Now this morning we are privileged to have with us Dr. Hammond. Dr. Hammond, not a medical doctor, but a doctor by education. And I want to tell you a short story before he comes. A true story. Not so many years ago, there were services like this. And Dr. Hammond took the service. And amongst the children was a little boy. You might have remembered from previous conferences, his name was Mika. But when Dr. Hammond spoke, he was touched. By what Dr. Hammond said. And at that time he was a naughty boy, a very naughty boy. He was known to be a skunky. But in that service he was touched. And his life changed. And to make a long story short, his life changed totally. And he got sick. And he was an example even in his sickness. He lived a godly life even though he was very sick. And then he passed away. And because of that, He's in heaven today. Because of Dr. Hammond's service, he listened, he did something. He's in heaven today. We don't know the future. We don't know if there's another Mika between us. But may we have an ear to hear that if the Lord speaks to me like he spoke to him that time, that I will listen. And you will benefit from it. You will benefit from it. Dr. Hammond, thank you so much for coming. We'll hand over to you now. Thank you so very much. Good morning. I greet you in the wonderful name of our Lord and of our Savior, Jesus Christ. Cultivating an attitude of gratitude. Frontline Fellowship has been a mission to restricted access areas, war zones, and the persecuted church for the last 42 years. Our vision is Africa for Christ. We are a small group, but we have a big vision. God's will is made clear for us in the Scriptures. You want to know God's will? 1 Thessalonians 5 verse 16 to 18 tells us. Be joyful always. Pray continually. Give thanks in all circumstances. This is God's will for you in Christ Jesus. Plainly, it is God's will for us to be joyful To be prayerful and to be thankful, as epitomized by the youth choir's song just now. We read in Luke chapter 17 from verse 11 about the 10 lepers. Leprosy is a terrible disease. In Sudan, we had a leper colony attached to the hospital we helped establish. You know, the flesh decays and they can't feel anything in their fingertips or their toes anymore. And we had a plague of rats, and the rats were coming in, and they'd be eating the lepers' fingers and toes at night, and they couldn't feel it. They'd wake up and they've lost their fingers or their toes to rats, literally. In many ways, leprosy is a physical sign or picture of sin and the effect that sin has upon us. By the way, the solution to this problem was we took some cats from the local SPCA in Kenya. I went to Death Road to find out, are there any cats scheduled for execution here? Give them to us, we'll take them to Sudan. It's a local. We flew these two cats in, they ate everything in sight, and the people were just cheering and saying, bring us more cats. The cats rescued the lepers from these rats who were eating them alive at night. Well, we read in Luke 17, Now it happened, as Jesus went to Jerusalem, He passed through the midst of Samaria and Galilee. Then as He entered a certain village, there met Him ten men who were lepers. They stood afar off. They lifted up their voices and they cried out, Jesus, Master, have mercy on us. So when Jesus saw them, he said to them, go, show yourselves to the priests. And so it was, as they went, they were cleansed. And one of them, when he saw that he was healed, he returned and with a loud voice glorified God. And he fell down on his face at the feet of Jesus. And he gave him thanks. And he was a Samaritan. So Jesus answered and said, were not ten cleansed? But where are the other nine? Was no one found who returned to give glory to God except this foreigner? And he said to him, arise, go your way. Your faith has made you well. When I was converted to Christ on the 3rd of April, 1977, the first sin God convicted me of was ingratitude. Before my conversion, I'd never thanked God for anything. I was brought up in a secular family. We never went to church, not even on Easter or Christmas. We never prayed before a meal. So at age 17, when I was confronted with the gospel, And the pastor's preaching, Rick Smethy, he described Count Nicholas von Zinzendorf, who was in the Dusseldorf Museum of Art, and he saw a painting of Jesus. And the title under it was, This I did for thee, what hast thou done for me? And God used us to call Count Nicholas van Zinsendorf to a service. Well, I sat in the cinema that the local church had taken over for an outreach, and I thought, I've done nothing for God. I've not even so much as given Him thanks, not for one single thing ever. And I realized that I was a hell-deserving sinner. If God had thrown me into hell, it would have been just and quite right, and I could have said nothing to complain about it. That night I was converted to Christ. When they sang, just as I am without one plea, but that thy blood was shed for me, I walked down the aisle and I knelt at the front and surrendered my life to Christ. And the first sin I had to confess is, Lord, forgive me for never thanking you for anything. That night, the 3rd of April, 1977, I was called to missions. We are living in an age of entitlement. Arrogance and pride describes our time. What is the middle letter of pride? I, the middle letter of sin is also I. Pride has been recognized as one of the seven deadly sins for many years, for centuries. Yet all over South Africa and many other parts of the world, they are celebrating pride this month. They're saying June is a month of pride. How about a month of humility? Couldn't we do with a month of humility? What good can come from pride? Pride comes before a fall. A haughty spirit comes before destruction. We could do with a month of celebrating God instead of celebrating sin. People are often so selfish. Last night we heard about how people walk past even an envelope filled with money and there's footprints on the money. People just step on it because they won't step down and pick up litter. Litter is so selfish. People who litter are selfish. They don't think about what they're doing to the environment. They don't think about who's going to be hurt. They don't think how much of this washes into the ocean. And they don't think about the fact that somebody else is going to come up and pick up after me. I'm treating the world like my dustbin. Even worse are the vandals, those people who go around with a spray painting, graffiti, somebody else has got to clean up or paint over that wall. Even worse, there are people who go and vandalize actual sea rescue equipment all around the coasts of the Cape where we've got 300 shipwrecks. There are different life-saving devices to help if somebody is drowning, like these lifebuoys with ropes. And somebody comes along and cuts them, breaks the ropes, or destroys the lifebuoys, which is just there to save a life. And we've had crises that have happened And just because some stupid teenager came past and wrecked that, the life-saving device is not available when needed. Or maybe they've even played with the fire extinguishers, emptied it. And when you need the fire extinguisher, lives are at stake. It's gone because of selfish people who have a sense of entitlement. But of course, it could be that they needed that life-saving equipment sometime, and it's not available because somebody vandalized it. I want to say to all of you, I want to say to all of you, I want to say to all of you, I want to say to all of you, I want to say to all of you, I want to say to all of you, I want to say to all of you, I want to say to all of you, I want to say to all of you, I want to say to all of you, I want to say to all of you, I want to say to all of you, I want to say to all of you, I want to say to all of you, I want to say to all of you, I want to say to all of you, I want to say to all of you, I want to say to all of you, I want to say to all of you, I want to say to all of you, I want to say to all of you, I want to say to all of you, I want to say to all of you, I want to say to all of you, I want to say to all of you There are people so selfish that they cannot think of the consequences of what they do, and the whole world revolves about me, myself, and I, the new trinity. There are people who burn buses and trains, and then they complain we don't have enough transport. They're not happy with the schools, so they burn the schools down. Well, that doesn't help anything, does it? They demand my rights, but what about the rights of the people that they're destroying and stepping over? The first Thanksgiving meal was a sacrifice of praise. Thanksgiving is a public holiday in the United States of America. And the first Thanksgiving service was over 400 years ago. 1621. Now the circumstances were, the first pilgrims that came to the United States of America, they came from Britain and from Netherlands and half of them died in that first harsh winter, very cold winter. They died of strange diseases and they died of starvation. But as they came out of the harsh winter, what did they do? They had a thanksgiving service. They had all lost loved ones from their own families, but they gathered together to give thanks to God for life, for health, for food, for the harvest that had been given them. And they invited 90 Indians to come and join them in this expression of appreciation to Almighty God. for the life, health, strength and food that he had given them. Sometimes thanksgiving is an act of sacrifice and faith. Hebrews 13 verse 15 declares, Therefore, by Him, let us continually offer the sacrifice of praise to God, that is the fruit of our lips, giving thanks to His name. Sometimes it is hard to give thanks to God. But to worship God in prison, to worship God while sick, that is a sacrifice of praise. The theme of this conference is 1 Chronicles 16 verse 8. Give thanks to the Lord. Call upon his name. Make known amongst the nations what he has done. Give thanks to the Lord for he is good. His love endures forever. Fanny Crosby called the Queen of Gospel Songwriters, was born in 1820 of Puritan ancestry. Her ancestors had come on the Mayflower and were the survivors of that first harsh winter. Now mustard treatment of an inflammation of her eyes led to damage of the optic nerve and she became blind for the rest of her life. I would like to thank Fanny Crosby and all the people who have supported me in this journey. Despite her blindness, Fanny Crosby became one of the most prolific hymn writers in history. She composed more than 8,000 hymns and gospel songs. Can you imagine a blind lady wrote many of the hymns that we sing today? More than a hundred million copies of her hymns were printed in her lifetime. and many more since. The mother of modern congregational singing in America was blind, but she had a great vision. Ira Sankey, who was the musician who led the worship before the evangelistic outreaches of D.L. Moody, he attributed the success of these great D.L. Moody revival outreaches, massive crusades to Fanny Crosby's hymns. Maybe you know some of these hymns. Perhaps you've sung them. Pass me not, O gentle Saviour. Blessed assurance. To God be the glory, great things He has done. Praise Him, praise Him. Rescue the perishing. And many others. I'm sure we will sing some of Fanny Crosby's hymns during this youth conference this week. Can you imagine, she even thanks God for her blindness. She wrote, it seemed intended by the blessed providence of God that I should be blind all my life, and I thank Him for that dispensation. If perfect earthly sight were offered to me tomorrow, I would not accept it. I might not have sung hymns to the praise of God if I'd been distracted by all the beautiful and interesting things around me. When I get to heaven, The first face that shall ever gladden my sight will be the face of that of my Saviour. According to a biographer, Had it not been for her affliction of blindness, if she might never had such a good education or so great an influence, certainly she would not have had so great a memory. From age 10, Fanny Crosby memorized five chapters of the Bible every week. You wonder how these hymns are so full of Scripture. Well, by age 15 she had memorized all four of the Gospels. And she had memorized the first five books of the Old Testament, the books of Moses. And she had memorized the Proverbs and much of the Psalms. Fanny Crosby became an accomplished musician, a public speaker, and an activist. She could play the piano. And the organ, the harp, and the guitar. And if she was a good soprano singer, She also became the first woman to address the United States Senate where she read one of her poems. She was a vigorous campaigner for the Temperance Society's campaign against alcohol abuse. And she also supported the American Female Guardian Society and Home for the Friendless. While Fanny Crosby is best known for her hymns, she was primarily a rescue mission worker in the inner cities. For decades, she lived in the slum areas of Manhattan and Hell's Kitchen, the Bowery, the Tenderloin. These are the slums of New York. When she received payment or contributions for publications or for concerts, she donated all these proceeds to missions. and she sought to reach the poorest and the most needy people in society. I hope that'll make you appreciate these hymns when you sing them again next time. Now imagine living in total darkness and absolute silence. When I lead groups to the Castle of Good Hope, the oldest building in the Southern Hemisphere, it's most telling when I take people into dungeon and I shut the door and I switch off the light. There are screams, shouts, gasps. When people are exposed to absolute darkness for even just a few seconds, not even a full minute. They respond in horror. I remember being in Cape Town on the 11th of November, 2005, when we had the first power failure in Cape Town. And as the power failure occurred, throughout the shopping centers all over, there were just screams. I was having a meeting in a city hall, and immediately people respond with screams. The lights went out. We can't handle darkness even for a short while. Now imagine living your entire life in complete darkness and absolute silence. That is what life was like for Helen Keller. Helen Keller was born in 1880 in Alabama, and an illness took away her sight and her hearing when she was only 19 months old, not even two years old, and she no longer could hear or see. 27 June 1880. Not surprisingly, she became wild and uncontrollable. I think many children are wild and uncontrollable without losing their sight or their hearing. But Helen Keller, of course, her parents could not even communicate with her. But in 1887, there was a breakthrough. Her teacher, Anne Sullivan, wrote water, W-A-T-E-R, into her hand while pumping water over her hand and had a breakthrough to lead Helen to realize she could learn to communicate and read with her fingers. At age 24, she graduated from college with a Bachelor of Arts degree. In 1924, the Redcliffe College was awarded the Bachelor of Arts. She became a tireless advocate for people with disabilities and she traveled to 40 countries and famously declared deafness is a greater affliction than blindness. Have you ever thanked God for the blessings of sight and sound that you can see and that you can hear? You should experience blindness for a few days. Helen Keller said, I think it would be a blessing if each one of us could be stricken blind and deaf for just a few days during our early adult life. It'll make them more appreciative of sight and the joys of sound. This picture was taken in the Nuba Mountains of Sudan by the Doctors for Life team. Every year for the last four years, Doctors for Life has sent a team into the Nuba Mountains of Sudan where they do eye surgery and people with cataracts who are practically blind. Many hundreds have been able to see as a result of the surgery by Doctors for Life volunteers going up there. You can hardly imagine the excitement, the joy, the emotion when somebody who has not been able to see for many years is able to see for the first time. Give thanks to the Father who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the kingdom of light. Do you recognize the many blessings that God has granted you? Do you appreciate the blessings of sight and the blessings of sound? You are surrounded by such wonderful nature. You are able to see sights like the Drakensberg Mountains. By the way, Drakensberg means the dragon mountains. And the beautiful ocean. And you've got legs and health, and perhaps some of you have climbed these mountains. I've climbed mountains in many different countries and it's such a wonderful privilege to get to the heights and to see from the top sites you could never see any other way. When last did you thank God for your hands? and your legs, your eyes, your ears, your sense, your sound, your taste for music. When last did you thank God for sunshine, for nature, for the birds that sing, for the wild animals, for sea life? For the magnificent creatures God has made, like the whales and the dolphins and the eagles and the lions. Have you thanked God? Have you ever thanked God for His mercy, for His grace, for His undeserved favor? I wonder if there's any young person here who, like myself, when I was 17 years old, I could say, I've never yet thanked God for one single thing. Or any of you here like I was back in 1977? Well, you could put that right today. Have you thanked God for His matchless blessings? To be born again is a blessing from above. It's undeserved favor from God. Regeneration can only come from God the Holy Spirit. Even repentance and faith is a gift from God. If you have been adopted into the family of God, have you given Him thanks for this great privilege? Have you thanked God for His forgiveness of sins? For the privilege that you can be His servant and His soldier? Jesus Christ is the greatest, most powerful person in the universe. He has all power and all authority, and you can be a servant and a soldier. What a privilege. Sin is a result of a lack of gratitude. People would not steal if they were grateful to God for what He provides. People would not commit fornication or adultery if they were grateful to God for what He has given them. Lack of gratitude leads to sin. Do you appreciate your parents? Civilisation is built upon gratitude to God and recognition of our debts to previous generations. I probably was grateful for my parents when I was growing up, but I was never so appreciative of my parents as when I became a parent myself. It was only when I became a parent that I realized for the first time something of what my parents must have sacrificed for me to grow up. Young people, listen to me. You will regret being rude to your parents. You will regret not being appreciative and supportive of your parents. When you grow up later and you become a parent, you'll look back and you'll be ashamed that you did not appreciate your parents when you are a parent. Professor Martin Luther declared, there is no love so sacrificial, no love so unselfish as that of a parent. You have a great debt to the reformers who called people back to the Bible, like Professor Martin Luther. Martin Luther championed the principles of freedom of conscience Freedom of thought, freedom of religion, freedom of worship. There were no such concepts before Martin Luther. He innovated these ideas. Martin Luther is the one who called us all back to the Bible, the Bible as the sole foundation for all truth, for all education. Scripture alone is our ultimate authority. Solar Scriptura. As depicted in this lovely painting in the Swiss Palace of Justice. Lady Justice is standing holding the scales of justice, weighing the evidence. And she's pointing a sword down to an open Bible. While elders of the city look to Lady Justice for guidance. Banner above says justice lifts the nations. While the people argue their cases, the elders of the city look to justice personified. And justice points to an open Bible. The principles of justice are found in God's Word. We need to be grateful for the Reformation because before that time, it was just totalitarianism. What the Chief, the king, the emperor said what the pope said, no argument. You just listen to what the man in charge says and he can be arbitrary. In Latin the word was rex, lex. Rex King Lex Law. And the term was the king is the law, the king is above the law, the king's word is law. And the reformers flipped these Latin words to Lex Rex. The law is king. The king is under the law. The law is king. God's law is over all. Are you grateful for that? We should all be grateful to the reformer Ulrich Zwingli of Zurich in Switzerland. He is the one who dispensed with the Latin mass. If you like the idea of having a service in Zulu, in English, in German, in Afrikaans, in your own language, you should be grateful to Ulrich Zwingli. He said, we're not going to have services in Latin anymore. Let's get back to our language, and we're going to get the Word from the Bible. He started Matthew 1, verse 1, and he worked his way through every verse in the New Testament, expanding God's Word. If you like having a Bible in English, Everyone who has an English Bible can be grateful to William Tyndale. William Tyndale literally gave his life. He was burned at the stake so we can have the Bible available in English. Many people died that we can have the Word of God as we have it today. The people of India have a tremendous debt of gratitude to William Carey. William Carey ended widow burning. When a woman's husband died, the Hindus believed her life's use was finished. She was burned alive on the funeral pyre that cremated her husband. So children who just lost their father would lose their mother as well and become complete orphans. William Carey was the first to campaign against it and successfully end this practice. Hinduism believed that lepers needed to be burned because a fiery end to their life would mean a better transmitigation of the soul, a better reincarnation in the next. So, lepers were literally burned alive and William Carey ended that practice too. Mothers believed they needed to sacrifice their firstborn and they would throw their baby into the river for the crocodiles in the Mother Ganges, the Mother Ganges River, as they called it. He is the first one to campaign to end that. Hinduism taught that there was no salvation for a woman unless she is reincarnated as a man. William Currie began the first schools for girls in Hinduism or India and in fact in all of Asia. He started the first Christian college in Asia, and it's still running, Serampore College today. Most importantly, he translated the Bible, the New Testament, or Gospels into an incredible 35 languages, one person. Talk about the gift of tongues. What a heritage! All of us should be deeply indebted and grateful to the missionary explorer, Dr. David Livingston. He opened up Africa for the gospel. He exposed the slave trade. He campaigned to end the rampant Islamic slave trade. That was devastating Africa. When David Livingston landed in Cape Town in 1841, there were only 5 million Christians in all of Africa. Today, there's over 680 million people who call themselves Christians in Africa today. And by the way, that's predicted to double in the next 25 years. Operation World predicts we are going to have 1.2 billion Christians in Africa by 2050. All Nigerians should be grateful to the Missionary Mary Slessor. When she arrived in Nigeria, the people were superstitious and believed that twins came from the devil and therefore they would kill both twins. Any twins were sacrificed, killed immediately. Mary Slessor rescued twins, adopted twins, protected them, and stood up against the witch doctors and made a stand for the right to life. She campaigned against the slave trade, cannibalism, drunkenness, She pioneered Christian schools, she planted churches in remote areas of Nigeria. Praise God for this plucky little courageous Scotswoman who came and she worked where no men were willing to work. The men gave up in the area she went to. She kept going in because she had a hunger and a thirst for soul. She was concerned. She loved the people of Nigeria. We all should be grateful for the Member of Parliament, William Wilberforce, who devoted his life to ending the slave trade and setting the captives free. He was small, he was unhealthy, he was sick most of his life, and yet, With all energy he could, he put everything into fighting against the slave trade. And more than any other single person, the ending of the slave trade is to his credit and his hard work. He mobilized a million people in Britain to sign the petition to end the slave trade, which ultimately turned Parliament around. All of our lives have been enriched by the devotional writings of people like Andrew Murray and the biblical preaching of Charles Spurgeon. Have you given thanks to those people who have invested in your spiritual life? And then there are inventors and there are innovators whose life work have made our lives easier and better and healthier. Now, when I've been ministering in the Nuba Mountains of Sudan, I saw an evangelist with no feet. How do you lose both your feet? Well, the Arabs chopped his feet off with an axe because he is an evangelist. But despite having both his feet axed off at the ankles, he continues to walk on his knees or ride on his donkey to evangelize his neighbors. The Bible declares how beautiful on the mountains are the feet of whom He brings good news. This brother does not have feet. But He has not allowed that to prevent him from reaching and blessing and benefiting his neighbors, even his enemies, with the gospel of Christ. So if a man without feet can take the gospel. If a person without eyesight can produce great hymns, what excuse do you have? Have you given thanks for the fathers of the faith who have prepared the way for us? There are many examples of excellence who inspire us. Think of Hebrews chapter 11, where God gives us a hall of faith of those who, through faith, conquered kingdoms. Have you given thanks to God for Abraham, the father of the faithful? The first mystery in the Bible He left his home country, he left his father's house, he traveled to a new land where God guided him. Praise God for Moses and for Joshua and the examples they are to us. For Gideon and his three hundred. For David, who had the courage to go into the valley of the shadow of death and confront Goliath. And Daniel, who could stand firm and faithful in a pagan Babylon and Persia. Even in the lion's den, he could remain steadfast. Praise God for the Apostle Paul, who wrote so much of the New Testament. Thank you for the Apostle Peter. And their fellow missionaries, Timothy and Titus, we've all been blessed by their ministry and their writings, which we have for us in the New Testament. We read in the Book of Acts, also of John, Mark, and Luke, I want to give thanks to our great fathers in the faith and therefore wrote the book, Victorious Christians Who Changed the World, looking at missionaries like Patrick and Columba and Boniface. And the great reformers, I wrote the book, The Greatest Century of Reformation, to give 16 biographies of 16 reformers of the 16th century. And the greatest reformer of them all, Professor Martin Luther. And then also the greatest century of missionaries on 19 biographies of 19 missionaries of the 19th century. And there's great preachers and teachers like George Whitefield, Jonathan Edwards, and Charles Spurgeon. Their testimonies and their teachings continue to challenge us to go deep into God's Word today. Many people came to South Africa to go down into the earth near Johannesburg to find the gold. You will find more valuable gold in the Word of God if you will go deep into God's Word. We need to be challenged to go further in our discipleship, further up, deeper in. We can go much further in our discipleship. We need to widen our missionary vision. We need to deepen our devotion to Christ. Can you not do something more for God? Surely you can worship Him more, you can study His Word more, you can evangelize to your neighbors more. In everything, give thanks. Persecuted Christians provide perspective on our problems. Many of the people, their problems consist of, what shall I prepare for supper? Well, many of the people are minister monks, have no such problems, they have no food. which is why it's important for us to take in large amounts of food to people in these areas where the crops have been burned, where they've suffered scorched earth from their government. And then you have people saying, what shall I wear? Ladies can stand in front of a full cupboard saying, I've got nothing to wear. But many thousands of the people I've ministered amongst have only one tattered garment to wear. They don't have the dilemma of saying, what shall I wear today? They don't have any choice. And you may complain, what type of shoes do I have to wear? Well, this brother doesn't have the problem. He doesn't have a foot. You complain about your shoes, this poor lady doesn't have a leg. Do you need any more prompting to see what do you have to be grateful for? Many people in the English-speaking world argue about which translation of the Bible should I use. Well, for most of the people of the world, there is only one translationary language, and many millions don't even have access to that. We have 680 million Christians in Africa, but only 150 million Bibles and New Testaments in the whole continent. Half a billion Christians in Africa do not have a Bible or even a New Testament. If you have a Bible in your home, you are blessed. God has given His Word to us. It is for us to help distribute it to the people around us. On numerous occasions, I've heard persecuted Christians in Africa declare, I've been praying for five years for my own copy of the Word of God. Not since the communists burnt my Bible have I had the Word of God for myself. In Angola, Mozambique, Sudan, I've seen Christians fall on their knees, weeping for receiving a Word of God, raising their hands high above their heads, shouting with joy and thanksgiving to receive a copy of the Bible. My prayers have been answered. Now I've got a copy of the Word of God in my own language. This is the greatest gift that anyone could ever receive, the Bible in my own language. Do you realize what a gift you have if you have the Word of God? It is a wonderful privilege to have God's Word in our hand and to have it in our heart. We've distributed tens of thousands of Bibles in the Nuba Mountains of Sudan, and many of these school children said, this is the first thing that I own, the first possession I have. If you have a cell phone and you don't have the Bible, you're poorer than the person who's got a Bible, but no cell phone. Now as I'm an author, I have the opportunity to dedicate books to people who've been a blessing to me. And that's one way I can show my gratitude is who I dedicate my books to. One of my first books was in the killing fields of Mozambique. Mozambique was my first mission field. And so I dedicated that to Francis Grimm. I had the privilege of being mentored by Francis Crimm, who founded Hospital Christian Fellowship and he established these missions in 110 countries of the world. All on a South African passport. Uncle Francis taught me how to pray, how to live by faith, how to prevail in prayer. We had days of prayer. We had nights of prayer. We had intensive intercession through the nights and the days. And he sent me around the country to visit every bookshop in the country, and I got five rand for expenses. So I had to hitchhike everywhere because there was no way of getting buses and trains that could get me everywhere I need to go. He really taught me how to live by faith. As I conducted my first mission to Mozambique while under hospital Christian fellowship, I dedicated my book on In the Killing Fields of Mozambique to Uncle Francis. There's something else to be grateful for. Mozambique was completely closed, atheists, churches closed, Bibles banned, mysteries banned when I started my work in 1982. Today, Mozambique is wide open for the gospel. When I first went to Mozambique in 1982, only 4% of Mozambique would call themselves Christians, 4%. Today it's 34%. Praise God for what he's doing in Mozambique today. My favorite lecturer at Cape Town Baptist Seminary was Professor Fritz House. He taught Old Testament exegesis. Now, Dr. House was a God-fearing, dedicated Christian missionary. He was a military veteran of the Second World War. He had led Bible studies every night of the war on the Eastern Front and in North Africa. He served as part of Field Marshal Urban Rommel's headquarters, and Urban Rommel actually attended his Bible study and prayer meetings. For 60 years, he planted churches throughout South Africa. I've been to many a church and see the cornerstone first pastor for its house. And Fritz Hans was a popular speaker at Biblical World Week Summits. A great blessing. Now, as he introduced me to the doctrines of the Reformation and to the Christology of the Old Testament, he said, you can see Jesus in every book of the Old Testament. I dedicated my Old Testament survey book to Fritz Hauss. And the third edition of my book, Faith Undefined Sudan, was dedicated to Brent Noble, who although he was blind, he had a great vision. He actually raised most of the funds that enabled our mission to deliver hundreds of thousands of Bibles and New Testaments to Christian and Christian school textbooks also and audio Bibles and Christian films into Sudan. So a blind man had the vision that enabled the South Sudanese to get Bibles by the hundreds of thousands and Christian films. How did he do this? He persuaded students to sacrifice, to force their Starbucks coffee and rather put the money into Bibles. you don't want to know how expensive it is to get a Starbucks coffee in America. But those, just getting people to, today I won't get Starbucks coffee, I'm going to instead put that money to Bibles for Sudan. That's funded, hundreds of thousands of Bibles, just students giving up their coffee. The vision of a blind man enabled people to have bibles to read and Christian films to watch. Well, David Noble went to be with the Lord on the 18th of July, 2002. But the impact of his missionary vision, his generosity, continues to echo through eternity. He impacted large fraternity with that vision. People may say, you know, what can I do? And yet, if a blind man can do that, if an evangelist without feet can do what they did, then what excuse do you and I have? His favourite thing was, I once was blind but now I see, from Amazing Grace. Yet I need to say many people today who seem to have eyes are actually spiritually blind. I can say before I was confronted with the gospel and was born again on the 3rd of April 1977, I was spiritually blind. I was spiritually deaf, dumb and blind. I'll give you an example. At school in Rhodesia, we sang hymns every morning and they read scripture. Now, I don't recall a single spiritual concept or thought entering my mind before the 3rd of April 1977 in Cape Town when I was confronted with the gospel. Correction, I was brought up in Pulau Madibi land, but it was not Zimbabwe then. That was Rhodesia. It's Zimbabwe now. Yeah, it was a very different country then. But anyway, we still go to Zimbabwe and praise God for what he is doing there. When I have people correct me saying, you mean Zimbabwe, I said, no, I'm not that young. I was born in 1960. So I was not brought up in Zimbabwe, I was brought up in Rhodesia. What's there now is Zimbabwe, but that isn't what it was when I was brought up there. Well, when I was converted, I started to sing these hymns at school and at church. And I thought, I know these hymns. I've sung them. Some of them I knew off by heart. But for the first time, I was experiencing them. I wasn't just singing the words. And I could just see I was spiritually blind, deaf, dumb. I was completely spiritually dead before my conversion, because here I could see the same hymn that I sang before without a single spiritual thought in my mind. I don't know if you've got that experience, that you can sing hymns like Amazing Grace, but the words mean nothing to you. It may be words on a screen, words you sing, but you don't understand what it's saying. You can't say, I once was blind, but now I see. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. If you can't resonate with what the youth choir is singing and the hymns he's singing and experience the joy and the exhilaration of these truths, then maybe you're spiritually blind and spiritually deaf and spiritually dead. Well, our mission is dedicated to providing literature, and you've heard of the camel going through the eye of the needle. Well, getting a Pentecnican through our front gate is quite a task. We get containers arriving regularly with tons of Bibles and books that get donated to us to districts throughout Africa. And so we have what we call frontline gym, and every month or so we've got to move a few tons of books and packages under the supervision of Florence, our store's cat, and she's been Storrs Cat for 17 years and get these Bibles into the field, sometimes dug out canoes across the border, across crocodile infested rivers to where they're most needed. Because remember, there are hundreds of millions of Christians who don't even have a Bible. We have got to get the Word of God out. And one of our best friends is World Missionary Press. They provide us with tons and tons of Gospel booklets in a hundred different languages. And these equip evangelists throughout Africa to give people the Word of God. It's all Scripture. People need the Word of God. Most pastors in Africa have no Bible college training, and so it's important to provide training through books, study Bibles, libraries for pastors, and of course you know the broadway, narrowway posters. I think you'll have the opportunity to get some while here as well, to depict the gospel and to be able to put these on school classroom walls, to be able to visualize the gospel for people. We all have a choice. There's the broadway that leads to destruction and the narrowway that leads to life. Which path are you on? I'm very thankful for those who make it possible for us to purchase these Bibles, to get them printed, and to fly them behind enemy lines. into Muslim areas, into North Africa, into countries where the gospel is illegal, where the Bible is illegal, smuggling these Bibles into chartered aircraft. These are smuggled into Sudan, the Nuba Mountains of Sudan, behind enemy lines. Hours flying time in restricted access areas where you fly, you die. No aircraft allowed to fly in there, and being threatened by helicopter gunships, MiG jets, and people coming to help us carry these tons of marbles up the mountain. These areas where there's no roads or cars or trucks, we need people to physically carry the Bibles. Or the audio Bibles, which are hand-cranked or solar panel powered. And now these audio Bibles are very popular too, especially the people who cannot read, even the people who are blind, the doctors are not able to heal with the cataract surgery. And so we are getting hundreds of these audio Bibles into the field as well. Please pray for the Ministry of Literature for Africa. We're averaging every year about 100 tons of Bibles and books that we're giving away free into the field. And chaplains, teachers, pastors, bishops come and we're able to equip them. We all must be very grateful for Reverend Erlo Stigun. What a tremendous inspiration, what an example of devotion and dedication. Uncle Ola was the most blessed, the most successful missionary in Southern Africa, if not in all of Africa. Reverend Ola Steggans' lifelong dedication to God, his faithfulness in putting feet to the faith, continues to be an inspiration and an example for all Christians. And through his recordings, he continues to speak to us. Who else do you know could preach at his own funeral? We all have so much to be grateful to Uncle Erlo for, and God continues to use Uncle Erlo and the mission he pioneered to bless, challenge, enrich, and empower each one of us, even today. Uncle Ola and his family and the co-workers have been our very best friends. Friends in need, and I'm sure many of you can say the same. And this place is like a city on a hill. It is a blessing, a fountain of blessings to many people, not just in South Africa, but far further afield than that. Who can calculate how many people have been blessed and are being blessed even by the online ministry? And those who have been blessed to go through the school. And the youth conferences, 50 years of youth conferences, incredible, and they are continuing. Where do you know of any place that will offer you free accommodation, three meals a day, food, and a whole lot more than that, and conferences without charging a cent? Who else do you know who's offering such things? I spoke to a member of parliament at Uncle Ola's funeral and I said, Do you think any government department has done as much for the people of this country as Uncle Olo and the co-workers of Crest of Antwerp? And as a member of parliament said, forget each department. The government as a whole hasn't done as much for the people of the country as this one mission has. Lives transformed for the better. We praise God for His abundant grace which has been poured out through the multitude of ministries which continue to flow from this extraordinary mission in KwaZulu. And now, the book, Bond Servant of Christ, which gives the story of Uncle Lolo and his family and coworkers, it's now available internationally. through prints on demand and by Smashwords as e-books. This means somebody in Mongolia can obtain the book. Even though our postal service doesn't work, we've now got a system that this book is available not just to the people who come here to the mission, but those who are watching online can obtain Bond Servant of Christ and learn the story of Kwasamantu. He was born a servant of Christ. He was a servant of Christ. He was born a servant of Christ. He was born a servant of Christ. And I dedicated both editions of Putting Feet to Your Faith to Reverend Erlo Stegen, because who has put feet to his faith more than Uncle Erlo? Now all too many people today are consumed with the obnoxious habit of demanding, give me, you must give me. Often I've heard, what Christmas do you have for me? As though Christmas is all about what I can get instead of what I can give. All too many people today are greedy, demanding, ungrateful, entitled, self-centered, and they are miserable. If you've read the book War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy's classic novel has a prominent character, Platon Carativ. Platon Carativ is a joyful Russian peasant who's always giving thanks to God. And he's always sharing what little he has with the stray dog he's adopted and with fellow prisoners around him. The author said he based this character on a real person he knew. He had met this poor, joyful peasant. And it occurred to him this man, although he had little, was far happier than all the rich men that he knew. It is more blessed to give than to receive. I praise God for many times that I've been under fire, artillery, rocket, and aerial bombardments, the times I've been in prison, and times I've suffered interrogation and torture. in communist prisons. I can say there's not a day that goes by that I'm not grateful for clean water, for a clean pillowcase, for a clean bed, for the freedom to get up and go out, to be able to see outside a prison, to climb mountains. for soap, for so many things that you might take for granted. If you've been in prison, if you've been under fire, if you've been close to death, you will appreciate these things more than you would any other time. Trials and tribulations can teach you thanksgiving. When you've had bombs landing around you, when you've had people trying to shoot you and kill you, when you've had your freedom taken away and you've been locked up and chained, then you will be so grateful for every day it's a gift. What does God have to do to get your attention? Do you need to end up in a fiery furnace? Do you need to get sickness? I mean, what does God have to do to get your attention? If you waste your time on Hollywood's media, you will see there's a lot of blasphemy. And there was a TV series where a line was scripted where a wife who just gave thanks for the food was rebuked by her husband. But this is how blasphemous Hollywood can be. Why give thanks to God? I'm the one who worked and paid for the food, you're the one who cooked it, so thanks for nothing, God. But this kind of foolish, blasphemous, short-sighted, willful blindness is all too common today, sadly. Behind the retailer is the wholesaler and the transporter, whether by vehicle or train. And there's the farmer, there's the soil, there's the sun, there's the rain. And behind all this is the hand of God. You should give thanks to God for your life and for your health, which enables you to work and to contribute to the needs of others, and that you're able to meet the needs of your own family. We have a store, a wholesaler, a plumber, a plumber, a plumber, a plumber, a plumber, a plumber, a plumber, a plumber, a plumber, a plumber. You ask some people, where does food come from? And they say, from checkers, from pick and pay. No, no, no. Where do you think milk comes from? And the amount of people in the city have no idea where the food comes from. They think it just comes from the shop. Oh, that men would give thanks to the Lord for His goodness and for His wonderful works to the children of men. No duty is so urgent as that of returning thanks to God. It's good to pray before every meal. It's good to pray before every journey by car or by bus, or whether you're walking or cycling. But we should also give thanks when we arrive safely. Charles Spurgeon, it should be as habitual for us to thank God as it is to ask. Many of us think prayer is just asking, give me this and give me that and provide that. But in fact, thanksgiving is even more important. Somebody asked Spurgeon, what is more important, giving thanks or intercession? And he said, what's more important, breathing in or breathing out? You can't do one without the other. It has been said a thankful heart is the parent of all virtues. But it's also true that lack of gratitude is a root sin. Romans 1 verse 18. The wrath of God, the anger of God is revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness. For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God, nor gave thanks to him. But their thinking became futile, their foolish hearts were darkened." Here in Romans 1, failure to give thanks to God is the root sin that leads to futile thinking and foolish, darkened hearts. In Luke 17, we read of the 10 lepers who were healed by the Lord. And when one of them, a Samaritan, threw himself at Jesus' feet and thanked Him, the Lord asked, were not all 10 saved and healed? Where are the other nine? Was no one else found to return and give thanks to God? Accept this, Samaritan. Well, in our missions experience, and I'm sure at Kwasi Sabantu too, we found barely 10% of those we help or sponsor will ever bother to express their gratitude, either verbally or in a letter or card. Gratitude is a rarity. I trust that you thank the cooks and the people who serve at the mealtimes. May giving of their time to serve you and the least we can do is say thank you to them. In 1 Timothy chapter 3, we read a list of some of the most terrible sins. People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful. Proud. Abusive. Disobedient to their parents. Ungrateful. Unholy. Without love. Unforgiving. Slanderous. Without self-control. Brutal. Not lovers of the good. Traitorous. Resh. Conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having a form of godliness but rejecting its real power. Here, ungrateful is right in the midst of a litany of horrible sins. One of the first lessons a good parent seeks to teach his children is to say thank you. The most important one word is please. The most important two words is thank you. The most important three words is, I am sorry. I have three grandsons and I'm trying to teach them this. It's just so important to learn this young. It takes courage. It takes courage and character to admit being in debt to others. It is humbling. And yet we live in a society that can have a month of pride. That's why I said we need a month of humility. Those who cannot express their indebtedness, their gratitude to others, cannot learn, nor can they seek forgiveness. Failure to express gratitude is more than immaturity, more than rudeness, it's ungodly. It is a sign of maturity to recognize and admit indebtedness. Anyone who's learned anything is in debt to somebody else. All of us are in debt firstly to God, of course. He is the one who's given us our life, our health, our food, our talents, our family, opportunities, even salvation itself. But we also need to give thanks to past generations who sacrificed for the freedoms we now enjoy. We should be grateful for the reformers and the martyrs, the pioneers, the missionaries, the soldiers, the parents, the pastors, so many others who've sacrificed for your benefit. Those who do not take advice do not think they've got anything to learn. These no-olds are the same people who have a problem expressing genuine heartfelt gratitude to others. It is a sign of pride to be ungrateful. It reveals an unwillingness to acknowledge a debt to others. Instead of the Christian attitude and character of gratitude, our present culture prefers to promote an attitude of entitlement. Entitlement is the very opposite of gratitude. Entitlement is built on pride and covetousness. It is fueled by bitterness, by greed, and by envy. I'm a good person. I deserve better. Give me, give me, give me. Some people say God is not fair. I demand justice from God. If God was to give us justice, he had cast us into an eternity in hell. That is justice. That's fair. That is what we deserve. What you and I want is mercy, grace, undeserved favor. All too many people in our present humanistic society take things for granted. Yeah, others should give to me and I should take. They demand to get. But the essence of Christianity is to seek to give, not to get. One man gives freely, yet gains even more. Another withholds unduly but comes to poverty. We can see Uncle Olo and the co-workers at Kwasamantu, they give freely and yet God prospers them more. And you can see other people who withhold unduly and they come to poverty. Do you want to live to get or do you want to live to give? Dr. Martin Luther observed, we exhibit a degree of thankfulness in life in reverse proportion to the amount of blessing we've received. The greater God's gifts and works, the less they are appreciated. You don't really appreciate life or health or freedom or food until they're lost or threatened. How many of you paid attention to the sunrise this morning? Sunrises and sunsets occur every day and they're therefore taken for granted. Consider the stars. If the constellations appeared only once in a thousand years, imagine what an exciting event it would be as you wait. But because you see the stars every night, we barely give them a look. In the same way, the blessings of rain are barely appreciated unless you've been through a drought. Nobody in Cape Town gets that excited when it rains. But I've been in the desert when it's rained, and you should see the people dancing, jumping, excited. Rain coming when you're in the desert, like in the Sahara in northern Sudan. Tremendously exciting. But when do people in Cape Town get excited for rain? And a hungry person is more thankful for his morsel, a crumb, than a rich man for a heavily laden table. It's your name. I don't know if you've visited people in old age homes, but a lonely woman in a nursing home will appreciate a visit far more than a popular person has a party thrown in his honor. A Christian who's suffered persecution for decades and he receives his first copy of the Word of God will be more grateful for this one book than we are for our shelves filled with books, Bibles, and other literature. There are at least 138 commands in the Bible to give thanks. We are commanded to enter gates with thanksgiving. Enter His courts with praise. Give thanks to Him. Praise His name. This is a command. Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace, and be thankful. These are commands in the Bible. Do not be anxious about anything. Don't worry about anything. But in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. We praise God for our true friends, for our prayer warriors, for our co-workers, for our supporters, for our allies, who stand with us in difficult times. Bad times are good for spiritual work. Through our God, we shall do valiantly. It is He who will tread down our enemies. No weapon formed against us shall stand. God has sent His angels to encamp around us. Thanks be to Almighty God, our solid rock foundation. He is our fortress, our redeemer and our deliverer. Be joyful always. Pray continually. Give thanks in all circumstances. This is God's will for you in Christ Jesus. Give thanks to God. Call on His name. Make known amongst the nations what He has done. Let us pray. We ask you, Lord God, to be merciful and to be gracious to us. Forgive us, Lord God, when we are not grateful, when we do not appreciate all that you give us. Forgive us, Lord, when we have acted entitled and taken your blessings for granted. Lord God, we pray, help us to be the respectful, supportive, grateful children, appreciating our parents and supporting them as we can. Thank you, Lord God, for all those who have made these youth conferences possible. Lord, thank you for the workers that have worked so hard to prepare and to make it possible for these events to be made freely available to all who have come from so far and wide. Thank you, Lord God, for the drivers who came and collected us. Thank you for those who provided the buses and for those who paid for the petrol. Thank you for the farmers who provided the food and the people who cooked and prepared it and served it to us. Lord, thank you for this day. Thank you for our health. Thank you for our lives. Lord God, we pray that you would help each one of us to be transformed and changed to have an appointment with you during this conference here. Lord God, may no one leave this auditorium or leave this mission without first making peace with you and making right with you. Lord God, we pray, help each one of us to surrender to you everything and to be wholeheartedly committed to you and to your cause. If we pray this in Jesus' precious and holy name. Amen.