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Ezra chapter number seven, the part that I want to focus on is beginning in verse number six where the Bible reads, This Ezra went up from Babylon, and he was a ready scribe in the law of Moses, which the Lord God of Israel had given. And the king granted him all his request, according to the hand of the Lord his God upon him. And then jump down to verse ten, the Bible reads, For Ezra had prepared his heart to seek the law of God, of the Lord rather, and to do it, and to teach in Israel statutes and judgments. What I want to preach about tonight is this subject, a ready scribe. I want to preach about being prepared, preparing your heart, and being ready unto every good work. Ezra is a man that because he was prepared by God, and because he had spent time preparing himself and preparing his own heart, when an opportunity came to do something great for God, he was ready to step in and fill that role and make history as a great man of God. Why? Because he was ready at the right time. You see, it wasn't that the opportunity wasn't there, it was just that the right man had to be found for the job. Many people today, they focus more on opportunities than on preparing themselves. What do I mean by that? Well, you hear a lot about people talking about, you know, finding the right job or the right job being out there or there aren't enough jobs or we need the government to create some jobs. But you know what I've always found is that there's always a prepared place for a prepared person. And a person who is ready and prepared and skilled and trained and studied will always find a place to fill that role. A lot of people today, they think that the reason why the world is not being evangelized is that there isn't enough money to do it. And they think that if we just had more money, we could send all these missionaries to the field. I was visiting a church not too long ago and the pastor got up and said that there are all these missionaries that just want to go to the field and do a great work for God, but they just can't get there because the money isn't there. And if God's people would just dig a little deeper and give unto missions, then the world would just be getting the gospel and everybody would be hearing it and the whole world be evangelized because there are just all these great missionaries that are just waiting to go out. I don't believe that for one second. You know, Brother Richard Miller made a great point when he preached recently. He said this, he said, well, if that's really true, if there are all these wonderful missionaries that are just waiting to get to the foreign field and if they would just get the money to get there, well, then that would mean that America is just filled with all these fiery soul winners. And that would mean that the United States must just be getting the gospel like crazy. I mean, if there's just all these just amazing fired up soul winning missionaries that are all stuck in the US, I mean, they must just be knocking doors like crazy and turning this country upside down. No, the reality is that the average missionary is a moochinary, not a missionary, a moochinary. And these guys talk about all the big talk that they're going to do when they get to the foreign field, if they can just raise all this money and raise all this support. But the reality is that most of them are not doing the soul winning right here. They're not working hard here. Let me tell you something. If they're not doing it here, they're not going to do it over there, period. It's harder to do it over there than it is here. Here it's easy. Here everybody speaks English. Here you know the culture. Here you just get in the car and drive for five minutes, but we're supposed to believe that when they get on the other side of the world, all of a sudden a switch is just going to go off and they're just going to be this amazing soul winner that's just going to be starting all these churches and they're going to be the next apostle Paul. It's not real. And let me tell you something. I praise God for a guy like Brother Garrett Kirschway who for the last eight years has had his nose to the grindstone and been winning souls and working hard right here, not waiting for some pie in the sky missions plan or whatever. Now the reason I bring that up is because right here in this passage where we see the prepared person, Ezra the prepared man, I mean he was ready. He was a ready scribe. He'd been studying the law of Moses. He had learned it. He knew the Bible. He was ready to live by its teachings and he was ready to instruct the whole nation of Israel. He was prepared. He was ready for a great work. Notice how God just miraculously supplies the finances when the prepared man shows up. Look what it says in chapter 7 verse 21 there. And I, even I, Artaxerxes the king, do make a decree to all the treasurers which are beyond the river that whatsoever Ezra the priest, the scribe of the law of the God of heaven, shall require of you it be done speedily unto a hundred talents of silver and to a hundred measures of wheat and to a hundred baths of wine and to a hundred baths of oil and salt without prescribing how much. Now I don't know how much a bath is but it sounds like a lot. You know I'm just picturing bathtubs full of wine and oil, you know. I don't know how big that is but it's got to be a lot. And he's saying just give this guy whatever he needs. Give him the money he needs. Give him the food and the drink he needs and he puts a limit on it. You know he doesn't want to just give him a carte blanche. So he says, well, you know, up to. But he says up to a pretty huge amount, you know, a hundred talents of silver. So God is using this king who it doesn't really quite make sense why the king of Babylon would want to finance this and would want to, you know, give him all this stuff. But I'll explain to you why. It's because God wanted him to have that stuff. And if God wants you to have stuff, he'll give it to you. And if God wants a work to happen, he will actually work in the hearts of people. The Bible actually says in the New Testament that God will cause men to give into your bosom many times. You know if he wants to reward you, he can do that. And so the problem today is not a money problem. The problem today is not that there aren't enough job openings in the ministry or enough opportunities for men of God to do something big. It's just that people aren't prepared to do it. There aren't enough Ezra's today. There aren't enough prepared scribes that are ready to do the work for God. God has all kinds of job openings and he has all kinds of opportunities. There are all kinds of places that you could go and do something big for God if you would be ready, if you would be prepared. Now turn if you would to 2 Timothy chapter number 2 in the New Testament. 2 Timothy chapter number 2. Now obviously this sermon applies to everyone in the sense that God has work for all of us to do, not just as a preacher or a missionary. Now obviously we think a lot about preaching and being a missionary, being a pastor just because the work of the Lord is so important and it's so important to us that the gospel go out to all corners of the world and frankly there is a void of leadership right now amongst God's people, of strong leaders, of solid preaching. And so we think a lot about that because we want to see that void be filled. But honestly for every man, woman, boy and girl there is always a prepared place for a prepared person. Not just preaching, not just pastoring, not just starting a church, not just being a missionary. But the Bible says in 2 Timothy chapter 2 verse 21, if a man therefore purge himself from these, he shall be a vessel unto honor, sanctified and meet for the master's use and prepared unto every good work. Flip over to Titus just a couple pages to the right in your Bible. Look at Titus chapter 3 verse 1. The Bible reads, put them in mind to be subject to principalities and powers, to obey magistrates, to be ready to every good work. Now here's one good work that you should definitely be ready for. Go to Romans chapter 1, Romans chapter number 1. And while you're turning to Romans chapter 1, I'm going to read for you from Ephesians 6. This is the scripture about putting on the whole armor of God. And one of the components of the whole armor of God, the Bible says in chapter 6 verse 14, stand therefore having your loins girt about with truth and having on the breastplate of righteousness and your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace. So our feet are shod not with just the gospel. Our feet are shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace. You see, we ought to be prepared to preach the gospel. We ought to have our feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace. Look at Romans 1, 15. So as much as in me is, I am ready to preach the gospel to you that are at Rome also. There's also the famous verse in 1 Peter 3, 15. But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear. You see, if you're prepared to preach the gospel, God will literally bring people across your path to win to Christ because he knows you're ready to do it. There's always a prepared place for a prepared person. And if you are prepared to win souls and if you know what you're doing, God will bring people across your path to win to Christ. Now that doesn't mean we should sit and just wait for them to come to us. Obviously the Bible tells us to go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. Obviously there are all these doors just waiting for you and you can just walk out and knock these doors anytime you want and win souls to Christ. But I can tell you that ever since I started door-to-door soul winning and I actually learned how to do it and I was actually ready to do it, God has also brought people across my path that pretty much just fell in your lap and practically said to you, what must I do to be saved? It happens. And God knows you're ready. I mean literally one time, this is probably one of the most extreme examples of that happening. I remember several years ago I was on a business trip in California and just think of it, I'm almost a thousand miles from home, I'm out in the middle of nowhere, I pull into a gas station, I put the gas nozzle in the pump and the guy next to me is pumping gas. Somehow I just got in a conversation with this guy and he was like the most receptive guy that I've ever talked to that just so easily got saved. He was just ready to get saved. He practically asked me what must I do to be saved. He walked up and started talking to me. He started the conversation and it was the weirdest thing. But it was like God had just brought me a thousand miles, you know, I thought I was going to do a job over here. But God had another reason where he just, and we're both on long trips, we're both out in the middle of nowhere, we just meet at that exact moment at that gas station, the guy who wants to be saved and the guy who knows how to get him saved, who's prepared to get him saved, and the guy got saved. It was exciting. I mean I was excited. I was like, wow, that was God. I mean that was God's work. I mean this guy was talking about how he'd been concerned about his soul and not knowing if he's saved and I was able to win him to Christ and it was so easy and it was just of the Lord that this guy was in my path. Think about how you'd feel, and I want you to apply this to yourself tonight. I don't care if you're a man, a woman, a boy, or a girl. Think about how you'd feel if you were in a situation where God brought someone across your path like that, where it was just so obvious that this was a divine appointment and that person practically just asked you what must I do to be saved and you're basically just stammering and stuttering and tripping and you can't quote the scriptures. You don't know the verses. You don't know how to explain it to them properly. You're not skilled. You're not prepared. I mean wouldn't that be a shame? Wouldn't you feel like a fool? But not only that, if you'd be prepared, I think God will even give you more opportunities like that if you're ready, if you're prepared. You say, well Pastor Anderson, how do I get prepared to preach the gospel? Well being prepared to preach the gospel, being a soul winner, it's similar to speaking a foreign language in a sense. You know the best way to learn a foreign language is by speaking that foreign language, by actually practicing with someone and talking to someone. That's your best training for foreign language. But then there's also some study that you do on your own where you're reading books, you're listening to audio programs and you're learning. When I went to Germany, I learned how to speak German fairly quickly when I was in Germany because I was in Germany for three months and basically throughout the day I'm speaking German with people stammering and stuttering and messing it up but I was getting the practice and getting a feel for it and then every night I'd do a little study out of the books. I did that for three months and by the time I came home, I knew the language fairly well. But soul winning is kind of like that. The best way to learn soul winning is to go soul winning. Now there's no pressure. You don't really have to do anything because you just go as a silent partner. And you go as a silent partner and you just soak it in. You take it in, you observe and you go with a variety of people and observe and learn how to do it. And then another thing that some people do as a baby step is to basically, they knock the door and invite the person to church, ask them if they can present the gospel and then if the person says yes, they say, okay, he's going to show you, you know, and then they kind of turn it over to their soul winning partner. Has anybody ever done that before? A couple of people, anyone, anyone, all right, a couple of people. So yeah, I mean, that works. I remember when I first started, you know, I'd done that before or like when people are first learning how to do it in Spanish, they'll greet the person and talk to the person a little bit in Spanish and they'll say, hey, is it all right if my pastor shows you or is it all right if he shows you? Sure. And then just kind of pass it off to them. You know, you learn by doing it. You learn by getting out there and hitting the streets and knocking the doors. You start out as a silent partner, but then there's some additional book learning that you can do as well. Like how about memorizing the verses that comprise the plan of salvation? How about memorizing Romans 3-10, memorizing Romans 3-23, memorizing Romans 6-23, memorizing John 3-16, memorizing Acts 16-31 so that you're ready to preach the gospel and I can't even count how many times that I had the opportunity to witness to someone and I didn't have my Bible with me. I didn't have a Bible. And so it was all just from memory. But even if you have a Bible with you, it's so much easier to show the scriptures and to read them fluidly if you have them memorized. You're more comfortable. You have more confidence because you know the material. So let me ask you this, how much preparation are you putting into being a soul winner? Have you memorized the Romans road? Have you memorized the soul winning verses? Have you spent any time out door-to-door soul winning as a silent partner? And look, you can say whatever you want about how hard it is or how, you know, it's just not your gift, but you know what, you don't have to be that gifted to walk around and stand next to somebody while they give the gospel. That doesn't take any gift. How gifted do you have to be to walk up to a door with someone and just stand there while they preach the gospel and just provide that person with fellowship and provide that person with silent prayer in your head? That doesn't take much of a gift. That doesn't take, you know, Jesus Christ dragged the cross up Calvary's mountain and was crucified and died and was buried and three days later rose again. Okay, he did a lot for you. Are you willing to walk down a street and just be present for some soul winning? I mean the Bible commands us to go out into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. The Bible commands us to teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. The Bible commands us to be witnesses unto Him, both in Jerusalem and in Judea and in Samaria and unto the uttermost part of the earth. Are you fulfilling that command? Are you even ready to fulfill that command? You see, preparation, being ready is of the greatest importance that you might be used of God. You have to start by being prepared and you're going to have opportunities with your parents, your siblings, your cousins, people that you work with, people that you love. I'm going to tell you this, the more door-to-door soul winning you've done, the more likely you will win your loved ones to the Lord. I can speak from experience because I remember when I was a teenager, I tried getting co-workers saved before I'd done soul winning before. Before I was in a soul winning church and learned about soul winning, I tried to get schoolmates saved, I tried to get co-workers saved, I tried to get relatives saved and I failed 100% of the time. I got zero people saved. Then I started going door-to-door, learned how to do it, got some preparation, got some skills, learned what I was doing and then I went back to my job, won people to Christ, talked to relatives, won them to Christ, talked to friends and family and won them unto the Lord. Why? Because I got the preparation, I got the training, it's important. But not only soul winning, how about being ready to preach a sermon? Go to 2 Timothy chapter 4 and obviously this is for the men, sorry Joyce Meyer, but this is for the men to preach a sermon, to preach in church. Look, I can tell you literally of two stories from people that I know personally where they showed up at a church, and I know this sounds weird but this is a true story, two different people who showed up at a church on a Wednesday night and they got there, it was a smaller church, they got there and the preacher wasn't there and nobody was there to preach and nobody knew what to do. And both of these situations, this guy got up and said, it was two different guys, but got up and said, you know what, I'm a preacher and I'll be glad to preach the sermon. And they basically just said, okay, get on up there and preach. And he was able to preach in church to like 50 people that he didn't expect to be preaching. Now think about how cool that would be for that to be you, you young guys that are interested in preaching, that are learning how to preach. Think about how cool it would be if you were visiting a church on a vacation and the preacher is AWOL and they said, we don't know what to do, we don't have anybody to fill in and you stepped in and said, I'm a preacher, I'd love to fill in and you were able to preach the word of God and stir people up and do a work for him. I mean, wouldn't that be exciting to be used like that? When preparation meets opportunity, it's exciting. Now look at 2 Timothy chapter 4 verse 2, it says, preach the word, be instant. Now the term be instant means that you're just ready to go at a moment's notice. I mean, what is instant coffee? It's ready. It's ready to go. It's just, it's, it's that fast and you're drinking it. So when the Bible says, preach the word, be instant, it's saying you are just ready to preach at any moment. You're ready to go. You're instant. In season, out of season, you're instant, reprove, rebuke, exhort with all long suffering and doctrine. There's always a prepared place for a prepared person. I'm telling you, if you write a good sermon, God will give you the opportunity to preach that sermon. I believe that. I don't have any doubt about that. There's not a shortage of places to preach. There's not a shortage of places to start churches. There's not a shortage of places to evangelize. No, the harvest truly is plenteous, but the laborers are few. Pray ye the Lord of the harvest that he'll send for laborers into his harvest. And let me tell you something, the emphasis on the word laborer, meaning people who want to work hard. What we lack today is people who want to work hard and step in and fill these vacancies and fill these opportunities. You see, all over America right now, there's a great hunger for soul winning, King James, Bible preaching Baptist churches that won't compromise the truth, and that's why when we hold these soul winning marathons all across America, just a whole bunch of people that we don't know show up. I mean, a hundred people will show up. Who are all these people? And most of them have never even been soul winning, but they're ready to go soul winning. They show up, and they're ready, and more than half of them have never even done it. A lot of them aren't even going to church anywhere. They're just, they're ready to go. They're waiting, but they're like sheep having no shepherd. They need a leader, and I can't even tell you, I literally get an email every day or message or some kind of a voicemail or something, and Brother Baker could testify to these kind of messages. Hey, send somebody to this city. Send somebody to my city. Send somebody to this city. We need a preacher like you over here. We need it over here. We need it over here, and here's the thing. I want to send out preachers out of this church. I'm not trying to build the biggest church in the world here. I want to send you out. I want to start churches all over America and all over the world. I want to take my best church members and get rid of them. Why? Because I'm not trying to just, you know, hoard them all for myself like, oh, I've got to keep all these really good like, you know, tithing families and these really good, you know, faithful members so that they can work for me. No, no, no. It's about getting the gospel to the whole world, not just Phoenix. Look, even if we send people out, our church is still going to grow. It's still growing. Look, I want to send out as many preachers as possible. I want to send out pastors. I want to start churches all over America that are independent Baptist churches, but you know what? We don't have people that are prepared. It's a shame. I mean, the mission fields are there. The cities are there and in fact, you know, think about it, when I started Faithful Word Baptist Church, I didn't know any, there was nobody waiting for me in Phoenix. Phoenix and Tempe were not clamoring for, you know, send us Pastor Anderson. We want Pastor Anderson. Nobody was asking for me. I did not know a soul in this city and my wife and I showed up with our three kids in a Ford Escort with, everything we owned was in that Escort, literally with the five of us. So, I mean, we had stuff under our feet. We had stuff behind our heads. We had stuff in our laps. I mean, that was just all of our earthly possessions was able to fit in a Ford Escort with the five of us and we got here and we knocked on doors and let me tell you, it was hard to get started because I'll tell you what, it's hard when you're running 7, 8, 9 and you're meeting in your house, it's hard to get people to come to church because people look at it like, whoa, you know, you only got eight people, you're meeting in your living room. You know, they want the big, you know, the building and the, you know, they want like what we have right now where it's nice and there's a big nice building and there's a few hundred people. That's what they want. Okay. So, we showed up and we didn't have that and after a year of laboring, we were averaging like 10 people in our services after a year of working hard. After two years, we averaged 20. After three years, we averaged 30. After four years, we averaged 40. After five years, we averaged 50. After six years, we averaged 60. Not exactly phenomenal fast growth. And then after six, seven years, it really started to pick up speed and now we're going by like 60, 70 people a year. But for the longest time, it was just 10 people a year. So it was a slow going and let me tell you, it was hard. It was discouraging. You know, you felt like why is it growing so slowly? What's the deal? What's the problem? It was hard work and it was frustrating and it was difficult. But let me tell you something, right now, the guys that we're sending out to start churches right now, that's not their situation. You know, I mean we sent brother Romero to start a church in Fort Worth, Texas and this was a couple years ago and he already had like 40 some people waiting for him. Just first Sunday, he's got 40 people at his church. You know, and then our friend brother Perry started a church in San Antonio. Same thing, boom, 40 some people right there. I mean he had 70 people on his first Sunday morning service and 40, like I think 40 some people stuck with him. You know, some people were visiting from out of town. And so I mean these guys are able to skip like the first five years of struggle, right? I mean they're able to just bypass that difficult like, you know, starting from scratch and you know, it's hard, right? They're able to just skip that. That's awesome. Why? Because the first Sunday, the first Sunday they're baptizing people, they're performing a wedding like a week later. They got 40 some people. I mean they got, they'll have 20 people out soul winning the first week. And I mean they're able to just do great things for God just from day one. They're already thriving and moving forward and going. I mean that's a pretty cool opportunity. You know, I would have loved to have walked into an opportunity like that where, you know, you start a church and there's already 40, 50 people that are just on fire, soul winners just waiting for you. Ready to work, ready to roll up their sleeves, ready to be a part of the team. I mean that's awesome. And I believe that if we send people out to start churches in the future, it's going to be more than that because we've grown so much in the last year or two, it'll probably be more like starting with 60 or 70 people in these towns if they start in a bigger city. So the question that I have is where are all the guys to go do this work? Where are all the guys for me to train? Where are all the men that'll say, here am I, send me? Where are the Ezras? Where are the ready scribes? Where are those who are preparing their hearts for this work? The sad thing is that there are all these cities that are begging for us to send. They want us to send a preacher there to start a church in that town. And we have barely any guys to train. It's a shame. It's a tragedy. And therefore the work goes undone. The cities go unevangelized. America suffers as a nation. Thank God for the men that are being trained. Thank God for the men that are serious about their training and that are serious about actually doing the work to get trained and actually have a plan and a goal to get their butts out there and do something big for God. Not just a bunch of talk and pie in the sky. But you know what? It's not enough. The labors are few. Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest that he'll send forth labors into his harvest. Go if you would to Proverbs chapter 16, Proverbs chapter number 16. Now here's the thing. A lot of young men will frequently ask me this question. Because maybe they're 17, 18, 19 years old and their heart is desirous to be that next man of God, to be that next man for the next generation. They want to be that pastor. They want to be that missionary. But obviously they're too young. The Bible says that we should not suddenly lay hands on any man and we should not send out one who is a novice or one who is obviously not prepared, right? And young men frequently ask me, well, what should I do to get prepared or, you know, what can you do to train me or help me to get prepared? And you know, the biggest thing that I see is that people aren't reading the Bible. And it's like you got a young guy asking you, hey, what can I do to get prepared to pastor? And then you ask that guy, well, how many times have you read the Bible cover to cover? Once, twice, three times. Well, you know what? You're not even really ready to talk seriously about going into the ministry if you can't even read the Bible. So here's an idea for you. When you're young, when you're 18, 19, 20, 21, why don't you get all that Bible reading done at that time? Why don't you start learning? Because you know what Ezra's preparation was? He knew the Bible. And because he knew the Bible really well and he was ready to live it and he was ready to preach it, God put his hand on him and said, well, you're ready to go, well, I'm ready to use you. And he had the good hand of God upon him and then the finances were all taken care of. And it was like he just, I mean Ezra made it look easy. He just waltzes in, he's got all the money, everything's going perfect, God's hands upon him, he's got favor with the king, everything's working out great. He was even tax-free. Did you catch that when we read Ezra 7? It'll be unlawful to impose any taxes or tribute on any minister of the house of God. Would to God that that were the law in America today. You know, the funny thing is the liberals always say, oh, it must be nice to be a pastor to be tax-free. Well, that's funny because I just wrote the IRS a check for 7,500 bucks recently. That's tax-free, huh? Pastors aren't tax-free, that's a lie. But that's a lie that liberals love to tell, it's not even true. You know, I wish it were true. I wish, you know, the king of Babylon would cut us some slack on our taxes. But you know, I mean Ezra is making it look easy. But what, you know what, you don't see is all the preparation though, where Ezra is just spending hour after hour after hour doing what? Reading the Bible. Reading and reading and while other people are goofing off and fooling around and doing everything else, right, he was skipping some of that stuff and sitting down and reading his Bible and learning the law of God so that when the time came, God just opened doors for him, just opened the doors, opened the doors and led him right to it. There's always a prepared place for a prepared person. You want to be a sole winner, you want to win your friends and loved ones to Christ, you got to get prepared. Do the reading, do the saying. You say, oh, Pastor Anderson, I want to be a pastor someday. Okay, how many times have you read the Bible? Well, I'm just finishing my first time through. Well, you know what, come back and talk to me once you've read it like 10 times. You know, honestly, that's the easiest thing you could do to prepare. And it's one of the most necessary things to be a pastor is that you know the Bible. It's real important. And you'd hate to get to a point where you meet the qualifications, you're the husband of one wife and you got your faithful children and you're ruling your house and you're given to hospitality and you're apt to teach and you have the ability to preach and then it's like, oh, whoops, I haven't done the Bible reading. And then, okay, well, let's all sit around and wait while you read the Bible now. Okay, do you think that that's God's will? When people are dying, going to hell, when there's all these places that need churches. But you know what, that's a big problem today amongst the guys that want to go start churches and pastor is that they haven't done the reading that they need to do. They haven't prepared their heart to seek the law of the Lord. And it's a shame that God's work goes undone. You see, in all labor there is profit, but the talk of the lips tendeth only to penury. And not only in all labor is there profit, but I believe that in all learning there is profit as well. You know, if you learn skills, God will give you opportunities to use those skills. If you learn the Bible, you'll have an opportunity to teach the Bible. You say, well, I'm a lady. What can I do? You can teach the Bible to your children. You can teach the Bible to other ladies in the church. You can teach the Bible to your friends and loved ones. And honestly, you say, well, you know, I just really want to get married someday. I'm a single girl and I'd like to get married someday. Okay, why don't you get prepared to be a good wife and then God will give you a good husband? Because there's always a prepared place for a prepared person. See, the Bible says the prudent wife is from the Lord. Well, guess what? If you would work on making yourself a prudent kind of a woman, then God's going to give you to some dude, right? Because you're prepared. You know, why don't you get prepared to be a godly wife and a godly mother and why don't you read the Bible, young lady and young girl? And then as you get yourself prepared, you'll just watch opportunities just open for you. I'm telling you. Just like in Ezra's life where it just seems like everything's just fallen into place, doors are opening, look, if you get prepared, everything works for you. But if you don't put in the work to be prepared, you're going nowhere. You don't memorize that Roman's road, you're not going to be a soul winner. You don't learn how to win souls. Why would God bring people across your path to win to Christ? Why would he give you those opportunities when you're not even ready to take them in the first place? Preparation. Look what the Bible says in Proverbs 16 verse 1 and what I want to show you in this chapter is how God leads us. God leads us when we're prepared, okay? God will actually lead us and give us opportunities if we're prepared for them. It says in verse 1, the preparations of the heart in man and the answer of the tongue is from the Lord. So the Bible is saying here that God guides our preparations, okay? If we yield ourself to him, if we desire to do a great work for God, he will guide us into the preparation we need if we're willing to do the work. Look at verse 3, commit thy works unto the Lord and thy thoughts shall be established. Look at verse number 9, a man's heart deviseth his way but the Lord directeth his steps. So what the Bible is saying in this chapter is that if we will yield ourselves unto the Lord, if we will commit our works unto the Lord and desire to do work for the Lord and commit ourselves unto him, then he will guide our preparations and he will guide our steps and he will direct us to the life that he wants us to live. How do you end up, you know, having a godly marriage and godly children? How do you end up pastoring a church or being a missionary? Or how do you end up being a soul winning church member or a godly deacon or whatever? This is what you do. You spend your time for preparing for whatever God has for you because no matter what God has for your life, it involves knowing the Bible. I mean think about it, like how can you go wrong saying, well I'm just going to read the Bible a lot and then whatever God has for me, I'll be ready for it. I mean how can you go wrong with that preparation? Or how about this, you know what, I'm just going to get really good at soul winning, I'm just going to learn soul winning, practice soul winning, get out soul winning and then God can just use me however he sees fit. And you know what, if you'll commit your works unto the Lord and say, God, you know, I'm willing to do the work of reading, doing the work of studying and doing the work of going out and learning soul winning, you know what, he'll direct you into whatever his will is for your life. See, people are so into determining God's will. You know, what does God want me to do? I don't know if God wants me to start a church here or if God wants me to, who cares, you're not even ready to start a church. And who gives a rip whether you start it here or there? They both need it, right? That's why the what of God's will is more important than the where of God's will. You know, young boys are so worried about finding God's will, you know, who am I going to marry? Which woman is the right one for me to marry? But really, are you even ready to get married? Do you even have the income to get married? Do you have the maturity to get married? Do you have the knowledge to lead your wife spiritually? That's what you ought to worry about because I promise you that if you get the knowledge and if you get the wherewithal and you're ready to go and you desire a wife, God will give you a wife if you're ready. And if you're a woman who prepares her heart and loves the Lord and, you know, God will bless you with a husband, worry more about preparing yourself than trying to find that opportunity that you may not even be ready for. Worry more about just preparing yourself, preparing yourself, getting ready. You know, people want me to train them for the ministry but they haven't even gotten to first base in their own personal life of reading the Bible. And you know what? I don't have time to train people for the ministry that aren't ready. I wish, and listen, it's not that I don't have enough time for people. If you are a man who wants to pastor a church and wants to be a preacher, I have all the time for you in the world. And I mean that. I will drop everything. I will stop everything. I will put everything on the back burner and I will train you and teach you everything I know about how to be a pastor and how to be a preacher. As soon as you actually show that you're serious about going into the ministry and actually do your part and do your prerequisites, I will literally, I promise you, I will drop everything and spend as much time with you as you want to spend with me and I will personally mentor you and train you. And you know what? I've been successful, okay? I'm not bragging. I don't think I'm anything special at all. That's why I believe that any man who actually gets fired up and wants to do what I've done will be able to do what I've done or greater because I'm nothing special. So what you have is the opportunity to have Pastor Anderson who has done it successfully teach you how to start a church. He'll devote all his time to you. He'll teach you everything he knows and then he'll send you somewhere where there's already sixty people waiting for you to just join your church. But can you open your Bible and read it? Can you show up to church? Can you show up to soul winning? I mean, can you put forth some effort? Because that's all I'm looking for. And I'm telling you, it's important. People's lives are hanging in the balance. Souls are hanging between heaven and hell right now. We as God's men stand between the dead and the living. And the opportunities are everywhere. But nobody's there to take them. Nobody's there to be trained. And look, if there's anybody out there that's listening to this sermon online who wants to pastor, I hope that they would hear this sermon and come here and come to me and present themselves at Faith Forward Baptist Church and say, I'm serious. I've read my Bible. I know what I'm ready to do work for God. I'm ready to be trained. I'd say, Hallelujah. You're the person I'm looking for. The harvest truly is plenty, but the laborers are few. You know, Pastor Burzins made a great point when he preached on the church camping trip that we were just on a couple of days ago. He said that there's a lot of talk about praying for revival across America. And I know this. In independent Baptist churches I've been in, it's a common theme. We need to pray for revival. And they talk about revival like it's just this magical thing. It happens, and it's like you don't know when it's going to happen. But it just sort of happens, and it's just like, oh wow, it happened. And you're just kind of waiting, and you're praying for it to happen, and then you kind of sit around wondering if it's going to happen. And these churches that are scaling back their soul, and listen to me, the churches in Arizona, the other independent fundamental Baptist churches, many of them, are literally scaling back soul winning. They're not increasing soul winning, oh no. We're trying to add, we have five soul winning times, we're trying to add more, add more, more soul winning, more people have soul winning, more time. You know what they're doing now? They're scaling it back where they don't even have one per week anymore. You know, I'm not even going to name the churches, but the independent fundamental Baptist churches around Phoenix, several of them that are the soul winning churches, they're now doing it twice a month for one hour on Tuesday nights, twice a month. Some of them are scaling it back to once a month. Once a month soul winning for one hour. In the past it was every week, now it's once a month. They're scaling it back. All the while they're talking about praying for revival. Pray for revival. You know what? This pray for revival thing is the stupidest thing I've ever heard, and I'm sick of it. Sick of it. You can have revival whenever you want. Whenever you want. Pray for revival. What? Why? What? What? Pray. Oh God, please help me to stop being lazy. Is that how you pray for revival? That's the only prayer for revival that would make any sense. Oh God, would you please help me to get rid of all the pink shirts in my closet and all the little lavender shirts and ties? And would you please help me to be a man and start preaching hard in my church? And would you please, God, help me to get my butt out soul winning? And would you please, Lord, help me not to be effeminate and lame and weak of a preacher? And would you please help me to actually start preaching against sin and actually start preaching hard and not being afraid to defend? Lord, would you please give me some courage? Would you please help me not to be a weakling? Would you please help me to stop scaling back soul winning to twice a month and once a month, Lord? Is that what they're praying? Oh God, send us a revival. Oh God, just like in the days of Billy Sunday and D.L. Moody and Charles D. Finney, Lord, would you send us a great revival, Lord? Shut up and go make a revival happen because you know what? God and his power are available at any time. Any time. Don't you believe that? I mean God's power is available at any time. God is just sitting up in heaven waiting for you to get out there and do some work so that revival can happen. The Bible says the eyes of the Lord run to and fro in all the earth. Just looking to show himself mighty, just looking to show his power, just looking for somebody that he can use, looking for an Ezra, looking for a ready scribe. God is ready to send revival in your life. God is ready to send revival in your family. God is ready to send revival in your church. God is ready to send revival in our city, in our state, in our nation. It's us that are the problem. It's not God. I mean God must be frustrated. I mean it must be. God's patient. He's way more patient than I would be. Imagine how irritating it must be for God to listen to these prayers. I mean he's just like, oh God, send us revival and he's just, what are you talking about? What in the world, what do you want me to, what do you think I'm going to send? Like what, are we charismatic now or something like, like, like all of a sudden everybody's just going to woo and then revival comes. What do these people think revival is? You know what revival is? It's when people are getting saved, people are getting baptized, people's lives are being changed, people are getting sent out of their life, people's lives are being transformed, the church is growing, the church is thriving, men are being sent out into all the world to preach the gospel, men are being sent out throughout the nation to start churches. That's what revival looks like. It involves rolling up your sleeves and working. It involves preaching hard. It involves taking a stand. It involves being instant. It involves preaching the word and it involves some preparation and work on your part. It doesn't involve God just pouring out some kind of poofoo dust on a bunch of dead, lazy, liberal Christians and then all of a sudden just revival. These people are going to be praying for revival for decades and it's never going to happen in their lives because they're not making it happen. Oh, you're just carnal. You're trying to do it yourself. We got to just sit back and let God do it. That's not what the Bible teaches anywhere. No, the Bible tells you, go work. Commit your works unto the Lord and thy thoughts shall be established. The Bible says a man's heart deviseth his way but the Lord directed his steps. It doesn't say man sits around with no plan. Man has no plan, no idea, no ambition. No zeal, no attack plan. He just sits around praying for revival and then God directs his steps. Let me just explain something to you. God can't direct your steps if you're not walking. I mean if you're sitting in a chair, okay God, direct my steps, you're not even going anywhere. I mean look down at your Bible there in Proverbs 16, a man's heart deviseth his way. See, first you got to come up with a plan. You need to do some preparation. You need to say, you know what, I'm going to do this. Now here's the thing. God might alter your plan and direct you in directions that you never thought he would take you but sitting and going nowhere, how can God lead you when you're not going anywhere, when you're not doing anything? Look if you've never showed up at a soul winning time, do you think you're just going to become a soul winner by osmosis? I mean look, if you're a guy that never talks to girls, how do you expect to get married? Oh God's going to send revival in my love life. No he's not. You know, you got to do something. Oh I really want to be a soul winner. No you don't. If you want to be, well I just love lost souls. No you don't. Not if you're not at soul winning. Your love has waxed cold if you don't show up to do the work, if you don't show up to go soul winning. Oh I really want to be a pastor someday. No you don't. Not if you're not getting prepared. Not if you're not. Not if you're not, you're not even taking the opportunities to preach that are given to you. You're not even, you're not even fully involved in the ministry of our church here and then you know, but you're going to go pastor someday. No you're not. You have no zeal. You know it's funny, people want to be trained to pastor by me, but here's the thing, if you want me to train you to pastor, that means that you want to be a pastor like me, right? Because if you wanted to be a different style of pastor, you'd go somewhere else and be trained in that church and be that style of pastor. So here's the thing, if you want to be trained at Faithful Word Baptist Church to start a church that's a Faithful Word Baptist style church, obviously it's not going to be exactly the same, nobody's exactly the same, we're all independent Baptists, it's not a denomination, everybody's a little different, that's totally fine. The guys that we've trained and sent out are a little different than me, that's fine. God uses us all in our own way, but assuming that you want to be like me, right? And here's the thing, why don't you understand that when I started Faithful Word Baptist Church, I read the Bible 24 times, you know? But then you think that you're not going to read the Bible but a handful of times and then you're going to go out and duplicate what we're doing here. How's that going to work? You know, or you want to be lazy and spend very little time preparing for the ministry, you want to spend, you know, you want to work your 40 hour a week job and, you know, go home and sit on your butt all evening, right, and not really put a lot of effort into getting prepared for the ministry, not really put a lot of effort into getting involved in the church program here, and then you're like, well I'm going to go out and do like Pastor Anderson. No you're not, because that's not what Pastor Anderson was doing when he was at your stage. I was getting prepared. I was doing the reading. And I'm not trying to lift myself up because God knows my heart, I'm nothing special, okay? But I'm just here to tell you that you have to do some work, you have to put in some effort if you're going to succeed in the ministry. You know what I mean? It's not just going to come to you. And you say, well, you know, I'm offended. You're hurting my feelings. Well, you know what? You're hurting my feelings. You know, if you don't take, if you want me to train you to pastor and you're not taking it seriously, you know, that hurts my feelings. And so I'm just, I'm putting a call out tonight to all of God's people that there's a whole lot of work to be done for the Lord. We have a great opportunity before us, a great open door before us, and we need some men to step in and fill that void. And you know what? The guys that I'm training right now, you know, I want them to go out and serve the Lord and, and, and many of them are, are, are on that right track and they're working on it, but they need, they need this to be refreshed in them. And I hope that there's some other guys out there that are hearing this that would be inspired and say, you know what? I'll be that man. I'll be that pastor. And you know what? I'll bet you, in fact, I'm just, I'm just going to do it right now. Let me just ask you this, out of everybody in this church right now, publicly in front of everybody, who would raise your hand and say, you know what? I'm interested in just possibly, I might like to pastor a church someday. I might like to be a preacher someday. Put up your hand real high, if that's you. Now, now look around the room and you see people, right, that are saying, you know what? That's me. I have that desire. I have that interest, right, okay? I'm telling you that if that, you say, why are you preaching the sermon? Well, did you look around at all the hands? That's who I'm talking to primarily tonight. Let me say this. It's not just going to happen of its own accord. You have to get serious. I mean, look, what if, what if I said, hey, who wants to be a lawyer tonight? Who wants to go to law school and be a lawyer? Now here, yeah, I know, I know, I know you don't want to be a lawyer. Who wants to be a lawyer tonight, okay? And let's say a bunch of hands went up. Let me ask you this. You think you're going to be a lawyer by spending less than one hour a day preparing? How long do people train to be a lawyer? How long do people train to be a lawyer, Brother Davis? About eight years of training to be a lawyer. How long do you think they train for? About 30 minutes a day for eight years, about 20 minutes a day, much more than that, right? But then you know what? You know what? You know what today's generation thinks? They think they could be a pastor of a church and they're going to spend 20, 30 minutes a day preparing for that. Okay, who thinks that preaching the Word of God is more important than being a lawyer? Yeah, I do. Okay, what about being a dentist? How long do you train to be a dentist, do you think? At least like six years, right? What 20 minutes a day, 15 minutes a day? No, these guys that are trained to be a doctor, a lawyer, a dentist, whatever, they spend hour after hour after hour studying and studying and studying and working and working. And you know what? They go up to classes, right? And if they don't have their homework turned in, their teacher gives them an F. You failed. You're going to have to retake this course. They don't just pass them through, no dentist left behind, no lawyer left behind, just kind of rush with it. No, they say, no, you better do the work. You better get trained. You better learn. And you know what? You can't make it, well you know what, maybe you're just not cut out for this line of work. But today's young men who want to preach, they have an attitude that just says, well just pass me through anyway. Even if I'm half-hearted and not doing the work. Look, you have to study hard. You got to do the rea- just like a lawyer would be studying for the bar exam, you better study the laws of God. We don't need another preacher who doesn't know what he's talking about, who's getting up and teaching the pre-tribulation rapture because he doesn't have a clue about Bible prophecy because he didn't do the reading and studying on his own. Nobody reads and studies this book on their own and teaches the pre-trib rapture. That's for people who just don't know Bible prophecy. It's nonsense. And long before I ever came along, there were people in every church who rejected that garbage. They didn't talk about it because you're hated of all men if you say like, hey it's not pre-trib. It's like, ah, you know. But look, we don't need another unknowledgeable preacher. We don't need another guy to get up and preach, he doesn't know what he's talking about, okay. We need people of all those hands that went up, I'm talking to you, hey, why don't you, if that was your hand that was raised, why don't you decide to start treating it like you're training to be a lawyer. I mean, look, people are even going to night school to even be, you know, nurses or, you know, I don't know. What other type of jobs do people go to night school for? What about an accountant? What about a CPA? What's it take to do that? So four years in school and then you study for the exam. Is it a pretty easy exam? Pretty simple? Anybody can pretty much just go in and wing it. They just kind of have a basic, no, it's a really hard test that people spend hours and hours and hours and hours studying for. But then people read their Bible two, three, four times and they're ready to pastor. Read the Bible four times, ready to pastor, no you're not. So look, a lot of those hands that went up were young guys. You know, 18, 19, 20, 21 year olds, hey, you know what, praise the Lord. Start reading now. So that by the time you're married and have the kids and you're established, you'll be ready to go. I started this church when I was 24 years old. Pastor Roger, he meant to have started Verity Baptist Church when he was 24 years old. Why? Because we were 23 and we're like, you know what, I want to pastor. And then we spent a year preparing. No, no, no. The reason we were able to start young is because we started preparing as teenagers. When others were partying, when others were out late and screwing around, Roger Jimenez and I were going out soul winning together week after week and reading our Bibles and getting prepared and getting serious. You know, we talked to the girls, we got married, we had the kids, we did the study, we'd read our Bibles, we started the churches because we were ready to go, folks. And every single one of you that put up your hand, you know what, we could use you. You could be used of God. But you're going to have to get serious about the preparation and getting ready. You're going to have to take it seriously. And look, if you play games about it, don't expect me to take you seriously. I'm not going to take you seriously. But if you're serious and you want to work hard, I've got all the time in the world for you. But if you come to me and I say, well, you know, are you married? No. Well, come back when you're married then. Here's your first assignment. Get a woman to follow you. You can't even get a woman to follow you, but you're going to have a church of hair-legged men following you? No, you're not. You need to at least get one woman to follow you, one woman to believe in your message and want to follow you and want to look to you as a leader. Before you're going to get grown men to follow you, good night. You know, you come to me, I want you to train me for the ministry. How many times have you read the Bible? Three times. Well, come back when you've read it. Come back when you've read it seven or eight times. You know, and when you come back and you've read it seven or eight times, then we can start training you. Because look, here's my minimum standard for sending somebody out to start a church. Read the Bible ten times. That's the standard. That's the minimum. I'm not going to send somebody out to start a church that's read the Bible five times. It's not enough. Look, if you're a layman and you've read the Bible five times, praise the Lord. But you know what? If you're going to pastor a church, shouldn't there be a higher standard? You know how long it takes to read the Bible four times a year? One hour a day. Okay. How much do lawyers study? How much do CPAs study? How much do dentists study? I guarantee you it's an hour a day. Can you spend one hour a day reading the Bible? Then you read the Bible four times. Then it would take you two and a half years to reach that ten read minimum. Okay. Well, if you're starting a church, you should have been saved for about seven years minimum. You know, that's my other standard. Seven years saved, married for at least four years, have two kids and you've read the Bible ten times. Those are my kind of just minimal rule of thumb right there. Okay. Well, if you've been married seven years, I'm sorry, good night. If you've been saved seven years and you haven't read the Bible ten times, then that means you're reading the Bible, you know, less than 30 minutes a day. Well, you know what? If you're a mother or you're a real busy, hardworking layman and you're reading the Bible 15 minutes a day, praise the Lord, I'm not down on you. Hey, if you're just a layman and you're reading the Bible 15 minutes a day, praise the Lord for that. But you know what? You're not going to pastor a church on 15 minutes a day of Bible reading. I'm sorry, but a pastor is supposed to be an expert in the word of God and you should be reading the Bible at least an hour a day if you're training to be a pastor. Good night. Then it will only take two and a half years to reach that level. Look, that's a low level. And I kind of went off on a tangent tonight. I wasn't even planning on talking about that, you know, but I think the Spirit of the Lord just wanted me to talk about that for some reason because frankly, I'm surprised by how many hands went up. I knew that there were guys in our church that wanted to preach. I didn't realize that there were that many. And so I think God wanted me to talk about this because it's just something that everybody needs to hear because I've been talking about some of this stuff with the guys that I'm training, but it's something that we need to talk about to the whole church so that basically other guys could get in and get inspired and understand what to do about preparing to be Ezra, to be a ready scribe prepared under the great works. And look, I'm not just up here blowing smoke. I don't blow smoke. I don't say things that I don't mean, all right? I'm being honest with you tonight. Honestly, I am not a talented person, and it's like, oh, Pastor Anderson, you're just being shy. You're just being humble. My wife knows. See, she's like, yup, he's right. She knows. Was that a yes or a no? What is that? What is that head movement? Listen, I'm not a talented person. I'm not a silver-tongued orator, okay? Not talented. Literally, and I'm not saying this to be down on my wife because I love my wife, and my wife loves me very much and has been extremely supportive of me, but literally six months before I started the church, my wife literally said to me, are you sure you want to be a pastor? Because I honestly, I'm just not sure, and she said it very nicely and gently, but she said, I just am not sure that you actually have the ability to be a pastor. She said, I just don't know if you have the ability to preach, and you know, but honestly, she was right. I'm not kidding. I'm just, I'm being perfectly honest. She said that to me about six months before I started, and you know why she said it? Because she heard me preach a sermon, you know? I got up, and I preached a sermon, and she was just kind of like, I don't know. I don't know about this. I mean, is this what we're going to spend our lives doing, you know? She didn't know, and I'm not faulting her for that because honestly, my preaching was a little bit poor, all right? The only reason that I sort of halfway know how to preach now is because of the fact that I preach like thousands of times. It's just work. It's just working at it. Keep doing it. Keep doing it. I mean, if you keep doing anything, you'll get good at it. Just keep doing it, keep doing it, keep doing it. I've known people that were talented who just, they got up, and they preached, and it was just amazing the first time. I mean, Brother Jimenez was like that. I remember Brother Jimenez. I heard like his fourth time preaching ever, and it was just like a great sermon. Now, my first time preaching is on YouTube, okay, when I was a teenager, and people would say, yeah, it was all right. Yeah, but here's the thing, though. That was like beginner's luck. That was like my best sermon ever for a really long time. It was all downhill from there, okay? You know, I'm just glad that that one was captured on tape and uploaded, you know, as I have something halfway, but I mean, that sermon wasn't anything special, but let me tell you something. It only went down, down, downhill from there, and it took me a long time to even get back to that level, okay? That was beginner's luck right there, or God was blessing me with, you know, just trying to encourage me or whatever, but I'm here to tell you that the only reason why I've been able to accomplish something for the Lord and why the church has grown and why people all over the world are listening and why we can hold these soul-winning marathons and do all this stuff, it's not because I'm talented. It's just simply because I did a lot of reading, and I just did a lot of soul-winning, and I just tried to just get involved in the program of my church and do the best I could, and honestly, you know, sort of like Ezra, God has just kind of opened doors over the years and God has just kind of caused the resources to be available, and he'll do the same thing for you because he's not a respecter of persons, and honestly, and I'm not just playing games or pretending or being humble or something, I'm telling you, if I could do it, anybody could do it, and I really mean that, all right? If I could do it, anybody could duplicate what I'm doing up here, but you know what's funny is when people think that they can duplicate it without putting in the work that I put in. That's never going to happen. People think that they can duplicate it by living a nine-to-five lifestyle. I've never lived that lifestyle, my friend, okay? I have spent, I mean, back when I only worked 40 hours a week, that's when I was just reading the Bible for hours a day when I wasn't working, but you know what? You've got to work 75, 80 hours a week, my friend, in order to make things happen, and so, you know, this clock in, clock out, nine-to-five mentality, you know, and then you want to go home and it's like, oh, whoa, don't ask me to read the Bible an hour a day after my eight-hour shift. It's a joke, my friend, and you're never going to duplicate what I'm doing, and I'm not, and look, like I said, anybody could duplicate what I've done, but you have to do the work. You have to be prepared. That's why, and you know what? Some of these other guys are proving that anyone could duplicate it because look at all the other guys that we're sending out and they're starting churches and they're doing great. They're preaching sermons every bit as good as mine. Why? Because there's no magic formula. This book and hard work. That's it. Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer. Father, we pray that you would please just raise up a generation, Lord, of preachers. It's what we need. We need leadership and we need some ready scribes, Lord, and there's just, yeah, there's a lot of guys who want to be scribes, but they're not ready. Help them to get ready, Lord. Help them to take it seriously and help them to realize that nothing in this world happens by accident and it doesn't happen through praying and then not doing the work, Lord. Help them to realize that they have a part to do and then God steps in and provides the power and God provides the direction once they get their feet in motion. Lord, help every man who raised his hand and said that he wanted to preach and possibly pastor someday, Lord. I pray that every single one would get serious, work hard, and make it happen. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.