(Disclaimer: This transcript is auto-generated and may contain mistakes.) And part of the chapter that I'd like to focus on is there at the end, the famous portion known as the Great Commission. The Bible reads in verse 18, And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. Go ye therefore and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you. And lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. Amen. And the title of the sermon this morning is The Great Commission. And what I really want to emphasize about the Great Commission this morning are the three aspects of the Great Commission. Christ here gives this command that has three stages to it. He said, number one, teach all nations. Number two, baptize them in the name of the Father and of the Son of the Holy Ghost. And number three, teach them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you. Obviously, if we were to compare this to the other parallel passages, like, for example, Mark 16, we know that when he says teach all nations, the thing that he wants them to teach is the gospel or how to be saved, because he says in Mark 16, 15, Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. OK, so number one, we preach the gospel of getting someone safe. Number two, that person then gets baptized. And then number three, they are taught to observe all the things that Christ command. All the teachings of the Bible, all the do's and don'ts, all the commandments, all the teachings and philosophies that the Bible has, all of those things should be taught. And that's the fulfillment of the Great Commission. Those three things. Now, a lot of people out there, if you would just flip the page over to Mark Chapter 1. A lot of people out there have a mistaken idea that every single person that you preach the gospel to, that gets saved, is going to get baptized, every single one of them. And then they have a further mistaken idea that every single person that you get saved and baptized, you're going to be able to teach them all things that Christ commanded. And they think that basically every single person that you preach to, you're going to go through all three steps with that same person. And that is just simply not true. That just simply isn't even biblical. And what I want to show you is that when Christ gave us the Great Commission here, he's not saying that you're going to go out and every single person you preach the gospel to is going to get saved, and every single one of them is going to get baptized, and every single one of them, you're going to teach everything that Christ commanded. Because first of all, people have to make their own decision whether to get saved or not. So I can preach the gospel to somebody, but I can't make them get saved. And then after they believe on the Lord Jesus Christ as their Savior, I can't make them get baptized. They have to make that decision for themselves. And then beyond that, I can't make them come to church week after week, Sunday morning, Sunday night, Wednesday night, in order for me to be able to teach them all things that Christ commanded. They're going to have to make the decision to be a willing student, you know, to want to be a disciple and to want to learn those things. But those who criticize soul winning, those who mock us when we go out and we preach the gospel and we win people to Christ, they say, well, you're not fulfilling the Great Commission because you didn't baptize all those people that you won to the Lord. Nor did all of them come to church. Therefore, what you're doing is just a fraction of the Great Commission. What we do a lot of in our church, besides just going soul winning locally, is that we often travel to distant places in order to bring the gospel to small towns across Arizona, Indian reservations, or even overseas to places like Botswana and Malawi where we bring the gospel. Now, if we look at Matthew 28 here and we see that Christ is commanding us to teach all nations, to baptize them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, and to teach them to observe all things whatsoever Christ commanded, let's talk quickly about how Faithful Word Baptist Church is obedient to this command. Well, how are we obedient to the first part of the command? Well, number one, we go out and we knock all the doors in our area here in Phoenix and in Mesa and in Gilby, and we go out and we preach the gospel. In addition, we go to distant places and we bring the gospel. We teach all the Indian nations. We preach the gospel to as many people as will listen, okay? How do we fulfill the second part? Well, we baptize people at this church. We're constantly baptizing new converts. How do we fulfill the third part? Well, Sunday morning, Sunday night, and Wednesday night, we have church services where we teach the entire Bible, and all the doctrines of the Bible are preached and everything that Christ taught is preached. Now, when we go out and say, for example, in the last couple of weeks, we took a trip with several soul owners from our church, and we went up to a town that's over three hours away from here that's called Peach Springs, Arizona, okay? And when we went to that town, we wanted to knock every single door in that town and just get as many people saved as we could. There are about 1,100 people in the town, and we ended up getting about 75% of the town done where we knocked all the doors in three quarters of the town, and we had a total of 20 people get saved. They believed on the Lord Jesus Christ. They received Christ as Savior, okay? Now, we've done that for years, things of that nature, and often I've tried to talk to other pastors and other Christians who aren't doing much to fulfill this part of the Great Commission. They're not really preaching the gospel much. They're not getting a lot of people saved. So I've tried to motivate them and tried to open their eyes that the fields are white unto harvest and that there are opportunities to get people saved. And when I talk to them about this type of a small town soul-winning marathon or going to these receptive places and preaching the gospel, here's what I've often been met with scoffing at it and saying, oh, well, now you've got 20 people saved. Now they're just a bunch of sheep who have no shepherd. Are you going to go back there every week and teach those people to observe all things that Christ commanded? If not, they said, you're not biblical. You're not fulfilling the Great Commission unless you're going to go back and just continually feed those people and continually teach them everything. You're not fulfilling the Great Commission. Who's heard those type of objections? Or even just door-to-door soul-winning in the area. We'll go and knock on someone's door. We'll win them to Christ. And by the way, when we win somebody to Christ, we give them a Bible. We have Bibles back there for free on the shelf. We have thousands of Bibles in boxes in that room right there. And when we win somebody to Christ, I give them a Bible, and then I usually give them a flash drive filled with preaching and explain to them how they can listen to this preaching and learn more. And the biggest thing I try to do is invite them to come to church, because that's where they're going to grow the most. That's where they're going to learn the most. OK. But you'll go out and win souls, and people will say, well, that person, now that you've won them to the Lord, that person's your responsibility. That's like a child that you gave birth to. And if you don't sit there and raise them and teach them everything, you're like a mother that would put their own child in a dumpster. That's what they've compared it to. So these people, many of whom don't even do any soul winning at all, they're not preaching the gospel at all. But then somebody goes out and wins somebody to the Lord, they find fault with it by saying, well, you didn't baptize them, or you didn't teach them to observe all things. So you're likened unto a mother that would discard their newborn baby in a dumpster or something. And that's your responsibility. You have to stay, and you have to take that person all the way through. Now, look, I could sit here and give my opinion, and you could give your opinion all day long. But what really matters is what the Bible teaches. And I'm going to take you right now through Matthew, Mark, and Luke, and John, and Acts, and show you that in the Bible, Jesus and his disciples and the apostles frequently showed up into town, preached the gospel, got a whole bunch of people saved, and then left town and went to the next place. They didn't stay. They didn't go. Let's just read it. Look at Mark chapter 1. Let's look at some examples here. Because people can talk all they want about how unbiblical it is to do missions or evangelism or soul winning and pick it apart. It's really just because they're a bunch of lazy do-nothings. And they don't have a biblical leg to stand on. Because I'm going to show you in the Bible the example of Christ and the example of the apostles. Look at Mark chapter 1 verse 35. And in the morning, rising up a great while before day, he went out and departed into a solitary place and there prayed. This is Jesus himself in the early days of his ministry. And Simon and they that were with him followed after him. And when they had found him, they said unto him, all men seek for thee. Now why were they seeking for him? Because he'd been in that area preaching and doing miracles and they were thronging to him. And he said unto them in verse 38, let us go into the next towns that I may preach there also, for therefore came I forth. And he preached in their synagogues throughout all Galilee and cast out devils. So when we look at the ministry of Christ, people who are there seeking him, wanting to learn, in this particular example, he leaves town. And he goes to the next town and to the next and the next. It says he just goes all throughout Galilee preaching the gospel in the synagogues, just from town to town to town. Look if you would at chapter 6 verse 6. We're in the book of Mark. Look at Mark 6, 6. This is Jesus Christ again. And he marveled because of their unbelief and he went round about the villages teaching. Go to Luke chapter 4, if you would. Luke chapter 4. We're going to just quickly blow through a lot of these examples. Luke chapter 4 verse 42, the Bible reads, and when it was day, he departed and went into a desert place and the people sought him and came unto him and stayed him that he should not depart from them. Basically, they're trying to get him to just stay there and not go anywhere else. And he said to them, I must preach the kingdom of God to other cities also, for therefore am I sent. And he preached in the synagogues of Galilee. So we don't see Jesus just planted in one place saying, well, I'm just going to reach a couple people with the gospel and I'm going to baptize them and I'm just going to sit there just teaching them everything. No, he said, I want to go and make sure I get the gospel to every city, every town, every village. Now, were there people that Jesus taught deep doctrine to? Of course. But did he teach all of the deepest doctrine to every single person that he saved? No, sometimes he just went through a town and preached the gospel and left. And if they wanted more, they had to come to him. They had to follow him. They had he'd be out in the wilderness and preaching. And 5000 men with their families came to hear and preach, but they had to come to him. He didn't just say, sure, I'll stay at your house and do a 15 week Bible study with you. Show me that in the Bible. But people say that our methods are on biblical, that it's a hit and run soul winning. Well, you know what? That's what Jesus did. And you can sit there and say, oh, you need to have a 15 week in-home Bible study now that you won that person, the Lord. Well, show me Jesus doing that. I mean, people were lucky if Jesus showed up for lunch and then he said, follow me. You follow me, you come to me. Oh, but let me go bury my father. Follow me and let the dead bury their dead. You had to get on his program. You had to come with him. He's leaving. I got other places to go. See, if people want to learn all things that Christ commanded, they're going to have to show up to church. See, if I go out and I knock a door three miles from here, right, and I knock on that door in South Phoenix and I preach the gospel and I win someone to Christ and I tell that person, look, here's the location of the church. These are the service times. This is where you're going to learn. This is where you're going to grow. This is where you're going to be discipled. You know, it's up to that person whether they show up or not. I'm not going to sit there and coddle them and just keep coming back to that same house because they're too lazy to come down here and get the discipleship. You know, why would I disciple three people when I could disciple 300 people? It just doesn't make any sense. And nor is it biblical. Look, if you would, at Chapter nine, Luke Chapter nine. This is where Jesus Christ is sending out his disciples, preaching the gospel. Verse five says this, and whosoever will not receive you when you go out of that city, shake off the very dust from your feet for a testimony against them. And they departed and went through the towns, preaching the gospel and healing everywhere. Look, they're going through towns, preaching the gospel everywhere they go. Oh, no, they're creating all these sheep with no shepherd. Oh, no, they're not going to go back to that same town every week and preach to those people. No, but here's the thing. At least they got people saved. I'd rather get somebody saved, even if they don't get baptized and are not taught to observe all things than to just not get them anywhere. OK, and I'll get into that later in the sermon. But I'm going to teach you some illustrations about this. But first, I just want to lay down that what I'm saying is biblical. I don't want you to just take my word for it. OK, look down at the Bible in Chapter thirteen, verse twenty two, Luke Chapter thirteen, and then we're going to go to John four next. Look at Luke Chapter thirteen, verse twenty two. It says, And he went throughout the cities and villages, teaching and journeying toward Jerusalem. Look at John Chapter four. John Chapter four, verse thirty seven says this, And herein is that saying true, one soweth and another reapeth. I sent you to reap that were on you bestowed no labor. Other men labored and you are entered into their labors. 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, this is verse forty, they besought him that he would tarry with them. And he abode there two days. Now, not two years, not twenty years, it says 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 have 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. See, his base was in Galilee. That's where he's based. Okay, that's where people can come here and week after week. That's where people who are following him and gathering to him are going to find him. But he still traveled throughout Judea. He still traveled throughout Samaria. Soul winning in the towns and villages. Sending the apostles out into the towns and villages. You don't have to turn there, but Matthew eleven verse one said, And it came to pass, when Jesus had made an end of commanding his twelve disciples, he departed thence to teach and to preach in their cities. And so Jesus and his twelve disciples went throughout all the cities of Judea, Samaria, Decapolis, Galilee, that whole area. Preaching the gospel in all the towns and villages. And then they'd return back to their base in Galilee. And so they were not doing an in-home Bible study and a follow-up and a discipleship with every person that they won to the Lord. It just isn't there. It's just not in the Bible. You say, well surely it'll be in the book of Acts. Okay, we'll go to Acts chapter eight. And when you go into the book of Acts, what you'll see is a continuation of the work that Jesus taught the apostles to do. You'll see them continuing that same work into the book of Acts. Look at Acts chapter eight, verse twenty-five. The Bible reads, And they, when they had testified and preached the word of the Lord, returned to Jerusalem and preached the gospel in many villages of the Samaritans. But here's the thing. You don't see churches doing this type of ministry at all today, hardly at all, where they'll travel to another town or travel to another village or travel to another place and just preach the gospel, just win people to Christ, just knock every door. You don't see it. And here's why. Because they have this wrong philosophy. Well, if I'm going to win somebody Lord, then I have to baptize them and I have to teach them to observe all things or else I'm not fulfilling the Great Commission. But hold on a second. What is the Bible showing us here? The Bible is showing us this style of evangelism, of going and just getting the gospel to every person, okay? But yet you don't see this type of ministry taking place hardly. I mean, we do it here. We've done it here for the last ten years. Small town soul winning and going to the Indians and everything else. But look down at your Bible here. It says, I just want to know how many churches are preaching the gospel in many villages of Arizona or many villages of California or many villages of New Mexico or many villages of Washington and Oregon. You don't see this happening, but yet it's biblical. Look at verse 26. And the angel of the Lord spake unto Philip, saying, Arise and go toward the south under the way that goeth down from Jerusalem unto Gaza, which is desert. And he arose and went and behold a man of Ethiopia, a eunuch of great authority under Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, who had the charge of all her treasure and had come to Jerusalem for to worship, was returning and sitting in his chariot, read his eyes the prophet. Then the spirit said unto Philip, Go near and join thyself to this chariot. So there's no question here that Philip is in the will of God, right? I mean, when the Holy Spirit is coming to him and telling him to go near and join himself to this particular chariot and he's out in the middle of the desert in Gaza, he's clearly in the will of God. Right? Look what the Bible says in verse 30. And Philip ran thither to him and heard him read the prophet his eyes and said, Understand as thou what thou readest. And he said, How can I except some man should guide me? And he desired Philip that he would come up and sit with him. The place of the scripture which he read was this. He was led as a sheep to the slaughter, and like a lamb dumb before his shearer, he openeth not his mouth. In his humiliation, his judgment was taken away. And who shall declare his generation? For his life is taken from the earth. And the eunuch answered Philip and said, I pray thee of whom speaketh the prophet this of himself or of some other man? Then Philip opened his mouth and began at the same scripture and preached unto him Jesus. Now, which step of the Great Commission is that one, two or three? Step one. He's preaching him the gospel, right? He opens his mouth and began at the same scripture and preached unto him Jesus. Look at verse 36. And as they went on their way, they came into a certain water. And the eunuch said, See, here's water. What doth hinder me to be baptized? And Philip said, If thou believeth with all thine heart, thou mayest. And he answered and said, I believe that Jesus Christ is the son of God. And he commanded the chariot to stand still. And they went both down into the water, both Philip and the eunuch. And he baptized him. So there, he's just completed step two of the Great Commission, right? First, he preached the gospel to him. The guy believed it. He got saved. Then he performed step two by baptizing the guy. So what's step three with this guy? What's he need to do now? Teach him to observe all things whatsoever Christ commanded. OK, let's keep reading. And when they were come up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord caught away Philip that the eunuch saw him no more. And he went on his way rejoicing. So let me ask you this. If God is teaching in the Bible this fake doctrine that every single person that we went to the Lord, we have to baptize that person or we have to teach them all things that Christ meant or we've failed. We're a failure if we don't do all three. Then why is the Holy Spirit ripping him away before he can even begin phase three? It sounds like somebody misunderstood the Great Commission. Look at the next verse, verse 40. But Philip was found at Azotus. And just note these two words. Underline these two words, passing through, passing through. He preached in all the cities till he came to Caesarea. See, he didn't have this idiotic thing of, well, I better not preach the gospel to any of these people because I'm not going to be able to come back. So I better just keep my mouth shut, keep my lips zipped until I get back to where I live so that I can just only give the gospel to people because I'd hate to dump somebody in a dumpster or whatever, spiritually. You know, I'd hate to just be passing through and win some people to Christ. You don't find this stuff in the Bible. It's a misunderstanding. It's a misinterpretation. Now, let me illustrate this. I've got some signs that I made. These signs are a little bit crude here, but I did the best I could late at night with tempera paint. So three of my children are going to come and help me with this illustration here so that we can help illustrate this, all right? So one of them is going to hold up a number one right here, okay? So let's have you stand. I'm going to have you stand right here, okay? And then you're going to hold a number two right here. So go ahead and stand to the left of her, other side of her, other side, other side, all right? And then John is going to stand right here with the number three, okay? So these three kids are holding these three signs to represent the three aspects of the Great Commission, all right? So we've got number one, what's the first step, right? Just preaching the gospel, right? Getting people saved. Number two is what? Baptizing people. Number three is to teach them to observe all things that Christ commanded. Now, first of all, each of these things is up to them. They choose whether they want to get saved or even to listen. They choose whether they're going to be baptized, and they have to choose whether they're going to sit and listen to you teach them to observe all things that Christ commanded, okay? Now, how long does this take? How long does step one take? This could take 10 or 15 minutes. How long does step two take? This could take about 10 or 15 seconds, okay? How long does step three take? This could take about 10 or 15 years, okay? Now, step one here, okay, is the easiest to accomplish because it doesn't involve these people traveling anywhere. You can take this right to them. You can bring your Bible and take the gospel right to them and preach them the gospel, okay? Step two is a little more difficult because you have to have a body of water, and that often involves getting that person to come to church or go somewhere in order to get them baptized, right? And then step three is obviously the hardest because it takes patience and diligence and time and character and years and years to carry out, okay? Now, here's what I submit to you today. And we just looked at a whole bunch of biblical evidence. We could look at a lot more, but here's what I submit to you. If we go out, and I'm just going to make up some numbers here, okay? If we go out and we get 2,000 people saved, right? We preach the gospel to 2,000 people. They receive Christ. They get saved, right? And let's say we get 200 people baptized, and let's say we get 20 people to observe all things that Christ commanded, we have fulfilled the Great Commission. I mean, it's not that complicated, folks. Look, we're going out, we're teaching all nations, we're baptizing people, and we're teaching people to observe all things that Christ commanded. We have fulfilled the Great Commission at that point. Okay, now, let's say you have a church that's going out and winning people to Christ, okay? And they're even baptizing people, okay? But let's say that that church is not teaching the whole Bible. Now, let me ask you this. Do you think that there are churches out there that are like this? Oh, yeah. There are plenty of independent, fundamental Baptist churches that are doing a great job of soul winning. They're knocking doors, they're winning people to Christ. But when it comes to preaching hard on sin, when it comes to the more unpopular teachings of Christ, the more unpopular teachings of the Bible, they're trimming the message, they're holding back, they're not teaching all things that Christ commanded. They're only teaching part of it. Now, these people are failing to carry out the Great Commission because they're only doing steps one and two, and they're not doing step number three, okay? But if we get 2,000 people saved, 200 baptized, and 20 people show up for church and get taught everything that Christ commanded, we're not failing. We're succeeding. We are firing on all three cylinders there of what Christ has told us to do in the Great Commission. Flip that back over to Green. Now, there are a lot of other churches, and this is way more common, that are not doing any of this, right? They're not doing any soul winning, and as a result of doing no soul winning, they're doing little or none of this, okay? This is your average independent Baptist church in America right here, okay? What they're doing is they have a group of people who come to church week after week that are already saved, that are already baptized, and what are they doing? They're teaching them the Bible, and on Sunday morning, they teach them something from the Bible. Sunday night, they teach them something from the Bible. Wednesday night, they teach them something from the Bible, but they're not teaching all nations. They're not preaching the gospel. They're not going to the towns and villages. They're not knocking doors. They're not in the highways and hedges. They're not winning people to Christ, and in fact, the Baptistry is filled with cobwebs and Christmas decorations, and every three years, somebody's kid in the church grows up and gets saved because they grew up in the church, and it's like, we're going to baptize somebody, and it's a big deal, and it's the baptism Sunday, and they have to remodel the Baptistry and get all the junk out of it and clean it up, and you know, so they're pretty much doing almost none of this, but this is all they do, all they do, right? Is that out there? Does that exist? Yeah. Okay. This is Faithful Word Baptist Church. We don't trim the message. We preach the whole Bible. We go out. We win people to the Lord. We baptize people, you know, all the time on a regular basis, okay? What about that church you go to, and just week after week, you show up on Sunday morning, and it's just a salvation sermon every Sunday morning, right? That's what this church looks like, spiritually, right? And some of them even kind of look like this, where, you know, they basically, they'll even preach the Gospel, but they're hardly baptizing anybody, okay? But usually these two things kind of go hand in hand. You know, if you're winning a lot of people to the Lord, there's going to be baptisms to show for it, right? So you can get an idea here of who is, and then, of course, obviously, there are churches who are just doing none of this. It's just people that are already saved, and they're just getting a lame watered down sermon every week. This is how a lot of churches would look, you know, just like that. Okay, so flip them all to green, people, okay? So here's the thing. I mentioned before, and again, I'm just making up numbers, so don't get too hung up on these numbers, because these numbers are not accurate. I'm just throwing out numbers, okay? So let's say we got 2,000 people saved, and 200 people baptized, and 20 people we taught to observe everything that Christ commanded. Again, these numbers aren't accurate, because our church will win thousands of people to the Lord in a year, but we'll usually add, the last few years we've been adding 60 or 70 people to the church every year, the last three years. So, you know, these numbers aren't accurate, but I'm just throwing them out there. 2,000, 200, 20, okay? Let me ask you this. Do you think that all 200 of the people that we baptize are from this group of 2,000 here, necessarily? Couldn't it be possible that we baptized somebody that we didn't win to the Lord? Okay? Let me give you some examples of that. Pastor David Burzins up in Prescott Valley. He got saved nine years before he came to our church. But here's the thing. He never got baptized, and he was never taught to observe all things that Christ commanded. So we take a guy like David Burzins, and we baptize him, and we teach him to observe all things, right? We're fulfilling the Great Commission. Now, what about the guy who won him to the Lord? Wasn't he a part of that? So here's the thing. If David Burzins had never heard the Gospel nine years earlier, he wouldn't have been there for me to baptize him. And he wouldn't have been there for me to teach him to observe all things. So don't you think that some of these 2,000 people, and again, I'm just making up numbers. Let's say I win 2,000 people to the Lord, and only 200 of them get baptized. Isn't it possible that more of those people are getting baptized by other people that I don't know about in the future? Okay, and isn't it possible that somebody could be saved and baptized and know nothing about the Bible, and I could take that person and get them in church and teach them to observe all things? You know, this would be like Amanda, who started coming to our church when we first started the church. She was already saved, already baptized, but she didn't know the Bible. We worked on step three with her. So what I'm saying is that a biblical church is going to be doing all three of these things all the time, but it's not just this clean little perfect, everybody's just saved, baptized, in church, saved, baptized, in church. No, no, because some people are already saved. We just need to baptize them and get them in church. Some people are already saved and baptized. We just need to teach them doctrine. Okay, some people we're going to win to the Lord, and we're going to be whisked off like Philip, and somebody else is going to baptize them. Somebody else is going to... Look, people are at all different stages here, and it's not just this perfect world where you just go one, two, three, boom, you know, and everything's perfect. Now, go ahead and have a seat. Go ahead and hand me the signs. Now, let me use another illustration, because as I was thinking about this, I thought about baseball, okay? And I'm not really a big baseball guy or anything like that, but you know, I enjoyed it as much as the next guy when I was a teenager in PE class or whatever. But in baseball, you got first base, second base, third base, and then you come home, right? Okay, so let's play a little spiritual game of baseball, okay? We're going to play soul-winning baseball, all right? And in this soul-winning baseball, first base represents getting saved, all right? Second base represents getting baptized. Third base represents coming to church one time, right? Showing up and getting in church. And home represents becoming, that person becoming a soul winner themselves, because then the cycle is complete, right? So now that person is able, they've learned what Christ commanded, and they're ready, you know, to preach the gospel to other people. That's a home run. I mean, if you can win somebody the Lord, get them baptized, get them in church, and then they become a soul winner, that's a home run, right? Okay, so think about this. When you play baseball, let's say you step up to the plate, and you hit that ball, and you run to first base, do you always go straight to second base, or do you sometimes end up waiting at first base for a little while? You don't always just run a home run every time. Sometimes you might run to first, and then run straight to second, and then you stop, and you wait there, right? Then the next batter comes up to the plate, right? And then they hit the ball. They might take you from second base to third base, and then you stop. And then a couple guys might strike out, and then a guy comes up, steps up to the plate, hits the ball, and you go from third all the way home. Now, this is more realistic of a view of the Great Commission, is that not every time you win somebody the Lord are you just going to hit a home run. Sometimes you're just going to get somebody to first base. But here's the thing. You can't get to second base without first getting to first base. So if we can get a whole bunch of people to first base, that's great, because now that person has the chance to go to second base, has the chance to go to third base, has the chance to get home. So if I walked up to the plate in a baseball game, and again, I'm not an expert on baseball. I'm not a fan. I don't watch the games. I don't know much about it. But from the little that I know, I'm assuming that if a guy walks up, hits the ball, runs to first, and is safe at first, that would be considered a successful hit. Who's into baseball here? Who's a big baseball fan? Am I telling the truth? Or would you just say, oh, you idiot, you only made it to first base? Would anybody consider him a loser, or he screwed up, or he failed because he hit the ball and made it to first base? Or would you rejoice that he got to first base? Yes, he's safe at first. Look, if he got to first and then second, great. He's doing great. If he gets to third base, you'd be thrilled. It's not like, well, it wasn't all right. And look, sometimes you wait on first base. Sometimes you wait on second base. Look, yeah, ideally, you just run all the bases. I mean, whenever I played, that's what I always do. No, I'm just kidding. You just run all of them, you know? But that's not the way life works. And sometimes, look, would you rather, if you're batting, let me ask you this, would you rather step up to the plate with the bases loaded, or would you rather step up to the plate and the bases are all empty? You want the bases loaded. You don't want to walk up. Would you rather have a guy on first when you step up to bat, or just nobody? Nobody on a bat. No, no. See, I'd rather show up in Peach Springs, Arizona, and 20 people are already saved. Then I might have a chance to get some people to the second base, third base, home run, than to just say, well, it's better to just leave them alone if we can't get them all the way there immediately. As if teaching people to observe all things Christ's command isn't going to take a really long time. It's not going to take time. But old Pastor Waterboy, down at Benchwarmer Baptist Church, is sitting back and saying, well, if I can't hit a home run every single time, I'm just not even going to step up to the plate. And all that Pastor Anderson, and all the Faith Lord Baptist Church, and all Garrett Cursway, they're just terrible baseball players because they don't hit a home run every time. And by the way, what about all the runs that we batted in of all the people that we took that were already saved, and we taught them soul winning? You know what I mean? What about all the baby Christians that we took to a higher level of maturity? Look, not only are we getting to first base, not only are we getting to second base, we're getting some RBIs, spiritual RBIs. But even worse than Benchwarmer Baptist, even worse than Pastor Waterboy, he said, oh, well, you're responsible to hit a home run any time you get somebody to first base. I mean, it's your fault if you didn't get the home run. Even worse than him is the guy who's not even warming the bench. He's not even the water boy. He's on his butt on the sofa at home watching the game. With his big potbelly and his beer nuts, and he's sitting there saying, oh, come on, is that all you got? All you can do is get to first base. Well, you know, if you'd watch the rest of the game, you'd realize there's more batters coming up to the plate. And each batter is like a preacher, OK? So somebody's saved, and they're on first base, right? A batter steps up to the plate, and he preaches a sermon on baptism. They run to second. It's a success. It's progress, right? Somebody takes that person who's been saved and baptized and offers to give them a ride to church, right? Boom. Give you a ride to church. They run to third. OK, somebody's been going to church for weeks or months or years. Somebody comes to them and says, hey, I'd like to take you soul winning. Will you be my silent partner? Boom, he scores. The crowd goes wild. But of course, some moron at home who can't even go to the mailbox without getting out of breath is screaming at the TV because we're not running fast enough between the bases for him. Why can't you run a little faster? This guy never runs. He can't run. He'd have a heart attack. He's eating chips off his chest, criticizing people who are in the game. Faithful Word Baptist Church is at least in the game. And by the way, we're in the major leagues. Go ahead and go down to AAA Baptist or Bush League Baptist. This is the major this is Major League Baptist MLB Major League Baptist, right? Look, don't come at me with this garbage of, well, I mean, yeah, you got him saved. But let's talk about what you didn't accomplish. You didn't get him baptized. You didn't teach them to observe everything in the Bible. Well, what did you do? You're not even to first base. You're not even in the in the park. You're watching it on YouTube. You're not even there. Go if you would to Acts Chapter one, Acts Chapter one. Now, here's the thing I can come at you with with poster boards and baseball and illustrations. But at the end of the day, you know what matters is what I'm saying. At the end of the day, you know what matters is what I'm saying is right, because it's biblical. What I'm saying represents reality. That's what really matters. We looked at all the scriptures to prove it, and we'll look at more. Now, John the Baptist was the greatest man that was ever born of a woman. He preached the gospel to multitudes preaching, according to Acts Chapter 19, verse four, and according to Matthew 21, verse 32, he preached that they should believe on him that should come after that is on Christ Jesus. So he preached people to have faith in Christ, according to Acts 19 for many other places. Then he baptized multitudes of people, right? Then Jesus came along with his twelve apostles, and the Bible says that Jesus made and baptized more disciples than John, though he himself baptized not, but his disciples did. So how many thousands of people do you figure were saved and baptized in the six months plus three and a half years? So a total of four years of ministry of John the Baptist, Jesus and the apostles, who, by the way, were all working full time. This is all they did. They didn't have other jobs. They dropped the fishing nets. They left the tax collection. They skipped everything, and they were full time, full time preaching, soul winning, going from town to town, going from village to village, preaching, baptizing. Four years. And look, talk about a dream team. Back to the baseball illustration. Talk about it. Talk about an all star lineup when you got John the Baptist, Jesus, Peter, James, John, Andrew. Okay. This is a lineup. What do you think they accomplished in four years of nonstop? Well, we know what they did. They won multitudes of people on the Lord and baptized multitudes. Okay. But look at Acts chapter one. Here's the early church meeting, having a church service with the diehards, with the dedicated ones who are still around years later. Acts chapter one, verse 14, these all continued with one accord and prayer and supplication with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus. See, there you go. Man, they all continued. They were all with one accord. They all continued and stayed in church. And in those days, Peter stood up in the midst of the disciples and said, the number of names together, well, I wonder how many thousands. The number of names together were about 120. So where's everybody else, John the Baptist? Where's everybody else, Jesus? Bunch of fake soul winning. You're not even fulfilling your own commission. Why didn't you teach them to observe everything? Because you can't control people and stop them from quitting. People quit. People are lame. People get lazy. People get offended. People get out of church. How many people were in the church? And this is men and women. Okay, I don't think that they're necessarily counting the children, but they're counting the men and the women, and you got 120 people. So where's everybody else? I'll tell you where. They didn't show up. Why? Because that's life. Because the way life is, that you're going to win people to the Lord, you're going to baptize people, and guess what? They're not all going to show up. That's life. And if that bothers you so much, then you're never going to do anything for the Lord, because you just can't all be perfect all the time. It just doesn't make any sense. Okay, not only that, there were a lot of people that heard Jesus preaching, and they believed in him, but they would not confess him openly for fear of the Jews. So what does that mean? They didn't get baptized, because being baptized is an open public profession of faith. You know, you don't see guys like Nicodemus getting baptized. You see him coming to Jesus by night and believing in him, but you don't see, you know, there are all kinds of examples where the Bible says that they believed in him, but they wouldn't confess him openly. But then look at Acts chapter 2 verse 41. It says, Then they that gladly received his word were baptized, and the same day there were added unto them about three thousand souls. But let me ask you this, how many of those three thousand souls are going to still be in church ten years from now? Well, all of them. What planet are you living on? That's neither biblical nor does that represent reality. People fall away. Acts 4, 4, how be it, flip over to Acts 4, 4, how be it, many of them which heard the word believed and the number of men was about five thousand. But here you don't see five thousand people getting baptized. You know why? Because the preachers are all dragged off and put in prison. They're preaching and they get dragged off into prison. And five thousand people believed, but they only had to stop at first base there. Now, hopefully many of them got to second base later on and to third. But to sit there and say that they all did is just to make things up. OK, now, look, if we give somebody the gospel, should we try to get them baptized? Of course. Should we try to get them in church? Of course. Should we try to teach them all things that Christ commanded? Of course. But here's the thing. If I travel somewhere, if you travel somewhere, if we go somewhere and when I say travel somewhere, that might be traveling, you know, eight miles to Mesa or traveling 10 miles to North Phoenix, or that could be traveling a few hundred miles to Peach Springs or somewhere else. So that could be traveling thousands of miles to Africa. And look, if we go somewhere and we get somebody saved, we have rescued a soul from hell. That's worth something. And I would much rather have 20 people in Peach Springs, Arizona, or anywhere else be saved and on their way to heaven, never get baptized, never go to church, never learn anything, than for those 20 people to go to hell. I'd rather see them in heaven. Plus, don't forget that when you win somebody to the Lord, who moves in? The Holy Spirit. And he's going to be with them for the rest of their life. Guiding them into all truth. Now, we don't know necessarily. Some people are going to be really receptive to that guidance. Some people want to serve the Lord. Other people are going to resist the Holy Ghost or quench the Spirit or grieve the Spirit. But he's still there. And I'd rather have him there than not there at all, because at least that person is a lot closer to second base than they were before they even got saved. And once we get them to second base, they're a lot closer to third base than they were before we ever talked to them. See, the naysayers, the losers, and that's what they are. They're losers. People who are against soul winning are the biggest losers. See, it's soul winning. What's the opposite of winning? Losing! People who criticize soul winning are lazy losers who basically just want to critique someone who's actually obeying the Great Commission, because they're not doing it. But if I can win somebody to Christ, and then I can issue them a Bible, and then here's an invitation to our church, here's directions, here's a map, here's a website, and then here's a flash drive with 28 hours of preaching on it. Here's 28 hours of Bible preaching. Either they're going to do something with that or they're not. And it's not my job to pull out my nipple and breastfeed them at the door, okay? Because no, I did not give birth to them. Okay, that's just a spiritual illustration of giving birth. I didn't literally give birth to these people, folks. They need to show up to the dairy and get the milk, because they're not crippled. I mean, if I'm giving somebody the Gospel, giving them a Bible, giving them a flash drive with 30 hours of preaching, giving them directions, even offering them a ride and saying, hey, call the church, we'll pick you up, and then it's like, oh, well, you didn't disciple that person. Okay, well, let's all just sit on our butts at home then. I mean, here's what's ironic about this. You know how we talked about just some random numbers, 2,220? You know what's funny? If all I did was just get these 20 saved, baptized, and teach them everything, then people would be happy and say, you're doing a great work for God, because you got those 20 people, and every soul matters. And one life is worth it for those 20 people. But when you get 2,000 saved, everybody gets mad. But if we just did the 20 that we're going to continue, then they'd be happy. Now, that doesn't make any sense. That's just ridiculous. It doesn't make sense, folks. Now, I just want to close with one last thought. You know, when it comes to soul winning, being biblical, knocking doors, or going out on the highways and hedges, walking up and down the street, you know, just going to people and giving them the gospel. When it comes to being biblical, obviously there are plenty of scriptures that tell us to preach the gospel to every creature. One of my favorite verses is Acts 542, daily in the temple and in every house, they cease not to teach and preach Jesus Christ. But the one thing that I was thinking about recently is I took a guy out soul winning who was new at soul winning. And so it was a new thing to him, and he really liked it. He was enjoying it. He was learning about it. And the thing that he kept saying was my feet are hurting. My feet are hurting. Now, why were his feet hurting? Because when you go soul winning, it involves a lot of walking, right? I mean, you got to walk from door to door to door to door. You're walking down the street. You end up doing a lot of walking. And if you're not used to doing a lot of walking, your feet are going to hurt, right? So here's my question. Do your feet hurt when you stand behind a pulpit and say, as the piano begins to play, would you come and bring people down the aisle? That doesn't make your feet hurt. Do your feet hurt when you record a video and upload it to YouTube? Does that make your feet hurt? Think about it. Do your feet hurt when you sit at a booth at the fair and hand out tracks? Does that make your feet hurt? Now, what did the Bible say about the gospel? When it talks about the whole arm of God, it says, have your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace. Why is preaching the gospel associated with your feet? Why does it say how beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel? Why doesn't it say how great are the lungs and how beautiful is the mouth? How beautiful is the tongue or the hands or the chest or arms or what? Why does it say the feet? Why is it preparation of the gospel of peace on your feet? Why are the feet? I'll tell you why. Because when you preach the gospel, your feet hurt if you're doing it right. And if you have weak feet or if your feet aren't hurting, you're not doing it right. That proves that soul winning is biblical. Because it's biblical to walk and give the gospel. You see, throughout history, people didn't drive cars. But even when you have a car, your feet still are just going door to door to door. But back throughout history, people didn't have cars. And by the way, they didn't ride horses either. Riding horses is something that people who had a lot of money and a lot of time on their hands would do a lot of times because not everybody had a horse throughout history. Having a horse is a lot of work, a lot of money, a lot of expense. In fact, show me one place in the Bible where Jesus and his disciples hopped on horses. The only time you see Jesus, the closest thing is when you see Jesus sit on the colt, the foal of an ass, and he has to borrow it from somebody else because he didn't even own one. In fact, he didn't even pay for it. He just said, well, the Lord has need of it. And they kind of borrowed it without asking for the triumphal entry. Where did Jesus say unto his disciples, saddle up? It's not in there. Show me Jesus and the apostles ever getting on a horse. Show me them ever riding in a chariot. You know what they did? They walked. They were shod with sandals, and they walked. And they walked the whole length of Israel, which is like 144 miles long, and however many miles wide. And they walked from town to town to town to village to village to village preaching. And you know what? I guarantee you that their feet got really strong, and they got in really good shape with their feet. I promise you that. And I guarantee you that if they brought some new soul winner along with them, they were saying my feet hurt because they weren't yet used to it. And even with cars, you still walk. You still are on foot. And so that's biblical. So don't let people come at you with this pontificating and high and mighty, well, soul winning's not biblical. I mean, I just watched a video of some idiot. I was trying to get fired up for my sermon because I'm kind of sick, so I was trying to get motivated. I think I watched the stupidest video on the internet. Okay. And I know that's a big claim because there's a lot of weird dumb stuff out there. This guy has this video about why going door to door soul winning is not biblical. Okay. And he said, this is basically what he says why it's not biblical is because I tried it and it didn't work. And this is what he said. He said, well, I knocked on the door. He said, every door I knocked, people were awkward, uncomfortable, shifting from foot to foot and didn't want me there. Now, here's the thing. Those of us that go soul winning every week, is that how it is when you knock doors? Is everybody just awkward and shifting and weird? No. You know why people are awkward and shifty and weird? Because you're weird. Because you're saying weird stuff. I mean, if you show up to somebody's door and you're all weirded out and saying all this weird stuff because you're some weirdo ruckmanite coming at him with who knows what kind of weird, stupid things. Of course, they're going to shift back and forth and be awkward and want you off their doorstep. But this is what people do. They go out and they fail at soul winning because they're not doing it right. And then here's what they say. Oh, well, if I failed, then it must just not work. Instead of going to someone who could teach them how to do it right, or going to the Bible and learning more about how to do it right, or practicing more, they basically just say, oh, this must not work. And then someone else succeeds over here. They say, oh, well, that person, I mean, you know. I mean, I swung at the ball and I missed it every time. I mean, they kept pitching the ball to me and I kept missing it. Therefore, baseball bats don't work. And that guy who stepped up the plate and hits it out of the park, well, he's got a corked bat or something. He's cheating. It's fake. It's not real. They're just pressuring high pressure and rushing people through a prayer and all this junk. No, we're not. Our soul winning is as legit as the day is long around here. And I can't vouch for every person's soul winning in this church, but people who do it the way that we teach are legit. And that's most of the people in the church. And look, to sit there and make a video, well, soul winning's unbiblical. And then he says, well, these are the only three verses to prove it or whatever. Of course, he avoids Act 542. He avoids going into the highways and hedges. But what kind of stupidity? He goes through this whole video about how it's unbiblical to go soul winning. And then he said, so I've decided that the best way to evangelize, this is what he comes up with. Because soul winning's not biblical, going house to house, preaching the gospel till your feet hurt. This is what he came up with. He said, so I figured I was much more effective just to upload videos to YouTube. That's how he's getting the real fruit to come in. Because going out and preaching to people, the gospel's a waste of time. And you're invading their space. Well, I wonder if Paul invaded those ladies' space when he went down to the river where they're washing clothes and started preaching to them. What about when he invaded the synagogue, invaded the house, invaded the towns? You know, what about when Jesus just commandeered that donkey? Who cares? What we're doing is more important than their video game or their TV show or their whatever. We have every right to go knock on somebody's door and preach the gospel. We're ambassadors of God Almighty. Every right, all power and all authority is given unto us, you know, through Christ. Because we represent the king. And so we have the right to show up and preach the gospel. So then this fool, the dumbest part was when, I got to share this with you. He's talking about how soul winning is such a fraud. So he plays a video clip of me, you know, because it was all directed toward me and Garrett. You know, he's showing clips of me, showing clips of Garrett, you know, how we're a fraud. And he shows this clip where I'm talking about in Botswana. I'm in the back of a car in Botswana and I'm saying, yeah, we've been here for a few days and the soul winning's been great. And we had a total of 65 people saved. And I said it was really cool because I was out soul winning on Sunday afternoon. And one of the guys that I knocked his door on that afternoon showed up just a few hours later at that Sunday night service. And he brought his family. So I thought it was pretty cool to knock somebody's door, get him saved. And then two hours later, they're in church with their family. That's pretty cool. Okay. So then he comes back to him and he's just like, so you got 65 people saved and one of them showed up to church. But then it was like, he realized, oh, crap, I forgot. I don't believe in church because he tells people don't go to church. Don't go to church. He just wants people to be on his YouTube ministry. He says that if you go to a church, if you go to a building to attend church, you're in sin, he says. You can't go to church. So then like he realized, it's like while he's saying it, he realized how stupid he's being because he's talking like, well, these people didn't really get saved if they didn't go to church, if only one of them showed up. And he's like, oh, crap, I don't even go to church. So he's like, well, I mean, because he starts like stumbling like, oh, well, I mean, because I mean, the church is just everybody who saved is the church. So I mean, they were already in church. And he's like, what am I saying there? My point just went out the window. But what's dumb is that out of the 65 people that were saved, there were actually many of them showed up for church because actually I'm thinking about your relatives and friends that got saved and people that we won to the Lord. I was counting like one, two, three, four, five, six. I'm thinking just off the top of my head at least six people. And there might have been more of people that we won to the Lord that were part of that 65. Like six of them had actually shown up for church. I was just pointing out the one that I thought was pretty cool that I just knocked his door two hours before. But listen to me. What if we went out and got 65 people saved and none of them showed up for church? So what? At least we got him to first base and you're at home doing nothing. You're doing nothing. You're nobody. You have no fruit. Oh, we have so much fruit from this internet ministry. The only fruit is you. You sit around in your ivory tower, not even ivory tower. You sit around in your bunker in your mom's basement. You sit around by yourself not winning people. Look, you think the book of Acts is about people who lock themselves in a room with a camera and transmit to the world. And anybody who is deceived by these people's videos deserves to be deceived because that is the dumbest video on the internet. So, well, this is why door to door is wrong. And then he wanted to prove. He's like, people are going to say I've never tried it. So I'm going to prove at the end of the video that I've done it, that I've done it to show that I've tried it and it doesn't work. Then he puts a video at the end of handing out tracts without talking to people. Without talking to people. Just door hangers. Yeah, we're just putting door hangers, just putting out some Peter Ruckman's materials on the door. And then he's like wants to show one conversation that they had where they're just standing and listening to some raving old man for like 15 minutes. Just sitting there while this old man just raves to them. See, soul winning doesn't work. Look how unreceptive this guy was. Well, you know, I could take my camera and go find the most unreceptive person and upload it to YouTube too if I was an idiot. I mean, think about that. Well, yeah, of course, soul winning doesn't work. Here's the proof. Here's a senile old man raving for 15 minutes. Case closed. I saw the video had 77 likes. I said, you know what, there's 77 lazy fools. But since a lot of these people aren't even saved anyway, I'm glad they don't go soul winning because they'd probably preach a false gospel of repent of your sins to be saved and turn over a new leaf and clean up your life to be saved. They don't even believe in salvation by grace through faith. Listen to me, my friend, when you hear somebody criticize soul winning, you run. That's the biggest red flag, because any saved Christian with the Holy Spirit living inside them should want to see people saved and have a desire to see people saved. And it's like, OK, soul winning is not biblical, but YouTube is. How does that work? And I'm all for YouTube. I'm all for Facebook. I'm all for Twitter or any other method that somebody could propagate the Word of God and propagate Bible preaching and propagate the gospel. But let me tell you something, the Internet will never be a substitute for going out and preaching the gospel door to door because the simple reason that most people aren't even on the Internet in this world. Half of people aren't even on there. And here's the thing, the half that are on there are usually not going to be searching for how can I be saved? Do you think that your average teenager at McClintock High School comes home and whips out the smartphone and types in, how can I be saved? Does the rapture occur before or after the tribulation? I mean, do you think that's what they're thinking about or what do you think they're typing in? Tell me what they're typing in, people. What are they typing in? Cat videos. What are they typing in? You know, they're typing in music videos, right? OK, let's look at your gospel videos on YouTube and then let's look at the musicians. Look, I've seen music videos on YouTube have over 100 million viewers, 100 million, 200 million. Look, there are videos on YouTube that have a billion views, a billion. And it's not how to be saved that has a billion viewers. Now, look, do people get saved through hearing stuff on the of course, people can get saved through hearing, preaching or hearing stuff on YouTube or somebody shares a video on Facebook? Of course, people can be saved. But here's the thing about that, though. That's only a certain segment. And God wants us to get the gospel to every creature, every creature. And that means the people who are young and old, the elderly, the sick, the shut in, the people who never leave the house, the people who don't go on the Internet, people who go on the Internet looking for cat videos. Look, we got to take the gospel to them, folks. And look, if you're not going to go soul winning. If you're not going to be a solar, you just say, you know what, Pastor Harrison, just face it, I'm never going to go soul winning. OK, fine. But can you not discourage people who are? Look, I know people who don't go soul winning and they flat out told me I'm never going to go soul winning. But they still like to go to a soul winning church because they know soul winning is good. They know it's biblical. Anybody who begins to fight against soul winning is just evil and prideful because they don't want to admit that they failed or they quit or they're lazy or they're a backward ruck tard, you know, that just you know, these I look Peter Rockman's a goofball idiot and his followers are real weird and awkward. So it doesn't surprise me that they don't do well door to door when they you know, when they take their pale bodies out into the sunlight, you know. You know, and stretch out from, you know, being in the basement and, you know, and then they try to speak Ruckmanese with people. What am I talking about? The Great Commission, it's a three part deal, but you're not going to do all three parts on everybody, right? Some it's sometimes there's a gap between the three and that's very biblical. Word of prayer. Father, we thank you so much, Lord, for giving us the Ministry of Reconciliation. Lord, thank you for all the souls that have been saved, Lord, through the foot soldiers of Faithful Word Baptist Church. Lord, I thank you so much. It's not just me or or Garrett or Brother Baker, just a few people, Lord, because we wouldn't be able to get that many people saved if there are only three of us or five of us or 10 of us. But Lord, thank you that our church has literally hundreds of people who participate in the soul winning around here. Lord, help us to work hard at that step one, Lord of the Great Commission. Help us to work hard at step two, Lord, and help this pulpit to always teach the entire Bible so that we will have step three taken care of as well. In Jesus name, we pray.