So, um, tonight, the title of my sermon is Going to All the World Nagaland.
So I'm preaching on Northeast India tonight in a place called Nagaland.
So first I'll give this little intro.
My name is Daniel Reiter.
For those who don't know, there's a lot of visitors here, so I don't know everybody as
far as visitors at least.
And I'll say all the gratitude.
So first, uh, be thankful to, uh, thanks for our pastor and for our, I would say behalf
all of us because he put this conference together and the purpose he did in putting this conference
together is to, uh, inspire us on missions and to get us to want to do it on our own
and, uh, and be inspired to reach the lost, uh, close and far.
So the people, uh, also give gratitude to the people decorating.
They're just volunteering their time and, uh, they're decorating and there's a lot of
cool decorations here.
We got, uh, a bunch of peacocks, everybody saw some peacocks in India.
We got, uh, behind me is the Taj Mahal.
I learned a little fact about that, that, uh, it took 22 years to build and 22,000 workers.
So that's kind of interesting.
And you got, uh, lanterns, you got genie lamps.
I know Muslims believe in genies a little bit and gin, whatever, but they believe in
that and they believe it was created, you know, it was created through fire and then
humans are created by dust and angels by light.
They have weird beliefs.
But uh, anyway, so also thank you for all the visitors that have come here from across
the country and across the world.
And one thing I say often on these, on mission trips and again, applies to the conference
is that it's a, it's a wonderful thing when you meet brethren throughout the world and
you have an instant connection, meeting a saved brethren throughout the world.
So that's the joy that we have.
We can meet our own brethren, uh, during, again, for mission trips and, or maybe like
a soul winning conference or like this, or maybe, uh, like a marathon or so forth.
So another thing I was going to say, but I feel like a lot of people, uh, don't really
do this, but I, I wrote down to say that, uh, basically, uh, I'm admonishing you all
to, uh, just, uh, get, you know, connect with each other and talk to each other and get
to know each other while you're here.
That's a good thing to do when you come from out of far.
You know, the Bible says, I said, salute every Saint in Christ Jesus, the brethren which
are with me, greet you.
So the Bible talks about that.
We should be, uh, you know, it's good to be saluting, but I found like a lot of people
here are very good on that from the last two days.
So yeah, starting last night and today.
So I want to start in Acts chapter 17.
I'm just going to briefly, I didn't really, I'm briefly just mentioned there.
I just have, there's a few points in Acts 17 that tie into the sermon.
So I just want you to pay note, pay attention to the phrase, turn the world upside down
and also notice in the chapter, there's a lot, there's persecution and notice that there's
a disobedient to government or the decrees of Caesar, it says.
And notice that, um, at the end, the believers cleaved onto them or cleaved onto Paul.
And so hopefully this will make sense.
I'm not going to explain it right now, but hopefully it'll make sense and you'll see
as a, as a, as a story goes on, as far as what happened during this trip and you'll
see the connections there.
And so there's two themes I've noticed in this sermon or not in the sermon, in the,
in the trip we took.
So the first theme was a, of adventure and excitement.
So the totally different type of soul that we've ever done, that I've ever done or we've
ever done, I think as a church, this is a unique experience.
And so that's a theme I think you'll find in this, uh, in the story, everything that
happens.
And another, uh, theme, there's a bunch of lessons to learn and there's an overall lesson
of leaving your mark, leaving a mark on this world and having a big effect.
So, um, so first I'll lay out for some things on the sermon.
I want to lay out a bunch of foundational facts and info in the beginning, like a history
of, of this place and some facts about it.
And then I'll get into more spiritual lessons as time, as the sermon goes on.
So first I'll go to the backstory of how we chose this location.
We chose it, it was me and Kevin, we're, we're, uh, running a missions trip, a small one in
Bahamas.
Uh, this was in Christmas of 2022.
And we were thinking, uh, we noticed that the people in Bahamas were more receptive
than some of the other islands we went to.
Uh, we went to recently Grenada, uh, even St. Lucia we just went to, if you went to
door to door, it was a lot, there's a huge difference between that and St. Lucia went
to the park.
So it was a big difference.
But when we went door to door, when me and Raymond won and other people, brother Madison
and other people went and brother Lee, they went and they noticed that it was not nearly
the same.
So we noticed in this particular place over the hill, it was the poor place of Bahamas
and it might be semi-biased because it was during Christmas and a lot of people were
home, but it was really receptive and it was better than all the other islands we'd gone
to.
And we're thinking, what's the difference between Bahamas where we were going and these
other islands?
And we're thinking they're, they're just as poor, they're, they're, they're the same type
of people.
They became, uh, the same type of people.
But the thing is the only difference we saw is that they're the religious demographics.
So it was just a theory that we had.
And Bahamas is 35% Baptist.
These other places, Grenada and other places and, uh, and were very much Pentecostal.
So it was a huge stark contrast and that's the only main difference we saw.
So it was a theory that we had, like why was this place much better?
Now a lot of the Baptists there were not saved.
I think you'll notice, you know, it's not like every Baptist is saved.
Obviously there's a large, I don't know the percent, but there's a large percent of Baptists
that are saved, but a lot of them aren't.
And uh, we did meet, say Baptist, I remember one particular old lady invited us to church,
but she was saved and I was, uh, she was a very nice lady.
But the thing is, uh, we had this thought, we just wanted to test this theory out.
So yes, um, so we, so we looked at the demographics and we did that and that was the conclusion
we did.
And we noticed that in most of the world, there's not that many Baptists.
You think like all over Africa, there's a lot of Baptists.
It's actually not that many for, according to the statistics on their, on their religious
demographics.
And, uh, obviously the number one place for most of the total number of Baptists is America,
particularly the South.
But yeah, and Bahamas is right there, right, it is right next to the South of America,
the Southern part of America.
So we noticed that, but there's one particular place that came to mind and this place, uh,
was called Nagaland and it's a place that pastor has mentioned last year, or not last
year, uh, three years ago in the missions conference, the first one, and he preached
on Asia.
And at the end he kind of mentioned, he mentioned Nagaland for, he mentioned, he preached about
Nagaland.
So the difference there, that's where pastor's preaching, this is where we should go, but
now I'm preaching on this is where we have been.
So that's the difference between these sermons, uh, and so it's a very interesting place.
And this place, I wonder, uh, I was going to ask, for people who didn't have foreknowledge,
because I've been talking about it and this trip, some people know about it, who here
ever heard of this place called Nagaland?
It's the most Baptist place in the world, who didn't have foreknowledge of it?
So we got a few hands, uh, in there, I remember, yeah, so it's something that you may learn,
uh, if, uh, maybe from a Baptist background you may learn, teach some, you sometimes teach
your kids this thing.
Uh, but it's a very interesting place where it's the most Baptist place in the world.
And the Nagas are, the people themselves are 90% Baptist.
So that's pretty interesting.
That's no, that's way more than anywhere else you find in the world.
So it's these peoples in northeast India.
So first I'll give the people who went on this trip.
There is, uh, six of us and, uh, so these are the people who went, myself and Kevin
were the ones who went, um, to Nagaland.
And then there's Lola and Cassia, the two, uh, two ladies that went, Cassia, Lola's from
our church, I think a lot of you know her, and then Cassia is this lady, uh, lady from
Korea and very nice.
And then we got Nate, brother Nathan Fox as well, he lives in Ecuador, he was born in
America, he lived in Switzerland for many years, and he moved to Ecuador.
So I've known him from the last mission conference I met him, and we talked a lot, and it was
very good to see him again.
And then was, uh, Suthish, he came for the last two days, he's a brother we met from
India, from southern India.
And so he came up, uh, the last two days.
So the dates of the trip was March 14th through 26th, so let me go through some facts about
Nagaland.
Nagaland has 17 tribes, each tribe speaks their own language, they're not mutually,
they can't speak each other's language as far as their native tongue.
So that's kind of interesting, after all those years, they've been there, they can't speak
their own language.
But they do have a, excuse me, a lingua franca which is Nagamese, which is partial Assamese,
which is a big state right next to Nagaland, and Hindi, it's a mixture of the both, so
they can speak that.
That's the lingua franca, and then because of the British colonialization, they also
have English in Nagaland as well.
So as far as English quality, all the young people speak perfect English.
People who are middle-aged, let's say like 40, 50, around there, I would say about maybe
half and half, and the elder people, we didn't try too much, but it didn't seem like they
spoke good English, or it was very low for the elderly people.
But the young people spoke perfect English.
So that was interesting, and the state population is two million, but there's three million
Nagas total, because there's Nagaland, and there's just the Nagas, because they live
in the outside, they live in a nearby country, Manipur, which is a Muslim country, and they
also live in northeast India, and it's running in those nearby states.
So yeah, so there's 90,000 bathrooms, but 10% is Catholic, and mostly Catholic and other
things.
There's a big Catholic church where we went to, but it's 10% of other Christianized type
people.
It's also this place of northeast India, it's called the Chicken Neck of India, because
it's a little narrow strip of land, and the entrance is surrounded by four countries,
Nepal, Bangladesh, Bhutan, and China.
So these countries have threatened, particularly China, has threatened to cut it off, India
from this territory, and China's actually took over, and Arunachal Pradesh many years
ago, but it gave it up for whatever reasons.
And so this is a very separated part from the rest of England, and these people don't
consider themselves Indian.
They refer to the other people from India as mainland Indians.
And also the people of India look down upon these people, I can kind of talk about, but
they look down upon these people, they're like the Navajo of India, as Varian described
it.
They're like the Indian tribes of India.
They're totally separate in their mind.
So another interesting fact about Nagaland, I found out it's the capital, or the falcon
capital of the world, by ornithologists, which are people who study birds, it's the falcon
capital of the world.
So that's pretty interesting.
And then we have northeast, so on northeast India, another fact about northeast India,
it's a very high rainfall place, in fact two states over, called Magala, it has the rainiest
place in the world at 37 feet of rainfall every year.
So it's a very hilly place, it's a very hilly place, all of northeast India.
So that's the rainiest part in the whole world, as far as all the land areas of the world.
So that's very interesting, Magala, which is a nearby state.
So let's look at, turn to Numbers 11, just a real quick look at Numbers 11, chapter 11.
In Numbers 11, verse 1, and when the people complained, it displeased the Lord, and the
Lord heard it, and his anger was kindled, and the fire of the Lord burnt among them,
and consumed them that were in the uttermost part of the camp.
So there's many verses to go to on this, but this is the one I just picked about God consuming
them from them complaining.
So the reason I picked this, I'll talk about the food in Nagaland.
In Nagaland, it's the only place in the world where they eat anything.
There's been videos made about it, even more than, let's say China, because you think China
eats everything.
In Nagaland, they eat anything in there, they eat dogs, they take these dogs and they put
them on a sack and put the head on, and they have the head sticking out, and they roast
dogs, and they roast cats, they roast bats, there's bugs, there's rats, they eat, so me
and Kevin had bee larva, the host of the hotel gave us bee larva, so that was kind of interesting,
it tasted fine, it's actually expensive there, it's a delicacy.
So they eat everything there, they told me that anything besides a table with four legs
will eat, that's what they told us.
And the reason I brought up this verse is because the reason they actually do this is
because they're historically very poor, that's the reason they do this.
So the lesson, it's a brief lesson, is that particularly for young people, is don't complain
about the food that you're given, especially for our parents and the people in general,
you shouldn't be complaining about the food.
In this chapter, these people complain against the Lord, against the food that God gave them,
so we shouldn't complain about the food and be not really picky eaters in life, I don't
think that's what God wants for us, so we shouldn't just be complaining to people.
So I'm going to quote a verse, just a very well-known verse, Psalm 33 verse 12, blessed
is the nation whose God is the Lord, and the people whom He has chosen for His inheritance.
So the reason I got that verse in there, because I was going to talk about the difference between
the mainland India and the northeast part of India.
So the northeast part of India has three Christian majority states, I'm using quote Christian
because it's like Catholics, anything, not people, Christians as in people are saved,
but Christian as in just people who call themselves Christian.
So northeast India has three Christian majority states, of course Nagaland, Mizoram, and Megalla,
and it has two Christian plurality states, where Christianity is spreading very rapidly,
Manipur and Arunachal Pradesh.
So Arunachal Pradesh is actually very interesting, and because I looked at the demographics,
and it has in 1971, it had less than 1% Christian, and then in 2011, it has 30% Christian.
So that's a very rapid growth, you know, you think over just 40 years for these people
to change so much.
And also, I don't know if the Hindus are becoming Christian very fast.
A lot of the population in Arunachal Pradesh is Hindu, so I'm thinking it might be even
higher if you just take the people who were former animists, which the Nagas were former
animists, right, they worship nature and so forth, it's a little bit different than Hinduism,
but very similar.
So that's a very interesting fact, it kind of shows you what happened in Nagaland in
some of these states, the rapid change in Christianization that happened in this region,
and it's still happening to this day.
So another thing I noticed about Nagaland that's kind of interesting, Nagaland only
had one woman, like, parlor member or politician ever in its history.
And so in India, they're mandating every state to have 33% women, but Nagaland, they're
fighting it, since 2019, they started manning this, but they haven't enacted yet, they're
fighting that, so they're a very patriarchal society, which is kind of cool.
And so that's very interesting about Nagaland.
And so even that's way better than even America, in America, we have tons of women politicians
and I don't think that's God's will for women to be doing that.
And then, so that just shows the brainwash aspect of India, in India, they worship female
gods or demons, and they worship half male, half female, they worship the most disgusting
stuff ever.
And Hinduism is a demonic religion, is of Satan.
So also I was going to mention the Naga people, they're referred to as hill people, as I kind
of mentioned earlier, and I mentioned they're like the Navajo of people.
So another thing I alluded to is that there's, in Nagaland, that they're looked down upon
in all Northeast India, by the Indians, but in reality, it's actually the better part
of India.
As far as all statistics, crime, pollution, there's no begging in the streets, you can
go all over India, I'm sure in all parts of the world, there's begging everywhere, there's
all these people and some of them are crippled or whatever, but there's begging everywhere.
We want, yeah, and so there's many, all over the world you see that, but Nagaland, we didn't
find anybody begging, and it was a very interesting place to see that, and in Nagaland there's
no stray dogs in the street, I wonder why.
So in that way, it's not like the rez.
So I'm saying this because the Christian influence of the Northeast, so I'll just say a few misconceptions
I want to say about Hinduism, or about Hindus and Hinduism.
One is they don't actually care about nature, which is ironic because they worship animals
and maybe plants, and they worship the nature, basically, and the things that God has created.
It talks about in Romans chapter one, about people who do that, and so they worship nature,
but if you go there, it is full of pollution.
Delhi is one of the most polluted cities in the world, it's not the most, you can hardly
breathe, you can't even see out the window at the airport.
There's trash on the streets, there's mangy dogs, and there's people who are like zombies
in these places.
I talked to Suthish, and he's talking about all the strange practices of the Hindus, and
so pastors preach on that server about the Hindus and enlighten the Bible, and so the
Hinduism is a demonic religion, and they don't actually care about nature.
Another thing I've noticed, which I thought was amusing about India, is that I saw these
videos, and in India there's a big fight against the Muslims versus the Hindus, and there's
about, I think, 200 million Muslims in India, and about 1.1 billion Hindus, but if you include
Pakistan and East Pakistan, or Bangladesh, it would show you about 600 million, because
these people are traditionally Indian, and in this river valley, it is in Pakistan.
These people are traditionally seen as Indian, and in history there's this Mughal empire,
and they conquered India for hundreds of years, so that's why there's many Muslims there,
and so they have a fight going on, and in these videos you see that the Hindus want
to kill the Muslims, and because they're eating cows, they're eating beef, and these Hindus
are crying out and saying, the cows are our mother, the cows are our mother, so it just
shows you how ridiculous they are, and what's kind of interesting is that a lot of the cows
in India are mangy, and you think, okay, if that's your mother, I guess you don't care
about your mother, so there's a lot of mangy cows and mangy animals there, so it just shows
the hypocrisy and the irony of that, so, and that's the point I want to make, is why
is it only Christian-type countries, or countries that have a Christian background, let's say
like America has more of a Christian background, why are they the only places you want to live
in this world that are actually good, so, and the only exception to that are some of
these atheistic East Asians who say Japan's good, but I think Pastor preached about how
Japan is not so good, and, but really the best parts of this world as far as to live
in that are people who have for a long time had Christian influence and Christian foundations,
so it takes time, but these are the nations which are the most appealing, that's why a
lot of people come to America and other places like that, they're not going to these other
parts of the world, because they're, in a sense, they're hell holes, you know, that's
why it says the nation shall be turned into hell, you know, all these nations that forget
God, so, exactly, let's go to the next thing, so now I'm going to history of Northeast India,
and some other stats that make them special, so the Nagas had no writing system in their
history, so their history is limited, but they had no writing system, the Filipinos
I think were, many of the Filipino people were similar to that, but the Nagas had no
written language until the British came and the Americans came, so, in this case the Americans
were the first ones to start a school as a Baptist, so the origin of their, they have
different theories of their origin, they say they're Mongoloid or from Northern Mongolia
is their claim, but they also could have been from Southwestern China and, or Southeast
Asia, based on, perhaps based on language or building styles, that's what I was looking
into, and the first appearance of Nagas in history is in the records of a Ham kingdom,
which is an ancient kingdom, a medieval kingdom in Assam, which is, again, right near Nagaland,
and this was, there was like a Thai prince that was from Western China, it's called,
yeah, it's called a tiger prince or whatever, and he was, he arrived in, three people arrived
in 1228 and they recorded the Nagas being there already, so they were already there
before 1228, and that's these, so this kingdom from Assam has mentioned that, so, and for
much of their history they were isolated, they were very isolated people, they do not
like outsiders, they fought the British, and they, and they fought the, they were briefly
under Burmese rule in the early 1800s, and then, very briefly, and then the British as
well, and they were fighting, they were taking their trade and they were fighting over that,
so they were very independent people in that sense, and again, as I said earlier, they
don't consider themselves Indian, because that's their viewpoint, and they also want
independence, it's a very big thing there, and they also look very different, I have
a, I took a, I printed all the pictures of the trip there, and it's over there, if you
have a look afterwards, there's a picture book of the pictures we took, so you can look
and scan, a few people can just look and scan through that, of all the pictures we took,
we recorded on there, so, there's a book in there, and you can look at that, and they
look different, some of them look really white looking, like East Asian looking, very pale
skin, and then some of them look more Filipino looking, there's a lot of variety in the
Nagas, so, exactly, and, they also had a lot of autonomy in their state, until recently,
Indians had to get a special permit, mainly Indians had to get a special permit to go
there, to move, to go to Nagaland, so that's an interesting thing, and their attire is
very red, I noticed all the tribes incorporate red in their attire, I thought that was kind
of interesting, let's go to Jeremiah chapter 5, verse 6, chapter 5, and then after that
we go to Judges, but first Jeremiah, verse 16, so another thing I want to say about the
Nagas, is that they're warrior people, so I found this, there's a verse in the Bible
about the Babylonians, how they're warrior type people, so, the Nagas are same as well,
it says, yeah, the Quivers open Sepulcher, they are a mighty band, the Babylonians, right,
so the Nagas themselves are warrior people, they had, you know, they fight, and they,
for example, they fought the, in the Battle of Kohima, which is a pivotal battle during
World War II in the East, in the Asian front, is, with a big turning point for the British,
they're getting beaten very big by the Japanese, the Japanese could have taken over almost
all of Asia, and that was their, them getting stopped in India, they may have wanted India
and to take over that, but in the Battle of Kohima, it was the British versus the Japanese,
and the Nagas was an important part of that, and there's some quotes of how they couldn't
maybe have gotten it done without them, so they were fighting in that aspect, and so
the Battle of Kohima, Kohima is a city that we want to, and so that's a very important
battle for people who like history, and another thing about the Nagas is that they were head
hunters, that means they would, these tribes, they would literally fight each other constantly,
they're always warring, and they would hunt, they would kill each other and collect heads,
and put them on, in their building, you know, the skulls and so forth, so that's all kind
of savage they were before the Christianization aspect, so they were very savage, they were
head hunters, and they did that constantly, and so, let me go to Judges, chapter 7, verse
25, I'll turn there as well, so, I was thinking what would be a good verse for head hunters,
I was thinking just, because obviously there's no head hunting in the Bible, but there is
a story of Gideon, of course, and Gideon is a great, there's a great battle with Gideon
with the 300 men, and God used Gideon to defeat the enemies of the Lord, so it shows God's
power, he can take a small people of 300 and use them to defeat his enemies, but in chapter
7, verse 25, it says this, and they took two princes of the Midianites, Orob and Zeb, and
they slew Orob upon the rock of Orob and Zeb, they slew in the winepress of Zeb, and pursued
Midian and brought the heads of Orob and Zeb to the Gideon on the other side of Jordan,
so they brought the heads of these two princes of the Midianites, so that was a very interesting
story, as you can see, they're collecting heads like the Nagas did, and another example
of this, if you know, not just Nagas have done this, the surrounding cultures do this,
and I don't know if Hindus have done it, but, you know, the game Street Fighter, the Indian
Hindu character has a bunch of skulls on his necklace, so I'm not sure if that's big in
India as well, mainly in India, but it is, they collect heads, and now it's known for
their headhunters, and so another thing, I'll talk about the Baptist conversion, the Baptist's
first intent was to go to Western China, but they end up going through this route, and
they settled over here, they settled, they decided to stay here, and so it's not always
exactly where you want to go at first, but they end up settling right here, and so that
was the first intent, so the first Baptist to reach the Nagas was Miles Bronson in 1839,
so I'll go about the history of what I learned with researching and so forth, he was an American
Baptist, and, but his time there was short, because he says, the quote was he had severe
and repeated illness, so he kept getting sick in amongst the Nagas, and he also had a fellow
Baptist mission that came with him, like there's two of them, but this missionary died a few
years earlier before they reached the Nagas in India, because a tree fell on them at the
river bank, so the reason I mention that part is because missions trips now, or going
to missions work, is way easier than it is back then, this is just not 150 years ago
or so, or a little bit longer, perhaps, and they would die, they have disease, they have
trees fall on them, and they somehow die by the river, however that happens, so my point
is that when we do trips, we have all the technology, we can go all over the world,
we don't have to travel months on a boat, so it's just something to take pleasure and
be thankful for, that we can do, we can reach these worlds, parts of the world, and now
more places are loading through to us, more places are available to us because of the
technology and God ordering the world in this way that we can now do this now, so it's very,
I thought that was something to be thankful for, and yeah, so we go on airplanes, technology,
and so he preached from Arunachal Pradesh, which is slightly north of the Naga people,
and he preached there, and he ended up going to Assam, which is again right nearby, and
I have this map here, for those of you who want to look at it, I'll just briefly pull
it up, I'll put it back after, but this is just Nagaland, you can look at it afterwards,
so yeah, let's put it here and you can see on the camera, but this is Nagaland, we went
to Kohima, and the airport, the only airport in the state is Dimapur, so it takes about
an hour and a half drive, and so Assam is over here, that's where the, I think the biggest
state in northeast India, Arunachal Pradesh, you can't even see it, and you got Manipur
and other states over here, and here is Myanmar to the east, so that's Nagaland, you guys
can check this out later, and so it's a very interesting place, so let's see, yeah, so
he preached from there, and he was in Assam, is where he ended up settling for safety reasons,
and then, so the story goes, the story goes that the Baptist work was very successful
there amongst the Garo people in Assam, and so the record, the numbers they had, it was,
they recorded, was they didn't record themselves, how many people did they think got saved,
and I'm going to talk about were these people saved or not, but they didn't record like
how many people they got saved, they recorded like how many baptized people were in their
church, members of their church, so this, he had 286 baptized members in their church
in 1872, so that's interesting, after all those, those many years, he has 286 members
of his church, from 1839 to 1872 is when he did his, obviously he traveled a little bit,
but he was in northeast India for that many years, and he had 286 baptized members of
his church, so, and then in 1872, what happened is one particular Garo, his name is Gadula
Brown, teamed up with an American Baptist, Edward Winter Clark, and his wife, Mr. Clark's
wife was there as well, so this is the main guy who reached the Nagas, this Edward, the
Baptist from upstate New York, I believe, and it was Edward Winter Clark, so, and remember
the Garo people, I'm going to mention them later, the Garo people, but there are three
things they did, they did preaching, of course, and they started schools, one particular person,
like one of them started school, the Nagas wanted, they didn't have reading and writing,
so they went to school, they started some hospitals, so that's when they did, and I'm
not saying that for us of course, but that's in their context, they started schools and
hospitals, this was not available at all in the early 1800s in these parts of the world,
so that was just interesting to note, and then I'll talk about the Baptist exponential
growth numbers, so this is the numbers they record, so in 1922, so remember he came in
1872, in 1922, he recorded 5,614 members in the Baptist, from the Eyo tribe, which
is the biggest tribe of Nagaland, and they said also several thousand from the other
surrounding tribes, so maybe a few thousand single digit thousandths, and then it says,
and then in 1950, which is, let me get that right, 50 years after the arrival, so single
digit 2000 after 50 years after this Baptist being in Nagaland, and then 50 years after,
and then in 1950 I should say, they had 107,000 people Baptist in their churches, so that's
a huge growth from 56,000 to 107,000 in that short period of time, so in 20 something years,
so that shows the growth, 1970 they had 212,000, so it doubled a little more then, or about
doubled, and they had almost 3,000 churches, in 1986 they had 4,336 Baptists, and 3,942
144 churches, so the Baptist number, it also grew exponentially, and the Christianization
number of Nagaland grew exponentially, so the question I was mentioning earlier, were
these people saved, and that's the big question that you'd want to know, because again there's
history and you can't fully know all the things, so were these people saved, did they have
the right gospel, so I'm kind of hoping, of course I'm hoping they were saved, and I'm
leaning towards they were saved, so I'll give evidence on both sides to see if they were
saved or not, so first, there's some quotes, let me skip ahead real quick, there's some
quotes, I was reading or skimming through the book, so Edward Winter Clark, he didn't
really write any books, he just had, he made a dictionary and so forth, but he didn't write
any books, but his wife wrote books after they got back, and there's a lot of quotes
from him, so I was reading that, and first I'll mention the receptivity, the receptivity
of the people that she's recording, and early 1900 she wrote this, and she says, so this
shows that the Nagas have been receptive for a long time, so on page 60, the book is
called Corner in India, it says no strong argument is required to convince them of personal
sin and need of salvation they're from, so that's an interesting quote that she said,
there's no strong arguments, she's saying they're receptive, another quote I found in
the book is 57, it says, religiously these hill people of Assam, not being grounded in
the old systematized religions of the east, and having no caste, are far more ready to
accept the simple story of Jesus and Nazareth, so she's comparing the Hindus and the Nagas,
how they don't have this caste system, and they're much more receptive to the Hindus,
so that was interesting, and then let me show you some more quotes, so verses that might
support if these people were saved, so page 94 it says we continue to speak of the home
above and of salvation through Jesus Christ alone, so that's the verse that's saying through
Jesus Christ alone, and obviously somebody who's saved could say these sayings, and then
they double speak, but this is a verse that says through Jesus Christ alone, page 13 it
says nine were received on the following Sabbath, it says, and on profession of their
faith in Christ, were buried in baptism in the Deco River in front of the mission bungalow,
and the quote is, it is all light, it is all light, for the joyful explanation when the
Lord be gathered around the table of our Lord, so that's the quote, so it's talking about
receiving salvation, and the quote is receiving salvation and profession of their faith in
Christ, so you can kind of tie those, yeah you can see that, so perhaps they were saved,
maybe she's talking about calling upon the name of the lawyer or something, and then
it's interesting how the naga said is light or something after they were baptized or something,
I don't know, but page 23 it says there was a naga defending the missionaries against
other nagas, because the naga some were with the missionaries, some were not, it says a
little handful of us have come off from Deco Heimung to form a new community, we may worship
in peace and quiet the one true God of whom we have so recently heard, he is the great
God who made heaven and earth and all things, heretofore success has ever crowned your arms,
but you cannot fight against this great Jehovah, beware your loving children, the white man's
object here is to give you the very richest of blessings, for this only has he come, believe
this, so it's interesting how it's talking about the gospel or salvation, and it's talking
about giving it, it's the richest of blessings and said to believe it, so using believe there,
so I'm just trying to find various parts of this book that you can kind of see, maybe
they were saved based on, this is the first 10 account of this woman who was there with
her husband and their missionary, and what the words that they found, so 24 says the
standard of the cross was erected, the gospel of salvation from sin through Jesus Christ
alone was proclaimed, so it uses these words of the cross as the gospel of salvation from
sin through Jesus Christ alone and proclaimed, and then here's another quote, one evening
when the people were gathered in goodly numbers at the mission bungalow, for a usual prayer
meeting, tongue bungalow, one of the school girls arose and said, I believe on this Jesus
accepted him as my only savior, and I wish to be numbered among his followers, it says,
and it says hers was the first Naga woman's voice ever heard, making the great confession,
so that's what she's saying, the first Naga woman's voice made this confession of I believe
on this Jesus and accept him as my only savior, so that's another quote I found, oh there's
another funny thing that I was reading in the book, she said that the, I'll just paraphrase,
but she said that the housekeeping, so she's the wife of the missionary Baptist, she said
the housekeeping of the Nagas is very simple and easy, she says, and basically her summary
was because they don't have to wash dishes and do these things, so she was saying how
easy it was, I went from the early 1800s, I thought it was a funny quote, and then another
interesting quote I put from Edward Clark from the book, what he said in the book, and
he says, his quote is I believe I found my life's work, so if he's a saved missionary,
that's kind of interesting wording he has there, so if they were saved, it shows the
need to renew the gospel in every generation, so I have a few examples of this, on these
marathons, we went to the Henderson, kind of near the biggest area, the Henderson group,
and they have a church there, and they told the history of this church, this is their
record, that basically it was some years ago, maybe 10 years, 20 years, some years ago,
it was the IFB church, I think they said like a thousand or maybe a thousand people
in this church, tons of soul winners, and basically what happened is this church got
taken over by a new leader, a new pastor or whatever, and this pastor was Calvinistic
and brought the ESV, and you know, was wishy, like wouldn't allow, like was, I don't know,
maybe like want to change how they preached the gospel or something like that, how the
story goes, and this church went from thousands of people to dozens in a very short period
of time, and so it just shows how one leader to the next, the church and all this work
that's been done can be changed and altered, so now think throughout history, just one
leader through the next, how things can change very rapidly from just one leader to, from
one leader, so it's very important that you can see how big the change can be, because
that would kind of be evidence that perhaps they were saved and then some people took
over and it corrupted that.
Another similar example is Southern Baptists, I don't have, I'm not from a Southern, I don't
remember if it was a Southern Baptist church or anything, but in Southern Baptists, in
Southern Baptists, they, from what I've been told, is that a lot of the older people are
more likely to be saved, and the younger people, they have different Bibles and so forth, and
there's a lot less percentage saved people that are young, of the young Southern Baptists,
but the older people, a lot higher percent saved, and so that's what I was told, so perhaps
Nagelin could have been like that, just in the point of view that perhaps it was, so.
All right, so an example, just briefly, there's a lot of works that was done by the old IFB,
a lot of great church planting was done by the old IFB in Nigeria and Philippines that
kind of is fading away from what I'm being told, so that's another example, this work
that was done 100 years ago or so, however long it was, or maybe 70 years ago, they started
and they started all these churches and, but they're fading away, and they can get corrupted,
so that is an example of how things can corrupt over time, so the very important thing we
must know, we must renew preaching of the gospel every generation, meaning we must go
out there and decide, this is our generation, we have to preach the gospel, and we can't
rely on other people in the past to do it, so that's a very good port to make that, one
second.
So, now let me just go to evidence they're not saved, there's basically, yeah, so basically
one thing I thought of is, the one thing they thought of is in 1972, they let Billy Balaam
in Nagaland, so they received Billy Balaam, so this is obviously 100 years after the missionary
went, but they received Billy Balaam, which is ironic because in 1970, two years earlier,
India banned all foreign missionaries, and they claim with safety reasons, but I think
it's because Christianity was spreading so rapidly in Northeast India, and they're afraid,
so they didn't want the work to be done and so forth, so they banned all foreign missionaries,
except Billy Balaam didn't get it, because he's with the devil, so that's until recently,
they stopped that a few years ago, but all foreign missionaries were not allowed into
India, so, and so here's I guess the options, I guess, so here's the choices, either the
Nagas were either grounded, either not grounded in doctrine, they were either deceived easily,
or they were not saved from the first baptism that went there, so we cannot know for sure,
and let's go to 2 Kings 13, 15 through 19.
So there's a few lessons I can take from all this talking about Nagaland, a few lessons
to take. First, let's read it, verse 15, 2 Kings 13, 15 through 19, and Elisha said unto
him, take my bow and arrows, and he took unto him a bow and arrows, and he said to the king
of Israel, put thine hand upon the bow, and he put his hand upon it, and Elisha put his
hand upon the king's hands, and he said, open the window eastward, and he opened it, then
Elisha said, shoot, and he shot, and he said, the arrow of the Lord's deliverance, and the
arrow of the deliverance from Syria, for thou shalt smite the Syrians in Athak, till thou
have consumed them, and he said, take the arrows, and he took them, and he said unto
the king of Israel, smite upon the ground, and he smote thrice, and he stayed, and the
man of God was wroth with him, and said, thou shouldest have smitten five or six times,
then hadst thou smitten Syria, till thou hadst consumed it, whereas now thou shalt smite
Syria but thrice. So one lesson, I want to pull the verses up, is that we should have
a big vision for reaching the world, and that's why I pulled this verse, that's a lesson you
can learn, how these people, they want, and if they were saved, they want and they reached
these whole people, and they got maybe tons of them saved, so we should also have a big
vision when reaching the world, we should have a vision that we can reach the whole
world with the gospel, as pastors preached in the past, and so that should be our vision
as well, and so that's what I believe, and so that's one lesson to learn, and another
lesson to learn is take advantage of opportunities given to you, these people, you know, they
brought the schools there, and so that's what they started schools, and that was important
for them, I guess, that's how they did it, but we can do something similar, is if you
go to the Philippines, right now, because of the law in the Philippines, you can systematatically
reach all the schools in the Philippines, all the public schools at least, so you can
be like, okay, get a checklist, and reach all the schools, because it's the law, the
land, once you get approved by the Department of Education, and obviously that's a very,
you could do that a little bit easier there, but you can actually do that anywhere in the
world, or not anywhere in the world, but many parts of the world, all over South-Saharan
Africa, Latin America, and other places, so, and they did this in Guyana, so this inspired
me when I first saw it, pastor went to Guyana, and if you don't think about Guyana, there's
a lot of Indian backgrounds there, there's a lot of Hindus there, and there may be a
third Hindu or so forth, and maybe half of them are from the Indian background, but maybe
some converted, so pastors, when I saw a pastor in the missions event in Guyana, they reached
these Hindu people, and they basically, they preached to all those students, and then the
Hindu, maybe, I don't know, the Hindu temples, or whatever, they got in an uproar, they thought
that pastor in our church was like working with the US government, because it's like
a military operation, because they're reaching all the schools, but really there's this connection
that we knew somebody there, a preacher there, and he helped get our church into these schools,
so that was very inspiring to me, and you can preach to thousands of people, so that's
an example, you could, as just throwing an example of what one could do, you can make
it your goal, we're gonna, you know, we're playing churches, and also we're gonna reach
all the schools, and we're gonna do it routinely so that every few years we reach them, and
now we have reached all these young people, which are the most receptive demographic
in general, so that could be a goal that we have, but the thing is, my point is, you wanna
dream big, whatever it may be, and of course we're gonna plant churches in every city,
so that was something that was interesting, another thing about, as mentioned briefly
in the schools, is we go, we have some people go to GCU, now GCU is an interesting place,
in our church, they go several times a week, GCU is kind of interesting, it's related to
Nagaland, because they were first a Baptist college, but now they're Nandanam, which is
very common, you find amongst Baptists, but these people are very receptive, way more
receptive than ASU, is what I'm being, is what it is, so there's some parallels there,
that there's this college we're going to, and so we may not be able to reach all the
younger kids, like high school or whatever, middle school or whatever, but we can reach
college age kids in America, and reach a lot of them, and a lot of them come to church,
and they're very, it's, you know, it's been a very fruitful place, just from the short
time we've been doing it, with these people who go to GCU, so I think that's a great example,
and there's parallels, because the Baptist background with Nagaland.
Another thing I'll mention, there was a YouTube video, is about, Varen showed me, and it was,
it's called How Christian Missionaries Convert Indians, this was an agnostic American guy,
and his wife was Indian, and so, in the video, there was a saved man, like from America,
and a Naga, and they were both saved, I mean, it was pretty clear about faith alone, internal
security, so it seemed clear that they were both saved, and, but the, obviously the ones,
the maker of this video, did not, was not saved, he was agnostic, and again, the Indian
lady, but this video, I think, had one and a half million views, so that was kind of
interesting, and he's explaining the gospel and the front, and this guy, so, yeah, so
he was a missionary guy from America that came in recent times, a few years ago, to
his place.
So, oh yeah, here's another thing, so I mentioned the Garo people, so I thought this was kind
of interesting, let me pull this out real quick, so, can you turn to Acts chapter 7?
So, I just figured I'll have fun, oh yeah, I figured I'll put this on, so I gotta pull
it on my phone, so, Acts chapter 7, and it says here, 59, and they stoned Stephen, calling
upon God, and saying, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit, and he kneeled down and cried with
a loud voice, Lord, lay not this sin to their charge, and when he had said this, he fell
asleep.
So this is an example of a martyr's death, this is probably one of the best, or is a
very good example of a martyr's death.
Now the best type of death you could have as a Christian is a martyr's death, now, you
might be a little fearful, like, oh, I wouldn't want to do that, but it's actually, I would
say the best type of death a Christian could have, being killed for the cause of Christ,
so I want to juxtapose two different deaths, which I thought was interesting, and so first
let me talk about, this is a story, and if you suspend disbelief, this is how the story
goes, so this is about the Garo people who were reached by the first Baptist earlier
who came with the Garo people, Miles Bronson, I think his name was, and he, this is a story
about, this is where the hymn, where you get the hymn, I have decided to follow Jesus,
this is where it comes from here, so let me, while you do there, so I want to keep a finger
in this chapter, Acts 7, and then also look at, give me another finger in 2 Kings 9, 10.
2 Kings 9, 10, so, and it says right here, and the dogs shall eat Jezebel in the portion
of Jezreel, and there shall be none to bury her, and he opened the door and fled, so this
is like the worst death I found in the Bible, maybe Judas was just as bad, but this is the
worst death, and Jezebel, and the dogs ate her, and there shall be none to bury her,
and he opened the door, so I want to contrast two deaths that I want to talk about, and
I want to juxtapose these two things, so one is the greatest death, is a death of a martyr,
so let's first talk about that, so the story goes with the Nagas, so you got your fingers
in one of each verse, now with your other hand, take out the hymnal, use your foot,
no I'm kidding, sorry, so it's a very short hymn, we're going to sing it afterwards, but
this is 316, which is easy to find, this is I Decide to Follow Jesus, so this is something
I learned, and this is the story of how this, this is the story, or maybe the legend of
how this hymn came to be, now this was written in a psalm by the Gero, by the Gero person,
and it's called I Decide to Follow Jesus, so I'll just tell the story of how it's claimed
that he, this guy died, so this is a martyr, this is a headhunter, not a Naga, but it's
a Gero person, but they're also headhunters, and he, basically the story goes that the
chief took him, and he was upset that these guys were converting Christians, these Baptists,
or these guys were converting Christians, and he takes him, and he, what does he do,
he says if you don't stop being a Christian, I'm going to kill, first he says I'll kill
your children if you don't stop, so you have the choice you have to make, so that's what
the story claims, and then the line that he said before, he says, according to the story
is I have decided to follow Jesus, I have decided to follow Jesus, I have decided to
follow Jesus, no turning back, no turning back, so that first line is apparently what
he said, so that's the first line, and so the story goes he killed the children, and
the next story is if you don't stop, if you don't stop being a Christian, you're going
to, whatever, you're going to have, he's going to kill his wife, and then the line goes the
nun go with me, still I will follow, the nun go with me, still I will follow, the nun go
with me, still I will follow, no turning back, no turning back, and then he ends up saying
I'll kill you now if you don't stop being a Christian, I guess, and then it says the
world behind me, the cross before me, the world behind me, the cross before me, the
world behind me, the cross before me, so that's how the story goes, how basically,
you know, that's the example of martyr's death, who knows if the story's real or whatever,
it's just like a legend, but it's supposed to be from a Psalm, from amongst the Gero
people, so I thought that was interesting, and then I thought to myself, so we got the
greatest death that one can have is a martyr's death, now what about, what's the worst death,
and I learned about this a few months ago, I thought it was interesting, the worst death,
let me explain, is the worst death, maybe besides Judas and Jezebel, is I'll mention
real briefly with Muhammad how he died, does anybody know how Muhammad died?
Exactly, so Muhammad, the legend goes, Muhammad died by, poisoned by a Jewish woman, right,
so this Jewish woman gives this poison go and it's to test Muhammad or whatever, so
the reason they'll tie this in is she gives him this poison and allegedly he gets sick
two years later and then he dies, right, but do you know in the Quran there's this section
that says that if my, there are false gods talking, if my messenger, Muhammad, were a
false prophet, if he taught lies in my name, I would take him by his right hand and cut
off his aorta, so I thought that was interesting, I was like, what in the world, and then in,
there's about six different references in Muslim sources to how he died, Muhammad is
saying he died by his aorta, can he cut off, aorta is like the large valve in the heart,
so I thought it was kind of interesting, so let me just show you that, because it's too
much of a coincidence I think to do it, so first I'll show you the Quran verse, so whatever,
it says if he, Muhammad, has forged false sayings concerning us, we surely should have
seized him by his right hand or with power and might and then certainly should have cut
off his life artery, in parentheses it's the aorta, that's one translation, another one
says if he invented false sayings concerning us, this is the false god speaking, we surely
had taken him by the right hand and then severed his life artery, another one said had he invented
lies concerning us, we would have seized him by his right hand and severed his heart's
vein, and then another one says if he had fabricated against us some of these sayings
we should have certainly seized him by his right hand and he would have and certainly
covered the aorta, so I think it's pretty clear that if he's a false prophet, his aorta
would be cut off, his heart, so now there's like six sources or whatever, all these sources
that we talked about that, so let me go through a few of them, let's go through a few hadith
and there's a sirah, it's something as well too, so this is something I thought was kind
of cool, and one second when I find it, yeah so this is Sahih al-Bukhari 2617, it says
a Jewish brought a poison cooked sheep for the prophet who ate from it, she was brought
to the prophet and asked shall we kill her, and he said no, Anas added, I continue to
see the effect of the poison on the pallet on the mouth of Allah's messenger or whatever,
and then so here's another thing I want to go to, that's not the, let me show you another
one, and it says the prophet, before I go continue, it says the prophet said by him
in whose hand my soul is I would have loved to be martyred in Allah's cause, or the false
god's cause, and then he says and then come back to life again and then be martyred, and
then come back to life again, and then be martyred and then come back to life again,
so Muhammad, the false prophet he is, pissed me upon him, his biggest, his biggest goal
was to be martyred, and then come back to life and be martyred again, so that's, it's
the religion of martyrs, and they all want to be, kill each other and kill themselves
in the name of martyrdom, that's what this religion is, but then you have a true martyr
in the Bible, and then you have this horrible death from this guy, and then, okay so let
me see real quick, yes, let me go down, yeah, so, it says the prophet in his ailment, which
he, in which he died, used to say, oh Aisha, which is, you know, a horrible thing he had,
and it says, it shall, I shall still feel the pain caused by the food I eat at Kaibar,
and at this time I feel as if my order is being cut from that poison, so he's saying,
this is Muhammad saying, I feel as if my order is being cut from that poison, from the foodie
hat from this Jewish woman, so that's, that's one of the references, and that's Sahih al-Bukhari
again, which is a Muslim's, you know, respect what he says with her, and then, yes, so let
me go here, a Jewish presented Muhammad at Kaibar, a roasted sheet, which he had poisoned,
the apostle of the false god ate of it, and people also ate, and then he said, lift your
hand from eating, for it was informed me that it was poisoned, Bashir al-Barar, Murray al,
I'm sorry, died, so he the prophet sent, the Jewish sent her, what motivated you to do
the work that you have done, she said, if you were a prophet, it would not harm you,
but if you were a king, I would rid the people of you, the apostle of the false god, then
ordered regarding her, and she was killed, and then he then said about the pain, he then
said about the pain when she had died, I continue to feel from the morsel, I continue to feel
pain from the morsel, which I had eaten at Kaibar, this is the time when it was cut off
my order, this is another reference where it's cut off my order, it's heart, artery,
so it's another interesting reference, and then, Umm Bashir said to the prophet, or whatever,
the false prophet, during the sickness of which he died, what do you think about your
illness, apostle of the false god, I do not think about the illness of my son except the
poison sheet which he had eaten with you at Kaibar, the prophet said, I do not think about
my illness except that this is the time when it cut off my aorta, so this is another reference
to it, so, and then there's a, and then here's the thing, from Aisha, this horrible relationship
he had, he says, she said, I never saw anyone suffer more than the pain of the messenger
of the false god, so I thought this man suffered more than anybody according to this woman
here, girl here, and then, so this man died like a dog, it's kind of the inference on
it, it contrasts the martyr's death and this horrible death, and then another reference
is, let me find it real quick, so this is a seerah, so those are hadith, seerahs are,
seerahs are chapters in the Quran, seerahs are biographies of Muhammad, so it's a little
different, it sounds similar, so a seerah said, the messenger of the false god said,
during the illness of which he died, the mother of Bashir al-Bakar had come to visit him,
and there's a quote, um, Bashir, at this very moment, I feel as my aorta being severed because
of the food I ate with your son at Kaibar, so again, it's another reference to the aorta
being cut off, so this is too much of a coincidence, and there's one more quote I wrote down, I
gotta find it real quick, one more quote I wrote down on here, oh yeah, the Jewish came,
the Jewish one came to this false god and messenger, poisoned him with mud and he took
that which he had brought to him, on the effects of the poison that were felt by him, he called
for her and asked her about that, whereupon she said, I have determined to kill you, thereupon
he said, this false god will never give you the power to do it, but apparently he did,
so that's one of the contrasts, the worst death you could think of, how this man, the
worst false prophet of all time, died like a dog, and then the person who dies for Jesus
and dies for, as a martyr like Stephen in the Bible, so you can die like Jezebel or
you can die like Stephen, so just don't be a false prophet and then you won't, so this
seems like too much of a coincidence to be, too much specific to be a coincidence, and
I've heard the Muslim arguments but they're all as dumb as the arguments, all the arguments
that offend Islam in my opinion, so, and it's something that's a real problem that you can't
wiggle out of, so I thought it'd be kind of interesting, I hope you guys would like that,
so this man died like a dog, he had the worst death and he was probably the biggest false
prophet of all time, bigger than Billy Balaam, bigger than the pope, or one of the popes,
because he's the biggest, because there's many popes, and there's been many popes and
they've all been false prophets, but there's this one man who started this religion, so
I thought that was kind of interesting, hope you guys like that, so let's go talk about
Becton Agaland after that, so, once this is when we arrived, we arrived in, so we arrived,
first thing we noticed was a very undeveloped place, me and Nathan Fox, we were just joking
how we as Christians, we go there and we go to these places that are the least developed
and the least well-to-do, and we go there and have vacations there, so it was a funny
joke that we had, we were laughing about that one day, and then the city, the layout of
Kohima, because we drive an hour and a half from Jhumpur, there's only one airport there,
you have to drive an hour and a half, and it's very hilly and dense, and there's lots
of hills, you climb in the mountains, I enjoyed it, but I don't know, everyone may like that,
but it was very hilly and dense, and there's a lot of stairs, very steep, it was kind of
cool, and the other thing about India that was interesting, it's very cheap, some places
are like this as well, but it's the cheapest place I've been, like for instance, I repaired
my sandal or shoe, it was 10 cents, and if you're making a joke, cause I call it 15 bucks
in America or something like that, if you're making this joke, like, well, you can pay
for these mission shifts by just having all the, bring all your stuff that's broken, or
bring anything that you've repaired, and you just pay for it, bring enough stuff, and or
there's dentists there, probably a few bucks, or a doctor, it's like 10 bucks, you're good,
so that was a joke we had, that you can get, you can go to these trips and not really lose
any money, so that was funny that we all had that there, they're not used to outsiders,
so a lot of people came, when we came, they were asking us, like, why are you here, more
than usual, you're asked that, you know, obviously at airports and so forth, but they're very
frequent, and we got this rental, they had no rental cars, so another thing about outsiders,
they had no rental cars in this place until a few months before we came, so the rental
cars were all stick shift, but they're all, we had no rental cars, and, but we got a rental
car, and they didn't take credit card, which was strange, I'd never been to another place
that does not take credit card, so that shows you how not used to foreigners they are, in
their, see, with an airport, they could not take credit card, there's an Indian payment
system, but we couldn't have it because you need an ID, but we ended up with getting cash,
but one thing I thought was interesting, how trusting they were, they're literally gonna
say to us, you know, we had a two week trip, it's like, oh, take the car, you don't have
to pay us, just pay us when you get back after two weeks, and that's what they were saying,
I felt like, I'd never heard anything like that, so if you got rental cars, that has
never happened before, if you know anything about rental cars, so that's how trusting
these people were, such a new shop, and so that was a very interesting point, I thought,
about them, and so we saw, here's another thing we noticed, we saw no foreigners in
this place, no one like black or white, all the way to Kohima, except we saw one random
Jewish person with that circle hat thing, so that was just weird, it was in Kohima,
it was after an hour of driving, so we saw no other Westerners until the airport leaving,
and we got there, we printed YouTube cards there, and they're very cheap as well, Kevin
makes them, which is kind of cool, he makes custom YouTube cards for all the mission trips
he goes on, so I think that's kind of cool, and so we printed YouTube cards, they were
cheap there, but a lot of people in Nagaland were not really willing to take the YouTube
card first, so as Deacon Russell has talked about, you don't force them to take it, so
that's the thing, so, but they'll usually take it after you talk to them for a while,
but they're not willing to take it at first, so you might notice that, so that's something
that's interesting. Rest of the activity, you got 334 people saved, and the first half
of the trip, I want to say, about the first half, the three quarters, me and Kevin were
calculating, how many people were getting saved per labor, because we didn't all come
at the same time, we came, first me and Kevin came, so everyone came at different times,
but we were getting people saved for one per every half hour at first, which is amazing,
and if that was about half of them, or three quarters, that's the only way we calculated,
but again, it got much less, because we got persecuted later on, or we got issues later
on, which I'll talk about, so that's as high as it comes, and here's the other thing, as
far as receptivity, we hardly left the hotel area, we literally just walked around, so
I, based on what we, our experience, it'd be receptive everywhere in Nagaland, it's not,
most places, like, there's really good places, and there's places that are not good at all,
or, comparatively speaking, but Nagaland seems receptive everywhere, and so we just left
the hotel, we walked around for most of the days, so that shows you how receptive it is,
so we had great results, and here's the thing, also, Nagaland, it has, even when it wasn't
rainy season, it had sporadic rain, and so that kind of limits people coming out, people
come out less in the rain, and sometimes with a lot of people, it is still so receptive,
so it's not like people are there all day, like, you have to kind of search harder during
certain times of the day, and during the trip, there's like, it would rain, and we give the
person our umbrella, and then we preach to them, so it kind of keeps them there, so it's
got an interesting trick, and they give them their umbrella, and they would just stay here,
and they would stay there, and they would stay the whole time, so, yeah, exactly, and
another benefit about mission trips in general is that you get to do a lot of practice preaching
the gospel, in these places, in many places in the world, there's like, where everyone
will hear you, and we're blessed, because Nagaland was so receptive that many people
got saved, but some places, everyone will hear you, but they're not that receptive in
the end, so you've got to be careful with it, like, you know, be careful with that,
it's a blessing there, so, let's go to Matthew chapter 10, verse 40, I've got to power through
this, because I actually don't have much time, but Matthew chapter 10, verse 40, he that
received you received me, he that received with me received with him that sent me, he
that received with a prophet in the name of the prophet shall receive a prophet's reward,
and he that received with a righteous man in the name of the righteous man shall receive
a righteous man's reward, and who shall give to drink unto you one of these little ones
a cup of cold water, only in the name of the disciple, fair they say unto you he shall
no wise lose the reward, so I do have to hurry, because I have a good amount left, but it's
getting time, but here's the thing, this is about the blessings of an appreciative heart,
so the Nagas were the most appreciative people outsold and ever met, as far as a group of
people, they were the most appreciative and thankful and grateful people I've ever met,
so here's examples, a bunch of newly saved people, they gave us stuff, they gave money
three times, which that's not very common, but it was like very frequent for just a few
people that were there, they gave money three times, they gave a bunch of tea and crackers
all the time, they'd give us like snacks, teas and crackers, coffee, and other desserts,
one young lady who was already saved when we met her, she took us straight to a cafe,
she was like I was hoping you guys would talk to me, because she went up to come talk to
her while she was walking by, and she took us to a cafe and bought us, you know, bought
us all cake type things and brownies and desserts and tea, and so it was pretty nice,
we got juices given to us, croissants, chocolates, chips, snacks, and one cool thing is Lola
and Kathy were preaching to these two young girls, and they made this ornament for them
after the next day, I think it was, they made this little ornament, it was like in a jar,
and it was a cool little decoration thing, and in the jar had notes, and some of the
notes were saying things like once saved, always saved, so I thought that was really
cool, so they were really appreciative and thankful, and so here's one way Nagaland is
better than other places, or many other places that I experienced, how thankful they were,
is the Naga people, they're not doing it because of, it's just they're generally open to everybody,
like in some places maybe a Muslim place, or a Hindu place, there might be this come
on in, but they're not receptive, these people are doing it after they get saved, or we find
them already saved, it's like a reaction, so I think it's more about a love for Christ,
as in just a general view they have, so that's the difference there, that you can see with
these Naga people versus others, and yeah, for instance, in Nigeria, a lot of the Muslims
and people there, they'll beg from you, and they flatter you, or they call you caliph,
which means leader, or like a chief or a king, and they call you like master, so a joke that
me and Caleb were having is that Black Lives Matter were not like that, because all these
people in Nigeria are calling you like master and so forth, so that was kind of interesting,
but they really just want money, they want things from you, but the Nagas were not like
that at all, so that's the inverse of these people, the Nagas are, so they have a general
hospitality, and they're very friendly, not just the general of these other places, so
really quick stories, I know, okay, Acts chapter 16, I'm just going to try to plow through
this, okay, let me try to get the right chapter, did I get the right one, yeah, Acts chapter
16 verse 14, yeah, so a certain woman named Lydia, Lydia, Lydia, Lydia, Lydia, Lydia,
a seller of purple, the city of Thyatira, which worshiped God, heard us, whose heart
the Lord opened, and she attended unto the things where which were spoken of Paul, and
then verse 15, and when she was baptized in her household, she besought us, saying, if
you have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come into my house, and abide there, and she
constrained us, so this is a story that happened briefly, so me, Nathan, and Kevin, while the
two ladies were preaching in a house, and me and Kevin were kind of just walking, going
around the houses nearby, and there's this one household that kept inviting people in,
getting more people saved, so the example is like Lydia, she gets more people, more
people in the house, and they end up preaching and getting tons of people saved, so we're
there for like maybe an hour or more, they just come back to the house, oh, you're still
here, so that was an interesting story about comparing Lydia with that Sotini experience.
Another one is Jeremiah 29, 13, and it says, and you shall seek me, and find me, and you
shall serve me with all your heart, so again, the two young girls, another story with them,
this is what Lola was saying, which I thought was really cool, she says, Lola believes
that God made this whole trip just for those two girls, and everyone got saved with a bonus,
and these girls, they went to a Baptist camp, and they showed them that they were a sinner
that deserved hell, but never showed them how to be saved, and so they were scared for
months, but the moral of the story there is everyone who sees God out of a sincere heart
will find him, so that's a very moral of the story, a sincere heart, and Isaiah 65 verse
1, I'll tell a brief story about, an atheist got saved, this guy was, I thought he was
Naga, but he's from Nepal, they look very similar, and he was raised from a Hindu background,
so Hindus can't be saved, he was raised from a Hindu background, but he became an atheist
for whatever reason, but he also may have had some Christian conversations and influence
being in Nagaland, I don't know how long he was there for, so he, I got him, I preached
to him, and he was a very longing fruit, so you may think atheists are the hardest, but
actually, in this instance, he had no issue about salvation by faith, not by works, he
had no issue with me showing him these things, but he had no issue on internal security,
which a lot of people may have issues, because they're taught religious doctrines, this guy
was not taught these religious doctrines, so, but I, yeah, I showed him why the Bible
is the word of God, and how God's word is self-evident, because God's word is superior
to man's word, and I showed him that never man spake is this man about Jesus, and then
I showed him the gospel and everything, and he got saved, he was a very longing fruit,
so atheists can be saved, particularly in this part of the world, so I thought it was
very cool, and that was at the end of the day when I was kind of like semi-tired, or
just kind of finishing the day of that evening time, or night time, and we just kind of walked
back to the hotel, so that was a cool story, at least for me, and then persecution, we
got arrested, we got on social media and newspaper, during the trip, there were signs progressively
building up that we were overstaying our welcome, so when we arrived, we had those, we had people
kind of saying, asking why we're here, like I was saying earlier, and one time, before
we got, before persecution came, I got stopped by some guy, and he like, and he took a picture
of me, he kind of interrupted, it was the first time that happened, and then right after
that, Kevin and the people he was with, told me how they had a very similar interaction,
and then a few days later, there was one false prophet guy, and it was interfering, and so
it ended up escalating and getting worse and worse, until the end, the last day, it was
like people were taking pictures of us, and the Nagas are a very tight-knit community,
so you have this contrast of people who are open to the gospel and very grateful, but
you also have the, they want to kick you out as well, so, exactly, so let me, so the day
of their arrest is, we got, the police came, and they had machine guns and everything,
and they came to our hotel, and they arrested us, they were like half were at the hotel,
the other half weren't, so they took the first half, and they took a second half as well,
and basically, we were like, they're not like condemning, like you're like, they basically
said that, like we're not like, you can still preach, but basically we don't want you to
preach, it was like an in between the lines sort of thing, so, oh yeah, one thing is what
they're claiming, I'm not sure if the police actually believe this, but they're saying,
you're preaching, like we were just worried that you're preaching some sort of Christian
jihad or something, because they're saying about suicide, so, that was, yeah, so I don't
know if they're just saying that they used to arrest us, but that's what they said, the
cops were saying or whatever, so, that's the accusations that were there, but then we had
forced rec day basically, in military I think they have a mandatory fund, so this is forced
rec day, and the last day, thankfully it was the last day of the whole trip, it was the
day before we got arrested, and then the last day we had to go drive to Dimapour, and we
went to forced rec day, and it was, excuse me, we went to a zoo, so we saw the zoo, we
saw monkeys, birds, bears, and the coolest thing was the tiger, and just to let you know,
I'll just throw it out there, the tiger is the king of cats, it's the biggest cat, the
strongest cat there is, they're tougher than lions, they're bigger than lions, and so that's
just factual, and then there's a great video that I think Deacon Russell mentioned, a big
video where a tiger literally jumps over the head of an elephant and swipes at a man, so
it shows you the agility of a tiger, it was hiding in the grass, you can hardly see it,
and it just jumps over an elephant's head onto a man in India riding, so we saw the
tiger there in the zoo, it was kind of cool, we saw peacocks and so forth, and we saw monkeys,
so it was basically all of them, so all those things, so, let me pull out this article real
quick, I have to pull it on my phone, but they wrote an article about us as we're leaving,
so this is about persecution still, I gotta find it, yes, so I'm gonna have to zoom in,
but here's this quote from this article, the Naga Post wrote this about us, it was in their
written paper as well, so basically they accused us of being cults, let me get into it, it
appears that some Christian cult groups are beginning to look at Nagaland as fertile ground
to plant the seeds of doubt, so as to destroy the established church weakened by cynicism
and to much compromises that have devalued the quality of the faith, so I don't know
if you caught that, but he's basically putting a knack on their own churches, the Baptist
churches of Nagaland, and at us, calling us like saying we're from a cult group, but they're
all saying these churches for Nagaland are weak, and recently social media carried reports
about the visit of an American pastor, supposedly pastor of the new IFB, or New Independent
Fundamental Baptist movement, so they thought that brother Nathan Fox was pastor, I guess,
and the cult group was reported in Dimipore and also Kohima to cause confusion against
a local church and claim to have the truth, so, and the New Testament church is identified
as a cult group, okay, the New Independent church, I mean, they missed the word Baptist,
but is identified as a cult group and advocates for the death penalty for homosexuals, amen,
and prayed for the death of former US President Barack Obama and Caitlyn Jenner, so he's
researching us, so amen to all that.
The founder, it says the founder, Steven Anderson, pastors faith-forward Baptist church in Tampa,
Arizona, and has been banned from many countries, including the Netherlands, South Africa, the
United Kingdom, Botswana, Canada, Jamaica, the Schengen area, Ireland, Australia, and
New Zealand, so I'm not sure if this is the full list, but it's a lot right here.
The reason why the cult group was expelled is because the teachings are bound to cause
serious law and order problems.
The term cult, so then he goes through what a cult means, it goes about like Jones Witnesses
and Mormons and so forth, and he goes through a little skew on that, but yeah, so that's
the article that was about us, I thought it was kind of interesting, and then someone
on the plane said that Nathan Fox, is this you, so, oh man, that's kind of funny, although
I'll put one more thing just to show, because this is, this is what they like Billy Graham
there, it says, one of the lines of this article, it says, the late Dr. Billy Graham,
one of the world's most respected and non-controversial evangelists, identified cults from the following,
and then it's saying a quote from Billy Graham, what a cult means.
So it just, they love him there, I guess, so that shows you the problems in Nagaland.
So I don't know if these people were preached the right gospel from the beginning or what,
but they received Billy Graham in 1972, which is about 100 years, I think 100 years after
Edward Clark came.
So that's the article, and it was on the news, it was written in the newspaper, and
it was online, it's a Naga post.
So yes, and then one kind of summary about this, this trip is like a mini Botswana, everyone
who I talk to says Botswana's the best, Botswana's the best trip, like the best trip, but this
trip is like a mini Botswana, and as far as receptivity, I don't know if it's more per
person, but it was very receptive, obviously it wasn't as many total salvation, because
there's a lot bigger group in Botswana, but it was as close to receptivity level, or maybe
better or as good, I'm not sure, the numbers for Botswana, and also, we also got persecuted,
so in Botswana you got more persecution, where everyone's been arrested, and people were
put in jail in a much worse kind of way, but in this situation it's a smaller version,
so I think when you go around the world and you preach the gospel, if you do it enough,
you can get persecution and issues that will arise, and they'll false accuse you and so forth.
So I did a section about India being reached, but I'm going to skip that, I was going to
mention one thing, Anselm, he goes to our church here, and he has a church plant in
his friend Moses, which is India, but he lives in Germany, Indian background, he went to
Bangalore in South India, and they got Hindus saved, and their strategy was this, they basically,
because they don't want to cause problems, they basically go to each house, and they
would say, do you know any Christians around here, so they asked the Hindus, do you know
any Christians, and if the Hindus seem receptive, then you preach on the gospel, and someone
got saved, so that was an interesting, how you talked about it, that was a strategy in
Bangalore, which is in South India. So, I'll skip this part, but it says, yeah, so Nagaland,
so I was going to make another comment, when we were playing Risk earlier, and the number
one rule of Risk is you don't go for Asia first, so I kind of go with everything I said
in the sermon, but if you really know what I'm saying, I'm not saying go to all of Asia,
because the mainstream Baptist view is go to all of Asia, the 1040 window, these lines
of latitude, where you should go to the places that are least Christianized, which is actually
against what we should do, and pastors preach against this, to show that people are safe,
receptive, and legal first, and Nagaland is extremely receptive, extremely open to gospel,
especially the northeastern part of this India in general. So, but I'm not saying go
to gems in Asia, first, obviously the biggest gem you see in Asia is the Philippines, it's
over 100 million people, very receptive, but then you got gems in northeast India, Nagaland
and surrounding states, and then other possibly gems in Asia as well, because Asia has the
most people, but it's the most shut off in general to the gospel of any continent. So,
another thing is, yeah, so I'll just read to you Ezekiel, it says in 2 verse 5, and
they shall, and they, whether they will hear, or they will forbear, for they are rebellious
house, they shall know that there has been a prophet among them, and when this cometh
the path, lo, it will come, that they shall know that a prophet has been among them. So,
we went to Nagaland, and what it was, what was known as a prophet among them, we came
there, we got in trouble, but we got many people saved, and a prophet, there's prophets
among them, we preached the gospel, and the people know that, and so, and it was great.
So, another thing I was going to mention, towards the concluding aspects, is that we
had, me, Kevin, or Amy, we had three different point of views coming into it, and each was
partially right, partially wrong, we talked about receptivity, and danger, and arrest,
so we all had our own points of view, I'll just briefly mention that, and so we all had
parts that were right and wrong, so. Another thing about Nagas, they were very shy and
small people, they're hard, when you first talk to them, a lot of them are kind of shy,
they're not the most outgoing people, but you have to engage, and they will talk with
you. So, they're very small and insignificant, but they, even a small and insignificant people
can be used greatly by God, and the Nagas have their own goal, I think they passed,
it was like all the churches got together 50 years ago, and they tried to make like,
oh, we're going to send out 10,000 missionaries to the world, and that was their state goal,
their state voted on it or whatever, so that's their goal, and they didn't do that, but what
I'm saying is, well, we could do our own version of, let's send out, maybe not 10,000, but
1,000, or 100 at least, churches throughout the world, and we'll build from there and
get many more, thousands is the plan, Lord willing. So, we can reach the world with the
gospel by what? Setting out churches throughout the world. So, that's something that I believe,
that's the great commission, that's part of the great commission, that we send out churches
and plant churches in every city. So, that's something that we should do, we may not have
that particular goal, but we can have our own goal and dream big for the Lord. And one
point I would make, if you ever go visit Northeast India again, other states probably won't be
like Nagas, we're going to keep you out for several reasons. One, there was like a summit,
a G20 summit coming up like in a month or a few months afterwards, so they were a little
bit more hyper with the security. So, that might be one reason why they might not be
so bad if everyone went back there. And also, the surrounding states are not all Baptist,
they're Calvinist, some people are Presbyterian, and there's Catholic, so I think it's a more
wide variety of Christian populations that they probably would not be. When everyone's
won the nomination, the entire, all the churches united, they can be like, why are you here?
But when you have different denominations, it can be more of an opening where they wouldn't
be so hostile is my theory on that, my thought on that. Another thing I'll do, I mentioned
with Caleb, we're in Nigeria, and he was saying to them, because some people in these foreign
countries don't get it so well, but he was saying to them, he was saying, he said, look,
I'd be actually blunt with them. It came to that realization that he was saying that,
I'm not trying to tell you to commit sin or to commit suicide, I'm just trying to show
you that it's eternal. Just saying it in a very blunt way and telling them to be blunt
with you, I'm not trying to tell you to do these things, then some of these people got
it, we noticed. That when you try to be very blunt with them, so if you're very, so I think
it's a good thing to be very blunt. After that, we were getting a lot of people saved
before then, but I tried doing that a little more, in fact, I feel like the amount of people
that got saved was higher after that in Nigeria. So, I think if you went back, you should be
very blunt with people, because some people don't get it or it can be unclear. Just be
very blunt, they're not trying to tell you to commit sin, but rather they're just trying
to show you that it's eternal, that salvation is forever. So, yes. And I'll mention a quote
from Pastor whenever we got back from the trip, this was in December of 2020, or excuse
me, in March of 2022, excuse me, 2023, this past year, Pastor is saying, oh yeah, he wanted
me to preach on this. And there's a quote I wrote down so I didn't get it wrong, but
the pastor said this, if we're not going to reach these people, who will? That's what
he said. So, and that same logic applies to other things. So, if we're not going to even
replace, reach these people with, if we're not going to, let's say, do mission trips,
who else is going to reach these people, do mission trips? Or you can say, oh, if you're
not going to have a heart for the lost and care about lost and soul winning for the lost,
who else is going to do it? Or you can say, if you're not going to reach the world, the
gospel will have that big vision, who else will have that vision? Is there anybody else
in the world that's having the vision to reach the whole world, the gospel? And we can have
that vision if we so choose. So, who will have this vision? Because pastor said, if
we're not going to reach these people, who will? So, if there are any of you got from
this sermon tonight, hopefully you got at least a geography lesson, you can look at
these maps and you can learn some things about Nagaland. And I'll just say about the conference,
there's more good preaching, we already had pastor preach, it technically wasn't a conference
on Wednesday, but we had pastor preach on Wednesday and brother said, girl, it's morning.
And so there's great preaching and more to come. So stick around. And the picnic, I think
is on Saturday, that's kind of cool, that I'll have to worry about preaching. So, be
relaxed. And then we'll have food, fellowship, games, basketball, I usually play every year.
So we have the conference coming on. So that I'll just say farewell and thank you very
much for the sermons. So let's pray. Dear Father in heaven, I thank you for this time
to preach to the people. I thank you for sending us to Nagaland and helping us reach these people
who are very special and very receptive. I thank you for your word that we can preach
the gospel throughout the whole world. And I thank you for your help in praying. In Jesus'
name, amen.