Date:      18th February 2007                                                                (Sunday AM)                                                                       Ref: A0290

Place:     Kambah P.S.

Title: Cry of the Nations

Text:        & Psalm 2:8

Illust:     Show “Cry of the Nations” DVD

I.                   Thousand Villages

A.               Desperate Cry

i.                 At 20 million people in this nation we account for 0.3% of the world’s population & the vast majority don’t live the lifestyles that we are accustomed to. – No they are desperate & hurting, barely able to survive if at all.

         Of the 57 million people worldwide who died last year, 10.5 million of them were children less than five years old.

         “Approximately 790 million people in the developing world are still chronically undernourished, almost two-thirds of whom reside in Asia and the Pacific.”

         According to UNICEF, 30,000 children die each day due to poverty.

         Half the world — nearly three billion people — live on less than two dollars a day. ~ to put that in perspective If you are out of work in this country you will get more in one fortnight than half the people in the  world earn in a year!!

         Some 1.1 billion people in developing countries have inadequate access to water, and 2.6 billion lack basic sanitation.

ii.               Many of them are bound in false religion, poverty, sickness, famine, conflict. Can you hear their cries or are you deaf & blind to the misery all around you? ~ “I’m all right mate” 

B.               The Unreached

i.                 The numbers are staggering. There are more than 6.5 bn people on earth & by 2020, that’s in just 13 years, they estimate that there will be >7.5 bn.

         Currently Asia accounts for over 60% of the world population with almost 3.8 billion people. China and India alone comprise 20% and 16% respectively. Africa follows with 840 million people, 12% of the world population. Pagan Europe's 710 million people make up 11% of the world's population.

         In 2000, the United Nations estimated that the world's population was then growing at the rate of about 75 million people per year, i.e. 205,000 every day.

ii.               Most of these are to un-reached people groups, most are just on our doorstep, multiplied millions, hundreds of thousands of villages / cities where no missionary has ever been. Even in our own nation, in our own city – Areas un-reached & desperate for the Gospel.

II.                 The Hope of the Gospel

A.               Gospel Preached

i.                 Ultimately it really doesn’t matter whether you are rich or poor, the truth is that the same problem affects every single person & the same need exists in every human heart. – All people are born sinners

          Psalm 51:5 Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, And in sin my mother conceived me. (NKJV)

ii.               All need a saviour

          John 3:18 “He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. (NKJV)

iii.             The Gospel of Jesus Christ is the ONLY hope for lost humanity. In spite of all the right motives of people like Bill Gates, Angelina Jolie, Madonna & Bono it is only the Gospel that can transform lives & indeed nations.

          Romans 5:1-2 1 Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, 2 through whom also we have access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God. (NKJV)

B.               In Power

i.                 So many of these places are racked by poverty, not enough food to survive on and little if any health care facilities.

         In Zimbabwe, nurses and doctors have been on strike for seven weeks at four hospitals in the capital, Harare, and in Bulawayo. and health care is all but nonexistent.

ii.               Need a supernatural touch from God. Need God to move in provision, in deliverance, in shelter, in healing. They have no other option, no other hope.

          1 Corinthians 2:4 And my speech and my preaching were not with persuasive words of human wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, (NKJV)

iii.             To have the power of God made real to them to meet their daily needs.

III.              The Gospel Call

A.               Labourers to Go

i.                 The nations desperately need to have the Gospel preached to them in power. To have the Kingdom of God manifest in their midst. But how will this happen?

          Romans 10:14 How then shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher? (NKJV)

ii.               People who will go. Thursday night of conference, couples planted into the nations of the world. – For a holiday in an exotic land – NOT!! – To lay down their lives for the cause of the Gospel, Men, families, who have heard the cry of the nations and will go to bring Hope to the lost.

iii.             Would you go? – Would you lay aside your selfishness, your comforts, hear the cry of the nations & go? – How do you answer that question, How do you look Jesus in the eyes & answer that question?

B.               Support @ Home

i.                 Not all are called to physically pick up & go but there is another vital element. The faithful support of the church at Home. – Expensive business – Aproximately $40k to send or return a missionary family; Think if a changeover there’s $80K; PLUS bringing them back for conferences or maybe sickness. Sending evangelists to preach & fellowship.

ii.               In the AWM there is a poster in the main entry foyer featuring a picture of a frontline soldier complete with helmet & the caption reads.

         “If you give in to weariness or discontent, fail to carry on, You sacrifice me”

iii.             How true this is for you & I, in this nation. If we get weary of giving, if we get discontented with the blessings we have & pack it all in. We still go on living in this blessed nation, the problem is that we leave those out on the foreign fields abandoned.

iv.             Faithful giving of congregations, of the saints is what makes it possible.

IV.             Pledge / Altar Call

This morning can you hear the cry of the nations perishing without Christ, without hope?

Can you?

In 3 weeks time, we will be having our national conference. I want to challenge you to give, to give substantially in a pledge to the conference. Pledge that over the next 5 weeks you will bring in the money that you pledge. That is between now and Sunday March 25th a pledge that you can honour, you might be able to give $500 per week, maybe $100, maybe $50 – Maybe God is speaking to you right now about a figure that he wants you to give.

Open this Altar – Ask God for the nations, Pray about the pledge that you will make – Between you & God – Commit it to God & then we will take the pledge notes.

Ushers hand around Notes:

Collect