FF News 2015 Issues 03

2015 Edition 3

PO BOX 74 NEWLANDS 7725 CAPE TOWN SOUTH AFRICA

NEWS

FRONTLINE FELLOWSHIP

ISSN-1018-151x

Overcoming Obstacles

Border crossings into Marxist Zimbabwe can always present a challenge. Corruption, confusion and chaos are great daunting obstacles that are often frustrating, intimidating and time-wasting. Even after overcoming the bureaucratic obstacle course at the border, there are multiple road blocks within the country. One Frontline Mission team reported passing through over 50 police and army roadblocks in Zimbabwe, on one Mission, this year.

Jordan Crossed

The message: “Jordan crossed!” signalled the successful delivery into Zimbabwe of over 30 tonnes of Bibles and Christian books. God’s provision, protection and perfect timing were evident throughout the Mission. “So shall My Word be that goes forth from My mouth; it shall not return to Me void, but it shall accomplish what I please and it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it.” Isaiah 55:11

Literature & Leadership

Our Mission has been involved in ministering throughout Zimbabwe since 1982. We deliver Bibles,

conduct Literature Evangelism, Film Evangelism, ministry in schools, Prison ministry, deliver Boxes with Love to destitute pensioners, present lectures at Bible colleges, conduct Evangelism Workshops, Discipleship Training Seminars, Great Commission Seminars, Biblical Worldview Seminars, Muslim Evangelism Seminars and respond to invitations to minister in a wide variety of churches in Zimbabwe.

National Suicide The

needs in Zimbabwe are desperate. The country has gone through traumatic social, political and economic upheavals. What was once a bread-basket is now a basket case. The Zimbabwe Dollar broke all records, reaching over 80 Billion % inflation! In the end, a 100 Trillion Dollar bill could not even buy half a loaf of

bread. One brick in Zimbabwe cost more than the entire economy had in 1980! Of course the poor people suffer the most and pensioners lost all their savings and could not afford their medicines, or rates and taxes. More than half of the total population of Zimbabwe fled the country, voting with their feet, a vote of no confidence in the socialist policies of ZANU-PF.

Learn to Discern

Along with political deception has come spiritual deception. Fake healers and prosperity cult preachers predominate and discernment is most needed. Our Missionaries conduct Discernment Seminars and spend much time in counselling pastors and Evangelists through the complex challenges confronting them. “Therefore the Law was our tutor to bring us to Christ, that we might be Justified by Faith.”

Galatians 3:24

A VISIT to KURUMAN

During a recent South Africa Mission, we had the opportunity of visiting the famous London Missionary Society base at Kuruman, 1,195km from Cape Town. Kuruman was the first Mission station, school, church and printing press established North of the Orange River in SubSaharan Africa. Rev. Robert Moffat of the London Missionary Society served at this base from 1824–1870.

Having learned Setswana, Robert Moffat produced the first complete translation of the Bible in an African language by 1857. He also translated Pilgrims Progress into Setswana.

After walking 920km from Algoa Bay, Dr. David Livingstone arrived in Kuruman in 1841, which became his first Mission base in Africa.

college, or Theological training. The most important foundation to be laid is to focus on the urgent need for quality Leadership Training throughout Africa. This has been a principal focus for Frontline Fellowship since our earliest days.

Discipleship Needed

Our generation grew up in a disciplined environment.

We received discipline at home, at school, from the local church and from mandatory National Service in the Army. Today, it is rare to

Discipleship Training

Robert Moffat and David Livingstone stand out as inspiring examples of excellence.

We need to establish the kind of Mission bases that William Carey launched in 1800, at Serampore, in India, and that Robert Moffat established at Kuruman. One of the greatest problems we have come across is the lack of training, not only in pastorates in Africa, but among Missionaries going into the field.

Many observe that Christianity is often miles wide, but generally only inches deep. The Church in Africa has done a better job of Evangelism than of Discipleship.

Foundations

The vast majority of pastors in Africa have absolutely no formal Bible

Stretch Minds & Muscles

find a young person who is selfdisciplined. Many have grown up in a broken home, or in a permissive environment. There is very little discipline evidenced in the average school and even less in the average local church. As the Army and Navy used to be able to transform boys into men, we are convinced that disciplined Missionary Training will be able to transform boys into men and girls into women of God, effective for Great Commission work.

Livingstone Mission

Frontline Fellowship’s Missionary Apprentice Training Programme takes young candidates through a series of camps, courses, outreaches and mentorship.

We provide in-service

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training with hands-on, practical, boots-on-the-ground, skills and experience. This includes Street Evangelism, Literature Evangelism, Film Evangelism, open-air preaching, school ministry, prison ministry, Muslim Evangelism, crossborder outreaches, First Aid courses, bushcraft, survival, vehicle repairs and much more.

Livingstone Missionary School in-service training is practical, Biblical, educational and handson, not only dealing with actions, but attitudes. Discipline is essential to discipleship.

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Our three-week Great Commission Courses, held every January, near Cape Town and other short-term Leadership Training programmes, have provided physical, mental and spiritual challenges as we stretch minds and muscles, providing body, mind and spirit training. Livingstone Missionary School (LMS) offers a bold, Biblical, balanced, practical, hands-on, one year in-service training providing not only the knowledge and skills necessary to be an effective Missionary, but the daily discipline from PT, hikes, physical work, lectures, ministry opportunities and much more.

“How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings Good News, who proclaims peace, who brings glad tidings of good things, who proclaims Salvation…” Is 52:7 Dr. Peter Hammond

Leadership Training “Be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus. And the things that you have heard from Me, among many witnesses, commit these to faithful men, who will be able to teach others also.” 2 Timothy 2:2

In the Light of Eternity

The first time I met Dr. James Kennedy, I asked him: “I hear that you do not accept a speaking engagement if it clashes with your Thursday night Evangelism Explosion outreaches. I am surprised that with your large congregation, writing ministries and radio and TV ministry reaching literally millions each week, that you still have the time for doorto-door Evangelism?” I knew that this was provocative, but I was interested to see what his reaction would be.

Dr. Kennedy stopped what he was doing, he turned around and he looked at me with such intensity and declared: “Peter, that is the most important thing I do! All these ministries around me, I doubt if many of them will survive long after I have gone, but this ministry, of personal Evangelism, Evangelism Explosion, the ministry of multiplying Evangelists, that will last for eternity!”

Ministry of Multiplication

It was my privilege to be mentored

in Missions by Francis Grim, the founder of Hospital Christian Fellowship. He succeeded in planting Hospital Christian Fellowships in over 100 countries of the world.

Uncle Francis also emphasised the importance of this ministry of multiplication. “And the things that you have heard from Me, among many witnesses, commit these to faithful men, who will be able to teach others also.” Here the Apostle Paul is speaking of four generations.

Paul to Timothy, Titus and Silas, and from them to “faithful men, who will be able to teach others also”.

Multi-Generational Vision

We need a multi-generational vision. We need to be laying solid foundations for the future. Bible teaching and Leadership Training invest in eternity. “But seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.” Matt. 6:33

Bible College Consultation with 70 representatives from 20 Colleges.

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The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing. Christ’s last Command must be our first concern. Our greatest priority is to make disciples of all nations, teaching obedience to all things that the Lord has commanded us.

Christ’s Great Commission must be our supreme ambition.

As cricketer turned Missionary pioneer, C.T. Studd declared: “Only one life, it will soon be past. Only what is done for Christ will last!”

Dr. Peter Hammond

Sorting through tonnes of Bibles. admin@frontline.org.za

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AFRICA for CHRIST

Bible College Consultation

We participated in the Bible College Consultation hosted by Mukhanyo Theological Seminary.

70 Participants represented 20 Bible colleges from all over South Africa, Lesotho, Namibia, Malawi, Kenya, Zambia and Zimbabwe. I was invited to present Spiritual Insights from Missionary Pioneers and delivered presentations on William Carey – The Father of Modern Missions, Dr. David Livingstone – The Best Friend Africa Ever Had and Charles Spurgeon – The Puritan Prince of Preachers.

Library Programme

We drove up a large amount of literature and audio visual materials to entrust to the various colleges and distributed boxes of books to donate to the library of each Bible college, as well as boxes of Chapel Library classic booklets, World Missionary Press Gospel booklets, and boxes of Bibles and New Testaments.

“For the Word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.” Hebrews 4:12 In Kimberley, we presented 2,000 Years of Church History to Kimberley Baptist Church and conducted a Biblical Worldview Seminar and Great Commission Seminar for students at Africa 4 Jesus.

In Pretoria, we presented a Soul Winning Seminar. “For I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to Salvation for everyone who believes…”

Romans 1:16

War Museum

The Frontline Fellowship literature table was the only Christian, or Missionary, table at the Arms Fair at the War Museum in Johannesburg.

I had the opportunity to lecture on Russia, the Crimean War and Ukraine.

20 Years of Salt & Light

By God’s grace, we have been broadcasting Salt and Light on Radio Tygerberg, every Tuesday night for over 20 years. We are told that Salt and Light is the longest running Christian radio programme in South Africa.

Missions in the Mall.

Missions in the Mall

In August we conducted outreaches in 7 shopping malls, distributing many thousands of Gospel tracts, leaflets, Gospel booklets and balloons with Scripture messages on them. By God’s grace we were able to counsel 150 people through our Spiritual WellBeing Questionnaire, leading them through Soul Winning Seminar in Pretoria.

Way of the Master

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Bible College Consultation. and Evangelism Explosion questions to confront them with the Law of God and the reality of eternity. To each of these people we gave a free copy of the New Testament and/or The Biggest Question DVD. “The Law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul.” Psalm 19:7

Mission to Mpumalanga

This year Back to the Bible Training College (BBTC) celebrates 25 years of providing an intensive three-year training programme for pastors, teachers and Evangelists, 120 students from 20 countries, taking students through every Book and chapter of the Bible. BBTC brings in lecturers from around the world to train students in Biblical studies, Systematic Theology, Pastoral Theology, Practical Theology, Evangelism, Ethics, Missiology, Church History, counselling and other essential aspects of ministry. Each year I travel through to Mpumalanga to present the Missiology, Comparative Religions, Church History and Biblical Worldview lectures. Each student receives free Manuals and textbooks from us on these subjects. Their motto is: Africa for Christ!

“Let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in psalms, hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord.” Colossians 3:16

Armenian Genocide in Turkey - 100 Years Ago

2015 marks the 100th anniversary of the systematic extermination of Christian Armenians by the Ottoman Turks. The Jihad began with the arrest of 250 Christian leaders in Constantinople (what is today called Istanbul), on 24 April 1915. Over 1.5 million Christians were slaughtered by the Muslims in Turkey during 1915.

Corruption & Cruelty

The Ottoman Empire declined into corruption and degeneracy from the beginning. When Sultan Murab III died in AD 1595, his son Muhammad had his 19 brothers murdered to prevent them from claiming “his throne”. He also had seven of his father’s pregnant concubines sown into sacks and thrown into the river. Many of his nephews were incarcerated in “the cage”. Sultan Ibrahim threw his grand Vizier into a cistern. One morning, after an orgy, Ibrahim had all 300 women of his harem put into sacks and thrown into the Bosporus. Only one survived by being picked up by a ship bound for France. When Ibrahim was finally assassinated, the Ottoman Empire was torn apart by more corruption, nepotism, inefficiency, misrule and power struggles.

Muslim Massacres

In the early 19th Century, after the

Ottoman Empire suffered defeats at the hands of Russia and Austria, and as the Greeks and Serbs mounted successful wars of national liberation, Sultan Mahmut II decided to massacre all the Janissaries (solders recruited forcefully from Christian families). Reforms and westernisation of state institutions were accompanied by escalating persecution of Christians. Despite the adopting of a Western style constitution in 1839, to placate the European powers, the last century of Ottoman rule witnessed the most thorough and complete destruction of Christian communities throughout the Middle East, Asia Minor, the Caucasus and the Balkans.

In 1822, the entire population of the Island of Chios, tens of thousands of people, were massacred, or enslaved. In 1823, 8,750 Christians were slaughtered by the Turks at Missolonghi.

Thousands of Assyrian Christians were murdered in the province of Mossul in 1850. In 1860 over 12,000 Christians were slaughtered in Lebanon.

In 1876, 14,700 Bulgarians were

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murdered by the Turks. At the town of Batao, out of 7,000 inhabitants, 5,000 Christians were put to the sword.

Scandalous Alliance

The reports of these and other routine atrocities by the Ottoman Turks were generally suppressed by

the British government of Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli, who promoted an alliance with Muslim Turkey against Christian Russia.

Gladstone opposed the Turkophile policies of Disraeli in these words: “He is not such a Turk as I thought.

What he hates is Christian liberty and reconstruction.” What Gladstone observed 135 years ago, could easily be applied to the foreign policies of many Western governments today: the Islamophilia in the West is not so much love of Islam, but hatred of Christianity.

As Serge Trifkovic in “The Sword of the Prophet” observes: “The great Western powers - the heirs of those who had looted Constantinople and refused to help when the Turks were breaking through the walls with 5 admin@frontline.org.za www.frontline.org.za

a cannon built by an Hungarian In 1881, the Turks slaughtered Catholic, who forced the last the Christians in Alexandria. In Emperors to forswear their Orthodox 1915-1916, over 100,000 Maronite Faith at the Council of Florence as the Christians in Lebanon and Syria price of Western help that never came were murdered.

- those same Western powers, and Mass Murderers Great Britain in particular, actually It is no wonder that British Prime supported the Turkish subjugation of Minister Gladstone described Christian Europeans on the grounds the Muslim Turks as: “They were, that the Muhammadan empire was upon the whole, from the black day a stabilising force and a counterwhen they first entered Europe the weight against Austria and Russia. one great anti-human specimen The scandalous alliance with Turkey of humanity. Wherever they went, against Russia in the Crimean War a broad line of blood marked the reflected a pernicious frame of mind track behind them, and, as far as that has manifested itself more their dominion reached, civilisation recently in the overt, covert, or de disappeared from view. They facto support of certain Western represented everywhere government powers for the Muslim side in Bosnia, by force as opposed to government by Kosova, Macedonia, Chechnya, law.”

Cyprus, Sudan, East Timor and Smyrna Burning 1922 Kashmir.”

Forgotten Holocaust

Armenians Marched to Kharpet by Turkish Soldiers, April 1915

and mobilized by the Turkish army under the command of Mustafa Kemal, attacked the Greek Orthodox Metropolitan Chrysostomos.

The mob ripped his eyes out, and dragged him by the beard, bleeding though the streets, beating and kicking him. Every now and then, when he had the strength to do it, he would raise his right hand and bless his persecutors, repeating: “Father, forgive them.” One Turk became so infuriated at this that he cut off the Metropolitan’s hand with his sword. Father Chrysostomos was hacked to pieces by the angry mob. The burning of Smyrna began on 13 September 1922.

The inhabitants were trapped between the flames on the one side and the Turkish bayonets on the other. The Turks burned Smyrna, the last Christian city Greek Orthodox Metropolitan Chrysostomos in Asia, to the ground.

The Turks slaughtered over 200,000 Armenian Christians in Bayazid (1877), Alashgurd (1879), Sassun (1894), Constantinople (1896), Adana (1909) and in Armenia (18951896). And in 1915 the Turks massacred over 1.5 million Armenian Christians in the most intensive extermination of Christians ever launched up to that point.

“Passage to Ararat” describes how along the road to Adana, Turkish women were given daggers to stab dying Armenians in order to gain the credit, in the eyes of Allah, of having killed a Christian.

Slaughter in Smyrna

Even as the Ottoman Empire crumbled and was replaced by the new Republic of Turkey under Mustafa Kemal Ataturk the ancient city of Smyrna, with its 300,000 Christian population, was destroyed. The burning of Smyrna and the massacre of its Christian population marked the end of Greek civilisation in Asia Minor. On the eve of its destruction, Smyrna was a bustling port and a vibrant commercial centre. The seafront promenade was a popular tourist destination.

Chrysostomos

On 9 September 1922 the Armenian Doctors Hanged in Aleppo Square 1916 Turkish mob, organized 6

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Western Neutrality

Incredibly, British, American, Italian and French ships anchored in Smyrna’s harbour were ordered to maintain neutrality. Some of the eye witnesses described the scene: “The pitiful throng - huddled together, sometimes screaming for help, but mostly waiting in a silent panic beyond hope - didn’t budge for days.

Typhoid reduced their numbers, but there was no way to dispose of the dead. Occasionally a person would swim from the dock to one of the anchored ships and try to climb the ropes and chains, only to be driven off. On the American battleships, the musicians on board were ordered to play as loudly as they could to drown out the screams of the pleading swimmers. The English poured boiling water down on the unfortunates who reached their vessel. The harbour

was so clogged with corpses that the officers of the foreign battleships were often late to their dinner appointments because bodies would get entangled in the propellers of their launches... a cluster of women’s heads bound together like coconuts by their long hair floated down a river toward the harbour...”

Unmitigated Disaster

That was the end of Christianity in Turkey. As Trifkovic observes: “At the very time that Europe achieved its military and geopolitical advantage, the moral and religious decline that culminated in the autogenocides of 1914 and 1939 had become evident. Having found in their grasp places their Crusader predecessors had only dreamed of reclaiming: Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Antioch, Alexandria, Constantinople - effete and demoralised European governments made no effort to reChristianise them and, within a few decades neatly abandoned them. The moral disarmament of contemporary post-Christian Europe is now nearly universal. After World War I, with the installation of nominally proWestern governments in many Muslim countries fashioned from the wreckage of the Ottoman Empire, the West seemed to have convinced itself of the existence of benign Islam.”

Genocide

Entire Christian communities were obliterated in the Middle East. The Nestorians, Assyrians, Chaldeans and other Christian communities were virtually wiped out. As late as 1955, Istanbul’s Christians suffered what one reporter called “the worst race riot in Europe.”

Enemies of Civilization

It is no wonder that William Muir, (1819-1905), one of the greatest Orientalists of all times, concluded at the end of a long and distinguished career: “the sword of Muhammad and the Quran are the most fatal enemies of civilisation, liberty and truth which the world has yet known… an unmitigated cultural disaster parading as God’s will...”

Intellectual Dishonesty

The persecution of Christians by Muslims, and the genocide by Turkey, have become forbidden subjects in Western circles. Fourteen centuries of religious discrimination and persecution, causing the suffering, oppression, enslavement and murder of over 270 million people have been buried under a thick whitewash of myths of Islamic “tolerance.” The deceit, cowardice and silence by all too many western journalists and academics continues to facilitate religious discrimination and persecution by radical Islam to this day.

Hypocrisy

The intellectual dishonesty of those westerners who engage in academic gymnastics to justify the invasion of other people’s lands, the looting, pillaging, raping, murdering and enslaving of whole peoples, needs to be exposed. The hypocrisy of those who justify the military expansion of Muslims, but condemn those who inflicted defeats upon these Islamic invaders, needs to be challenged.

The fiction that Jihad has never been an aggressive, but only a defensive concept, should be dismissed with

the contempt that such deception deserves. When Islam defines a refusal to submit to Sharia law under Islam as aggression, and when they define peace as submission to Islam, then we must know that we are not talking the same language.

To Conquer our Souls

As one person described it, Jihad: “seeks to conquer our souls. That seeks the disappearance of our freedoms and civilisation. That seeks to annihilate our way of living and dying, our way of praying or not praying, our way of eating and drinking and dressing and entertaining and informing ourselves.

We don’t understand, or don’t want to understand, that if we don’t oppose them, if we don’t defend ourselves, if we don’t fight, the Jihad will win.

And it will destroy the world that, for better or worse, we’ve managed to build... it will destroy our culture, our art, our science, our morals, our values, our pleasures.”

“Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” John 8:32

Learn from History

It is vital that we learn the lessons of History, stand up for religious freedom, speak out for freedom of conscience, expose the enemies of liberty and fight the good fight of Faith. All the darkness cannot put out the smallest light. We need to understand Islam and we need to Evangelise Muslims. Remember the persecuted.

“Remember the prisoners as if chained with them – those who are mistreated – since you yourselves are in the body also.” Hebrews 13:3 Dr. Peter Hammond

Memorial to the Armenian Christian Victims of the Turkish Genocide of 1915 FRONTLINE FELLOWSHIP PO BOX 74 NEWLANDS 7725 CAPE TOWN SOUTH AFRICA

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“Remember the prisoners as if chained with them— those who are mistreated — since you yourselves are in the body also.” Hebrews 13:3

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