Joedy Melashenko: It's a blessing to be here this morning.
Joedy Melashenko: I've had
Joedy Melashenko: uh
Joedy Melashenko: a
Joedy Melashenko: tickle
Joedy Melashenko: in my throat for a number of weeks, and I
Joedy Melashenko: Wasn't even sure I'd be able to sing this morning.
Joedy Melashenko: So if you hear me, you know, looking for some uh
Joedy Melashenko: sour note, you understand why.
Joedy Melashenko: But it's a joy to be here this morning.
Joedy Melashenko: We're going to be sharing a lot of
Joedy Melashenko: exciting things that
Joedy Melashenko: God is doing in this world.
Joedy Melashenko: Here's a song for you to meditate
Joedy Melashenko: on.
Joedy Melashenko: One day I came to him.
Joedy Melashenko: I
Joedy Melashenko: was
Joedy Melashenko: so thirsty
Joedy Melashenko: I asked for water, my
Joedy Melashenko: throat was
Joedy Melashenko: so
Joedy Melashenko: dry.
Joedy Melashenko: He
Joedy Melashenko: gave me water
Joedy Melashenko: that I
Joedy Melashenko: had
Joedy Melashenko: never dreamed
Joedy Melashenko: of
Joedy Melashenko: But for this water
Joedy Melashenko: my Lord had
Joedy Melashenko: to
Joedy Melashenko: die
Joedy Melashenko: He said
Joedy Melashenko: I
Joedy Melashenko: first
Joedy Melashenko: get
Joedy Melashenko: him
Joedy Melashenko: The river
Joedy Melashenko: he said
Joedy Melashenko: I
Joedy Melashenko: thirst, yet he made
Joedy Melashenko: the sea.
Joedy Melashenko: Oh
Joedy Melashenko: I
Joedy Melashenko: thirst
Joedy Melashenko: said
Joedy Melashenko: the king
Joedy Melashenko: of
Joedy Melashenko: the
Joedy Melashenko: ages
Joedy Melashenko: in his
Joedy Melashenko: great thirst
Joedy Melashenko: he brought water.
Joedy Melashenko: To
Joedy Melashenko: me.
Joedy Melashenko: Now
Joedy Melashenko: there's a river
Joedy Melashenko: and it flows
Joedy Melashenko: as clear as crystal.
Joedy Melashenko: It comes
Joedy Melashenko: from
Joedy Melashenko: God
Joedy Melashenko: 's throne
Joedy Melashenko: above
Joedy Melashenko: and like
Joedy Melashenko: a river
Joedy Melashenko: it wells up.
Joedy Melashenko: Up
Joedy Melashenko: inside
Joedy Melashenko: me, bringing mercy
Joedy Melashenko: and life
Joedy Melashenko: giving
Joedy Melashenko: love.
Joedy Melashenko: He
Joedy Melashenko: said
Joedy Melashenko: I thirst
Joedy Melashenko: yet he made
Joedy Melashenko: the river
Joedy Melashenko: He said
Joedy Melashenko: I thirst
Joedy Melashenko: yet he may
Joedy Melashenko: Said
Joedy Melashenko: the king
Joedy Melashenko: of
Joedy Melashenko: the
Joedy Melashenko: ages.
Joedy Melashenko: In his
Joedy Melashenko: great thirst, he brought water
Joedy Melashenko: to
Joedy Melashenko: me.
Joedy Melashenko: Oh, he said
Joedy Melashenko: I
Joedy Melashenko: thirst, yet he
Joedy Melashenko: made.
Joedy Melashenko: The river.
Joedy Melashenko: He said
Joedy Melashenko: I
Joedy Melashenko: thirst, yet
Joedy Melashenko: he made
Joedy Melashenko: the sea.
Joedy Melashenko: I
Joedy Melashenko: thirst
Joedy Melashenko: said
Joedy Melashenko: the king of
Joedy Melashenko: the ages
Joedy Melashenko: in his
Joedy Melashenko: great thirst
Joedy Melashenko: he brought
Joedy Melashenko: water.
Joedy Melashenko: To me.
Joedy Melashenko: In his
Joedy Melashenko: great first, he brought water
Joedy Melashenko: to
Joedy Melashenko: me.
Joedy Melashenko: Get up close.
Joedy Melashenko: Good morning everyone.
Joedy Melashenko: We're so happy to be here with you this morning.
Joedy Melashenko: I'd like to share our scripture that we're going
Joedy Melashenko: Jody's going to be basing his sermon off of, and it's found in Romans
Joedy Melashenko: chapter 10 and verses 13 to 15.
Joedy Melashenko: There, I think there are Bibles
Joedy Melashenko: in the pews in front of you if you'd like to follow along.
Joedy Melashenko: Otherwise, you can read it off the screen.
Joedy Melashenko: Everyone, everyone
Joedy Melashenko: who calls on the name of the Lord
Joedy Melashenko: will be saved.
Joedy Melashenko: What an awesome promise
Joedy Melashenko: is that
Joedy Melashenko: But how can they call on him
Joedy Melashenko: unless they believe in him?
Joedy Melashenko: And how can they believe in him
Joedy Melashenko: if they've never heard about him?
Joedy Melashenko: And
Joedy Melashenko: how can they hear about him
Joedy Melashenko: unless someone tells them?
Joedy Melashenko: And how will anyone go and tell them without being sent?
Joedy Melashenko: That's our scripture this morning.
Joedy Melashenko: And you will find out quickly how
Joedy Melashenko: God is working in this world to
Joedy Melashenko: send people
Joedy Melashenko: to share the gospel.
Joedy Melashenko: Amen.
Joedy Melashenko: My dear wife
Joedy Melashenko: Judy and I have
Joedy Melashenko: put up with each other in a very wonderful way.
Joedy Melashenko: Fifty-five years.
Joedy Melashenko: I'm still on probation, she tells me though.
Joedy Melashenko: But I'm just, I know she don't want me to say much, but this has been a very difficult
Joedy Melashenko: last
Joedy Melashenko: couple weeks for us.
Joedy Melashenko: Judy lost her best friend, her sister, just two weeks ago today
Joedy Melashenko: and
Joedy Melashenko: it's been
Joedy Melashenko: Lord Jesus, please come soon.
Joedy Melashenko: That's all I can say.
Joedy Melashenko: My wife and I have
Joedy Melashenko: had
Joedy Melashenko: The wonderful privilege of being involved in youth ministries our whole career.
Joedy Melashenko: The last 15 years we served with quiet
Joedy Melashenko: hour ministries out of
Joedy Melashenko: Redlands, California, with Bill and Jackie Tucker.
Joedy Melashenko: And we organized
Joedy Melashenko: and coordinated about 50
Joedy Melashenko: short-term mission projects, including evangelism
Joedy Melashenko: building
Joedy Melashenko: schools
Joedy Melashenko: and churches.
Joedy Melashenko: And it was by far
Joedy Melashenko: the most life-changing experience, not only for us, but the young people that went with us.
Joedy Melashenko: It was just a very
Joedy Melashenko: marvelous privilege.
Joedy Melashenko: We thought our days of
Joedy Melashenko: mission projects were over.
Joedy Melashenko: Did I say something?
Joedy Melashenko: One of the
Joedy Melashenko: guys who is my
Joedy Melashenko: one of my contractors
Joedy Melashenko: called me a year ago and said, Jody.
Joedy Melashenko: We uh
Joedy Melashenko: we spent a couple
Joedy Melashenko: summers
Joedy Melashenko: in Fiji.
Joedy Melashenko: By the way, does anybody know the greeting
Joedy Melashenko: from the Fijian islands?
Joedy Melashenko: What do they say when they see each other?
Joedy Melashenko: Bula.
Joedy Melashenko: Everywhere it goes.
Joedy Melashenko: Bula.
Joedy Melashenko: He said, we're going back to Bula
Joedy Melashenko: country
Joedy Melashenko: because there's 23
Joedy Melashenko: little churches there.
Joedy Melashenko: That have been meeting in this little pole
Joedy Melashenko: barn for their school, and they desperately want a church school in this region of
Joedy Melashenko: Singatoka, Fiji.
Joedy Melashenko: So
Joedy Melashenko: fortunately, praise the Lord, we were able to raise some funds through our church, through the church up in Battleground, Metal Glade
Joedy Melashenko: Church up in Washington.
Joedy Melashenko: And so in a couple weeks, Judy and I are
Joedy Melashenko: and 50 missionaries are heading to Fiji
Joedy Melashenko: to conduct an evangelistic series and build a school.
Joedy Melashenko: So
Joedy Melashenko: we want you to keep that on your prayer list.
Joedy Melashenko: The
Joedy Melashenko: um
Joedy Melashenko: the reality is
Joedy Melashenko: the world that we live in today
Joedy Melashenko: Especially for young people.
Joedy Melashenko: And I don't want to go crosser
Joedy Melashenko: with any kids here because my whole ministry was
Joedy Melashenko: directed to young people.
Joedy Melashenko: But the young people from North America, from many of the Western cultures, have it so good they don't understand how good they've got it.
Joedy Melashenko: Here in America, we have so much stuff
Joedy Melashenko: we don't want to do with it all.
Joedy Melashenko: If you were an entrepreneur and had a little bit of a entrepreneurial spirit 30, 35
Joedy Melashenko: years ago.
Joedy Melashenko: And you had
Joedy Melashenko: invested
Joedy Melashenko: in the U
Joedy Melashenko: store
Joedy Melashenko: it
Joedy Melashenko: facilities
Joedy Melashenko: where people rent a place to store their stuff.
Joedy Melashenko: Because they
Joedy Melashenko: got so much stuff they don't have room for it at home.
Joedy Melashenko: You know what I'm talking about?
Joedy Melashenko: You'd
Joedy Melashenko: become a very wealthy person.
Joedy Melashenko: And young people here in our culture
Joedy Melashenko: In fact, not only
Joedy Melashenko: young people, but many of you old senior citizens out there this morning, every time you turn the radio or every time you open a magazine or television,
Joedy Melashenko: The message that the world shouts to us goes something like this.
Joedy Melashenko: Get it bigger, better, and faster than the other guy, and that'll guarantee your happiness.
Joedy Melashenko: Are you with me?
Joedy Melashenko: Get it bigger, better, and faster than the other guy.
Joedy Melashenko: We spend most of our time, most of our years, if we're really honest with ourselves.
Joedy Melashenko: Trying to keep up with the bigger, better, and faster stuff that keeps coming out.
Joedy Melashenko: Do you think um
Joedy Melashenko: iPhone was happy for iPhone 1?
Joedy Melashenko: How many
Joedy Melashenko: how many generations
Joedy Melashenko: that
Joedy Melashenko: was
Joedy Melashenko: iPhone
Joedy Melashenko: 17 now, whatever?
Joedy Melashenko: I was in a
Joedy Melashenko: cell phone store the other day getting my phone worked on and
Joedy Melashenko: You know, here's this young person.
Joedy Melashenko: They're plunking down twelve
Joedy Melashenko: hundred dollars for the new iPhone.
Joedy Melashenko: I was reminded
Joedy Melashenko: About all the stuff we have.
Joedy Melashenko: When my mom and dad got to the place where
Joedy Melashenko: they needed to be moved in an assisted living facility.
Joedy Melashenko: And my brother Rudy and I, by the way, we lived
Joedy Melashenko: in Paradise, California and sold our home in Paradise, California
Joedy Melashenko: five months before that fire took everything.
Joedy Melashenko: before we moved down here to Sun City West.
Joedy Melashenko: But before that fire took everything, my mom and dad went to this assisted living place, and so we're starting to go through their stuff.
Joedy Melashenko: in the garage to sort things out and find out what we can give to the Dorcas
Joedy Melashenko: Society and what we
Joedy Melashenko: can.
Joedy Melashenko: Okay, my parents
Joedy Melashenko: were
Joedy Melashenko: products
Joedy Melashenko: of the Depression era.
Joedy Melashenko: What do you do
Joedy Melashenko: with
Joedy Melashenko: five hundred
Joedy Melashenko: empty cottage cheese containers?
Joedy Melashenko: What do you do with
Joedy Melashenko: 20 gallons, big
Joedy Melashenko: five-gallon buckets of rusted nails, and on and on and on?
Joedy Melashenko: So
Joedy Melashenko: My brother Rudy and I were, we had the
Joedy Melashenko: joy
Joedy Melashenko: of hauling one load after another of stuff to the dump.
Joedy Melashenko: Now they don't call it a dump anymore.
Joedy Melashenko: They call it a landfill.
Joedy Melashenko: And they call it a landfill because that sounds so more earth-friendly.
Joedy Melashenko: Have any of you been to a landfill lately?
Joedy Melashenko: It's a dump, okay?
Joedy Melashenko: It's a dump.
Joedy Melashenko: And here
Joedy Melashenko: people come.
Joedy Melashenko: What was interesting.
Joedy Melashenko: The guy that was directing traffic back up into here, he says,
Joedy Melashenko: let me guess.
Joedy Melashenko: You're going through your folks' stuff, huh?
Joedy Melashenko: I said, Yeah, that's right.
Joedy Melashenko: He says, You don't have any idea.
Joedy Melashenko: How many people I meet
Joedy Melashenko: who have to go through their stuff
Joedy Melashenko: because their parents have gone.
Joedy Melashenko: What was it
Joedy Melashenko: really interesting though?
Joedy Melashenko: One of the buildings.
Joedy Melashenko: I mean, there are stacks of old tires and stacks of old appliances and bicycles and
Joedy Melashenko: but they got this building over here
Joedy Melashenko: that is called the Electronic Recycling Building.
Joedy Melashenko: And that's where they take old computers and stuff and they pull stuff, whatever they can use.
Joedy Melashenko: What was interesting
Joedy Melashenko: as we were unloading some stuff, here's a
Joedy Melashenko: An elder
Joedy Melashenko: the gentleman and his younger son.
Joedy Melashenko: They back
Joedy Melashenko: up with a pickup truck to the electronic recycling
Joedy Melashenko: And they've got this massive
Joedy Melashenko: television set.
Joedy Melashenko: Now it wasn't a high definition.
Joedy Melashenko: It was one of these old style, you know, it's a boat anchor is what it was.
Joedy Melashenko: I mean
Joedy Melashenko: they
Joedy Melashenko: weighed a ton.
Joedy Melashenko: Took two of them to unload it.
Joedy Melashenko: It worked just fine, but you see it's not bigger, better, and faster anymore.
Joedy Melashenko: And so that that went to the dump.
Joedy Melashenko: You're following me, aren't you?
Joedy Melashenko: Friends?
Joedy Melashenko: That's a hamster wheel.
Joedy Melashenko: That's a squirrel cage.
Joedy Melashenko: You never stop running.
Joedy Melashenko: But here's the interesting thing.
Joedy Melashenko: Many of these young people that have gone on these mission trips with us.
Joedy Melashenko: Who've been told you need the bigger, better, and faster stuff to be happy.
Joedy Melashenko: When they go into a country
Joedy Melashenko: and they meet young people
Joedy Melashenko: and they meet individuals
Joedy Melashenko: who have absolutely nothing.
Joedy Melashenko: And they're just a whole lot happier than we are.
Joedy Melashenko: Something wonderful happens in many of those young people's lives.
Joedy Melashenko: They come to realize what really, really is important in this journey, and it's not stuff.
Joedy Melashenko: So, if it's not stuff, then what is it?
Joedy Melashenko: A youth pastor
Joedy Melashenko: friend
Joedy Melashenko: and I were having breakfast together.
Joedy Melashenko: I was youth pastor at the Carmichael Church in Sacramento
Joedy Melashenko: for years, and
Joedy Melashenko: we were having breakfast, and he started kind of shaking his head.
Joedy Melashenko: He said, I'm I'm really not looking forward to the church board meeting tonight.
Joedy Melashenko: He said, because
Joedy Melashenko: our church is
Joedy Melashenko: business session, they have decided to place a curse on me.
Joedy Melashenko: And that curse happens to be that I'm going to be the coordinator of the church remodeling project.
Joedy Melashenko: I
Joedy Melashenko: see.
Joedy Melashenko: I don't need to say anything else.
Joedy Melashenko: And he said so, the reality is
Joedy Melashenko: this.
Joedy Melashenko: We got a whole bunch of the church members that want
Joedy Melashenko: blue carpet.
Joedy Melashenko: And this group here wants green carpet
Joedy Melashenko: and the blue carpet people have given more than the green carpet people and it's gonna be war.
Joedy Melashenko: So I turned to my friend
Joedy Melashenko: Jim and I said, Jim, I didn't come up with this, but somebody shared this motto with me, and I've adopted it for everything
Joedy Melashenko: I do in this journey called life.
Joedy Melashenko: Whether it's with my family, whether it's with my friends, whether it's on the golf course, whatever it is, that motto goes like this.
Joedy Melashenko: The main
Joedy Melashenko: thing is that the main thing is the main thing.
Joedy Melashenko: Did God send his
Joedy Melashenko: son
Joedy Melashenko: Jesus
Joedy Melashenko: down to this earth so you could argue about the color of the carpeting?
Joedy Melashenko: No.
Joedy Melashenko: And so we ask ourselves this morning
Joedy Melashenko: the main
Joedy Melashenko: thing.
Joedy Melashenko: Our dear brother Danny there asks, why are we here?
Joedy Melashenko: What's the main thing?
Joedy Melashenko: What's the purpose for church?
Joedy Melashenko: Well, the main thing is made very, very clear in the Gospels.
Joedy Melashenko: When Jesus himself
Joedy Melashenko: declared what we call the Great Gospel Commission, we read in Matthew 16, go there for, go into the whole world and preach the good news to everyone.
Joedy Melashenko: Well that's pretty simple.
Joedy Melashenko: And then I think since we've all been in crin
Joedy Melashenko: kindergarten, we memorized Matthew 24, 14
Joedy Melashenko: that says
Joedy Melashenko: this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in the whole world
Joedy Melashenko: as a witness unto all nations, and then the end shall
Joedy Melashenko: come.
Joedy Melashenko: But there's part of that verse that's very troubling to my spirit, and that happens to be this word
Joedy Melashenko: all, because
Joedy Melashenko: there are parts of this world you can't get there from here.
Joedy Melashenko: And there are parts of this world
Joedy Melashenko: you wouldn't
Joedy Melashenko: you wouldn't want to be there
Joedy Melashenko: because as a Westerner you'd last
Joedy Melashenko: two minutes.
Joedy Melashenko: But the Lord says, all the world.
Joedy Melashenko: That passage of scripture that Judy read earlier, I'm going to repeat it to you
Joedy Melashenko: because there's actually in this scripture
Joedy Melashenko: The Apostle Paul, he wrote this letter to the Roman Church after his third missionary journey, and the Apostle Paul had such a passion for Jesus.
Joedy Melashenko: He has such a passion to share the good news of the gospel.
Joedy Melashenko: He literally shared the gospel in the then-known world.
Joedy Melashenko: And if you've ever traced the footsteps of Paul and see
Joedy Melashenko: where he went
Joedy Melashenko: in those journeys, unbelievable.
Joedy Melashenko: And so he gets back from his third missionary journey, and he has a letter that he's sending to the Roman church, and he says
Joedy Melashenko: ,
Joedy Melashenko: Now, you know.
Joedy Melashenko: I
Joedy Melashenko: wish Paul could stand up here this morning
Joedy Melashenko: because
Joedy Melashenko: he makes the gospel about
Joedy Melashenko: as plain as you can make it
Joedy Melashenko: right here.
Joedy Melashenko: Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.
Joedy Melashenko: Well then we add all this other stuff to it.
Joedy Melashenko: Friends, if Jesus Christ is your Savior and Lord, you c
Joedy Melashenko: you can have the assurance of your salvation.
Joedy Melashenko: If you know Jesus, you're saved.
Joedy Melashenko: End of discussion.
Joedy Melashenko: But then
Joedy Melashenko: he adds these
Joedy Melashenko: four questions.
Joedy Melashenko: And
Joedy Melashenko: they get more and more intense through these verses.
Joedy Melashenko: But how can they call on him
Joedy Melashenko: unless they believe on him?
Joedy Melashenko: And how can they believe in him
Joedy Melashenko: if they never heard about him?
Joedy Melashenko: And then
Joedy Melashenko: and how can they hear about him unless someone goes and tells him?
Joedy Melashenko: And then how
Joedy Melashenko: anyone go and tell them without being sent?
Joedy Melashenko: You get the intensity of his
Joedy Melashenko: Friends, I am so
Joedy Melashenko: grateful
Joedy Melashenko: to be a part of a church
Joedy Melashenko: that still is sending out missionaries
Joedy Melashenko: that are sending out people to share the good news of the gospel in some of the most remote parts of the world.
Joedy Melashenko: Now, I'm just gonna cue my friends back there at the booth.
Joedy Melashenko: Bye, I want to lift them all up.
Joedy Melashenko: You got a great group of people here.
Joedy Melashenko: Uh
Joedy Melashenko: they're they're flying a 747
Joedy Melashenko: this morning.
Joedy Melashenko: It's a brand new sound system and they've made it work really, really good.
Joedy Melashenko: But they said, you know, we've only
Joedy Melashenko: had experience buying a pipe or cub, so we're we're gonna have to learn and curve
Joedy Melashenko: it.
Joedy Melashenko: But we have a video I want to show to you right now.
Joedy Melashenko: Let's go ahead and show it.
Joedy Melashenko: We need sound.
Joedy Melashenko: Let's start it from the beginning again and we can bring the level down just a little bit.
Joedy Melashenko: And this
Joedy Melashenko: gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world
Joedy Melashenko: as a witness unto all nations, and then shall the end come.
Joedy Melashenko: Join us now for a journey that may change forever your
Joedy Melashenko: understanding of foreign mission work and the fulfillment of the Great Commission.
Joedy Melashenko: Today, we travel to an area of the world largely ignored by Christians.
Joedy Melashenko: Known as the 1040 window, it's located between 10 and 40 degrees north latitude in the eastern hemisphere.
Joedy Melashenko: It stretches from North Africa toward the rising sun, across the Middle East, India, China, and southward
Joedy Melashenko: to catch Thailand and the Philippine Islands.
Joedy Melashenko: All
Joedy Melashenko: told, nearly 70 countries lie within this window.
Joedy Melashenko: The area accounts for one-third of the world's land mass
Joedy Melashenko: Yet more than five billion people live here.
Joedy Melashenko: That's two-thirds of the world's population.
Joedy Melashenko: Poverty, hunger, illness?
Joedy Melashenko: Illiteracy, oppression, idol worship, fear, and hopelessness are ways of life for many.
Joedy Melashenko: Dominant religions include Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism.
Joedy Melashenko: Worldwide, an estimated 3.
Joedy Melashenko: 2 billion people
Joedy Melashenko: have yet to hear the gospel.
Joedy Melashenko: If you were to guess what percentage of these unreached people live in the 1040 window, what would you say?
Joedy Melashenko: 40%?
Joedy Melashenko: 60%?
Joedy Melashenko: 80%?
Joedy Melashenko: Actually, the stunning answer is 97
Joedy Melashenko: %.
Joedy Melashenko: Virtually all of the world's unreached people
Joedy Melashenko: live in the 1040 window.
Joedy Melashenko: We've shared the gospel close to home, but have left one final
Joedy Melashenko: frontier for evangelism.
Joedy Melashenko: Millions of people in the 1040 window haven't, even once, had a chance to hear the gospel.
Joedy Melashenko: Despite the great need in the 1040 window,
Joedy Melashenko: Less than 2%
Joedy Melashenko: of Christian mission giving goes here.
Joedy Melashenko: There is enough evangelism taking place today to reach the world dozens of times.
Joedy Melashenko: Unfortunately, most of it is happening among people who have already heard the gospel.
Joedy Melashenko: In all candor and to our continuing shame.
Joedy Melashenko: Let us admit that the world's perishing unreached people are very seldom mentioned or thought about in almost all churches.
Joedy Melashenko: Gospel Outreach was founded in 1993 to help introduce people to Jesus in the 1040 window.
Joedy Melashenko: The all-volunteers staff works closely with the church.
Joedy Melashenko: The goal?
Joedy Melashenko: Raise
Joedy Melashenko: funds to support indigenous evangelists and Bible workers.
Joedy Melashenko: These workers are hired and trained by local church conferences.
Joedy Melashenko: Through the Gospel Outreach Adopt a Worker program, a worker can be sponsored for $150 U.
Joedy Melashenko: S.
Joedy Melashenko: dollars monthly.
Joedy Melashenko: Compared to foreign missionaries coming into a country, indigenous workers have many advantages.
Joedy Melashenko: They already know the culture, the religion, the language, the traditions, and the people.
Joedy Melashenko: Gospel outreach is the heartbeat of the South Asia Division.
Joedy Melashenko: Hundreds of thousands of people have given their hearts to Jesus and chosen to be baptized as a result of Gospel Outreach Sponsored Workers.
Joedy Melashenko: Not only are these Bible workers effective, they are also efficient.
Joedy Melashenko: On average, very few dollars invested in their work results in a decision for Jesus that leads to baptism.
Joedy Melashenko: In the 1040 window, millions and millions of honest-hearted people are searching.
Joedy Melashenko: They need hope.
Joedy Melashenko: They need the savior
Joedy Melashenko: Yet they have never had the chance to hear the story of Jesus.
Joedy Melashenko: Today
Joedy Melashenko: it's up to us to make a difference.
Joedy Melashenko: We must help hasten the Lord's return.
Joedy Melashenko: We
Joedy Melashenko: believe
Joedy Melashenko: let's act
Joedy Melashenko: Now I have a question.
Joedy Melashenko: How many of you
Joedy Melashenko: up until this
Joedy Melashenko: moment
Joedy Melashenko: have never heard about gospel outreach?
Joedy Melashenko: Can I see your hands?
Joedy Melashenko: There's a number of you.
Joedy Melashenko: Unfortunately, I think it's the church's best kept secret.
Joedy Melashenko: But I know my wife and I
Joedy Melashenko: we
Joedy Melashenko: we retired from full-time ministry about ten
Joedy Melashenko: years ago and
Joedy Melashenko: God opened the door for us to continue using our music and preaching ministry
Joedy Melashenko: to reach churches and camp meetings and other venues
Joedy Melashenko: to share what this incredible ministry is doing.
Joedy Melashenko: Now, when I first heard the statistics
Joedy Melashenko: that were shared, 97
Joedy Melashenko: %
Joedy Melashenko: of the people that don't know about Jesus
Joedy Melashenko: Live in the 1040 window and yet we only give about two
Joedy Melashenko: percent of our evangelistic efforts to to reach them.
Joedy Melashenko: Now I'm happy to tell you
Joedy Melashenko: that's percentages
Joedy Melashenko: for Christian churches.
Joedy Melashenko: The Adventist Church does quite a bit better than that.
Joedy Melashenko: Your pastor, I'd
Joedy Melashenko: love to sit and chat with him.
Joedy Melashenko: I'm gonna have a chance this afternoon.
Joedy Melashenko: He served in one of the regions in the 1040 window in Vietnam and Mongolia
Joedy Melashenko: and
Joedy Melashenko: In 1993, when gospel outreach was first
Joedy Melashenko: started, I was a young pastor in the Oregon Conference.
Joedy Melashenko: And there was two retired pastors, Pastor Frank and Pastor Edgar.
Joedy Melashenko: Pastor Edgar was
Joedy Melashenko: from the Philippines.
Joedy Melashenko: And he said, we have some remote islands in the Philippines that desperately need to hear the gospel.
Joedy Melashenko: So
Joedy Melashenko: the Oregon Conference at that time
Joedy Melashenko: They took some of the evangelism funds and they sponsored five or six Bible workers
Joedy Melashenko: in that region of the world, and the rest is history.
Joedy Melashenko: That term
Joedy Melashenko: 1040 window, I think most of us have become familiar with it.
Joedy Melashenko: It's 10 degrees north, 40 degrees north latitude in the eastern hemisphere.
Joedy Melashenko: There are many, many countries in that region
Joedy Melashenko: that you and I could not go to without putting our life at risk.
Joedy Melashenko: I'm going to be sharing some things with you this morning.
Joedy Melashenko: You have to be careful who you share it with.
Joedy Melashenko: And I have to
Joedy Melashenko: remain kind of anonymous.
Joedy Melashenko: But the things that are happening right now.
Joedy Melashenko: Especially
Joedy Melashenko: in
Joedy Melashenko: the
Joedy Melashenko: radical
Joedy Melashenko: Muslim countries.
Joedy Melashenko: I'll just leave it at that.
Joedy Melashenko: So
Joedy Melashenko: here's some statistics.
Joedy Melashenko: Through gospel outreach, in the 30-some years they've been in ministry
Joedy Melashenko: ,
Joedy Melashenko: Their gospel
Joedy Melashenko: Bible workers have added about two
Joedy Melashenko: million members to the Adventist Church.
Joedy Melashenko: These are volunteers.
Joedy Melashenko: These are laymen
Joedy Melashenko: that we put
Joedy Melashenko: through training centers
Joedy Melashenko: to our training facilities.
Joedy Melashenko: These are the ones that are tent makers and the
Joedy Melashenko: they
Joedy Melashenko: know how to reach their people.
Joedy Melashenko: And I think you probably caught that in the um
Joedy Melashenko: in the video.
Joedy Melashenko: Um
Joedy Melashenko: We
Joedy Melashenko: now have
Joedy Melashenko: 400, close to 2,500 Bible workers that are in 54
Joedy Melashenko: of the 70 countries in the 1040 window.
Joedy Melashenko: I can't tell you the country because it would put our Bible workers at risk.
Joedy Melashenko: But one of the countries had not had a Christian presence in decades.
Joedy Melashenko: And
Joedy Melashenko: we sent
Joedy Melashenko: 40 Bible workers into that country.
Joedy Melashenko: Four years later, they have a membership of over 80,000.
Joedy Melashenko: In four years.
Joedy Melashenko: 40 Bible workers.
Joedy Melashenko: Now, I have to watch what I say.
Joedy Melashenko: But the cost to sponsor those 40 Bible workers who resulted in 70 or
Joedy Melashenko: 80,000 baptisms
Joedy Melashenko: If you would look at the cost for those Bible workers, it's the same as one full-time pastor here
Joedy Melashenko: in North America.
Joedy Melashenko: There's a lot of people that say, you know what?
Joedy Melashenko: If I have some discretional giving, if I've got some money in my evangelism budget, I know where I'm sending it.
Joedy Melashenko: You
Joedy Melashenko: talk
Joedy Melashenko: about the bang for the buck.
Joedy Melashenko: Unbelievable.
Joedy Melashenko: We'll be sharing a few
Joedy Melashenko: that you know the the wonderful thing about
Joedy Melashenko: I can
Joedy Melashenko: I
Joedy Melashenko: remembered
Joedy Melashenko: When I listen to this video again, I think I was maybe twelve or thirteen years old
Joedy Melashenko: at the Southern New England camp meeting in South Lancaster, Massachusetts, where a family began our ministry together.
Joedy Melashenko: Singing and preaching.
Joedy Melashenko: And um
Joedy Melashenko: used to love going at camp meeting
Joedy Melashenko: in the evening, especially
Joedy Melashenko: when you knew a return missionary was going to come.
Joedy Melashenko: and was going to share it right up the frontline
Joedy Melashenko: story about what was happening in the mission field.
Joedy Melashenko: And if any of you have ever heard
Joedy Melashenko: Eric B.
Joedy Melashenko: Hare
Joedy Melashenko: or Josephine Cunnington Edwards and these incredible storytellers
Joedy Melashenko: You'll know that they brought mission life right to the front row.
Joedy Melashenko: I remember listening to a a couple, I don't remember what country they're from, but I do remember they said something like this.
Joedy Melashenko: You know, my wife and I, we've been in such and such a country for seven or eight years, and we're just starting to learn the language, and we're starting to understand the culture.
Joedy Melashenko: And in my little 12 and 13-year-old brain, you know what
Joedy Melashenko: thought went through?
Joedy Melashenko: Lord, don't you have some local folk down there that we could train
Joedy Melashenko: and teach
Joedy Melashenko: because they have
Joedy Melashenko: they understand the language
Joedy Melashenko: They understand the culture, they
Joedy Melashenko: know the traditions, they
Joedy Melashenko: know the people.
Joedy Melashenko: That is exactly the philosophy why gospel outreach was started.
Joedy Melashenko: And I don't want to get myself in trouble, but the days of sending Westerners into many of these third world countries to try to westernize them, those days are gone.
Joedy Melashenko: We need to respect and understand the people's culture and their traditions.
Joedy Melashenko: And that's what these Bible workers are able to do in incredible ways.
Joedy Melashenko: So here's
Joedy Melashenko: typical.
Joedy Melashenko: Bible worker
Joedy Melashenko: meeting people and they're very, very remote.
Joedy Melashenko: Very simple homes up in the foothills
Joedy Melashenko: One of the very effective tools that they use is they conduct medical clinics, health clinics in the local fair, the local town square, and here the people come.
Joedy Melashenko: And and the Bible workers become known as the as the health outreach ministers in their communities.
Joedy Melashenko: We even have some of them working in some of the refugee camps.
Joedy Melashenko: And if you want to see destitution,
Joedy Melashenko: Unbelievable.
Joedy Melashenko: That's their baptist
Joedy Melashenko: that that's their
Joedy Melashenko: baptistry for many of them.
Joedy Melashenko: They meet people on the front steps
Joedy Melashenko: in their homes, on their porch, or in the town square.
Joedy Melashenko: Wherever they can meet people, they're out there sharing the good news of salvation.
Joedy Melashenko: Now
Joedy Melashenko: There is
Joedy Melashenko: an interesting picture I want to show you right now.
Joedy Melashenko: This happens to be a picture, the country that has the largest number of gospel outreach Bible workers.
Joedy Melashenko: is in India.
Joedy Melashenko: We have about over a thousand
Joedy Melashenko: Bible workers there.
Joedy Melashenko: And the work in India has just exploded, but it's becoming more and more challenging and I'll share that with you in a minute.
Joedy Melashenko: But these are the Bible workers that came to get new training, learning new techniques, and a story emerged from those meetings.
Joedy Melashenko: The man that you see kneeling, his name is Pastor C.
Joedy Melashenko: J.
Joedy Melashenko: Saman.
Joedy Melashenko: Pastor Saman
Joedy Melashenko: was a ministerial
Joedy Melashenko: secretary, ministerial director for all of the Pentecostal churches in India.
Joedy Melashenko: He oversaw thousands of the Pentecostal churches in India.
Joedy Melashenko: He was reading his Bible
Joedy Melashenko: and he kept
Joedy Melashenko: Hearing a message that just
Joedy Melashenko: it convicted his spirit, I need to understand more
Joedy Melashenko: about the Sabbath.
Joedy Melashenko: And so he prayed, Lord, I'm having a hard time understanding, but I just keep reading it throughout the Old and New
Joedy Melashenko: Testament.
Joedy Melashenko: I need more understanding.
Joedy Melashenko: Send someone that can help me.
Joedy Melashenko: Two days later, he meets two gospel
Joedy Melashenko: Bible workers, and they start talking.
Joedy Melashenko: And he starts asking them some questions, and he discovered that these Bible workers
Joedy Melashenko: They could share some insights theologically about the Sabbath, about the state, and so forth.
Joedy Melashenko: And so he started, he set up some Bible studies.
Joedy Melashenko: And every day, for months, these Bible workers met
Joedy Melashenko: with
Joedy Melashenko: Brother
Joedy Melashenko: C.
Joedy Melashenko: J.
Joedy Melashenko: Simon.
Joedy Melashenko: About six months later
Joedy Melashenko: Pastor Simon stood up before his church congregation
Joedy Melashenko: and he said, Brothers and sisters, I have an announcement I need
Joedy Melashenko: to make today.
Joedy Melashenko: It's not an announcement I want to make, but
Joedy Melashenko: I have to resign my position as your pastor.
Joedy Melashenko: They love
Joedy Melashenko: this man.
Joedy Melashenko: You're going to resign.
Joedy Melashenko: Why?
Joedy Melashenko: I've discovered some truths in Scripture
Joedy Melashenko: that are not consistent with
Joedy Melashenko: the theology of this church.
Joedy Melashenko: Well, Brother Simon,
Joedy Melashenko: you can't resign until you share with us this new truth that you've heard, that you've understood.
Joedy Melashenko: So
Joedy Melashenko: for the next number of months, Pastor CJ
Joedy Melashenko: Simon
Joedy Melashenko: is sharing the good news of the three angels
Joedy Melashenko: message to his church family.
Joedy Melashenko: The entire church gets baptized.
Joedy Melashenko: And now that church, they took the sign down.
Joedy Melashenko: It's an Adventist church.
Joedy Melashenko: And his mission is now to reach every Pentecostal pastor.
Joedy Melashenko: in India
Joedy Melashenko: to share with of the good news that he has
Joedy Melashenko: he has come to understand.
Joedy Melashenko: That's how God is working.
Joedy Melashenko: Powerful.
Joedy Melashenko: The challenge is, Prime
Joedy Melashenko: Minister Modi
Joedy Melashenko: is a militant Hindu, and he has convinced his parliament.
Joedy Melashenko: to outlaw any non-Hindu organizations from his country.
Joedy Melashenko: And so in the last five years, more than 2,000 non-Hindu organizations
Joedy Melashenko: Have been banned from India
Joedy Melashenko: because they
Joedy Melashenko: claim they're accusing these Christian organizations
Joedy Melashenko: of buying converts.
Joedy Melashenko: And unfortunately, many of these
Joedy Melashenko: organizations, they'll offer twenty
Joedy Melashenko: or fifty dollars to a family to join their church, and that's a month's wages for them.
Joedy Melashenko: And
Joedy Melashenko: now thankfully the Adventist Church doesn't do that.
Joedy Melashenko: There are only four main organizations left in India that are Christian organizations.
Joedy Melashenko: Pentecostals, the Baptists, the Lutherans, and the Seventh-day Adventists.
Joedy Melashenko: And what we're doing in India, because
Joedy Melashenko: we
Joedy Melashenko: want
Joedy Melashenko: the Indian
Joedy Melashenko: people to understand that
Joedy Melashenko: as Seventh-day Adventists, we're giving more than we're taking.
Joedy Melashenko: And so we're training all of the
Joedy Melashenko: spouses, the wives of the gospel
Joedy Melashenko: outreach
Joedy Melashenko: Bible workers
Joedy Melashenko: to be health educators, to trade them in the right arm of the gospel.
Joedy Melashenko: There's an organization up in Portland, Oregon called Ultimate
Joedy Melashenko: Missions, and they've already trained over a hundred of our Bible workers' wives in India.
Joedy Melashenko: And those those health workers, they'll go into a village before that they even move into the village and they become recognized that they are an emergency room nurse.
Joedy Melashenko: They're
Joedy Melashenko: uh
Joedy Melashenko: What do you call the
Joedy Melashenko: midwife?
Joedy Melashenko: Midwife.
Joedy Melashenko: Thank you there.
Joedy Melashenko: They become known as the health experts in the community.
Joedy Melashenko: And then when the husbands come in and they start announcing, you know, these
Joedy Melashenko: these meetings, it's it's just fabulous what's happening.
Joedy Melashenko: Thankfully, the Prime Minister has had to back off a little bit
Joedy Melashenko: because now he has a coalition government he has to work with.
Joedy Melashenko: And so they've backed off on some of their
Joedy Melashenko: uh
Joedy Melashenko: some
Joedy Melashenko: of the organizations that they're banning from the country.
Joedy Melashenko: But it's a very, it's a huge challenge in India.
Joedy Melashenko: And I've got to
Joedy Melashenko: I've got to move on here quickly because I've got
Joedy Melashenko: that clock
Joedy Melashenko: right.
Joedy Melashenko: Well
Joedy Melashenko: Do we need to take a motion?
Joedy Melashenko: All in favor say aye.
Joedy Melashenko: It's opposed or it's carried.
Joedy Melashenko: Okay, whatever.
Joedy Melashenko: I want to show you
Joedy Melashenko: one of my favorite pictures.
Joedy Melashenko: This is a young 13-year-old
Joedy Melashenko: young lady from India.
Joedy Melashenko: And I don't want to get in the political scene here, but if you
Joedy Melashenko: understand anything about
Joedy Melashenko: India, even though the government has
Joedy Melashenko: outlawed the caste system.
Joedy Melashenko: The caste system, there's about eight different levels of castes in the Indian culture.
Joedy Melashenko: And if you're born in the Brahmin caste, your
Joedy Melashenko: wealth and your
Joedy Melashenko: fame, but the people in the lower caste.
Joedy Melashenko: You cannot buy your way out or educate your
Joedy Melashenko: out of being in that lower caste.
Joedy Melashenko: They've basically
Joedy Melashenko: been predestined to be servants and slaves and whatever.
Joedy Melashenko: And this young lady was from a lower caste.
Joedy Melashenko: system
Joedy Melashenko: family.
Joedy Melashenko: All her life she's been told that women
Joedy Melashenko: in their culture
Joedy Melashenko: are worth less than
Joedy Melashenko: a cow.
Joedy Melashenko: The
Joedy Melashenko: worse
Joedy Melashenko: less than
Joedy Melashenko: they're they're just
Joedy Melashenko: you're like chattel.
Joedy Melashenko: She goes to a gospel outreach
Joedy Melashenko: group of meetings, and for the first time, this young lady hears that in Jesus
Joedy Melashenko: There
Joedy Melashenko: 's no Greek or slave, and they're Greek or Jew.
Joedy Melashenko: There's no free or slave.
Joedy Melashenko: There's no male or female
Joedy Melashenko: that we all stand
Joedy Melashenko: on equal ground in front of the cross.
Joedy Melashenko: Can you see the happiness in her eyes?
Joedy Melashenko: She's now a youth leader in her little church there
Joedy Melashenko: where she gave her heart to Jesus.
Joedy Melashenko: That's the good news of the gospel, friends.
Joedy Melashenko: The request from India?
Joedy Melashenko: They want
Joedy Melashenko: 10,000 more Bible workers.
Joedy Melashenko: Well, we've got 2,500 worldwide
Joedy Melashenko: or the
Joedy Melashenko: 1040 window.
Joedy Melashenko: But
Joedy Melashenko: I'm going to share now for a few minutes with you
Joedy Melashenko: change cultures.
Joedy Melashenko: In many of those radical countries in the 1040 window.
Joedy Melashenko: For
Joedy Melashenko: years, many
Joedy Melashenko: truth-seeking Muslims
Joedy Melashenko: have been experiencing dreams and visions.
Joedy Melashenko: You can go onto a website called Dreams of Isa, ISA, that's their term for Messiah.
Joedy Melashenko: Tens of thousands of reports of these people.
Joedy Melashenko: Having dreams and
Joedy Melashenko: all their dreams and visions are pretty much the same.
Joedy Melashenko: It's a dream of a man robed in white
Joedy Melashenko: with a golden crown,
Joedy Melashenko: Bloodstains
Joedy Melashenko: on his hand, and he turns and he says, Follow me.
Joedy Melashenko: I'm the way, I'm the truth, I'm the light.
Joedy Melashenko: Now you have to pause there because
Joedy Melashenko: if you're a Muslim, you understand you pray five times a day, you repeat the prayer three times a day, three times, so
Joedy Melashenko: fifteen
Joedy Melashenko: times a day, you're praying.
Joedy Melashenko: For
Joedy Melashenko: Allah to show you the straight path.
Joedy Melashenko: That's part of the prayer.
Joedy Melashenko: Show me the way, the straight path.
Joedy Melashenko: And now this messenger comes and said, I am the straight path.
Joedy Melashenko: I am the way.
Joedy Melashenko: So
Joedy Melashenko: now many of the Bible workers, social
Joedy Melashenko: media, whatever it takes, they put an advertisement.
Joedy Melashenko: They say, Have you had a dream of a man in white?
Joedy Melashenko: Now they're not saying anything about Jesus.
Joedy Melashenko: They're not saying anything about Christianity, but thousands of these people now get together and they start comparing notes and they're discovering that their dreams are the same
Joedy Melashenko: from
Joedy Melashenko: the same source.
Joedy Melashenko: Now this will thrill your hearts.
Joedy Melashenko: Many of those same people
Joedy Melashenko: are now having dreams of three angels.
Joedy Melashenko: Flying through heaven.
Joedy Melashenko: And the messenger turns to them and says, Find the people of the book that can explain this dream to you.
Joedy Melashenko: Now, I don't know how many of you know anything about the Muslim culture, but in that culture, through Prophet
Joedy Melashenko: during
Joedy Melashenko: Prophet Muhammad, that near when
Joedy Melashenko: just before Issa
Joedy Melashenko: returns
Joedy Melashenko: They are going to receive a special message from the people of the book.
Joedy Melashenko: That's followers of Jesus.
Joedy Melashenko: And many, many of those, and I don't have the time today
Joedy Melashenko: this morning, but many, many of those imams, because when they find out
Joedy Melashenko: that
Joedy Melashenko: a
Joedy Melashenko: Seventh-day Adventist
Joedy Melashenko: Uh
Joedy Melashenko: you don't eat pig?
Joedy Melashenko: No.
Joedy Melashenko: Uh you don't drink alcohol?
Joedy Melashenko: No.
Joedy Melashenko: Uh
Joedy Melashenko: you don't
Joedy Melashenko: You don't worship the Pope?
Joedy Melashenko: No.
Joedy Melashenko: You don't have big idols that you worship all around?
Joedy Melashenko: No.
Joedy Melashenko: And you dress modestly?
Joedy Melashenko: You must be believers.
Joedy Melashenko: So
Joedy Melashenko: in the mind of a Muslim, a Christian
Joedy Melashenko: is
Joedy Melashenko: what I just listed.
Joedy Melashenko: But as a Seventh-day Adventist, they refer to them as fellow believers.
Joedy Melashenko: The word Christian has a negative connotation.
Joedy Melashenko: They say,
Joedy Melashenko: your
Joedy Melashenko: fellow believers.
Joedy Melashenko: The stories
Joedy Melashenko: of
Joedy Melashenko: things that are coming out of
Joedy Melashenko: Iraq and Iran and Afghanistan
Joedy Melashenko: and those countries, I'll just have to be careful.
Joedy Melashenko: Our main
Joedy Melashenko: um
Joedy Melashenko: contact person
Joedy Melashenko: in that region of the world, he has to remain anonymous.
Joedy Melashenko: Because he's been involved in an underground
Joedy Melashenko: um
Joedy Melashenko: work
Joedy Melashenko: to reach
Joedy Melashenko: Muslims
Joedy Melashenko: for many, many years.
Joedy Melashenko: I talked to him on the phone just the other day.
Joedy Melashenko: He said
Joedy Melashenko: in Iran right now, especially northern Iran, which used to be Persia, still call it Persia, Persia used to be all Christian.
Joedy Melashenko: He said there are literally still
Joedy Melashenko: the hundreds and thousands of Persian Christians that can't wait for this regime to be taken over so they can have freedom of worship.
Joedy Melashenko: That's all they want.
Joedy Melashenko: Freedom of worship.
Joedy Melashenko: And
Joedy Melashenko: um
Joedy Melashenko: this is not political, but
Joedy Melashenko: these
Joedy Melashenko: are people that have been praying
Joedy Melashenko: that they'll have some kind of freedom
Joedy Melashenko: sometime
Joedy Melashenko: and with this whole crazy thing that's happening over there.
Joedy Melashenko: But
Joedy Melashenko: in that
Joedy Melashenko: in that country, there have
Joedy Melashenko: been literally hundreds of thousands
Joedy Melashenko: of home churches that have sprung up
Joedy Melashenko: That's the only way they can worship.
Joedy Melashenko: They can't make an announcement, you know, we
Joedy Melashenko: got a church down the road.
Joedy Melashenko: Come and meet Jesus.
Joedy Melashenko: It's all through home churches.
Joedy Melashenko: Let me let me tell you
Joedy Melashenko: one example of a story.
Joedy Melashenko: Here is an Imam.
Joedy Melashenko: Imam is their clerical leader among Muslims.
Joedy Melashenko: He's walking in his village one day.
Joedy Melashenko: And he has a dream.
Joedy Melashenko: And the messenger says to him, very
Joedy Melashenko: soon
Joedy Melashenko: you're going to receive new light and new truth.
Joedy Melashenko: End of the dream.
Joedy Melashenko: Dream number two.
Joedy Melashenko: A couple days later, he
Joedy Melashenko: he met
Joedy Melashenko: two
Joedy Melashenko: Goswatreach Bible workers.
Joedy Melashenko: Didn't know each other, they
Joedy Melashenko: got started talking together, and um
Joedy Melashenko: they departed.
Joedy Melashenko: And as the emam was going home
Joedy Melashenko: Dream number two happened, and the messenger said, those two men that you just met today, those are the men who are going to share with you new truth and new light.
Joedy Melashenko: Well
Joedy Melashenko: then I
Joedy Melashenko: gotta find out where these guys live.
Joedy Melashenko: So he found out where they lived.
Joedy Melashenko: They got together
Joedy Melashenko: and they started comparing
Joedy Melashenko: the book
Joedy Melashenko: and the Quran.
Joedy Melashenko: But they had
Joedy Melashenko: this Imam
Joedy Melashenko: had some very, very
Joedy Melashenko: difficult
Joedy Melashenko: theological questions that these Bible workers couldn't answer.
Joedy Melashenko: But
Joedy Melashenko: they had a seminary professor at whatever university.
Joedy Melashenko: If they ever got to a situation where they couldn't answer a question, call him and he'll he'll answer it for them.
Joedy Melashenko: So he turned to the imam and he said
Joedy Melashenko: We can't answer that question, but we have a good friend of ours.
Joedy Melashenko: We have
Joedy Melashenko: uh
Joedy Melashenko: a scholar, a religious scholar that can
Joedy Melashenko: explain it to you.
Joedy Melashenko: And here's his cell phone number.
Joedy Melashenko: And you
Joedy Melashenko: probably all know
Joedy Melashenko: everybody in this world has a cell phone, it seems like.
Joedy Melashenko: So
Joedy Melashenko: the imam, he gets on his phone, said
Joedy Melashenko: said goodbye to the two Bible workers, gets on his phone to call.
Joedy Melashenko: This
Joedy Melashenko: seminary professor
Joedy Melashenko: and
Joedy Melashenko: no cell signaling
Joedy Melashenko: couldn't get through.
Joedy Melashenko: Now this is gonna make your hair stand up
Joedy Melashenko: when I
Joedy Melashenko: what I tell you.
Joedy Melashenko: Dream number three
Joedy Melashenko: Go
Joedy Melashenko: at the back gate of your village
Joedy Melashenko: up the hill
Joedy Melashenko: where that big cypress
Joedy Melashenko: tree is.
Joedy Melashenko: Climb up to the first limb of that cypress tree, and there you'll get a sell
Joedy Melashenko: signal and you'll have your questions answered
Joedy Melashenko: Now
Joedy Melashenko: friends, have an atheist or an agnostic explain that dream to you.
Joedy Melashenko: So here's this imam
Joedy Melashenko: now climbing up this tree
Joedy Melashenko: for weeks now.
Joedy Melashenko: You've been having these questions
Joedy Melashenko: about
Joedy Melashenko: some of the doctrines.
Joedy Melashenko: And now in that little village, we have a Muslim
Joedy Melashenko: Seventh day Adventist home church.
Joedy Melashenko: You see, we still respect the Muslim culture.
Joedy Melashenko: They still pray five times a day, but they understand
Joedy Melashenko: who Esau is.
Joedy Melashenko: They understand who Jesus is.
Joedy Melashenko: And they've now become believers.
Joedy Melashenko: We can't really get an exact number of how our church has grown there, but it has grown
Joedy Melashenko: Unbelievably
Joedy Melashenko: the numbers that they anticipate
Joedy Melashenko: in the in the 1040 windows, there could be upwards of 250,000
Joedy Melashenko: Muslim
Joedy Melashenko: Seventh-day Avenist home churches.
Joedy Melashenko: I thought maybe that would get an amen, but it didn't.
Joedy Melashenko: I'm not sure what I need to say.
Joedy Melashenko: Gospel outreach, the amazing part of this ministry.
Joedy Melashenko: It's an all
Joedy Melashenko: It's an all-volunteer organization.
Joedy Melashenko: And here's a picture of some of our volunteers
Joedy Melashenko: out
Joedy Melashenko: at our office in
Joedy Melashenko: College Place, Washington, they're in Walla
Joedy Melashenko: Walla.
Joedy Melashenko: And uh you'll notice they all share something in common.
Joedy Melashenko: Yeah.
Joedy Melashenko: These are all retirees, school teachers, pastors, hospital administrators, physicians.
Joedy Melashenko: uh
Joedy Melashenko: you name it, who've all
Joedy Melashenko: decided, you know, I'm not ready to pull it, put the plow
Joedy Melashenko: down yet.
Joedy Melashenko: And so as a volunteer organization, we have nobody on a payroll.
Joedy Melashenko: So
Joedy Melashenko: five percent is all it costs for them to do administrative.
Joedy Melashenko: That's to print whatever brochures and stuff.
Joedy Melashenko: I don't want to get myself in trouble, but boy, don't you wish our conferences
Joedy Melashenko: could maybe uh
Joedy Melashenko: get a get a picture of what volunteers could do.
Joedy Melashenko: So
Joedy Melashenko: that 95
Joedy Melashenko: %
Joedy Melashenko: of donations
Joedy Melashenko: go directly to those Bible workers.
Joedy Melashenko: And what they're doing in the field is
Joedy Melashenko: just thrilling.
Joedy Melashenko: I'm happy to tell you
Joedy Melashenko: gospel outreach.
Joedy Melashenko: Excuse me.
Joedy Melashenko: Praise the Lord, we have some deep pockets.
Joedy Melashenko: Our budget is about four and a half million dollars a year.
Joedy Melashenko: Just a couple weeks ago, we got a donation from an estate of nearly two
Joedy Melashenko: million dollars.
Joedy Melashenko: That's now going to give us
Joedy Melashenko: the ability, because
Joedy Melashenko: as soon as the doors open in Iran, we have a hundred
Joedy Melashenko: Bible workers ready to go in.
Joedy Melashenko: And
Joedy Melashenko: now we have the funds to do that.
Joedy Melashenko: And
Joedy Melashenko: um
Joedy Melashenko: but most of the Bible workers, they're sponsored by people just like you and me who say, you know, I I can
Joedy Melashenko: I can afford $20
Joedy Melashenko: a month
Joedy Melashenko: or I can afford $50
Joedy Melashenko: a month
Joedy Melashenko: or whatever.
Joedy Melashenko: So
Joedy Melashenko: with that being said, they do not receive any funds from the General Conference
Joedy Melashenko: or the Unions
Joedy Melashenko: or the Division or the Conference.
Joedy Melashenko: They are truly a faith-based ministry that is doing something unbelievable for God.
Joedy Melashenko: And
Joedy Melashenko: again,
Joedy Melashenko: Bible
Joedy Melashenko: work
Joedy Melashenko: can be sponsored for $150 a month.
Joedy Melashenko: And
Joedy Melashenko: friends.
Joedy Melashenko: In a few minutes, folks, I'm going to be queuing up that last song I'm going to do, hopefully.
Joedy Melashenko: These Bible workers are just common, ordinary people, just like you and me.
Joedy Melashenko: Who've decided they want to do something uncommon for Jesus.
Joedy Melashenko: And so they put the
Joedy Melashenko: many of these Bible workers put their life on the line every day
Joedy Melashenko: because
Joedy Melashenko: in many of these communities
Joedy Melashenko: it is
Joedy Melashenko: illegal.
Joedy Melashenko: To share the gospel.
Joedy Melashenko: I could tell you about one of our Bible workers in one of these countries
Joedy Melashenko: who was arrested.
Joedy Melashenko: four times for sharing the gospel, was imprisoned
Joedy Melashenko: and was sentenced to be executed, to be beheaded.
Joedy Melashenko: The judge kept staying the execution.
Joedy Melashenko: We had our prayer warriors around the world praying for the the girl
Joedy Melashenko: went by
Joedy Melashenko: her nickname was Surrender.
Joedy Melashenko: Praise the Lord.
Joedy Melashenko: The judge finally released her and said, Don't be out
Joedy Melashenko: there talking about Jesus anymore.
Joedy Melashenko: You'll be back in here.
Joedy Melashenko: And uh, but you're free to go.
Joedy Melashenko: Guess what
Joedy Melashenko: she's doing that afternoon?
Joedy Melashenko: Here's
Joedy Melashenko: something else that I just discovered.
Joedy Melashenko: In some of the countries where we have some of our Bible workers that have been arrested, the prison guards are having dreams and visions.
Joedy Melashenko: And the dreams and the visions you're having is
Joedy Melashenko: these
Joedy Melashenko: people that are
Joedy Melashenko: that you've locked up here, these people
Joedy Melashenko: are true followers of Isa.
Joedy Melashenko: And they have truth and light.
Joedy Melashenko: And so here these prison guards now, they're going to these inmates and they're saying, at one
Joedy Melashenko: o'clock this morning.
Joedy Melashenko: The gates are going to be unlocked, the prison doors are going to be unopened, and you're free to go.
Joedy Melashenko: Praise
Joedy Melashenko: God.
Joedy Melashenko: So
Joedy Melashenko: I want to just close with this statement
Joedy Melashenko: from the book
Joedy Melashenko: Acts of the Apostles, God's faithful people
Joedy Melashenko: Have always been aggressive missionaries, consecrating their resources to the honor of his
Joedy Melashenko: name
Joedy Melashenko: and wisely using their talents
Joedy Melashenko: in his
Joedy Melashenko: service.
Joedy Melashenko: That's why the Seventh-day Avenue Church, as we sit here this morning, is the fastest growing denomination in the world.
Joedy Melashenko: Because people have come to understand the truth of our message.
Joedy Melashenko: I love the words of Paul.
Joedy Melashenko: It's always been my ambition, and this is the
Joedy Melashenko: motto we've adopted at Quiet Hour.
Joedy Melashenko: It has
Joedy Melashenko: always been our ambition to preach the gospel where Christ is not known.
Joedy Melashenko: And that's
Joedy Melashenko: that's
Joedy Melashenko: the
Joedy Melashenko: That's the message I want to leave with you.
Joedy Melashenko: The harvest is plentiful, the labors are few.
Joedy Melashenko: Pray the Lord of the harvest
Joedy Melashenko: to send out labors
Joedy Melashenko: into his harvest.
Joedy Melashenko: And this morning, before we leave, you received
Joedy Melashenko: As you came in, you received a little brochure like this.
Joedy Melashenko: If you didn't get one, raise your hand.
Joedy Melashenko: Maybe we can get some deacons or somebody to hand them out.
Joedy Melashenko: Because inside of this
Joedy Melashenko: is
Joedy Melashenko: an envelope.
Joedy Melashenko: Could we get a couple?
Joedy Melashenko: Yeah, thank you.
Joedy Melashenko: And this envelope gives you a place where you can
Joedy Melashenko: make
Joedy Melashenko: an option as to what kind of a donation, what kind of support.
Joedy Melashenko: you'd
Joedy Melashenko: like to
Joedy Melashenko: give for a Bible worker.
Joedy Melashenko: Please know
Joedy Melashenko: Judy and I are volunteers.
Joedy Melashenko: We don't get a cent
Joedy Melashenko: for doing this.
Joedy Melashenko: We do this because we love the work that they're doing.
Joedy Melashenko: There's even a
Joedy Melashenko: QR code on this little
Joedy Melashenko: brochure here.
Joedy Melashenko: If you want to click on that, it'll take you right to our website.
Joedy Melashenko: You might want to donate online.
Joedy Melashenko: But
Joedy Melashenko: this morning, as we leave, there's going to be a couple of deacons standing at the doors, and you can put your envelope in
Joedy Melashenko: the
Joedy Melashenko: bag or the or the
Joedy Melashenko: offering bucket, whatever they have.
Joedy Melashenko: But
Joedy Melashenko: please know
Joedy Melashenko: your gifts are greatly appreciated by gospel outreach.
Joedy Melashenko: And it's a ministry that I know God has anointed for these
Joedy Melashenko: last days.
Joedy Melashenko: So
Joedy Melashenko: with that.
Joedy Melashenko: While you're filling out that envelope, there's a song that wanna f that we're gonna finish with.
Joedy Melashenko: One day
Joedy Melashenko: a Roman soldier
Joedy Melashenko: in a shameful
Joedy Melashenko: gambling game
Joedy Melashenko: One
Joedy Melashenko: the bloodstained garment
Joedy Melashenko: that
Joedy Melashenko: once
Joedy Melashenko: had clothed
Joedy Melashenko: my king
Joedy Melashenko: Just a cheap robe of linen
Joedy Melashenko: No
Joedy Melashenko: great value did it hold, but when worn
Joedy Melashenko: by
Joedy Melashenko: the master, it was worth more than gold.
Joedy Melashenko: See, a few days
Joedy Melashenko: before
Joedy Melashenko: this old garment
Joedy Melashenko: had changed the life
Joedy Melashenko: of
Joedy Melashenko: a time
Joedy Melashenko: and helpless.
Joedy Melashenko: Woman
Joedy Melashenko: who
Joedy Melashenko: believed
Joedy Melashenko: with all her might
Joedy Melashenko: she
Joedy Melashenko: reached down
Joedy Melashenko: and touched it
Joedy Melashenko: with the hope
Joedy Melashenko: to be
Joedy Melashenko: restored.
Joedy Melashenko: Oh
Joedy Melashenko: she
Joedy Melashenko: knew
Joedy Melashenko: this plain old garment.
Joedy Melashenko: Was the
Joedy Melashenko: vesture of
Joedy Melashenko: the
Joedy Melashenko: Lord
Joedy Melashenko: God
Joedy Melashenko: uses
Joedy Melashenko: common
Joedy Melashenko: commands
Joedy Melashenko: to do?
Joedy Melashenko: Un
Joedy Melashenko: carbon
Joedy Melashenko: things
Joedy Melashenko: and
Joedy Melashenko: God
Joedy Melashenko: uses
Joedy Melashenko: cause
Joedy Melashenko: people.
Joedy Melashenko: To live
Joedy Melashenko: up
Joedy Melashenko: is
Joedy Melashenko: uncovering
Joedy Melashenko: great
Joedy Melashenko: it's not
Joedy Melashenko: what
Joedy Melashenko: you
Joedy Melashenko: You are
Joedy Melashenko: that
Joedy Melashenko: matters.
Joedy Melashenko: You see
Joedy Melashenko: it's what he
Joedy Melashenko: can
Joedy Melashenko: make
Joedy Melashenko: you
Joedy Melashenko: to be.
Joedy Melashenko: Cause if
Joedy Melashenko: God
Joedy Melashenko: can
Joedy Melashenko: take an old
Joedy Melashenko: club
Joedy Melashenko: and
Joedy Melashenko: garment
Joedy Melashenko: and change a life, then
Joedy Melashenko: surely
Joedy Melashenko: he can
Joedy Melashenko: use you.
Joedy Melashenko: You
Joedy Melashenko: and
Joedy Melashenko: me
Joedy Melashenko: and here it is.
Joedy Melashenko: We
Joedy Melashenko: are
Joedy Melashenko: the reason.
Joedy Melashenko: That
Joedy Melashenko: Jesus came to
Joedy Melashenko: die, and we
Joedy Melashenko: have
Joedy Melashenko: been chosen
Joedy Melashenko: to
Joedy Melashenko: send forth
Joedy Melashenko: his
Joedy Melashenko: light.
Joedy Melashenko: Now it doesn't matter
Joedy Melashenko: if
Joedy Melashenko: your worth
Joedy Melashenko: is great or small.
Joedy Melashenko: God
Joedy Melashenko: needs
Joedy Melashenko: some
Joedy Melashenko: willing vessel.
Joedy Melashenko: Just common garments, that's all
Joedy Melashenko: God
Joedy Melashenko: uses
Joedy Melashenko: common
Joedy Melashenko: garments.
Joedy Melashenko: To
Joedy Melashenko: do
Joedy Melashenko: uncommon
Joedy Melashenko: things
Joedy Melashenko: and
Joedy Melashenko: continues
Joedy Melashenko: calling.
Joedy Melashenko: People
Joedy Melashenko: to live up
Joedy Melashenko: is
Joedy Melashenko: hard
Joedy Melashenko: for
Joedy Melashenko: But
Joedy Melashenko: you are
Joedy Melashenko: all
Joedy Melashenko: that
Joedy Melashenko: matters.
Joedy Melashenko: You see
Joedy Melashenko: it's what
Joedy Melashenko: he
Joedy Melashenko: can make
Joedy Melashenko: you
Joedy Melashenko: to be.
Joedy Melashenko: Cause if God
Joedy Melashenko: can
Joedy Melashenko: take an old
Joedy Melashenko: common
Joedy Melashenko: garment
Joedy Melashenko: and change a lot, then
Joedy Melashenko: surely
Joedy Melashenko: he can
Joedy Melashenko: 't be able to do it.
Joedy Melashenko: Can
Joedy Melashenko: use
Joedy Melashenko: you
Joedy Melashenko: and me
Joedy Melashenko: Cause if
Joedy Melashenko: God
Joedy Melashenko: can
Joedy Melashenko: take it
Joedy Melashenko: off
Joedy Melashenko: and garment
Joedy Melashenko: and change a lot.
Joedy Melashenko: Then
Joedy Melashenko: surely
Joedy Melashenko: he can use
Joedy Melashenko: you
Joedy Melashenko: and me.
Joedy Melashenko: Use you
Joedy Melashenko: and
Joedy Melashenko: me.
Joedy Melashenko: If God can take
Joedy Melashenko: an old common garment
Joedy Melashenko: and change a life, then what's your excuse?
Joedy Melashenko: God
Joedy Melashenko: is looking
Joedy Melashenko: for common people to do something uncommon for his
Joedy Melashenko: kingdom.
Joedy Melashenko: And as we mentioned this morning, hey
Joedy Melashenko: All of us here, we can't go to Africa.
Joedy Melashenko: We can't go to the 1040 window.
Joedy Melashenko: But you can be a sender.
Joedy Melashenko: You can be someone who can help sponsor one of those Bible workers.
Joedy Melashenko: One of the things I just want to share with you
Joedy Melashenko: at the table in the back where Judy will be and I'll be at the door,
Joedy Melashenko: there's magazines and some other gospel
Joedy Melashenko: Reach items.
Joedy Melashenko: But
Joedy Melashenko: just
Joedy Melashenko: for you to think about something here, and I should have mentioned this earlier.
Joedy Melashenko: The Meloshenko family
Joedy Melashenko: singers, over the years, we've produced numerous CDs and DVDs.
Joedy Melashenko: Uh
Joedy Melashenko: people
Joedy Melashenko: don't buy CDs and DVDs anymore.
Joedy Melashenko: My daughter, dad, you still have a CD player?
Joedy Melashenko: Yep.
Joedy Melashenko: I just got rid of my A
Joedy Melashenko: -track
Joedy Melashenko: last week.
Joedy Melashenko: So we have taken
Joedy Melashenko: we've taken all of our music and we've put them onto a thumb drive that looks like this.
Joedy Melashenko: It just pops out.
Joedy Melashenko: There's about six hours of music on there.
Joedy Melashenko: And we give those to the
Joedy Melashenko: for those of you who can make a pledge to help sponsor a Bible work.
Joedy Melashenko: And come up to Judy at the table back there.
Joedy Melashenko: She'll hand one to you and show you how to how it works.
Joedy Melashenko: Some of you might want to
Joedy Melashenko: Check out our websites
Joedy Melashenko: called Go
Joedy Melashenko: Aim, which is
Joedy Melashenko: gospel
Joedy Melashenko: outreach adventures in missions.
Joedy Melashenko: And there we have
Joedy Melashenko: fresh stories every every week about the incredible things God is doing.
Joedy Melashenko: Well
Joedy Melashenko: You have been incredibly gracious with your time this morning.
Joedy Melashenko: I just praise God my voice is held up, at least part way.
Joedy Melashenko: I wasn't sure if I could preach or sing, but it's all in God's hands.
Joedy Melashenko: Would you please bow your heads with me as we close our service today?
Joedy Melashenko: Lord, when we think about
Joedy Melashenko: The promise of your soon coming that this gospel, the
Joedy Melashenko: kingdom, not
Joedy Melashenko: might, but it will go to the whole world.
Joedy Melashenko: We see that happening before our very eyes.
Joedy Melashenko: And Lord, we know that
Joedy Melashenko: you have
Joedy Melashenko: precious children
Joedy Melashenko: that have not heard the name of Jesus, but they are your children.
Joedy Melashenko: And you've come to offer salvation
Joedy Melashenko: to all those who
Joedy Melashenko: call upon the Lord as their Savior.
Joedy Melashenko: Lord, we just are so grateful for the dedication of these Bible workers.
Joedy Melashenko: We're grateful for the dedication of our
Joedy Melashenko: conference and
Joedy Melashenko: union
Joedy Melashenko: and division leaders.
Joedy Melashenko: And we just pray, Lord, that you would continue to help us keep the main thing, the main thing in our focus.
Joedy Melashenko: And that is to share the good news of salvation.
Joedy Melashenko: To our neighbors, our friends, those we work with, the guys we play golf with, whatever it might be, Lord, we want Jesus to be seen in us.
Joedy Melashenko: Thank you for this church family.
Joedy Melashenko: I lift up everyone, all the kids.
Joedy Melashenko: The generations that are here, Lord, they're your children as well.
Joedy Melashenko: We claim the promise
Joedy Melashenko: In Philippians
Joedy Melashenko: said, He who began a good work in you
Joedy Melashenko: will be faithful to complete it.
Joedy Melashenko: We give you permission to complete that work in us today.
Joedy Melashenko: We love you, Lord.
Joedy Melashenko: Please come soon, we pray.
Joedy Melashenko: And everybody said together.
Joedy Melashenko: Amen.
Joedy Melashenko: God bless all of you