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I just want to say, I didn't give Mother Skulk hardly any notice on that chapter if he read it pretty well then. There's some difficult bits in there. I don't think you even got the reading through first, did you, brother? I did one reading. Okay, that was great reading, okay. Before we go on as well, that was some great singing as well. I don't think this place was probably sounding like that for a while, because that sounded great. Especially the first thing with Christian soldiers. I mean, we raised a roof, didn't we? It sounded brilliant, and it sounded like some Christian soldiers were going on with there. I'd like to say, before we get started as well, I'd just like to give a thank you again. I know I did one on Wednesday, but I want to thank again to everyone that's come on this mission trip, to Brother Skulk for all the organising, to Pastor Jones, from Shield of Faith Baptist, which has made all this happen as well, just for everything. All the hospitality, the food, you know, a lot of us, we've eaten well here, we've had some great times. Lots of people, all the lifts, all the people just helping out, climbing us around, organising this place. Organising that fish and chips was pretty impressive yesterday. Great. The fish and chips, and just everything, and all the hospitality. We've had a great time, and the schools, and just everything that's gone on over the last week. It's been a great missions trip, and we've seen many salvations. I just want to say thank you to everyone that's been involved, everyone that's been a part of that. And if you haven't been involved, and you're just here for the first time this morning, well, thank you for being here to listen to the Word of God being preached. It's nice to have what seems like a pretty busy church service this morning, right? And for an on-the-fly church service on a missions trip, this is good for me, okay? So, as I said earlier, I'm Pastor Ian Tamnor, I'm from Strongtown Baptist Church in the UK, and we've been out here for the last week's soul winning. And I'd like to preach a message which I thought about before I came out here, and I've added a little bit to it while we're here, and it's something that I think hopefully you're going to benefit from. I was, before I came out here, thinking, what do I want to preach to the people out here? I'm going to rip your faces off with all sorts of preaching on different types of sins and stuff, but ultimately I want to motivate you. And I want to motivate you to do some work, and whether you're here and you're going to be, you're still going to be here somewhere near the diaspora, or maybe over in Cape Town, or maybe you're going to be going back to lands afar, I want to motivate you to keep serving God, and that's what the sermon's about this morning. We're in 2 Samuel 8, which is a high point in King David's reign. Since being anointed King over all Israel, he's taken Jerusalem from the Jebusites, he's smashed the Philistines, he's brought the Ark to Jerusalem, they've all had a feast, things are looking good. If you go back to 2 Samuel 7, he's been given rest from his enemies, and verse 1 in 2 Samuel 7 says, And it came to pass when the king sat in his house, and the Lord had given him rest round about from all his enemies, just pause there, you can forgive David for taking a breather now, couldn't you? Maybe enjoying the peace and quiet for a while, he's been given rest from all his enemies. He can maybe take up a few new hobbies, he's done a lot of work, maybe relax. He can get back to the wives alive, looking for maybe bears and lions to wrestle. Instead he says, right, time to build something for God. Look at verse 1 again, it says, And it came to pass when the king sat in his house, and the Lord had given him rest round about from all his enemies, that the king said unto Nathan the prophet, See now I dwelleth in a house of cedar, but the ark of God dwelleth within a curtain. So he wants to build a house for God. It's looking like a good idea. Verse 3, Nathan says to him, it says, And Nathan said to the king, Go and do all that is in my heart, for the Lord is with thee. But then what happens is God intervenes and says to Nathan, Say, No, not now, that can wait until your son Solomon is on the throne. John 4 to verse 12, and this is God speaking through Nathan, he says, And when thy days be fulfilled, and thou shalt sleep with thy fathers, I will set up thy seed after thee, which shall proceed after thy boughs, and I will establish his kingdom. He, talking about Solomon, shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. I will be his father, and he shall be my son. If he commit iniquity, I will chasten him with the rod of men, and with the stripes of the children of men, but my mercy shall not depart away from him, as I took it from Saul, whom I put away before thee. So Nathan relabeled this to David, and again you can excuse him, saying, Well, I tried, you know, time to relax, get my pipe and slippers, Michael, or I'm going to dance again and upset you. But no, we go to 2 Samuel 8, and he says, OK, it's not building time, let's get back to fighting. We're in 2 Samuel 8 now, verse 1 says, And after this it came to pass that David smote the Philistines, and subdued them. And David took Methagomer out of the hand of the Philistines. He smote Moab, and measured them with a line, and passed them down to the ground. Even with two lines, measured he to put to death, with one full line to keep alive, and so the Moabites became David's servants, and more gifts. David smote also at Peter, the son of Roma, king of Zobai, and he went to recover his order at the river Euphrates. And David took from him a thousand chariots, and seven hundred horsemen, and twenty thousand footmen, and David hocked all the chariot horses, but reserved them there for the hundred chariots. And when the Syrians of Damascus came to Sukkur, and Adezea king of Zobai, David stood, and the Syrians stood, and twenty thousand men. Then David put garrisons in Syria of Damascus, and the Syrians became servants of David, and more gifts, and the Lord preserved David with us the way that he went. And so my sermon this morning is, don't lose your momentum. Don't lose your momentum. I'd like to pray before I continue with the message. Father, thank you for your word. Thank you for everyone who's come here this morning, Lord, to hear your word preached. Please just fill me with your spirit now. I want you to preach a message, which is just going to edify everyone here there, to encourage people here to just keep working for you, Lord. Help me to just preach accurately and clearly as well, and help everyone to just have a tent of ears, and open hearts to what you're worth saying to them. Would you stand for all this? Amen. Okay, so we've been to battle this week, haven't we? Many of us sitting in this room felt like they'd been to battle this week. We've wielded the sword, haven't we? I know I've wielded my sword this week. You know, my sword has been cutting and slaying and slicing and slashing away false doctrine, away all sorts of false precepts about how to get to heaven, and even some other false doctrine along the way as well. We've smoked the word salvationists, the god's lord, haven't we? I think we smoked some of them with the sword. We subdued them. We subdued them with our swords, didn't we? Amen. We subdued them. We took Napier out of the hand of, I think it was Yangya. Does anyone see those dress wearers in Napier? I don't know, there were some guys with some long robes down there. I don't know what they were doing there. When you went up that hill, there was this weird church thing with all these guys wearing dresses. I reckon they had a stronghold there, but I think that we took it out of their hands, didn't we? Is it Napier? Is that how you say it? Napier? Napier. Napier. We got some salvationists in Napier, didn't we? We went into the schools and we got a load of people saved. They went out into the highways and hedges, and we got more people saved. I feel like we took that out of the hand of the Anglicans. It probably was there. I would say we hopped the Pentecostals at, do you say, Stresby? Is that right? Yeah. Stresby. Stresby. Is that right? Yes. Okay, not bad. We hopped some Pentecostals there, didn't we? I tell you what, we got some salvationists there as well. We went out in force and we got many saved there. We could all go home tomorrow and hang ourselves on the back. We could go home. Most people are leaving tomorrow. Many people are. Some of you might just be going back to day-to-day life around, whether it's the diaspora, go back to Cape Town, maybe back to Johannesburg, to Pretoria, and say, look, job well done, right? That was some good soul winning, some good battling. We won some victories. We got some people saved, right? We can tell stories about the diaspora. Maybe everyone has a few stories to tell here, right? I think we had one story of someone lining up a screwdriver from Arthur. But Arthur managed to win that battle as well, right? With the word of God. And look, we could all come back with some stories. We could reminisce over some photos. There's some great photos. I've seen some nice photos on the group chat there. And we can all enjoy that and maybe get a few printed out and frame them and say, that was the day. The day we were in Rediasdorp and we were slaying some false puppets and getting some salvations along the way. And you could also remind yourselves that you've probably done more soul winning this week than most missionaries have in a lifetime. Did you know that? You've done more soul winning this week than most missionaries do in their whole lifetime. And you know what? Your soul winning was a lot cheaper than theirs. Because there are missionaries out there all over, probably Africa as well, maybe even in South Africa, getting money thrown at them from all sorts of soul-supporting churches all over the world. And they ain't even soul winning. They even go around holding them out and declaring the gospel to people instead they're too busy trying to claim they're going to build a hut or something somewhere whilst having a nice holiday somewhere tropical and warm. That's not what we're called to do, is it? We're called to go out and preach the gospel. And you've done a lot of soul winning. And you can pat yourselves on the back. You've built more than what these guys claim to build. You've built some everlasting lives there, right? Just by preaching the gospel and showing people how to get saved. But don't stop here. Don't hang up your gloves. Don't take your foot off the gas. Don't lose your momentum. You've got some momentum right now. And if you're wondering what momentum is, a simple definition is strength or force gained by motion or by a series of events. For example, the wagon gained momentum as it rolled down the hill. And as that wagon goes further down the hill, what happens? It gains speed and it gains force, doesn't it? For example, if you're thinking, we don't really deal with wagons much. Think about your car. If you left the handbrake off your car on a slight hill, if you realised quickly and you're outside that car, you could probably stop it if you went behind it, right? You might be able to stop it before it starts building up speed. If you realised quickly, but if it had already started rolling, you might have a bit of trouble getting behind that car, right? In fact, you're more likely to get flattered. You're more likely to get squashed and run over. Well, the title is Don't Lose Your Momentum. Point number one is momentum is hard to stop. Momentum is hard to stop. Just like it's hard to stop that rolling car wagon, it's hard to stop the momentum of God's people charging from one battle to another. It really is, okay? It's hard to stop that. If you've got that momentum, it is hard to prevent that. It's hard to stop God's people when they've got some momentum going. Look at 2 Samuel 8, verse 1. It says, And after this it came to pass that David smote the Philistines and subdued them. And David took Bethagomah and the Philistines. So this was their chief city. This is south-west of Jerusalem, by the way. And he smote Morah and measured them with a line, cast them down to the ground, even with two lines, measured he to put to death. And with one full line to keep alive, and so the Moabites became David's servants and brought gifts to Morah, being east beyond the Dead Sea. Now, I believe that it's saying that only a third were left alive and ended up paying tribute. They were left to pay tribute. The other two-thirds, I believe, he smoked there. He killed. Verse 3, David smote also had Adeza, the son of Remon, king of Zobah, as he went to recover his border at the river Euphrates. So this is now right up in the northeast beyond Damascus, Syria. So we're talking varied regions here, and a long travel without cars on the sea and the rest of it, right? And David took from him a thousand chariots and seven hundred horsemen and twenty thousand footmen, and David hocked all the chariot horses but reserved them for a hundred chariots. Hopped is to hamstrings, to cut the hamstrings of the horses, okay? So he's basically made them inactive. Verse 5 says, And when the Syrians of Damascus painted Sukkur, had Adeza, king of Zobah, David slew of the Syrians two and twenty thousand men. So having dealt with the Syrians of Zobah, he then crushed the Syrians of Damascus. Verse 6, And David put garrisons in Syria of Damascus, and the Syrians became servants to David and brought gifts, and the Lord preserved David whithersoever he went. Do you know what I see there when I see that passage? I see God preserving a man of God with some momentum. That's a man of God with momentum. He smashed the Philistines on his doorstep, the Moabites across the sea, the Syrians right up in the north, then their buddies through. And you get the feeling that there wasn't much time between the battles. I don't know. When I read that passage, I just get the feeling that it says one after the other. There are a lot of hands. What's hands? It's coordinating conjunction. They're almost just going from one to the other, it looks like. He said, David smote the Philistines and Sir Jude then, and David took Methegama, and Keith in verse 2, and he smote Moab, and measured them with a line. And so the Moabites became David's servants and brought gifts. David smote also Hadadiza, and David took from him a thousand chariots, and seven hundred horsemen, and twenty thousand footmen, and David bocked all the chariot horses. And when the Syrians of Damascus came to secure Hadadiza, King of Zobah, the Syrians threw twenty thousand men. Then David puts, in verse 6, garrisons in Syria of Damascus, and the Syrians became servants of David, and brought gifts, and the Lord preserved David with us wherever he went. All these events appeared to be pretty closely in together. They were on a roll. That's why. They were going from victory to victory, because momentum is hard to stop. Momentum is hard to stop, and you see that in modern warfare a lot as well. When an army, or at least in the United States, in wars of the past, you see an army start gaining momentum, and it's hard to stop them, right? There's an obvious way that we can apply this to a church. You can apply this to a church in the same way that an army will grow in manpower, weaponry, resources from victories. In verse 2, they receive tribute. Verse 4, they receive chariots, horsemen, footmen, and horses. Verse 4, they receive tribute. A church will grow in battle. The more battle a church goes through, the more persecution, the more tribulation, the more they go out and do the things of God. The more they'll gain soldiers, they'll increase resources. God will build a hard-working church. Now, God will build a hard-working church, and the devil will build a false church. So don't be conned by this. Don't look at the kind of mega church that thinks, that must be God's church. They don't even know the gospel. They don't even preach the gospel. They're in the church in God's eyes. But when you've got a church which believes the gospel, and is going out and serving God and preaching that gospel, God will build that church. That church will grow with time. And do you know for me, with that in mind, the most dangerous and potentially effective attacks on a church are in the early days. They really are. We've seen that in our church. We were talking about this recently. In so many of the kind of more recent NINB church plants, the attacks, the big attack comes early, early days, because before that juggernaut was really rolling. Because once that church is growing and building and gaining momentum, it's much harder to destroy them. So all that slander online of churches such as Faithful Word and Pastor Anderson, Verity Baptist Church and Pastor Jimenez, it's kind of walked off a duck's back now, isn't it? Those attempted coupes and everything else, or coup, whatever you want to call it, do they really, really gain much anymore? As those churches are really rolling and really battling and just winning victory after victory, people are less likely to get their heads turned by the slanderers, by the raiders and everything else. So the early days is the effective time to try and stop that juggernaut rolling. Well, that's because momentum is hard to stop. Once momentum is going, it's hard to stop. And as well as applying this principle to a church, we can also apply it to our individual spiritual lives. Because each of us here have a spiritual life ourselves, and we want to get some momentum going. When you're regularly battling, when you're out there with your sword, you're charging into the battle, you're more likely to be at the next battle. When you're out of battle now, you're more likely to be at the next battle. Do you know who's most likely to be at our church? So many marathons. So if you're wondering, what are you talking about? At our church monthly, we go out and we have a marathon where we go for several hours and we preach the gospel in an area somewhere near our area, usually where our church is. We'll get together at our church, we invite our church, we go for a meal together and we go out and we try and preach the gospel. Do you know who's most likely to be at those marathons? It's not the people that maybe want to visit, because we have a lot of visitors to our church where there's not really hardly any good churches in the UK, so we'll get people from around that maybe want to make a weekend of visiting. But it's not them that are most likely to be at the marathon. It's not the ones that maybe can't make the midweek soul wedding that are more likely to come on the marathon. It's not those that maybe can't really make every Sunday so they make sure they're there for that Saturday marathon to make up for the soul wedding. Do you know who's more likely to be at our soul wedding marathons? The ones who are free to fly the church, who are soul-willing in the week, who are soul-willing every single Sunday of the weekend, and they're most likely to be at our soul-willing marathons, because they've already got the momentum. It's not, well, we can take a break now, because we're already soul-willing every week, we're already going in the week, we're already going in the weekend, let's have a little break this Saturday, you know, I want to spend a bit of time doing something else. They're more likely to be at the soul wedding marathons, because they've got the momentum going. It's the people that are soul-willing week in, week out. It's the people that are not only free to fly the church, it's the people that are in their Bibles every day as well. It's the people that are praying. It's the people that are getting sin out of their life. It's the people that have some momentum going in their Christian life, that are more likely to then be serving God at our soul-willing marathons and doing everything they possibly can for God. Why? Because momentum is hard to stop. Momentum is hard to stop. And it's not just about soul-willing. It's not just about going out to battle with your King James Bible. Here in 2 Samuel 8, David continues the momentum elsewhere. So he's taken spoil. He's been given all of these different tributes as well. It says in verse 11, which also King David did dedicate unto the Lord. So he's doing things right as well. With the silver and gold that he had dedicated to all nations, which he subdued. Of Syria and of Moab and of the children of Ammon, with verse 12, and of the Philistines and of Amalek, and of the spoil of Hadadesa, son of Rehob, king of Zola. And David gave him a name when he returned from Smyth in Syria, in the valley of Saul being 18,000 men. OK, did he stop there? Well, no. Verse 14, he put garrisons in Edom. Throughout all Edom he put garrisons, and all that of Edom became David's servants. And the Lord preserved David with us wherever he went. I see a picture of church planting there. And verse 15 says, And David reigned over all Israel, and David executed judgment and justice unto all his people, which then continues in the next chapter with him showing highness to Mephibosheth, Jonathan's son. And look, it doesn't just stop at the back line. It's not that he's just holding, that's it. He's doing a lot there, and it should be the same with us, OK? We want the momentum that we've got going to then apply to our church attendance. That we want that momentum to apply to our Bible reading. You talk to people that maybe, look, at the beginning, they're only going to church maybe now and again, and as they start going more and more, that momentum starts to stop. I would find it, and of course I'm a pastor of a church group, maybe not myself, many of our church members who come to our church services Wednesday night, Sunday morning, Sunday evening, they would find it really hard to miss a service. They really do. Those people that have that momentum, that's when they're at church, that's hard, they've got that momentum going. Those people that every morning without fail, they wake up and they read their King James Bibles first thing in the morning. Those people find it hard not to read that Bible. It becomes weird not to read that Bible. It's hard not to continue that momentum. It's the same with those that make sure they pray every single morning, they pray every single night, maybe they pray every single day time. It's hard to stop that momentum, right? Look, that's because momentum is hard to stop. Once it becomes habit, it's hard to stop. It's not just with those sins, with the reading the Bible, with the going to church. It's the same with trying to get sin out of your life. It's the same with the battle with the flesh. The more you get sin out of your life, the easier it is to persevere, isn't it? The more you get those sins, the more you put those sins away, the easier it is to keep ploughing forward and get more sin out of your life. When you start getting weighed down with those sins, all those sins which so easily beset us, all those cares of the world, all those issues, all those problems, and all those saggies, those habitual fleshy things, it's so much harder to pull out of that. But when you're getting rid of those out of your life, you keep ploughing forward and forward and get more and more stuff out of your life, it's easier then to tear down the next stronghold in your life. The title is don't lose your momentum. Number one, momentum is hard to stop. However, number two, momentum is hard to start. Momentum is hard to start as well. It wasn't that one minute David was anointed king and the next he was crushing all around him like we just saw. He spent the first seven years and six months over only Judah, that was all he was king of, and having internal battles with the house of Saul. That went on for a long time. Again, it can be like that for a new church, run it. Before they're out crushing the enemy, there's some internal battling to be done. Again, that happens. When I was talking about those attacks on so many new churches, do you know what it pretty much always is? It's internal. It's internal. It's people that have already worked their way in and tried to destroy the church. And they come in early and a lot of the time there are internal battles to win before you can go on to destroy those around you, to go on to battling out into the field properly and in full force. Before David was hiding in the wilderness, he was amongst the Philistines, and for even a group of believers, that can be like that for a church as well, can't it? You can just feel like you're out in the wilderness. You can feel like you're trying to almost just battle that flesh. The flesh just wants to disappear back into the world alive. But to get to the point, because many here don't have a proper church to be part of, you feel like you're in the wilderness. And you need to battle through that. And you need to keep working and keep serving and keep growing and do everything like David is mighty men. Mighty men who, at the beginning, were guys who were just discontented, in debt, had problems, had issues. And by the end, they're known as men who were, say, a thousand men at once, who were doing almighty acts because they ploughed through, because they gained momentum, they kept going, they kept working through. Well, it's also rare that individuals hit the ground running. I know you've got all the false doctrine out there. You get saved, you're going to be in church. That is a load of old nonsense. That really is. When I was first saved, I was dipping in and out of bad churches, come out for a while and not be at one, and so I tried. I wasn't suddenly three to five in a good church. And I'm sure many people that say, we've got people in our church that got saved, got life, and then they spent a couple of years completely backstidded before they got back into life, and then there are people that will never get in the church. And sadly, the majority of people you've got saved, you'll be like the ten lepers, where only one of them came back to give glory to God. And where did the rest of the line go? They just went on with their lives. Don't ever let that poison get to you, because all it is trying to do is put you off solely. It's trying to weaken the gospel. The gospel is the good news, it's pretty simple. It's easy, right? Don't ever let someone get you that stuff. If you're not in church, that doesn't mean you're not saved. However, it can be hard, right? For individuals, getting into church that first time is difficult, isn't it? Some people grow up with church as a tradition, and they get used to that kind of church on a Sunday, whether it was a false church or not is easier for them. Other people, it's not. And other people just turn it up, and some people, they just feel a bit dirty, right? Just because you're saved doesn't mean you're suddenly this holy person, right? So going to church can be a bit scary. A lot of people, they fear the word of God. They fear coming into church and hearing the word of God preached and hearing their sins preached on, because, what, men love darkness rather than light because of these people. They don't want to come into their tincts and the light less said deeds should be reproved, right? People will hide from the word of God. So it can be a hard thing to start getting that momentum going for God when you're first saved. And for many, reading the Bible through the first time is difficult, isn't it? I'm sure if I got a raise of hands here, there'll be people here that never read the Bible through coming to come the same, men and women of God here that maybe haven't done that yet. And it's hard. It took me a couple of years to read the Bible through, coming to come on the first time. After that, it started getting better and better and better, and it getting quicker and quicker until it was just the routine of my life. For that first time, it's hard. You kind of pick it up, and you kind of get through a chapter, and then you put it back down again. And then you get on with something else, right? And getting that momentum going with Bible reading is hard. Soul reading. How about soul reading for the first time? Anyone? Well, maybe there were people here that got saved and went straight out of soul reading. And good on you if you did, but that wasn't with me. Now, I had a zeal to show people the Word of God, and I wanted to tell my family. I wanted to tell my friends. I wanted to tell them. And in my job, I used to coach sports. So, you know, I was a coach. I was a boss. I could tell them what I wanted to tell them, right? So I was like, all right, in between rounds, I'm going to preach the start of the Gospel. But really, I was doing it all wrong. I didn't even want to hear it. If I'd asked them, if they really had a choice, they would have said, I don't want to hear the Gospel. Really, a lot of it was kind of wasted time, right? And it probably wasn't the way God wanted me doing it, you know, because I was kind of using their time to hear the Gospel. I did learn to preach the Gospel that way. But do you know what? Going out and knocking on the stranger's door, man, I made excuses. I didn't like the sound of that. I was like, going to an Englishman's house, an Englishman's house's castle. It's probably going to chase me off with his newspaper or something, you know? And I found it, I found it scary. And it took me a while. It took me quite, it took me a few years in the end to get out there and start knocking doors. And actually, it's not that scary. In fact, I'm bringing some good news to people, right? I'm bringing the Gospel to them. But I take, look, you don't just do that straight away. Some do, but for many, they don't. How about praying? How about praying, getting in a prayer line, praying in the morning, praying in the afternoon, praying in the evening? How about praying for your food? For many, it takes a while to get that habit going, doesn't it? To give thanks to all things. It takes a while, doesn't it? To be in prayer, to pray without CC, to just be constantly in a good prayer line. It's not automatic, is it? It really isn't. And back to the car analogy. Let's go with trying to push-start a car on the flat. You try and push-start a heavy car on the flat, it can take a while to get going, can't it? And you put some effort in at the beginning, and it's even harder, you're trying to steer it at the same time, you don't have the help, right? And you're trying to get it going, but once you get it going, it gets going, doesn't it? If you try and push-start a car, and you get it going, you get that momentum going, suddenly you feel like Superman. And now you want people to watch you while you're just pushing this car down the road, and then you jump in, and you start it up, and then you get the revs going, and now we're off to some work, right? We've got some momentum going. Well, it's like that. It's like that at the start, okay? It's hard, but momentum, the reason is momentum is hard to start, but once you get it started, it's momentum, right? But getting it started, that's the hard bit. And before King David got to these heavy heights, he was having spears chucked at him by salt, he was being hunted like an animal, he was hiding in caves, he was being hindered from doing God's work. For many years, he'd been anointed by Samuel, if you remember, back in 1 Samuel 16. That was before he had the battle with Goliath. And it took many years to get to this point where we're at here. And we can often feel him from starting the work with God, can't we? And do you know what the flesh wants to do? It's like, oh, that must be God doesn't really want me going there. God doesn't want me going. God must not want me so early, because it didn't go so well the first time that something got in the way, and my car broke down, and I couldn't get there or something. No, no, God wants you to persevere a bit through. God wants you to work to get that momentum going. And look, we can often feel him, can't we? The distractions, the excuses, they all come up, they all give us an excuse, give us a reason to stop getting that momentum going. There's a lot of opposition sometimes to get started for God, aren't there? I bet many of you have experienced opposition, getting to church, getting out soul-willing, reading your Bible, getting praying. There's a lot of opposition. I remember something that I would say all fathers should do is when you're with your family, teach your family the Bible, right? And you know what? That, for me, is a time when suddenly the youngest kid will always start screaming. They'll always, there's all, maybe when you're trying to start, get that started, when I was first trying to get that started, with my family, that was the hardest time to get any quietness. If I'd said, okay, I'm going to read you a story, they would all be quiet, getting out of the Bible, screaming, attacking, the phones going, the doorbells ringing. That's just the reality of it. And you can easily just go, this isn't working, we're not going to do this. By the way, they'll learn something at church. But that's when you've got to persevere, isn't it? That's when you want to get that momentum going. Momentum is hard to start. The title is Don't Lose Your Momentum. Number one, momentum is hard to stop. Number two, momentum is hard to start. So number three, don't lose your momentum. Okay, don't lose your momentum. I want you to keep a finger where we are and turn the second piece to chapter one. The second piece to chapter one. Okay, everyone here has got some momentum going this week. Seriously, everyone here. Okay, some of you have been soul winning all week. Some of you have literally been soul winning from Monday or Tuesday all the way through till today. That's a momentum. Not many people spend a week soul winning. And not just a week soul winning, a week every day. A week of soul winning pretty much for many hours of the day each day, right? You didn't just do an hour of soul winning night on a midweek night of soul winning at your church. You've been soul winning day in, day out, okay? That's some momentum. That's some soul winning momentum, isn't it? My son said to me, I think yesterday, he said, it's going to feel really weird not soul winning every day when we get back. Then I got sick and he just kind of got used to it. But, here he was like, this is going to feel weird because we're soul winning all day every day here, right? Okay, and some of you have got that momentum going with the soul winning. Some, just being in church services, right? Some of you just being in two and by the end of today three church services in a week is probably more than you probably do normally at home. Okay, that's the momentum with church services. For some of you, just maybe starting to go soul winning. Maybe some of you it was the first time you've ever been in a long soul winning. Maybe you came along as a silent partner. Maybe you got some momentum going and it's getting out there in the first place. Like I said, that's hard to start. Look, praise God. Look, praise God and good on you as well because you got out there and you've learned, you've started to learn how to be a silent partner. A silent partner is a skill, okay? I was talking to a mother yesterday who teaches you some of the skills of a silent partner. A good silent partner is, well, it's half a team like I said the other day and it's a massive job. But some of you maybe you started talking this week. Maybe you started to get the confidence to start preaching the gospel to people. And that's the momentum. And maybe for some of you this is the first time you've seen me and you're looking at me going, where do I fit into this? Well, you've turned up and you're listening to a man who got a picture from the Bible. And he ain't preaching a wishy washy message telling you that God is love and that's about it. And he ain't standing here. I'm not standing here preaching to you just some nonsense about the Jews being God's chosen people. You know, we can, we can. And we preach to you for the word of God. And we preach all the word of God says today. So maybe you got some momentum going this week one way or another. You've got that wagon rolling. It's full steam ahead. So do you know what the answer is now? It's don't put the brakes on. Please don't put the brakes on. Because it's so easy now, like I said, to go home and just go, well that was great and that's it, put the brakes on. And I understand that it might not be realistic to be soul winning all day every day. Maybe some of you, your bosses, your employers might not appreciate that too much. And some of you kids, maybe your schoolwork will suffer for maybe some of you ladies there. Maybe, you know, if you've got husbands at home, they might be a bit upset if you're suddenly, sorry, nothing's getting done anymore, I'm soul winning all day every day. We do have a life to live as well. But what I would say is still keep the regular soul winning going. And if maybe before you weren't really regular soul winning, now is the time to get on regular soul winning, right? Maybe you were regular soul winning, but maybe it was once a week. Maybe you could up it to twice a week. Maybe you were just kind of doing that 59 minutes, 59 seconds. Maybe you could start adding a bit to that, right? Maybe you could start and say, no, I've got some momentum going here. Soul winning has been a way of life for me for a week. Let's get going with that, right? Maybe like I said, some of you, it's just now, let's get the momentum going. Keep talking. Don't go back to being a silent partner when you've got that momentum going with the talking. Or maybe you've got the talking, you've already had the talking going. Maybe you're a silent partner, but it's the first time. Or they're trying by regularly. And for those of you here who are going out to church, why don't you start meeting up regularly and go somewhere? Amen. How about that? How about you meet up and you start going soul winning regularly? Amen. And you say, look, I'm going to keep my momentum going from this week. I'm not going to let this just be, okay, well we've got 300 something salvations and a load of schools and that's it. No, I'm going to use this to go on and do great things for God. How about that? It's not just soul winning though. How about, look, you've spent a lot of time in the things you've got here, right? And I'm sure many people have felt close to God this week. You've been serving him, you've been soul winning, you've been doing things, you've been in the Word of God, right? You've been reading scriptures about salvation all week. How about you get some momentum going in your Bible reading? Amen. And you say, okay, I can transfer some of that to my Bible reading. You say, yeah, but so often I just kind of, I don't even understand all my reading. You know what? Keep reading it. Read it through time and time and time again. The more you read that Bible, the more things will just jump out, the more understanding you'll get, the more knowledge you'll get. Okay? Transfer it to your Bible reading, your church attendance. Yeah, look, you've spent all week soul winning. I'm sure you can make sure that you're in every church service guy. And again, if you don't have church services, get together, get soul winning, get fellowshiping, and get listeners to preaching as well. Right? Like I said, those people here, you know what I'm saying? You know what I'm saying, I'm excited about this place. I see a group of people here that are saved, that love the Lord enough to try and get out and get them to try and learn how to soul win. Some people already soul winning. And that, for me, that's the potential for a future church, like what the church is. Yeah, give it. That's my potential. All around the UK, we don't have a group like this together, a group of people that are saved, that are coming and listening to the word of God preached, going out and going soul winning, and getting involved with things like this. You've got great potential here. But what you need to do is meet up and keep doing the work. Right. God wants to see people working. You're working for God, you're soul winning, you're beating, you're gathering. I think you can be blessed with that. And you're in a really receptive place. Great. The soul winning here is great. Look, you need to be soul winning here when you're here. God will bless that, right? But we can all build on this momentum. How about your prayer life? How often are you praying? Maybe you could add to that, right? Every time we went out soul winning this week, we were praying before we went out soul winning, weren't we? Every time we've eaten this week, we were praying for our food. Every time, I hope every time you're getting up in the morning, this morning, this week, you were getting up and you were praying to God. I hope when you're going to bed, you were praying to God. I hope you were praying in the day to God. And you know what? Keep that going, right? Keep in prayer. Think about who you're praying for, what you're praying for. Pray for each other. Pray for the things you get going in the diaspora and other places. Pray for the growth around the nation. Pray for the people that have come here and prayed for Archer. Pray for Shield of Faith. Pray for all the different churches around you. Pray for those churches, right? To be able to do, pray for Calvary High. Pray for all these churches to be able to do the will of God. To work for God. To plant churches. To get out there to do things for God. Look, without praying, there's so much less we can do. We need the prayers of everyone here. Keep the momentum going. It's all there until you're light. Now, I'll say something by the way, that we're planning to do with the momentum as well. So, I've got, for me, I've been inspired by this trip a lot. And myself and brother Hoonan, we've been plotting and planning for the last week. We want to get some mission strips down. From our church as well. I mean, originally, you know, you kind of think, well, we just need to grow a bit more and get a few more things settled. But that's not really the answer. We've been out here. We've been in a mission strip. We want to get some mission strips down. So, for us, we want to take this momentum into mission strips, into other areas of Africa as well. So, there's so many ways we can all apply that. The momentum we get from being in a mission strip, from being in the things of God, from soul winning. And there's many ways we can apply that to our life. We're all going home on the backs of great victory again. But now is not the time to put away the sword. Please help put away the sword afterwards. Now, jump forward to, jump forward to chapter 11. In fact, sorry, before you do, sorry, before you do, 2 Peter chapter 1. Because like I said, there's many ways we can apply it to our lives. And in 2 Peter 1, we're going to see a way that we just see, see momentum working in our lives. 2 Peter chapter 1, and from verse 1, 2 Peter 1, and from verse 1, we read this. 2 Peter is also about your Bibles. So, off the book of James, 1 Peter, 2 Peter. 2 Peter chapter 1, says, from verse 1, but there were, sorry, 2 Peter chapter 1 verse 1, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust. So we have a, we have a possibility through the word of God to try and be a partaker of that divine nature. Okay, so automatically something we need to work towards to be more Christ-like basically. He said, and beside this giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue, and to virtue knowledge, and to knowledge temperance, temperance being self-control, self-discipline, and to temperance patience, and to patience godliness, and to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness charity, for if these things be in you and abound, they may make you that you shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. Do you know what, do you know what he's saying to you? He's saying you can get some momentum going in your personal life. You can get, in your personal spiritual life, you can get momentum going. You can add and add and add and keep growing, keep growing, keep growing, until you get to the point where you're adding to all these things that real charity, that real love for the lost. And look, obviously part of that is soul winning, but if you're soul winning, that doesn't mean you've arrived, okay? That's not it, because look, soul winning is charity, and if you're not soul winning, you don't really have charity. So I don't care how, you know, Christian you might feel you are, how holy people out there think they are, all these like, you know, Sunday morning Christians, if they ain't going out and preaching the gospel to people, they don't have charity. But because you are, that doesn't mean, there's many reasons some people might soul win. Some people soul win to keep up appearances. Some people soul win because of depression, some people soul win because maybe they feel they're going to get rewards for soul winning. You know, that's not a bad reason to reward you. We'll get rewards for soul winning, but however, you want to get to that point as well, where you just care about the lost, right? We care about you. We love people, and we want to go out and show them how to get saved, right? And that's what we're trying to, we're trying to add these things to our lives, aren't we? And this is, that's momentum for me. That's momentum that is adding and adding and adding, but go back to 2 Samuel, and we're going to go forward in chapter 11, because we're going to see what happens when you know, because after blessing the fifth, sorry, the fifth was shed in chapter nine, David ends up having to smash the Amnites in a series in chapter 10, okay? But King David doesn't keep up the momentum. So instead of adding like you've just seen in 2 Peter chapter one there, he didn't carry a battling for the Lord, and there's only two directions in the Christian life, okay, in case you've ever wondered this. It's either forwards or backwards. You either keep gaining, you either keep growing, you either keep persevering, or you start sliding backwards. You're either gaining momentum, or you're sliding back like a backsliding heifer, okay? That's really the way it goes. Now sometimes that slide can start slowly, and you can reverse that quickly, because it gets harder once you build momentum on that slide. Right. Because you can build momentum the other way. You can build momentum when you're backsliding down. Basically, the picture of the backsliding heifer is like a young cow that can't get up the hill. They're just backsliding back down the hill. And as that speed gets up, it's even harder to get up, right? And the Christian life is like pushing a car up the hill, really. That's really the reality of it. You need to work, you need to persevere, because the other direction, if you don't get that car up, the other direction is like a miry pit at the bottom. It's not that you can just go, one of my boots is starting up, I'll just push the car down there. I don't even have to do any work. It's easy. You know backsliding is easy. It really is. Not doing anything for God is easy, like. But you know where it ends up? It ends up in the pit, in the miry pit at the bottom. And that's not a place anyone wants to be around. And that's where David ends up when he lost his momentum. So look at 2 Samuel 11 and verse 1, it says here, in 2 Samuel 11 verse 1, It came to pass after the year was expired, at the time when kings go forth to battle, that David sent Joab and his servants with him, and all Israel, and they destroyed the children of Ammon, and besieged Rabbah, but David tarried still at Jerusalem. So he should have been at war. Right. OK, he should have been at war. It was at the time when kings go forth to battle, and instead he sent Joab. He sent his number one guy to go and do it instead. He should have led his men into battle, and instead he sent someone else. He should have been out there battling. Verse 2 says, And it came to pass in an evening tide, that David arose from off his bed, and walked upon the roof of the king's house, and from the roof he saw a woman washing herself, and the woman was very beautiful to look upon. So instead of keeping the momentum going, he was hanging around, not knowing what to do with himself. Right. He had done some great things. He had had a great Christian life, and many people had done some great things with God, but instead of keeping that momentum going, he's hanging around, and I'm glad I don't know what to do tonight. Should he have been hanging around, wondering what... I don't know. I don't know the last time I had an evening while I was gone. I don't know what to do with myself. Because when you're busy for God, you're busy for God, right? And I'm not trying to lift myself up, because, look, I'm a pastor. It's a busy job, right? Okay, but you know what? You need to make sure you're busy, okay? We need to make sure we're busy, because if you're hanging around, and I don't know what to do with myself, that's when the sin gets that much more tempting. Right. And here, he's looking around. He's not knowing what to do with himself. And then he sees this beautiful woman in verse 3. He says, And David sent and inquired after the woman, and once said, It's not this Bathsheba, the daughter of a lion, and the wife of Uriah the Hittite, she's the wife of a man. And David sent messages and took her, and she came in unto him, and he lay with her, for she was purified from her uncleanness, and she returned them to her house. He impregnates this married woman. And do you know what he goes to do after this? Because he's impregnated her. He goes on to send her husband, who, by the way, was named amongst those mighty men, to certain death where the battle was hottest. He basically committed murder. He didn't just stop at adultery. He then committed murder to try and cover up his sin. He should have kept up the momentum. He should have carried on that way, shouldn't he? And it never would have happened. Because often we look at this passage and we go, you know the problem was that he wasn't feeling much with himself. Sometimes people look at the passage and go, the problem was that he looked upon her. It started with a look. That's all true. The problem was he shouldn't have been washing herself in view of anyone, whether it was the king's house or not. Yeah, that was all wrong. All of that was wrong. When he sent her to take her to the house, he should have said no. Yeah, that's true as well. He should never have sent her to take her either. But you know what it started with? It started with him not going forward in the battle. It started with him not keeping up his momentum. He had done these great victories. It had gone through these great battles, and instead he is backsliding into that mirey picture. What a wicked sin that he got into there. Not just once in many sins. It got into all sorts. There was everything going on there, and he got a whooping for that as well, by the way. He went on to lose his child. He went on to deal with rebellion from his son Absalom. He had to flee his kingdom. It went pretty bad for King David because of that. And like I said, it didn't start on inviting her over. It started with losing his momentum. Verse 1 says, And it came to pass after the year was expired, at the time when kings go forth to battle. He should have been going forth to battle. Amen? Turn to Philippians chapter 1. And if you're sitting here, okay, you're a king too. You are a king too. Revelation 1, 6, talking of Jesus Christ and believers says, And it made us, that's all of us, that's to say, kings and priests unto God and his Father, to him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen. And do you know when the time the kings go forth to battle? Amen. It's now, you're sitting here, you're a king. Amen. You're a king. You're a king in God's eyes. The time for you to go forth to battle is now. Amen. We have the word of God. The day is fast approaching. We need to get people saved. Amen. We need to go around preaching in gospel and get people saved. And if you're not doing that, well, you need to get to the point where you're on the way to be doing that. Okay? Now's the time for that. Don't lose your momentum, okay? You've got momentum now. Like I said, even if this is the first time you've just turned up at this church today, I don't even know who you are, I don't even know what someone is, you've got some momentum because you're here. Because that's more than most people around this area who are going to some false church somewhere who don't even believe the gospel. Right. You're in a church, you're hearing some preaching, you're around some soul winners, let's get some momentum going, let's keep that momentum going. And here in Philippians chapter 1, Paul said this from verse 9. He said, And this I pray that your love may abound yet more and more in knowledge and in all judgment, that you may improve things that are excellent, that you may be sincere and without offence till the day of Christ, being filled with the fruits of righteousness, which are by Jesus Christ, unto the glory and grace of God. Do you know what he said? He said in verse 9, He prays that your love may abound yet more and more in knowledge and in all judgment, that you may improve things that are excellent, that you may be sincere and without offence. He's saying he wants you to keep growing, he wants you to keep on your momentum. He wants that love to abound more and more and more. He wants you to keep adding, he wants you to keep growing, he wants you to keep doing the things of God. You've got a great start, you've got the ball rolling, you've got the wagon rolling. Keep it up, keep it up. Wherever you go from today, some of you it's back home on a flight, some of you it's back on a long car journey or a long bus journey, some of you it's back home here. Wherever it is, please don't. Make use of this momentum you've got. Cut that momentum. Keep that ball rolling because you don't want to go the other way. Seriously, don't go the other way. You can go the other way, what a waste of a Christian life that could have been doing great things. The title is No Losing Momentum number one, momentum is hard to stop, number two, momentum is hard to start, and number three is to no lose your momentum. On that we're going to finish the autograph. Thank you for your word, thank you for everyone here, Lord, everyone here that's got some momentum going one way or another, Lord, I pray that you just help them to keep that momentum going, that you just inspire everyone here to just think about how great it was when King David there was just going from one battle to another, just winning all those battles that you were helping him, you were preserving him through all those battles, Lord, and then we see the opposite, when he stopped, when he took his foot off the pedal, when he ended up just not going forward to battle like he should have, just what the alternative was of going into a really, really serious, deep, wicked sin, Lord. I pray that that will just be a warning and also an inspiration to everyone here to just get some momentum going in their Christian lives, Lord, to serve you, to serve you in the many ways you want serving, and, Lord, we pray that everyone will just apply it to their lives. And also, you know, we're having a great afternoon of fellowship today now, and everyone's able to get to the evening service as well to keep the momentum of the church services, Lord, and just thank God for all of this.