are just two things that are very important for us to realize. He said, well, what might that be? I said, well, the first thing, there is an authority over me and over you. He says, well, that's true. He says, well, what's the second? I said, the second thing is I'm not leaving. OK? Well, praise God. He worked it out. And we actually now have our last permit that we got last year was for nine years. And I shocked the guy. I said, well, I hope I live that long. But anyways, praise God. So we're good. But Jesus here is giving authority. And I knew we had authority because we'd been sent there by God. It's always amazing for me to go like at the police station, the mayor, all these different places, and talk with people that weren't even born when we went to Italy. Really, we've been there so long. Well, by divine decree, you know, Jesus had said back in John 8, he said to his disciples, the Father has sent me. And then he says, the Father glorifies me, also in John 8. And then in John 20, 21, Jesus says, as the Father has sent me, so send I you. And so the authority that the Lord was received from the Father, he has given that authority to us as his children, as we take the gospel around the world by divine decree. So all authority, Jesus says, is mine. And then we read, going ahead, he says, go therefore make disciples of all nations. So we see that all nations are to be reached with the gospel. You know, they say historically that in the first century after Christ, the entire known world had been reached with the gospel. Think of these 11 apostles that were sent out All of them died as martyrs except the apostle John and he was immersed in boiling oil but survived that before he was sent to Patmos. But Thomas died in India and we could just put up a world map and see all the far out places where these apostles arrived with the gospel. The Lord said to the Jew first, and also to the Greek. In fact, if we read the book of Acts, where's the first place that Paul always went, or Peter, where did they go first? The synagogue. To see if there were people in that place who were truly seeking the Messiah. To the Jew first. Interesting, when Jesus appeared to, well, Peter, in telling him that he was going to have to open the doors to the Gentiles, that was a very scary thing. Because to that point, the Gentiles were like add-ons. They weren't really part of the program, it seemed. But the word came so clear, then when Cornelius, Italian, the Roman centurion, when he arrived, Peter was ready to receive him. and preached the gospel to him, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. And then he says, making disciples. It's interesting in this portion, the mandate is to go. Going, it says, literally, going, as you go. And he didn't doubt the fact that they would go. People say, well, I have been called to go. I have been called to be a missionary. Well, have you been called to stay here and do your job? I trust you have. And praise God for all the laymen, the work in America, being a testimony for the Lord and supporting others who can go. But we as believers need to know that what we're doing with our life is exactly what God has called us to do. As you go, he says to his apostles, make disciples, make disciples. Several years ago in our church in Italy, I said, I'm no longer gonna use the word believers. Now the New Testament does talk about people who believed. I think there's only one case where he used the word believers. But there are so many people who claim to be believers. But you need to find out what they really believe and what they're doing with their lives. But here he talks about making disciples. Disciples. A disciple follows his master. A disciple obeys his master. And it's easy to say, I want to follow Jesus. Well, do you really want to follow Jesus? The first step of obedience of a follower of Jesus is what? Baptism. Believer's baptism. Well, I believe in Jesus, but I don't really want to get in that water. Well, Jesus didn't give you that option. And here we see that, making disciples, and the first thing it says is baptizing them. It's interesting as we look at the text of this portion, baptizing, when the scholars the Anglican scholars, who baptized by sprinkling. When they were translating the King James Bible, they came to this word, baptizo. Well, they couldn't really translate it, immerse, because they don't do that. So they translated it, baptize. They made a new word, baptize, that can be used in a lot of different ways. Here, he says, baptizing them, immersing them. immersing them in the name of the Father, the Son of the Holy and the Holy Spirit. So, the first step of obedience of a believer, of a disciple of the Lord Jesus is going to be being baptized by immersion. I don't know, there may be someone here today, you've trusted Christ. You know you're saved. Well, you need to take that first step and be baptized by immersion and become a member of the local church. so you can serve. Baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. It's interesting, it says, the name. It doesn't say the names, plural. It's interesting, I dabbled a little bit in Hebrew enough to get dangerous, but the Jewish people, they refer to God as the name. They wouldn't pronounce Yahweh, Yahweh. They would not pronounce that word, that name. But they would refer to God as the name. And here Jesus says, baptized in the name of the Father and of the Son, the Holy Spirit. He'll receive the Trinity, three persons in one. And that is as we are identified with Christ. were identified with his death, burial, and resurrection. It's interesting, Paul, in 2 Corinthians 13, 14, he uses this triune benediction. He says, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit. Think about that. The grace. the Lord Jesus Christ Ephesians 2 8 9 4 by grace are you saved through faith faith not us yourselves is a gift of God not of worthless any man should boast the grace of God and then he says the love of God John 3 16 for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son day whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life and then the fellowship of the Holy Spirit. In John 14, Jesus talks about the fact that the Father would send the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit is who unites us in the faith. I hope you get a chance to visit our church. As you notice, we're a very mixed congregation, half Italian and half from the rest of the world. And it's interesting because the Italian people by nature would tend to be a little bit racist, a little bit out of fascism force perhaps, but our church instead is a blend of people who love God and we don't look at the outside at all. It's wonderful. Union among people that if you didn't know Christ, If you saw them on the street, you wouldn't even take time to say hello. But when we're one in Christ, because of the Holy Spirit who lives in us, we're able to do that. And we praise God for that. A serious one, when we look at Jesus' teaching on disciple, I wanna look at a verse here in Mark 8. Mark 8, 34. And calling the crowd to him with his disciples, he said unto them, if anyone would come after me, that's what a disciple does, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it. But whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel's will save it. For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit or lose his soul. For whoever is ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him will the Son of Man also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels." So we see a disciple is someone who desires to follow Jesus. He denies himself. He bears his cross. He follows Christ, loses himself for Christ, and is not ashamed of Christ, but is also greatly rewarded. When I was eight years old, I remember a Wednesday night service in January. My dad, who was a pastor, came before the congregation, it was a prayer meeting, and asked for prayer. for the families of the five Akka missionaries that were martyred. I remember that so clearly. One of them, Jim Elliot, wrote, left several very important statements. One of the things he said was, he is no fool who gives up what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose. And then he also said, God always gives the very best to those who leave the choice with him. And as we look back on our ministry, we praise God. I have to tell you the truth. It is probably harder for us to leave our church in Italy to come here than it is for us to leave America and go back there, believe it or not. God is blessed in so many ways. we didn't give up a thing. Don't ever feel sorry for a missionary. We didn't give up a thing. God just gave us so much more. But that's all part of being a disciple. A disciple. That's what we're supposed to do. And create this in other people around us as we share Christ with them. Making disciples. Now, as we are to take the gospel to all nations, we are also to teach all things that have been commanded, that Christ has commanded, to be taught and observed. As we used to say, the whole counsel of God. We can't just take pages out of scripture. So, I don't really believe that. One of my favorite passages is in Romans 8. And Jonathan is preaching through Romans right now. He may, oh no, he did eight a couple weeks ago. But what a blessed book this is. Written to the Italians, I have to say it. What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own son, but gave him up for us all, How will he not also with him graciously give us all things? Who shall bring any charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died. More than that, who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written, for your sake we are being killed all the day long. We are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered. No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present or things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. What a glorious passage! And you know, so many times we have favorite passages we like to preach on, but we need to have the whole council. We need to get the whole Bible before us and study it. And that is our message as we share it, getting our new people, and for us, what a joy. You're telling people things from the Bible that they have never heard. Rachel used to say she loved teaching Sunday school, even the ladies, Sunday school, because she's teaching things that they've never heard. The kids don't interrupt, say, oh, I know all about that. What a joy to be a missionary and share the God's word with those who've never heard. So we're teaching all things. And finally, the wonderful thing in this portion is to know that all times are in the Lord's hands. And we are blessed with him, by him, in our ministry always. Even in suffering, even in difficulty, all, I am with you always. And even here it's important, Jesus says, I am. And we used to use that word, I am, which is saying, I am the eternal one. I am. His enemies got very upset. I am with you always to the end of the age. Well, why just to the end of the age? Because at the end of the age, we're going to be with him. we'll be with Him forever. And as God's people, whether you serve God in this local church or around the world, what a precious thought it is that we're gonna work hard, we're gonna suffer, we're gonna have difficult times, but someday we're gonna be with Him forever. And that should give us the challenge of us to be faithful. until he comes. We're gonna do that and we trust you will do that here as well as we wanna serve him till he comes. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, thank you so much for the joy of serving you together. Thank you for this church that for so many years has been a lighthouse for the gospel. Continue to bless them. Thank you for their pastor. Bless him and all the staff. Encourage them as they continue to reach out for your glory. here and around the world. In Christ our Savior's name we pray, Amen.