Date: July 6th 2010

   

Dear friends and family,

I've just returned from 2 FaithCamps and the GC Session in Atlanta where we were blessed by meeting many of you in the exhibit hall.  We were able to set up a small interview set for MissionTV.com where we recorded about 75 interviews throughout the 10 day session. What a challenge and a blessing it was.

Our new GC President, Ted Wilson, really sent a beautiful and clear message in his sermon the last Sabbath of the conference.  Please take the time to read, watch, or listen to his address.  You can find it at MissionTV.com. 

Just before the president's sermon, the GC Treasurer, Robert E. Lemon, made an impassioned appeal for foreign missions.  In his appeal he stated something incredibly sobering.  He said that the average Seventh-day Adventist in North America gives, on an average, a total of $21 per year to foreign missions. Not $21/week, or $21/month, but $21 per year.  Can the world be reached with such a paltry sum?  I am reminded of the following verses:

Isaiah 29:13  ...this people draw near me with their mouth, and with their lips do honour me, but have removed their heart far from me...

Malachi 3:8,9  Will a man rob God? Yet ye have robbed me. But ye say, Wherein have we robbed thee? In tithes and offerings. Ye are cursed with a curse: for ye have robbed me, even this whole nation. Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in mine house...

"God's people are on trial before the heavenly universe; but the scantiness of their gifts and offerings, and the feebleness of their efforts in God's service, mark them as unfaithful stewards. If what they are doing were the best they could do, condemnation would not come upon them; but with their resources they could do much more." (E.G.White, PH004)
 
How could this be? Well, satan is making good on his plan. He has stolen a march on us.  98 years ago Ellen White wrote of satan's secret counsel with his confederates:
 
"We must do our utmost to prevent those who labour in God's cause from obtaining means to use against us. Keep the money in our own ranks. The more means they obtain, the more they will injure our kingdom by taking from us our subjects. Make them care more for money than for the building up of Christ's kingdom and the spread of the truths we hate, and we need not fear their influence; for we know that e very selfish, covetous person will fall under our power, and will be separated finally from God's people."  -- from the Australasian Union Conference Record April 15, 1912
 
So, what should we do? Satan is doing his utmost to bind up God's means, shouldn't we also? But how? 4 years before recording satan's plan, Mrs. White wrote this:
 
"I appeal to the officers of our conferences to make earnest efforts in our churches to arouse them to give of their means for sustaining foreign missions. ... The great day of the Lord is soon to open upon us. We should now use every ability we possess to arouse our people.  

God calls for men to give the message of warning to the world that is asleep, dead in trespasses and sins. He calls for free-will offerings from those whose hearts are in the work, who have a burden for souls, that they shall not perish, but have everlasting life. Satan is playing the game of life for the souls of men. He is seeking to secure means, that he may bind it up, so that it shall not be used to advance the missionary enterprises. Shall we be ignorant of his devices? Shall we allow him to stupefy our senses, so that we shall not discern the needs of this time?"  Ellen G. White, Medical Missionary Reading, May 9, 1908
 
I fear for our church. Will we be passed by? Will God find another who will carry and propel the Gospel to the world? While we think we are in God's favor, the very work He has given especially to us lies in neglect.

For this very reason, The Lord has impressed us to start MissionTV. We're not doing it to raise funds for Jesus for Asia. In fact, it is causing major sacrifice to do it. But we must do something bigger than just trying to build up our ministry. We must do something that will affect the church at large and uplift missions all over the world. This is a problem of epidemic proportions.  Our life ambition is to see as many people in the Kingdom as possible, however possible.

MissionTV's Target Audience: The North American SDA Church Member.  This is not an evangelistic channel.  It is not designed to bring people into the church.  It is designed to bring church members into avenues of service for the King and for their own soul's sake.

MissionTV's Purpose: Arouse the lay members to action through showing them the true state of affairs in foreign lands as regards to the spread of the Gospel.  Most people in North America think the Gospel commission is going well and there are a lot of missionaries, a lot of mission work going on. The truth is that there is hardly anything going on, hardly any missionaries, hardly any witness in much of the world.

MissionTV's Goal: A massive awakening to duty of sincere believers, a deepening of experience, and this Gospel carried to the ends of the earth.  

Please pray for MissionTV.

Please pray that MissionTV can get on the G19 Satellite soon.  

Please pray for consecrated people who can edit videos to portray the need of the world for the Gospel.

Please pray for funds to send out teams of reporters to bring back the real news from the front lines.

Please pray for Christ's Spirit of courage as we view the situation around us.  

Christ WILL NOT COME for a bride who is not all there.  There are still 41% of the world that is unreached.  There are still 1,568 people groups who have no Christian, no missionary.  If we continue using the same methods we have been using, with the same unconcern for the lost, Christ will not come for hundreds of years.
 
"And this Gospel of the Kingdom shall be preached in all the world... then shall the end come." Jesus, Matthew 24:14.
 
God is good, His mercy endures forever!
 
Take care,

Jon
in Tennessee
(Natalie and the kids are in Idaho preparing to move here this week. Her parents are helping her. They all could use your prayers).

"The world is sleeping in the dark that the church just can't fight 'cause it's asleep in the light." -Keith Green

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Jesus for Asia, Inc.
148 Doughty Rd.
Kooskia, ID 83539
(208) 926-4413
www.Jesus4Asia.org
www.MissionTV.com
To donate Click Here.
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