Mackrill Romanian Missions

The speaker is expressing gratitude to the Kentucky Missionary Baptist Church for their support and prayers for the mission work being done in Romania. They emphasize that the work being done by the church in their own community is just as important as the work being done in Romania. The speaker shares that they have been able to preach and communicate effectively in the Romanian language without the need for a translator, which has been a blessing. They also mention that they have renovated the property where they hold services in Zernest and have had regular attendance from two young families. The speaker asks for prayers for these families and for the community in Zernest, as there is no Baptist church presence there. Good evening, it is so good to be in the Lord's house this evening with you all. I'm so glad to see you all here this evening, it's so good to be with you all, my brothers and sisters in Christ of the Kentucky Missionary Baptist Church. It's been a long time since I was able to be back here, specifically on deputation and furlough, to be able to give you all a report of the exciting things that God is doing through our mission work and ministry efforts in Brasov, Romania. First off, I want to say thank you for all your faithful years of prayers and support on our behalf, and supporting and partnering with us in the mission work in Romania. And I also want to say thank you, it's been my goal, if you will, or my mission, since coming in on furlough January of this year, and will return, Lord willing, September, the first week of September this year, back to the mission field, but it's been my goal with each and every church that we have the opportunity to visit, whether they support us or not, to thank them for what they're doing in their community, because it's very easy for us missionaries to get lifted up and put upon a pedestal, if you will, from everyone who says, oh, well, you know, I could never do that, what you're doing, brother, I couldn't move to a foreign mission field, I couldn't do, make the sacrifices that you seem to be making effortlessly, but let me share something with you all. While the Lord has specifically called my family to serve Him and to start a church in Cernes, Romania, He has specifically called you and placed you here in your community, and so I want to thank you for the gospel light and the love of Jesus Christ that you shine and you share right here. The work that you're doing for the Lord's kingdom and sharing the gospel here is just as important as what we're doing in Romania, so thank you for that. Before I continue in any more of my report, I have a video that kind of shows the last two years of our mission work, if we could go ahead and play that. We're going to play a little bit of that, and we're going to play a little bit of the video. We're going to play a little bit of the video. We're going to play a little bit of the video. We're going to play a little bit of the video. We're going to play a little bit of the video. We're going to play a little bit of the video. We're going to play a little bit of the video. 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We're going to play a little bit of the video. All right. Thank you for allowing me to show that video. I'd like to take just a few more minutes with the time that we have left and share with you all a brief report that not only talks about the last two years that you saw there but talks about from the last time that I was here. I believe the last time I was here I was reporting to you all that, you know, we still had not begun services in Zarnesh, that the building was in much disrepair and in need of renovations and that I was still struggling to preach in the Romanian language without the help of a translator or interpreter. Well, I'm pleased to report to you that I no longer struggle with the need to preach with an interpreter or a translator. The Lord has blessed me with the ability now to preach and teach and converse on a daily basis. Any legal work or anything I need done I'm able to do in the Romanian language without a translator. I have to give all the glory to God for that. I didn't do so well in high school with Spanish. Most certainly, Brother Donnie didn't do so well with Brother Michael Reese in Greek. So it is by the grace of God that I'm able to preach, let alone in English, but also in Romanian without a translator. You know, one of the greatest compliments that I think I received, I was filling in for a sister church in a village that's not too far from the church in Subiwara and they were having Thanksgiving services. It's what we would call Thanksgiving services. It was really just a time of Thanksgiving. Romania doesn't celebrate Thanksgiving like America does. But nonetheless, they invited me to be their guest speaker and to preach, and so I preached on having a thankful attitude, three ways to have a more thankful heart. And at the end of that message, this dear brother in Christ, he told me that he was part Hungarian but also Romanian. So he spoke Romanian and Hungarian, and he came up to me and he said, thank you so much for your message. He said, it was so simple. I was able to understand everything you said, and it just really touched my heart. And so, you know, just have to give God, like I said, all the glory for that because he placed within me the desire to communicate effectively and clearly the love of Jesus Christ to the people of Romania without having to have a mediator, if you will. Because Romania is a Christian nation. They declare themselves as a Christian nation. They have a state church, the Romanian Orthodox Church. And in their religion, you can go and you must go in their religion to the local priests at the Orthodox Church. And if you wish to ask God to forgive you of your sins, you must confess those to the priest who will then take those requests to the Lord and then will let you know if you've been absolved of those sins or forgiven. Whereas now, without having a go-between, I can communicate to the people in Romania and have the privilege and joy to share with them that there is only one mediator between God and man, and that is Jesus Christ. So I'm very, very thankful for this ability, this opportunity that God has given us. We were able also to renovate the property where we're meeting in Zernest, and we've been having services since November 1st of 2020. I would love to tell you that the very first service, after having renovated throughout the summer and going through all of that, witnessing the people as they were stopping. We're in a great location, lots of foot traffic, and so everybody would stop and would ask us why we're renovating, what we're doing. And I would love to tell you that after all those opportunities, that we had a packed house that first service. But you know what? It was just me, Amy, and the girls. So instead of getting overly discouraged, because we were discouraged, and throwing in the towel, as they would say, quitting, and just deciding that was it, we decided we're going to be faithful in the little things. God called us here, and we're not going to let this little disappointment discourage us to the point of quitting. And I'm pleased to report to you now, after three and a half years, it'll be four years this November, of having services that we've had many first-time guests and visitors come through, but we have two young families who attend on a regular basis. In fact, the brother that I have filling in for me while I'm away reports to me that they are still coming in attendance. They have a wonderful and beautiful testimony of faith in Jesus Christ for their salvation, and they are seeking and would like to have a church home. And so they voiced a desire to join our church there that we're starting in Zarnesh. So please pray for me as I'm going through discipleship classes with these young families, with their numbers and my family included. We typically have on a Sunday evening attendance somewhere around 15, and so very excited about this. Please pray for these young families. When I say young families, what I mean is that they are still in that having kids phase of life. They just, the brother, it's a brother and a sister, and so the brother on his side with him and his wife, they have welcomed in, what's that called, fraternal twins. Well, they're not identical. It's a boy and a girl just this past month. And so when I get back, they are excited about having a baby dedication and doing all that stuff. And so please be in prayer for these families. They don't come from scriptural church backgrounds, which is to be expected in Romania. I don't know that there's really anybody in the nation who you could say comes from a scriptural church background where you could just accept their promise of a letter for their membership. And so we're going through our doctrinal statements, why we believe what we believe, and just so excited about that. So please continue to pray for the church in Zernesht, that the Lord will encourage these young families that will make those next steps in their walk with the Lord, but also for the community. Zernesht is a smaller city in the county of Brasov. It's about 21,000 people that reside in the city of Zernesht, but it has no Baptist church presence or a scriptural New Testament church presence. There's the Orthodox church, of course. There's Catholic church. There's a Reformed church or a Calvinist church. There's Seventh-day Adventist. There's Pentecostal, Jehovah's Witness, Evangelical. I like to joke and say it's kind of like Baskin-Robbins. They've got a pretty big flavor, if you will. Just pick what your flavor is. But, you know, no Baptist church presence. And unfortunately in Romania, because of the large ecumenical movement in all of Europe right now, they tend to lump us in when we name the name that we're Baptist and say, oh, okay, so you're the same as the Pentecostals or you're the same as the Evangelicals. And so that's a conversation starter as well is that we get to tell them that, no, we're not Protestant and we're not Pentecostal, we're not like these. We have, you know, a set of doctrines that we hold to, that we believe, and that, you know, also govern our faith and our walk with the Lord and also how we conduct our services in the local New Testament church. So, you know, be in prayer with us for the city of Zernesht. We were able to move to the community, whereas before we were driving about 45 minutes one way to have services on Sunday night. So since we moved to the community, we've started Sunday afternoons. We have a kid's Bible club and Wednesday evening prayer and Bible study. So, you know, we're excited about this. We have neighbors in the community of Zernesht, and they're glad that we've moved in. It's opened up a lot of doors for conversations. Our youngest, Vivian, she's five years old this year, she got to go to the Romanian preschool that's just right around the corner from our mission house and was invited to come back, and the teachers just fell in love with her. She made lots of friends there, and we got to meet a lot of the young families in the community. So we're just really excited what God is doing through us and what he's doing in the city of Zernesht. Rochelle County has about half a million people, and it is growing, and it's growing the direction of Zernesht. They put in a new highway in hopes that the future plan is to connect that highway to the capital in the south. If they do that, they've already opened up a regional airport that will then immediately turn into an international airport. So we're looking at where I'm excited that Romania is just going to kind of blow up in that way with not just tourism, but lots of jobs coming to the area, lots of new people, and so we're just really excited about what's going on there. You saw on there the humanitarian work that we do as a result of the humanitarian work on Sunday mornings. We don't just deliver groceries and things just to do good. We use that opportunity to be a witness, to pray with the people and the families that we're visiting, to share the gospel with them, but we also invite them to church. One of those families has three young girls. The family does not come to our morning services in Salty Water, but they allow us to come pick up their three little girls and bring them to church, and they have been coming now for a little over a year. I've been in contact with the members of the church in Salty Water, and they have told me that they continue now to go and to pick up these girls and to bring them to church. So please pray for these girls as they hear the gospel, that they will make a profession of faith, that this will open a door for us for this gypsy community that we are going to, and Lord willing, we'll get this work started there as well. You saw some of the church camps that we were able to be a part of. Last year's church camp, specifically the teen camp, I was invited to come and be a guest speaker for a couple of the nights, and on the Thursday evening service, there was a different speaker, but he gave a clear presentation of the gospel and how to be saved and praised the Lord. At the end of that service, we saw about six young men make decisions for the Lord, so we're very excited about this. They weren't from the Zarnesh community, so not able to get connected with them, but excited about that nevertheless. Pray for the sister church in Feldiwada. As I stated before, I believe from the first time I've come here and ever since, we did not start the church in Feldiwada. We've just simply been serving there since we moved onto the field. My father-in-law, Brother Jerry Chandler, he was instrumental in organizing that work and helping them to call a Romanian pastor, but ever since he came off the field in 2011, after about three years after that in 2014 or 2015, the pastor they had called, he resigned and left, and so they've been without a pastor ever since. So when we moved onto the field, they were gracious enough to allow me to be a part of their teaching and preaching rotation with the men in the church, but also giving me the opportunity to preach in Romanian, to practice that, but they are in desperate need of a pastor, a godly man and his family to come in. The Lord's laid it on my heart to remain there on Sunday mornings and to lead in that capacity, but with the ultimate goal of leading them and helping them to be able to call a pastor. The problem with that is there is not a huge pool from which they can call scriptural men, preachers of like-minded faith to be their pastors or for pulpit fill. So that's why you saw in one of my goals going back. It was one of my original goals, but when I moved onto the field, I found out there was no Bible Institute anymore, and so I just spent time learning the language. Now that I've got kind of somewhat of a handle on that, I'm partnering with the Cumberland Baptist Institute out of Somerset, Kentucky, where our sending church is. It is a seminary that is sponsored by two of our sister churches in the ABA. I'm really excited about this. They've authorized or at least recognized me as a teacher, and any one of our students, Lord willing, that will graduate from our Bible Institute will also receive a degree of sorts from the Cumberland Baptist Institute. And I'm also looking forward to working with those pastors and preachers in our work in Kentucky maybe even getting them to come over there and to be a part of that as well. So be in prayer for me. You know, preaching and teaching in church is one thing, but equipping men to rightly divide the word of truth is kind of something that I've never had that opportunity to do before, and so I'm praying for wisdom, praying for guidance. I've been talking to my father-in-law, Brother Steve Meese, out of the Cumberland Baptist Institute, and my brother, Jerry Hatfield, also, who's the dean there at the Baptist Institute. So please be in prayer about that as well. Are there any questions or anything as I close this report that you may have for me, anything at all? All right. If there's no questions with the time we have left, I'd like to share with you from the Word. I know that I understand we have a fellowship in the fellowship hall coming up, so I understand if you're hungry I won't keep you too long. But, you know, as it is, Jesus said, you know, a man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. And so we need our spiritual food first, correct? We need to get that, and then we can go and we can fellowship one with another and enjoy some physical food. And what I want to share with you this evening is from Matthew 9. We're going to be looking in verses 1 through 8. We may not get through all the verses, specifically in verse 2 and then in verse 5 is when I want us to focus. Excuse me, verse 6. Verses 2 and verse 6. But in Matthew 9, we have here Matthew's eyewitness account that he gives under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. We have to understand who's writing and who his intended audience was, even though that we are reading this here tonight, you know, and we are in a way his intended audience. He was writing from a Jewish perspective, and so his eyewitness testimony, even though his fellow disciples, you know, you have Mark's account and Luke's account. Luke's account would have been more from a Gentile perspective, and Mark's account also that he gave quite possibly was from Peter. We're not quite sure about that. But nevertheless, it was given under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, correct? And so we have here, in the harmony of the gospels, this is the same story where they bring this man sick of the palsy, and there's no room for them in the house where Jesus is teaching and where everyone is there surrounding Jesus. The multitudes are present. They're listening to him teach. They've seen him do miracles, and so these men, in Matthew's account and his eyewitness, he kind of skips the whole tearing of the roof or lowering them down into the house, and he just kind of cuts to the chase here, and he says to them in verse 2, And behold, they brought to him a man sick of the palsy, lying on a bed, and Jesus, seeing their face, said unto the sick of the palsy, Son, be of good cheer, thy sins be forgiven thee. And you know what I want us to focus on this evening is what Jesus saw, OK? Because what Matthew saw and what everybody else saw was completely different than what Jesus saw. Matthew and the multitudes, the disciples, even the scribes that are there that lay the blame of blasphemy on Jesus, they all see something different. You know, much like Matthew, we would have seen a man being carried by his friends on his bed to Jesus, and we would have immediately seen that he is sick, he's in need of something, and that's why he's come to Jesus. He's come to get something out of Jesus. And so, as humans, we stop at the physical appearance, don't we? We look at what somebody looks like, how they appear, and we make our judgment. And instead, we need to see people the way Jesus sees people. Much like the prophet Samuel, who goes when he's told by God to anoint the next king of Israel because Saul had disobeyed, right? And he goes to the house of Jesse, and Jesse lines up all of his sons except for David, who's still out in the pasture, pasturing his father's flock of sheep. And Samuel sees David's older brother, and he thinks to himself, this must be the man, the next king of Israel, because what? He is tall, he is strong, he's good looking, he's fair. So he has to be the next king of Israel. But what does God tell Samuel? That God looks on the heart. Man looks on the outward appearance and judges based upon the outward appearance, but God looks at the heart. And praise God that he looks not at our outward appearance, but he looks at our heart. Because Jesus, he didn't just see a man lying on a bed, carried by his friends because he was sick of the palsy. It says here in verse 2, Jesus sees their faith. Wow. Jesus sees their faith. Faith, yes, to be healed. But notice how he addresses this man, sick of the palsy, which, by the way, just simply means he was paralyzed. More than likely paralyzed from the waist down. He couldn't walk, that's why he was carried everywhere he went by his friends. We don't know for how long he had been afflicted. We don't know what had caused this. Maybe he was paralyzed from birth. The Bible simply does not tell us here in the Gospel of Matthew. However, he's being carried by his friends to Jesus. What good friends, right? What kind of friends are you surrounding yourself with? Do the friends that you surround yourself with, do they carry you to Jesus? Or do they carry you to somewhere else that you need not go? What kind of friend are you? Are you carrying your friends to Jesus? Interesting thought, isn't it? But we find here that Jesus sees their faith. And not just faith to be healed, I believe faith unto the forgiveness of sins. Faith as we would call saving faith. Well, how do you know that, Brother Cole? Well, look with me right here. And he says the first word, Jesus addresses this man. He doesn't say, hey man. He doesn't ask him what his name is. He doesn't address him by the physical ailment. What is the first word out of Jesus' mouth here? Son. Son. You see that? Jesus addresses this man as a son. Look with me over in the Gospel of John. I want to bring this to your attention. Gospel of John chapter 1 and verse 12. But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God. Even to them that believe on his name. Wow. That tells me that Jesus, seeing past this person, this man's physical ailment, that he was sick, that he was unable to walk. He sees past that into this man's heart. And he sees that this man has faith unto salvation. That he has already placed his faith in Jesus Christ, the Messiah, the Anointed One, the Son of God. How do we know that? Because he says, be of good cheer. How can Jesus say that, friends? The man's lying on a bed. He can't walk. And in that day and age and that culture, that means that he couldn't work. He couldn't go provide a means for himself or for his family. He had to be carried. And we know in that culture he was probably carried to the marketplaces or to where the crowds were so he could beg for a living. And yet they carry him here to Jesus' feet and Jesus addresses him as son. And he says, be of good cheer. What does that mean for you and I tonight? What it means is it doesn't matter what struggles you're going through. Maybe you're sick this evening or a loved one is sick and you're going through whatever storms of life or whatever struggles you're dealing with. You can be of good cheer for the same reason this man could be of good cheer. Because your sins are forgiven. Listen, friends, that's the greatest problem that you and I have, that anybody on this planet has. It's sin. And the greatest solution to that problem is Jesus Christ and the forgiveness that He offers. The free gift of salvation by faith in Him. Amen? That's why you hear so many preachers. You hear so many pastors say that we ought to be the happiest people on this earth. Because even in this man, he's still paralyzed in this moment. He still can't walk. And yet, Jesus says, be of good cheer. Your sins are forgiven. Well, the scribes didn't like that, did they? They told Jesus, only God can forgive sins. And behold, certain of the scribes said within themselves, this man blasphemeth. In other words, they're saying, Jesus, only God can forgive sins. And we don't believe you're God. Therefore, you're blaspheming. But you know what? Jesus, just as I said, God looks at the hearts of men. Not only did He see the faith that these men had to come to Jesus when He says, Son, be of good cheer. He sees the hearts of the scribes. He sees the wickedness. He sees past their self-righteous facade. Remember we talked about appearances? Well, guess what? The scribes, they would have looked holy. Anybody in that multitude that you looked at, out of all of the people there, you would have picked out the scribes and said, Hey, those are probably some pretty good religious guys. They walk close with God. Because why? They like to look the part. They like to play the part. But what did Jesus say about their heart? He said, knowing their thoughts, wherefore think ye evil in your hearts? Now, what was the evil that they were thinking? Well, I don't believe it was just that they were denying the deity of Jesus Christ, denying that He is the only begotten Son of God. I believe the evil that He laid upon their hearts, the wickedness that was in their hearts, was that they would deny this man forgiveness of sin. Oh, friends, let not that claim, let not that be laid upon us, that we would be willing in our self-righteous, hypocritical mentalities to be wicked in our hearts and deny somebody forgiveness. How can I deny? By not sharing the gospel. When God has opened a door unto you to share your faith in Jesus Christ, and you close your lips. David said, I can't help it. I've got to, I've got to open my lips. My lips declare your glory. My lips declare your righteousness and your holiness and your mercy and your forgiveness. Listen, if we have truly been forgiven of our sins, as this man that was sick of the palsy has been, we are not going to have the same attitude as the scribes. Instead, we, we're not going to, we're not going to deny that. We're going to share that. And look at what he says here, continuing on. For whether it's easier to say, Thy sins be forgiven thee, or to say, Arise and walk. In verse 6, we're going to end with this thought. But that ye may know. I love that. But that ye may know. This isn't a hope so type of faith. This isn't I wonder if maybe if I do this, if I put my faith in this man, maybe I can be forgiven of my sins. As so many world religions proclaim and say, you know, if you'll just do more good than bad, if you'll just follow this religion, you'll just do this laundry list of good deeds, then maybe you can be right with God on judgment day. Listen, Jesus said that you may know without a shadow of a doubt, that you can place all your faith and trust in Him. He says that you may know that the Son of Man has power on earth to forgive sins. There is not a preacher. There is not a pastor. There's not a church. There's not a priest on this planet that has power to forgive your sins, but Jesus Christ alone. And that's what He wants you to know this evening, friends. That you can be of good cheer because your sins are forgiven. I wonder, have you trusted in Jesus Christ as your Savior? Have you come to Him with faith and humility? Have you done what it says in Acts 10, verse 13? Have you called upon the name of the Lord? Because what is His promise? For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. That whosoever means whosoever means you this evening. It means me when I was just a 13-year-old boy, had grown up in church and was much like a scribe, was drowning in my own self-righteousness. But praise God that evening, I repented of my sin and I placed my faith and trust in Jesus Christ. And now He calls me, Son. And He says no matter what problems I'm going through, no matter what uncertainty I face in my life, He says to me, Son, be of good cheer. Thy sins be forgiven thee. Oh, friends, let that encourage you this evening. But maybe tonight you've not done that. Let tonight be the night of salvation where you come to Jesus. Maybe you came here with a friend. Maybe they brought you here and you're hearing the Gospel. You too can call unto Jesus and be called a son because you repent of your sin and trust in Jesus Christ. And you can leave here having joy unspeakable and full of glory. Peace that passes all understanding because now you, having received that free gift, can be called a son of God, a daughter of God, a child of God by faith in Jesus Christ. As we prepare for a time of invitation, I'd ask us to bow our heads and close our eyes and go to the Lord in prayer. Our gracious, loving Heavenly Father, we thank You so much for this evening, this opportunity that You have given me to share a word of encouragement from Your Word to my brothers and sisters in Christ here. I pray that it would go down into our hearts, that it would take root and bear fruit, that we would remember those of us who have placed our faith in You, Lord Jesus, and I pray that You would continue to bless them with Your love. I pray that You would continue to bless them with Your love. I pray that You would continue to bless them with Your love. I pray that You would continue to bless them with Your love. I pray that You would continue to bless them with Your love. I pray that You would continue to bless them with Your love. I pray that You would continue to bless them with Your love. I pray that You would continue to bless them with Your love. I pray that You would continue to bless them with Your love. I pray that You would continue to bless them as they serve You faithfully in their community. And I ask all these things, Lord Jesus, in Your precious and holy name. Amen.