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And you're saved and you've not been baptized since you've been saved, since you've called on the Lord. We'll baptize you today. We'll be happy to do so. We've got everything ready to go. We've got a tub. We've got some water. We've got a change of garment for you. So we'll get that taken care of. And that is our challenge. Obviously we're not going to forget about this when June starts, but that's been our focal point here and anyone who's able to encourage someone or lead someone here to get baptized will earn a prize for doing so this month, during the month of May. And then June is coming up and I'll tell you what, this is one of the harder challenges, but it's one of my favorite ones. June 1st, starting June 1, for all 30 days of June, the challenge is to try to give, attempt to give the Gospel to at least one person every single day. It doesn't mean that, you know, and once they attempt to give the Gospel to a person, you know, if you choose to go out and knock on doors, you've got to at least have someone answer the door. Now if they say they're not interested, you've attempted to give them the Gospel, right? You don't have to, like, have, well, you have to give two verses or anything like that. If you approach somebody and attempt to give them the Gospel, whether they're interested or not, that is sufficient for this challenge. That's what we're trying to do. Now, if you want to go out and knock on doors every single day to accomplish this challenge, by all means, do so. But one of the purposes for this challenge is to get you thinking about preaching the Gospel to people in other settings besides just knocking on doors. That's kind of the purpose is because you may not have time to go out and drive to some neighborhood and start knocking on doors or whatever, so when you're out and about, when you're pumping gas, when you're doing, you know, whatever, when you're doing your daily things, when you're living your life, and you come into contact with people, try to make opportunities, right? Not just wait for, you know, the perfect opportunity to come along, but try to make opportunities with people. Because you're thinking about it, to preach the Gospel to somebody. So we do this in the month of June because June has the longest days of the year, so daylight, daylight hours. So we've got the most daylight hours. It makes it a little bit easier, especially if you work and you work hours that go a little late. You know what? At this time of year, summer, people are a little bit more receptive and open to even talking at 8 p.m. because the sun's still up. I mean, you do that in the wintertime, you know, people are going to be really upset with you. Oh, man, it's so dark, it's late, it's night, it's 8, you know, but in the summer, you don't really run into that as much. Now, I still don't recommend, you know, necessarily knocking on people's doors when it gets later, even if it is late. I mean, you should have a reasonable cutoff time on when you're going to knock on someone's door, but there's always people out and about. So I'm looking forward to this challenge every single day. You've got to do it every day without fail in order to earn the prize. If you miss a day, keep doing it anyway, so just stay with the spirit of the challenge. So I'm looking forward to that. That is this month, June, starting, what is that, Tuesday. Tuesday is June 1st, so don't forget about that. There's the picture from the soul-winning marathon, everything went really well. Bible memory passage, so now we're starting the last passage for John chapter 8. We've been going through all of John chapter 8 in segments, so we've got 9 weeks, 8 weeks of verses, 1 week of review to memorize verses 44 through 59. If you can do that and quote the passage word perfect without making a mistake, so we're in a prize for that, and then after this, I'll give you a few weeks review to do all of John chapter 8. All of John chapter 8, all 59 verses, you'll earn an extra prize for being able to quote the entire chapter word perfect. So that's what's coming up. On the back, we've got birthdays and anniversaries in the month of June. Did I miss anybody for the month of June? Is there someone's birthday or anniversary that I do not have in our records that is in the month of June? We've got Vernon Sr. and his wife Mary are having their anniversary on June 2. And then Tom Carroll, we haven't seen Tom in a while, but I know he's been listening online. His birthday is on June 11, and then Jax has a birthday on June 12. So I think that's everybody for the month of June. And that is it for our announcement, so I'm going to ask Brother Peter to lead us in our next song. All right, church, you can open up your hymnals. Song 116. Song 116, he leadeth me. Song 116. All right. On the first. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right, this time we're going to collect our ceremony offering. That's for Lindsay, so he can do that. And while the offering plate is being passed around, if you can open up your Bibles to the book of Luke, chapter 10. That's Luke, chapter 10. And as we do customary here at Strong Home Baptist Church, we're going to read the entire chapter, and I'm going to ask Brother Carter if he can please do that for us. Once again, that's the Gospel of Luke, chapter 10. That he would send for the laborers into his harvest. Go not from house to house, and into whatsoever city ye enter, and they receive you, eat such things as are set before you, and heal the sick that are therein. And say unto them, The kingdom of God is come nigh unto you. But until whatsoever city ye 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 unto us, we do wipe off against you, notwithstanding, be ye sure of this, that the kingdom of God is 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 in 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. And the Seventy returned again with joy, saying, Lord, even the devils are subject unto us through thy name. 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, but rather rejoice because your names are written in heaven. In that hour Jesus rejoiced in spirit and said, I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes. Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in thy sight. All things are delivered to me of my Father, and no man knoweth who the Son is but the Father, and who the Father is but the Son, and he to whom the Son will reveal him. And he turned him unto his disciples, and said privately, Blessed are the eyes which see the things that ye see. For I tell you that many prophets and kings have desired to see those things which ye see, and have not seen them, and to hear those things which ye hear, and have not heard them. And behold, a certain lawyer stood up and tempted him, saying, Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life? He said unto him, What is written in the law? How read is thou? And he answering said, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind, and thy neighbor as thyself. And he said unto him, Thou hast answered right, this do, and thou shalt live. But he, willing to justify himself, said unto Jesus, And who is my neighbor? And Jesus answering said, A certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among thieves, which stripped him of his raiment, and wounded him, and departed, leaving him half dead. And by chance there came down a certain priest that way. And when he saw him, he passed by on the other side, and likewise a Levite, when he was at the place, came and looked on him, and passed by on the other side. But a certain Samaritan, as he journeyed, came where he was, and when he saw him, he had compassion on him, and went to him, and bound up his wounds, pouring in oil and wine, and setting him on his own beast, and brought him to an end, and took care of him. And on the morrow, when he departed, he took out two pence, and gave them to the host, and said unto him, Take care of him, and whatsoever thou spendest more, when I come again, I will repay thee. Which now these three thinkest thou, was neighbor unto him that fell among the thieves? And he said, He that showed mercy on him, then said Jesus unto him, Go, and do thou likewise. Now it came to pass, as they went, that he entered into a certain village, and a certain woman named Martha received him into her house, and she had a sister called Mary, which also sat at Jesus' feet, and heard his word. But Martha was cumbered about much serving, and came to him, and said, Lord, does thou not care that my sister hath left me to serve alone? Bid her therefore that she help me. And Jesus answered and said unto her, Martha, Martha, thou art careful and troubled about many things, but one thing is an evil, and Mary hath chosen that good part, which shall not be taken away from her. Let's have a word of prayer. Brother Cadman, would you mind praying for us, please? Amen. Alright, so this morning I'm going to be preaching actually a soul winning sermon, and it's going to be more practical than anything else. I'm definitely going to use some scripture to prove why we do what we do when we go out soul winning. And the title of my sermon is why we evangelize in pairs. Why we evangelize in pairs. There's reasoning for that. Everything that we do here, all the things that we do when it comes to, you know, as a church, the way that we worship, the way that the church service runs, and other things that we do, you know, ought to be biblically based. And the whole point is to try to model everything that we do off of what God's word says about what His instruction says, how we should do things. And it's no different when it comes to soul winning, it goes to preaching the gospel. We send people out, by and large, in pairs, two by two, when we go out soul winning here, and that's how I have things organized at all of our regularly church sanctioned, you know, soul winning times and things like that. And I want to preach this sermon so people understand the reasoning behind this, because there's actually a lot of good reasons for this. Now, right off the bat, I'm going to tell you, obviously, there's going to be times where you may be by yourself to give the gospel to people. Okay, great. I'm not saying don't do that. There's been plenty of times where I've gone out and knocked on doors by myself, because I didn't have anybody else to go soul winning with. Okay, so I'm not saying that you can't do it, or that it's wrong to go soul winning by yourself or something like that, right? But I believe that going in pairs is ideal. And this is what we should be striving for and trying to do this as much as possible. Let's say pairs, it could be two, it could be three, okay, you know, to make sure that you've got more than just like yourself there. And there's a lot of reasons for this, and I'm going to go over that. And I also want you to be aware of these reasons, because hopefully, as our church continues to grow, we're going to be bringing in more people that we're going to be teaching and training how to go soul winning. And this is an important aspect that we need to relay this knowledge and this information to people who are going to be joining us and explaining why we do things the way that we do. So we're going to go a little bit in depth. And the first reason why we do this is because this is what we see done in the Bible. This is what we see Jesus Christ doing in Luke chapter 10, which is where we started, look down your Bibles there in verse number one, the Bible says, The Bible says, After these things, the Lord appointed others seventy also, and sent them two and two before his face into every city and place, whether he himself would come. So he's sending out his disciples by twos, there are seventy people and he breaks them up into pairs and starts sending them off to these different areas. You say, well, how do you know this is for evangelism? How do you know what they're doing? Because read the next verse. This is talking about reaping souls. This is going out and there's this great harvest. There's all these people out here that need to be saved. There's all these people that are ready to hear the gospel and get saved. But we don't have very many laborers. We don't have very many workers to go out and do this. This is commonly accepted, I believe, throughout Christianity that this is talking about evangelism. When we talk about the laborers are few and the harvest is great. So when he's sending them out two and two, this is what he's telling them. Hey, there's this great harvest. You've got a lot of work to do, but there's not very many laborers. But even though there's not very many laborers, he still pairs them up. Don't miss that point. You say there's only seventy people and you've got all these cities and places and all these areas to go. Can't we just gain more ground by sending everybody individually? Yeah. But that's not the way Jesus chose to do it. And again, there's very good reason for this. So I want you to think about this and apply this because there may be times, and again, we're talking about a general rule here, not every single isolated little case. There are times when we may go out soul winning and the time is running out and we're almost done and there's maybe one building left that's not knocked and we decide, hey, let's split up. We'll get these doors knocked so we can complete the area and move on. That makes sense. And you're still going to be pretty close to each other anyways, everything else. So I'm not talking about, try not to get too nitpicky in what I'm preaching today and the truth I'm teaching because it's not meant to be this hard fast rule and I can't go soul winning and you can't do that or whatever. This is not the purpose. But there is a lot of wisdom behind Jesus sending out his disciples two by two. And there's a very good reason why I'm going to strive to have this happen as much as possible in our church during our soul winning times as well. And the two by two ideally is going to be with two adults. Let's put it that way. Now there's times I go out with my children and my daughters and other people go with their children and that's great and I'm not saying you can't do that but what I'm going to teach you here is ideally you're going to have two adults. Either one is new and you're training them to do the soul winning or they're also someone who can do the soul winning. And I'm going to recommend that you're not always going to have somebody you're training so you should be seeking out someone to partner up with that can also do talking sometimes. And it's easy to get into habits and routines when we go out and knock doors. Especially when we go out after Sundays, people are joining up at different times and it may not always be easy to find a partner but try to do that before we leave. And work out a plan or schedule to meet up with people. And even if you can get started by yourself and someone else shows up, join together. And as we get into this you'll start to see some of the reasons why but I want to bring this up so that people can be thinking about this and applying it to how we're doing our soul winning. I really do think this is very important to do and hopefully you'll see the biblical reasons for doing this. So Jesus said, now continuing on in verse 3, he says go your ways, behold I send you forth as lambs among wolves. And that's going to come in importance here in just a little bit. Now before we get into that next point, you could turn if you would to Acts chapter 13 because we have other examples besides, Luke 10 is the strongest example of Jesus saying go to and to and we know for sure that they're doing soul winning. I mean that's what they're being sent to do. They're going and preaching the gospel before Jesus even shows up. They're going and getting the people ready. They're going and trying to get them saved before Jesus comes and he can teach them even more things. But we see this example of pairs of evangelists, pairs of ministers going forth and doing God's work. In Acts chapter 13, verse number 2, the Bible reads, as they ministered to the Lord and fasted, the Holy Ghost said, separate me, Barnabas and Saul, for the work whereunto I have called them. And when they had fasted and prayed and laid their hands on them, they sent them away. So God is saying, I need two men. Give me these two men to go off and do the work that I have for them. So God's pairing these men together to go off and do some work. Barnabas and Saul. Go over Acts chapter 15. We're going to see here the same people, because Saul was later renamed to Paul. Now they're going to go back and do more work. They're going to go back and visit the places they had just been to on that missions trip that we saw from chapter 13. And then they have some disagreements because they wanted to break someone else with them. But you know what they end up doing? They break off and now they have two groups. But each group then has another person. So they're breaking off and bringing another person with them. They're not going solo. They're not going alone. Verse number 36 says, So Barnabas is like, hey, let's bring John Mark with us. Right? And the plan wasn't, okay, I'll pair up with John Mark and you go by yourself. If we're going to add a third person, he's just going to be a third person to our group. So there's going to be three people going instead of just two. Which would have been just fine. So Paul doesn't like that this guy, John Mark, has done things in the past where he's kind of skipped out on the work and he failed them and he didn't follow through. He wasn't very reliable in a different instance. So Paul's just saying, look, I don't want this guy. I can't rely on him. I don't think he's faithful. And Barnabas is saying, no, he's a good guy now. He's not going to do that again. Whatever. Things are all good. So they're having this argument. The Bible says in verse 39, So they're having this disagreement about how good this guy is. Right? And there's another thing just to keep in mind that you can have two, the Apostle Paul and Barnabas are really good men of God. Doing a lot of work for the Lord. And they end up having a disagreement sometimes that people do about somebody else. They say, oh, this person slighted me, this person did this to me, or whatever. No, no, it's okay. Hey, he's friends with me. Well, I don't want to be friends with him. You know what they did? They split up and they both just went and did their own work. And that happens. And this is what happens here. And that's a side issue, but that has to do with why I brought up the announcements today. And you know what? There's people that can be friends with both Barnabas and Paul. It's the work that they're doing. And some people may be friends with John Mark, and some people may not be friends with John Mark, and whatever. I'll tell you this much. Barnabas and Paul were still friends. Now they split up to do this work, because Paul is just like, no, I don't want anything to do with that guy, or whatever. But, anyhow, let's keep going in this passage, because what I want to point out here, though, is that when they did have this contention, you know, Paul just still didn't just go by himself. He then gathers another person to go with him. It says in verse 39, the contention was so sharp between them that they departed asunder one from another. And so Barnabas took Mark and sailed into Cyprus. And Paul chose Silas and departed, being recommended by the brethren under the grace of God. So Paul's looking for a partner. And he's saying, okay, well, who can I bring now to go with me? And he says, the brethren are saying to Silas, he's of great choice. He's a great man of God. He's fully a Holy Ghost. He does a great work. Take him. Paul didn't even really know for sure. He's just like, okay, great. So he takes Silas and says he went through Syria and Cilicia, confirming the churches. So they went off and did, and both served the Lord, but they went off in pairs. They paired off and then went out to do the work. Now, granted, especially in context, they're going far. They're making longer journeys, and it's going to be a lot more obvious why you'd want to have a partner when you're making a long trip and a long excursion. Not just necessarily a local thing. So I'm going to admit that, that there is more to this than just that. But you can still follow the point that they're making sure they're paired off. And some of the reasons why you'd want to be paired off when you go further distances are the same reasons why you'd still want to be paired off even in local, short distances. Just because it's a long distance doesn't negate the wisdom of going off in pairs, which we'll get to in just a minute. Now, turn to Ecclesiastes chapter 4. Start getting into some of the reasoning behind having two people. Two people are able to help each other out. And it's a good thing when you're doing work for the Lord to have help. It's a good thing not to just be left on your own. You help encourage each other. And it is an encouragement, by the way, to go out in pairs. And there's a lot of things I don't even have in my notes, but when we go out soloing in pairs, one, you're fellowshipping with that person that you're with and you're getting to know them. And this is one of the reasons, and I'm not giving you a scripture for this, but hopefully it's just common sense. As a church, we want to have unity within our church. And this is a church family. We're brothers and sisters in Christ. And we all ought to care for one another, and support one another, and there's plenty of scripture for this. I'm just not giving all the examples, right? So, when you go out soloing with other people, it's a good idea, occasionally, to switch up your soloing partner. If you're used to going with the same people all the time, why don't you ask someone, hey, can I go soloing with you today? Is that fine? It's easy to get stuck in other routines. You've got your friends, everything else. But go with somebody else. Also because you can learn different things from different people. One of the things that I always, always, always try to do when I go out, if I visit other churches, if I'm involved in any other soloing event, I try to pair up with somebody I've never been soloing with before. Always. So if I go visit other churches and I say, I know people there, like, oh man, hey, how's it going? We know each other, we've been soloing before, maybe we used to go to church together or something. I'm not going to go soloing with them. More likely. Because I want to go with somebody different. I want to be able to get to meet and to know someone else and hear how other people give the gospel. There's a lot of things you can learn, and you know what? Even as a pastor and even going soloing for however long it's been now, 14 years or, I don't remember how long it's been now, I've been going soloing every week for like 14 years. I'm still learning stuff. And I'm learning stuff from people who haven't been going soloing for 14 years. And that's fine. If you learn something new and learn some new illustration or some way of saying things, wow, that's great, I like the way that you taught that. A different verse to use on a certain subject, whatever it is that has to do with the gospel, great. That's good. That's one more thing you could add to your arsenal and hopefully make you a better, sharper soul winner. So there's a good reason to go and pair up with different people sometimes. And don't just get stuck with the same person over and over and over again. It'll be very beneficial to help you to do that. And help each other. And maybe you're not getting anything particularly from a person that you go soloing with, but maybe you're helping them. I mean, that goes both directions there. And we ought to want to be willing to help people, and especially if you know people, instead of shying away from someone like, oh man, I don't like the way they go soloing, they're just not very good, then why don't you go with them and show them how to do it? Why don't you be the example and maybe they can learn from you instead of just trying to avoid them? Maybe they need to go! Great! Take them. Don't avoid them. Take them with you. Bible says in Ecclesiastes chapter 4, look at verse number 8, There is one alone, and there is not a second. Yea, he hath neither child nor brother, yet is there no end of all his labor. Neither is his eye satisfied with riches, neither saith he, for whom do I labor and bereave my soul of good. This is also vanity, yet it is a sore travail. Verse 9, Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their labor. Now, you can say, this is just talking about labor under the sun, look, when you're going soloing, you're laboring. And this principle still applies, even if it's not the primary purpose for this being in this passage, the principle still applies, that we're laboring when we're going soloing, and two is better than one. Jesus sent two, he didn't send one. Barnabas and Paul gathered partners and went out and did the work, and did the labor. Two is definitely better than one. So don't forget that. Two is better than one. Because they have a good reward for their labor. For if they fall, the one will lift up his fellow. Hey, if something's going wrong, if something happens, you've got somebody there with you. I mean, anything can go wrong, even things you wouldn't think about. You could stumble and trip or get injured somehow, and you've got someone there to help you, great. I mean, that's just a physical thing that could happen. You can fall down stairs, you can do something, just physically injure yourself, and you've got somebody there to help you. You've got someone looking out for someone who actually cares about you. And there's many other situations that can come up, and it's not just physical injury, as to why it would be a good idea to have someone there to assist you, someone there looking out for you. If they fall, the one will lift up his fellow, but were to him that is alone would he fall? For he hath not another to help him up. Again, if two lie together, they have heat, but how can one be warm alone? And if one prevail against him, two shall withstand him. So maybe you've got someone approaching you that doesn't like you being there. And the thing about this, people can get pretty hostile with the gospel. Now, it doesn't happen very often, and I'm not saying this to try to intimidate or scare people, because it's really not that scary in general, but the possibility is always there for people who hate God and hate the fact that you've got a Bible in your hand and hate that you're out doing work for the Lord, these reprobate people that just hate God, they may want to do you harm. And if you're there all by yourself, they may end up trying to do something. But when you're there with another person, it's going to be less likely because, you know, if one prevail against him, two shall withstand him. And now you've got to take on both people. And a three-fold cord is not quickly broken. So you'll have two or three people together. It's good, it's wise, it's smart. And you know, when we go out soul-winding, I like keeping, you know, I don't like just sending all the ladies off by themselves if they're paired up together without having some men around, and usually the husbands there, you know, in the same area. And when we did that yesterday, we didn't have any problems. Everyone was friendly, everyone was nice. I didn't hear any reports of anyone even being rude, let alone being violent or anything like that. However, it's still wise to pair people up. We paired up, and a lot of our groups yesterday actually had three people. Isn't that the case, Brother Vernon, especially in your team? We had two or three, and that's the way I wanted it to be. I said, you know what, it's great, because we had a lot of newer people and some teenagers and other people. I'm not going to just send them off by themselves. So a lot of groups had groups of three, two and three. And there's a good reason for that, and it is important. And it's even just for our own safety. But there's many times a soul-winner can use help from a partner. How about even finding a verse? You want to teach something to someone, something comes up, maybe it's a little bit different than what you normally are going through in the Gospel, and they've got a question, and it's a good question, you want to be able to answer, and you're like, oh, I got the answer to that. Where is this verse? Your soul-winning partner can help find that verse for you. If they don't know it off the top of their head, they can get it on their phone and do a search for it. And you can keep talking and giving the Gospel to this person, so it doesn't just completely fall apart, right? And then you can be like, oh yeah, here you go. There's a great example. And that is a very good use. Or, this happens sometimes too, the way that we go soul-winning, again, in general, the design is that we have one person doing the talking and one person being a silent partner. There's going to be some times where that may not always be the case. And especially when you've got someone very experienced, going with someone less experienced, to interject sometimes, and the purpose of that is to help, obviously, the person listening, and also to help train a little bit on a person giving the Gospel. So there's nothing wrong with doing that. In general, we let people do all the talking, but you know what, that's an exception. That's an exception, not the rule. So when situations arise that someone may not even be familiar with, it's okay to step in and help out your partner so that they can learn on how to deal with that next time. And so that you don't just have, it doesn't have to be a big failure either, and be like, well that's how you learn, well no, how about we still help this person get saved if the partner doesn't really know how to deal with it, you can step in and assist and then back off again or whatever, right? It's not, so don't take this too hard and fast, but again, the rule, the overall rule is going to be, we've got one person silent, one person giving the talking, but that partner's going to be there to help find a verse. How about help managing distractions? Because that happens a lot. You've got someone, your partner's giving someone the Gospel, someone else from inside wants to start mouthing off and coming out and they want to disrupt and stop what's going on, your partner can then help, hey, can I talk to you, and you know what, if you're that partner, your partner's giving the Gospel to that person, obviously you could try to give the Gospel to that person, but if they're not interested, talk about anything. Talk, hey, you're in the cars, you know, like, whatever, keep them occupied so that they don't get to screw up the Gospel presentation of someone who actually wants to hear the Gospel. But without that partner, you could just completely lose that opportunity, because, you know, especially if that person's kind of weak on being able to just be firm and be like, no, I want to listen to this, because not everyone's like that. They may really want to listen, but they're going to succumb to the pressure of their friend or relative or whatever that's trying to drag them away. But the partner can be there to help with that. Or even just children, right? A lot of people at church have children you bring with, and they can start being disruptive and unruly and not, you know, just causing distractions. So the person, you know, you're giving the Gospel to someone, and then there's a child here, and they're just being loud or whatever, and they want to play and get into stuff, and that person that you're giving the Gospel to, you could tell is paying attention, watching them. Your partner could be like, hey, Johnny, let's go over here. Obviously, insight, but let's play with this. Whatever. Whatever. It happens all the time. Those types of things. And ladies know this probably more than the men. They're typically the ones going out with the smaller ones. So many reasons to go out to and to, and again, I'd mentioned in Luke 10, turning people into Matthew 10, another reason is just for protection. Just quite simple for your own protection, your bodily protection, because the more people there are, the less likely someone is going to try and attempt to do something to you. Because they're going to be less confident in their ability to actually do something to you, and they might be thinking, well, they might be able to do something to me. And that's just the way it is, right? And the Bible teaches us, like in Luke 10, where Jesus said, go your ways, be able to send you forth as lambs among wolves. Now, we're not going out to be harmful. We're not wolves, right? We are lambs. We're going out, you know, to be harmless. We're going out not to injure people, not to start problems, not to start these fights, everything else, but there's wolves out there. And wolves like eating lambs. Look at verse 14 of Matthew 10, the Bible says, and whosoever shall not receive you, nor hear your words, when you depart out of that house or city, shake off the dust of your feet. So this is basically the same instruction that Jesus given, just recorded in Matthew chapter 10. Verse 15, verily I say unto you, it shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of judgment than for that day. In the day of judgment than for that city. And again, he's talking about receiving them when they're going out and preaching the gospel. So you know what, if people just aren't receiving there at all, shake off the dust of your feet. That would be a testimony against them. God will remember that. Hey, you had people there, you had people willing to preach the gospel to you, and you didn't want to hear it. You rejected them. You didn't let them in, you didn't host them. Alright, there you go. I think it's going to be worse for them than for Sodom and Gomorrah, because Sodom and Gomorrah I don't think had anybody going out and preaching the gospel. These people do. So it's even worse. You have this opportunity. Verse 16 though, it says, Behold, I send you forth a sheep in the midst of wolves. Be ye therefore wise as serpents and harmless as doves. So he's not just saying go be a sheep for the slaughter. Jesus did that for us. He allowed himself to be thrown to the wolves and destroyed as a sheep ready for the slaughter when he died on the cross. Now obviously we should have that same faith and willingness if God so willed that we would be martyred for the cause of Christ, but we still are going to be wise in our dealings. We're going to be wise in our efforts, right? And if that's going to happen, then that's going to happen. But it doesn't mean you shouldn't be wise when you go forth among the wolves. You'd be wise as serpents. So we're going to institute these types of rules and strategies so that we can be wise. And when you have more than one person with you, even just physically, that's going to be more to your advantage as far as being protected. And verse 17 says, but beware of men. So Jesus is warning, beware of men. Beware of men. Why? For they will deliver you up to the councils and they will scourge you in their synagogues. And you shall be brought before governors and kings for my sake for testimony against them and the gentiles. They're saying, you know what? People are going to try to get you arrested. They're going to come at you with these different accusations or whatever. Which leads me to my next point, in turn, if you would, to Matthew 18. Another reason to have another person with you is for accountability. Not just being able to defend yourself physically, but to defend yourself against any accusations that might come against you. Because people that hate the Gospel, people that hate the Word of God, they may decide to lie about you. And if you have one or two other people with you, then at least you have a testimony from more than just you. It's not going to be, they say this, I say this, and no one else was there. And let's face it, people get pretty upset when you're preaching the Word of God, even when you're talking about religion. It causes many people to just make up lying accusations. That's what they did to Jesus. A bunch of lying accusations. Matthew 18 talks about, again, this scenario is geared towards what to do in a church when someone sins against someone else and how to deal with that. But the reasons for how they deal with it can still apply to having that same level of accountability and witnesses in case you were to have an accusation against you outside of the church. Make sense? So Matthew 18, verse 15, the Bible says, Moreover, if thy brother shall trespass against thee, go and tell him his fault between thee and him alone. If he shall hear thee, thou shalt gain thy brother. So basically it's saying, if you've got a problem with someone, just try to work it out. And if they hear you on it, great. Done. Problem solved. Verse 16 says, But if he will not hear thee, then take with thee one or two more that in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established. So when you've got two or three witnesses there, then everything that's said can be known and verified, but nope, they said this. Because you've got multiple people hearing the same thing. That's how every word is established. So when we go out soul winning, if you have two or three people there, even though you can say, oh, but they're all on the same side, it's still a witness. And if something bad were to happen, they can isolate, you know, if there's an investigation, they can isolate the people and say, well, what happened? And your witnesses ought to match up as being legitimate witnesses on things that happened because there's more than one of you there that can say, no, this is what happened. Right? And this also leads into this accountability factor. Especially, I would say, for men, if you're speaking to a woman at a house, right, it's always best to have that conversation at the door, in the view of public. People can be very friendly and invite you into their house. And I'm not saying you could never go into somebody's house. I just went into a house yesterday. But you've got to weigh your options and understand what you're getting into and who you have with you. Now, I had my daughter with me when I went into the house of a woman. But one of the reasons I went in is because she wasn't feeling very well and had to sit down and would not have talked to me at the door. But she did want to talk and hear and invited us in, and it wasn't just me by myself. And I'll tell you this much, if it was me by myself, I would not have gone into that house by myself. I wouldn't have done it, even if she wanted to hear. What I would have done was tried to send somebody else or grab someone else to come with me and come back and be like, Ma'am, do you mind if I come back in five or ten minutes, or do you mind if I just have someone else come over here because I don't feel comfortable going into your house with you and me by myself? That's all you have to do, and there's nothing rude about that, and I think a lot of people might even respect that, that you're thinking about those things. But the reason for that is for accountability, because people can say all kinds of things. People love talking trash, especially about Christians. Oh, man, I saw this person. And you go into a neighborhood, you may be knocking on doors. You may not even know you're knocking on the door of a strange woman of some prostitute. You have no idea, right? But then you just walk into their house. Well, I saw the pastor of that church went over to that prostitute's house. But you see how that can happen. And you may not even know, and maybe she didn't get saved or whatever, but other people are just saying, oh, man, I saw that pastor of that church. He went into that prostitute's house, and he was in there for 45 minutes. It could tarnish your testimony. But at least if you've got other people with you, you can just be like, look, this is what happened. And you've got other witnesses there. Very important, and especially if it were to get into some kind of legal thing, right? Because they may try to deliver you up to the councils, like Jesus said. So having another person there is very important and very wise and something we ought to do. And ladies, you know, if there's a man there inviting you in, don't go in. And if it's two ladies, don't go in. If some man is inviting you into his house and it's just two ladies, I don't recommend you going in, because men are stronger than women. And if they're going to intend evil against you, you may not be able to deal with that situation. That man may be able to overcome you. Just say, no, I don't feel comfortable. Can we please talk right here? And if that's not an option, offer to send someone else over to them and say, I would love to have you hear this, what we want to present. I'm going to ask someone else to come over here and talk with you. It's wise. Okay, that's the wise thing to do. Now, of course, when we go out soloing, we are trusting in the Lord for our protection. I don't think we have to go packing guns out soloing. I don't believe that that's necessary. Now, if you do, I don't care. I would recommend not publicly, though, open carrying, because that might be kind of intimidating to the person you're talking to. We're not there to intimidate people. If you can conceal carry, I used to do this all the time in Arizona, because it was just part of my daily life. I concealed carried everywhere I went. So I went carrying out soloing because I went everywhere like that. But my point is, you don't have to do it to think, oh, I need this extra safety when I go out soloing, because I know that God's going to protect us. But at the same time, we still want to be wise. We still want to be wise. And if you want to conceal carry, I'm not saying don't, I'm not saying you totally lack faith in God or something to do that. That's the way that I see things. I'm sharing that with you, but I don't recommend open carrying out soloing. Put it that way. I don't want people doing that here. Do that everywhere else, and I understand the reasoning behind it. There's a lot of political reasons, getting people used to seeing guns and stuff. Let's not bring that out soloing, because we don't want to have any stumbling blocks from a person getting saved. Just in a similar fashion, we would do this with the masks, with the COVID stuff. So if someone doesn't want to talk to you because you don't have a mask, put a mask on. Have the conversation with them. Well, I'm never wearing a mask. Look, don't be a stumbling block. If that's a problem for them, put on a stupid mask. Who cares? It's really not that big of a deal. If they're going to listen to you give the gospel, then do it. Accountability. Having someone there with you is accountability. And then my last point, it's going to be a shorter sermon this morning, why we go out two by two. It's biblical. We see a lot of examples of that in scripture. Jesus sent them out. There's a lot that can be gained by going out with pairs. We see the Apostle Paul and everyone else. We saw just being there to help someone if you get into trouble, if you have a health problem, there for protection, accountability, all these various reasons to have someone else with you. But then finally, and I brought this up already, learning and growing. The Bible says iron sharpened with iron. So we ought to be looking to improve our own soul-winning skills every time that we go out. And I'm going to recommend this, and I already did, but here's one other thing too. Another example of accountability. I brought up men and women. But how about children? Don't be left alone with kids. Even if there's a few kids there, you want to have adult testimonies. Kids say all kinds of weird things sometimes. Don't let yourself be alone, I would say even with a group of kids. Now out in public, okay great, people can see, but it's still a good idea to have another person there with you. You don't want people saying, oh I saw them doing this, we want to be with children. And with children especially, I haven't brought this up in a really long time. Obviously I want people to get saved. I want children to get saved. But we also need to do things uprightly. If you go to someone's house and a little child answers the door, you ask for their parents. Don't just start giving them the gospel at the door. That could cause a lot of problems for you. And think about how you would want people to treat you and your kids if one of your children went to the door. And you treat them with the same respect and the same, you know, that you would expect if someone came to your house. If you got a kid playing in the front yard of your house and someone just walks up and you see some adult just talking to your kid, what are you going to do? You say, oh but we have the truth. Yeah, but look, you could have a great opportunity that could be even greater if you just do things on the up and up and we do everything just by the book, right? Just do things in a way that is not going to cause any type of confusion or that we're targeting little kids and have that type of a reputation. Right? Now if parents let their kids roam the streets, then as far as I'm concerned, they're opening them up to the world to have contact with people outside. But when you go on their property, that's not the same exact thing. Right? So you just see some kids, I mean they're just out and about and just doing whatever. I don't have a problem with giving the gospel to kids like that. Because if the parents feel like they don't have to monitor their kids at all and they just send them out into the world, then great, give them the gospel. But if you're coming up on their house, you ask the parents, you talk to the parents, you see if the parents are home. If the parents aren't home, depending on the age of the kid, I would still say hey, would your parents be upset if I talk to you about this, find out that there's not going to be an issue. And then, you know, before going forward with that. And then finally, iron sharpens iron. Be a help to someone if you notice things that maybe your partner isn't doing that great or they have some flaws or some areas of improvement. Gently bring up, you know, ways that hey, maybe we could, you know, you could do this or that or in this situation, oh, I did this before and this really helped me or you know, bring up suggestions. Also, people are just spending tons of time at a door. Like just way too long being way too thorough. You know, interject. And this is common. Okay, I've come across this quite a bit. I love thoroughness. We ought to not be so quick to just get people to pray with us because they need to understand and they need to understand that they're making a decision and they're putting faith in Christ and it's a real thing and it's not, you know, it's not just a list of facts and then we're done. It's, you know, they're putting their trust into a savior to save them. So you have to spend enough time as is necessary to get to that point, but they don't need a Bible college class when you're there at the door and just explaining all the theology of every single aspect of salvation from Genesis to Revelation. Okay, we need to learn to find that place because here's the thing, you never know how much time you have with a person, so you want to try to get through the gospel as fast as necessary, right? So if people are picking things up, great, keep moving on to the next point. Don't beat the dead horse. If they understand they're a sinner, you don't have to keep on explaining why they're a sinner. If they've already admitted that and said, okay, and this is the Ray Comfort style, they like to beat you over the head with how much of a sinner you are and people already say right off the bat, hey, I'm a sinner, but you did that. It's like, okay, yeah, I know. Is that it? And if people don't believe in hell, you might have to spend more time on hell and give more verses and more explanation, but you know if they say, yeah, I believe in hell, great, move on. Just keep going through and don't let it become a pride thing because you want to show off how much you know about the Bible. That's not the reason why we're out sowing. That can happen when you get in arguments with people, right? You run into that JW and you just want to run circles around them because you know so much more than they do. Look, that doesn't accomplish anything. If they're going to listen to you and receive the truth, great, spend time with them. But if you're just trying to prove them wrong every time they, you know, no point. You're wasting time and even when someone's listening, if you're just beating a dead horse, you could be wasting time on other people that might listen and get saved. So always remember we're trying to maximize our time out there. And when you go with partners as opposed to going by yourself, the partner can help nudge things along. And look, don't be afraid to do it. If things are just taking way too long, interject. Okay, just, you know, it is what it is. And if you're the person that gets interjected on, don't take it too personally, all right? Just accept and say, okay, well, maybe this is maybe the right and move on, right? Great, grow. Let that iron sharpen, right? And no one is a perfect soul winner. No one here is a perfect soul winner. I'm not a perfect soul winner. There's always things I second guess and I'm thinking, you know, I could have done this, I could have done that. Good. You know what? You should be thinking those things. And if someone else has some advice for you, receive it. So, you know, going forward, I'd like to see, hopefully, you know, if you've got your regular routine, especially if you're only going with your own family, branch out a little bit. Invite someone else to come along. You know, you have children, keep your children with you, right? I'm not saying to send your children off with people, but what I'm saying is if you always are just going in your family or your same people, just branch off a little bit. You know, I try to do this as much as possible. I try to go soul winning with a different person from church every time we go out soul winning or new people that come in, right? That's my goal. I want to be able to go out and kind of have my, you know, just see where everybody's at. How are things going? And be a blessing to them and then be a blessing to me and try to get a chance to, you know, try to do the same thing. You know, it doesn't have to be every week. You don't have to go with somebody different every week. I'll do that, but you don't have to do that. You go for soul winning with friends and stuff, but try to make a point occasionally to, hey, let's partner up. I don't think we've ever gone soul winning together. Do you want to go soul winning with me? Great. Use that opportunity, but make sure as much as is possible to try to go with more than just you or more than just even you in a year. Try to get other people involved. That's about right side word of prayer. Dear Heavenly Father, Lord, we thank you so much for your word, for the instruction that we could receive from your word. I pray that you please help us all to be wise as serpents and harmless as doves when we go out and preach your word, Lord, and we ask for your protection over us and that you would just bless all of our efforts and, Lord, help us to lead many people to Christ today after lunch. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. All right, we're going to sing one last song before we're dismissed. Brother Peter, please lead us. All right, church, you can open up your hemnos. Song number 392. Psalm 392, a soul winner for Jesus. Hymn 392. The market's free. A soul winner for Jesus. A soul winner for Jesus. Oh, let me be each day. A soul winner for Jesus. A soul winner for Jesus. He's done so much for me. I want to be a soul winner and bring the lost and prized that they in praise may know. I want to live for Christ ever and do his blessed will because he loves me so. A soul winner for Jesus. A soul winner for Jesus. Oh, let me be each day. A soul winner for Jesus. A soul winner for Jesus. He's done so much for me. I want to be a soul winner till Jesus calls for me to lay my burdens down. I want to hear him say, sir, who gathered these sheets? They see my starry crown. A soul winner for Jesus. A soul winner for Jesus. Oh, let me be each day. A soul winner for Jesus. A soul winner for Jesus. He's done so much for me.