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In Numbers chapter 16, we have a story about Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, and I really want to just focus in on a verse at the end of the chapter where the Bible reads in verse 28, and he stood between the dead and the living, and the plague was stayed. What I want to preach about tonight is standing in the gap, or standing between the dead and the living. First of all, let me just briefly give you what the chapter is about. We just heard it read, but basically these men, Korah, Dathan, and Abiram are rebelling against Moses, and it's not just that they're rebelling against Moses. Over and over again, every time the people rebelled against Moses, Moses and Aaron were always quick to point out to them, you're not rebelling against us. We didn't make this stuff up. We're not the one who's making these laws. We're not the ones who are telling you what to do here. We're just the messenger here. We're just repeating God's word to you, and the Bible is clear over and over again that they were really rebelling against God. Now, in the book of Jude, turn there quickly to the book of Jude, and look at Jude verse number, let me get there myself, Jude verse number 11, and this is a chapter that's about false prophets and false teachers. In 2 Peter chapter 2, which is a parallel passage of the book of Jude, he says, there were also false prophets among the people, even as there shall be false prophets among you. And he compares these false prophets to certain Old Testament characters. He says in verse 11 there, woe unto them, he's saying, woe unto these false prophets, these false teachers that are bringing in damnable heresies. He says, woe unto them, for they have gone in the way of Cain, and ran greedily after the error of Balaam for reward, and perished in the gainsaying of Cory. So he's making three comparisons about these false prophets. First of all, he compares them to Cain. Why? Cain represents work, salvation. If you remember, God told Cain and Abel that he wanted an offering, a sacrifice, and Abel brought up the first things of his flock, with the fact thereof. Abel brought the blood sacrifice of the lamb, and offered that unto God, and Abel's sacrifice was accepted. And of course, that lamb pictured the Lord Jesus Christ, the lamb of God, who's taken away the sin of the world. Cain, on the other hand, he brought up the fruits of the ground, he was a farmer, he was a husbandman, and so he brought fruits and vegetables, and offered his own works to God. God rejected his offering. And so when the Bible says they're going in the way of Cain, he's talking about people that are basically trying to work their way into heaven, they're bringing in their own works instead of bringing the lamb, instead of bringing the blood, as Abel did. And then he compares them to Balaam, and he says that they run greedily after the error of Balaam for reward. He's talking about people who preach things which they ought not, for filthy lucre's sake. People who are motivated by money, and that takes their preaching, they preach lies in order to be paid. And then the third person he compares them to is Corey, he says they're heirs to the gainsaying of Corey, and Corey is one who basically had questioned or gainsayed the word of God, and gainsayed the word as it was being preached by Moses. Now with that in mind, when Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, Korah, one of these proverbial false prophets of the Old Testament, when he rebelled against God and rebelled against Moses, God basically destroyed him by causing the earth to open up, and of course they all descended alive into hell, and God destroyed Korah, Dathan, Abiram, and all their company. But as a result of that, the people were angry, the people of Israel, they blamed Moses and said, you have destroyed the people of the Lord. And God's wrath was kindled, and God sent a plague, a plague is basically a disease that's just killing them right away, he sends this plague amongst the people and they're all dying, because God is so angry at their total rebellion, even after Korah has been destroyed they're still following his wicked ways, and God sends this plague among the people, and Moses and Aaron step in and intercede with God. They fall on their faces before God and beg him not to destroy the people, and if you remember, Aaron takes a censer, and please bring the children out of the auditorium if they're fussing, crying, but we've got to have some kind of peace in here. He brings the censer, and he runs in amongst the people to offer this offering unto God, to try to basically placate God's wrath and to get God to turn away his wrath from them. And when he brings that censer, the plague stops right where he's standing, basically the plague has been destroying the people, and right where Aaron is standing and offering that offering and offering that incense on the censer, right there is where the plague stops, and the Bible says that Aaron stood between the dead and the living. Basically everybody on this side of Aaron was dead, and everybody on this side of Aaron was alive. And what God's trying to teach us there is to show us that we, as God's people, as priests, because Aaron was the priest, the Bible says God has made us in the New Testament a royal priesthood. It's our job today to stand between the dead and the living. And what I mean by that, go if you would to Ezekiel chapter number 33. We as believers, we as priests in the New Testament, we as so many Christians, we as we truly stand between the dead and the living, and what I mean by that is that our actions determine in many ways who lives and who dies. Now you say, I don't believe that, that's crazy, no, it's not, it's the truth. You see when we go out soul-wetting, when we go out knocking doors, preaching the gospel to every creature, we're not just doing it for fun, we're standing between the dead and the living. I mean we are literally out there making a difference in whether or not people will spend eternity in hell or eternity in heaven, otherwise I wouldn't even be doing it if that weren't the case. That would really make a difference. Look if you would at Ezekiel 33, this is a famous passage that really illustrates what I'm saying about standing between the dead and the living. Look at Ezekiel 33, the Bible reads again, the word of the Lord came unto me saying, Son of man, speak to the children of thy people and say unto them, when I bring the sword upon the land, if the people of the land take a man at their coast and set him for their watchman, if when he seeth the sword come upon the land, he blow the trumpet and warn the people, then whosoever heareth the sound of the trumpet and taketh not warning, if the sword come and take him away, his blood shall be upon his own head. So he's saying that in a nation you're always going to set people up as guards. Everybody can't be awake all the time watching for the enemy, so they set a man to be the watchman and he is set on the perimeter and he is up all night, it's his job to guard and to watch and when an enemy invasion comes, it's before radar and sonar and you know, all these technological ways of telling when the enemy is coming, I mean somebody just had to be watching for the enemy. And so he would be awake, he'd be vigilant, he'd be watching and when he saw the sword come or a multiplicity thereof, you know when he sees the weapons and the armor and the army advancing of a foreign invader, he's going to warn the people and sound the alarm, ring the bell and say, hey, there's an enemy coming, there's trouble. We need to fight, we need people to be ready. People of course are going to jump out of bed, they're going to put on their weapons, they're going to go out and defend their nation. And he says if the watchman sounds the alarm, if he blows the trumpet and sounds the alarm and lets everybody know that there's danger, he says if the, then whosoever, verse four, heareth the sound of the trumpet and taketh not warning, if the sword come and take him away, his blood shall be upon his own head. He's saying, look, it's not the watchman's fault. If the watchman's sounding the alarm and people are ignoring it and not defending themselves, that's not his fault. That person's blood is on their own head. They heard the trumpet, they didn't take warning, that's their fault. It's not the watchman's fault. Everybody understand that? Look at the next verse. It says in verse six, but if the watchman see the sword come and blow not the trumpet. So here's a guy who's asleep on the job or he's not blowing the trumpet, he's not sounding the alarm, and the people be not warned, if the sword come and take any person from among them, he is taken away in his iniquity, but his blood will I require at the watchman's head. You say, what does that mean, his blood will I require at his head? What he's saying is that the watchman is responsible for the death of that person. If he is set to be a watchman and it's his job to sound that alarm, he sees the enemy coming, he doesn't sound the alarm, people are killed as a result, those people's blood is on his head because he did not warn them and that was his job, he was supposed to warn them. Well look what the Bible says next. He says in verse seven, so thou, O son of man, I have set thee a watchman unto the house of Israel. Therefore, thou shalt hear the word at my mouth and warn them from me. When I say unto the wicked, O wicked man, thou shalt surely die. If thou does not speak to warn the wicked from his way, that wicked man shall die in his iniquity, but his blood will I require at thine hand. Nevertheless, if thou warn the wicked of his way to turn from it, if he do not turn from his way, he shall die in his iniquity, but thou hast delivered thy soul. He's saying if you don't warn people of the spiritual doom that they're facing, they'll die in their iniquity. Now notice, he says that if you don't warn them, they will die. If they don't hear the gospel, how can they be saved? If they don't hear a clear presentation of the gospel, they're not going to be saved. He says if you warn them, maybe they'll listen to you and maybe they won't, but you are free from the blood of that person. It's like Paul said when he preached the gospel all throughout Asia. He said I am free, he said I don't have the blood of any man on my hands, I'm paraphrasing, but he said for I have not shunned to declare unto you the whole counsel of God. He said I'm free from the blood of all men. Why? Because I've warned, because I've preached, because I've done the soul winning. It's not my fault. But if we don't warn them, it is our fault. Now that right there proves that when we're out soul winning, we're standing between the dead and the living. You see, people believe in a false doctrine that's called Calvinism. And this doctrine of Calvinism is a lie that teaches that it's already foredetermined who's going to go to heaven and who's going to go to hell and there's nothing we can do to change it. Who's been exposed to that doctrine? Where basically they'll say, you know what, no matter what we do, no matter what we say, God's the one who decides who goes to heaven and God's the one who decides who goes to hell and so there's nothing we can do to change where somebody's heading. That's a lie today. When we go out there and preach the gospel to every creature, we can get somebody saved that's on their way down. We can change something. We can make a difference there. And we can warn people that would otherwise not hear the warning if they didn't hear it from us. In 2 Corinthians chapter 3, and while you're turning to 1 Corinthians 3, I'll read for you from 2 Corinthians chapter 4. In 2 Corinthians 4, the Bible reads, but if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost. Okay? The Bible says if our gospel be hidden, if we're not shining forth the glorious light of the gospel, if we're hiding it under a bushel, he says if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost, in whom the God of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them. For we preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord, and ourselves your servants for Jesus' sake. For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. The Bible says if our gospel is hid, it is hid to the lost. They're the ones that are blinded. They're the ones that are going to be destroyed. Look, if we don't go out and preach the gospel, we're still going to heaven, because we're saved. We believe. I mean, I've already believed on Christ. I'm going to heaven no matter what. But if my gospel is hid, you know who suffers? They do. Because if they don't hear the gospel, if our gospel is hid, it's hid to the lost, they're going to remain blinded. They're going to remain in darkness. They're going to remain unsaved. Hey, there's a reason why we go out there and preach the gospel to every creature. It's because we're trying to stand between the dead and the living and make a difference of whether someone's on their way to heaven or someone's on their way to hell. Now, at the end of the day, people make their own choice. Sometimes you warn them. They don't take heed to the warning. You show them the word of God. They don't believe it. But here's the thing. The more they hear it, faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the word of God. The more times they hear the gospel, the more likely they are to get saved. The clearer it's presented unto them, the more likely they are to be saved. You know, everybody's going to hear this gospel of the kingdom preached one time around in their life. Okay? But that doesn't mean they're going to get saved. But the person who hears it again and again and somebody's praying for them and somebody's bringing them the gospel and somebody's fasting, that person is far more likely to get saved than the one who maybe just heard it once somewhere along the way, maybe vaguely or just a few scriptures somewhere along the way. Did I ever turn to 1 Corinthians 3? This is a key verse right here. Talking about winning people to Christ, he talks about how sometimes when we're out preaching the gospel, sometimes we just plant a seed and somebody else comes and waters that seed and so forth. But he says in verse 5, Who then is Paul, and who is Apollos, but ministers by whom ye believe, and here's the important part, even as the Lord gave to every man. Now right there the Bible is saying that God has given to every man a minister by whom they might believe. Okay? Everybody that's here today that's saved, it's because somebody preached you the gospel, whether it were Paul or Apollos or in today's world, whoever it was that gave you the gospel. And maybe you heard the gospel from more than one person. Maybe one person planted the seed when they gave you the gospel. Maybe somebody else came along and waters that seed. Like Brother Richard, he talks about a guy gave him the gospel and he didn't get saved right then and there when he was a college student at Virginia Tech. Later on he got saved, but it all kind of went back to that first time he heard the gospel. And he says if that guy had to give him the gospel that day, he probably wouldn't have gotten saved a year later. It took a year for him to get saved, but he first heard the gospel. So there were a few people, a few different people involved in his salvation. Okay? Probably a lot of us could point to a few different people that got the gospel to us. But we had ministers by whom we believe, and that's a gift from God. God is sending people out to give the gospel. Now think about this. If the Bible says that God has given to every man a minister by whom they believe, okay, does everybody believe? Is everybody saved? No. But here's the thing. I wonder how many people God intended for you to be that minister that would bring them the gospel, but you weren't doing it. Think about that. If God is in the business of sending people out, right, to go out and give the gospel to the lost, and we see a lot of examples of that in the Bible, where God is sending specific people to go preach to specific people that he has in mind for them to preach to, what if they don't go? What if they say no? Well, the Calvinists will say, well, God's just going to find another way to get that person the gospel. Is that why so many people don't hear the gospel? You know, and they say, oh, it's up to God who gets saved. No, the Bible says that God is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. God is not up in heaven deciding who goes to heaven and who goes to hell. God's up in heaven saying, and the Spirit and the bride say, come, and let him that heareth say, come, and whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely. God's up there saying, whosoever will may come. He's up there saying, whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have never last life. No, he loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, not that he loved a select few and died for them. No, he loved the world so much that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever, that's God's choice. The Bible says that he will have all men to be saved in the comments of the knowledge of the truth. And Calvinists have all their little cute philosophical, well, you know, that's double payments, they say. You know, if Jesus paid for somebody's sins on the cross, and somebody else has to pay for their sins, that doesn't make any sense, because if Jesus already paid at all, how could somebody go to hell and pay for it that's already been paid? You know, take your, I can't even pronounce it, it means nothing to me, philosophical, I can't even pronounce the word, because the Bible says that it will spoil you and ruin you when you believe in the vain philosophies of men. This philosophical reasoning of, well, if Jesus already paid for everybody, then everybody would be saved, so Jesus must have only died for certain people. Well, that's a really cute argument, that Jesus only died for certain people, but the problem is the Bible says that he tasted death for every man. Sorry to burst your little philosophical bubble, the Bible says he tasted death for every man. The Bible says he's the savior of all men, especially of those that believe. That means he's the savior of those who don't believe, but it doesn't do him any good if they don't believe. The Bible says the word preached did not profit them, not being mixed with faith and then the murder. They've got to supply the faith, and this Calvinism is this philosophical, theological, sit around and dream up all these arguments for why Jesus didn't die for everybody, and arguments about why it's already predetermined who's going to heaven and who's going to hell. The Bible says he will have all men to be saved, and they'll say, well, you're saying that God failed if he wants everybody to be saved. Look, it's, quit arguing with the Bible, it's what the Bible says. If you don't believe it, you're a liar. If you don't believe it, you're making God a liar. If you don't believe it, you're a heretic. It's that simple. The Bible says he will have all men to be saved, he's willing that all men to be saved and come unto the knowledge of the truth. That's his will. And Jesus Christ was not out soul winning today. Let me tell you something. He wasn't. Now, look, did anybody see Jesus out soul winning today? When you're out soul winning, did you see him knocking any doors today? I didn't. Who here thinks that Jesus was out knocking doors today? He's at the right hand of the Father, if I'm not mistaken. Who believes that Jesus is at the right hand of the Father right away? Yeah, he wasn't out soul winning. You know why? Because he said, as the Father sent me, so send I you. He said, as long as I'm in the world, I'm the light of the world. And he said, you're the light of the world. And he said, as the Father has sent me, so send I you. He has committed unto us the ministry of reconciliation. He's not out knocking the doors, he has commanded us to go out into the highways and the hedges and compel them to come in that this house may be built. He's commanded us to go out and preach the gospel to every creature. It's our job to go out and win people to Christ. He's not doing it. He did it while he was on this earth. He went about everywhere in all the villages preaching the word. But now it's our job. Now it's our turn. And don't get sucked into this doctrine that says, well, whether I go or not, it doesn't matter. It does matter if you go or not. Because you are standing between the dead and the living. And when you stand between the dead and the living at your house, you know, or not doing it, and then when you go out and win souls, there's a difference between who lives and who dies there. I believe that from the top of my head to the bottom of my feet, or I would not be aggressive about souling. I wouldn't be interested in souling if I thought I was just out there going through the motions. No, I'm out there because God tells me that I'm standing between the dead and the living. God tells me that if my gospel's hid, it's going to be hid to the loss. And they're going to be blinded. They're going to be the ones that are in darkness. They're going to be the ones that are suffering. The Bible says if some have compassion, in the book of Jude, if some have compassion, making a difference, and others save with fear. He's commanding us. Save them with fear. Pulling them out of the fire. Hating even the garment's father's blood with flesh. Now if we don't make a difference, why is he telling us, go save them with fear? Pull them out of the fire. People will often criticize us for using the term soul winning. And it's a biblical term. The Bible says he that winneth souls is wise. Proverbs 11 30. The fruit of the righteous is a tree of life, and he that winneth souls is wise. The Bible uses the term again in 1 Peter chapter 3. When it talks about a woman winning her husband by her chaste conversation and her testimony of godliness, that could win her husband out of Christ. But many people will say this. You don't win, soul. God does it all. It's all God. It's not you at all. You're taking away God's glory. Now look, obviously we know that Jesus is the savior. Obviously we know that Jesus is the one who died, and it's all through Jesus. He gets all the glory. But the Bible clearly states in 1 Corinthians chapter 6, he said, I've become all things to all men that I might by all means save some. So how do you explain that? The apostle Paul said, I'm going out there and doing what it takes to get people saved, to save some. He told us in Jude, save them with fear. Pull them out of the fire. That sounds like we have a job to do. That sounds like God's using us to do his work. That sounds like we have a role in this. And if we are not sounding the trumpet of the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ today, if we're not warning them, if we're not giving them the gospel, they're going to perish in their iniquity, and God will count us as responsible for not doing our job of preaching the word. Now we're not going to save everybody. We live in a world with 7 billion people. You're not going to save everybody. You can't save this whole world. You can't even give the gospel to the whole world. It's never going to happen. But that's not what God's asking you to do. God is just asking you to faithfully go out and preach the gospel to every preacher. You have your area. You have the people you know. You have the city that you live in. We have Phoenix, Arizona here. God's not holding us responsible for Timbuktu, even though Timbuktu is a sister city of Pempe, Arizona. God's not holding us responsible for somebody who's going to hell in Timbuktu. But if somebody across the street from our church goes to hell and they never even heard the gospel, does nobody knock their door? Nobody cares? Nobody talked to them? That is going to make God look at us and say, What were you doing? What did you do with everything I gave you? I gave you my word. I gave you my spirit. I gave you preaching. I gave you a church. I gave you all these blessings. I gave you prosperity. What have you done? Did you carry out the Great Commission? Did you preach the word? Did you do what you were supposed to do? And God will be angry if we don't. But not only that, let's look at another aspect. Go to Ezekiel 22. So not only soul wedding, where we're standing between the dead and the living, but also the Bible talks about standing in the gap in another area. Look at Ezekiel chapter 22. And this is a famous passage of scripture, Ezekiel 22, 30. The Bible reads, And I sought for a man among them that should make up the hedge and stand in the gap before me for the land, that I should not destroy it, but I found none. Now again, this flies in the face of Calvinism's doctrine of, you know, whatever God wills, it just happens. Well, here God's looking for somebody to stand in the gap, but he can't find it. And therefore, he destroys the land. He said in verse 31, Therefore, if I poured out my indignation upon them, I have consumed them with the fire of my wrath, their own way have I recompensed upon their heads. Sayeth the Lord. He said, I sought for a man. I was looking for somebody that would stand in the gap and make up the hedge before me for the people that I had not destroyed. You see, God is looking for somebody, yes, to stand between the dead and the living. That's where soul when he comes into play. But not only that, he's looking for somebody to stand in the gap and make up the hedge before, so that the land will not be destroyed. Now, what does that mean? Well, think about this. When God says, I'm looking for a man to stand in the gap, that means that there is a gap. Does it not? What is a gap? A gap is an empty space, right? So let's say we have a wall, and the wall is there to protect us against intruders, and there's a gap in the wall. That wall is not going to do a lot of good, right? Because the invader, if you like, if I put up just this massive fence around my house, razor wire, barbed wire, and then just an open door, just an open gate, just a big open section where there's no fence, and it's right in the back facing the alley, and there's just no fence, nothing. That's a gap in my defenses, and basically the thief can just walk right in because there's a gap there, okay? You think about an army formation. They form that phalanx where they don't have any gaps because they don't want the invader or the enemy to be able to flank them or come around the side or the back. They want to have a wall of defense here. And so God's saying he's looking for somebody to stand in the gap, and I think that when he looks at America today, he definitely sees a big gap. Now what is a gap? A gap is something that's missing, something that should be there, but it's not there. He's looking for a man that will stand in that gap, okay? And basically he's looking for somebody who's going to preach the Word of God and expose the sins of our land that people might turn from their sin. Basically somebody who's preaching that warning. Because not only are we called today to win souls to Christ and to preach that people should believe on Christ. That's very important. Going out and preaching the message of salvation by faith alone. But that's not all he told us to do. He also told us that we're to preach the Word, to be in season, out of season. He told us that we're to teach the people all things whatsoever He's commanded us. That's part of the Great Commission too. And you see, when I look at this nation today, I see a major gap today of people that will stand up against sin and preach against sin. It's a huge gap. Now there's definitely a gap when it comes to this whole way. There are a lot less people out there preaching the gospel than there should be, that are out knocking doors than there should be. That's a gap too, but let me tell you about another gap. There's a gap of people that will stand up and preach against sin in this country and really preach it the way the Bible preaches it. It's missing. It's a big gap. And so we see today that sin runs rampant in our nation. And even amongst Christians, even amongst God's people, the most vile, disgusting forms of sin are becoming accepted. And there's one reason for it. Because nobody is standing in that gap and hollering out and preaching against sin in so many places, so many towns and cities across America. They just don't even have a voice that's proclaiming God's word in these areas. You know, there's so many gaps in the preaching of today. Think about this. If God has called us to preach the whole counsel of God, the whole word, right? Well, what if I only preach certain parts of the Bible? And let's say you come to church here, and our church, this is like the 1,007th service. I was counting up how long our church had been around. This is like the 1,007th service, okay? So I preached like over 1,000 sermons at this church, let alone places that I preached elsewhere. Now, let's say there were certain subjects that I was just purposely not touching on, purposely not shying away from. Now, if I preached 1,000 sermons, wouldn't you think I should probably touch on just about every major subject in the Bible after 1,000 sermons, right? What if there were just these big gaps in my preaching? Are you listening? Big, giant gaps. Like, well, I've been going to that church with Pastor Anderson for the last six and a half years. I've heard him preach over 1,000 times, and I've never heard him mention hell. Wouldn't that be like a big gap in my preaching? Or, you know, I've been there for the last six and a half years. He's never one time mentioned the Sodomites, the homos. You know, he just glosses that over whenever he gets to it. And whenever he gets to Genesis about Sodom and Gomorrah, he just kind of skips over them. And I've noticed that as I've been there for the last six and a half years, you know, I've listened to him preach, but he's never one time touched on the subject of eternal security of the believer, you know, whether we can lose our salvation, you know. Because, by the way, the Bible says you can never lose your salvation. Amen. He said, I give unto them eternal life, and they shall never perish. Neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. Now, wouldn't it be a tragedy if I had these big gaps in my preaching? Or, like, he's never one time mentioned prayer. Never heard him talk about praying, ever. Or, you know, he's never emphasized to us that we should read the whole Bible cover to cover. He never talks about Bible reading. Or, you know, I've been to that church for six and a half years. I've never heard him mention witnessing unto the lost. He just doesn't talk about it. Or I've never heard him deal with the resurrection of Christ. It's just he never preaches about it. Or I've never heard him turn to the book of Numbers, ever. You know, I've been coming here. I've heard a thousand sermons. He's preached out of 65 books of the Bible. I'm waiting for him to turn to the book of Numbers. Now, wouldn't it be wrong if I had those kind of gaps in my preaching? Wouldn't you say there's something wrong with that? If I'm shying away from certain things? Now, if you think about it, even before the service begins, we read an entire chapter of the Bible. That means we've read out loud, with not even counting the Bible in the sermon. Just the reading at the beginning of the sermon alone that's over a thousand chapters of the Bible. That's getting close to being almost the whole Bible, 1,189 chapters. Obviously, some have been repeated and so forth. But you see, it's not right to have gaps in our preaching. And yet today, at the average church, there are massive gaps in the preaching. And I remember as a teenager, I went to my parents. And I was about 16 years old. And I went to my mom and dad, and I said, Mom and Dad, I said, I've been reading my Bible. You know, because I decided when I was 16, I decided I'm reading cover to cover. I'd never read the whole thing cover to cover. So when I was 16, I decided to read cover to cover. And I went to my mom and dad, and I said, Mom and Dad, I'm reading my Bible. And I said, wow, the Bible really talks a lot about hell. And I said, we've been going to this church now for two years. And I said, I've never heard the pastor or the youth pastor ever say the word hell ever or mention hell. Have you? And they said, no, he hasn't. And I said, don't you think there's something wrong with that? Isn't that a gap in that preaching? Isn't there something wrong that he's never mentioned hell in the last few years? So my dad said, you're right. He said, I'm going to ask him why he doesn't talk about hell. So my dad went to the pastor, and he said, hey, my son asked me. And he said, why don't you ever talk about hell? Why don't you ever preach about hell? I've never even heard you mention hell in the last few years that we've been going here. And here's what he said. He said, well, I know I probably should deal with it. But he said, I just don't like it. I just don't like it. He just said, you know, it's so negative. And it is. Is anybody going to dispute that it's negative? Does anybody think it's a fun subject? I mean, do you think it's just a fun subject? Yeah, let's talk about hell. Let's talk about eternal punishment and torment. That's a good way to start the week on Sunday morning. That's a pleasant subject that's going to get us happy and get us joyful. But you know what? That doesn't mean that we shouldn't preach it. We must preach it. We must deal with it. We must talk about it. And that's why I preach on hell. That's why I believe in hell. That's why when I'm out every week, I'm showing people scriptures on hell, trying to get them to see the difference between heaven and hell and see the need for salvation. And this pastor just said, well, I don't want to touch on that because it's too negative. It's not something that I want to talk about. I know I should be doing it, but I'm not doing it. That's what he said. And you think he's alone? You think we were going to the worst church in all of Sacramento? We just sought out. Let's find the worst church. Let's find the most liberal, apostate church we can find. No. Now, obviously the church we were going to was not where we should have been going. We should have been in a different church, clearly. And later on, we found a better church and got out of that and got in a good, fundamental Baptist church. But I'll tell you right now, that wasn't the worst church around. And yet, that was the mentality. Huge, glaring gap. But that's mild. Because you know, most pastors, most churches, you're at least going to hear mention of hell. I hope. I mean, I hope that they don't have a gap that big. You know, something that's mentioned hundreds of times in the Bible. But let's face it. Are preachers today preaching against sin and worldliness? That's a gap you're going to find in almost every church. You know, they'll make vague statements like, you know, don't sin. Sin's bad. But they're not going to get up and really rail on it today. And today, I was in my car this week, and I turned on the news on the radio. And in one news break, they have like, you know when you're listening to radio, and then they'll come in with like, and they'll come in with like three little news items. It's like, who knows what I'm talking about? It's like a two or three minute little news break that's like every hour or every half hour, right? So this little news comes in with the news, and basically like every story in the news was about sodomy. Every one of them. It was just like, oh, this court today just declared that sodomy's wonderful, you know, or whatever. Because this guy would be sued for defamation of character because he called somebody a homo. I don't use the word gay. Gay means happy. He declared someone to be a homo, and that person was not really a homo. So who knows what a defamation lawsuit is? That's like where you say something bad about somebody, and then they sue you. It'd be like if somebody said, you know, Pastor Anderson's committing adultery or something, right? Then I could take that person to court and say, no, I'm not committing adultery. They're defaming my character. They're lying about me. And you know what? You can be awarded a financial settlement if somebody's telling those kind of lies, destroying your character, you know, accusing you of stuff that you didn't do, right? Well, in the past, there have been defamation lawsuits filed where somebody accused somebody of being a homo, and they were not a homo, so they took that person to court. You know, they want to set the record straight and defend their reputation. And I say, I'm not a homo. And I want financial recovery with that person. So listen to this. This week, they just said, for the first time in American history, this court, who has always awarded people money in the past for being called a homo when they were not a homo, OK? They've always awarded people money in the past. This is what they said. They threw out the case this week. And they said, there's nothing wrong with being a homo. Therefore, it's not defamation of character. Because they said, in America today, in our society, people do not consider being a homo a bad thing anymore. So therefore, if it's not bad to be a homo, there's no defamation of character. Because in order to get a defamation of character lawsuit, somebody has to say something bad about you. And according to this world today, being a homo is wonderful. And then the next news item was some other weird thing. You know, no. Gays, we're getting married over here. Now it's a comic book character. This is what it was. Then the next news. I mean, it's just like, I feel like I'm living in Twilight Zone. Like, first it's that. And then the next news item in the same little news break is saying, DC Marvel Comics is now coming out with their first openly queer character. And I'm inserting words that I agree with. Queer. Oh, that. I'm not going to use these little sugar-coated words. So they're like, DC Marvel Comic coming out, the Green Lantern or something? Who knew it? He's a homo. But I don't know that. Does anybody know who that is? Does anybody know who the Green Lantern is? Put up your hands if you've ever heard of the Green Lantern. Wow, lots of people. I'd never heard of it. It's a pretty. The hands are going up all over the room. So I mean, he's not exactly Spider-Man or something. But I guess he's a major character. Well, now he's coming out of the closet. You know what I mean? He's a fictional character. But he's now their first openly sodomite. So it's just like every. And look, it's like that every day on the news. Now, some of you don't follow the news. Great. Just read the Bible. Forget it. I'm on a lot of long drives, and I get bored. And so I like to just turn on the news sometimes and listen to it. But you're better off to just live in a bubble and just read the Bible. Because this stuff is getting so weird. But honestly, if you are one that listens to the news, you know that I'm telling the truth that not a day goes by that there's not some news story that involves sodomy. I mean, every day, it's like, oh, now it's in the military. Now it's over here. Now it's the Green Lantern. Now it's in the comics. Now it's in the same day. The same day the news said, oh, the JC Penney catalog is featuring homos. I mean, it's just every day just bombarding us, bombarding us, bombarding us. And look, you know and I know that there is not enough fire-breathing preaching in this country against that sin. Pastors are shying away from it. A good friend of mine said that in his church that the pastor never will preach against homos because the deacon's son is a homo. And he flat out said, I can't preach too hard against it. I have to stay away from that subject not to offend. That guy should be kicked out from even being a deacon. He shouldn't even be a deacon if his son's a homo. Throw him out from even being a deacon. Kick him in the rear end and then get up and preach the hardest sermon you ever preached against homos. But today there's a gap today where Pastor Anderson gets up and rails against this stuff and people say, oh, he's radical. He's crazy. No, you're crazy if you accept it. You're crazy if you think it's normal that people won't preach on this when the Bible deals with over and over and over again. And there's a gap today. I'm trying to stand in the gap. And somebody's got to stand in that gap. Nobody wants to be the party pooper. Nobody wants to be the bad guy who preaches against sin. Nobody likes to do sermons on hell. But you know what? They have to be preached. It's God's word. Somebody has got to stand in the gap. And look, the other side, and when I say the other side, I'm talking about the rulers of the darkness in this world. I'm talking about the devil and his minions. I'm talking about the forces of evil. I'm talking about Korah, Dathan, and Abiram of this world. The gainsayers of the word God. They are fighting tooth and nail every day to get you to accept that sin. Phenomena is every day. They're pushing it through the media. They're pushing it through the JCPenney catalog, through Marvel comics. They're pushing it through department stores. They're pushing it through every corporation. They have these months of appreciation for sodomy and everything like that. And they promote it. And they promote it. And they promote it. And we're just... It's still a sin. You know, like we're afraid of something. I'm not afraid of you. Come get mad at me after the service because I'm preaching against the homeless. Bring it on! Come on! Come on! Stand up right now, whoever wants to fight me on this. Because I will never back down on this. And somebody has got to stand in the gap. And I'm sick of it. And if you don't like it, there's the door, buddy. And don't let it hit you on the way out. Because somebody's got to preach this up. Somebody's got to stand up and say it. Somebody's got to point out the elephant in the room and say it's disgusting, it's weird, and we'll never accept it. And today, it's watered down preaching today that emphasizes, don't let them get married. That's not even in the Bible. The Bible says that they should be put to death. The Bible says don't... It doesn't say, don't let them get married. Give them a civil union instead. That's not what the Bible says. But we don't preach the Bible. We preach a bunch of feel-good stuff, and there's a big gap there. There are other gaps today. That's just one example. There are all kinds of things. Go to Matthew chapter 10. Matthew chapter number 10. You say, Pastor Anderson, I was really with you on that first point about getting people saved. That was a really positive message. But all of a sudden, you started screaming about comic books and homos and sin. You know what? You've got to have both sides of the corner. The Bible is not all fun and games. There's an aspect of the love of God. I was out still winning today, and I gave the gospel to this lady, and I told her, I said, you know what the word gospel means? It means good news. Now, when I got to that door, I said, do you know for sure you're going to heaven? She said, no. She thought it was by how good she was. She thought it was by works. And I went through the whole plan of salvation with her. She got saved. And I said, hey, isn't that good news that Jesus did everything that you can just know for sure you're going to heaven all through his grace, all through his blood? That's great news, but you know what? I've got bad news for you. God's mad. God's angry with the wicked every day. God's wrath is revealed against all unrighteousness and ungodliness of men who hold the truth in unrighteousness. There's the good news, and there's the bad news. And it's my job to preach both. Somebody's got to stand in that gap. Somebody's got to make up the hedge today. And I can't do it alone. I'm one person. God needs other people to rise up and stand in that gap too and to stand tall for the truth. Look at Matthew 10, because one time I was talking to a fellow pastor, and this pastor was a very successful pastor. He had a church with lots of people in it. And that's great. And you know what? He was a great guy. And I liked him. And the thing is, you know, our church is growing. Our church started six and a half years ago with just my family and a couple visitors. And, you know, we've grown over the years. Over the last six years, we've grown, and we're constantly growing. But this pastor had been a pastor for a long time, and he had a very big church. You know, he was running over 1,000 on Sunday morning, so it was a pretty good-sized church. And he heard my preaching. This is years ago. And he said, I want to give you some advice about your preaching. And he said, you know what? He said, the stuff you believe is great, and the stuff you're saying is great, but he said, you're saying too much, though. He's basically saying, you know, you need to hold back. You don't just preach everything. People can't handle what he said. If you preach too much, if you preach too many things and you preach too hard... And he wasn't saying, like, too many things in one sermon. He just said, you know, people can't handle certain things. They're not ready for it. So you need to hold back on that stuff, because he said otherwise people are going to leave your church, and your church is not going to grow, he said. If you preach everything, you know, the church isn't going to grow. There are certain things that you got to hold off and wait and not mention. You know, he said, when you start a church, the first few years, you got to go soft the first few years. Then you start to introduce some of the hard preaching. You know what I mean? Like, after people are ready for it. Now, the reason that that doesn't make any sense is because we constantly have new people coming to our church. So let's say I start the church, and I'm waiting until everybody gets mature to be able to handle this kind of preaching. And then all of a sudden, you know, a new visitor walks in. It's like, oh, you got to start over. Start the two years over or else I'm going to offend him. Right? Okay. Look, everything I'm preaching tonight is from the Bible. There's nothing I'm saying that's not in the Bible. You need a reference on the homos, go to Leviticus 20.13. I'm not going to turn there right now. Write it down, and if you're too lazy to go look it up, that's not my fault. Leviticus 20.13, there you go. And all God's people said, amen. Now, in Matthew chapter 10, and here's what he said. Oh, yeah, let me finish my story. Here's what this pastor said to me. He said, look at the example of Jesus. He said, Jesus did not say everything openly. He would say certain things just to his disciples, secretly, right? And then when he'd go out in the open, he'd say something other than that. Now, this is the kind of moment I'm talking about because Jesus even said that he was speaking in a lot of parables and dark sayings, right? And Jesus, when he got up and preached sometimes, he would preach a parable, and nobody understood the parable. And then he walked away. And then his disciples came to him and asked him the interpretation of the parable. This is in Matthew 13, for example. It's a good chapter. In Matthew 13, Jesus gets up and preaches his parables. The people didn't really understand what he meant, and even his disciples didn't understand. So his disciples say, can you interpret the parable? Can you declare unto us the parable of the sower? And he says unto them, he says unto you it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God, but to them it is not given. And they asked him, they said, why is it? He said, if you're speaking openly to us, they asked him in the book of John. If you're speaking plainly and openly to us, he said, why don't you speak openly and plainly to the world? Why are you speaking to them in cryptic, dark sayings and parables? Why do you speak to them in parables and then you speak to us in an explicit way, is basically what they're asking. And so this pastor used that as an example. And he said, see, Jesus didn't just preach everything. He held off on a lot of things. But hold on a second. Look at Matthew 10. Keep that in mind. Look at Matthew 10, verse 27. The Bible says this, what I tell you in darkness, that speak ye in light, and what ye hear in the ear, that preach ye upon the housetops. And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul, but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell. Now isn't Jesus there admitting, hey, there are some things I'm telling you in darkness, right? There are some things that I'm telling you into your ear. I'm not shouting it from the housetops. You know, for example, there were certain people that fell at Jesus' feet and said, thou art the Christ, the Son of the Living God. And you remember when he told them, hold your peace? Don't talk about that? You remember that? Remember when he healed lepers and he said, see that no man knoweth? Don't tell anybody. Just go show yourself to the priest. You remember when the demons had possessed, the devils had possessed a man. And that man said, I know thee who thou art, the Holy One of God. You're the Son of the Blessed and you're the Son of God. And he told them to hold his peace. He said he didn't want them to make a note. Why is that? Well, first of all, it doesn't really matter why. That's what Jesus did, okay, while he was on this earth. But he tells us the things that I'm telling you in the ear quietly and in darkness, you need to preach it in now. I mean, read it again. Read the verse again. When I tell you in darkness, this is Matthew 10-27, that speak ye in the light. And what ye hear in the ear, that preach ye upon the housetops. Because you see, Jesus, a lot of things he held back because he was saying mine hour is not yet come. It's not the right timing for people to know these things, okay? He didn't want everybody to know that he was Christ right away. He didn't want everybody to know who he was. So he basically revealed things according to his timing and his plan. And people would constantly say, do this, do that. You know, Mary wanted him to do a miracle. He said, mine hour is not yet come. His brother had said, go up to Jerusalem, show yourself to the world. And he said, mine hour is not yet come. It's not time for me to reveal myself to the world yet. And so he spoke in parables. He kept a lot of things under wraps. He did not expose everything. But that is not his instruction to us ever in the Bible. Never. Now in the book of Daniel, the Old Testament, God revealed a lot of things about end times prophecy under Daniel. But he told Daniel, he said, seal up the sayings of the prophecy. He said, these things are for a long time to come. Seal it up. This is going to come into play later. He told him some things that were for later that people weren't ready for. But here's the thing. In today's last days that we're living in, in the New Testament of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, we are not told to hold anything back. It says at the end of Revelation, seal not the sayings of the prophecy of this book, for the time is at hand. The opposite of what it says in Daniel 12. In Daniel 12, he says, seal it up. In Revelation 22, he says, seal it not. It's at hand. It's not a far off. It's coming. People need to hear this. You see, Jesus Christ, when he was on this earth, he only limited his ministry to just the nation of Israel. But then when he finished his course on this earth, when he died and was buried and rose again, he gave the great commission. He said, go teach all nations. Go into all the world. You see, we are living under God's instructions and Jesus Christ's instructions not to try to be Jesus. We're not Jesus. Not to get up and speak parables that people don't understand and walk away. Look, that's what he needed to do. There was a reason for that. There were a lot of things he was trying to teach. We may not understand fully the wisdom behind that, but that's what he did. But that is never what he told us to do. He never told his disciples, speak in dark sayings. Keep this quiet. He said, nope. What you hear me tell you in the ear, what you've heard in darkness, preach it upon the housetops. I mean, get that metaphor. Imagine standing up on top of your roof. Just get this picture in your mind. That's what God's trying to express. Imagine getting on top of the roof and just shouting preaching from your roof. Now, that's not something I'm going to do anytime soon. I'm not going to get up on my roof and start screaming. But the symbolism is there. That is basically what I'm doing with my life, though. I'm not hiding. Look, if I'm standing on my roof preaching God's word, is anybody going to be wondering what I believe? I wonder if that guy's a Christian. I wonder if he goes to church. I wonder if he believes the Bible. God's saying, you need to just proclaim this stuff everywhere. You need to just preach this stuff from the housetops. You need to tell everybody. And not just the Gospel, but the whole counsel of God, the whole word of God, the whole Bible, everything. Not just part of it. Because he says in the next verse, fear not them which kill the body. Nobody's going to kill your body because you said Jesus saves. They're not going to. Why did they hate Jesus? Did they hate Jesus because he said, love one another? Oh, that makes me so mad. He's telling people to love one another. I mean, did they hate Jesus because he said, therefore all things whatsoever you would that men should do to you do you even so to them for this the law and the prophet. Is that why they crucified him? No. Jesus said, the world hated me because I declare unto it that the works thereof are evil. Now that's the time where Jesus explicitly said, this is why they hate me. And I didn't make it up. It's in the book of John. I don't have the reference handy. But he said it in John chapter. Let me find it for you real quick. Oh, here we go. It's right here. John chapter 7. Jesus said in John 7, 7, the world cannot hate you, but me it hated because I tell them to love one another. That's not what he said. He said, the world cannot hate you, but me it hated because I testify of it that the works thereof are evil. He said, they hate me because I expose them that they're evil. When I point out that the things that they do are evil, that's why they hate me. So he was hated for preaching against sin. It's that simple. He was not hated for the positive things he said. He was hated for the negative things he said. He was not. Oh, he just came. And he just came with just nothing but just love. And he was just so friendly and joyful. And they just killed him. Why? No. They killed him because he testified of the world that the works thereof were evil. That's why. That's why they hated him. That's what the Bible says. Why did they stone Stephen? Because he said, you are stiff-necked. You are disobedient to the word of God. You're not saved. And they ran toward him and stoned him and killed him and everything like that in Acts chapter 7. So what I'm saying is that somebody needs to stand in the gap today and fill in these gaps in the preaching. You know, stuff that other preachers aren't talking about and stuff that other Christians won't address and stuff that other believers are shying away from in the Bible, we need to be pointing it out. We need to be bringing it up. Let's talk about it. Let's turn to scriptures that have never been turned to in a Baptist church because people are afraid of them. Let's turn there. Let's embrace it. Let's shout it from the housetop. That's what I believe. Somebody's got to stand in the gap and preach the word of God that's not being preached today. And it's not just one person. It's all believers that this is written to that we need to stand up for these things and not back down. But lastly, I'll say this. Go to Titus chapter 1. Titus chapter number 1. So number 1, of course, we need to be out winning souls. We need to be out preaching the gospel. People are not hearing it. Some people are just like this lady today that I talked to, she hadn't heard it. She'd never heard that it was all by faith. It was clear that it was a new thing. It was a new concept that I was showing her from the Bible. Number 2, we need to stand in the gap and to preach the word of God and to fill in these gaps that people are afraid to talk about. We need to talk about it. We need to face it. We need to preach everything. But number 3, there are people, there are men in this room, there are young men in this room that need to decide that they're going to stand in the gap as far as pastoring a church someday. And this is not something that I preach about all the time and that I talk about a lot, but let me tell you something. There is a gap today. There is a gap today of cities and towns and places where God's word is not being faithfully preached, where there is not a great church to go to and a soul winning church to go to. Who thinks that's true today? I mean, there are places today where people are contacting me all the time. Man, I'm trying to find a church in my area. I'm struggling to find one. And some people are driving pretty far to go to church. Like, some people are driving hours fighting traffic. You know, we're talking about, you know, fighting traffic to find a church that they can go to because they're struggling to find a church in their area. And some people are driving far to go to churches that don't even go soul winning or that are very watered down. And I'll tell you something. I'm a young man today. I'm 30 years old. I'm not an older man. And let me tell you something. I am pastoring today for one reason. And that reason is because I saw a big gap that needed to be filled. Not because I just wanted to do it so much and because I thought that I was the best guy for the job. I didn't think I was the best guy for the job or that I just, this is what I'm cut out for. You know what I believed? I believed that somebody needed to get up and preach things that aren't being preached. And somebody needed to knock some doors and somebody needed to pastor and provide a church for people to go to that's faithful to the word of God. And that's why I'm pastoring is because I saw the need. It had nothing to do with looking at myself and saying, well, I'm just a born pastor. I'm born to do this. This is what God has called me to do for my mother's womb. No, you know what I looked at it? I saw a gap and I just said, you know what? I'll stand in that gap. And you know what? Am I the best at it? No. Am I the most talented speaker? No. Am I the greatest Christian? No. But you know what? Whatever I am, for better or for worse, good, bad, or ugly, you know, I'm just trying to fill a void. I'm just trying to fill a need today that I see, that there's a gap there. And I stepped forward. You know, six and a half years ago, I stepped forward and said, you know, I'm going to fill that gap. I'm going to fill that need. And you know, there are other people under the sound of my voice that need to step forward and fill that gap. And maybe you're not the most talented. Neither am I. Maybe you're not the best people person. Neither am I. You know, nobody will disagree with that. But the thing is, somebody's got to do it. You know, somebody's got to say it. And you say, well, I don't like you. Yeah, but you know what? I'm doing the best I can. You know what I mean? I'm not perfect. No pastor's perfect. But I'm trying to stand in the gap. And look, this isn't for everybody because the Bible gives qualifications. You know, people have to meet the qualifications. And it's not for everybody. But there are a lot of people today that could step up to the plate, that could meet these qualifications, and could decide, you know what? I want to stand in that gap and pastor a church or start a church someday. And not because necessarily it's just my favorite thing to do in the world, because I want to fill that need and stand in the gap. And I feel that I can provide something. I feel that I can go to a city and a town somewhere and provide something that those people don't have. A fire-breathing, independent, fundamental Baptist church. A soul-lending powerhouse that would knock every door and then knock it again. I feel that I can lead that. I feel that I can do that. That's why. Now you say, well, Pastor Anderson, you've got to be called. And I've heard a lot of preachers talk about experiences where they had the whole room lit up and, you know, the hair on the back of their neck stood up and, you know, they just knew that God was calling them to preach. Who's ever heard stories like that? You know, when I was called to preach, you know, it was February 28th, you know, 1990-something, I was in my room and, you know, the whole room lit up. Or, you know, I was in a service and God spoke to me and I came down the aisle and I could just tell that God was speaking to me. You know, I don't have a story like that. So, Pastor Anderson, when were you called to preach? When did God tell you to preach? Well, never. This whole service you're in, the whole last six and a half years, it's just one big misunderstanding. It's almost a big mistake because God really just intended for me to just be a mild-mannered electrician. And God's looking out from heaven just saying, what are you doing? Like, I didn't call you. Did your room light up? No. Did you feel a tingling sensation in that service? No. What are you doing? And all the thousands of people that have been saved through our church's soul-winning and knocking all these doors, that was all a big mistake. And all the literally hundreds of thousands of people that have heard the Gospel over the Internet through our church's website, because people download disarmments there to the tune of, you know, 70 or 80,000 a month, all that was a big mistake. Never should have happened. Never should have taken place. And all the people that are here tonight who got saved in this church, you know, you were supposed to be somewhere else. I don't even know if you were supposed to be saved. You know what I mean? And all that... Does anybody see how silly that is? Yeah. But you weren't called. But hold on a second. Let's see if that doctrine of people being called to pastor, let's see if that doctrine lines up with the Bible. Are you in Titus? First of all, go to Titus 1, and let me read this for you from 1 Timothy 3. You're in Titus. 1 Timothy 3, 1 says this. This is a true saying. If a man... Listen to me. If a man desires the office of a bishop, he desireth a good work. Now, does that sound like God is specifically choosing certain people for this job? He says, if a man... If a man... Just, amen. If a man desires the office of a bishop, he desireth a good work. That's good. Oh, you want to be a pastor? Good. God is saying that's great if you desire to be a pastor. He says, here's the qualification. A bishop must be blameless, the husband of one wife. And he goes down the list of qualifications that you have to meet, right? He says, you know, you can't get divorced and remarried if you want a pastor at church. You've got to be the husband of one wife. You can't drink. You can't do... You know, he lists all these things that you're supposed to not do. Well, look at Titus 1. It's the same thing. It says in verse 5, For this cause left I thee in Crete, that thou shouldest set in order the things that are what? Wanting. Now, when something's wanting, what does that mean? It's missing. It's lacking. It's a gap. You see that? He's saying, Titus, I left you in Crete to fill a gap, to set in order the things that are missing, the things that are wanting, the things that are lacking. What is that? Look at the next phrase. And ordain elders in every city as I had appointed you. He said, look, as I look at the map of Crete, and Crete... I've got this map here. Crete is this island right here. This little paint slide's right here. Now, look, Crete, by our standards today, is not that huge of a place, but when you don't have a car or a train, you're not going to be going to church on the other side of Crete. You need a church in your town in Crete because you can't make that trip every Sunday. It's not like, well, I've got to drive an hour and a half, but I can get there. No, God said there's a gap. There are towns in Crete where there's no pastor. There's no pastor. There's no preacher there. There's no church there that's preaching the word. He said, I left you in Crete. Stay in Crete and fix that. Fill that void. He said, ordain elders in every city. He said, you need to find men that you can get to fill that role of being the elder. Elder, bishop, and pastor are words that God uses interchangeably. Look at the next verse. He said, ordain elders in every city as I deploy thee. Verse 6, if what? If what? Any. Any. Did he say a certain guy who had a tingling sensation and a bright light go through? He said, if any be blameless, the husband of one wife, having faithful children not accused of riot or unruly, for a bishop must be blameless as the steward of God, not self-willed, not soon angry, not given to wine, no striker, not given to filthy lucre, but a lover of hospitality, a lover of good men, sober, just, holy, temperate, holding fast the faithful word as he had been taught, that he may be able by sound doctrine both to exhort and to convince the gainsayers. You see, does anybody meet that list of qualifications? No. But anybody who does is qualified to pastor. Did you hear that? He didn't say anybody can pastor, but he said anybody who meets the criteria on this list. If any meets this, he can do it. So if you're a young man today, you can look at yourself, and not everybody has different gifts and different callings and different things, and you say, well, you know, you just said that people aren't cold. I thought everybody could do it. Well, obviously, if you're a person who is not able to teach, that's one of the qualifications. He said they have to be apt to teach. So you have to have some aptitude to be able to teach people. Right? Some people, no matter how much they try, are never going to be able to get up and preach a sermon because they just don't have it in them. You know, some people are not qualified in that way. But here's the thing. If you're a young person today, and if you're a man, and if you're the husband of one wife, or someday you want to be the husband of one wife, okay, you should look at this and say, you know what? I want to be that man. I want to live up to these qualifications. I'm going to learn how to preach. I'm going to learn how to teach. And that doesn't say you have to be the best preacher in the world, the best teacher in the world. I'm the proof of that. But you have to be apt to teach. You have to have some ability, obviously, to be able to get up behind the pulpit and preach. But there are many people under the sound of my voice today that I guarantee you, listen to me very carefully, that God would love to use you to stand in the gap. There are many men in this room tonight that literally, I mean, God would love to see you step up to the plate, like Isaiah did, when God asked the question, whom shall I send and who will go for us? Notice, he didn't have a specific person that he was targeting. He said, who's going to do it? And Isaiah stepped forward and said, here am I, Lord, send me. And there are a lot of men tonight that are under the sound of my voice that if you would step forward and say, here am I, Lord, send me, God would love to use you to pastor a church someday, to preach his word, to be a bishop in some distant city, in some place that is lacking a great church, that you could fill the gap and stand in the gap. And you know what, like I said, it's not for every single person, but there are many people today who God would love to use in that way, but they're just not stepping up to the plate. And that's why there are so many. It's not God's will that all these towns across America would not have a good church. Do you think God planned that? Let's just have a few good churches in certain cities and then everywhere else. No, God wants there to be elders in every city. But everybody's too busy doing something else. Everybody's too busy because they want to go make money and because they want to go to college and pursue some other career and they're not interested in pastor. And their attitude is, well, let somebody else do it. But you know what, in many cases, nobody else is doing it. I've been at this thing for a long time, and I've been preaching sermons like this for a long time and begging young men to consider. I've talked to so many friends and people that I've known and said, have you considered pastoring someday? Have you considered learning how to preach? Have you considered starting a church someday? And I mean, literally, I've sometimes just begged people to consider doing it and just said the harvest truly is placed, but the laborers are few. Why don't you consider preaching? Why don't you try to preach a sermon? Maybe you can go down to a rescue mission. Maybe you can come to your church as preaching night or maybe you can get a chance to preach in a nursing home. Why don't you just see? Why don't you just try it and try and preach? And why don't you just pray and ask God to give you the ability to do these things? And why don't you get out this list in 1 Timothy 3 and you say, well, my wife, you know, the Bible says that your wife's gotta be submissive and faithful and you gotta rule your house. You know, why don't you make it a goal to straighten out your home then so that you could meet this qualification? Why don't you make it a goal to raise kids that are faithful and that are obedient children? Why don't you make it a goal to get your house in order? Why don't you make it a goal to live the kind of lifestyle that the Bible demands of a preacher, of a pastor? Why don't you use 1 Timothy 3 as a checklist and Titus 1 as a checklist saying, I'm gonna be that man. Maybe I'm not that man today. I'm gonna go down this, I'm gonna get all this in order and then I'm gonna say to God, here am I, send me. I'm ready to go. You see, people today are going to a guidance counselor at a university today and they're given a checklist of everything they need to learn and do so that they can become a pharmacist, so that they can become an engineer, so that they can become this or that or the other and they're taking a bunch of boring classes that they don't wanna take and they're checking them off, I gotta do my general ed, I gotta do my electives, I gotta do my core requirements, I gotta go to this requirement, I gotta take this test and they work at it and they work at it and they work at it and they try and they learn how to do whatever the job, whether it's lawyer, whether it's doctor, whether it's engineer, whether it's electrician, whatever they do, they strive to learn the skills necessary and to be qualified to do that job and we need some people that are men to stand up and say, you know what, I'm gonna go with the guidance counselor of Titus, I'm gonna go to my guidance counselor Timothy and I'm gonna see what the electives are, I'm gonna see what the requirements are, I'm gonna sit in the classroom Sunday morning, Sunday night and Wednesday night, I'm gonna be educated on the church, I'm gonna go out soul winning, that's my lab work. You know you have like some lab hours that you have to do? Do your lab out on soul winning, do your lab as you lead the singing, do your lab as you play the piano, do your lab as you preach in the nursing home, do your lab as you preach at the rescue mission and then sit in the classroom Sunday morning, sit in the classroom Sunday night, sit in the classroom Wednesday night, check off your requirements and some day graduate spiritually and say I am ready to go to that distant city and turn it upside down for the gospel of Jesus Christ and make sure that everybody in that place hears the gospel and not only will they hear the gospel but hard preaching against sin is gonna thunder forth and send a shockwave in that community and everybody will know that there's one man in that city that hates sin and that will stand up and preach the parts of the Bible that nobody wants to preach. Will you be that man today? Will you decide in your heart, hey I'll try, here am I, send me and will you strive for that goal? I've been at it for a long time, I've begged many, I've pleaded with many and I have one friend who has taken up the challenge and that's brother Roger Jimenez, my good friend in Sacramento, California. He started Verity Baptist Church in Sacramento a few years ago. He's seen many people saved, his church is growing, his church is thriving, he's a man of God, he's preaching with the anointing of the Holy Spirit, he's a powerful preacher, he's doing a great work for God and he is accomplishing something great in Sacramento and his greatest days are ahead and he will do greater things than I have ever done. But let me tell you something, we need more Roger Jimenez. We need more that will stand and be counted and to stand in the gap. He's standing in the gap in Sacramento. Who's standing in the gap in Los Angeles, California? Who's standing in the gap in Chicago, Illinois? Who's standing in the gap in Dallas? And I'm not saying there aren't any good churches there, I'm just naming off cities. Who's standing in the gap in Lansing, Michigan? Who's standing in the gap in Detroit, Michigan? I don't know, maybe there are, maybe there aren't but I sure know that I have people contacting me every week struggling to find a Bible preaching church in their area. I sure know that a lot of people in this country are not hearing this kind of preaching, they're not hearing the Bible, they're not being challenged in this way, they're not being sent out door to door preaching the word. Look how many people we had saved today. It's amazing. Why? You know why? Because it was so hot and God sees people out in the heat and he says, man, I'm going to bless that. These people are out in the heat, they're knocking doors, they're serious, they're standing between the dead and living and he'll bless it. Stand in the gap, my friend, because if you don't do it, there's a gap. It's not like, you know, Mr. Calvinist dead head scholar, you know, well, if you don't stand in that gap, somebody else will fill the gap. Wrong. He said, I stopped for a man to stand in the gap and I found none and people were destroyed as a result. That's the truth. Decide today to stand in the gap on soul winning. Stand between the dead and the living and some of you men need to think hard about pastoring a church someday because somebody's got to do it. It's a dirty job that somebody's got to do it. Look, I'm not trying to promote myself at all or glorify myself because I have nothing to glory on, okay? But I will say this. I have suffered over the last six and a half years as a result of pastoring this church. I'm not saying that to be proud. I'm just telling you. Pastoring a church involves suffering. Ask Pastor Roger Jimenez if it was easy. Call him up. Give him a call and ask him, hey, have you suffered? Is it hard? Or was it all fun the whole time? He'll tell you, it's hard. I suffered. It's painful. And those who've done it understand. And I kept telling him before he started the church, I'm like, listen, man, it's going to be hard. It's really hard. No, listen, you don't get it. It's hard. It's going to be really hard. And then I told him that a bunch of times. And then he told me. He's like, man, it was a lot harder than I thought it was. It's a lot more of a battle than I thought it would be. It's a lot more of a struggle. But you know what? Somebody's got to do it. Do it. You can do it. You say, I'm not talented. Never mind. Give me a break. You know what? I mean, if you could go, I wish I could take you to a time machine and go back and see some of my first sermons when I was in the nursing home. I have people flat out telling me, you can't preach. You're never going to be able to do this. Some people actually tell me that. Okay. It's not about talent. It's about following the guidelines and stepping forward and saying, here am I, send me. Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer. Father, we thank you so much, dear God, for your word. And God, I just pray that you would please just send four laborers into your harvest that would stand between the dead and the living, that would bring the good news of the glorious gospel of faith alone for salvation to shine the light of the gospel. But Father, not only that, also to stand in the gap and fill the pulpits of America. We've got so many sissies today filling the pulpits in America. And God, I know that that's not making up the hedge like you want. And so Father, please just help men to stand forward that would be a strong, mighty preacher that would stand in that gap, dear God. And please just work in hearts tonight. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.