He'll be preaching for us Sunday night. He's also gonna speak to us tonight at the banquet. Let me just say, if you've not signed up for the banquet, please do so. We'd love to know if you're coming so that we can have food for you when you come. And that you're all invited, your families too. And Octavius, would you come brother and share with us a little bit about how the Lord is using you in ministry and AT. Good morning, brothers. I'm really glad to be here with you to share a little bit of my ministry in Haiti. Thank you for the invitation. We are working in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Port-au-Prince is the capital of the country. And we have one church in Port-au-Prince. The church is founded in 2010, some months after the earthquake. And by the Lord's grace, the church is growing. It's not a particular church yet, we are still a mission church. We are working closely with the OPC down there, they have a missionary in Haiti, and we are working together. We formed the OPC mission in Haiti. And I'm working with them with a cooperative agreement with Calvary Presbytery and the OPC for admission. We met every Sunday morning and evening to services. We have 65 communicant members and seven non-communicant members in the church. But we meet with about 50, 60 people regularly every Sunday. And we are the only Presbyterian church in Port-au-Prince, but there are others outside of Port-au-Prince, not many, Two of them in a separate island, and Ben Hop is working there as a missionary. And he comes to Port-au-Prince every other Sunday, and we worship together. But now he is in furlough for one year, so I'm taking care of the ministry by myself now. We are working together with another missionary from the Canadian Reformed Church. He's in Port-au-Prince. He has a school there in Port-au-Prince and we use the facilities of the school for the church. So that's where we meet and we are working together. And another missionary is Ayi Etienne, maybe you know him, and he has two churches two hours north of Port-au-Prince. So that's the reformed churches in Port-au-Prince. So we are praying and working that this ministry will grow, Lord willing, so that we may have a presbytery. The missionary, the four of us, we are talking together. We meet sometimes. We talk about forming a presbytery. But it will take time. We don't have elders yet in Port-au-Prince, but we are doing training. uh... we uh... finished the study of the westminster uh... confession and catechism with the men we are meeting with and now we are studying the old testaments uh... we have seminars for them and we invite uh... pastors and elders from churches who are supporting the ministry uh... to come and to do seminars one book at a time uh... we are moving uh... in the study of the old testament and we will do the New Testament Lord Willing after that. We are translating books for the ministry. We form books from English to Creole and French because we need those books to train people. We, I finished the standards, the Confession and Catechism. We have them both in French and Creole now. We finished also two books, one by Burkhoff, The Disharmony of Christian Doctrine, and another book, Infant Baptism, What Christian Parents Should Know. And this book, and the Shrouded Catechism in Creole is published now. And the big project of translation is Dr. Smith's Systematic Theology. We finished the first volume and now we are translating the second volume. And we hope that this project may be finished this year and try to find a publisher for that. We have a ministry in the church with several groups of people. We have a men group, and they meet every Saturday. We meet to pray together, to study the Bible together. Now we are studying the basics of Presbyterianism, because we are the only Presbyterian church in Port-au-Prince, so people do not know what is a Presbyterian church, so we are meeting with them. But we invite other people to come also so that we can answer their questions about the basic doctrines of the Reformed faith. The ladies, they meet also every week, every Wednesday, and they have their Bible study also, and they have a choir. and they have their rehearsal after the Bible study and the prayer meeting together. And as a whole church, we meet for Bible study every Friday afternoon. And we have a ministry of the children. We meet with the children every week. We have a club, we call that the Children's Club, and we invite children from the area to come and we teach them the Bible. But every now and then we have other type of ministry with them. We have VBS in the summer and a lot of children, about 200 meet together and we teach them in the Bible, we teach them catechism. During the summer we have a contest also with them where they learn the Shodokatekism for young children, they learn Bible verses and Bible stories, and they come together as a contest. In ministry with the youth also, we have a youth conference every February. February is the carnival time in Haiti. They start in January and end in February, where they have bands in the streets like that. And the last week, they have big parades in Port-au-Prince. So what we do for our young people, we keep them together. We ask them to come to the church, and there we teach them the Bible. We spend the whole week together while the people are dancing, and we are in the Word of God. And we invite pastors to come and elders to come and teach them. the Word of God. So we will have that the last week of February, Lord willing, this year, and we are on our fourth conference, annual conference with the youth. uh... please pray for the church uh... so that the church will continue to be fearful in the preaching and teaching of the word of god uh... this year we are uh... focusing on every family to finish reading the new testament you ask people uh... if they read their bible it's not easy uh... but now we are visiting families and Check, have you read your Bible? So they have that calendar. So pray that the church may grow spiritually and the word may continue to go in Haiti. We're also greatly privileged to have our friend Stephen Atkinson with us from Christian Witness to Israel. Many of us have grown up with an understanding of Israel as being a special part of God's people. Sometimes that's shaped by a dispensational understanding of the scriptures. Christian Witness to Israel is one of the more unique missionary endeavors in that for Well, first off, it's just old. It's a ministry that has its origins in the 19th century with people like Charles Spurgeon and Robert Murray McShane. uh... some remarkable christian people have been involved with this particular ministry that is not uh... like a lot of the jewish outreach ministries it has a a biblical and evangelical and even a reformed bent to it uh... steven is a native of uh... the emerald isle and uh... is a wonderful is is a wonderful uh... minister at uh... the pca church in arkansas fort smith and drove all the way across the country to be with us yesterday and is going to be our speaker tonight and then he'll preach for us this weekend as well. Stephen, come share with us from God's Word about yourself and the ministry of the Word and what God is doing. Well, thank you all for having me and you've already given the secret away. I'm not from South Carolina, I'm from Arkansas. Yeah, I'm from So it's an Arkansas accent you'll have to get used to. Yeah, it's just been a delight to be working for Christian Witness to Israel. I was a regular pastor for 18 years in Presbyterian Church in Ireland originally in my childhood days. In Cambridge in England in the EPCEW, and again some of you know of that denomination, I was there at the cutting edge of that and was thrilled to be a part of it in the very early days, in fact, the very formation of the presbytery in the 1990s. And then, as I was saying to the men earlier, that Ian Hamilton came along and took on my church in Cambridge and doubled it in size. So it's great when you leave a church and the church doubles in size. I think it's good for the kingdom to leave churches sometimes. That worked in my situation. I then moved back to Ireland. Again, providentially, was called by the Presbytery to take on a fractious church. Actually, it was Mark Johnson's church in Rich Hill, County Armagh. He had left there to go to London. In the meantime, the church started to tear itself apart. Presbytery had to be brought in. I then took on that church. They didn't call me, but I was there under presbytery supervision for four years and then I moved from there to a call to a church in Belfast, in East Belfast. In 2004, I received a phone call asking would I be interested in CWI and being the Ireland rep. And it just seemed a right fit. And 12 years on, I'm still doing the same. And I never lose...I always had the theological passion. And again, you know, looking at the way the Lord has blessed me with colleagues such as, you know, over the years like Ian Hamilton or Mark Johnson or Derek Thomas. And Derek is on my board. David Strain is the chairman of my board. What a blessing to have these men desire this, because this has been my desire theologically from my early days of ministry, but now very practically. in the past 12 years of my ministry. And I've lived over here four years. I share Mark Johnson's lament with regard to immigration and visa because I failed to get a visa on the first attempt. But on a second attempt, we did get our visa to move over here in 2012. And so I've been here really driving it. getting opportunities all across the US. I drive 40,000 miles a year, quite literally, to tell the story, tell the story of our missionaries and preach and teach. I'm a preacher. That's what I do. I've been doing it for 30 years. Because I believe very firmly, as I shared with you when I was here for the midweek, that it is theology that drives missiology. That if we get it wrong on Israel, theologically, We'll get the mission all wrong. And what CWI has been doing for 175 years this November has been to have this theological burden taught to the church transferred then into action, evangelical action, evangelistic action. So the literature is there, the historic literature, Spurgeon, McShane, Bonner, it's all there, but the present day action is there as well. What we're doing on the streets of Israel or on the streets of Budapest, or Paris, or London, or Glasgow, or wherever the Jewish people are. And as I make the point, 42% of the Jewish population of the world lives here. So my burden is to grow the interest, support, and even the mission. And actually, I've news to report maybe later in the year. in the conference about our hopes for taking on one or two new missionaries here in the States in the next 12 months. I'm really excited about that, but I'll tell you that at another time. My time is running far too quickly. What I wanted to do this morning, and I'm very grateful for the opportunities, because I've got, what, four opportunities to hammer home the nail. And I'm preaching tonight. I want to take us to Act II tonight, the first Jews for Jesus in Acts 2 at the day of Pentecost. On Sunday morning, I want us to look at Luke 24 and the mission that the Lord gave to his Jewish disciples. And then also at the Sunday school, I'll be showing a PowerPoint or a keynote presentation on the more practical and theological reasons for our mission. What I thought I would do at this outset is really to take us into the scriptures and advice to you in a general sense on how to receive traveling missionaries. My brother, several brothers who will be speaking to you over the weekend, how should you treat traveling missionaries, because Scripture gives us that advice. 2 John and 3 John is where I want to take us to with regard to this. The backdrop of 2 and 3 John is, again, the early church, traveling missionaries, traveling apostles, and charlatans. And basically there are churches in John's day that were too welcoming and there were churches in John's day that weren't welcoming enough and in a sense we have the balance between the two in the two letters. In one of the letters there is the warning don't don't welcome this person and in the other letter do welcome this person and so in the brief time that we have, I want just to dip into a few verses from 2nd and 3rd John, largely in the 3rd John, but also in 2nd John. The major heresy at the time in the end of the 1st century was Gnosticism, and those that believed that physical things were evil, the spirit was good, and that a gnosis or a knowledge Was what should be sought and so Paul would face off such John would face off such and the very gracious churches were too welcoming and the really tight churches Were not welcoming enough and not only in scripture, but later in early church writings We find the same problem was was still evident in the early days 2nd century, 2nd, 3rd John probably written the last decade or two of the 1st century. In the early part of the 2nd century there is a document called the Didache which is teaching and it's so interesting to read a little portion of the Didache. So here's some of the advice of the Didache with regard to how you guys treat us traveling visiting missionaries. So here's the advice from the Didache. An apostle may stay one day if necessary two, but if he stays three days he is a false prophet. Maybe I need to get out of here Sunday morning. This is the Didache. When he leaves he may receive enough food for the journey. How about a few sack lunches along the way that have been given me along the journey? But if he asks for money, he is a false prophet. This is Didache. The Christian traveler must not be entertained free for more than two or three days. If he wants to settle, he must work. If he refuses, he is trading on Christ. It's an excellent discerning document of the second century. In 2nd and 3rd John, 1st century, 2nd century, there was this problem. Traveling preachers, what do you do? I'm going to summarize really under two headings. Recognize and resist, 2nd John. Appreciate and assist, 3rd John. So 2nd John, if you have it open with me there, just look at verse 7. Many deceivers have gone out into the world, those who do not confess the coming of Jesus Christ in the flesh. So there's Gnosticism and indeed the ninth verse of 2 John, everyone who goes on ahead and does not abide in the teaching of Christ or runs ahead, I think that might be a reference to the super apostles or some other heresy that they were dealing with. But this was a letter to the early church recognize and resist. I have a confession to make. Sunday morning sermon will be a new sermon but I do sometimes repeat old sermons and indeed some of the content of the weekend will be stuff that I have used. We traveling preachers are good at it. We have a few good sermons and For us to come along with exotic accents, we can do a good job. We can schmooze. We can win you. Traveling preachers, you need to recognize, resist. You need to discern. We travelers are sometimes placed on a pedestal. and it can fool a careless, non-discerning Christian public. If you greet him, according to 2 John 11, whoever greets him or welcomes him or brings him in takes part in his wicked work. What you support, what you take on, what you get interested in, what you welcome, you have to give an account. for what you're welcoming. So you need to be discerning. And again, I'm speaking to the choir here, but church today, we need to be discerning. I go to some good PCA churches and pastors will say to me, will you please tell my people about your ministry? Because some of my members are given to John Hagee. PCA churches. Where's the discernment? If we give to missions to the Jewish people that don't evangelize Jewish people and believe that all Jews are going to heaven anyway, I've got news. It is not a blessing to Israel to hide the gospel from them. They must hear about Jesus, but that's for another time. We need discernment. have applied for support from various churches. And many of them simply say, yeah, we love you, Stephen. We've heard you preach. It's great. Yeah, you're on our budget. Others will get me to fill in four or five pages. What do you believe? What's your belief about the gospel? What's your belief about the scriptures? What is the confessional status of your ministry? What is your testimony? I remember speaking at a church in Mississippi, which shall be nameless. I'm not first press, although I've spoken there. But at another church in Mississippi, and before I took the midweek meeting, the elders had me around the table. They quizzed me on my personal testimony, my personal theology, Christian witness to Israel's theology and history. I had to pass the test before I even did the midweek meeting. Been back there for the past time every 10 years, every year for the past 10 years, and they support us. I think we passed the test, but it was a test and that church was discerning. Recognize and resist because we're good at it. There's a lot of charlatans out there in John's day and in our day. But I want to spend a little bit more time, perhaps, on 3rd John. By the time of 3rd John, the pendulum had swung. And the discernment and the tightness, at least in the situation we read of in 3rd John, was too far. In 3rd John, we have a situation of Demetrius, the traveling preacher, he was excluded from this church because diatrophies He was the settled minister on an ego trip and he didn't want to have the traveling preacher. And so the ordinary church member, verse 1, Gaius, was kind of caught in between. By the time of 3rd John, things were moving towards settled ministries in the early church. There were still some traveling ministries, as you can see from the Didache, but things were moving towards more settled ministries at the end of the first century and so there was tension between the travelers and the settled preachers and John had to write this letter into this context. So what I want to do is really take six very brief points of advice as to how we appreciate and assist. So we've got recognize and resist. There's a lot more in 2 John that we could take, but we haven't time to deal with it. But recognize and resist. Be discerning, church. But then appreciate and assist. How do we do that? Well, first of all, consider the conduct of the missionary. We read this in 3 John about those who testified of your love before the church, and we ought to support people like these, that we may be fellow workers for the truth, verse eight. So what's happening in here is that John is saying to the early church, in your appreciation, consider the conduct I make it a strong principle in my traveling ministry to connect with the churches. And it's a privilege that I have just to see the Lord's people, to meet with you, to visit so many different churches across the nation. But I also make it a point that I stay with folks. I want people to see me outside the pulpit. We're all good at, at doing what we do in the pulpit, but you need to ask of me and others. What's your spiritual life like? What is your conduct? You need to, to discern that. Do you discern the conduct of this person's ministry to, to be consistent, faithful, you see in Third John 12, we read there, Demetrius has received a good testimony from everyone and from the truth itself. One of the things that I'm doing in CWI is building up a number of endorsements for our ministry and I hope to maybe use it in some of the literature that we might produce regarding our 175th anniversary, which is this coming November. that we are 175 years old. But I'm trying to produce endorsements. Do I just want simple pats on the back from all the pastors that I visit? No. Endorsements, whether it's in books or whether it's upon a ministry, is in line with this. Demetrius has received a good testimony from everyone. And so in this appreciation, what I'm saying to you is don't Don't support strangers in strange lands that you know little or nothing about. Don't support strangers in strange lands that you hear nothing about or see nothing for years. How do you know their conduct? How can you see a consistency? How can you discern? So first of all, consider the conduct. Then secondly, consider the content of their ministry. 3 John 7. They have gone out for the sake of Hashem, the sake of the name. Consider the content of the ministries that you're supporting. In other words, what are they doing? Is the ministry a gospel ministry? Is it a God-honoring ministry? Is it a church-based ministry? Verse 6 says they are testifying in the churches. They are living accountably before the churches. There are many ministries that are vying for a slice of the pie. We need to be discerning, recognize and resist. We need to be appreciating and assisting those that are worthy of the welcome. So take a literature. See the content of what we are doing. Call us to account. Make us pass the test. Make us prove the worthiness of the work. Consider the conduct. Consider the content. Consider the worthiness of your support. You are sharing, not in a wicked work of 2 John, but in a vital work. And you are then sending on their way, you are sending us, you're sending my brother, you're sending the others that you have on our way in a manner, 3 John 6, in a manner worthy of God. Wow. Our brother visits. Send him on his way. in a manner worthy of God. If the ministry is consistent in conduct, if the ministry is right in its content, if it's worthy, then do it. Send the person on their way. 3 John 5 says, it is a faithful thing you do in all your efforts for these brothers." It's faithful. It's effort. It's not a casual writing of an easy check. The worthy recipients are to be energetically, sacrificially sent on their way worthy of God. Conduct, content, worthy. Fourth, consider the necessity of your support. The necessity. Verse seven. They have gone out for the sake of the name, accepting nothing from the Gentiles. We are not paid by the Gaim. We are not paid by the unclean, by the pagan. We may get some tax breaks. Maybe we'll lose them too. We are a 501c3 CWI. But we're not like the German state church in Hitler's day. We're not like the Anglican church in England where the PM picks the archbishop. We believe in the separation. We have gone out for the sake of the name with no goyim help. A colleague of mine in Northern Ireland was so poorly paid that he had to receive government help because he was below the poverty line and he received family income support. Brothers, this should not be. He eventually left the church and actually he's here in the States in an OPC church. And one thing I would say about my American brother, and you are, You are generous, you are realistic in your support for pastors. We do what we do, whether it's pastors or missionaries, we do what we do and you pay for it. And we go out accepting nothing from the Gentiles or from the Gaim or from the unclean world. Consider the conduct, consider the content, consider the worthiness, consider the necessity, consider the obligation. Verse eight. Therefore, we ought to support people like these. We ought to. Scripture's advice is simple. If you discern by the conduct, by the content, the worthiness, then you ought to. You are obligated to be a fellow worker in the kingdom work. If it's worthy, then it's welcome. and you should have an obligation. You ought to support people like these. And then secondly, consider the privilege. The privilege. It's a privilege to share in the work of the kingdom. Think of the translation work. We do translation work in Israel as well. So many similarities. We've been translating Matthew Henry into modern Hebrew, first time ever. We've done Matthew Henry on John. We're doing currently Matthew Henry on the Psalms. We've been translating Sinclair Ferguson's books, the Let's Study series into modern Hebrew. You can be a part of this. It's a privilege. You can be the partner. Faithful love for the brethren is doing something. And we are the rich recipients of your welcome, your support. I've been doing the traveling ministry for 12 years. I've been on both sides. I've been the regular pastor. I'm now the traveling ministry for 12 years. And there's so many homes all across the land that have an Elisha room for the traveling man of God. And I just am privileged by the fellowship, by the love, by the generosity, by the kindness, by the hospitality. I haven't quite done the math. I need to clarify, I am an assistant pastor. in Arkansas, but I have no local responsibilities. This is my 100% job. I don't get paid by the local church either. This is my 100% job. CWI North America pays everything. And I don't have local responsibilities, so I have the freedom called by the church, but the freedom through the church to go nationwide and tell the story. So I'm away from home, I haven't quite done the math, but 80, 90, sometimes 100 nights. My very long-suffering wife. of 34 years. Couldn't have done this when I was younger, when the kids were younger, but I have four kids, three of them married, one at college, but I'm away from home a lot. But of those 80 or so nights, 90 nights, only about 25% of them are in hotels. Most of them are in Elisha rooms. It saves the ministry money for a start. It also means that I can Beyond display, you know what I mean by that. But I receive that hospitality from so many of the Lord's people. So I want to thank you on behalf of us visiting preachers and teachers. And it's a privilege for us to be with you, but the scripture also speaks of it being a privilege for you to minister to us. The Christian is to be given to hospitality, Romans 12, 13, to show hospitality without grudging, 1 Peter 4, 9, to be a lover of hospitality, Titus 1, 8. If there is a worthiness, then we receive a welcome. And the welcome is not because you just have to do it, but you ought to, and you should be privileged in so doing. Jesus said in Matthew 10, whoever receives you receives me. The one who receives a prophet because he is a prophet will receive a prophet's reward. The one who gives even a cup of cold water because he is a disciple, because he is a disciple, will by no means lose his reward. Recognize and resist, be discerning people. But when you exercise the discernment, appreciate and assist for his sake. and send us, as I know you will, in a manner worthy of God. Let's pray together. Our Father, we thank you for your Word. It is able to thoroughly equip us unto every good work. It may rebuke, it may challenge, it may train in righteousness. We thank you for the wisdom of the aged Apostle John, even in the tensions of first century church life. And we pray that we may transfer that wisdom into our day. And as we enjoy the fellowship of the Lord's people through this coming weekend, we pray that we may know your grace in much abundance as we interact with each other. and show and share the love of Christ even as you have loved us. Bless us and multiply all that we do in your kingdom for Christ's sake. Amen.