• Is the gospel making a historic impact in Mexico?
• Conference with Emilio Ramos in Mexico City
• Conference with Tim Conway in Guadalajara

Mexico has traditionally been known as a gospel-resistant country, steeped in tradition, and skeptical of Christianity -and it still is. Paradoxically, it is also known for its false Christianity, for hyper-charismania, and for being a seedbed for all kinds of cults. Not to mention being notorious for the mafia, drug-trafficking, mass-massacres and kidnapping rings. But in the midst of such obstacles, the Spirit of God is crashing down walls and calling out His people, causing them to unite in the biblical gospel. We are thrilled to see the beginnings of what appears to be a movement of biblical churches such as has never before occurred in the history of Mexico as Christ, the head of the church, is strategically saving and positioning His dispersed people all over the nation. Indeed, these are the best of times and these are the worst of times!

It is interesting how the Lord is using the internet to accomplish this. The internet has been likened to "the printing press of the 21st century". Just as the printing press revolutionized the world, and became the medium by which the truth of God's word exploded in the 16th century Reformation, the Lord is using the internet in Latin America and around the world for the spread of the gospel. We are certainly seeing this in Mexico, as there are believers scattered abroad who are listening to solid biblical preaching online by some of our favorite Bible teachers (like John Piper, Paul Washer, John MacArthur, Steve Lawson, R.C. Sproul, etc.). This is producing an awakening which is unprecedented in Mexico, and souls are getting saved, and believers are getting jolted with the power of truth as their eyes are being opened to see the glory of the gospel of grace. However, in many cities, there are no churches which believe in the glorious truths that these believers are hearing online. So this leaves many Christians in difficult situations, without a church in their locality with which they can identify, and without fellowship with other like-minded believers. Many of them write to us through Cristianismo Bíblico, our online ministry, seeking a biblical church, and requesting that we go to their cities to plant a church and help them. We have received many such requests from cities all over Mexico, where there are groups of believers meeting together to fellowship and exhort one another but are lacking pastoral oversight and are in need of much instruction.

Paul told the Colossians to pray "that God may open to us a door for the word, to declare the mystery of Christ" (Col. 4:3). He also requested prayer from the Thessalonians "that the word of the Lord may speed ahead and be honored" (2 Th. 3:1). We are requesting the same prayer for our ministry in Mexico and by God's grace, are seeing something of its fulfillment come to fruition, at least in a small measure. Yet our hearts long to see what we've not yet seen -a real awakening, genuine revival and historic outpourings of the Holy Spirit move across this dark land and sweep multitudes into the Kingdom of God! Please keep praying for this. Our God is a faithful God, a mighty God, a living God, who hears the cries of His people! Our prayers are not falling on deaf ears. We are entering into a time of harvest in Mexico that has never happened in its history.

We were recently able to host two conferences back to back in January. The first was a conference with our beloved church Comunidad Bíblica de la Gracia in Mexico City. We were blessed to receive Emilio Ramos, pastor of Heritage Grace Community Church of Frisco Texas, who did a 3-day conference on the theme, "Christ in All of Scripture". The focus was specifically geared toward equipping us with the theology of a Christ-centered view of Scripture and with the practicality of how to study the Bible in such a way so as to faithfully apply a historic-redemptive hermeneutic to the texts of the Old Testament so as to see their ultimate fulfillment in the Person and work of Jesus Christ. Emilio gave us 5 messages on this theme, together with a few question and answer sessions. We were greatly edified and encouraged. Below you can see a video they made of their trip:

We are grateful for Emilio and Trisha Ramos and their friend Felix who came down to serve in Mexico. I have learned much from Emilio and his preaching ministry, and highly recommend his sermons which can be downloaded on their church website. Hopefully we can get them back down in the future!

The weekend after Emilio's conference, we hosted another conference in Guadalajara with Tim Conway, pastor of Grace Community Church of San Antonio, Texas. 

Seeing that our church building was too small to accommodate all the people, the Lord provided a beautiful property for us to have the conference on:

Brethren came from different places all over Mexico to attend the conference. About 300 showed up for the conference. The times of fellowship were wonderful.

The conference theme was on "Combating the Errors of Hyper-Calvinism". Why this theme? Tim had a burden to guard the purity of the gospel against the tendencies of many young believers to hold to the doctrines of grace with a lopsided view of divine sovereignty which undermines the importance of human responsibility. This tendency can be very subtle and tends to first eat away at a church's prayer meetings, evangelistic zeal and missionary vision, and this can be fatal to true revival.

As Phil Johnson notes in his excellent article on the subject: 

It is almost inevitable that many believers, upon being awakened to the doctrines of grace, struggle to maintain a proper balance to keep the flames of zeal for Christ burning with white-hot passion. As Tim taught, the errors of hyper-Calvinism can so subtly influence our thinking, even without us being hyper-Calvinists per se, that it is necessary to teach on the subject and expose the nature of these errors. Tim's burden was for the extension of a pure gospel in Mexico, and for a missions-movement to be raised up among our churches. He preached 5 messages over the 3-day conference, and was able to spend time teaching, fellowshipping with, and counseling believers outside of the teaching sessions.

Tim Conway's report of his trip to Mexico is as follows:

It was such a blessing to have brother Tim with us. The Lord is igniting fires in Mexico and we look on with eagerness and expectation to see what He will do next. We have many plans on the horizon if the Lord wills, and hope to begin hosting an annual fellowship conference for all the brethren in Mexico, with the first one starting this Fall. We are expecting a greater turnout for the next conference, and hope to invite several seasoned preachers to come down and preach. Your prayers for this are greatly appreciated.

See more photos below (click on picture to enlarge and see description):

From time to time there are brethren who inquire about our financial situation and ask if we need support. For those who have asked, the truth is that at this time, we are struggling to cover all our expenses. The Lord has been so faithful, and we're confident in His faithfulness to continually provide, but if you would like to help support us, information about that can be found on the "Support" page of this website. We are thankful for so many faithful brethren who pray for Mexico and hope to rejoice together with you in glory as we will one day be able to see the fruit of our labors, to the praise and glory of God. Please receive our affectionate "thanks" from the bottom of our hearts.

Sola Gratia, Soli Deo Gloria,
In Christ -Josef Urban
www.puregospeltruth.com
www.cristianismobiblico.com
illbehonest.com/espanol
www.gccsatx.com

MAY THE LAMB WHO WAS SLAIN RECEIVE THE REWARD OF HIS SUFFERING!

“In my judgment, abortion is like the doctrine of Hell. Hell is real. The Bible teaches it. And it ought to alter the way we live our lives, the way we make decisions. But I understand that it is such a real horror that the human mind can’t really enter into and think on it directly for very long before the very horror just drives you crazy. Abortion is like that. We can’t think about it too long, because it is just too ghastly. And yet, our calling is to enter into, to push that boundary, to go into it, and yet, Christians don’t. We don’t because it makes us uncomfortable. It makes us squeamish. It makes us embarrassed. And the honest truth is, it exposes our sin.” So says R.C. Sproul, Jr. in today’s debut of the documentary, “Babies Are Murdered Here”.

Such words are aggressive. They are confrontational. They are offensive to many Christians. After all, do we really need to speak so strongly about “social sins” and “political issues” such as abortion? Doesn’t Sproul realize that such strong language isolates him from mainstream Christianity, as it offends and alienates others from accepting his message? –Yes, I think he does. Just like John the Baptist’s message isolated him from mainstream Israel, evoked the wrath and King Herod, and eventually cost him his head. Yet as the Baptist was a voice in the wilderness, so is Sproul on this issue. And so is my friend, Jon Speed, pastor of Christ is King Baptist Church in Syracuse, New York. Yet their words powerfully resonate with the truth of God. And the church has been largely passive regarding the issue of abortion for far too long.

As Sproul explains, abortion is not just a social injustice or political malady. It is the wicked, monstrous, appalling, horrendous, and gruesome assassination of the defenseless. The multiplication of endless synonymous adjectives to describe it is utterly insufficient to communicate the atrocity of this issue. Abortion is the murder of babies.

Today I watched this documentary. It is stirring. It is grievous. Yet it is enlightening. And I recommend for every Christian to watch it, and wake up!

“We need to stop being middle class, American sissies. And we need to be willing to fight faithfully with the gospel to save souls and unborn babies”, says Sproul. The symbolic significance of the picture of Martin Luther behind Sproul is telling, and complements the aggressive words of the documentary to imply the call for a new reformation in Christianity that stands up to confront and reform the great evils of our day. After all, it was Luther himself who said, “If you preach the gospel in all aspects with the exception of the issues which deal specifically with your time, you are not preaching the gospel at all.” The gospel doesn’t merely call for theologizing abstract truths; it calls for the vigorous application of God’s truth to the totality of the issues of life. If we fail to make application in our gospel preaching, we fail to preach the gospel, according to Luther.

This is not to say that preaching against abortion is gospel preaching. It is not. But gospel preaching sets forth the Christ who was crucified and crushed to save us and cleanse us from sin, and abortion is sin. Christ came to redeem abortion practitioners and recipients from their wickedness and transform baby killers into baby lovers. The gospel presents the only real remedy to the malady of the practice of abortion. This is why I rejoice in the release of this new documentary, because Sproul Jr., Tony Miano, and Jon Speed know this, and this conviction burns through their veins with blood-red, red-hot conviction. And I rejoice that Christ is preached while precious babies are saved from the jaws of death.

This call to action is moving. “Go there and preach the gospel! Preach the gospel! Don’t let the Catholics take this thing and run with it. Stand up!” So says Speed in a moving exhortation.

Yet this gospel emphasis in the film also poses what I perceive to be its greatest weakness. While I rejoice that Christ’s name is honored, I regret that it is not as magnified as it could be. The film really doesn’t seem to present a clear explanation of the gospel other than a few passing statements. I would have liked to see more of the gospel set forth with clarity and explained. I would have liked to hear more about how the gospel itself affects the ethical issues of abortion and how it motivates and empowers a correct practice of anti-abortion activism. I would have liked to hear more about how the gospel itself is the central issue at stake, and how moral and ethical activism without the gospel is insufficient. While some of these things were alluded to, and that is to be commended, the documentary ended leaving me desiring more Christ-centered, grace-magnifying, hope-inspiring gospel talk. (On a more positive note, their website does contain a much clearer presentation of the gospel here.)

The morality produced by activism is subordinate to the righteousness produced by the gospel. It is only in the gospel that the righteousness of God is revealed, for only the gospel is the power of God to salvation (Rom. 1:16-17). While morality is good, righteousness before God is better. Such activism can stop baby murderers, but it can't stop human sin. But the gospel stops human sin, and in doing so, stops baby murderers. Therefore, the gospel is the only remedy, not only to the evil of abortion but to every other evil of our day. And the gospel is not subordinate to anti-abortion activism; such activism is subordinate to the gospel. 

The Great Commission is supreme, because it is the preaching of the gospel, and to be fair, the activism promoted in the film can be an impactful way of seeking to contribute to the fleshing out of the Great Commission, as long as Christ is preached. Yet we must be careful to maintain things in proper biblical perspective, and to lift up the blood-stained banner of Jesus Christ higher than the trumpet call against baby murderers. I feel like the film could have done a better job explaining this. The thrust of the film seems more geared toward, "You must protest abortion clinics" than "You must preach the gospel and reach the people in the abortion clinics with the saving power of Jesus Christ".

While I say this about the documentary, I know the men featured in the documentary would give their wholehearted "Amen" to my sentiments with regard to gospel supremacy and proclamation. I just wish it was more clear in the film itself. 

Also, for the sake of clarification, my remarks here are by no means intended to be a cop-out for cowardliness or passivity regarding the modern day holocaust of abortion. I'm not implying we should be less engaged in anti-abortion activism. In fact, I fully agree that we need to be much more aggressive in our efforts. However, we should be most aggressive in our efforts to preach the gospel, not only in front of abortion mills, but all over the whole wide world.

On another note, it was refreshing to hear the documentary explain that anti-abortion activism is subordinate to the authority of Christ's church. This was a wise move, which distances this movement from other anti-abortion activists whose priorities are out of whack and are infamous in evangelicalism for their rebellion against God-ordained pastoral leadership in the local church.

Nevertheless, in spite of some mild criticism, the potential good that could result from this film far outweighs some of its deficiencies. And the efforts of those involved are to be applauded, congratulated, and supported. May God raise up more voices to boldly speak what few preachers have spoken before! May we see a new generation of John the Baptists raised up in our day, not only to call our Herod's to stop committing adultery, but also to glory in nothing but the cross, and to cry out, "Behold the Lamb of God who came to take away the sin of baby-murderers around the world!"

(Edit: This post was expanded after publishing)

Romans 1:1 - Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God...

The book of Romans begins by implying the most amazing of all truths. Its first word stands out like a venerated historic monument to the truth that is the heart and soul of this epistle. The principal theme of Romans is the gospel of God, and the glory of the gospel is that God’s grace is radically lavished on those who least deserve it. Romans will go on to explain in detail how that, “where sin increased, grace abounded all the more”, but before doing so, it strikes us with a flesh and blood example of God’s grace abounding to the chief of sinners, and it accomplishes this by simply naming its author: “Paul”.

This is amazing, because Paul was no ordinary man. Though his religious zeal far exceeded that of his peers, so did his sin. The Paul who penned Romans was formerly the Saul who stoned Stephen. He was once a wicked man –a murderer, a blasphemer, a God-hating persecutor of the Lord and His church. In his rebellion against Christ, he knew no equal. So great was his sin that he didn’t hesitate to declare himself to be the chief of sinners, and this not by the exaggeration of a false humility but by the sober assessment of an aged, reflecting mind (1 Tim. 1:15). If anyone were unfit for Christ’s service due to having sinned away the possibility of grace, it would have been him. Yet far from disposing of this raging Pharisee on a rampage to exterminate Christianity, God saw in him an opportunity to display the abundance of His mercy by magnifying the immensity of His grace in the conversion and calling of Saul of Tarsus.

So God takes the saint’s foremost persecutor and turns him into their foremost servant; He takes Christianity’s greatest enemy and turns him into its greatest promoter; He takes the church’s greatest liability and turns him into its greatest asset, as Paul relentlessly preaches the faith he once tried to destroy (Gal. 1:23-24). But this is not all –He also takes the greatest of sinners and causes grace to so super-abound so as to utterly transform him and use him as an instrument of divine revelation to inscripturate the greatest treatise on the theology of the gospel ever written, thus illustrating with vivid clarity the glorious truth that divine grace triumphs over human sin by the gospel of Jesus Christ. The first word of Romans is a monument to God’s mercy, a trophy of the triumph of God’s grace!

This is why Paul could say, “I thank him who has given me strength, Christ Jesus our Lord, because he judged me faithful, appointing me to his service, though formerly I was a blasphemer, persecutor, and insolent opponent. But I received mercy because I had acted ignorantly in unbelief, and the grace of our Lord overflowed for me with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus” (1 Tim. 1:12-14). He speaks of grace “overflowing” toward him, giving the picture of the pouring forth of a provision of divine favor that not only corresponds to the spiritual need incurred due to sin but also goes beyond it to provide such a generous fullness so as to constitute an abundance that supplies more than what is necessitated to meet the need. Thus Paul spoke of “the immeasurable riches of his grace” (Eph. 2:7), because God’s saving grace is unfathomably abundant as it is lavished on the sinner, and he knew this by personal experience.

It is out of such an experience of grace that Paul unleashes the theology of the gospel in Romans from the very depths of his soul, with the burning conviction that every sentence, every phrase, every word must contribute to the extolling of the glory of this grace as God the Holy Spirit breathes through His inspired apostle to lay bare the mind of God in the salvation of sinners. No doubt, Paul’s reception of such a mighty deluge of grace uniquely positioned him to be a choice instrument to minister such grace so effectively to others. It provided him with a supernatural depth of understanding into its mysteries out of which he later draws from with such brilliant detail as He masterfully expounds the nature of salvation throughout the book of Romans.

Church history is replete with similar examples of God’s grace saving and transforming men who later put pen to paper and write out of the abundance of grace they received. In the 17th century, a tinker from Bedford, England, being a vile blasphemer, was infamous in his town for being the most ungodly of wretches. Yet the same sovereign grace that had saved Saul of Tarsus was also poured out on John Bunyan, who later penned “The Pilgrim’s Progress”. Bunyan, who himself knew the depths of hellish depravity, had also soared the heights of heavenly grace, and penned his famous account of the Christian’s pilgrimage from the City of Destruction to the Celestial City out of the depths of his own experience of grace. The man who was considered the greatest of sinners came to know such grace that he was able to pen the greatest of the church’s fictional narratives, which so remarkably portrays the life of faith, and has been a blessing to countless multitudes!

John Newton of the 18th century has a similar testimony. He was a blatant God-rejecter, a scoffer of the Christian faith, a hater of men, and even occupied himself in human trafficking for a time. His sin brought him so low that he even despaired of life and precipitated murder, contemplated suicide, and arrived at such depths that his testimony literally parallels that of the prodigal son of Luke 15. Though he far out-sinned his peers in all sorts of evil, the Lord broke his stubborn will and caused him to fall in surrender at the feet of Christ where he received forgiveness. Newton would later write the church’s all-time favorite hymn, “Amazing Grace”, as an outburst of praise from the depths of his own heart after having experienced such amazing grace himself. This is yet another case of God using the chief of sinners to magnify the abundance of the grace of the gospel by penning powerful words which exalt mighty, triumphant grace!

The fact that Paul wrote Romans should cause us to pause, be still, and wonder at the magnitude, power, and depth of God’s grace in the gospel. Though Paul was simply following the ancient custom of placing the author’s name at the beginning of a letter as opposed to our modern practice of placing it at the end, it is not without significance that he, and not any other, was the actual human instrument used by the Spirit of God to pen such a wonderful masterpiece of divinely inspired literature. Just as God used Bunyan and Newton –men who were formerly considered to be among the most wicked of the sons of men, to pen some of the most God-glorifying exultations of grace in church history, God used Paul to pen the book of Romans. Not only does the content of the literature magnify God’s grace, but also the instruments He chose to use to write it, as they stand forth as a testimony to the very grace they write about. And Romans stands head and shoulders above the rest, not only because of the majesty of its style, the genius of its presentation, the depth of its content, the glory of its truth, and a host of other reasons intrinsic to the nature of Holy Scripture, but because it is Holy Scripture itself, uniquely inspired by the Holy Spirit and consisting of the very Words of God.

When any sinner despairs of finding mercy, he has only to meditate on the facts which made the first word of Romans a reality. If Paul’s sin was so great so as to be greater than all the rest, but still wasn’t greater than God’s grace as it abounds in the gospel of which Paul was later made a herald, then no amount of human sinfulness should cause the repentant sinner to despair of finding mercy in the cross of Jesus Christ. Paul’s reception of saving mercy in spite of sin is an example to all who desire to experience salvation. As he testified, “But I received mercy for this reason, that in me, as the foremost, Jesus Christ might display his perfect patience as an example to those who were to believe in him for eternal life” (1 Tim. 1:16).

The book of Romans begins by giving us a real-life example of the reality of its grand theme before proceeding to expound it in detail, as if to imply that what is explained therein is not the mere theory of ivory-tower theologizing, but the real, authentic down-to-earth experience of redeeming, transforming grace as it is brought to bear on real, live, sinful sons and daughters of Adam. That the first word of Romans is “Paul” is nothing short of a mighty miracle to the praise of the glory of God’s sovereign grace. Let us never underestimate it!

As of October, it is six years since we arrived to Mexico as missionaries. We praise God for His faithfulness these past 2,190+ days! By God's grace, we've been privileged to see the Gospel of Jesus Christ preached in many places all around the country, accompanied by not a few conversions and brethren being awakened to a more complete understanding of the scope of the whole counsel of God as revealed in Scripture. It is impossible to convey in words the awe of seeing God the Holy Spirit move and transform lives by the power of the Gospel, and we are debtors to God's mercy to the praise of His glorious grace. We can't help but to exclaim with the apostle Paul, "Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments, and inscrutable His ways! For from Him, and through Him, and to Him are all things. To Him be glory forever." Amen!

It has now been two and half years since our 4 boys, Ceasar, Angel, Gustavo and Alex came to live with us! Here's a picture of them earlier in the year when we took a trip to the woods:

It is our firm conviction that church planting it THE work of biblical missions. The local church is central to God's saving purpose for the world and is the base from which the Gospel is to be proclaimed, taught, defended, and spread to the far corners of the earth. Our principal focus in ministry is that of planting biblical churches in Mexico. Many have asked where these places are where are are working, so below you can see a map showing our existing church plants.

Strengthening Existing Church Plants
In 2013, we have been plugging away with all our might at the church plants in Guadalajara and Mexico City. Aaron Block and I have been alternating between the churches, preaching on a rotating basis. This has worked out well, and we are seeing the churches grow in grace, number and maturity. There are currently between 350-400 people who are congregating between the 3 church plants, a portion of which have joined themselves to the membership.

Baptisms
We've been privileged to see many baptisms this year. Between the two church plants in Guadalajara and Mexico City, we have baptized about 70 believers in 2013! More importantly, many of them are new converts in whom God has done a glorious work of grace. We praise God for such sweet demonstrations of His stedfast love in our midst!

New Church Plant Started
Around June-July, we also started a new church plant in the city of Queretaro. We are currently preaching in Queretaro on Saturday evenings, and then traveling to Mexico City Sunday mornings to preach the Lord's Day meeting there, until the Lord raises up more men to be helping with the preaching rotation. It is encouraging to see the Lord move in Queretaro and unite a group of believers who are committed to the Lord and each other as a biblical local expression of Christ's church. We hope to switch the Queretaro meetings to Sunday if the Lord wills, and to baptize the believers there who are in need of being baptized early in 2014. In the meantime, they are meeting on Sundays for group Bible study, and during the week for prayer meetings and open air evangelism.

Another Church Plant on the Horizon?
We are currently in contact with a group of believers in Monterrey (another mega-city in Mexico toward the north), and are planning to visit them and preach on a regular basis if the Lord wills. I hope to make my first visit in February 2014 if the Lord permits, and hold a conference to help launch an effort at another church plant. We are praying for the Lord's provision and leading with regard to Monterrey.

Evangelism Conferences
In 2013, I was able to do a couple of evangelism training conferences with Aguas Vivientes in the cities of Chihuahua and Morelia. Since I've been far too busy between our church plants to be doing evangelism conferences, I'm working with some brothers who will begin a new evangelistic thrust in 2014, to equip them to conduct evangelism conferences in my place. This is an exciting new ministry opportunity which will enable us to receive many more invitations to train churches and groups in street evangelism, since these brothers will be able to use our curriculum to teach brethren all over the country.

Gospel Tract Design & Distribution
We have been able to distribute thousands of Gospel tracts in 2013. Currently, we have two different tracts that we designed and distribute, selling them to brethren so they can use them in their personal evangelism. We sell them in packets of 100 tracts each at near-cost in order to recuperate our printing costs and do continual print-runs. These are extremely useful for mobilizing brethren in evangelism, as Gospel tracts greatly facilitate conversation-starting on the streets. It is in our plans to produce two more tract designs in early 2014 in order to double our current selection of tracts. You can our current two tracts in the links below:
--El Padre Nuestro
--El Antídoto

Evangelism Teams
We currently have 3 evangelism teams that are evangelizing on a weekly basis, each associated with its corresponding local church. These teams each consist of a local group of believers who meet together to conduct organized outreaches in their city. They are currently involved in hospital visitation-evangelism, drug rehab center preaching, open air preaching, tract distribution and personal evangelism on the streets. We praise the Lord for their faithful and consistent efforts to preach Christ to the lost! Over the course of 2013, we can only guess how many hundreds, or thousands, of people heard the Gospel through their efforts.

Hurricane Disaster Relief
In September, a destructive hurricane hit Mexico's West Coast, mainly affecting the state of Guerrero. Many people lost their lives, and countless homes, cars, and properties were destroyed. The city and villages where we spend 4 months in 2008 were also affected, and some believers we know lost their homes. So a group of brethren from our church in Guadalajara united to engage in some disaster relief while using such an opportunity to preach the Gospel. 

Through our contacts, we were able to get some of the brothers some preaching engagements in churches, in the local jail, and in the villages. They also conducted some open air campaigns to preach the Gospel to the villagers. In addition to giving away a cargo-van and trailer full of food and supplies, they were also able to give away 50 pastor's packets which contained Charles Leiter's Justification and Regeneration, a MacArthur Study Bible, Grudem's Systematic Theology, and other books such as John Murray's Redemption: Accomplished and Applied (one of my all-time favorites!), Spurgeon's sermons, etc. We were also able to purchase thousands of dollars worth of books which were given away to receptive believers and Bibles which were given to receptive unbelievers. The books are of titles which are not available at their local "Christian" bookstores. Much could be said, but to summarize, brethren were helped, the poor had the Gospel preached to them, and many resources promoting sound doctrine were strategically given away to needy believers. We thank God for all the support we received for this. See pictures below (click to enlarge):

The J & R Project 
We have succeeded in printing Charles Leiter's Justification and Regeneration, and were able to print 15,000 copies! We are giving them away to pastors and church leaders and selling them to others at cost so they can use them to give away and in their evangelism. We have already distributed about 3,000 copies! People are loving it and we're hearing testimonies of how it is impacting lives! Praise the Lord!

Chapel Library Literature
With their permission, we have printed thousands of copies of the nice little booklets distributed by Chapel Library in Spanish which we give out in our church plants and to brethren in other churches. We currently print many different titles with a printing machine we purchased.  

Online Bookstore
In 2014, we are beginning a bookstore which will mainly be operated online. We will be sending books to believers all over Mexico. Our initial selection will contain about 70 titles which we will then grow from there. These titles are all hand-picked and sound in doctrine. We already have all the books and have only to make them available by uploading their information to our website. Among these are every single Puritan book translated into Spanish that I can get my hands on. In addition to selling books, we will also give them away to pastors and believers in need. Any profit made from selling these books will be put toward expanding the book ministry, including increasing the number of titles and purchasing books to give away to pastors, church leaders, and brethren who are serving the Lord.

Institute of Theological Studies
We are working hard to launch an in-house and online training institute to teach theology in 2014 that will function as a part of our church in Guadalajara. We are planning to do this by working on one course at a time and teaching a group of men to rightly handle the word of truth. We also plan on adding them to an online database which will serve as a distance education system for teaching men the whole scope of traditional theological studies. The classes will be recorded and made available through online video and audio format. Much of the groundwork has already been done to launch this, and we hope to launch it in the first half of 2014 with our first group of students.

Expanding Media Resources
We're continuing to work on online media such as sermon recording in video and audio, sermon transcripts, and other resources through our ministry Cristianismo Bíblico. We hope to expand our online resources a great deal in 2014 if the Lord wills.

In Christ -Josef & Lina Urban (& Josiah!)

We are grateful for the financial support of our dear brethren. We want to express our heartfelt gratitude for those who have been so gracious to help us. If you would like to consider supporting us, after fulfilling your God-given responsibilities in your local church, you can find information on the "Support" page of this website.

Greetings from Mexico! 

Oh, that God would rend the Heavens and come down in a mighty outpouring of His blessed Spirit from on high! Biblical missions don't just consist of methods, strategies, plans, and human effort at spreading the Gospel, but of Christ as Lord of all extending His scepter and establishing His Kingdom through the sovereign working of His Holy Spirit by means of the proclamation of the Gospel through human instrumentality. Yet this human element in missions is powerless and ineffective unless it is owned of God and enabled by His grace and power. God's work must be done God's way. His Gospel must advance not merely through plans and programs, but through prayer and preaching in the Holy Spirit. God is pleased to grant success to the cause of missions and grant this power from on high when His people humble themselves, utterly stripped of all confidence in the flesh, and as empty, destitute, poor beggars confess their desperate need for Him so that when He responds and grants success to His work, they recognize that God alone is the sole cause of their success and therefore attribute to Him the glory He rightfully deserves.

A few Brethren have wondered and inquired as to the cause of the small amount of success we have seen in Mexico, as to the conversion of souls and the planting of churches. All I can say is it that is has pleased the Lord to work in this way. We have no secrets. My only real and ultimate method is preaching the foolishness of the cross --and this in a somewhat cumbersome and awkward Spanish that makes me feel insecure as I speak it. We just unleash the Word and it does all the rest. We teach systematically through the Scriptures, explaining words and phrases, analyzing its grammar, explicating its context, expounding on its grand theological concepts, and seeking to apply it with impetu to each individual soul. But God is the One who saves souls. Christ is the One who builds His church. The Spirit is the One who breaths on dead sinner's hearts with the breath of God and infuses life and power into His saints to sanctify them and mold them into the Imago Dei. And since this is all not because of us, but rather in spite of us, it is obvious to me that this is the Lord's work, and therefore it is to His glory alone. 

Therefore, dear Brethren, I earnestly plead with you to please pray for us. I believe we may yet see a genuine outpouring of the Holy Spirit in our day, here in Mexico. We have seen small signs and little tokens of soul-stirring happening among us, but have yet to see the fullness. We must press on and not grieve the Spirit but rather pray with importunity that the Sovereign Giver from Whom the Spirit proceeds would be pleased to pour forth much mercy upon us and prosper His work in Mexico, that we may yet see the glory of the Lord in the land of the living! May God have mercy on our unbelief for limiting the strong arm of the Almighty in our puny thoughts of what we think is possible and stir up in us with a lively faith and a spirit of prayer to press on and seek for "greater works" (Jn. 14:12) until our eyes behold the Majesty of the Lord manifested in multitudes being saved from eternal woe and His missionary cause accelerated so as to fill Mexico with the knowledge of the Lord!

Here is a summarized update of what has been happening lately:

• Our little boy Josiah turned 1 year old this 1st of August! He is growing fast and we are grateful to the Lord for a healthy boy.

• For those who have not yet read Lina's update last month about Angel, one of the four boys we care for, you can read that report here: http://www.puregospeltruth.com/3/post/2013/07/update-from-lina-urban-about-one-of-our-boys.html 

• We have been privileged to witness several more conversions in our midst lately. Within the last months, among those who seem to be soundly converted are two teenage girls aged 14 and 15, and another young girl of 7 years of age, who seem to be demonstrating much fruit worthy of repentance and signs of true piety that have encouraged our hearts. There is also a man who is taxi driver from Mexico City and several ladies between Mexico City and Guadalajara who have recently professed to have been born again. There are also a considerably larger number of souls who were struggling with assurance who have been brought through to joyful victory and consciousness of peace with God. Please pray for the couple of dozen of those who, between Guadalajara, Mexico City and Queretaro, are in an awakened state, realize they're lost, but have not yet trusted solely in the Person and work of Jesus Christ as their righteousness so as to obtain peace with God. The Lord appears to be pricking some hearts and wooing people to come to Christ. Recently in Mexico City, a solemnity and loud weeping fell over some of the congregation as the sermon came to a close, which I believe to be the stirring of the Spirit of God, as there were not any majorly emotional appeals or music playing to provoke such emotions. We are praying for souls to be saved and assurance to be wrought in the hearts of the saints. Please join us in your prayers.

• In the last 2 weeks we baptized 7 individuals in Guadalajara and 18 individuals in Mexico City! Others who had been previously baptized since their conversion but come from other churches were added to the membership. There are others in Mexico City waiting for baptism. Based on requests in Querétaro, though we've not yet started baptizing there, we are calculating that at this time, there are between 30 and 40 individuals desiring and awaiting baptism, and to integrate into the membership of a church plant in that city. 

• The attendance is growing in Guadalajara and Mexico City to about 130 and 150, respectively. Though we have moved the meeting place in Mexico City to a new and larger location, we are already outgrowing it, which is posing a problem due to the difficulty of finding space to hold meetings. We ask for your prayers to find an ideal location for holding meetings that is within our price range. In Querétaro the attendance has dwindled a little bit lately down to about 70 in attendance. People are still visiting from out of state on a regular basis who drive for many hours to spend Sundays with us. We even have members in these churches who are from other states in the Republic because they travel every weekend to be with the church. The famine is great in the land, but the Lord is raising up centers of spiritual refuge for His hungry saints.

• The church in Mexico City, which we recently named "Comunidad Bíblica de la Gracia" is also beginning to form a new Bible study group in the city of Puebla, the neighboring state. I have not yet given any personal attention to the Bible study that has begun there, but hope to be able to in the future if the Lord permits. We are considering the possibility of seeing this raised up into another church plant. It would be wonderful to see a biblical church raised up in Puebla.

• We are about to begin the process to elect men for the diaconate in the church in Guadalajara. I feel that it is time to begin teaching the church on this ministerial office and exhort them to look out among themselves to see if the Lord is raising up some such man, or some such men, for such a work. Your prayers are coveted for this solemn process of discerning the Lord's will for His church and appointing only those who are qualified and filled with the Holy Spirit and wisdom.

• By means of HeartCry Missionary Society, we are in contact with a seminary in the Dominican Republic who has some pastors/teachers who are interested in coming to Mexico and hosting an extension module for us to help train some of our men in Expository Preaching. If it all works out, it looks like we will be able to host them in October. For those who speak Spanish, the audios of our previous Academy of Theology can be downloaded here: http://www.cristianismobiblico.com/academia-de-teologia-2013.html

• The ministry of Cristianismo Bíblico is expanding. We are now seeing over 2,000 visitors daily to our website. Requests continue to pour in to preach in places all over Latin America and to help individuals and groups who want to form biblical churches. We are now producing written sermon transcriptions of all our sermons, which I am editing and hope to publish both online and in book form. Yet even though there are other helping hands involved who write down the transcriptions, it is a long and daunting task for me to edit and polish them for publication. We receive news from time to time of pastors who re-preach our sermons in their churches, including one in Cuba! Having a transcription will greatly help them in this process, as they have requested this from time to time. We have also recently been expanding our printing ministry, and are printing THOUSANDS upon THOUSANDS of little booklets of the sermons of Mr Spurgeon, Edwards, and articles by A.W. Pink, Horatius Bonar, and other historic literature of sound doctrine. We distribute these booklets to believers all over and give them out in our church plants. We now have a man working part time for the ministry who dedicates himself to this printing enterprise under the oversight of another Brother who also works with the ministry. In addition, we are also taking another exciting step toward the divulgation of the Word: we are about to begin a bookstore through which we will distribute published titles of sound doctrine through the ministry of Crisitanismo Bíblico. Our hope is to carry about 50 titles to start with, and to slowly expand it in order to carry several hundred titles in the near future. This is going to allow us to sell discounted books and mail them to people anywhere in Mexico who follow our ministry and trust our book recommendations. All these titles will be carefully selected books whose doctrine is trustworthy .We will carry books by the Puritans, Spurgeon, Edwards, MacArthur, Piper, and more. We will also carry missionary biographies and seminary-level theological books on subjects such as Hermeneutics, Systematic Theology, Expository Preaching, etc. We are already distributing thousands of Gospel tracts to believers who evangelize all over Mexico which we have designed and printed, and we also distribute the resources and tracts of Aguas Vivientes, who is about to release the Third Season of their program "Los Pasos del Maestro" (Way of the Master) in Spanish with professional dubbing.

• We have recieved the first installment of printing we did of Charles Leiter's "Justification and Regeneration" in Spanish. Once we receive all the boxes of books, I will send out an update with pictures! These are 15,000 books which will be distributed and given away to thousands of people, most of which are professing Christians in Mexico.

• I am currently working on a small writing project which is geared as an Gospel presentation and evangelistic appeal to the unsaved. The plan is to print it as an attractive little booklet of about 40 pages. I'm hoping to print 10,000 copies, that they may fly into the hands of God's elect in this nation and be the means of awakening them to the light of the glory of Christ! The goal is to have this project finished in a couple of months.

• I'm also working on a full length writing project which we hope to print and distribute as a book. The theme of the book deals with the weighty themes of the Reformational truths which most urgently need to be understood, taught, preached and promoted in the church of Latin America in our day. It will deal with subjects such as the Biblical Gospel, Biblical Evangelism, Biblical conversion, the Doctrines of Grace, Reformational preaching, Revival praying, Biblical Ecclesiology, etc. It is basically designed to be a scathing indictment of the modern apostasy of the professing church and urgent call to God's people to rise up and understand, live, and proclaim the great truths of Biblical and historic Christianity. While I realize that a whole book could be written on any one of these subjects, the idea is to summarize these truths and emphasize those truths which have been all but forgotten in our day, in order to awaken, stir up, and exhort the church to rise up and labor for a true move of God. It will also provide an extensive bibliography to literature translated into Spanish for those who wish to do more research into the things taught in the book. Your prayers for these writing projects are greatly desired.

• Brother Josué Contreras and his family have arrived in Guadalajara and are settled in. You can read about their trip on his blog here: http://gospelbearers.com/2013/08/our-first-three-weeks-in-guadalajara/. As you can see at the end of the blog post, after arriving here, the missionary-assigned thorn in the flesh pricked him hard. He's been battling with some serious health issues and could use everybody's prayers.

• We recently received a visit from John Systma, one of the elders of our overseeing church, Grace Community Church of San Antonio, Texas. It was a blessing to enjoy his company and receive his Godly counsel and assessment of the work. John preached in Querétaro and in Guadalajara, and stirred up the Brethren to love and good works while encouraging them to engage in Biblical missions.

We send our hearty greetings and heartfelt thanks for all our dear Brethren who pray for us and support us! Soli Deo Gloria! If you have any questions or concerns, or would like to talk with us, please reply to this email. We value your input.

In Christ -Josef Urban
http://www.puregospeltruth.com/
http://www.cristianismobiblico.com/

By Lina Urban

Greetings to all! I write to give a quick update and encouraging report about one of our boys. As many of you know last summer I got news that Angel our youngest would not be allowed to finish kindergarten at home. The DIF (equivalent to CPS) said that kindergartners were not allowed to be homeschooled and told me I had to send him to school. With sadness I sent our little boy to a public school in the middle of one of the worst neighborhoods in Guadalajara. I debated within me to enroll him there or put him in a private school. I kept having much peace about leaving him in the public school. Many people in our church would tell me how that would affect Angel that he would pick up bad things from the kids in that school. Still the Lord gave me much peace. His first day of school he got bullied. One of his classmates stole something from the teacher and wanted Angel to cover up for him. Angel refused and told on him. The boy got furious and grabbed Angel and slammed him into a wall and shouted at him. I only found this out because at lunch time Angel asked that we please pray for his school mate's salvation. He then proceeded to tell me what had happened. I counseled him to love his enemies and to bring his enemies some cookies the next day, which he did with gladness. A few days later he shared with me excited about how he had preached to some of the teachers of his school. I said, "really, what did you preach to them?" He said, "I asked them if they knew what propitiation was, they didn't know so I taught them what it was and how Christ is our propitiation." 

As the months passed I more and more saw how being in school didn't change him a bit in a bad way. I actually saw how it helped form more character in him and make him stand on his convictions. There were a few times we got called in by his teacher because Angel would refuse to do some activity that would go against his convictions. He stood very firm till the end. The end of his school year came to an end last week.

On Monday I took him to school only to be told by the teacher he wasn't allowed to come to school all week because he had pink eye. She told me to just bring him to his graduation. We said our goodbyes to her and thanked her for teaching Angel. We then proceeded to say our goodbyes to the principal. We thanked her and she solemnly told me, ''Angel is an apostle". I couldn't help but laugh at what she said, I know he's not an apostle and that just sounded so silly to me. She then very solemnly held my hand and said, '' Truly, he is an apostle." She told me that I had no idea how much Angel had taught her. She said, ''he came in here and he taught us''. She told me how she knows he's of a different religion but he taught her so much. She started weeping uncontrollably and hugged and kissed him and thanked him for teaching her. She said she had lived life taking God for granted and many of His truths, but that Angel helped her understand so many things. She also told me how he was so noble, that through the school year if there was ever a teacher that didn't come to school that he would go into the principals office asking, ''where is so and so teacher, is she OK?'' She admired his care and love for others. We all wept and hugged each other and said our goodbyes. On the way to to car Angel told me, "Mommy I taught them everything daddy taught me, everything". What a faithful little imitator of Josef this little one has been! May the Lord use him mightily to bring many souls to the feet of Christ. A few days passed and I took him to his graduation. He was so happy but sad to leave the school and those he loved behind. As we walked away he ran to hug the principal and when we left she waved from afar and said, " Goodbye preacher, goodbye preacher."

Brethren, I write this not to advocate that we send our children to public schools. I know without a doubt that this was a special call for Angel. I wrote this to encourage you to pour into your children. Fill them with the Word of God, with love, with godly example. Cover them with much prayer and fasting. 

I remember when I first got these kids I got so sad, I would cry so much because I couldn't go out into the streets and evangelize like I used to. The Lord later showed me I was to mainly evangelize these four boys and now our own little Josiah. I still pass out tracts and talk to people in my daily life when I'm at the store or at a restaurant or even when the Lord brings people to my door, I'm not advocating only evangelizing your children either. THere's a lost world out there in need of Christ may we with our families reach them with the Gospel. 

I love you all and thank you so much for your prayers. Please pray for our five boys, for the principal, and for me and Josef to continue to pour into the lives of these little ones. 

Dear Brethren and Friends,

We praise God for all that has been happening lately down here. Several weeks ago, we started a new church plant in Querétaro, which is a major city a couple of hours Northwest from Mexico City, and strategically located between Guadalajara and Mexico City. Now that we are having Lord's Day meetings with the congregations in Guadalajara and Mexico City every Sunday, this opened up our Saturday's to begin preaching in Querétaro. The response has been surprising. The Lord is quickly raising up a church in Querétaro! They are now congregating on Saturday's for the live exposition of Scripture, on Sunday's to watch a sermon video, exhort one another and eat together, and on Thursdays for a prayer meeting, crying out for the Lord to save souls and build His church! May Christ be glorified in yet another city!

Recently, a friend and Brother in the Lord came down to visit us for a month. He decided to write a report of his trip, and since he expresses himself so well, and seems to capture something of what is happening here, we decided to send out his report as our newsletter. The author of the report below, Austin Dooley, is from Redeeming Grace Church in Colombia, MO (http://www.rgcolumbia.org/). It was a blessing to have him visit. 

In Christ -Josef Urban
http://www.puregospeltruth.com/

Here's Brother Austin's report:

The Lord has blessed me with the opportunity to spend the last month with missionary and pastor Josef Urban.  I have lived in his home along with his wife, Lina, four children they are fostering, and a10-month old baby of their own, Josiah.  I purposed to spend as much time near Josef as I could, be it in ministry or mundanity, and the Lord has impressed upon me the great joy and burden of whole-hearted service in spirit exhibited in his life.  Looking back, the body of my time here consisted of moving boxes, exhausting trips, and sweet communion with brethren, but the recurring theme, like an uplifting refrain was that of honest, hopeful expectation of revival.

Josef’s primary labor for the last three years has been pastoring the church he planted in Guadalajara.  Meetings began with a few people gathered in the house where his family, along with his recently married co-laborer, Aaron, lives.  Since then, the church has grown substantially, but the house has not.  The Lord providentially allowed them out of their contract with an unreasonable landlord, by means of eviction.  Although this added a burden of moving the families and church into separate locations during an exceptionally busy time, the church has found a place that will comfortably fit the Sunday congregation, which has grown to as many as 140 people.  It may not be as free from distraction as the solitary office in the Himalayas Josef sometimes dreams of, but the Urban's will certainly enjoy more peace and privacy in a home of their own as well.

Since planting the church, Josef has had the privilege to see the Lord work many miracles of salvation and grow the church substantially. However this puts him in a somewhat unique and difficult situation of pastoring a church that consists primarily of young converts.  Although the church is spiritually young, the Lord has knit together a group of committed members, which, by His grace, will grow to around 50 people in the coming weeks.  

The Lord has plainly glorified himself both in the sanctification and maturing of His saints, and by convicting the lost who meet with the church.  Recently, He accomplished these two works in a conference hosted by the church, taught by the dear brother Paul Walker, a pastor in Colorado.  He has been making trips to preach in Latin America for forty years, and was brought to tears while trying to compare the hunger he now sees for Truth, to the dead, hard-hearted souls he used to preach to at the beginning of his ministry.  After five teachings on the Gospel, it was evident the Lord had stirred the hearts of many, especially from wrong views of God’s sovereignty, falsely blaming Him for their inability to be saved.  After the conference, Brother Walker expressed he was truly convinced he had been preaching in a land on the verge of revival.

The Lord’s provision of eager hearts and Biblical teaching in Mexico has not been restricted to Guadalajara.  Josef and Aaron have been preaching to a group in Mexico City for a time as well.  From that work, a church has been raised that faithfully evangelizes, fellowships, and ministers to the more than 100 people who now regularly attend the Sunday morning meetings.  I was blessed to attend their first member’s meeting, then celebrate the Lord’s Supper, unified, with brothers I hardly knew, in the Spirit, because of Christ’s death. 

Several months ago, the church in Guadalajara also felt led to begin praying about whether to begin preaching in Queretaro, a city between Guadalajara and Mexico City.  For the next three consecutive weeks, unrelated families from Queretaro with no knowledge of each other came to the Sunday meetings in Guadalajara, asking when someone could come and preach in their city.  The first and second meetings, in which Josef preached, were held this month, each attended by over 100 people.  After hearing the true gospel of God’s grace for the first time, many decided to leave their churches, abandoning false gospels and doctrines of perfectionism.  The Lord has made it clear to Josef that he should consistently preach there as well.

By the end of this month, Josef will be the only elder ministering to three bodies, in different cities.  In all three places, Josef regularly spends hours after each sermon answering questions, giving spiritual counsel, and listening to testimonies of salvation. He makes it clear that the biblical model is a plurality of pastors per church, not a plurality of churches per pastor, and is expectantly waiting on the Lord to raise up and/or send more laborers.  He looks forward to the arrival of Josue Contreras, a brother who has been pastoring a church in Texas but feels called to labor alongside Josef, in early July.  

The ministry of the gospel through literature and online sermons has also shown fruitful.  The website where church information and Josef’s sermons are posted, cristianismobiblico.com, now gets several thousand unique visitors daily.  This month, the plans were also finalized to print 15,000 copies of Charles Leiter’s book, Justification and Regeneration, which, Lord-willing, will soon be put in the hands of pastors and ministry leaders across Mexico.

Nonetheless, this evening, like nearly every other evening, Josef looked up wearily and confessed how little he accomplished, how another day was gone.  Along with a seemingly endless list of things that need to be done in the churches he does pastor, he has received requests to preach from many cities all all over Mexico, requests he now doesn’t even have time to consider.  There are many true Christians driving for hours to attend Biblical church meetings, and seemingly promising opportunities to try to start laboring in surrounding cities where they come from. In the five and a half years since the Lord saved me and called me to share the Gospel in the United States, one of the most confusing scriptures to me has been Matthew 9:37; “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few.”  I never understood where this plentiful harvest was, why salvation felt like such a precious rarity.  I can’t say I have always evangelized with enough faith, that I have sufficiently prayed for the lost of my country, or that I know the mind of God and his perfect plan for salvation, but I can say that these words of Christ are clearly being fulfilled, right now, in Mexico. “Therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.”

UPDATE: By God's grace and merciful provision, we have received sufficient funds for this project and are distributing the books!

This post details the current project we are working on to mass distribute a book detailing two essential theological topics to the leadership of the churches of Mexico for the sake of spreading biblical truth in this nation and positively influencing the church with sound doctrine.

Who are we?

We are church planting missionaries based out of Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico. We currently work in Guadalajara, Mexico City, and other places. Our ministry team consists of Josef and Lina Urban, Aaron and Cassandra Block, and a couple of other brothers in Mexico who co-labor together with us in the Gospel. Josef and Lina are missionaries under the oversight of Grace Community Church of San Antonio, TX (www.gccsatx.com).

To read more about us and see an overview of our work, please visit the following two links:

About us: http://www.puregospeltruth.com/about-us.html

Overview of our Ministry: http://www.puregospeltruth.com/our-ministry.html

What is the J & R Project?

“J & R” stands for “Justification and Regeneration”, which is a book written by pastor and teacher Charles Leiter of Lake Road Chapel (www.lakeroadchapel.org). This project is an endeavor to print the Spanish translation of this book en masse at extremely low costs in order to distribute it in Mexico. This distribution will take place in two ways:

1)      The book will be given to pastors and churches leaders all over Mexico. We want every church leader in Mexico to receive a copy of this book, and plan to give it away (for free) to every church leader we come across, urging and exhorting them to read it. (For more info on why we hope to do this, please read below)

2)      The book will be sold at or almost at cost so that brethren in Mexico who desire to purchase a quantity for the sake of giving them away can obtain them at an extremely cheap price. We will sell them to brethren, evangelism groups, and churches across Mexico by the box and by the case so others can give them away and we can recuperate a part of our expenses. The idea is similar to what Desiring God does with some of Piper’s titles by means of their “Outreach Case Specials” (see example here: http://www.desiringgod.org/blog/posts/ready-to-move-books-in-bulk). In these boxes and cases, we would sell the books to brethren for about $1 (one dollar) each, making them extremely accessible and ideal for giving away.

We have brother Leiter’s permission to go forward with this project, and we have trustworthy printers in Mexico who are willing to mass-print the book for us with a written contract that the printed copies will turn out identical to the original, who have also given us pricing quotes for the printing. Everything is a green light –we currently only lack the finances to make it a reality.

How many books do you plan on distributing?

This depends on how large of a print run we are able to accomplish, but we are aiming at printing either 5,000 or 10,000 books for the sake of distribution.

How will we accomplish this giveaway to church leaders?

By all means possible. In Guadalajara, we have a church plant in which about 100 persons are congregating, and in Mexico City, we have another congregation. Between all these brethren, we have lots of contacts with church leaders in different areas, and our congregants can help us get these books into these pastor’s and church leader’s hands.

Furthermore, we have a Spanish website (www.cristianismobiblico) in which we receive about 1600 unique visits per day, many of which come from Mexico. We plan to put a button on the webpage offering a “Free theology book” to pastors and church leaders. When they click on the button, it will take them to a page where they can fill out a form with their address, and we will mail them the book.

In addition to all this, Josef teaches in conferences on the Gospel and biblical evangelism from time to time in different places in Mexico, at which there are usually groups of pastors present representing different churches that come to the training. Through this conference ministry, many books can land in the hands of church leaders.

We also hope to send boxes of books to  the ministry and missionary contacts we have in Mexico who are in contact with many different pastors and church leaders in different circles and denominations, so that our contacts can get the books into the hands of all their contacts amongst the leadership of the churches. We have ministry contacts in the states of Jalisco, Baja California, Mexico, Veracruz, Hidalgo, Oaxaca, Guerrero, and in the Yucatan.

Why give the book away to church leaders?

First of all, because they have the most influence over Christianity in Mexico. If we can reach them, we can reach the whole church of Mexico. Secondly, because those who respond positively and want to spread the word can give us more contacts with other church leaders they know, and in turn, help to distribute the book to the leadership of the churches. Thirdly, because many pastors are not able to make large investments in Christian literature for the sake of study, and so their exposure to literature which promotes sound doctrine is limited and sometimes, non-existent. They very much appreciate having free resources given to them. Fourthly, because when church leaders do make it to the Christian bookstore to purchase literature, they typically fall for all the modern hype and fluff that lines the shelving (think Rick Warren, Joel Osteen, etc.).   

Why this book?

J & R explains two of the Bible’s most important doctrines regarding soteriology, which together constitute the very heart of the Gospel, and it manages to do so in simple language that anybody can understand.

Mexico’s greatest need is biblical truth. The church (and the professing church) is generally weak and anemic when it comes to doctrine and theology. The typical understanding of the Gospel is superficial and shallow. Biblical conversion is often misunderstood, manipulative methods of evangelism are many times practiced, and the true biblical doctrine of regeneration is rarely preached or heard in most churches. “Justification and Regeneration” is a perfect book to help correct these errors. It is rich with quotations from God’s Word, explains things simply, and details the doctrine of regeneration with theological depth and faithfulness to Scripture. Plus it is not an extremely large book, which makes it more likely to be read by most pastors. Plus we know of firsthand testimonies of how God, according to His sovereign pleasure, has been pleased to use this book to open blind eyes to the truth of biblical salvation, and to be instrumental in the conversion of souls.

What else do you have in mind?

We are praying and hoping that this project will be the beginning of a much larger distribution project that will facilitate the reading of sound biblical literature amongst the churches of Mexico for the sake of much-needed reformation and revival in this country. If all goes as planned, and if the Lord permits and gives His blessing, we hope to increase the amount of resources we are giving to church leaders in Mexico, including classic literature (Spurgeon, Puritans, etc), books, DVD’s, CD’s, study guides, and other resources. But before this happens, we need to start small and begin with one important title, and J & R is the perfect title to begin with.

Where can I find more information?

For those who would like more information, you can contact Josef Urban here.

Or visit their website: www.puregospeltruth.com 


MAY THE LAMB WHO WAS SLAIN RECEIVE THE REWARD OF HIS SUFFERING!!!

Dear brethren and friends,

We give the Lord thanks for all our dear brothers and sisters who faithfully pray for us and support our mission. God has been gracious to us, and we hope and pray you are ever experiencing greater outpourings of grace and blessings from on high as you seek to glorify the worthy name of Jesus Christ, counting this world as dung and rubbish that you may gain Christ. Are you living for Him?

Only one life; twill soon be past.
Only what’s done for Christ will last!
And when I’m gone how happy I’ll be,
If the lamp of my life had been burned out for Thee!

May the Lord help us and make us willing in the day of His power to glorify our risen Savior in the midst of a twisted and perverse generation.

Here is an overview of what is happening:

First, an update on the family. Baby Josiah is now 4 months old, and growing a lot. He has been healthy, with the exception of the sickness he now has which is causing a fever and congestion. Your prayers for our little guy are so much appreciated. Lina is doing well. The 4 boys are doing well. Cesar got beat up the other day by an older kid because he was preaching to him. Cesar actually managed to seat all these kids down that he went to school with, and as they were seated in a row, he got out his Bible and began calling out their sin and preaching the Gospel to them. Our 4 boys, even though they’re homeschooled, have to go to school every so often to take periodic tests for the sake of academic advancement recognized by the government, so they preach at recess! They actually stand up with a Bible and passionately open air preach to all the kids. Then they come home with stories about how they were persecuted, cussed at, and mocked by the other kids, and how the teachers rebuke them and forbid them to preach. Cesar actually got walloped pretty bad and had an ugly wound on his shoulder from being slammed into a wall by a bigger kid who got angry at him for preaching and telling him that all liars will have their part in the lake of fire. No one told them to do this, and yet they keep doing it. Lina and I have never told them to preach at school, yet they keep doing it. Yet I want to be careful not to discourage them and quench their zeal. Please pray much for these little guys. Please pray for Lina also, who is consumed with caring for baby Josiah.

We have started a new church plant. I have been travelling to Mexico City every Saturday since the first weekend of November in order to preach and hold meetings in a hotel conference room. It is a long story how all this came about, but the providence of God lead us launch forth in this new endeavor. On that first weekend in November, I was expecting just a small handful of people to show up, and to my surprise, over 100 people came to the meeting! We have a steady attendance of about 80 people now every Saturday evening. In addition to preaching, I have been meeting with these people personally and am seeking to help them and counsel them on many issues and struggles they have. There is scarcely a meeting that is not interrupted by an outburst of tears. Some of these people seem to demonstrate a real hunger for the Word. Many of these people come from bad churches (I will spare you the details) and are desperate to be a part of a biblical church, and a good handful are new converts. They are growing in truth and sanctification and we have been blessed to hear of the conversion of some of them recently.

So you may wonder how I’m able to preach in Mexico City and in Guadalajara at the same time? Well, I take a bus to Mexico City early on Saturday morning, arrive Saturday afternoon, preach on Saturday evening, then take an all-night bus back to Guadalajara and arrive in Guadalajara on Sunday morning, and then preach in the church in Guadalajara and spend the Lord’s Day in our church. It is exhausting. The Lord has been helping me and our labor in the Lord is not in vain. Thankfully, Brother Aaron Block has been helping a lot with preaching and has been a great blessing to the work.

I know some are thinking that this is too much work and therefore, is unwise. But how can we leave these dear precious babes in Christ to the wolves? How can we throw their precious souls to the dogs? I tell you, there is no labor that our Lord is not worthy of. I say this solemnly, but I fear that some think this sort of thing is extreme and unwise simply because they’re lukewarm, and would never consider pouring out all their strength for the sake of the Gospel. We think too much on our comfort and on preserving the commodity of our nice little brand of American Christianity rather than the proclamation of the Gospel and the extension of Christ’s Kingdom. We want a crown but we won’t take up the cross; we want heaven but we won’t confront and suffer the rage of Hell; we want happiness but we’re weak and anemic in Gospel holiness. Our whole value system seems to be the opposite of Jesus’ and Paul’s. I’m sick of nominal Christianity that is all talk but no power, all psychology without a true experience of Biblical Pnuematology, all exegesis of the ancient text but no living example of applying that text to experience and walking in real New Testament Christianity. And then we say it’s all OK and justify our sickly, weakly, anemic, prayerless, heartless, and pathetic Christianity by blaming it on the sovereignty of God like good orthodox little Reformed boys and girls and say, “Well I guess it’s just not the Lord’s will that souls get saved, churches get planted, and strongholds of the devil get devastated”. It makes me want to weep, scream, and vomit. Oh Lord, save us from ourselves!

(Please excuse my preachy, frustrated rant, and pray for me, and pray for more God-sent laborers to help us.)

The church plant in Guadalajara is growing. We currently have about 7 people who are being considered for membership, who I have been meeting with to inquire into their testimonies and understanding of the Gospel. Some of these are in the process of awaiting baptism. Four of these are recent conversions. This seems like a lot of people to have at once, but they’ve basically come in a wave; and this after quite a period of stagnation with regards to numerical growth. We have seen many visitors come and go in the meantime.

Please pray for the Lord to save more souls. The attendance is probably averaging about 70 on Sundays. Yet our membership is currently under 30. There are people who have sought me out to enquire about salvation, who are being awakened in the meetings. As I meet with them, they often weep and share their burdens, struggles, fears, and sins. They are miserable, somewhat like Christian in Pilgrim’s Progress before arriving at the cross. I just hope they make it to Mt. Calvary. A couple of these people are an older couple in their 80’s. A couple of others are as young as teenagers. Even a little boy has recently confessed that he’s lost and wants to be saved. There are a number of people who are in this illuminated, awakened state, recognizing their sinfulness, yet they haven’t yet caught a true glimpse of the glorious free grace of the cross. When the Spirit of God works to save, first comes conviction and illumination, and then comes regeneration. It is regeneration that we are praying for. Brethren, please pray them through to victory! Oh, may they be bathed in the fountain that has been opened for sin and uncleanness, and be able to cry out one day soon:

“He plunged me to victory,
Beneath the cleansing flood!”

On Sundays we typically open the church meeting in the morning with prayer, Scripture reading and exhortation, hymn singing, preaching, and then a fellowship meal. In the afternoon we are currently studying a book together on the Doctrine of God (Paul Washer’s). Then in the evening the church engages in hospital evangelism in which we feed about 200 people and preach the Gospel to them in the open air. On the first Sunday of each month, we also have a members meeting, in which we exhort one another, rebuke one another, talk about issues in the church, pray for one another, and observe the Lord’s Supper together.

The Evangelism Ministry is exploding. We are working with Living Waters’ Spanish ministry (Aguas Vivientes) to train pastors and local churches in Biblical evangelism.  In October, Aguas Vivientes hosted their first Evangelism Academy in Spanish right here in the city of Guadalajara. I was given the privilege to preach alongside a few other men from the ministry. We had about 50 people in attendance from about 8 different nations, including a handful of pastors. We were able to teach on the Biblical Gospel and Biblical Evangelism for 3 days, and hit the streets with the whole group for a glorious time of open air and one-on-one evangelism. We’ve received testimonies since then of people who were in attendance who are now teaching evangelism workshops in their churches and leading teams out to the streets to preach the Gospel. This has also opened the doors for more invitations to teach conferences amidst fellowships of pastors in other places.

We have another conference programmed for February in the state of Chihuahua, in which we are expecting about 80-90 pastors to be present, each with some key leaders from their respective congregations. Please pray for this, brethren. This is a huge opportunity to preach the Gospel, teach on evangelism, and distribute solid resources that can potentially affect hundreds of churches. I’m also in contact with a pastor in Nicaragua who heads up a fellowship of pastors, who is organizing a 5-day training workshop for 25 pastors on the Biblical Gospel and Biblical Evangelism in Nicaragua. The training will consist of about 20 hours of instruction, so I hope to be able to expound somewhat in depth on the doctrines of grace, the attributes of God, soteriology, and the practical bearing all this has on evangelism. We have set the date for this conference in April, if the Lord wills. By the grace of God, we are seeing the beginnings of not just a ministry, but a movement. Many pastors write us or call us constantly, churches are being reformed, some churches are being divided over truth, and people are returning to the Gospel. Your earnest petitions and pleas for mercy before the throne of grace are desperately desired for the sake of our poor and pitiful efforts.

The evangelical idol of decisionism is being smashed quickly, as we teach on evangelism and expose this golden calf of the modern church. Though not everybody receives it immediately, we are seeing a surprising amount of receptivity and are seeing some pastors repent of their unbiblical practices. Some of them resist at first, and say that they’ve been in ministry for decades and have never heard these things, but then they later admit that it’s all Biblical –and then turn around and invite us to go to their churches to preach to their congregations! By the grace of God, we are seeing churches being equipped and leading teams out to the streets to preach the Gospel all over Mexico. The Lord is shaking things. I have more invitations for conferences than I’m possible able to accept and must turn down the majority of them. The harvest is great but the laborers few. Please pray for me, my family, our team… and for more laborers.

Recently we were privileged to participate in a DVD giveaway in Guadalajara. The giveaway was sponsored by Wretched Ministries who very graciously sent us 2,400 DVD’s of “La Pregunta Mas Grande”, an evangelistic DVD with a sound presentation of the Gospel in Spanish. Our church went to the streets and distributed all these DVD’s in about 4 hours on December 5th. We had 25 brethren involved and it was a great time of street evangelism.

I had an intense encounter just as we began the day. Just as the team met together, before we began to pass out DVD’s, a man came up to us. He asked us what we were doing, and we told him about the giveaway. He was happy to receive a DVD. Then he asked for prayer, saying that he was a drug addict and desperately needed God in his life. I began to share the Gospel with him, and as I got to the cross and began expounding on the glories of Calvary, he began weeping profusely. He said, “I believe that”, but then added that in spite of “believing”, he knew he was lost because of his sinful lifestyle. He explained that his heart was so hardened against God that prior to this day, he didn’t want anything to do with God, but that this day he began to feel a great sorrow in his heart over his sin, and explained that he knew it was the Lord convicting him of his need to get right with Him. He also said that he deserved everlasting damnation and was no better than the Devil. I told him that was true, but that no sin is greater or more powerful than the precious blood of Christ, and that the sinless Son of God died as the divenely-appointed Substitute for wretched sinners like us. I explained to him the concept of God’s holy hatred of sin and wrath against sinners, but also that His Beloved Son became the object of that holy hatred and wrath on that cursed tree in order to placate God’s fierce anger and satisfy His perfect justice, and He did it all because of the great love with which He loved us. I urged him to repent and believe the Gospel immediately, to trust in the righteousness which God has provided for unworthy sinners through the death and resurrection of His Son, and to look to Christ alone for an imputed, “alien” righteousness. I was able to explain to him the concepts of justification and regeneration, and testify about how the Mighty God can liberate enslaved addicts from both the guilt and the power of sin. He then asked me to pray for him, so I did. In the midst of the prayer, a demon began manifesting in this man attempting to cast him to the ground, so I wrapped my arms around him and held him up, fearing that if I didn’t he would hit the concrete and harm himself, and then I commanded the spirit to come out in the name of Jesus Christ. A man that was walking by stopped and gazed at us with a dumbfounded look when this occurred, but walked off before I could preach to him. After some more strange manifestations which appeared to signify the exodus of this unwelcome guest of darkness, the man, drenched in sweat and tears, said that he felt the power of God in his body and was shocked by what had just happened. He said that He would repent and serve the Lord. Of course, this man seemed very eager to watch the DVD after this peculiar occurrence. I must add here for the sake of clarification (so that I’m not confused with the hyper-charismatics) that I don’t go around seeking these types of experiences, or to exorcise demons, but in this particular case, the Lord brought about an encounter with an evil spirit that required confrontation. I do believe we have been given authority to trample snakes and scorpions and in these types of cases, we are justified in using it for the glory of Christ. We are in a real spiritual war, and situations like these serve to remind us of the reality of the spiritual that we tend to be so blinded to in our materialistic Western culture.

I preached at a conference in Autlan, Jalisco in October. The subject was the 5 Sola’s of the Reformation, and I was assigned to preach on Soli Deo Gloria. There were a handful of pastors present, and it seems like the Lord is awakening them to the doctrines of grace and purging some of them of false doctrine. Part of this is due to the labors of a couple of other men, namely Paul Walker and Dan Grindstaff, who I’ve been privileged to meet and conversate with. A few of the brethren from our church plant in Guadalajara were also able to exhort a youth group in this place about the dangers of false professions, youthful lusts, wordliness, sexual sin, etc., preach the Gospel, and share their testimonies. Their exhortations were powerful and I believe God owned the time. I am in contact with a fellow missionary who abides in that city who is laboring to the same ends for which we are laboring: To see a modern Reformation and revival of the doctrines of grace and the Biblical Gospel in Mexico.

Our website ministry in Spanish has been exploding recently (www.cristianismobiblico.com). We are hearing from brethren all over Latin America that the Lord is using it to open their eyes to truth, and confirm them in the doctrines they’ve heard from Spurgeon, MacArthur, Washer, etc. Many invitations are pouring in through it to go to different cities to preach in churches and fellowship groups, but they are almost all being denied at this time. People write us from all over asking for a biblical church in their city. Some are driving long distances to meet with us for counsel (from other states in Mexico). We have received testimonies of people’s conversions through it also recently, including some Spanish speaking women in Japan! Others are passing the teachings along to their pastors, fellow congregants, and families. A revolution is going on in at least two different churches right now because of it. Some, who can’t find a biblical church in their city, are tuning in on live streams over the internet to hear Sunday’s sermons. It has boggled my mind to think of how the Word of the Lord is running mightily through the internet. Much of this is due to the constant work and dedication of Brother Aaron, who records the sermons, edits them, and uploads them to the internet.

Unfortunately, we receive so many emails now that Aaron and I can’t respond to them all, so many go unanswered. However, another dear brother in the Lord in Guadalajara is now about to come on board full time with the ministry to help us with everything. We are in the process of changing the whole website, which will update it to the most recent technology, and serve to better organize the content. Then it is our goal to add many more resources, which will increase the traffic. This should be done within the next month, Lord willing.

Please pray for these things.

Soli Deo Gloria,

josef urban
www.puregospeltruth.com

Over the past couple of months we've been busy plugging away in the church plant in Guadalajara, attempting to send down roots and to become more firmly rooted and grounded as a church. In addition, we've been extremely blessed to be able to host brethren from Peru and the United States for two back-to-back conferences we had in Guadalajara. We had around 100 people show up for each of the conferences. We are extremely grateful and humbled by their visits and give thanks to God for their lives and ministries.

I hope to get a picture of the church one Sunday soon. Though about half of the brethren were absent, here's a picture during a recent fellowship cookout:

Here's a picture of some of the brethren evangelizing on the streets downtown with their T-shirts. The sign says, "Danger! Sin Kills":

The first conference we had in the beginning of June was with Martín Zacarías and Eder Machuca. Martín is a dear beloved brother in the Lord and a seasoned preacher who pastors a church in Lima, Peru and oversees HeartCry Missionary Society's work in Peru. Here's a couple of pictures of Martín and Eder with Lina and I and with some of the brethren:

Unfortunely, I don't have any pictures of the actual conference! Sorry... but if you speak Spanish you can see the sermons online at this link.

The conference was a tremendous blessing and the Lord really confirmed a lot of strong truth to many hearts with convicting power and encouragement in the Spirit. The conference theme was "The Biblical Church and the Biblical Family". On one of the conference days, we started at 10am and didn't finish until about 2am! And many people stayed the whole time, hungry for truth! There was preaching and fellowship all day, with sermons, Q and A sessions, and exhorting one another to press on and glorify Christ.  Almost 2 months have gone by and I can say that there is fruit that has resulted from their time here.

We were greatly edified by brother Martín, believe their visit was useful and a great blessing, and hope to be able to work with them again. I was encouraged to hear how the Lord is using them all over Latin America and surprised to hear that many of our burdens and ministry methodology is very similar, as what they are doing in Peru is very similar to what we are praying and laboring to see happen in Mexico, in terms of training men, working to see the Lord raise up laborers, and planting biblical churches. 

We were also blessed to receive a visit from Tim Conway, pastor at Grace Community Church of San Antonio (our overseeing church). Along with brother Tim came 4 others from the church, including a couple young ladies who are staying with us until August to help out with the ministry. Their visit was also a tremendous blessing and encouragement to us.

We hosted another conference in order to take advantage of Tim's visit. This conference also consisted of a few days of preaching, fellowship and Q and A sessions. We had a good turnout, and the Lord certainly used the Word that was preached to convict, admonish, rebuke, exhort, encourage, edify and bless. We believe the time was very fruitful and the Lord used it to shake some religious sleepers from their drunken stupor.

Unfortunely, I don't have any pictures from this conference either! But, we do have the videos online on our Youtube Channel. They are in English and Spanish.

Many new faces have been coming to the church in Guadalajara recently. The work is growing, not just in number, but by the grace of God, in a genuine work of grace in the hearts of people. There are several professions of faith that have been made recently by people who seem to have experienced a Spirit-wrought conversion. A couple have already requested baptism. Several more seem to be under conviction, awakened to their lost state, and I pray they are occupying themselves with a due diligence to striving to enter the narrow gate. Please pray that the Lord of glory would open their eyes to behold the perfect, finished work of Christ and embrace him with the arms of faith so that they may be saved and find rest for their souls from their wearisome burden of sin.  

Our average Sunday attendance is now numbering in the 40's. Our church membership has grown by one person (however, a person has also been removed). However, we currently have 8 people seeking membership, most of which, if not all, will most probably soon be added to the number. I say these things not to call attention to increasing numbers (which can be deceiving and don't necessarily signify a true work of the Spirit of God), but to inform you so you can know the progress of the church plant and pray accordingly, knowing that we are making use of due means to care first and foremost for the purity of the church rather than the size of the church. Yet at the same time, I am encouraged that the Lord is doing a work in Guadalajara by HIs grace, and that the work is growing because of His blessed hand upon it. It is my heart's desire that the Lord would save souls and add to his church constantly (Acts 2:47).

More brethren are occupying themselves in ministries and responsibilities in the church, which is encouraging. More are going out to evangelize on the streets, in a drug rehabilitation center, and now at two different area hospitals. The prayers in the prayer meetings center around the salvation of souls, the comforting of saints in affliction, the saint's growth in grace, and the expansion of the Gospel in Guadalajara, Mexico and beyond. Different sisters have taken responsibility to rotate the cooking of fellowship meals for our Sunday meetings. It is encouraging to see the brethren care for one another, love one another, go out of their way to help one another and bear each other's burdens, and serve one another. I am encouraged that the Lord's hand is on the work because while one's zeal for public ministry can possibly be feigned, the organic fellowship that flows from a heart filled with Christlike brotherly love cannot --and both time and space, along with the potential of betraying personal details, prevent me from illustrating with many particular accounts of how this is happening among us to the glory of God. 

Projects on the table right now with regard to the church plant, which I am currently working on include:

• The church's official statement of doctrine.
• The church's constitution (detailing how members meetings and other practical matters function).
• The purchasing of a "church library" (this will be a collection of books which promote sound doctrine in the Spanish language) to lend and sell books to those in the church. Initially, I will purchase about 60 books of different titles but the plan is that this library will grow and expand over time.
• The constructing of a 40-square meter roof structure in order to expand the space where we hold meetings (due to the fact that we are packed to capacity and have no more room).
• Purchasing and installing a sound system to amplify the preaching of the Word in the meetings of the church and to enable the preaching to be heard in an "overflow room/crying room".

Other important projects are planned for the future if the Lord wills, not the least of which includes prayers and plans about strategic ways to increase our evangelistic exposure and outreach, but this gives you an idea of our current projects at the moment. Please pray for our evangelistic efforts in Jalisco, as two of the major possibilities on the near horizon seem to be radio ministry in Guadalajara and prison ministry. In addition, I have several outside preaching engagements at conferences for September and October here in Jalisco and in another state in Mexico. I'm also seeking to revise and print a booklet I authored explaining the Gospel, and finalizing the printing of 50,000 tracts for distribution around Mexico. We need your prayers, for without the grace of God all our efforts are just the vain contrivances of fleshly ambition that will leave no lasting fruit. We dare not run without the pillar of fire and the cloud of glory leading the way. We need the power of the Living God. And Mexico desperately needs the Gospel.

Brethren, if I only told you of the ministry possibilities opening up... there are open doors on all sides. Yet the laborers are so very few and we are limited by our lack of laborers. This is by far our greatest need.

Yet, last but not least, LINA IS ABOUT TO GIVE BIRTH WITHIN THE NEXT COUPLE OF WEEKS!!! We are excited and I am somewhat fearful at the same time, as we await the arrival of our first child. I want to express my heartfelt gratitude for those who are shown their love and care for us and have been praying for her and the baby. We are thankful for all the prayers, words of encouragement, and gifts from the saints. May our sovereign God who raised Jesus Christ from the dead richly bless you and encourage your hearts, brethren!