The 24th Zambian Reformed Conference

Yesterday (Thursday, August 22), I was back in the Radio Christian Voice studio on Alick Nkhanta Road to do a 15-minute advert for the 24^th Zambian Reformed Conference and School of Theology. Around the same time last year, I was in the same studio with Mr. Charles Bota, the all-round and able chairman of the Conference organising committee doing a similar task.

From Monday, 26^th August to Friday 30^th August, Christians from across the length and breadth of Zambia, and from neighbouring countries (Botswana, Kenya, Malawi, Namibia, South Africa, Uganda) and from afar field, the United Kingdom and United States of America, etc) will be converging in Lusaka for our annual spiritual feast. As usual, Namibia is bringing the largest contingent of all foreign delegates – more than 40, followed by South Africa with 23. The organising committee has already indicated that more than 1,400 delegates have registered for the conference.

The new Lusaka Baptist Church building, traditional venue for the
Zambian Reformed Conference

The theme this year is “The Christian Life – Finding Assurance, Fighting Temptation.” The Keynote address will be given by Pastor Ronald Kalifungwa of Lusaka Baptist Church.

Sooner or later, most Christians will contend with the problem of assurance of salvation. Those wanderings in the wilderness of doubt, questioning our salvation or even questioning the love and grace of God. We might live with the foreboding guilt feelings because of some past sin or some present battle with the flesh. To help us find answers to our assurance dilemma is Pastor Tabithi Anyabwile.

Pastor Thabiti Anyabwile is senior pastor of First Baptist Church of Grand Cayman (the largest of the three islands in the Cayman, just under Cuba, south of the Florida peninsula). He is a native of Lexington, North Carolina. He was previously an assistant pastor at Capitol Hill Baptist Church (Washington, DC) and served as an elder at Church on the Rock (Raleigh, NC). Thabiti has a strong professional and academic background in community psychology, with special interest in the history and development of the African American church. He holds B.A. and M.S. degrees in psychology from North Carolina State University. He and his wife, Kristie, have three children.

I first met Tabithi at the Together for the Gospel Conference in Louisville, KY in 2008. He is a regular speaker at T4G every two years. At last year’s conference (2012), he preached a powerful sermon, "Will Your Gospel Transform a Terrorist?" which still echoes in my mind. He has He has authored, co-authored and contributed to about 14 books, which include: “The Gospel for Muslims: An Encouragement to Share Christ with Confidence”; “Finding Faithful Elders and Deacons"; "Baptism and the Lord's Supper”;   “Holy, Holy, Holy: Proclaiming the Perfections of God” (with DA Carson and 9 other contributors).

Me with Pastor Tabithi Anyabwile at the T4G 2010 in Louisville, KY

Every Christian soon discovers that he fights battles on another front – temptations. John E. Bode (1816-1874) sums this up very well in his hymn, O Jesus I Have Promised:

O let me feel Thee near me!

The world is ever near;

I see the sights that dazzle,

The tempting sounds I hear;

My foes are ever near me,

Around me and within;

But Jesus, draw thou nearer,

And shield my soul from sin.

No matter where we go, there will always be a situation that requires us to choose between two paths - the road to righteousness or the path of self-righteousness. Traversing the road to righteousness is not always bees and sunshine. In fact, living in the straight and narrow path is the hardest life to live. It is a fight. Dr. Donald Arthur Carson, otherwise popularly known as DA Carson will provide us with biblical resources to rescue us from the island of temptation.

 

Dr. DA Carson

DA Carson is a native of Canada, an astute theologian, exegete, scholar and prolific writer. Currently, he is serving as a Research Professor of New Testament at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Deerfield, Illinois. Carson has a B.S. in Chemistry from McGill University, a M.Div. from Central Baptist Seminary in Toronto, Canada, and a Ph.D in New Testament from Cambridge University. He has written or edited more than forty-five books, including commentaries on books of the Bible. His book, The Gagging of God: Christianity Confronts Pluralism (1996), won the 1997 Evangelical Christian Publishers Association Gold Medallion Book Award in the category of “theology and doctrine.”

Read what others say about DA Carson:

“D. A. Carson is one of the most prolific and profound biblical scholars of our generation.” John D. Woodbridge, Research Professor, Church History and History of Christian Thought, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School.

“D. A. Carson is for this generation what B. B. Warfield was for his - the scholarly stalwart for the doctrine of Scripture, possessed of prodigious skills both as an interpreter of Scripture and as a biblical and systematic theologian, critically engaging the most significant arguments of the day and upholding the historic position of the Christian church and the Bible’s own self-attestation. Everything that comes from his pen is worthy of careful attention…” J. Ligon Duncan, John E. Richards Professor of Systematic and Historical Theology, Reformed Theological Seminary; Senior Minister, First Presbyterian Church, Jackson, Mississippi, and now Chancellor elect and CEO of the Reformed Theological Seminary.

“I’ve always admired Don Carson’s ability to minister so effectively in two different worlds. On the one hand, he’s one of the sharpest-thinking, best-respected minds in the realm of New Testament scholarship. On the other, he’s one of the clearest, most down-to-earth preachers I’ve ever heard. He simply has a remarkable ability both to grasp and to communicate complex issues understandably. Donald S. Whitney, Associate Professor of Biblical Spirituality, Senior Associate Dean of the School of Theology, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.

Seminars

There will be 5 seminars during the conference:

1. The Spirit of Adoption. Speaker: Pastor Isaac Makashinyi – Tuesday Family Conference.

2. Biblical Antidotes to Sexual Temptation. Speaker: Dr. Grave Singogo – Tuesday Family Conference.

3. The means of grace: Private and Public as they relate to temptation and Assurance. Speaker: Kennedy Sunkutu – Tuesday Family Conference
4. Post modernism - Applications to the African context. Speaker: Rev. David Wegener – Tuesday. This is only for the School of Theology.

5. Meeting the Islamic advance in Zambia - Speaker: Thabiti Anyabwile - Thursday Plenary session for both Family Conference and School of Theology.

Looking forward to the 5 days of sitting by the green pastures of God’s Word. Don't miss out on this one. May the Lord bless His Word to our hearts and unleash us into this world firmly assured of our position in Christ, and armed to fight the vicious temptations of life.  

Extending Your Pulpit Beyond Your Church

"For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD, as the waters cover the sea." (Habakkuk 2:14, NIV)

Over the last one hundred years, we have seen the growth of various new forms of technology that have transformed the world into a fast paced one big global village. Inventions such as the radio, television, the computer and the internet have revolutionarised the world. But these inventions which have so much potential for good have also been used as tools to merchandise all kinds of evil and desensitise people from the fear of the transcendent God.

However, technology’s potential to harm society should not force us to shun it as essentially evil and retreat to the ancient caves in order to avoid its corrupting influence. Technology, like any other gift from God can be harnessed for our spiritual good and to the glory of God. As our world becomes more and more saturated with technology, the potential to reach great numbers of people with the Gospel also increases. We should not leave the ungodly to set the pace and dictate to us the value of technology, albeit only its functional and utilitarian value. As Reformed Christians living in a culture that is increasingly revolving around technology, we need to explore ways of using technology so as to bring glory to God. We need to consider it as a blessing and part of what it means to fulfil the dominion mandate. We must be thinking of ways in which technology can point us heaven-ward and recapture the sense of wonder at God’s ways and His world.

The internet is one form of new technology that has broadened our capacity to bring the Gospel to a lost and dying world. Imagine a pastor standing before his congregation of barely a hundred people, in a nondescript part of the world, faithfully exegeting and applying Scripture in his sermons, through what Paul calls the “foolishness of preaching.” And imagine these same sermons being able to influence countless others throughout the world via the internet! Now, this is precisely what is happening through the ministry of SermonAudio.com. That is using the internet to the glory of God!

According to the description on the SermonAudio website, theirs is currently the largest and most convenient library of audio sermons on the web with over 232,000+ free audio sermons in the highly popular MP3 format.



The mission and purpose of SermonAudio.com is “the preservation and propagation of great Bible teaching and preaching in its audio form for this generation and the next. It’s also a great personal evangelism tool as people may be more open to listen to sermons in their homes even if they never walk through a church door.” The motto for the website is taken from Romans 10:17 where it reads, “faith cometh by hearing.”

The sermons on the website can be streamed online for immediate listening or optionally downloaded to your computer or portable MP3 player for listening at a later time. It hosts sermons that are easily searchable by broadcaster, Bible reference, topic, speaker, date preached, and keyword. I have seen the number of broadcasters and sermons hosted on the site grow phenomenally over the years. There is a large, active, listening audience on SermonAudio.com demonstrated by the over one million sermon downloads each month!

It is this easy potential and opportunity to tap into this large worldwide audience that compelled us to sign up as members of SermonAudio.com and broadcast numerous sermons to the world, something which would be impossible for us to do since we presently do not have a church website to host our sermons. We thank God for this gospel opportunity to serve the world through the faithful preaching of the unchanging truth of the Bible. We join the only two other broadcasters from Africa, Kabwata Baptist Church, and Grace Unlimited from South Africa. We hope to upload two sermons every week from our morning and evening services. Those of you with access to the internet, can visit our homepage on http://www.sermonaudio.com/source_detail.asp?sourceid=ebcl

Our prayer is that the Lord will use this worldwide media ministry of our church through SermonAudio.com in a powerful way to save those who are lost, provide spiritual answers to those who are seeking Christ, and encourage and edify the people of God around the world. We also hope that this will also further the awareness and ministry of Emmasdale Baptist Church.

One cannot not help, but think of the prophecy of Habakkuk quoted at the head of this blog post. To Know God is to know His glory. Seen in the light of the New Testament, this points us to the full revelation of the glory that God has given “in the face of Jesus Christ” (2 Corinthians 4:6), and reflect that the worldwide spread of the gospel is His chosen means of giving effect to the promises of Habakkuk. Indeed, this extends your pulpit beyond the four walls of your church.