Well, every one of those songs we sung tonight was a great missionary message. That's wonderful to see churches that still sing the old hymns. Sadly enough, around the world, I've had to quit going to some churches that used to be sound and fundamental, and now they're almost like Pentecostals. in their music and I don't know what their doctrines are. Don't even wanna know. I'm not gonna have you turn your Bibles tonight to several portions of God's word, all in the book of Acts. And Acts is a great missionary book in the Bible. We'll go first of all to the 13th chapter of the book of Acts and read the first four verses. Now there were in the church that was at Antioch certain prophets and teachers as Barnabas and Simon that was called Nigar and Lucas of Cyrene and Manon which had been brought up with Herod the Tartarus and Saul. That verse is very interesting. It tells you that there was a young man in the church that used to be under the authority of a very wicked king, but he was brought to Christ. And as they ministered to the Lord and fasted, The Holy Ghost said, separate me Barnabas and Saul, for the work were unto I have called them. So the church had the responsibility of separating certain men to do God's service abroad. And when they had fasted and prayed and laid their hands on them, they, that is the church, sent them away. So they being sent forth by the Holy Ghost departed unto Cilicia and from thence they sailed to Cyprus. You will notice in that passage of scripture that a missionary goes out by double authority. We'll reach that and emphasize that later on. In the 15th chapter, of the Gospel, or the Book of Acts. I'm going to read verse four. They were sent out, now we see, and when they had come to Jerusalem, they were received of the church, and of the apostles and elders, and they declared all things that God had done with them. So now the missionaries who were sent out in chapter 13 return to give reports to the church. Now go down to verse 22. Then pleased it the apostles and elders with the whole church, to send chosen men of their own company to Antioch with Paul and Barnabas, namely Judas, surnamed Barbarus, and Silas, chief men among the brethren. Again, you see how the church is vitally connected to world missions. Every one of these verses points that out. Now go with me to the 16th chapter of the book of Acts. Then came he to Derbe and Lystria, that's Paul the apostle going out on his missionary journey. Behold, a certain disciple was there named Timotheus, the son of a certain woman, which was a Jewess, and believed, but his father was a Greek, which was well reported of by the brethren. That is, Timotheus is well reported of by the brethren that were at Lystria and Iconium. Him would Paul have to go forth with him and took and circumcised him because of the Jews which were in those quarters for they knew all that his father was a Greek. In these passages of scripture, something is emphasized that I'm going to call tonight as a title to my message, The Flagship of Missions. The Flagship of Missions, the local New Testament Bible-believing Baptist church. In the Navy of most countries, when a group of ships go out together to war, there is a commanding officer who accompanies them, and he accompanies them in what is called the flagship. It's always the first ship. It's the one leading all the other ships. It is always the largest ship of the fleet. And it's always the fastest ship of the fleet. It is always most heavily armed. And the commanding officer of the Navy is in that ship. Now, I wanna ask you tonight if you know where missionaries come from. Might be interesting to hear the answers that some people might give. Where does the call to be a missionary come from? By what authority are missionaries sent to regions beyond? If you will look into the Bible carefully and study the life of Paul, for instance, there are two kinds of missionaries in the Bible, and both of them do the same thing. One of them is a missionary who goes to a specific country, feeling the call of God to go there, and he begins his missionary work that country. And his missionary work consists of three things. He first of all preaches the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. That's the foremost responsibility of any representative of God, is to preach the Word. The second thing he did was he established New Testament Baptist churches. And the third thing he did was train people to serve God in their own country among their own people. He would do that by perhaps starting a college or a Bible institute where he would train young men who would be prepared to go out and do missionary work. That's one kind of missionary work, and that's most generally the missionary work that we're supporting today. But there's another kind of missionary work, and that was done by the Apostle Paul. The Apostle Paul, as near as we can tell, went to over 50 different countries of the world, and when he went to those countries, he did the same three things. He preached the gospel, he helped them establish churches, and then he wrote letters to those churches that became part of the inspired word of God. And then he, what we see here with doing with Timothy, he trained people to serve God in their own country among their own people. And he went to many different places. The most he stayed in any one place was about two years. And then he would leave men there to continue the work, and he would go on to the next place. That's the kind of missionary work that I am doing. I have been in over 70 different countries, and in many of those countries, I've been going to for 30 years or more like your country. I came here. many, many years ago and served with men who were missionaries and national pastors. Many of them are at home with the Lord tonight. But for some reason, I must be too ornery to go to heaven yet. So they stuck me back here in the world to keep preaching the gospel. We have been able to help start 25 different churches around the world. And we have been able to, with our seminars, train people to serve God in their own country among their own people. So we're doing the same thing. I have 81 Bible courses right now that I've designed. And in some of the places we go, and in some times when we come here, we actually have a seminar. This time we're doing something different. But tonight I want you to look with me at this flagship of missions because the flagship of missions is the local church. And the local church is the fountainhead of missions. Peter, Philip, Paul, Timothy, Barnabas, Silas were all products of the local church, every one of them. The church should be preaching missions on a regular basis and keep it before God's people because there are people right now in your church, maybe young couples that are seeking God's will. as to what to do with their lives. And there's a whole lot of ornery little kids here that are gonna be adults one of these days. And they need to hear from this pulpit the message of missions. And then this is where the church finds all of its candidates for missions. Nowhere else. You don't find them anywhere else. You find them in the church. We have a Bible college called Heartland Baptist Bible College right there in Oklahoma City. And young people are coming to our college to study from churches. Churches feed the school. The school don't feed the church. The church feeds the school. They come from all over the United States and in some cases in foreign countries as well. to study and many of them during the 30 years I've been in that church have gone to the mission fields of the world and they're out serving God tonight. It must be also taught in Sunday school classes. There ought to be a regular curriculum that includes world missions taught to the littlest ones in your church. So it's the fountainhead. It's the ship that's out in front. The commander-in-chief of that ship is your pastor. You didn't know he was a commander? Stick around. You'll find out, won't you? Did you hear him making the announcements? He was commanding. Be here. So the local church is not only the fountainhead, the local church is the supply line for missions, see? Communications must be maintained between the church and the missionary. Now, in years gone by, that was not as easily done as it is today. But right here, I can stand in this pulpit and talk to missionaries with this thing all over the world. If I wanna call them tonight, I can talk to them. I'm always on the phone, usually talking to missionaries, talking to national pastors, trying to prepare to go to their countries. And when I am going to the Spanish-speaking world, I don't speak Spanish. I know ice cream, I can order my ice cream, which is very important for a man of my stature. But my wife Lucy speaks Spanish because she was a missionary in one place for 50 years, the country of Argentina. So I tell her what I need her to talk to these men about, and she calls them and she talks in their language. She talks a lot longer than I would, but that's just one part of the game. So this is a marvelous tool. It's used for the devil, but it can also be used for God. See? So we need as churches to use every good method we can to keep our communication and our supply line working with the missionaries around the world that we support. Then there's not only communication, but there's communion, that's prayer. You want to pray for your missionaries. That's a way of communicating with them. It is of tremendous value to me when so many of the members of our church, when we're preparing to take a journey in missions, come up to us and say, Preacher, we're going to be praying for you. And they do pray for us. And sometimes we even get a telephone call when we're way off somewhere, 10,000 miles away from home, and it will be one of our church members checking on us, seeing how we're doing, and letting us know they're praying for us. So we need to keep the supply line open. Now the supply line not only involves communication, not only communion, but it also involves a little thing called currency. Yeah. You know, it's an amazing thing, but I do missionary work and I order a flight and they want to charge me. They charge the missionary for getting on the plane and riding there. When I am in a foreign country and I go to a car dealer and I say, I'm a missionary and I wanna rent a car while I'm here, they wanna charge me. It's amazing. And when I go to restaurants, I say I'm a missionary, they still wanna charge me to eat the food they're preparing, which is not always the best. You know, sometimes you're fortunate and you run into real good food, And then in other times, you still run into food that is moving on the plate. Trying to get away from you, I guess. And I've had all those experiences. Currency has to be supplied to the missionary, and the booze hall's not gonna do that. And the dance hall's not gonna do that. It's the local church that has to supply the currency to send out and sustain the missionary on the field. So it's the local church is the supply line for missions. It's the fountainhead for missions. And then the local church is the headquarters for missions, not a mission board. A mission board is not the headquarters for missions. It is there to help and assist the church because it's the church that's the headquarters for missions. And the mission board merely assists the church in carrying out functions that will make it easier for the missionary to be on the field and to serve the Lord. It's not just going alone. I know men who just decide we're gonna go to the mission field alone, we don't have any backing, we don't have the backing of a church, that's not scriptural. It's not biblical. I met a missionary, he called himself a missionary, in London, England. And he was just out on his own. and he was under no authority, no local church, no pastoral authority. You know what he was doing? He had a big sign on front and on the back of him that he harnessed over his shoulders, and he had scripture verses on it. And he walked all over London. That was his missionary work. Well, a missionary is supposed to build churches. A missionary is supposed to preach the gospel. He is to train others so that they can serve God. All he was doing is out alone. I don't know how much money he was getting, but he lived in a pretty nice place, drove a nice car, had nice food. And all he did was walk around London and let people read scripture verses that he carried around with him. That's not missions, my friends. That's a waste of God's money. So headquarters, earthly headquarters for the missionary is the local church. That's the headquarters. You are the headquarters of missions. When Jesus gave his commission after his resurrection, he gave his mission, commission to the church that was already established. You see, the church did not begin on the day of Pentecost. Jesus started the church. He started the very first church. and they, the church, was gathered together on the day of Pentecost, and there was 120 of them in attendance. So the church didn't begin on the day of Pentecost. The church received power that they did not need as long as Jesus was with them, but after he left, they needed another power, the power of the Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit. Now, the Holy Spirit was not given so that people could babble like babies talk before they can speak words. He was not given so that they could speak in what was called, what some churches call tongues. The fact is that tongues has been and always has been a legitimate language. And somebody would interpret knowing that language so that everybody could understand. I go all over the world and I speak through translators. I don't know German, so when I go there, I find somebody that can translate in that language. When I'm in Romania, I do the same thing. When I'm in Hungary, I do the same thing. When I'm in Chile and Argentina, I do the same thing. If I can't find a translator, my wife has to do it, but she don't do it. So it's always a language. A tongue is always a language. So these people who are babbling like children who don't know how to talk are doing something that's inspired in a source other than the Holy Spirit. So Jesus gave his commission to the local church. He said, ye shall be witnesses unto me. And he told them where to start and where to finish, the uttermost parts, from Jerusalem to the uttermost parts. That was given to the church, the church that Jesus established. So what you have here is a double source for missions. You have a heavenly source, God calls them, and you have an earthly source, the church sends them, and the church supports them, and the church prays for them. That's what Faith Promise Missions is all about. On Sunday morning, I'm going to bring a message that I will, the Lord willing, if we can get it done, All of you will have a printout, and I will show you the difference between tithing and faith promise giving. It's a big difference. And there's one word in the Bible that changes everything. And I'll show you that if you'll come Sunday morning. If you don't come, you don't get the handout, so. Or you can pay $100 and get one if you don't come. So we have a description, a plain, very precise description of what missions is. What men did when they went out to be missionaries. Here right here in the Bible, the early church from its very beginning sent out missionaries. It didn't wait until it grew and got so big and had so much of an income. Part of its income from the very first offering ought to be currency that goes to missionaries. And we have the method. of missions. It s all spelled out here in the Bible. Some of them stayed in one place. Some of them moved about like Paul the Apostle did, but they always did the same thing. Thus, the local church is really the flagship of world missions. And if you have never heard this approach, I hope that you will study your Bible because it tells you that the local church is the flagship, it's the fountainhead, it's the supply line, it's the earthly headquarters for world missions. So if the church does not do its job Concerning missions, there's really no reason for it to exist. And there are many churches across the world tonight that do not support missionaries, that do not send out missionaries. Sad thing to have to say. But I've been in churches where if they gave you just an offering, That was all a missionary ever got from that church. He was not sustained and sent out by that church, but just given an offering so he could buy his family something to eat that night. That's not missions, folks. So let's remember what we've studied tonight. We have a heavenly and a earthly source for missions. We have a description in the Word of God for missions. We have a method as to how to prepare for missions right here in the Word of God. Thus we can think of a great team of ships going out to war, and the Christian service is war. We have an enemy that is real and that battles us and we have to be prepared not only to fight, but how to fight. See, I remember my pastor years ago was telling me about a phone call he had gotten that week because a man, a really a rough man, a big man, had recently gotten saved in our church. And the factory where this man worked called our pastor on the phone. And he said, are you the pastor of such and such and named the man? He said, yes. He said, you better get down here right away. He said, he's, He's knocking people down on the floor, banging their heads against the floor and say, are you ready to get saved now? And so he had to be instructed. He had a lot of zeal, but no knowledge. He needed some knowledge, and my preacher was six foot six, and he weighed 250 pounds, and so when he walked into that factory, they kind of took notice. And he had to pull the new convert off of a man, and had to give him some instructions right there, make him apologize to the man, because the man didn't know how to do missionary work. He just thought he'd do what the old life that he had always lived would do and that would work. It didn't work as a believer. So the local church is the flagship, it's the headquarters, it's the supply line, it's the fountainhead. All of those things are so important And I hope you'll remember that when you begin to involve yourself in faith promise missions, because that is part of being a fountainhead. That's part of being a supply line. That's part of being a headquarters. That's part of sending out, as well as the Holy Spirit sending out. You're teaming up with God. You're teaming up with the Holy Spirit to send men all over the world to do the same three things. Preach the gospel, get churches started, same kind of church that you left from. You don't go to the mission field and start one that's completely different. You do the same thing. Those who left Jesus started churches just like Jesus did. And so we are the flagship of missions, and I hope you'll remember that. God bless you. Okay, preacher. Amen. It's good to be reminded of those truths, the local church. Acts chapter 13 there, book of Acts.