My assistant had already given him a spinal anesthetic and already he was much more comfortable because he did not feel anything from the waist down to his toes. Actually he had dozed off. So, since he didn't' feel anything and his muscles were completely relaxed I went over and grabbed his left knee and flexed it just a little bit and then gave it a umph -hard pull. Nothing. So I put my foot at the base of the table and gabbed on the base of his leg and said to my assistant, "Now hold on." I am really going to pull here. Umph ..and just about pulled the guy off the table. So after we pushed him back up there on the cushions we decided we needed to have some more inspiration. The Lord is faithful. We realized what we needed to do was to put a post between his legs on the operating table- It was padded, and he was anesthetized too so we did that. And now he couldn't slide when I pulled and this time I braced again and grabbed that leg again. I PULLED until I started to see spots. And I could not budge that knee. So we had to stop again for more inspiration and once again the Lord came though. He reminded me that I had some ratchet tie down straps that I use to tie the loads down in on the roof of my car. So I jumped in the car and went up to the store room, found them, dusted them off and brought them down to the operating room. I tied it around his ankle with some padding and since there was a door over [to the right] we put a 2x4 on the other side and tied the other end [to the 2x4]. The ratchet was down toward the door and I started ratcheting and it got quite tight and sure enough it started coming. 1 inch. I kept ratcheting 3, 4, 6, 8, 12 [inches] and I realized that we were just dragging the whole table. So we loosened things up, pushed the table back to the middle of the floor. [We] needed more inspiration and once again we got it. We realized we needed to bring some tables in to put between the operating table and the door. We went out the consultation room and got two wooden tables and put them between the end of the operating table and the door. Now when we ratcheted the table couldn't come. So once again I started cranking. During all this time this guy was just sort of laying there and once and a while he would open his eyes and look around but I guess he figured all this was standard procedure so he would go back to sleep. And so we started racketing and that strap got tight and when it really got tight the tables started to [bow upward]. I thought, you know, if those tables were to suddenly fly up in the air that operating table that weighs about a ton would come right at me with this foot....it would be a bad way to go so we decided to stop. I got reinforcements and sat a nurse on each table. So now we were ready. We started to ratcheting again. Well, that strap got so tight and his foot swelled up. His veins started bulging and I started to worry a little bit that his foot might just come right off. ..and that would be hard to explain. I just said, "Lord please protect this guy." And finally, gradually, the bone began to move. One inch, and I kept ratcheting 2, 3, and a finally I manipulated his knee and with a sort of squishy plop it fell into place. So [we] quickly put a cast on him and took the traction off and sent him off to his room. The chaplain went by to see him later that day to talk to him. And afterwards he came to me and said that this fellow was really not interested in spiritual things and we need to pray from him. Later I went to the man before he went home on crutches and said to him, "You know you owe God a debt of gratitude for two reasons. One , He protected you from some very serious complications that could have occurred. You had no problems from our reducing that knee. The second thing is that God offers you a chance to live forever and He has sent his son to die in your place." Well, he said, "Thank you doctor . I appreciate that but I am really not interested in that kind of stuff." So he left . A few months later he came back to get his cast off [and] I tried to get him to go to Libreville to see an orthopedic surgeon to try to put his knee back together but he did not have the money and it was 300 miles away. But when he came back the last time I tried once again to broach the subject of his relationship to his creator. He really just didn't' want to talk about it. He left our hospital healed but dead .

Ephesians 2:1-2 says, "As for you, you were dead in your [trespasses] transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient."

There is a false teaching creeping into evangelical America and it goes something like this. "God is so good, He is so kind and just . He is so loving that people who have never heard about Christ ..if they are worshipping God with the knowledge that they have and are doing their best.-- I mean they will let them into heaven some way." And it is very similar to the theology of the world . What the world is saying is, "If you are sincere and a good person and are sincere in what you believe you'll go to heaven." It is interesting that the two are about the same. This is very convenient of course. Because what it means is that if we have this theology as Christians we don't have to worry about people who don't know about Christ. We can live our lives. We can do the things we have dreamt about doing. We can fulfill all of our dreams and occasionally we can write a check to the red cross.

But Jesus said something different. He said "I am the Way the Truth and the Life. No one can come to the Father except through Me." He said, "Except a man be born again he can not, he can not, enter the kingdom of God." So who are we going to believe? Maybe you are saying, "Well I don't believe that stuff. I know that you have to believe in Christ to be save and apart from Christ you can't be saved." Well if that is true, if that is what we truly believe then why are there fewer missionaries today then there were 5 years ago? Why are there fewer missionary candidates, young people stepping up to the plate saying, "Lord God send me?" Where are they? If we really believe that people who have never heard of Christ are lost and are going to hell with no chance of living forever then why aren't we doing more about it?

In Rev 19:7 the apostle John heard an angel announce "Let us rejoice and be glad and give Him glory for the wedding of the Lamb has come, and his bride has made herself ready." There is going to be a wedding in heaven and the Bridegroom is Jesus, the Lamb of God and the bride is the church that he died for. And the Bible says the wedding will take place after the bride has made herself ready. Well, what does the bride have to do? The bride has to do what the Bridegroom asked her to do. Now can you picture this? For the bride to make herself ready it will be difficult. It is going to involve risks. You know the two greatest values are no longer God and family or God and country and family. They are comfort and security. Those are the gods of our society. Those are the things we worship and value the most. So can you picture this now? In the Song of Songs the Bridegroom says, "Come away with me my love. It is time for the marriage." And the bride says, "Now? Do you have any idea how much involvement this is going to take? The risks that is going to have to be involved here If I get ready? Surely you are not serious. Things are going well for me right now in America. Lets just cool it here."

A few years ago the governments of the United States, Canada, Gabon and France built a million dollar bridge across the river that separates Bongolo and the hospital from the rest of the community. Before, the only way you could go across was by ferry and the ferry only ran during the day. It did not run at night. One night a women about 20 years old delivered a baby in a village about 2 hours away. After she delivered the baby she began to hemorrhage. So the family went out to the road and waited for a car to come by. After a couple of hours finally a car came by and they stopped it. It was a pick up truck and they begged the guy to take their daughter to the hospital. He agreed, and they put a mattress in the back and they put the women in the back and they all drove to the hospital. When they got to the river the ferry was on the other side. So they stood on the shore and they called. They called for hours and nobody heard them. Now, at the hospital everything was there that this woman needed. There was all the knowledge and equipment. Every thing was there. We were asleep in our beds. We had no idea that this woman was bleeding to death on the other shore. In the morning, when the sun came up, she was dead. I think this is a perfect picture of what is happening in the world today. You see, people are dead. They are not just sick they are dead! All over the world if they have not heard of Christ or if they are not obedient to Christ they are dead. And we don't seem to understand.

Let me ask you some questions to put this into focus. If people who don't know Christ are not really dead why doesn't God just call them sick? "For you were sick in your transgressions and sins." If people are alive and not really dead why is God so insistent that [we] tell our family, our friends our neighbors and even complete strangers about Jesus Christ? If it doesn't matter if they are alive and not really dead to God why does God say we are to suffer for the sake of the gospel? [To] leave our homes. Leave our homeland and go across the sea to tell people about Jesus Christ? If they are not really dead, ..if they are all alive they are just fine. There is some trap door into heaven. Why since the beginning of church history until today does God continue to shed the blood of Christian martyrs like my mother and father so that unreached peoples will come to Christ? Why is it necessary? If people aren't dead, if they are really alive why did the Son of God have to be nailed to a tree, crucified and killed? My friends, the fact of the matter is that people are not just homeless .not just hungry, not just naked. they are not just sick . THEY ARE ALL DEAD! They are all dead.

The good news is that God has given us a task. The theme for this missions conference is "Run with a Vision." Not walk. Run with a Vision. And what is the vision? The vision is a world that could know about Jesus Christ. We have the means. We have the knowledge to tell people about Jesus Christ. Today there is a bridge across the river in Bongolo and day and night ambulances come across that bridge. They bring people who are sick and dying and we save their lives. Today Jesus Christ is the bridge between the world and God. He says to us, "Bring me the dead people. I will make them live again."

Do we even know - do we even know that they are dying? Could it be that our own comfort and security are more important to us then obeying God? Are we more afraid of spiders and snakes and rats and strange food then of Almighty God? There is even a more compelling reason for us to run with gospel and not walk. Shortly before Jesus went to heaven after his resurrection he called all his followers together and he said [paraphrased] "Look, God has given me all power in the universe and here on earth. Now I want you to start here and I want you to go out and I want you to go to ends of the earth. And finally I want you to tell people about who I am and what I have done. And those who believe on me I want you to baptize them. I want you to teach them everything I told you to do." After Jesus went to heaven the Holy Spirit reminded the disciples of something else he had told them. And they wrote it down in Matthew 24:14. and this is what he said. "And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come." Put the two statements together. Starting here I want you to go to the ends of the earth. I want you to tell every people, tribe and nation about who I am and what I have done. And those who believe on me I want you to baptize and teach them everything I have told you to do. AND WHEN YOU ARE DONE and NOT BEFORE the end will come.

You see I don't believe that Jesus Christ is going to return tonight . I don't think he is going to come next week. I don't think he is going to come next month or even next year. Because he gave an assignment to the church. I don't think he is going to come till the church fulfills the assignment that he gave it to do. He said the bride has to get herself ready. And until the bride is ready the Bridegroom is not going to have a marriage. Well, you say that is pretty strong. No one knows the hour or the day. I don't know the hour or the day but I do know this: God is speaking very clearly in his scriptures.

What if Jesus gave his followers an assignment that he actually expected them to carry out to completion? Unlike our professors today. You go to class and the professor says for next week I want you to do a paper. Next week comes and the class shows up and says "you know Prof., we were really busy and we had a lot of activities this weekend and we just didn't get around to it." The professor says," Hay, that's OK. I wasn't serious." I've never had a professor like that. So why should God treat it any differently? What if he gave us the Holy Spirit to make the impossible possible? What if he did not have a back up plan? If he had no other way to tell the peoples of the earth that he had come and to inform them that there was salvation through faith in Christ? What if there was no other way? What if people who have never heard of Jesus Christ really are condemned? There is no trap door . What if they are all going to hell? What if Jesus said what he meant and meant what he said? Then my friends, what it means is that the rightful King of this world is not going to come until the church turns in its assignment . It also means that misery and the suffering and war and environmental destruction and the sorrow that we see and hear about all over this world is going to continue unabated because the King of Kings is not coming to set it straight. Not just yet .

I don't know about you. But I have seen enough suffering in my lifetime and I want the King to come not in a hundred years. I want him to come very soon.

Four years ago my wife and I returned to Gabon for another term of service and that first Sunday we were in the capitol city and went to the largest church there in Libreville. When we first came to Gabon in 1977 there were 8 people in that church. Today there are more than 3000 and it is one of 14 churches. There are about 25,000 Christians in Libreville. God is doing a great work there. But after the service we tried to get back to the car. We really did not want anyone to recognize us because I wasn't planning to hold a medical clinic there that morning. But sure enough this woman recognized me and came running up and said, "Are you Dr. Thompson?" And I was. She said Dr. Thompson, please, my husband and I have a little boy who is very sick. He has been in the hospital for 4 months and has this terrible wound and infection on his chest wall and the doctors don't know what to do. They have tried everything. And it is just getting bigger. He is wasting away and unless something changes he is going to die. Would you just wait here. We will get him out of the hospital and bring him here to the church . So I said OK. A half an hour later they came back in taxi and her husband lifted out this little boy 8 years old. His name was Donald. [He was] very wasted he was very frightened. I finally got him to lift up his shirt and there was this gooey bandage. We pulled up his bandage and there was this big hole the size of a baseball . I knew right away what it was. It was Baruli ulcer. Its a terrible infection that is named after the town in Africa where it was first described. Its an infection that is chronic and continues and burrows under the skin. The children who survive are sometimes terribly deformed. Others die from this infection. This was the largest one I had ever seen. I said to the family I know what that is and we can help but you will have to bring him to the hospital and he will be there several months. So a couple weeks later they showed up at the hospital 300 miles to the south of the capitol city. We took Donald to the operating room and before we operated we prayed for him and asked God to give us wisdom and asked God to open Donald's heart to the gospel because he was not a Christian at that time. We began to remove all the infected tissue. You have to expose the base of the infection to the air and the disinfectants that we use. That is the only treatment that I know. There are no antibiotics that can control this infection. When we finished we had an enormous wound. His entire chest. His entire abdomen down into the groin was completely denuded. We operated on Donald a total of thirteen times before we got control of that infection. We were able to cover that wound with skin grafts. But, for a period of about 3 months when we were changing his dressing twice a day we could hear his screams all over the hospital. Now I praise God that we could help Donald. He got better, He recovered. He gave his heart to Christ. And that was wonderful. BUT THERE IS A BETTER WAY! IT IS FOR THE KING OF KINGS TO COME BACK AND TO PUT AN END TO BURULI ULCERS! I'M TIRED OF HEARING ABOUT MY FRIENDS IN AFRICA DYING OF AIDS AND TUBERCULOSIS AND MALARIA. AND VIOLENCE. I'M TIRED OF READING ABOUT CHILDREN SOLDIERS CUTTING OFF THE HANDS OF OTHER CHILDREN. THE KING NEEDS TO COME . OUR BAND-AIDS ARE NOT GOING TO FIX THIS WORLD.

You know there are 40 million people in Africa with aids? In five years they will all be dead. Do you know that in 3 years there will be 13 million orphans in Africa? Today just in the city of Lusaka there are 90,000 orphans on the street. Its time for the King to come. That is why Becky and I became missionaries 24 years ago and that is why we continue to pray until the day we die that THAT IS THE ONLY THING WE KNOW THAT WILL BRING BACK THE KING IS TO TELL THE WORLD ABOUT JESUS!... TO THOSE WHO HAVE NEVER HEARD. Because when the church has finished her assignment the Bridegroom will come.

What about you What is the passion of your life? What is the vision you are running with? Is it what God is crying out.. for the church to do.. or is it some agenda that doesn't interest God? You see, I think God wants to raise up an army. Not just a few foot solders. He wants a whole army! He wants this to be the whole project of the church not just a little side project. Because if the Bridegroom is waiting, this is important not just a little job for a few people. In world war II the entire nation mobilized to win the war. That is what God is calling the church to do. Its time to bring back the King and I believe God is calling this generation. He is calling this movement called the Christian and Missionary Alliance. He is calling us who are in this building today and anyone listening to the radio today. He is calling US to finish the job. Someday we will here these words, "Hallelulia for our Lord Almighty Reigns. Let us rejoice and be glad and give Him Glory for the wedding of the Lamb has come and his bride has made herself ready."

It is time to make ourselves ready.

Father God, I thank you that you have chosen and even asked us to tell the world about you. Oh Father, I pray that you allow us to be the people, to allow us to be the generation to welcome you back to this earth to reign . Thy Kingdom come Thy will be done.

Amen.

Slide show script provided by Dynamic Drive