If you are truly being sent by the Lord of glory to preach JESUS CHRIST in Mexico, and you have sound doctrine and believe in the doctrines of grace, and have proven effectiveness in evangelistic ministry, please consider teaming up with us to reach Guadalajara with the Gospel.
We are praying for laborers to help us plant a biblical church and reach this city of 6 million for Jesus Christ. While there are some churches in this city, they are scarce when compared to the overall number of inhabitants in the city. Furthermore, though one or several may exist, we know of no sovereign grace churches in this city, who not only believe in the historic salvation doctrines of the Reformation, but also have a strong evangelistic and missionary zeal.
Prerequisites include:
1. You need to know Jesus Christ personally, closely, powerfully. And you must be living a life free from the practice of sin. You must have VICTORY over sin in your experience.
2. A firm belief in the doctrines of grace. (This is one of the distinctives of our ministry.) You can read our statement of faith here.
3. Effectiveness in ministry in your home country. (If you can’t be effective there, how can you in a foreign land?)
4. You must aquire the Spanish langauge. (Either come already knowing it, or attend language school once you arrive on the field. We know of a good language school in the city.)
5. A burning passion to reach lost souls for God’s glory.
6. A willingness to work with a team and labor for the common vision of evangelism and church planting.
7. A reasonable time commitment. (While we’re open to recieving teams, we are really praying for longer term laborers.)
Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.” -Matthew 9:37-38
And I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” Then I said, “Here am I! Send me.” -Isaiah 6:8
Dear brethren, we are undertaking a church planting effort in the city of Guadalajara, Mexico. Please pray that God would save sinners and add them to the fellowship to be raised up as real disciples who obey Jesus Christ.
Our efforts will bring forth the most long lasting fruit for Christ’s glory if we can manage to make disciples, and disciples are made in the context of the local church. May God pour out His Spirit on this desperate work!
This is a video of a man that went in to an unreached tribe in indigineous Papau, New Guinea to reach them with the Gospel of Jesus Christ. After a couple of months of laboring day by day, preaching and preaching, laying down foundations and explaining the Holy Scriptures progressively, building more and more upon their understanding, planting and watering, finally the Lord reaped an amazing harvest.
You’ll notice he says in the video that he begins by saying he didn’t even mention Jesus for 2 months! -Now, maybe you’re like me, and you’re thinking that this must be a terrible method of evangelism to wait so long to mention the Savior. However, after watching the video and thinking about his method, and the way God gave his revelation to man in the Holy Scriptures, I am seeing it from another perspective. You see, during that time of 2 months, he was laying down foundation Scriptures and laying down solid spiritual foundations to ensure that the people got a clear understanding of the Lord and how He works. He started in the Old Testament and went through progressively, treating the subjects of sin, God’s judgment, atonement, redemption, all from Old Testament stories. By time he was through, the people understood well. And their fallow ground was all broken up. They saw themselves lost, without God, and desperately wanted to know if there was any hope to be reconciled to their Maker. Then, when the man began to tell them about Jesus, they listened. When they heard about the Savior’s blood that made the atonement, and that they could be saved if they believe in Him, immediately they rejoiced, crying “I believe! I believe!” and burst into a wonderful celebration for hours!
This missionary went in to an unreached group that had no understanding of the Scriptures and started where God started in His revelation to man. The Bible, starting with the Old Testament, clearly gives us what we call a “Progressive Revelation”, that is, the fullness of the revelation of the nature of God and of the way He works to save man was being progressively revealed more and more as the Scriptures were being written, culminating to the FULLNESS of divine truth as found in the New Testament Gospel. This missionary followed God’s pattern in starting with this group, starting with creation, and explaining of sin, righteousness, judgment, and prophetic pictures of Christ. This way, by time he reached the Gospel, the people understood it perhaps better than the majority of church-going “Christians” today who never have such foundations laid by the preaching they sit under. They were then ready to receive the Gospel.
Obviously, this missionary brother knew what he was doing. And obviously, many missionaries and evangelists today have NO IDEA what they’re doing -they think they do, but they don’t. For instance, an evangelist preaches to a group of people, and preaches a Gospel message, and then after a 40-60 minute message (or sometimes even less!) he issues an altar call for people to “accept Jesus as their personal Savior”. People respond. They recite the prayer after the evangelist. They are assured that they are saved… but there’s a big problem -they’re NOT saved!!! They will not go on to live a Godly life, they will not hunger and thirst for righteousness, they will not thirst for the milk of the word, they will not go on to spend time in secret prayer, they will not live a holy life in Christ, thus proving that their “experience” was completely spurious and uneffectual to true salvation.
Nowadays, the evangelist or missionary wants to go to a people with very little Gospel knowledge, and preach to them, and perform the tasks of planting the seed, watering the seed, having the seed grow to fruition, and reaping the harvest, ALL in a period of an hour or less! Then they want to go to the next place and boast about how many souls they’ve supposedly saved! But this Gospel business takes time, it takes prayer, it takes patience, it takes rightly dividing and rightly applying the Word of Truth, and when the seed grows, usually slowly but surely, the farmer knows not how, yet rejoices to see first the blade, then the ear, then the full corn, and then the harvest is reaped only when it comes to fruition, that is, when there are genuine evidences of true conversion (Mark 4:27-29). For the Gospel worker to reap an immature harvest will result in total loss of any possible lasting fruit!
This is what’s going on today. The seed is planted, watered, expected to grow, and harvested in one short message (and at that, it’s usually a shallow message that conveniently leaves out the preaching of the Law and holiness and justice and wrath of God, and of clearly explaining the work and satisfaction of Christ). And the harvest that is reaped is generally a bunch of false converts that had no deep work of the Spirit in their hearts to break the stubborn will of depraved sinners and supernaturally draw them to Christ by the revelation of divine faith to their hearts. Truly, the results that modern evangelism gets is generally a harvest of tares that will ultimately be gathered in bundles and burned in the fire (Matthew 13:40). The converts from these huge campaigns show no neccesary signs of genuine conversion according to the Word of God. Therefore, most modern evangelism doesn’t impress me one bit. Rather, it grieves me tremendously. It has done great damage to the professing church and polluted the house of God with worldly hypocrites that honor God with thier mouths, but have hearts that love the things of this world and are far from Him.
Biblical evangelism involves preaching of the whole counsel of God -even those parts of that counsel that carnal men who love their sin (and that don’t want to change) like to hear. And it involves making sure the sinner realizes he’s LOST before explaining to him the way to be FOUND. It involves teaching sinners that they are alienated from the life of God and will perish in their sin, making sure they understand the disease of their sin before revealing to them the cure and remedy of the Savior. And before a soul can be truly converted and begotten from above, and come to true “repentance unto life”, he has to not only acknowledge that he’s a sinner, but he has to have a spiritual revelation by the power of the Holy Spirit causing him to FEEL his sin. Godly sorrow works true repentance (2 Corinthians 7:10). Without Godly sorrow over sin, there cannot be true repentance.
This is why our message should lay down foundations of spiritual truth that are divinely orchestrated to pave the way for the Gospel, the reasoning with sinners of “sin, righteousness, and temperance” (Acts 24:25), using the principles of the Law and of the nature of God in His essential and prominent attributes, giving them an understanding of who God is, and who they are in His sight. Maybe then sinners will once again start trembling in the holy fear of God under our preaching, feel that they’re actually lost, and cry out, “what shall we do to be saved”. After all, the Holy Spirit came to convict the world of “sin, righteousness, and judgment to come” in order that He may then “glorify Christ” by revealing Him in His glorious redemptive work in pardoning guilty sinners and imparting to them His pure righteousness (John 16:8, 16:14, respectively). The message that evangelists and missionaries should be proclaiming to the lost is the same message the Holy Spirit came to anoint and make effectual in the hearts of men, a message that includes these essential elements of Scriptural truth.
Of course, doing this might mean we actually have to take time to deal with sinners. It means we might have to invest ourselves into their enlightenment, and deny ourselves in order to serve them until the Holy Spirit sovereignly grants them this understanding. And, when doing so, we need to proclaim a Biblically balanced message of the whole counsel of God and not just a half-gospel of all “mercy, love, and happiness” such as is common in modern evangelism (though we must preach that too). And it may mean that we have to intercede for them, pray for them, and wait for the Holy Spirit to open their blind eyes and impart new life from above before we try to reap the harvest and add them to the membership of the church and accept them as brethren in Christ.
Now, this is not to say that the Holy Spirit can’t do a quick work in their hearts, and convince them of sin, cause them to bow the knee of their stubborn will before the Lorship of Chirst, impart to them saving faith and regenerate their hearts in what seems like an instant. I know He can do that. He’s God! “All things are possible with God”. However, this is not usually the way He operates. Usually, God is pleased in His sovereign pleasure and infinite wisdom to use intelligent Scriptural means to obtain the end. Therefore, what I’m saying is that we need to come alongside what God is doing and work with Him, joining the mind of the Spirit in evangelism, using the same means of Scriptural truth that the Spirit Himself proclaims directly to the hearts, and in our message proclaim by the preaching of the Gospel the same thing that the Holy Spirit is silently proclaiming to the hearts of the men listening. Then we will find that our message will come not in word only, but in demonstration of the Spirit and power and deep conviction (1 Thes. 1:5).
And I would also like to add: it’s not always one man’s job to do the whole labor of planting, watering, and reaping. “I have planted, Apollos watered; but God gave the increase” (1 Cor. 3:6). I wholeheartedly believe in itinerant evangelistic ministry that does a lot of planting and some watering and very little reaping, where the evangelist cannot spend much personal time with sinners. Jesus Himself did it, never staying in one place long enough to establish a recognized local fellowship! However, even then, Biblical principles need to be followed, and the results cannot be forced. Unripe fruit must not be plucked immaturely. Because then it dies. And it rots. And it stinks up the professing church.
This is why I like the method of the missionary in this video. He takes his time. He makes sure they understand that they’re lost sinners and feel their sin before he reveals the redemptive work of the Savior. He made sure they were “hungering and thirsting for righteousness” before he served up the Gospel bread from Heaven and living water by which they would be filled. And then he didn’t need to lead them into a silly little prayer to “Accept Jesus” and confess Him with thier mouths. Instead, they believed and confessed and rejoiced freely by spontaneous faith, not by human manipulation!
Fellow preachers, evangelists, missionaries! We need to get back to doing our part faithfully, and stop trying to steal God’s part in evangelism. Our part is to faithfully present the whole counsel of God, to be faithful stewards of the mysteries of God, to faithfully proclaim and represent the Gospel truthfully. Then, it’s God’s part to give the increase, to regenerate hearts, to quicken dead sinners, to impart new life and save souls. Get your hands off the Ark of God, it’s a holy thing! Your job is simply to carry the holy message with reverance and Godly fear, and it’s God’s job to back it up with power! You preach the Gospel of God, and God will ensure it produces the results that He has soveriengly ordained to come to pass.
We are planning on taking a 6-month missionary journey into southern Mexico, namely, into the states of Guerrero and/or Oaxaca, or wherever else the Lord leads. During this time, we will be involved in reaching various towns and villages for Christ through the means of implementing a heavy evangelistic schedule and strategy that will present the true Gospel in an effective way to those we come into contact with. We will be involved with the evangelization of various cities and towns, relying on the power of the Holy Ghost to make our witness effective. Initially, we are traveling to a town outside of a city called Ciudad Altamirano. It is located at about the point of the arrow below on this map:
Initial Destination in Mexico
This will be our initial destination. We are not sure at this time whether we will set up base at this point and proceed with our outreaches from there, or whether we will leave this point altogether and go “mobile team style”. Either way, we will be involved in itinerant village evangelism, reaching out to the surrounding towns and villages with the Gospel of Christ.
The areas where we will be working generally consist of a major city center that is surrounded by many isolated towns and villages in the outskirts. These city centers aren’t your typical cities, they’re more like a tiny city in the US, and you could think of the towns and villages sort of like little isolated ‘neighborhoods’ surrounding the urban center as far as an hour’s drive away (or sometimes more) into the desert or mountains. Most of these towns and villages where we are going to are largely untouched with a true witness of the Gospel. We will be doing the bulk of our work in these little towns and villages; we will also be preaching in the city centers as the opportunity presents itself.
In these areas, Catholicism reigns supreme as religious king over the majority, and it is often mixed with the practice of magic arts, witchcraft and voodoo. Spiritually, many of these regions are extremely dark and in desperate need of hope, deliverance, and the power of the Gospel. While many of these people have heard the name of Jesus (usually as presented in the form of “another gospel” –Gal. 1:6-9), they have no idea who He really is and what He really came to do. Even in spite of this, most of the people aren’t practicing Catholics and are very loosely religious. This creates the perfect spiritual void which makes these areas ideal for sowing the Gospel seed.
THE STRATEGY
The goal is to effectively evangelize every town and village we set our focus on. We plan on using various strategies to accomplish this goal. Some of these may or will include:
– Intercessory and warfare prayer for each particular village.
– Relational Evangelism.
– Door to door Evangelism.
– Power Encounter Evangelism (such as praying for the sick & driving out demons).
– Open Air Preaching and Marketplace Preaching.
– Tract, Gospel of John booklets, and Bible Distribution.
– Holding Bible Studies on basic Christian Truths for Seekers and Believers.
– Jesus Film Ministry and Meetings.
THE JESUS FILM TO REACH OUT
We are very excited about implementing a new ministry tool, that is, showing the JESUS Film to these lost villages. The Lord has graciously and miraculously supplied everything we need to show this Film in various villages. We have been able to obtain a movie projector, a portable generator, sound equipment, a 5×8 foot makeshift screen, some chairs, and more to show this film, and all of this for around $1000. The Lord has provided every step of the way.
This will enable us to show the Spanish version of the JESUS Film in these villages, even in extremely remote places that have no available electricity for us to plug into. The JESUS Film is an old evangelistic movie about the life of Jesus that is based on the Gospel of Luke. Just imagine a condensed movie depiction of Luke’s Gospel. That’s what we’ll be showing on a big screen in these villages. Here’s us standing by the screen:
The JESUS Film Screen
We will be setting up the whole thing, and even have chairs for the people to sit in as they watch. This is a proven method of gathering people together, especially in the type of areas where we plan on going. It is ideal for drawing people out of their houses and assembling them together to hear about the Lord Jesus. Pioneer missionaries have used this type of Film ministry for years to evangelize and plant churches in un-reached regions.
–
A typical day using this Film will include… first of all choosing a village to target. Then we will pray and intercede for the people in it. Then we will go around, door to door, and through the streets, making an announcement that we will be showing a movie about Jesus on a large outdoor screen as soon as the sun sets, inviting people to come and watch. Then, just before dark, we will begin setting up the equipment. The people will gather and take their seats. We will show the Film, praying and interceding as they watch. Then as soon as the Film is over, we will turn on our bright outdoors lights, stand up at the front, and PREACH Christ and Him crucified, expounding on the exceeding sinfulness of sin and explaining the meaning of the Cross. We will preach the Gospel and call for repentance from sin and faith in the Savior. We will be calling out the sick and demonized and praying for their healing and deliverance, trusting God to confirm His Word openly. And we will be calling for immediate and definite, utter personal commitment to Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, calling for people to repent and be baptized and to receive the Holy Spirit. We will also be seeking to set up further Bible studies and personal instruction times for those are have made a commitment to Christ and for those who want to know more. –
And so, as we have gathered many people from a particular village, preached the Gospel to them, and set up a Bible study for those who want to learn more, we will move on to the next village to do it all over again, returning to previous villages from time to time to teach in the meetings that were established and to follow up on those who are seeking salvation thru Christ. –
(Also as a side note: we will NOT be using the “sinner’s prayer” to lead people into making a confession of faith. We will be following the Apostle’s pattern of calling for repentance and faith, for baptism, and for receiving the Holy Spirit. We will take every caution necessary to follow the Biblical pattern and to prevent giving people a false assurance of salvation. We will, as always, be preaching a radical salvation and emphasizing the necessity of the new birth and surrender to the Lordship of Christ) –
THE BIBLES ARE ON THEIR WAY
Special thanks to all who donated for Bibles! We currently have over 240 Spanish Bibles (whole Bibles that have both Old and New Testaments). Here is a picture of us with the Bibles:
Bibles for Mexico
In addition to the 240+ Bibles, we have about 600-700 Gospels of John and 6,300 Gospel tracts. And all of these we are going to be able to give away for free to the people we will be ministering to! Praise God! We were able to ship the Bibles to our destination a few days ago and they should be there when we arrive.
–
PLEASE PRAY FOR OUR SAFE ARRIVAL
We are set to leave in just two days, on Monday, August 18. It will be at least a three day drive from where we are to our destination. Dear saints, please keep us in prayer during this time. We have to pass over the border into Mexico and through many periodic military checkpoints as we drive through. In addition to the dangers of being stopped and/or exploited by these, there are dangers of thieves, false police, true police that are corrupt, and many other things. We need the Lord to give us a safe trip down there and to give us favor with the authorities so we can get through. This is so important. Please pray that we would make it!!! –
MAY THE LORD BE GLORIFIED
We are truly looking forward to this mission and desperately hoping the Lord will bless it and move in power among the lost as we preach the Gospel, which is the power of God unto salvation to those who believe. We are hoping to see the Lord reach many with an effective Gospel witness and to do a mighty work in peoples’ lives. We are praying that the Lord would glorify His great name among the nation of Mexico and gather His elect together that they may obtain salvation which is found only in the Lord Jesus Christ. To His name be all the glory, honor and praise forever. We will still be sending out newsletters while on this journey and checking our emails at least every couple weeks or once a month, so be on the lookout for periodic updates from us. We will also try to keep the site updated as well: www.puregospeltruth.com.
If you would like to help or donate, you can do so at the site.
MAY THE LAMB THAT WAS SLAIN RECEIVE THE REWARD OF HIS SUFFERING!!!
Pure Gospel Truth 