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!

The Spirit of God is moving in Mexico. We are seeing the beginning of an awakening to the true biblical Gospel and to biblical evangelism in this country. Last weekend’s conference in Hidalgo was a truly amazing experience that was orchestrated by nothing less than the powerful hand of God. 

Gathered together over the weekend were 11 pastors and about 160 people which consisted of a core group from each of their churches. There were about 10 different local churches represented from Tulancingo and the surrounding region, including a few Baptist churches, a Methodist church, a couple Pentecostal churches, and others. Unlike previous conferences, all the people seemed to stay the entire time, and in fact, their number grew over the course of the 2 days. I believe the Lord gave me much grace to expound on Biblical truth and to instruct in the Gospel and evangelism. Many hungry hearts were present that seemed to be surprisingly open and receptive.   

Over the 2 days we showed 5 different videos from the Way of the Master Basic Training Course in Spanish. In addition, I had 6 sessions of live preaching that consisted of sermons and PowerPoint teachings. I taught on themes such as:

• Foundations for Effective Evangelism. (The glory of God in evangelism, the biblical mandate, refuting common excuses for not evangelizing, etc.)
• The Importance of using the Law in Evangelism.
• Procuring True Conversions in Evangelism (and the dangers of false conversion).
• The error of using the sinner’s prayer and other modern, unbiblical methods.
• What is true regeneration and the marks of a true convert.
• Repentance and Faith: The only proper, biblical response to the Gospel.
• Elements of the Biblical Gospel (a full explanation of the true Gospel as contrasted with the modern gospel).
• How to engage strangers with the Gospel (giving out tracts, using the “Good Person test”, etc.).

The conference is as dedicated to “tearing down” many of the false methods of modern evangelism as it is to “building up” and teaching how to evangelize. This is needful, as it wouldn’t be wise to build on a faulty foundation of the modern gospel. That being said, we expected many to “kick against the goads” and reject what was taught, especially among the pastors. Experience tells us that this is often the case. However, surprisingly, many seemed to humble themselves and to, like the Bereans, “receive the word with all eagerness, examining the Scriptures to see if these things were so”. Many were frantically flipping through their Bibles and diligently taking notes of everything.

During the break times between teaching sessions, the people, including some of the pastors, stormed me with questions wanting to know more. Some were so moved that they invited me to hold conferences in other parts of Mexico. I received another 4 different invitations to do other conferences in the future, including one up in the mountains of Puebla amongst some indigenous churches, and another to the regional Methodist churches. I’ve never worked with Methodist churches before, but if we can get them preaching the Law and the Gospel, and proclaiming the new birth and evangelizing like John Wesley, we may see a revival in the midst of what many consider to be a dying church.

What is even more amazing is that 10 of the pastors who came have organized themselves together into an evangelistic alliance, and have agreed to each teach this very same conference in each of their churches to their entire congregations in 2 months, and then to unite their efforts to systematically evangelize the whole city. They each purchased a WOTM Basic Training Course in order to show the videos to their churches, and entreated me to pass onto them the notes and PowerPoint presentations I used so they can train their congregations and teach them what they were taught in the conference. This greatly surprised me, especially that they wanted the notes and PowerPoints, because these things present no “light” Gospel. They have the plans to each work in the meantime to invite their entire larger networks and fellowships of pastors to a conference in February, and to have me return to teach the same conference to those who come from their larger pastoral networks.

One pastor exclaimed to me and many other people, “I feel like Josiah who just found the Law in the temple!” (see 2 Kings 22-23). He explained that he’s been in ministry for over 25 years, but feels like he has just been awakened to the truth. He seemed both humbled and convicted and yet joyful at the same time. He also expressed that he would be kicked out of his movement (a fellowship of churches similar to a denomination) and lose his friends for preaching these things but didn’t care, saying that all that matters is “the truth”. Other pastors mentioned that they are tired of the modern gospel and the results it gets (“backsliders” who never slid forward in the first place, false converts, church members who lack zeal, etc.) and would from henceforth preach the whole counsel of God.

Yet this is not all… what really moved me was what happened after the conference:

On Saturday evening, we left the conference center and hit the streets with the Gospel. Over 60 people came along. After equipping them all with Gospel tracts and organizing them into squads each headed by a pastor, and then into units of 2 or 3 persons each under each squad, we sent them into different sectors of the downtown area, and flooded downtown Tulancingo with the biblical preaching of Law and Grace. It was like an army of soldiers of the cross flooding the streets and battering the gates of Hell with the Gospel. Lost people were hearing the Gospel everywhere. It was awesome! Many people stepped out of their comfort zone and engaged strangers for the very first time. Afterwards, we gathered together and those who thus evangelized for the first time shared their testimonies. Tears were rolling and Christ was glorified. Brethren testified that they’ve never experienced anything like this before, filled with fresh zeal and excitement to make Christ known. I heard numerous people making commitments among themselves to do this on a weekly basis. Some said they wish to begin open air preaching. Oh, this thrills my soul with holy gratitude and intense longing to see Mexico thoroughly saturated with the biblical Gospel of Jesus Christ. This is nothing short of a move of the Spirit of God and if the Lord wills, the beginning of a movement of biblical evangelism in Mexico.

Here's just a few pictures from the evangelism on Saturday evening. There were MANY more sharing the Gospel, but these pictures will give you an idea of what was going on... (click on the picture to enlarge)

Brethren, please keep praying for the salvation of Mexico and the purity of her church. We are earnestly praying for a widespread movement of Biblical evangelism in Latin America. I’m praying and hoping this is a taste of what is yet to come. Our God is faithful, and He is a living, powerful God –this is nothing beyond His reach.

Brethren, please keep your prayers burning on the altar with a white-hot fervency for the salvation of Latin America. False gospels and distorted gospels have reigned far too long and it's time they be challenged.

Soli Deo Gloria,
Doulos Kristou Iesou,
Josef Urban