(Disclaimer: This transcript is auto-generated and may contain mistakes.)

He was the one who brought forth the plagues, obviously through the power of God, but all the plagues that came forward, all the leading, not just parting the Red Sea, leading the children of Israel out of Egypt and through the wilderness and governing and leading and doing everything that Moses did. That same Moses, when God called him to do that work, was like, look, I'm nobody. I can't speak. I don't know how to talk well. How about Aaron, my brother? Can you just like, like, like, here's a guy, he could do it. He didn't want to do it. And God, you know, listened to him and even gave him Aaron to be a mouthpiece for him, but you know what we see in scriptures that once Moses got started, he didn't need Aaron. And it truly just shows he never needed Aaron. God called him to do it, and he's the one who ended up really being the leader anyways and doing the talking and the speaking and stuff. He didn't need to have Aaron there. In his mind, he thought he was convinced he needed someone else there. And God's willing to work with you. And you know what? If you need to go out soul winning, you could do this. Come to our soul winning event. We've got a partner that we can pair you up with. If you feel like I can't talk, great. We've got you covered. We've got an Aaron for you that can go with you. And you know, we're going to realize that once you get started, you won't need that Aaron anymore to rely on to do the talking for you. And we're still going to send people out two and two. That's what Jesus did. But you get to the point where you realize, okay, I can actually do this. And you'll start to be able to look back and realize, oh, yeah, all of my fears, all my nervousness, all the anxiety, it was unfounded. It was just a fear of the unknown. It was just not having done something and being apprehensive about it and being uncertain, scared, whatever, not knowing because you haven't done, you didn't have any experience. But once you get through that, I promise you, it goes away. It gets better. And I know the nerves. I understand. I understand the feeling of walking up to the door and not wanting anyone to be there. I understand the fear of, you know, kind of being uncomfortable, because all it boils down to is being uncomfortable. But you have to ask yourself, is it worth it to go through a little bit of discomfort given what God has given you as a free gift of your eternal salvation, right? And the reason why you were even able to get saved, first and foremost, obviously, is because Jesus Christ died on the cross and rose again and shed his blood and paid for all of your sins, right? No question about that. That is the gospel. However, God has entrusted that work of preaching the gospel to help other people to know about this in the hands of men, in the hands of people, in the hands of human being. People are not just getting saved, like, out of nothing, out of not having heard. In fact, keep your place here. Turn, if you would, to Romans chapter 10, because the Bible specifically outlines how salvation works. Yes, it's through Jesus Christ, no doubt. He has to have done everything that he did for us to be saved, and he gets all the credit and the glory and honor for our salvation. However, people aren't getting saved without human involvement. It's just not happening. Without believers, without other people bringing the gospel of Jesus Christ, it just won't happen. So people will literally stop getting saved. If everyone will just stop preaching about Jesus, no one's going to be getting saved. Romans 10 says in verse number 17, so then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. Excuse me, that's the end of the passage. Let's just jump up a little bit more. Verse number 13, for whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? So look, anyone who calls the name of the Lord is going to be saved. You see, like, oh yeah, well what would I need a person for that for? Anyone can call on the name of the Lord, right? Well, let's see how that works, right? Because you're right, anyone can call on the name of the Lord, but how? How is that going to happen? Well, first of all, no one's going to call on the name of the Lord if they're not even believing on him. Now, they can say a prayer, they can call on something, but in regards to being saved, which is what this passage is talking about, calling on the name of the Lord and being saved, you can't call on the Lord, you can't call on Jesus Christ to save you if you don't even believe on him. If you're not even trusting on him, if you're not putting your faith in him, it's just vain words. You're not really receiving salvation. How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? But then look at this, how shall they believe in him in whom they have not heard? Well, that makes sense. How could you believe something if you haven't even heard it? You're gonna have to hear about something in order to discern or understand or know this is true, this is not true, but if you've never even heard, I mean, how is that, how are you gonna expect that thought to ever just come across your mind? If someone's born into this world and there is zero contact with the Bible, zero contact with any other person who will ever make any reference to Jesus Christ, is that just reference to Jesus Christ, is that just gonna all of a sudden pop up in their brain and be like, oh, hey, I think I believe in Jesus. Of course not, right? It's ridiculous. You have to have heard about it. You have to know about it somehow. Someone has to relay that information to you. Someone has to give you that. You can't believe except you hear. And how shall they hear without a preacher? Somebody needs to be preaching. Someone needs to be saying it. So you see, this is the point that I'm focusing on today. How should they hear without a preacher? When it says they're a preacher, it's not just talking about someone in my position. You're like, oh, yeah, well, you're the preacher, right? Yeah, I'm preaching right now. I'm preaching the Bible. But that's not this context. It's talking about just preaching the gospel. A preacher in this context is a preacher of the gospel. And everybody can be a preacher of the gospel. And everybody should be a preacher of the gospel. That is how we're going to reach the most people. If you think about it, well, that's just your job because you're a pastor of the church. When we went out yesterday to Chattanooga, Tennessee, I went out soul winning all day. I had a map. I finished two maps. Do you know how many salvations I personally got? Zero. I'm not embarrassed. I'm not ashamed. I put forth the work. Okay. I sowed the presage of the Word, the seed. But you know what? For me, yesterday, I wasn't able to lead anyone to Christ. And that happens. And that's fine. But you know what? We had 79 other people there. And some of those people were able to lead someone else to Christ. And they're not the pastor of the church. They're not the preacher man up here behind the pulpit. But you know what they did? They preached the Word of God. They preached the gospel to people. And 24 people put their faith in Christ as a result. I mean, the evidence is right there. When Jesus sent out the 12, and then later on, he sent out the 70, they're not all pastors of churches. But they were still sent to preach the Word of God. They were followers of Jesus. Are you a follower of Jesus? I am. That's who he sent out to go to and to. And of course, this continues on and says, how should they hear without a preacher? And how should they preach except they be sent? Right? Someone needs to be sending people out to preach. People, again, it doesn't just normally just kind of pop up in your mind. This is also why church is so important. Now, when I got saved, I didn't go to church for a long time. I was saved because of work that other people did. I got saved because I heard the gospel from other people. But so I knew how to be saved. I also had a desire to want to tell other people about Jesus. Okay? Just spiritually speaking, natural, right? Not natural in my flesh, but natural in the spirit. I wanted to let other people know about Christ. I wasn't very good at it. I wasn't going to church. I had a bad testimony because I was still living a wicked lifestyle. But there was times where I was just like, you know what? I need to tell somebody about this because you know it. It's true. You've got the Holy Spirit, right? But I never really decided to just go out and start telling everyone about it. More was just in like if the subject came up amongst my friends and they're starting to tell you, it's like, you know what? No, I need to tell you this is the truth. But that's different than being sent out and going forth with the goal of preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ. And you know what? If you never are sent out, if you're never going to a church where people are sending people out, you may lead someone to Christ one or two in your lifetime or something. I know that happens. I know it happens. People will do that, right? And praise the Lord for everyone that gets saved. But how much more when the people are actually being sent to go forth and preach the gospel? How should they preach except they'd be sent as it is written? How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace and bring glad tidings of good things? And how beautiful. And what I want to really focus on this morning is being a bearer of good news. So while it's important for everyone to preach the gospel, I also want to just kind of highlight a lot of passages this morning that it's good news. Because we have a lot of influence or factors in our life from this world that's going to try to make you even get weary with the gospel or try to cause you not to really talk about it. We're taught, culturally speaking, that when you grow up, there's just certain things you don't talk about. It's not polite to talk about, right? We don't talk about politics. We don't talk about religion, right? Those are probably the top two things that people will tell you, oh yeah, don't talk about those things. And it's funny because those are the things that matter the most. So it's just like, yeah, don't talk about those. If you want to get along with people, why? Because those are also deeply held beliefs. It's what people are most passionate about, generally speaking. So it's just kind of like, well, if you just want to go along and get along and not have any problem with anyone ever, then don't ever talk about anything meaningful. And that's what the world's going to tell you, and that's what culture's going to tell you, and just be like, okay, well, that's just what you do then. I can't talk about this because it might offend somebody or someone might get upset. Well, you know what? That's not what God has called you to do, though. That's not what the Bible's telling you to do. Now, look, we live peaceably. Definitely it's peaceful. We're not going and getting all crazy over getting people to receive the gospel of Jesus Christ and tackling them and getting them down or something like that. That's silly. But we still ought to be bringing up the conversation. We ought to be not afraid to talk about these things. And you may get some other intimidation, other reasons to not want to preach the gospel, but the more increasingly wicked our society gets, you know, you're going to be called haters and judgmental and all of these negative tags, negative labels being put on you literally for preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ. But don't forget ever that you're bringing good news. It's not bad. It's not hateful. It's not judgmental. It is good news that you're bringing. It's glad tidings. So as we saw in Romans 10 about this, how beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace. We're bringing a gospel that provides people with peace. It's going to provide you a peace with God, that your sins that have come in between you and God, this problem that you have of owing a sin debt to God because you're a sinner. You are coming then and offering a way to provide peace with God and peace in your life, knowing that you're forgiven of the things that you've done wrong, forgiven of your transgressions. That's good news. So while people might call you a hater, they might call you all these other labels and names and your judgmental things, what you're really doing, what we know we're doing, what everyone who's saved knows what it really is anyways, but just don't let the continual bombardment of the hate labels get through to you because look, we're all human. These things do have an impact. The more you hear something, the more it could wear on you. Remind yourself and know, get reminded and refreshed in the scripture. Look, we're declaring glad tidings. We're bringing good news. It's the gospel of peace and bring glad tidings of good things. In Acts 13, if you want to go back there, if you kept a place there in Acts 13, the same thing in regards to the gospel, verse 29 reads, and when they had fulfilled all that was written of him, they took him down from the tree and laid him in a sepulcher, but God raised him from the dead. So it's talking about Jesus Christ death, his burial and his resurrection, right? This is the gospel. And he was seen many days of them which came up with him from Galilee to Jerusalem, who are his witnesses unto the people. And we declare unto you glad tidings. We're bringing good news. That's what glad tidings is. Good news, how that the promise which was made unto the fathers, God hath fulfilled. What is the good news? God made a promise in the past. God made this promise a long time ago, and you know what? He kept good on that promise. That promise came to pass. God has fulfilled the same unto us, their children. He made the promise to the fathers, and now unto us, their children, it's been fulfilled in that he has raised up Jesus again, as it is also written in the second Psalm, thou art my son, this day have I begotten thee, talking about the resurrection of Christ. That's the promise. That's the good news. Jesus Christ not only died, but he was raised again from the dead. He's a living Savior. He's not a dead Savior. He's not some dead prophet. He's not some dead God that can't save. He's a resurrected Savior. He's alive. He's alive forevermore. Praise the Lord. This is the good news. This is the news that, yes, you've sinned. Yes, that sin brings an eternal punishment in hell. It's a debt of sin that we owe, and Jesus paid that for you. And even though we're all going to physically pass one day, assuming Christ doesn't come back first, we're going to pass physically, and we're going to die. You know what? There is a resurrection for us. It's been promised as well, not just the promise of Christ the firstfruits, but the promise of the resurrection unto all of us who are in Christ, that as Christ rose again from the dead, so shall we also rise from the dead at the coming of Christ. That's good news. That's a gospel of peace. That's good tidings. Turn, if you would, to Isaiah chapter 52. We're going to look at a couple of references in Isaiah, because this is what is actually referenced in Romans 10. We started off kind of a little bit out of order there, but when I had you turn to Romans 10, we went through the how shall they preach, except they be sent. Then it says, as it is written, and then it quotes Isaiah. So when he says, as it is written, how beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace. This is quoting Isaiah. Isaiah 52 verse number seven. The Bible reads, how beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace. Now that just means you're spreading it abroad, publishing, right? It's not just like publishing a bound book. Publishing peace is you're letting it known just far and wide throughout the land that bringeth good tidings of good. We're bringing good news, and you know what? Let me also say this. When you go and preach the gospel, we are bringing good news. Don't ever forget that. Don't get so focused on the bad news that you don't actually preach the good news, and you'll find people out there like the ray comforts of the world that want to spend so much time on the bad news. It's like you never really get to the good news, and by the way, the way of the master, the ray comforts, the people. That's a false gospel, because you know what their message is. Here's why. Why is that false? What are you talking about? Aren't they doing a good work for the Lord? No, they spend most of their time hammering people about their sin, which, look, if someone needs to be convinced that they're a sinner, you spend as much time as you need to to convince them and to show them that God's judgment for sin is hell, but in my experience, it doesn't take that much for people to recognize that condition, to recognize that that's God's judgment. You don't need to go through every command and be like, see, are you guilty of this? Are you guilty of this? How about this one, huh? I know you're guilty of this. What about this? And just hammer them down on their sin. Look, if you acknowledge, look, I already know I'm a sinner, and I see that God's punishment is hell, then move on and preach the good news, because that's what we're called to do. You have to acknowledge the bad news, because that's why we need a savior. The reality that we're sinners and deserve hell, but that's not the point, is just to sit there and hammer on bad things and hammer on your sin. And look, no, we're there to offer them salvation. So if you're going to spend your time, you know, the majority of time on anything, spend it on the good news, the glad tidings, the peace that people can find. It's rare when you find a case with someone that just doesn't really want to admit that they're a sinner at all. It's rare. It happens, but it's very rare. And let me finish my thought, because I don't want to just move on. Since I mentioned I brought up the Ray Comforts, they bring the gospel that says, okay, you're a sinner, you're a sinner, they harp on that. But if they had the right solution, then I'd be like, well, whatever, they might be a little lopsided, but at least they're still bringing the gospel. But they don't say that you just have to believe on Jesus to be saved. That's what the Bible says, by the way. Like in Acts 16, verse 30 and 31, where the Bible says, you know, sir, and brought them out and said, sirs, what must I do to be saved? And they said, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved in thy house. For God so loved the world, and gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. Bible's consistent over and over again. But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him, that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness. You don't have to do good works. In fact, you can't put your trust in any good works as part of your salvation, because if you do that, you're not trusting in Christ alone for your salvation. You're not only believing in him. And that's what the Bible requires, is that we're believing on him. It doesn't say believe on Jesus and yourself. It doesn't believe on Jesus and your obedience to some works. None of it. For by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified in his sight. But what Ray Comfort will say is that, well, no, you have to turn from all your sins. Here's why you say, well, that doesn't sound that bad. Now, on the surface, maybe not, depending on what you understand that to even mean, right? Now, if someone was trusting in their sins to save them, then I would say, yeah, you got to turn from that. But I've never run into someone who was trusting in their sins to save them. You know why I'm going to heaven? I steal. I kill. I lie. In fact, I'm not even being fully honest with you right now. Right? No one's trusting in that. We need to recognize our sin and understand the punishment for that sin. But salvation is a free gift. You just have to receive that free gift. Turning from, if you turned from your sin, sin's the transgression of the law. And look, we should turn from our sin, but that's not what saves us. When you turn from your sin, what are you doing? You're obeying the law. Because the more you obey God's law, the less you're sinning. Because when you're sin, you're breaking the law. So you have to put those two next to each other. You're either breaking the law, or sinning, or following the law. Those are your choices. So if I have to turn from my sins, what am I turning to? I'm turning to the law. I'm turning to keep God's law. And as a believer, we ought to be doing that every day. We ought to be getting the sin out of our life and following God's law and trying to follow a righteous way of living and sanctifying. Of course we should. But that doesn't save you. And looking to the law, saying, well no, I'm getting all the sins out of my life so I could be saved. That's not how salvation works. It's a false gospel. And literally, guys like that will say, like, you can't be saved unless you quit whatever. I've seen them do that multiple times. People are drinking, or they're smoking, or they're like, no, you've got to give that up if you want to be saved. No, salvation is a free gift. It's not of works, lest any man should boast. But you've got proud people out there preaching a false gospel so that they can lift themselves up in their great works and how great they are. Well, I was this dirty sinner down the gutter, and I was a drunk and everything else, but I did this, and I did that, and I got right with God, and it's like, so that's why you're going to heaven? Look, I did all those things too, and I'm not doing most of those things anymore, but I'm still a rotten sinner. I still sin on a daily basis. I'm still not good enough for heaven. No amount of any sin that you get rid of is going to help you get into heaven. We need Jesus every day, but once you receive that salvation one time, you are saved forever, and that is some good news. Turn to Isaiah 61. Look at verse number one. The Bible says, the spirit of the Lord God is upon me because the Lord hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and the opening of the prison to them that are bound. Look at how good these things all are. This is the message. We are bringing good tidings as we saw already before. We're binding up the brokenhearted. This is the message of Christ. This is the gospel that we're bringing, a gospel of peace, liberty to the captives, freedom. People are taken captive, bringing freedom. That's a reason to rejoice. That's something to be happy about. That's something to be glad about. That's something that is a great message to bring, and of course, the opening of the prison to them that are bound to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all that mourn. The gospel brings all of this. It brings the comfort. It brings liberty. It brings the healing to the brokenhearted. Verse three, to appoint unto them that mourn in Zion to give unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness. It brings the good to the bad, the ashes, right? Hey, there's beauty. The mourning, the sorrow, there's joy. We're bringing joy so you don't have to be sorrowful anymore. And people who are of a heavy heart, look, there's a reason to be happy. There's a reason to praise God. It's all through the gospel that they might be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that he might be glorified. Turn, if you would, to Luke chapter 15. Now emphasize the good news. We're bearers of good news. So we don't get, one, just sidetracked or kind of off target on what we're preaching. And two, it's pretty motivational to want to go out and help people because you're bringing a very big help. And maybe even safer a real long time, you might be dull to it. Not that you don't know it, not that it's not real to you, but it's just you can get caught up in routine. And we're all victim to this. Look, I am too. I'm just like, I got to do this. I got to do this. I got to preach sermon. I got to go soul wedding. And I'm very task oriented if you know me at all. It's just like, I got to work on this, this, this, this. And it's kind of how I live my whole life. Very task oriented. So you could get so focused on the task, you could lose sight of what you're even doing. Okay. So it's good to be reminded periodically. Like, look, this is why it's a task. This is why it has importance. This is why it's a priority because of what we're doing. And you know what, I'm reminded even though I fall into that trap myself of doing the task things, when you're out soul winning, though, and you lead someone to Christ, you always remember why it's important. You always remember the joy, the rejoicing, because it's always a joyous event when someone does decide to put their trust in Jesus Christ. It's one of those things, if you know, you know. And those that go soul winning know what I'm talking about. If you've ever led someone to Christ, you know that joy that you get as well as the person that's receiving Christ gets. And that's also, we're always focused on the joy we're bringing to other people, but you know what, you get to be a partaker of that joy. Luke 15, look at verse number four. And this is also why, by the way, we are nothing like Jehovah's Witnesses. Obviously not in doctrine, right? They are going out soul winning literally just out of some duty. And that's the only way they think they must do this, which look, on that point, we should, we all are duty bound to preach the gospel, right? What was done to me if I preached not the gospel is what the Apostle Paul said. We're all duty bound to do it, but there's so much more than that. We're not just looking at this going, well, I have to do it. At least we shouldn't be. That's what the JW's do. It's like, that's why when you see them out in the streets, I mean, they're almost literally dragging their feet going from door to door. It's always old people, right? They're worried about dying. Well, okay, let's go in. How much time we got left? Well, another 15 minutes. I'm gonna walk up to the door. We're nothing like that. Why? They don't bring good news at all. They don't even like to tell you where they're from. If you've ever had them come to your door, especially lately, they used to tell you right out the bat where they're from. They don't tell you that anymore. They just kind of want to invite you to some event or something and they'll leave you with a little newspaper and hope you come to a Bible study or something, but they have bad news. They don't have a Savior. They don't have a resurrected Savior. They've got their concept of the Savior as someone who's given like a different body and all kinds of other nonsense. I'm not going to go into detail on what they believe, but it's just, it's crazy. We have a risen Savior. We have, we have a Son of God Savior who is divine and we bring a reason to rejoice, which is why there ought to be some pep in your step when you're going out preaching the gospel because it's exciting. And, and from what I see in our church, people are excited. Yeah, let's go, man. You know, it's, it's, it's, uh, we're bringing good news and you're happy about doing that. And it's not just checking off a box. We're literally going to help people to receive Christ. And you see all the good that's being done of it. Look at verse number four there in Luke 15, but it says, what man of you having 100 sheep, if he lose one of them, does not leave the 99 in the wilderness and go after that, which is lost until he find it. And when he had found it, he laid it on his shoulders rejoicing. And when he come home, he called together his friends and neighbors saying unto them, rejoice with me for I have found my sheep, which was lost. I say unto you that likewise, joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth more than over 99 just persons, which need no repentance. Now there's two ways you can look at this and I believe they both can be applicable. There is repentance in just the sense of a born-again believer getting right with God. And that is a reason to rejoice. And you know, sometimes when you go out sowing, you'll run into people who are already saved. And if you can stir them up enough to get right with God, like whatever they're doing in life, I haven't been to church a long time. They're saved, but they're really not doing anything and they're not serving God, then what you can do is help to motivate them to get right with God. Hey, come to church. Get plugged in. Get, you know, get doing the right thing. And obviously there's the other way of looking at this as a sinner who's not saved, then turning to Christ and getting saved. Of course, that also brings a lot of joy. And it is a joyous occasion. Look at verse number eight. It just gives another example. Either what woman having ten pieces of silver, if she lose one piece, doth not light a candle and sweep the house and seek diligently till she find it. And when she hath found it, she calleth her friends and her neighbors together saying, rejoice with me for I have found the peace which I had lost. Likewise, I say unto you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth. Turn to Luke 10. It's the last place I'll have you turn. We've had a lot of other things going on today. I've got a few other passages, but we're going to just skip over that. It's a very simple message this morning. I want you to be stirred up, but Luke 10, I think, has a lot of great instruction for us. We're going to start reading in verse number one. The Bible reads, after these things, the Lord appointed other 70 also and sent them two and two before his face into every city and place, whether he himself would come. So this is, as I mentioned at the beginning of the sermon, he's sending out disciples by two and two, which is what we do here. We try to pair people up in groups of two and send them out to go and preach the gospel. Verse two says, therefore said he unto them, the harvest truly is great, but the laborers are few. Pray ye therefore, the Lord of the harvest, that he would send forth laborers into his harvest. Back then, 70 people, the harvest is great, laborers are few. Modern day, we had 80 people, right? The harvest is so great. In fact, it's even greater. There's more people on the earth today than there was in those days. 2,000 years have gone by, there's a lot more people living at one time on the earth, to the tune of billions, as opposed to back then. So the harvest just keeps on getting bigger, but you know what? Our laborers are still few. We need more laborers. And so you don't have to hold a position in a church to be a laborer. Anyone could be a laborer. You know, this church is like, we're like the Home Depot of laborers. You want to work? Come here. You need to be, you want to be a day laborer? We'll put you to work. We've got work for you to do. And seriously, I mean, the Home Depot is like the place, anyone who's looking for work, that's where they go. Right? Am I wrong? That's what happens. But we've got, we've got a much better job for you though. And we'll feed you. We'll take care of you. We'll get you the supplies that you need. We'll equip you with a Bible. We'll equip you with a partner to go out and help you along and guide you in showing the Word of God to people who are unsaved. But truly, the harvest is great. We need more laborers. Pray therefore, Lord, of the harvest, that you would send forth laborers into his harvest. Verse 3, go your ways. Behold, I send you forth as lambs among wolves. Carry neither purse nor scrip nor shoes and salute no man by the way. And into whatsoever house you enter, first say, peace be to this house. And if the son of peace be there, your peace shall rest upon it. If not, it shall turn to you again. Now, when he's sending out his disciples, they don't have all of the modern conveniences that we have today. So they would literally go out and have to stay where they're at, right, in order to continue preaching the gospel and kind of complete their task of preaching the gospel there. We've got cars. We've got, you know, the hotel. We've got all this nice luxury to be able to reach people in a much more efficient manner, like much more time-sensitive manner. So it's great. We have even more benefit. And as there's more people in the world, that's what we need, right? We need more ways to do this. But either way, we still can take this lesson. He's saying, look, don't salute any man by the way. Just go and get the work done. Basically, don't get sidetracked into other things. Do the job. Do the task that I have set before you. And basically, it says in the same house, remain eating and drinking such things as they give, for the laborer is worthy of his hire. Go not from house to house. So the instruction was, when you're going out to preach the gospel and people are going to let you in to stay with them as you're doing your work, don't go trying to be like, okay, I stayed with you tonight. I'm going to stay with this person. I'm going to stay with this person. Just stay there. Accept whatever they're giving you, however they're feeding you. Great. Don't worry about it. You don't have to try to pay them back. The laborer is worthy of his hire. Just accept what they're giving to you and keep moving forward and do the job, right? Don't worry about all the side issues. And that's what, you know, when we try to mimic this, when we send you out, I'll go with you and we go and we'll eat food and we'll have everything prepared and say, okay, we've got a lodging for us all today. We've got, we've got shelter. We've got food. Go ahead. Eat. Get your fill. Get what you need because we've got work to do. And I don't want anyone having to worry about, oh, wait, I came up here. We drove all this way and I don't have anything to eat. I don't have it. You know, we got you covered. I don't want you sidetracked on those things and having to go out and do anything else and taking time away from the task that we have to do. And besides, the laborer is worthy of his hire. You're doing a much greater work than whatever you're going to get in terms of food and stuff like that. And into whatsoever city you enter, verse 8, and they receive you. Eat such things that are set before you and heal the sick that are therein and say unto them, the kingdom of God has come nigh unto you. But into whatsoever city you enter, and they receive you not, go your ways out into the streets of the same and say, even the very dust of your city which cleaveth on us, we do wipe off against you. Notwithstanding, be sure of this, that the kingdom of God has come nigh unto you. But I say unto you that it shall be more tolerable in that day for Sodom than for that city. Woe unto thee, Chorazin. Woe unto thee, Bethsaida. For if the mighty works had been done in Tyre and Sidon, which have been done in you, they had a great while ago repented, sitting in sackcloth and ashes. But it shall be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon at the judgment than for you. And thou, Capernaum, which art exalted to heaven, shall be thrust down to hell. He that heareth you heareth me, and he that despiseth you despiseth me, and he that despiseth me despiseth him that sent me. Now, this judgment is being brought forth on cities that just are rejecting the gospel from being preached. When we go forth, what are we doing? We're bringing the good news. We're bringing peace. We're bringing deliverance to the captives. We're bringing a good message. But if an entire city is just like, no, we want nothing to do with that, well, you know what? Now you're going to do the sole warning and be like, all right, we gave you a chance. We have a good message. You want nothing to do with it? That's on you, okay? God is a judge, and God's going to judge. You know, we're trying to help you out here, and then you move on. And that's what we do. And there's the judgment. There's why we're so terrible, right? We love people. You're trying to help them. They want nothing to do with it, all right? Can't force anyone. You can't, you know, you can lead a horse to water. You can't force them to drink. We can lead people to Christ, but you can't force them to believe. Now, look at this. Those were all the instructions. Now let's look at the return of the 70, verse 17. And the 70 returned again with joy. Jesus sent them out to labor, to work. Hey, don't bring anything with you. Don't worry about it. Wherever you go, just stay with them, meet with them, whatever. They could have been a little trepidatious going like, I don't know. I mean, I kind of want to bring a pack mule with me or something. So no, just go, right? Go and do the work. They come back. Man, that was great. They're full of joy because they were bringing joy unto other people. It says, saying, Lord, even the devils are subject unto us through thy name. So there's a lot of excitement going on. They're preaching the gospel. They're getting people saved, but Jesus also endued them with power to heal and to cast out devils and these things. So they're like, I mean, there's a lot going on here and they're full of joy and they're excited. And and that's one of the things that they're talking about is being able to cast out the devils. But look at how Jesus responds. And he said unto them, I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven. Behold, I give unto you power to tread on serpents and scorpions and over all the power of the enemy and nothing shall by any means hurt you notwithstanding in this rejoice not that the spirits are subject unto you. He's saying don't put the emphasis on that. Don't worry about that, right? You don't have to get all happy and excited about the devils being subject unto you, he says, but rather rejoice because your names are written in heaven. That's the reason to be happy that you want to rejoice over something. Don't worry about having the power over these devils. Be happy that you're saved. Be happy that you have the gift of God. Be happy that you have eternal life. And then anyone who's receiving eternal life, hey, be happy your names are written in heaven. That is a good reason to rejoice in that hour. Jesus rejoiced in spirit and said, I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that thou has hid these things from the wise and prudent and has revealed them unto babes, even so, Father, for so it seemed good in thy sight. And Jesus is just happy that he's revealed this truth unto his children, unto babes, and not to the wise, not to the prudent, but just unto common people. It's our job to preach the gospel. The Bible says this in Psalm 126, real, real popular passage, they that sow in tears shall reap in joy. He that goeth forth and weepeth bearing precious seed shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him. And that is a true reason to be happy. Let's help bring people into the kingdom of God by preaching the gospel to them that they could put their faith in Christ. And we're going to close just on this notion, this thought. We are now and have been increasing in general. There was one year that was a little bit of an anomaly for us in our history as a church in 2019. We're going over these numbers last night, and I like keeping track of how we're doing as a church. Now, I've said this before, and I'll say it again. We keep track of the numbers because it's a reason to rejoice. It's exciting to see this, especially over time, what's being done. We could get caught up in the day-to-day so much, which is important. Day-to-day, we can't live in the past, but it's encouraging and motivating to see what's going on and to say, you know what? Hey, here's what we've done. Here's where we've come from, and here's where we're going. And these numbers, it's not just some game. We're not like salesmen that are competing to have the highest number of sales in a month. We're rejoicing because we're all laborers together working for the common cause of bringing the gospel of Jesus Christ to people. And we need to remember that any numbers that we, when I ask people, hey, to slip up your hand if you've led someone to Christ, it's not so that, oh, man, look at this person. They get all this glory and honor. It's not like that, okay? We're just trying to collectively see as a church, hey, here's all the work that we're doing together, right? And, you know, God forbid that anyone is going to be doing this out of their own pride in being like me. This is how many salvations I had yesterday, right? But no one's doing that. You know, people are just like, and that's fine, right? We're not trying to make it about the individual. It's about the effort, and for everyone to be able to, hey, that's great. When we count the salvations on Sunday, we all go out, we work, and you know what's really exciting is for the person like me yesterday that went out and had zero because it gets a little discouraging sometimes. You're like, man, you know, just wasn't working out. No one wanted to talk, and it wears on you. It can wear on you, but then you're like, well, hey, praise God because other people didn't have people listen to them, and that's exciting, and you can share and rejoice in that. Like the parable, okay, I lost my silver coin. I got it, and he's calling up people. Hey, I found it. I got it, right? And you rejoice with those that do rejoice, and it's fun. It's exciting, and these numbers, when we see them in the bulletin, they represent people, and so far for the year, we're at an even 900 salvations. Now, do we know for a fact every single one of those people are saved? No, we don't know for a fact. We don't. I don't know, but it's 900 people by the standard that we use is they have to call on the name of the Lord, and the soul owner has to be confident enough in having explained the gospel to them and answering any doubts or any questions that they might have that, look, it seemed like they understood this, and they called on the name of the Lord. Hey, we're going to assume that they're telling the truth, and based on our best judgment, that they understood the gospel. It's reasonable. I don't know what else you can do. We don't believe in this. Well, we need to monitor and get the magnifying glass out and watch everything. Now, what are they going to do? How many sins are they going to commit? Well, how many sins do you commit? You want someone, you know, putting you under a microscope and looking at your life every single waking moment? Oh, it must mean you're not saved then. Nonsense. Nonsense. You confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus, and believe your heart that God hath raised him from the dead. Thou shalt be saved. If that's a requirement for salvation, then that's what we're going to look to determining whether or not we think somebody's saved. And that's the standard we use here. We don't take it lightly. We're not just trying to rack up numbers for some, I mean, what, that's vain. Just to say I've got so many numbers. That's not what matters. It's the soul that matters. So we try to be conservative. I'm looking at that. I'm pretty confident in these numbers because you know what? There's probably some people we didn't count that did get saved. And there's probably some people here that seemed like they got saved that didn't. It probably balances out. Either way, we're looking at 900 and I want to push us as a church. We already have a soul winning challenge for this month, which is great because this is going to help us to get to the goal of breaking a thousand. And breaking a thousand is actually if we can stay consistent with the work that we put forward as a church to this point, we should get that kind of, I want to say automatically, but if we continue to just be consistent and put in the time, as we've been doing over the months, we should reach that goal. So it's not a very difficult goal. And especially if you put in the extra hour this month and you participate in our challenge, I don't see why we wouldn't be able to reach this. We've got about six weeks left, but the problem is December, right? Because December is a time of holidays and people get out of routines and out of schedules and you've got a lot of other things going on. You might be visiting family and everything else. So we want to kind of be focused and not lose sight of this. And hopefully just as a church, we collectively could put forth the effort and be like, you know what? Let's get this done. You can't control who gets saved, but you can control how much time you put in to the work. And the more time you put in, you will see more results. It's just a fact. You put in one hour a week, you'll get one hour's worth of work results. You put in five hours a week, you'll get five hours. And you know what? You'll probably see about five times as many souls saved over the course of time. Makes sense, right? So that's what we control. We control our time. And look, if we're all putting forth the best effort and we don't reach that goal of a thousand salvations, so be it. But the point is to be motivated and thinking about this and be like, man, wouldn't it be great to say this year we reached a thousand people that called on the name of the Lord? And maybe it's a little bit motivating if we're getting there to just say, hey, let's put, let's do an extra effort. Let's go out throwing an extra time. I know there's no challenge this month for this, but let's just do it anyways and see if we can help push us over the mark and reach that many people. So that's what I'd like to see in our church, and I'm going to participate in this just as much as you. Okay, well maybe not just as much. I don't know. Some of you might have more opportunity than I do, but my heart's gonna be in it, and I will try to do more even going in in December definitely to help see us over the finish line. Okay, I'm not gonna back off and let you all do the work. I'll be right there with you. Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer. Dear Heavenly Father, Lord, we thank you so much for the gospel. We thank you for the good news. We thank you for those that have reached us. God, thank you for the laborers that took your word seriously, that took the Great Commission seriously, that sacrificed their own time to preach your word, and to help us to understand the gospel, whether that be our family members, relatives, or strangers that we didn't even know, dear Lord. Thank you for all of them, and help us now to be workers, to be ambassadors that can go forth and bear that precious seed, and Lord, equip us with what we need. Help us to grow. Help those that don't normally go soul-willing to learn, dear Lord, and to overcome any fears or anxieties, and to be able to yield themselves to you, and say, here I am, Lord. Send me. I'm ready to do the work. God has called, you've called us to do this, and please just help us to fulfill that duty and that task. Lord, we love you. It's a great job. Help us to bring joy and peace and deliverance to this lost world, and Lord, just help us to stay motivated and have our minds right on how we view our task, our obligation to go out and preach the gospel. Lord, we love you. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. All right, we're gonna turn to one last song before we're dismissed. Brother Peter, will you please lead us? Worked hard to try to organize this celebration. This was all kind of spawned off by Brother Carter. He brought it up to remembrance on these things, and he's done a good job trying to make sure that this has been organized and have been running this thing, and all the families kind of came together to make this thing happen. I just want to thank the families for all the hard work they've done, all the food preparation and everything else that goes into that as well. Just a little housekeeping on what service is over. I want to let Pastor Virgins and his family have first dibs on the feast that we have here for them. Once they go through, it's going to be two lines on both sides of the buffet table, and you'll just kind of go down those two lines and go off to the right, around to the desserts, okay? Men, if you can, after service, we can just kind of get the tables together and get things set up so that we can all eat together. We'll try to set up some tables over here. We're not all going to fit in this room, so we'll have some tables also set up over here, and I know some of you also are bearing gifts, so if you have gifts for Pastor, feel free to bring those gifts to him when he's sat down and got situated for his meal, and I will say grace once we sing this last song. All right? Song 228. Let's sing this out in the verse. I love to tell the story of unseen things above, of Jesus and his glory, of Jesus and his love. I love to tell the story because I know it's true. It satisfies my longing as nothing else can do. I love to tell the story. We'll be fighting in glory to tell the old story of Jesus and his love. I love to tell the story, for wonderful it seems that all the golden fancies of all our golden dreams. I love to tell the story. It gives so much glory. And that is just the reason I tell it out to him. I love to tell the story. We'll be fighting in glory to tell the old story of Jesus and his love. I love to tell the story. It's pleasant to be me. What sings each time I tell it, for wonderfully sweet. I love to tell the story, for some have never heard the message of salvation from God's holy Word. I love to tell the story. We'll be fighting in glory to tell the old story of Jesus and his love. I love to tell the story, for those who know it best speak humbling and mercy to hear it like the rest. And when it sings of glory, I sing a new song. We'll be the old, old story. And I have loved so long. I love to tell the story. We'll be fighting in glory to tell the old, old story of Jesus and his love.