A World to Win
From left to right: John Eliot (1604-1690), David Brainerd (1718-1747), William Carey (1761-1834), David Livingstone (1813-1873) and Hudson Taylor (1832-1905) were respectively the forefathers of the modern evangelical missionary movement in North America, Africa and Asia.
The men who pioneered the modern missions movement were mainly postmillennial Calvinists who held the Word of God in such high esteem that they saw Jesus command to “Go into all the world and make disciples of the nations” (Matthew 28:19) as an order to be obeyed.
They took their marching orders from Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion, in which the Swiss Reformer wrote, “Our doctrine must tower unvanquished above all the glory and above all the might of the world, for it is not of us, but of the living God and His Christ who will rule from sea to sea and from the river even to the ends of the earth.”
Calvin’s missionary zeal is attested to by the fact that within 25 years – from the time John Calvin began his ministry – there were 2000 Calvinist churches and about half a million Calvinists, in France alone Calvin sponsored missions throughout Europe and even as far afield as Poland, the Netherlands, Scandinavia, Iceland and even to Brazil.
The passion to preach the Gospel in every nation and to win heathen tribes to Christ sprang from those Reformed churches, in England and America, which had been most deeply influenced by the Great Evangelical Awakening of the 18th century. These revivals were based upon the study and proclamation of the Reformed teachings of the Puritans. The two primary human instruments whom God was pleased to use in the 18th century revivals were Jonathan Edwards and George Whitefield.
Edwards was a Calvinist whose books reasserted the faith and conduct of the Puritans. His sermon, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,” was used by God to spark the Great Awakening. In 1749, Edwards’ published The Life and Diary of Rev. David Brainerd, which was based on the memoirs of his son-in-law-to be as he established a missionary effort among the Algonquins. This book was mightily used to inspire the 19th century missionary movement. Jonathan Edwards himself invested the last seven years of his life as a missionary amongst these same Native American tribes at a frontier settlement in Stockbridge, Massachusetts.
All the founders and missionaries of the original prototype Baptist mission launched by William Carey in 1792 were Reformed Christians who came under criticism for their “strict Calvinism” and being “followers of Jonathan Edwards” (Life of Andrew Fuller, John Ryland).
The Calvinistic missionaries of the 19th century were without exception initially derided as “dangerous madmen.” Even within their own churches skeptics laughed at the audacity of their ideas discounting any possibility of theirs success. The view of the public was even worse. The British East India Company’s attitude was published in these words:
The sending out of missionaries into our Eastern possessions (is) the maddest, most extravagant, most costly, most indefensible project which has ever been suggested by a moon struck fanatic! Such a scheme is pernicious, imprudent, useless, harmful, dangerous, profitless, fantastic (20 Centuries of Christianity, p. 279).
Pioneer missionary, William Carey, and his co-workers, were belittled as “fools, madmen, tinkers, Calvinists and schismatics!” Their preaching was stereotyped as “puritanical rant of the worst kind.” (William Carey, S. Pearce Carey, 1923). The Edinburgh Review editorialized: “We see not the slightest prospect of success; we see much danger in making the attempt.”
The nineteenth century missionary movement in particular had an incalculable impact on human history. The rapid advance of Christianity throughout Africa, Asia and the Pacific Islands introduced hundreds of illiterate languages to writing; produced libraries of books and pioneered thousands of schools; provided medicine to save millions of lives from tropical diseases; introduced modern methods of agriculture to provide for millions of previously malnourished people. They put an end to cannibalism, human sacrifice, infanticide, the euthanasia of leprosy patients, widow burnings, slavery and numerous other social evils.
Adapted from A World to Win.
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The Silent Scream (DVD) Eight Languages
“When the lives of the unborn are snuffed out, they often feel pain, pain that is long and agonizing.” – President Ronald Reagan to National Religious Broadcasters Convention, January 1981
Ronald Reagan became convinced of this as a result of watching The Silent Scream – a movie he considered so powerful and convicting that he screened it at the White House. More recently, it was by catching just a glimpse of what this film reveals that Planned Parenthood director and abortion advocate Abby Johnson turned and became a strong advocate for the pre-born.
The modern technology of real-time ultrasound now reveals the actual responses of a 12-week old fetus to being aborted. As the unborn child attempts to escape the abortionist’s suction curette, her motions can be seen to become desperately agitated and her heart rate doubles. Her mouth opens – as if to scream – but no sound can come out. Her scream doesn’t have to remain silent, however … not if you will become her voice. This newly re-mastered version features eight language tracks and two bonus videos.
“…a high technology “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” arousing public opinion just as Harriet Beecher Stowe’s 1852 antislavery novel ignited the abolitionist movement.” – Sen. Gordon Humphrey, Time Magazine
Languages: English, Spanish, French, South Korean, Chinese, Russian, Portuguese, Japanese
Running Time: 28 minutes
$17.95 — ORDER NOW!
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Massacre of Innocence (DVD)
Exposing The Occult Roots of Abortion
This presentation looks at the spiritual roots of abortion and exposes the myths surrounding child killing. Little known historical facts about abortion and how they relate to modern feminism are presented logically and accurately. Has been effective in converting many to a pro-life position.
Massacre of Innocence goes where no pro-life presentation has gone before in “tearing the lid off abortion” to reveal the spiritual realities we must battle if we will bring an end to this crime. The presentation is absorbing, fast-paced, informative and incredibly devastating to any attempt to justify abortion.
“… an extraordinary statement … a powerfully articulate presentation about what abortion really means, and why a great and moral nation like the United States must not allow the slaughter to continue.”
— Congressman Robert K. Dornan
Running time: 85 minutes
$19.95 — ORDER NOW!
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Dr. Francis Schaeffer - A Christian Manifesto (DVD)
That Swiss Hermit Strikes Again!
Dr. Schaeffer, who was one of the most influential Christian thinkers in the twentieth century, shows that secular humanism has displaced the Judeo-Christian consensus that once defined our nation’s moral boundaries. Law, education, and medicine have all been reshaped for the worse as a consequence. America’s dominant worldview changed, Schaeffer charges, when Christians weren’t looking.
Schaeffer lists two reasons for evangelical indifference: a false concept of spirituality and fear. He calls on believers to stand against the tyranny and moral chaos that come when humanism reigns-and warns that believers may, at some point, be forced to make the hard choice between obeying God or Caesar. A Christian Manifesto is a thought-provoking and bracing Christian analysis of American culture and the obligation Christians have to engage the culture with the claims of Christ.
$19.95 — ORDER NOW!
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The Real Jesus: A Defense of the Historicity and Divinity of Christ (DVD)
Who is the Real Jesus?
Ever since the dawn of modern rationalism, skeptics have sought to use textual criticism, archeology and historical reconstructions to uncover the “historical Jesus” — a wise teacher who said many wonderful things, but fulfilled no prophecies, performed no miracles and certainly did not rise from the dead in triumph over sin.
Over the past 100 years, however, startling discoveries in biblical archeology and scholarship have all but vanquished the faulty assumptions of these doubting modernists. Regrettably, these discoveries have often been ignored by the skeptics as well as by the popular media. As a result, the liberal view still holds sway in universities and impacts the culture and even much of the church.
The Real Jesus explodes the myths of these critics and the movies, books and television programs that have popularized their views. Presented in ten parts — perfect for individual, family and classroom study — viewers will be challenged to go deeper in their knowledge of Christ in order to be able to defend their faith and present the truth to a skeptical modern world – that the Jesus of the Gospels is the Jesus of history — “the same yesterday, today and forever” (Hebrews 13:8). He is the real Jesus.
Speakers include: George Grant, Ted Baehr, Stephen Mansfield, Raymond Ortlund, Phil Kayser, David Lutzweiler, Jay Grimstead, J.P. Holding, and Eric Holmberg.
Ten parts, over two hours of instruction!
Running Time: 130 minutes
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Freedom: The Model of Christian Liberty (DVD)
“Give me liberty or give me death!”
Patrick Henry’s famous declaration not only helped launch the War for Independence, it also perfectly summarized the mindset that gave birth to, and sustained, the unprecedented experiment in Christian liberty that was America.
The freedom our Founders envisioned was not freedom from suffering, want, or hard work. Nor was it freedom to indulge every appetite or whim without restraint—that would merely be servitude to a different master. No, the Founders’ passion was to live free before God, unfettered by the chains of autocracy, shackles that slowly but inexorably bind men when the governments they fashion fail to recognize and uphold freedom’s singular, foundational truth: that all men are created in the image of God, and are thereby co-equally endowed with the right to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”
This presentation is a similar call, not to one but many. By reintroducing the principles of freedom that gave birth to America, it is our prayer that Jesus, the true and only ruler over the nations, will once again be our acknowledged Sovereign, that we may again know and exult in the great truth that “where the Spirit of the LORD is, there is liberty” (2 Cor. 3:17).
Welcome to the Second American Revolution!
This DVD features “Liberty: The Model of Christian Liberty” along with “Dawn’s Early Light: A Brief History of America’s Christian Foundations.” Bonus features include a humorous but instructive collection of campaign ads and Eric Holmberg’s controversial YouTube challenge concerning Mitt Romney’s campaign for president.
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