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This comes from chapter 17, verse 17 in the book of Luke. This is the story where Jesus heals the 10 lepers. It says in verse 11, it came to pass as he went to Jerusalem, that he passed through the midst of Samaria and Galilee. And as he entered into a certain village, there met him 10 men that were lepers, which stood afar off. And they lifted up their voices and said, Jesus, Master, have mercy on us. And they said, Jesus, Master, have mercy on us. And they said, Jesus, Master, have mercy on us. And they said, Jesus, Master, have mercy on us. And when he saw them, he said unto them, go show yourselves unto the priests. And it came to pass that as they went, they were cleansed. And one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back and with a loud voice glorified God and fell down on his face at his feet, giving him thanks, and he was a Samaritan. And Jesus answering said, were not their 10 cleansed? But where are the nine? There are not found that returned to give glory to God save this stranger? And he said unto him, arise, go thy way. Thy faith hath made thee whole. And what I want to talk about today is why is it that many people who get saved, many people who we win to Christ don't ever end up coming to church or don't ever end up serving God or doing anything with their life? Because a lot of people use this as an attack on soul winning and say, well, soul winning is a fraud because you talk about getting all these people saved, but where are the nine? You know, where are the majority of the people that are getting saved? Why don't they go to your church? You know, they'll say if you got these many thousands of people saved, then why do you only have a few hundred people in your church? And so I'm going to answer that question and explain that. But we see here in this story that this picture is salvation. And in fact, even the statement go thy way, thy faith hath made thee whole, this is a statement that is often thy faith hath saved thee, like in Luke chapter seven, for example, because being whole and being saved are both basically the same concept. One has to do with the physical body being whole, being healthy. And then the other has to do obviously with the salvation of the soul, not the physical body, but it's a similar concept. So when he says here, thy faith hath made thee whole, let me ask you this. Was only this one guy who came back and thanked him and glorified God? Was he the only one who was healed? Did the other nine suddenly get their leprosy back because they weren't thankful enough? Absolutely not. Because we see in the story here that 10 of them were cleansed, but only one returned to glorify God. Only one was very grateful and worshiping God and really thankful and going out of his way to thank Jesus and so forth. And in fact, he was the most unlikely person because he was a Samaritan. So he was the person that Jesus would have expected the least to come back and be thankful and glorify him. Now, here's the thing about this. When people come at you with this objection and say, well, if you're getting all these people saved out soul winning, then where are they all? Okay. When they come at you with that objection or when they say, well, you went out and won people to the Lord, but did you disciple them? Or where are they supposed to go to church now? Are you planning a church in that area? Oh, you traveled to that city. Oh, you traveled to that country and won people to the Lord. Okay. So you must be planning a church then. Well, no, we're not. Well, what are you doing? I'm going to show you how extremely, extremely unbiblical those objections are. They're not just a little bit unbiblical. It's not like, well, I can kind of see where they're coming from. They've got a pretty good point. Yeah, they've got a pretty good point. If you don't read the Bible at all, if you don't read the New Testament at all, it does make sense to basically a carnal mind. It makes sense, but I'm going to show you this morning how biblically speaking these objections are absurd and they don't even come close to being what the Bible teaches. Let's look at the scripture. Let's examine it and see what the Bible actually says. Turn to John chapter two. We're going to go through a whole bunch of verses in the book of John. We could, we could look at Mark, we could look at Luke, we could look at Matthew, but we're going to look at John just to show you how many multitudes of people got saved through the ministry of John the Baptist, Jesus, and the apostles. Now, talk about an all-star lineup. John the Baptist, Christ himself, the apostles who would later turn the world upside down, not only just the 12 apostles, but then Jesus ordains 70 other apostles and sends them out preaching full-time the gospel. And how long did the ministry of Christ last? About three and a half years. So for three and a half years, you've got the ultimate all-star lineup of the greatest preachers and soul winners probably in the history of mankind going out and doing great work for the Lord, knocking every door, basically teaching the gospel in every little village, every little town of the entire nation of Israel. Look at these scriptures, okay? First of all, we know in the days of John the Baptist, the Bible said, you're in John 2, but in Matthew 3, it said, then went out to him, Jerusalem and all Judea and all the region round about Jordan and were baptized of him in Jordan, confessing their sins. So we know many multitudes of people were baptized by John the Baptist, okay? But look at John chapter 2, verse 11. This beginning of miracles did Jesus and Cana of Galilee and manifested forth his glory and his disciples believed on him. Okay, now look at verse 23. Now when he was in Jerusalem at the Passover in the feast day, many believed in his name when they saw the miracles which he did. Go to John chapter 3, verse 26. John 3, 26 says, and they came unto John and said unto him, Rabbi, he that was with thee beyond Jordan to whom thou barest witness, behold, the same baptizeth and all men come to him. So obviously that's an exaggeration, but Jesus is having a huge ministry. John the Baptist had a huge ministry. Look at John chapter 4, verse 1. When therefore the Lord knew how the Pharisees had heard that Jesus made and baptized more disciples than John, though Jesus himself baptized not but his disciples, he left Judea and departed again into Galilee. Jump down to verse 39. And many of the Samaritans of that city believed on him for the saying of the woman which testified, he told me all that ever I did. So when the Samaritans were come unto him, they besought him that he would tarry with them. And he abode there two days. And many more believed because of his own word and said unto the woman, now we believe not because of thy saying, for we've heard him ourselves and know that this is indeed the Christ, the savior of the world. Now after two days, he departed thence and went into Galilee. So aren't you going to start a church, Jesus? Oh, so you just went there and won people to Christ in Samaria and then you're just going to leave them there. Just leave them to fend for themselves. You're like somebody who gives birth to a baby and throws it in the garbage can. Isn't that the kind of stuff that people say to attack soul winning? Well, I guess they don't like Jesus' style. I guess Jesus should just let the Samaritans go to hell, let the woman at the well go to hell. He's like, sorry, I don't have a church to send you to, so I got to go by. No, he stayed for two days. Did he stay for his whole life? No, he stayed for two days. He won a bunch of people to the Lord and then he left. Okay, but I'm getting ahead of myself in the sermon here. But what do you see so far in John chapter two, John chapter three, and John chapter four? You see a lot of people getting saved. Is that what you're saying? Oh, many believed. Many got saved. Many believed on him. Look at chapter seven, verse 31. John chapter seven, verse 31. And many of the people believed on him and said, when Christ cometh, will he do more miracles than these, which this man doeth? So in chapter seven, many believed on him. Flip over to chapter 10. While you're turning to chapter 10, it says in John chapter 830, as he spake these words, many believed on him. John chapter 10, verse 41. And many resorted unto him and said, John did no miracle, but all things that John spake of this man were true. And many believed on him there. Okay, go to John chapter 11, verse 45. Many believed on him. Many believed on him. Many people believed on him. Verse number 45, chapter 11. Then many of the Jews which came to Mary and had seen the things which Jesus did, believed on him. Okay, go to Acts chapter one. And then of course, John 1211 says, because that by reason of him, many of the Jews went away and believed on Jesus. So we see, many believed on him. Many believed on him. Many believed on him. Many believed on him. Over here, he's preaching to a multitude so huge, he has to get on a ship and stand on the ship and everybody just crowds on the seashore and he preaches across the water. Another instance, he feeds the 5,000, not counting women and children. 5,000 men show up to hear Jesus preach. 4,000 men show up to hear Jesus preach. John the baptized is baptizing multitudes of both men and women. Jesus made and baptized more disciples than John. Is there any question in any rational person's mind at all that literally tens of thousands of people got saved? Right? I mean, you can't read this and walk away saying thousands of people didn't get saved. Tens of thousands of people didn't get saved. Multitudes of people are getting saved. Okay. Well, let's see how big the church is in Acts chapter 1. I mean, this church must be huge. I mean, if they got all these tens of thousands of people saved, multitudes and multitudes, every chapter is just many people getting saved. Many people getting saved. Many people getting saved. Oh, I guess the church is going to be huge. Acts chapter 1 verse 14, these all continued with one accord and prayer and supplication with the women and Mary, the mother of Jesus, and with his brethren. So look, this is everybody, folks. This is all of the disciples. This is the church. This includes Jesus's immediate family, the women, men, everybody. And in those days, Peter stood up in the midst of the disciples and said, the number of names together were about 120. So this, see, welcome to the world of the Bible. So everybody can come up with all their objections of, well, if you got a thousand people saved, you ought to have a thousand in church. Really? Is that how Jesus did? Did Jesus have a thousand in church? Did Peter have a thousand in church? Did John have a thousand in church? Did John the Baptist have a thousand in church? No, they didn't. At the end of it all, when the dust settled, after soul winning every day virtually for three and a half years, they had 120 people in the church. They had a church with 120 people in it. Now people look at our church, which by the way, our church has 400 people that come on a weekly basis because we have about 350 on Sunday mornings, 250 on Sunday nights, 250 on Wednesday nights. And some people only come to one or the other. It's not all the same people. So we have approximately 400 people come through the doors of our church every single week. And here's what people say, well, but if you got 10,000 people saved, or if you got this many thousands of people saved, why do you only have 400 in church? Well, because I'm not greater than Jesus, John the Baptist, and all the apostles rolled into one. I mean, think about that. After I'd been pastoring this church for three and a half years, the church was running about 35 people. But I'm not Jesus. I'm not John the Baptist. I'm not Peter. I'm not James. I'm not John. And not only that, but I was also working a full time job. In addition to being a pastor, I had to go to work and work my full time job and juggle both. These apostles were full time. Jesus was full time. Okay. These guys were just day in, day out. This is what they did. I mean, they just went from town to town to village to village. So if people are going to say, oh, all the people that get saved are going to come to church or they didn't really get saved, you would have to believe that Jesus and John the Baptist and all the apostles in three and a half years only one 120 people to the Lord. Is that what anybody actually believes? That makes no sense. That's ridiculous. It's nonsense. And that's what I mean about this doctrine that says, well, if people really get saved, they're going to get baptized. They're going to join the church. They're going to persevere under the end. It is an absurd doctrine in light of scripture. It's absurd. It does not reflect the reality that we see in the real world. And it certainly does not reflect what we see in the word of God. It's not the way it played out. Now, look, I would love it if that would happen, if every single person who got saved, got baptized, joined the church, kept on coming, but we would be meeting in a sports stadium right now. We'd be having to let sports teams use our facility for their events. Okay, but that's not the reality of what we see in the Bible or in real life. Now, go to Acts chapter five. Let me give you some of the reasons why people who truly actually get saved don't end up coming to church. I mean, do you really think John the Baptist was just dunking 99% unsaved people? He wasn't just dunking indiscriminately. Just anybody who wants to get dunked, hop in. When he saw the Pharisees and Sadducees coming, he didn't believe that they were actually saved. He rebuked the scribes and Pharisees because he didn't think they were saved, because they were false prophets, and he rebuked them and says, you're going to have to basically convince me that you're actually saved. Bring forth fruit, meat for repentance, because he knew then that they're vipers and whatever. Now, when the average Joe came to him, you know, he's baptizing them, but he didn't just indiscriminately baptize people. He's also preaching the word of God. He's preaching the gospel. He was baptizing people. I'm sure he baptized some unsaved people. There's no question about that. I'm sure I've baptized some unsaved people, because we can't see within the heart, but I guarantee you that the majority of the people that John the Baptist and Jesus baptized are in heaven right now. These people, when the Bible says in chapter 2 of John they believed, chapter 3 the people who believed, the people who believed in chapter 4, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, those people are in heaven right now, friend. But were they at church in Acts 1? Did they show up on Sunday morning? No. Now what are some of the reasons why? Well, the number one reason why a truly born again saved person doesn't go to church, the number one reason is fear. Okay? Look if you would, and this is why most people don't serve God in many areas of life. Fear paralyzes us from serving God. Look if you would at Acts chapter 5, verse 12. And by the hands of the apostles were many signs and wonders wrought among the people, and they were all with one accord in Solomon's porch, and of the rest durst no man join himself to them. Now that word is a hard word, but it's the past tense of dare. It's saying they dared not. They durst not. So it says here of the rest dared no man join himself to them, but the people magnified them. And believers were added, were the more added to the Lord, multitudes, both of men and women. And here's the interesting thing. Sometimes you'll see where it talks about believers being added to the church, and the church getting bigger and growing, and people coming to the church. But, you know, it's interesting the choice of words here is that believers were added to the Lord, because a lot of them weren't added to the church. They were added to the Lord, but they weren't added to the church. Why? Because they dared not join themselves under them. They were afraid to join the church. You know, there was too much action happening at the church. There were miracles going on. There's hard preaching going on. People fell over dead earlier in the chapter, Ananias and Sapphira. So some people, they want to admire it from a distance. They're magnifying it in their heart. They're enjoying the show, but do they want to get in the fire? Do they want to get there where the action is? No, they can't take the heat, so they're getting out of the kitchen. So we see here that a lot of people did not join the church out of fear. Go to John Chapter 12, and I'll give you another reason. John Chapter 12, and this is related to fear, but this is a different kind of fear. A lot of people don't join the church because of embarrassment or shame. They're embarrassed, or they're ashamed to go to church. Look what it says in John Chapter 12, Verse 42. Nevertheless, among the chief priests, excuse me, nevertheless, among the chief rulers also, many believed on him. But because of the Pharisees, they did not confess him, lest they should be put out of the synagogue, for they loved the praise of men more than the praise of God. So these people believed on Christ, but they don't want to be open about it because they're ashamed. They'd rather be praised by men. They want men to speak well of them and to think that they're great. They don't want anybody to say negative things about them that, oh, you're a Christian, you're following Christ, you're part of the church, and look down on them. They would rather look good to society and look good outwardly than to join the church. And they love the praise of men more than the praise of God, and they don't want to be put out of the synagogue. They don't want to be kicked out of the social club. Maybe they don't want family to treat them badly or reproach them in some way. So this is related to fear. This is embarrassment or shame or even shyness. Some people are just too shy, too timid to show up to church and be a part of the church. Does that mean that they're not saved? So they trust Christ as Savior, but if they don't go to church and suddenly they're not saved, that's a workspace salvation if you believe in that. If you believe that they have to go to church to be saved and get baptized and continue serving, that would be salvation by works. Salvation is not by works. You can believe and be ashamed and shy, and God's not pleased with that. God's not going to bless that. The Bible says He's ashamed of you if that's how you are. You're going to be ashamed of Him, but it's the reality that most people, they love the free gift, don't they? But do they want to take up the cross and follow Christ? There's a big difference between accepting the free gift and picking up the cross and following Jesus. And look, if somebody only wants to accept the free gift of salvation, but they don't want to pick up the cross and follow Jesus, you know what? I'm glad to help them get that free gift of salvation because you know what? I just want that person to go to heaven. I'm glad that they're going to heaven. I'm not going to sit there and say, well, if you're not going to even serve God, what's the point? Hey, the point is to get their soul to heaven. The point is not to go to hell, and that's pretty important. Pulling them out of the fire is pretty important. But the reality is that people will line up to get the free gift. People love to get a free gift. When things are being given away for free at stores, you have a line outside the building. When something is getting out, true or false? When something is given away for free, people are beating down the door to get it. But when it comes to actually suffering, being persecuted, going through shame and reproach, working hard, rolling up your sleeves, serving God, making sacrifices, that is a smaller group. Now look, if you believe that the only people who are truly saved are the people who are willing to make those sacrifices, why don't you just admit it that you don't believe in salvation by grace or faith? Why don't you just come out and admit that? And go join the Catholic Church, go join the Orthodox Church, go join Church of Christ or one of these charismatic churches that teaches openly, and at least they have more respect for them. At least they admit that they believe in work salvation. At least they just come out and say, hey, works are required for salvation. You know, it's better the devil you know than the devil you don't know than the one who pretends and says, oh yeah, salvation's by faith, but, but, but you have to do all these works or you're not saved. That's a false doctrine. And it does not jive with scripture. And look, even logic, anybody who knows math should know that that's a false doctrine. Let me help you with math, okay? If every single person who's saved in this world is going out and serving God, if they're all doing the works, pretty soon this whole world would be evangelized like a hundred times over in our lifetime. Otherwise, you just don't understand the math. I mean, how many people are saved right now in this world? Nobody knows, obviously, because we can't see inside the hearts of men. We are not God to know exactly how many people are saved or not saved. But I'm sure that anyone would agree, anyone would agree that there are at least, and I'm sure it's way more than this, that there are at least like 10 million people in the world that are saved, at least. And I'm sure it's way more than that. But let's just take the number 10 million. Well, if you have 10 million people out there going to church and serving God and actually evangelizing, because isn't one of the commands, go preach the gospel to every creature? So if everybody who's saved is going to actually love God and serve God and go out and do the work, we'd have 10 million soul winners right now out serving God and waiting people to Christ. How long would it take to evangelize the world? A couple days? Am I right? I mean, think about it. How long would it take if everybody just said, hey, this week, just for one week, hey, we're going to witness to people this week? Couldn't each person easily attempt to witness to 100 people in one week? Like, just attempt. I'm not even saying that they even, because a lot of people don't want to talk. A lot of people say, hey, can I show you the gospel? Nope. Not interested, right? So typically, I mean, how long does it take to knock 100 doors? I mean, you know, if it's an unreceptive area, two hours. If nobody's talking to you, if everybody says no, two hours. Awatuki, anyone? Okay. Right? Two hours, right? So look, if every Christian in the world just went out for like four or five hours this week, just once, I mean, we'd knock a lot of doors, wouldn't we? I mean, just all over the world, all over the planet. I mean, we'd be on top of each other. It'd be like, sorry, this street's been hit five times today. We'd be like, where do we go? We'd like drive five hours to get to some remote Indian reservation, and there'd already be like 10 soul winners there. We'd just be like, ugh. We wouldn't even know who to witness to. Is anybody home? Folks, guess what? 99.9% of saved Christians are doing nothing, nothing to reach the world with the gospel. Zilch, zip, nada. You say, well, are those people really even saved? Well, you know, I don't think they're really saved. Really? Because you know what? I got saved when I was six years old. You want to know when I won somebody to Christ? When I was 17. So what did I do for those 11 years? Not much. Not much, right? What was I doing? You say, well, you were just a kid. But you don't think I had opportunities? And you know, sometimes I sit and think back through seventh grade, eighth grade, ninth grade, tenth grade. You know what? I lament the lost opportunities. I think, I picture the faces of my friends, and I think to myself, if I went and gave the gospel to that person now, they probably won't get saved. But they would have back then. Back then, before they'd been so corrupted. Back then, they would have been more open, more receptive. I'm just thinking to myself, man, I could have won so many people to the Lord. I won zero to the Lord. Zilch. Okay? And you think I was alone in that? You think I was just me? I'm just the worst Christian ever? Guess what? That's the story of 99.99% of Christian adults and teenagers and children and senior citizens. That is what most Christians do. They're lucky if they win somebody to the Lord in their lifetime. I used to pray every night before bed as a teenager, Lord, help me to get one person saved in my lifetime. I prayed that prayer probably over a thousand times, literally. And God answered all of them separately. You know what I mean? Seriously. It's like every single time I prayed that prayer, God answered it again. But I didn't mean it that way, though. I meant, God, I just want to get one person saved in my whole life. Because you know what? Everyone around me was doing zero. So I thought to myself, if I can win one person to the Lord, that would be amazing. And it is amazing. But how much more amazing to win 10 people to the Lord? Or 100. Some 30, some 60, some 100. My point is anybody who has any common sense can look around and see in this world churches filled with saved Christians who are not even keeping the main commandment, the great commission, go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature at all. Zilch. Does that mean they're not saved? Of course they're saved. Why don't they do it then? Because they're not being sent, because the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. There are a multitude of reasons why people don't engage in evangelizing. I don't think there's anything unclear about Christ telling us to preach the gospel. Is there something unclear like, well, maybe he doesn't want us to preach the gospel. Maybe we're not supposed to witness to our family. Maybe we're not supposed to witness to our friends. Maybe we're not supposed to witness to people that we work with. But guess what? We end up not doing it, don't we? Because we're human beings, because we're sinners, because we're in the flesh, all the different reasons why we don't do stuff that we're supposed to do. If Christians who were saved actually did what they're supposed to do, we'd have the whole world evangelized by the end of the month. Okay? A fact. Even just simple math would tell you if 10 million people are out burning it up, soul winning, boy, we would turn this place upside down. It's the fact that only a very small percentage of saved Christians are willing to take up the cross and follow Jesus. Because he said if you follow, you say, well, why emphasize soul winning? Maybe they're just great Christians and they don't go soul winning. Really? Because Jesus said if you follow me, I'll make you fishes of men. That tells me anybody who's not a fisher of men isn't following Jesus. Because following Jesus, you will eventually, and look, was I a fisher of men as a teenager? No. But did he make me one? Yeah. Eventually, you're going to get there, right? I mean, if you're following him, you'll get there. Otherwise, you bailed at some point and stopped following. Or you're like Peter where you follow afar off and next thing you know, you're going to be denying that you even know him. Okay? So the point is that if we study the Bible, if we look at math, if we look at reality, if we look at scripture, we have a bizarre expectation if we just expect every person who gets saved is just going to get baptized, get in church, and start doing all the right things. You don't even do all the right things. You don't even do all the right things, but then you expect your convert to do all the right things. And you've been in church for years. Are you saved? Yeah, you're saved. Well, I'm saved, you know? Yeah, but I don't do that. Well, okay. Everybody's got their different sins. Everybody has their different weaknesses. Everybody has different lacks and deficiencies in their life, but it's a fact that God wants us all to open our mouth and speak the gospel, man, woman, boy, and girl. That should be obvious to anyone who reads the New Testament. So why don't people, that was a little bit of a tangent there, but why don't people come to church after they get saved? Sometimes it's fear, embarrassment, shame, shyness. These are natural human emotions. We need to be filled with the Spirit so we can have the boldness to overcome those things and get in the battle, serve God. Everybody wants the free gift. Ten million, I'm sure way more than that. I'm just using a low ball number, are willing to take the gift all day long. But are they willing to deny self and take up the cross daily and follow him? No, they're not. The evidence is that they're not winning people to Christ. They're not evangelizing, which shows that they're not following closely to Christ because he would be making them a fisher of men if they were. Okay? Number three reason would be geography. Now if you would go to John chapter 40, I'm sorry, John chapter four, verse 40. In John chapter four, if you remember, this is where Jesus was at the Samaritans and he had that wonderful follow-up program where he abandoned them after two days. Right? That was his follow-up. And he wasn't even planning on staying at all. He was just going to win one person of the Lord, the woman at the well, and be out of there. They came to him and begged him and said, will you please stay with us? Now his main mission was to Israel. His mission was not to Samaria. His plan was we're going to reach Israel during his earthly ministry, you know, get, get, get the gospel to all the towns and villages. And then after he dies on the cross, is buried and rises again, then they're going to go to Judea, Samaria, uttermost part of the earth. So the plan was we're going to canvas Israel during the life of Jesus and then go everywhere else after. Right? So Jesus is really focused on that goal. So that's why when he sends him out, so when he says, don't go to Samaritans, don't go to the Gentiles. Let's go after the lost sheep of the house of Israel. He's saying, let's start here. Let's do Israel. Okay. Then at, in Matthew 28, he sends them out to all nations. So because this isn't the focus of his mission, he's just passing through Samaria and he only went through Samaria because he had to, because it said he must needs go through Samaria, meaning he's required to get there because he's got to get from Galilee to Judea. Samaria is in the middle. While he's there, he preaches the gospel. And you know, it's a great example for us that sometimes we're, we have other plans, but every once in a while, a great opportunity will come up to give someone the gospel. And sometimes we need to just take that opportunity and put other plans aside and say, okay, you know, here he's at the woman or he's at the, well, the woman's here. Boom. He wins her to the Lord. They begged him to stay. And he said, okay. He stayed two days, but then he had to go. I mean, they would have loved for him to stay for three days a week, a month, or even just set up shop there. But that wasn't the plan. That wasn't the mission. Is there something wrong with Christ's mission because he just wins people to the Lord and then leaves? No, but, but some pastors and churches, they, they think they're better than Jesus. Jesus program is not good enough because there's not enough follow-up, you know? And so they've got their own plan where they're going to have a little Jehovah's witness Bible study with somebody for eight weeks. And look, guess what? If somebody is not willing to get their carcass down to the church, I'm not going to go to their house eight times. Why should I go to your house eight times? You know, you know where to find me three times a week. I'm here to disciple you on Sunday morning. I'm here to disciple you on Sunday night. I'm here to disciple you on Wednesday night. I'm discipling hundreds of people at once. I'm not just going to come and make a house call. Your doctor won't even make a house call. I'm not just going to keep making house calls. Okay. Jesus, you know, had to go. He had to move on. But look what it says in verse 40. So when the Samaritans were coming to him, they besought him that he would tarry with them. And he abode there two days. Verse 43. Now after two days, he departed thence and went into Galilee. So why aren't all these people coming to church? Because they live in another country. They live in another area. So the number three reason why people don't come to church after they get saved is geography. Many of the people that we get saved, in many cases, more than half of the people that we get saved are saved in a different geography. Because we'll fly to Jamaica. We'll fly to Belize. We'll fly to Guyana. We'll fly to Botswana. And we'll get a whole bunch of people saved. And we'll come back with the numbers of, hey, we got this many hundreds of people saved. So they're all coming to church. Well, they have an issue with their visa. You know, they don't have a passport. They don't have the money. How are they going to get here? Look, when we drive three and a half hours away to the Apache Reservation, you think those people are going to be in church on Sunday morning? But see, the mentality is, oh, well, then we're just not going to give them the gospel. Look, I have talked to Baptist pastors in this city where I said to them, hey, we went up to this Indian reservation. We had all those people saved. Oh, great. So now they're just like sheep without a shepherd. Instead of saying praise the Lord, wow, that's great to hear. They're receptive. How can I get involved? Do you think if I take my church up there, we'd be able to get some people saved? Or, you know, you guys have got the Apaches covered. Is there a tribe that we could work on? Is there a way I can get involved? Is that what he said? No. He just said, well, now they're just like sheep having us. Yeah, just like the Samaritans. I mean, it's just, it's wicked. And you know what it does? It shows what's in their heart. The abundance of the mouth, the heart speaketh. You know what it shows is in their heart? Hey, if they're not going to join my church, I'm not interested. If they're not putting money in my offering plate, I'm not interested. If they're not going to build my ego by building a big physical crowd that I can preach to, then I'm not interested. If I can't tell my preacher buddies how big my church is and build a big fancy building with a big steeple and stained glass windows, then I'm not interested because if they're not going to do anything for me, I'm not interested. Well, you know what? I am interested in just getting somebody out of hell and never seeing them again. Actually, I take that back because I'm going to see them when I get to heaven. And what a day that will be. And so look, it's sort of like when Jesus said, you know, when you put on a supper, invite the poor, the blind, the maimed, the halt because they won't be able to ever pay you back. And if you do things for people that will never pay you back, God has to pay you back in the resurrection. So here's the thing, by winning people to the Lord that do nothing for you, nothing for your church, nothing for your ego, nothing for your friendships, hey, when they do nothing for you, then that's the maximum rewards that you're going to get. Winning people to the Lord that do nothing for you in return is a maximal reward because God's going to recommend you for that. And we're inviting them to the great supper of the lamb. You know, we're inviting them to eat and drink in the kingdom of God, right? The great marriage for the son of God. That's what we're inviting them to. And so I just want people to get saved. But these guys, they have something in their heart where they don't have the faith is what it is, too. If they can't see a physical result right now, they won't believe in it. Doubting Thomases who have to see the people live the whole rest of their life before they believe that they're actually saved, instead of just believing that the gospel has power, instead of believing that God's word's not going to return void, instead of believing that if someone confesses with their mouth the Lord Jesus and believes in their heart that God raised him from the dead, that they'll be saved. I believe that. I don't need to see physical results. And you know what? I'm glad that our church has 400 people in it, but you know what? I'd be just as happy if our church had 200 people in it. You know, if half our church is left and we're down to 200 people, you know what? It wouldn't really mess up my day. I'd just be like, okay, whatever. Because it's not my problem. It's not my issue. It's not my job because Christ said I'll build the church. Christ didn't say go build my church. He said upon this rock I'll build my church. All I'm here to do is just win people to Christ, preach the gospel, be faithful, let the chips fall where they may. Look, if our church a year from now is running 500, great. If our church a year from now is running 300, great. You know, Jesus went from running 5,000 to 4,000 in a very short time. I heard a sermon one time, how to grow from 5,000 to 4,000 in your church. Because Jesus preached into 5,000 and the next time he's only preaching to 4,000. What happened? Look, people are going to leave. And look, obviously we've never had that problem because even when we've thrown people out or had a faction leave the church, we immediately recovered. We've never had a year where we had less people than the year before. We have steadily grown for 13 and a half years and I hope that we steadily grow until Jesus comes. Amen? Wouldn't that be great? Just keep growing. Every year, more people, we break attendance records every single year. But you know what? Whether we grow or don't grow, get bigger, get smaller, you know what? I don't even care. All I care about is am I doing everything I can to get people out of hell? Am I doing everything that I can to feed the flock? Am I doing everything I can to teach accurately and faithfully the Word of God and try to inspire people to work for God and try to model the way of, hey, let's go evangelize and here's how you go soul winning. I can't control the results. All I can do at the door and all you can do at the door is win somebody to Christ and put a Bible in their hand and show them where to start reading, leave them with a preaching CD or a video or a flash drive or something. At some point, they're going to have to do something for themselves. At some point, they're going to have to decide, okay, I'm going to church. Or okay, I'm going to pop in this video and watch it. I'm going to open this book and read it. Because look, if they watch the video, they're going to watch another video, they're going to watch another video and pretty soon they're going to be watching hundreds of videos. Next thing you know, they're going to be here. But you know what? Some people aren't going to put in that video. They can't even put in the video and push play because they're too busy watching Hollywood's garbage. They can't even open the Bible and read it because they have everything else to read. So the point is that you can't control what people are going to do. You know, the one thing I can't give you, I can give you the gospel, I can give you doctrine, I can preach to you and teach you. The one thing I can't give you, the one thing I can't give to my children spiritually or my children physically, the one thing I can't give you is a desire to serve God. You have to provide that. You have to decide, hey, this is important to me, this is a priority for me, I want to do this, I love Christ enough to do this. I can't do that for you. I can't control other people's heart. Okay. So that's, now there are lots of other reasons. I got to hurry up for sake of time. Like number four, how about a language barrier? A lot of people that went to the Lord don't even speak English. So we don't offer services in Spanish. We don't offer services in other languages that we want people to Christ in. Number five, you know, often they just go to a different church. You know what I always say to these people, if I say, hey, we went to this and that city and we got a bunch of people saved. Oh, well, where are they supposed to go to church? Are you planning a church? I always just tell them there's already a Baptist church there. Because there's already a Baptist church in every city in America. There is not a city in America. There's not even a town or a village in America that does not have a Baptist church within striking distance where they could easily conveniently get to a Baptist church. It's a lame church. Not my fault. Not my fault that they're lame. Then go get in there and make it better. I can't control that. There are 10,000 independent Baptist churches in America. There are 18,000 Southern Baptist churches in America. And look, I'm against most of them because most of them are lame. But you know what? There is something where people could go to church. There are non-denominational churches where the people are actually saved depending on where they fall on the doctrinal spectrum. The point is that they often get saved and go to a different church. I can't even count how many times I've won somebody to the Lord and then tried to get them to come to our church. And then they'll say, oh, no, I'm going to church with my uncle now. I'm going to church with my cousin now. I'm going to church with my brother now. Because as soon as their buddy or friend or relative that never gave them the Gospel hears that they got saved, it's like, oh, great, you're saved now? Here, come to our church. You know, they're not any good at getting people saved, but they love to swoop up on the saved convert and bring them in. Now, are you there in John chapter 4? Here's an important concept that I want to finish on. This is a key concept. And let me just give you some of the material I don't have time for. I wanted to take you to Acts chapter 8 and show you the story of the Ethiopian eunuch where the Holy Spirit leads Philip into the desert to witness to one guy. Philip gives the Gospel to one guy, the guy gets saved, he baptizes him, and the moment he's done baptizing him, God performs a miracle because they're out in the middle of the desert. He had to, like, travel through the desert to get to this guy. God literally just whisks him away and he's just gone. So if you're the eunuch, right, you're the Ethiopian eunuch, you're riding down the road, you're reading the book of Isaiah, a guy comes running to your chariot, running toward it, in the middle of the desert. And he actually got there by natural, there was nothing supernatural except that God led him. But Philip actually just went on this desert hike and he's just hiking through the desert because God wanted him to go to the desert. And Philip had been getting all kinds of people saved and everything. God leads him into the desert. He's probably thinking, like, why am I here? The people are over there. But as he's going through the desert, he sees a chariot way off in the distance and the Holy Spirit leads him to go to that chariot, okay? And so you're, you know, you're the Ethiopian eunuch, right? You're driving the chariot, reading your Bible, all of a sudden this guy, you're out in the middle of nowhere. Where did this guy come from? This guy just comes running toward the chariot and says, hey, understandest thou what thou readest? You understand what you're reading? He says, how can I except some man should guide me? Gets up in the chariot. He preaches him the gospel. He starts in Isaiah, preaches the gospel to him. The guy believes on Christ, gets saved. He says, hey, here's water. What's the tendency to be baptized, right? If thou believeth with all thine heart, thou mayest. I believe Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Great. Jumps out of it. Well, let me watch it for the next 10 years and make sure you really believe that. Great. Oh, wait. I'm sorry. We have a six-week baptism class. We're starting the next enrollment in September. It lasts for six weeks, so we can get you baptized in the middle of October. Is that what he said? He said, no, let's do it. They stop. He baptizes them. And then all of a sudden, the eunuch is just by himself. It's like, where'd that guy go? Who was that guy? What's the eunuch do? He gets in the chariot and says, I got to go back to Jerusalem now to prove that I'm saved. Is that what he did? I got to get back. I got to go prove I'm saved. Because if I don't show up for church on Sunday morning, nobody's going to believe that I'm even saved. Is that what he did? No, he keeps going where? To Ethiopia. To Ethiopia. Okay. That's far. Back then, people thought of Ethiopia as like the ends of the world back then. Okay. He keeps heading for Ethiopia. He's rejoicing. He's real happy that he's saved. He didn't start crying and saying, I'm like a baby in a garbage can. Nobody's helping me. Nobody's here to guide me. Look, before he was saved, he needed somebody to guide him. You know what? He didn't go back alone. You know who he brought with him? Who did he bring with him? The Holy Spirit. And you know what? I'm thankful that every single person that I've ever wanted to Lord has the Holy Spirit with him to guide them into all truth. Now, sadly, most of them are not going to take advantage of that. Most people, just like most Christians that you know, just like most Christians I know, they're too busy, caught up in the things of this world to really take full advantage of the Holy Spirit. I mean, do any of us really take full advantage of the Holy Spirit in our lives? No. But, you know, some people are majorly quenching the Spirit. So that's another example of a lack of follow-up in the Bible. And I could do a whole sermon just showing, I could just do a sermon called lack of follow-up. Just show, just lack of follow-up. But let me close on this thought, okay? Because this is a key thought. Look at John chapter 4 verse 35. Say not ye, you like how I said I wasn't going to do the story of the Ethiopian Union and I just did it anyway. But anyway, John chapter 4 verse 35. Say not ye, there are yet four months and then cometh harvest. Behold, I say unto you, lift up your eyes and look on the fields for they're white already to harvest. And he that reapeth receiveth wages and gathereth fruit unto life eternal that both he that soweth and he that reapeth may rejoice together. And herein is that saying true, one soweth and another reapeth. And here's the key verse, verse 38. I sent you to reap that whereon you bestowed no labor. Other men labored and ye are entered into their labors. Other men labored and you're entered into their labors. Here's how the Great Commission works, okay? And this is a key point. I don't want you to miss this. Your root beer float's coming soon, but just focus, all right? Here's the key point, okay? You're entered into other men's labors. Here's how the Great Commission works. The Great Commission has three parts. Save them, baptize them, and then teach them to observe all things that Christ commanded. Those are the three phases, right? Get them saved, get them baptized, and then teach them to observe all things. In a perfect world, you do that all with the same person in an unbroken chain. You just get somebody saved, immediately get them baptized, and then just immediately begin teaching them and just teach, teach, teach. And they're just coming Sunday morning, Sunday night, Wednesday night, and just growing like crazy. But here's the reality, though, is that these three things are going to be done on separate people. And part of that is that you are going to enter into other men's labors. So what does that mean for me to enter into other men's labors? It means, for example, someone's already been given the gospel, but they didn't get saved, and then I come and water the seed, and then the person gets saved. Well, I wasn't the only one responsible for their salvation because somebody else had already been working on them. Somebody else had already been preaching to them, praying for them, and then I can just come in and finish. So I've entered into their labor, right? How about this? What if somebody gets saved, but they've never been baptized, and then I show up and baptize them? I'm entering into other men's labors, okay? What if somebody's saved and baptized, but they haven't been taught doctrine, and then I show up and teach them to observe all things that Christ commanded me? So here's the thing. A lot of people have this weird idea that to fulfill the Great Commission, every single person you get saved, you have to baptize, and every single person you baptize, you have to teach to observe all things, or you're not doing the Great Commission. That's false. Because actually, the way it works is you're going to win it. This is how you fulfill the Great Commission. You win a bunch of people to Christ, you baptize a bunch of people, you teach a bunch of people doctrine, and it's not all the same people. Now, let me give you an example. Whenever I go to an event, and the Make America Straight Again Conference was no exception to this, whenever I go to an event, I have multiple people come up to me every single time and say, I got saved through watching your videos. Or, I got saved listening to your preaching online. Okay? I mean, I had a bunch of people say that at this conference. Every event, it doesn't matter where it is, where I preach, where I go, people walk up and say, hey, I just want to thank you, I got saved through your ministry. Now, let me ask this. Did I baptize that person? Am I going to baptize that person? No, I didn't baptize anybody over the last couple days when I was at that conference. So, I won them to Christ. So here's my question. Who baptized them? Because they've been baptized. I mean, if I asked them, are you baptized, I'm sure they'd say yes, because they're faithful church members. So, who baptized them? Someone else. Right? Okay, who's teaching them to observe all things that Christ commanded? Not necessarily me, because now they've joined a local church. They might still listen to me online or whatever, but they're also getting a lot of teaching in their local church. So the point is, just like that pastor baptized somebody that I won to Christ, sometimes I baptize people that someone else won to Christ. And sometimes we might win somebody to Christ. Let's say we go on the Indian reservation, we win someone to Christ, and then we never see them again, but then five years later, they get baptized. Seven years later, they're in the church somewhere, thriving and serving God. We don't know where people are going to end up, and we have tons of people in our church that got saved way before they ever came to our church, but they didn't start serving God until they got here. Or they didn't get baptized until they got here. The point is, these three components of the Great Commission, salvation, baptism, and growth in knowledge, and growth in grace, are three separate things. So if we are delinquent in any of them, then we're not fulfilling the Great Commission. Let's say we only won people to Christ, and we only baptized people, but we didn't teach the Bible. Would we be delinquent on the Great Commission? Yeah. Now, that's clearly not the case since we have crowds of people coming to get taught every week, and we have 120,000 subscribers on YouTube getting taught. So do we have a teaching ministry here? Is there any teaching going on? In this church? Is there teaching going on? Yeah. Okay. Do we baptize people? Yeah. Do we baptize people? Yeah, we baptize people. We've baptized in the history of our church, I think almost like 600 people or something that we baptize in our church. So are we baptizing people? Yeah. Are we winning people to Christ? Yeah, we're winning people to Christ. But here's the reality. The biggest number is going to be the people you win to Christ. The baptisms and the people that you teach to observe all things are going to be a lower number. But just because I didn't baptize them, does that mean no one baptized them? No, because I'm running into people every single time I go anywhere who got saved through our ministry and got baptized by another ministry. So there are some churches where their numbers will look like this. Hey, we had five people saved and five people baptized. Oh, man, 100%. Now, do we want to be a church that has 100% success in getting people baptized? I don't. You want to know why I don't want to be that church? Because that would mean we're probably getting very few people saved. And the reason why they have 100% baptism rate, where you see nine salvations, nine baptisms, that's how it should be. Oh, really? Yeah, that's going to get the world saved. Nine salvations? Nine people have died since I started preaching in this area. Probably in the state of Arizona, nine people probably died since I started the sermon. Right? Or at least in this region. So how's that going to work, getting nine people saved a year? Yeah, you're really going to win the world to Christ with that, buddy. You're really going to, you know, make a difference? No way. So the point is that the reason why they have 100% rate is because the only time anybody gets saved is at church. That's a church with zero soul winning. Take it to the bank. Zero. So what that church has is an altar call where the only time anybody gets saved is by coming down the aisle and getting saved at the end of the service and then they say, okay, now we're going to get you baptized immediately. And they're already there. The clothes are there. The water is there. The towels are there. The person's there. And then they baptize 100% of their converts or 90% or 80% or whatever. Right? But when you drive three and a half hours to the Apache reservation, walk up to some dilapidated mobile home with no working vehicle and knock on the door and win somebody to Christ, you're not going to have 100% baptism rate. You're not going to have 75%. You're not going to have 50%. When you're driving 45 minutes away to the ghetto and winning people to the Lord, a lot of them aren't going to get baptized. So what? So quit caring about what carnal man thinks. Well, how'd you get all those people saved? You're only running 400. Oh yeah, only 400. Yeah, that's five times the average church size in America. So apparently we're reaching somebody. Somebody, I mean, somebody's getting discipled. Who here feels like you're kind of getting discipled a little bit in this church? Yeah. Okay. So some kind of discipleship is happening right now. Some kind of follow up has taken place. Okay. So quit being on the defensive. Put, put these bozos on the defensive and say, Oh, okay. So you don't approve of Jesus ministry when he sent them out two by two to go preach in a village and then leave the next day. So you don't think that was right when they went from village to village, to village, to village. You don't think I was right. So you don't think it was right for Jesus to win a bunch of Samaritans Lord and leave two days later because that's what we did in that town. That's what we did on that small town. So that's what we did on that missionary trip to Jamaica. We want a bunch of people to Lord and then we left. So what about when Jesus did it? Was it okay when he did it? And tell me about all the people that you're winning the Lord. Tell me about how your church is bursting at the seams with converts. And you know, if somebody could show me a better way, I would love to do it. If somebody shows me a better, more biblical, more effective way to win the loss, I'll change now. I'll change tomorrow. I'll change immediately. But let's just stay faithful and not have unrealistic expectations. Amen. Where are the nine? Weren't 10 cleansed? The answer is yes, 10 were cleansed and all 10 of them are leprosy free. All 10 of them are saved and on their way to heaven, but only one came back to give thanks. So where are the nine? I don't even care. Jesus, Jesus never told us where the nine are because it didn't matter. The thing that mattered was that only one came back. So what do you expect? Let's borrow a word of prayer. Father, we thank you so much for your word and Lord, we thank you for every single person that's willing to receive the free gift. We thank you for every single person who's willing to receive the Lord Jesus Christ, their savior. But Lord, I pray that we would raise up a generation of people that are also willing to deny self and take up the cross and follow you, Lord. Help save Christians today to get off their blessed assurance and get out there.