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We ask you that you protect the seed lord and allow him to grow so that he can be put to the lord and we ask you to bless the service opposite Jesus' name in great Amen. We have my vision, Lord, Lord of my heart. Don't be old as to be saved like thou art. Thou my best hope by day, O my God. Waking or sleeping, thy presence my light. Free thou, my dear spirit, thou my true word. I am well with thee and thou with me, Lord. Thou, my great Father, thou art thy true Son. Thou made me fledding and I give thee one. Which is, I deny, for man's empty praise. Thou my inheritance, now and always. Thou and thou only, first in my heart. I hear of heaven, thy treasure thou art. I hear of heaven, my victory won. May I reach heaven's joys, heart, heart and soul. Heart of my own heart, Lord, ever before. Still be my vision, Lord of my heart. The music there, don't you? Someone like, only. Someone's looking around, are you right? Sing it confidently, it looks like. Right, we've got front of your bulletin. It's our first of the week, it's our two-year anniversary. I think everyone was here this morning, but happy anniversary if you weren't. Does anyone not have a bulletin, by the way? If you don't, then please raise your hand. Just one at the front there. Oh, it wasn't there this morning, so right. Okay, so I'll try and be quick over some of it, but 1 Corinthians 16, 9 is our verse of the week, which is, for a great door and effectual is opened unto me, and there are many adversities. That went with our morning sermon, just about, you know, those many adversities that we're going to continue to face, we're going to continue to deal with in various different forms, and, you know, to expect that, but also to know that that means that we're doing something right, yeah? So things are going well. We also have our service times on the inside. You're in our 4 p.m. evening service. We're going to be continuing with our series on the whole armour of God. We're on number 3 today, which is the shoes today, so we're going to be looking at that. We also have our Wednesday evening service, as usual, at 7, and, as always, remember, it's a prayer service as well, so please send in your prayer requests, Bible study. It is as well. We're going to be continuing with Matthew 24, and we're on part 2 this Wednesday evening. They're all our soul-winning times. We've got three salvations this afternoon, so great work, everyone, with that. That's a good amount of salvation. I think Father John was saying some bits where you're going weren't so receptive, other bits have been, but three salvations, it's great. Like I said this morning, not every church is going out and just constantly getting salvations, so we're blessed to be able to have that. That takes us up to 10 for February, and it takes us over 1900. Over 1900, that's a big number. We're hitting the 2,000, hopefully, pretty soon. But, yeah, great work, everyone, there. We're on seven baptisms so far, 47, I think, total this year. That is 118 total baptisms. There are totals for last week. We're pretty busy this morning, so we'll have a tally up for that later. Hopefully, everyone had a nice lunch, and there is, I don't know if there still is, but there was some food left, so if anyone wants to help themselves after the service, it's kind of like whoever gets there first and, you know, the strongest wins, yeah? I mean, yeah, if you help yourself. Also, there's about half a cake, isn't there? Oh, and there is a free-from-chocolate cake there as well, and I've heard a rumor they're pretty good. You know, I'm not really a cake man myself, so I wouldn't really know, but they're pretty good, aren't they? So if you want, look, we'd like to just get it all eaten here, ideally, because if we end up taking any home, then it's going to be a pretty rough week. So if you guys could, yeah, get involved with the tea and cakes after the service, it's our anniversary. We're celebrating with cake. I think there is a bit of savoury food still there, so yeah, please eat what you can before you go. And then we, yeah, another thing to just mention is after the service, maybe before you get all the cake all over your face and stuff, we did want to do an anniversary photo, and just what with the excitement of it all, I kind of forgot. When I came up here after the service, part of the reason was to actually announce the anniversary photo, and then I got carried away with kind of other things and blessing the food and thinking about food. So we'd like to do a photo, and it's probably going to be a bit dark by the time we finish, so we're thinking maybe just in front of the pulpit, and we can get everyone in here and up and about and, you know, and just find a way, probably you have to actually be above the pulpit, people tall enough to be above, kids can go in front. We'll try and work something out. So that will be after the service, so if you could just remember, we'll try and do it quickly, straight after the service, and then those that need to get the train should be all right. I'll try my best not to go on and on about, you know, what I'm preaching for too much over an hour. So, yeah, so hopefully we'll have time. We'll do a nice photo. It'd just be nice to have a photo of this anniversary day and those that have left early. While you snooze, you lose next year. So that's the photo. That's going to be after the service. And then just the rest of the announcements, I'll go through quickly. We've got Seoul winning event, end of the month, that's Saturday the 25th, probably in the sort of East London sort of area. We've got men's preaching nights under the 26th, so remember to let me know if you want to preach of that. We have baby sprinkles and nappies, baby wipes for Rebecca, Gabriella and veteran Svenja. Rebecca and Gabriella are due a bit sooner, and we'd like to do a food train for them, so if anyone can and would like to bring food for that, please let my wife know that you are bringing some food and bring that for next week. We also have a Mother's Day weekend on 18th to 19th, I might think everyone's aware of that. That's just for all ladies, if they'd like to come, please speak to my wife about that for the Saturday event. The Lord's Supper service is April the 2nd. The Belfast Sony event is April 7th to 8th, which is Good Friday and Easter Saturday, as people know it, and Easter Sunday is April the 9th. That will be food after the service. And then we have Bible Memory Challenge, which is week 4, Psalm 23 and verse 4 we're on, which is, Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for thou art with me. Thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me. I'll always remind you of this because people will forget, otherwise please remember to turn your mobile phones off or place them on silent, if you haven't, you know, since you went out soul winning. And we did wish a happy birthday to Ben Bella and Stephanie, so happy birthday again Ben Bella and Stephanie. And we've got a couple more coming up for the end of the month. Please let my wife know your birthdays, if you haven't. I did go through the extra things, the family integrated stuff, everyone's aware of those. So, on that, over to you, brother. Please turn to hymn number 213, 2-1-3. Save you like a shepherd, lead us, 2-1-3. Save you like a shepherd, lead us, 2-1-3. Save you like a shepherd, lead us, 2-1-3. Save you like a shepherd, lead us, 2-1-3. Save you like a shepherd, lead us, 2-1-3. Save you like a shepherd, lead us, 2-1-3. Save you like a shepherd, lead us, 2-1-3. Save you like a shepherd, lead us, 2-1-3. Save you like a shepherd, lead us, 2-1-3. Save you like a shepherd, lead us, 2-1-3. Save you like a shepherd, lead us, 2-1-3. Save you like a shepherd, lead us, 2-1-3. Bless the Jesus, he will hear us when we pray. Now that promise to receive us, poor and sinful will we be. Now that blessing to relieve us, praise him, let our water free. Bless you, Jesus, bless you, Jesus. Glory, let us turn to thee. Bless you, Jesus, bless you, Jesus. Glory, let us turn to thee. Glory, let us sing our favor. Glory, let us do our will. Blessed Lord and Holy Savior, with thy love our voices fill. Bless you, Jesus, bless you, Jesus. Thou art not, thou art not, thou art still. Blessed Jesus, blessed Jesus, thou art not, thou art still. This is the writing of the consideration in reality. Thank you for the source. It is always said that we are the seeds of the plant, and that we are the place of all that we love. And in the best is all that is not possible, just to give this to yourself. If there are this, give this to yourself. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Please send your Bibles to the Book of Romans, Chapter 10. That's the Book of Romans, Chapter 10. The Bible reads Romans, Chapter 10, starting verse 1. Brethren, my harsh desire and prayer to God for Israel is that they might be saved. For I bear them record that they have a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge. They, being ignorant of God's righteousness and going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God. For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth. For Moses describeth the righteousness which is of the law, that the man which doeth those things shall live by them. But the righteousness which is of faith speaketh on this wise. Say not in thine heart, Who shall ascend into heaven? That is, to bring Christ down from above. Or, Who shall descend into the deep? That is, to bring up Christ again from the dead. But what sayeth it? The word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth and in thy heart. That is, the word of faith which we preach. And if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. For the scripture saith, Whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed. For there is no difference between the Jew and the Greek, for the same Lord over all is rich unto all them that call upon him. For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach except they be sent? As it is written, How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, and break glad tidings of good things! But they have not all obeyed the gospel, for Isaiah saith, Lord, who hath believed our report? So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. But I say, have they not heard? Yes, verily, their sound went into all the earth, and their words into the ends of the world. But I say, did not Israel know? First Moses saith, I will provoke you to jealousy, by them that are no people, and by a foolish nation I will anger you. But Isaiah is very bold and saith, I was found of them that sought me not, I was made manifest unto them that asked not after me. But to Israel he saith, All day long I have stretched forth my hands unto a disobedient and gainsaying people. Brother Colin, can you please pray for us? Let us pray. I give our thank you for the word of God. Peace be with your brother in heaven. Let's give it to our Christian Lord. And give us a thank you to his Lord, and help the church to get its place. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Amen. Right, so if you keep a finger there in Romans 10 and turn over to Ephesians chapter 6. So keep a finger in Romans 10, turn over to Ephesians chapter 6, because we're continuing our series on the whole armour of God, and so far we've looked in depth at the belt and the breastplate. We're going to look at Ephesians 6 again from verse 10. We're continuing the series, we looked at the belt and breastplate, and from verse 10 it says this, Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of his might. Put on the whole armour of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. And look, you can do your weapons training, there are people out there that do that sort of stuff, they want to train up for their coming attack, or having to defend themselves against this or that. There are people that have whole arsenals of weapons, probably less so in this country, but there are people that find ways around it, and they're armed to the teeth. For me, there's nothing wrong with that, the horse is prepared against a day of battle, as long as you understand the safety of the Lord, and there's nothing wrong with being prepared to some degree, I think some people probably obsess over it, don't they? But you can do all of that, you can train in hand-to-hand combat, some people get really obsessed with that sort of stuff, don't they? I've always found that a little bit odd, anyone know of Krav Maga and things like that? Have you heard of this sort of stuff? So rather than the kind of fun sport aspect of a fight sport, which many women just won't understand why men enjoy these sorts of things, yeah, we're wired differently, yeah? However, the Krav Maga has always just puzzled me, because you get these guys, they're all in the room, and they go, so when they come up to you, and they grab you around the neck, you go, ah! And then they're all like... But no, they're not really competing in anything, they're just like, it's all these what-ifs, what-ifs, and you'd probably be better spent your time not going to those weird places where people are grabbing you around the neck and attacking you. They get a bit obsessive, don't they? And these guys, it's a bit strange, but some people really train hard in that stuff. They're like, I'm going to become the best possible hand-to-hand fighter, I'm going to train Israeli special forces stuff. But without your spiritual training, without your spiritual armour, you might as well be training in patter cake. You might as well be, when it comes to the Christian life, you can do all that stuff, but you might as well be... It is patter cake, isn't it, that one that they used to do? Why are some of these men nodding? I'm kidding. But you might as well, right? Because what really is it going to do you? Because really we're in a spiritual battle, aren't we? We wrestle not against flesh and blood. So look, that stuff's useful, but it's useless if you don't have that spiritual armour. You might as well be an Aikido class, rather than learning something worthwhile, and anyone who's into that stuff will know what I mean, right? But if you want to be in the spiritual battle, then you need the spiritual armour, and not just part of it, okay? It's not just part of the spiritual armour. He said in verse 13, Wherefore take unto you the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand. Now, for any of you ladies out there who are already switching off with the thought of more fighting and battle analogies, don't pretend you're not. Any of you that are thinking, oh no, there's another one of those. He's going to be going on about battles and stuff like this. Time to start thinking about other things. Well, unlike with physical warfare, you're all in the army, aren't you? Every single lady here is in God's spiritual army. You're in the battle, and the honest truth is as well, ladies, you are a big target. Did you know that? You're in the war, you're in the battle, and you are a target, okay? The enemy goes for you in various ways, and look, that's just the truth of it. You need to be prepared. You need to, you know, put some of your, you know, your skills to you. You need to get those knitting needles out, yeah, and get ready to start stabbing people with them. Look at me going, what? You can at least get your tent pegs, can't you? Smash them in the, yeah, yeah. Jalen Cesaro comes to mind there, yeah. Okay, look, but you, look, you are in the battle, yeah, and husbands and leaders out there, okay, often, look, sometimes at least, those ladies do need help with putting that spiritual armour on, okay? You're the leader there. Sometimes you need to make sure that your army, you need to make sure those that you have responsibility for have their armour on, right? You know, a big part, if you think about it, you know, a big part of kind of being some sort of position of authority in the army, if you think about officers and things like that, is they're checking everyone's equipment's right, aren't they? They're checking they've got their, not only that it's right, that it's nice and shiny sometimes, and they look right, and they're well prepared for battle, yeah, and they do that sometimes with drill training, day in, day out, making sure that they're ready for when they eventually will need it, yeah, and sometimes as men we need to do that, don't we, with the women in our lives as well. You said in verse 14, stand therefore having your loins girt about with truth and having on the breastplate of righteousness and your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace, and we saw how that belt of armour around your loins is being surrounded by truth, didn't we? We looked at that in the first week of this a few weeks ago now, being just immersed, surrounded by the truth. We looked at how that is with the word of God, how that's basically about who and what you surround yourselves with as well, and also ultimately being in the house of God. We looked at how the breastplate last week is righteousness, which comes from the word of God. It's God's commandments which are righteousness, but we looked at how it's a mentality too. It's not, oh, well, you know, I'll tick that one, but look, it's a mentality of just wanting to be right, yeah, wanting to have integrity, wanting to just be what God wants us to be, yeah, and now we're going to look at having our feet shod, which basically means shooed, okay? It's just another way of saying shooed, having shoes on our feet. With the preparation of the gospel of peace. And the title of my sermon today is the whole armour of God, number three of the shoes, number three of the shoes, and we're going to pray. Father, thank you for your word, thank you for the spiritual armour that you not only give us, that you describe to us, and you show us how to put that on, how we can be protected through that armour, that whole armour. God, help us to want to put that on, help us to want to learn about it so that we know how to use it, to just be able to understand, you know, the instruction manual on this full armour, help us to all want that, Lord. Help us to all just pay attention. Now, everyone in the room here, help me to pay attention to preaching, just clearly and accurately, Lord, to preaching what you want me to preach, to not preach things you don't want me to preach. Fill me with your spirit, please, Lord, and fill the room with your spirit, and help everyone to just really, really have understanding ears today. In Jesus' name we pray this. Amen. So he said, and your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace, then verse 15. And I've heard preachers talk about needing to protect your feet in battle, and it's, you know, how important it is to protect your feet, and look, that's not untrue, yeah? You need to protect your feet in battle, yeah? Feet obviously can get damaged and everything, but for me, you're not going to battle without your shoes on, OK? For me, that's kind of the point here, is that there is no battle without a pair of shoes on. Barefoot's going to the beach and to bed, really, isn't it? I mean, barefoot's not to be going out and fighting battles, you know? I don't know, some people might have watched a few dodgy movies in their time, maybe some kung fu movies, they might be running around with bare feet, but the honest truth is that normal people don't run around in bare feet, OK? It's not all kind of, well, it's not all easy footing, is it, let alone we're going to see some other reasons for that as well. Verse 15 there is saying that rather than your feet being shod or shooed with the preparation of sandals or boots, it's with the gospel of peace, and I'm sure there are people that have tried to preach, it's like, you need to at least be prepared to preach the gospel. That's not what it's saying. Oh, you need to at least make sure that you're prepared if the chance arises with your lifestyle evangelism, which means I'm never going to preach the gospel ever. No, no, being shod with the preparation, the analogy is being shod with the preparation of shoes, and what's the preparation for? For battle, because without the shoes you ain't going to battle, OK? That's like the obvious thing, isn't it? OK, so your feet are prepared for battle with footwear, and we've been looking at the Roman soldier, and the Roman soldier's footwear was called, and you can pronounce it different ways, but basically Caligae, OK? And it's C-A-L-I-G-A-E, and maybe you can pronounce it better than me, but I think it's pronounced like that, OK? Caligae. And Caligae in the singular Caliga are heavy duty, and this is from Wikipedia, this again. I looked at a few different things, and this is pretty accurate for me and just simple to the point. They're heavy-duty, thick-soled, open work boots with hob-nailed soles. Now, hob-nailed is basically they had like the big flat head of... And when we're thinking nails, they're not talking about like the tiny little things that you might see. They're like basically these big round circles on the bottom, and the nails are bent over on the other side, OK? So they're hob-nailed soles, and they were worn by the lower ranks, it says, of Roman cavalrymen and foot soldiers, and possibly by some centurion. So it looks like basically everyone wore them, OK? It says, a durable association of Caligae with the common soldiery is evident in the latter's description as Caligati, which is booted one. So basically they were known as having these boots on, OK? It wasn't like, oh, some people, but no, everyone had them on, OK? Everyone had these boots on from the lowest level. We looked last week at how the breastplate of righteousness, and we're looking at this sort of armour they could have, and the segmentata, how it was kind of, well, you know, that was maybe some would have the higher level, the lower level, maybe they just didn't because of cost. Well, when it came to boots, everyone had boots, OK? You ain't sending your army into battle without boots and without something on their feet. They were known by their footwear, which apparently it made a thunderous noise when they were marching due to the hob-nails as well. So you can imagine when you've got a whole legion marching into town or something, and they're marching in, you know, coordinated, you know, synchronised together, and they've got these hob-nails just pounding on the floor, and that would be a pretty fearsome sound, right? It said that the calligers' midsole and the openwork upper were cut from a single piece of high-quality cow or ox hide, and that's going to be some pretty tough leather there, OK? And the outsole was fastened to the midsole using clinching hob-nails, usually of iron but occasionally bronze. The turned-back clinching nail end, so that's on the inside, were then turned back, were covered by an insole. Otherwise you're going to get them spearing into your foot, yeah? Like all Roman footwear, the calliger was flat-soled. It was laced up the centre of the foot and on the top of the ankle. The Spanish scholar Isidore Seville believed that the name calliger derived from the Latin callus for hard leather, or else from the fact that the boot was laced or tied on laguerre. Strapwork styles varied from maker to maker and region to region. The placement of hob-nails is less variable. They were positioned to give optimal grip and footsport, much like a modern sports shoe. At least one provincial manufacturer of armour, the callige, has been identified by name, OK? So they seem to have some good information. So this is like widespread, they're digging up these boots all over the place. Oh, look at your line, you've just got all these different pips, the ones that have been excavated from the ground, and they all look pretty similar, OK? So I don't know if maybe people have looked back and thought, oh, they just had these weird sandals with laces going up the leg. No, these were like, these were proper work boots, yeah? Just they were open, they were open kind of at the bottom, especially in the Mediterranean sort of areas and places where it was warmer. Apparently they started going to a closed boot when they were invading countries like here. It's a little bit cold on the feet if you're walking around the sandals in the winter, yeah? OK, so it's a fairly renowned footwear. The lowest level soldier is wearing them. And you know why? Because battle, surprisingly enough, didn't usually take place on a lovely golden sandy beach, yeah? That's not really kind of where, you know, people don't just go, right, we've got to find somewhere nice so we can all fight barefoot. It didn't take place, funnily enough, on lush grass either. And we're a bit sport for lush grass, yeah? I kind of, when I think about the need for shoes, I picture the grass in places like Spain where it looks nice, yeah? It looks lush and then you tread on it, it's ah! It kind of sticks into your feet. It's got really grass, it's like these weird, almost like just green cactus everywhere. That's the sort of thing I think of. And the Roman soldiers' feet were shod with the preparation of Caliget because you needed footwear on. You're not going into battle. Look, it doesn't matter, even when the adrenaline's up, you tread on something sharp or something like that. Look, why would you? Why would you never put it on? You're prepared for battle with footwear, okay? And our feet in our spiritual battle were shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace. That's what it says, doesn't it? Okay, that's the armour, that's what we put on for our spiritual battle. What's the gospel of peace? Is it a piece of gospel music? Is that one of those ones that, you know, these guys are wailing somewhere? No, of course not, is it? It's the glad tidings or good news of peace between God and man, offered to all by what? By the death, burial and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ, okay? That's what it is. Romans 5.1 says, Therefore, being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. It's peace with God by faith in Jesus Christ. That's what the peace is, okay? And obviously, I remember talking about this over Christmas as well because so many are confused by the whole peace on earth. It's just peace between everyone. No, the peace between God and man. Now, that good news of peace is what got you saved and it's also the only thing that will get anyone saved, isn't it? The only way people are getting saved is by the peace of the gospel, yeah? Now, when Paul said to have our feet prepared for battle with the gospel, you know why? Because without it, without the gospel, without those shoes, without those spiritual shoes, you're not going into battle, okay? There is no battle. You're not doing anything. Without preaching the gospel, you're not fighting in a battle, are you? Okay? It's a preparation of shoes to even be in a battle, right? Is he talking about salvation? Well, of course not, because he's talking to the brethren of the Ephesian church and he's telling them to stand strong in the spiritual battle. No, without salvation, you're not in the spiritual battle, okay? It's lost. This isn't about getting saved, okay? It's about preaching the gospel and it's about going out prepared for the battle with the gospel, ready to preach it. Now, the battle, what is a battle then? Well, ultimately, what's a battle? Look, and there are many aspects of a battle, like, for example, when there's a war somewhere, if you look back at, you know, one of the previous wars in history, look, there's a lot of stuff that goes on in different areas and there's a lot of different, whatever you want to call it, regiments maybe of the army and the military that have different roles in it. But ultimately, there's a battleground, there's a reason for battle, yeah, and there's a goal. What's our battle for? People's souls. That's a battle. Now, yeah, that means there needs to be, it doesn't, like, it's not just all soul-winning. We don't, oh, right, well, it's a battle for souls, let's pack up church and get out soul-winning. No, no, we need church to be prepared for that battle and there's many aspects of it, but ultimately, the battle is for people's souls, okay? That's what the battle is. And it doesn't just take place when we're out soul-winning. The spiritual battle is in church, it's at home, it's at work, but the spiritual battle is full-time if you're part of the spiritual battle. But without preaching the Gospel, without soul-winning, you're not going into battle. You're basically just, it's like you're sitting at home just watching the artillery come in. Now, yeah, great, well, at least I've got the other stuff on. Yeah, I've got the righteousness, the breastplate, I've got the helmet, I've got the loins, girt about the truth, et cetera, but you're not actually doing, you're not fighting. You're just kind of a sitting duck, really. I'll tell you what, I've got more armour than everyone else, so I might last a bit longer, but you're not actually fighting back. Look, we're not here to just, it's not just defend. The spiritual armour is because we're going into battle, or we should be going into battle, you do that by having the footwear on, what's the footwear? That preparation of the Gospel of peace. Now, turn back to Romans 10, because if you weren't, you'd just be defending and never take any ground, yeah? And by the way, without shoes on, that's going to be even tougher anyway, okay? So you're turning back to Romans 10, we're going to look at some specific benefits of our spiritual calligae, but before we do, I want to explain, and now I'm going to preach to the choir mostly here, but I want to explain what it means to preach the Gospel, to soul win, to have our feet shod with the preparation of the Gospel of peace. Okay, what is soul winning then? Because who's heard the, isn't it God that does the saving? Yeah, anyone who's been in a church which is annoyed that you want to go soul winning will say something along the lines of, don't forget, God does the saving, yeah? Well, God does do the saving, yeah, but it's a bit of a team effort. Anyone know that? You know it's a team effort. Proverbs 11, 30 says, the fruit of the righteous is a tree of life, and he that winneth souls is wise. He that winneth souls is wise. Yeah, did you know that you actually win souls when you go out and preach the Gospel and get people saved? Now, it's also a wise thing to do. It's wise to put your shoes on, isn't it? Yeah, it's a wise thing to put. Even if you don't want to go to battle, it's wise to have some shoes on. I always find it amazing. My wife and my kids are taken after a bit at home. They just seem to quickly have socks off, walking around barefoot and everything else, and I'm like, I just get cold feet when I do that. I'm socks and slippers, man. They're like barefoot in the middle of winter, but different people have different ideas of that, but they're at home, right? They're at home, but you want to, you're going to go out somewhere, you're going to put shoes on. That's pretty wise, isn't it? It's wise to put your shoes on. And soul winning is winning souls, and we do that, how do we do that? By preaching the Gospel to people, okay? We'll win souls if we preach the Gospel or try to preach the Gospel to people. Eventually, we're going to win souls, and sometimes you've got to be patient with that, and sometimes it can take a while, and sometimes you've got to put some effort into that, but that's how we win souls. Romans 10, 8, where you are, says this. Romans 10, 8 says, But what sayeth it? The word is nigh, the even in thy mouth, and in thy heart, that is the word of faith, which we preach. You know, we preach the word of faith. We preach the word of faith. The first line says it, If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him for the dead, thou shalt be saved. Getting someone saved by preaching the Gospel to them is winning their soul, isn't it? Okay, that's the whole point. That's what soul winning is. What are we preaching to them? That if they confess Jesus as their saviour, with a true belief of the Gospel, they might be saved? Is that what we're preaching? Or did it say thou shalt be saved? Thou shalt be saved. Did Paul say that if we get them to say that they believe, then they're saved? Did he say that? He definitely did it, did he? We're not trying to preach people to agree with us. He didn't say, well, if we bully them enough, yeah, then we can count them as a salvation. If we speed talk so that they don't get a word in edgeways, that's not how we're getting people saved. We're just getting them to agree. And look, I'm not going to go on, but look, we've had all that sadly here, okay? People speed talk, people leaving a verse and then just speed talking through the Gospel and going, are you ready to pray? Okay, and I know a lot of people have been around that, so I just really hope that you can just throw that away, okay, please, just throw that away. The kind of bullying people and gnarly comments on the door and, well, you do want to get saved, don't you? You know, things like that, that's not how you get people, that's not getting anyone saved. That's just getting someone to eventually just have to agree with you, okay? That all that, finding kids and just bearing over them and not giving them the option to say no. Look, you find a kid, and look, I'm not anti-preaching the Gospel to kids, but you need to really make sure that they're agreeing that they do want to hear and listen, not just I'm going to preach at these kids and they're going to be so worried because I'm an adult that they're just going to agree with what I say, okay? So that's not soul winning. They've got to believe in their heart, okay? That's what that belief is, it's in their heart. Did Paul say that as long as you think that they believe? Well, as long as, you know, you preach it to them and they seem to agree with you, then they're saved. Did he say that? No, he said, if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, yeah? If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus. And some people might be aware, some people might not. You've got to watch this attack on soul winning out there, okay? And these attacks come every now and again, and there was this kind of clown called Norm Diamante who was kind of quite a big one because he had a big YouTube following, okay? And his kind of followers, his types are still out there. I had one ring me a little while ago asking about wanting to get baptised but wait a second, you know, I don't believe someone's got to say a prayer. It's like no one believes that someone just has to say a prayer to get saved. We believe that if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus shalt believe in thy heart that God is raised from dead thou shalt be saved, okay? It's not about just saying a prayer. But the point is, is that calling on the name of the Lord and confessing with your mouth go hand in hand. No one puts it, because this is the whole point, this is what they're missing, okay? What do you explain? What's one of the first things you do when you explain the Gospel and you get to the, and again, everyone can do it different ways, but most people will get to a point where they go, whosoever believeth in him, or maybe they go believe, you know, or maybe they go, what must I do to be saved? Believe, yeah? Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ that thou shalt be saved. And people go, do you know what believe means? I hope everyone does this. It means to put your faith or trust in the Lord Jesus Christ, yeah? When you put your faith or trust in the Lord Jesus Christ, you call upon his name for salvation. It's the same thing. You do it, that's what happens. If you're genuinely calling on the name of the Lord, it's because you have faith and trust in him, and if you have faith and trust in the Lord Jesus Christ, you're going to call on the name of the Lord. It's such a nonsense, yet these people are out there trying to just, because they're just trying to find something, something, something, something. Like, who on earth, who on earth? If you got saved, he's like, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, I want to put, I'm not saying anything, though. No, I won't say it. I'm not going to ask him. Just says believe, not asking him. No, you won't see me asking for salvation. That sounds, do you know what that sounds like? That sounds like he's too prideful to call on the name of the Lord. And that's the problem. Yet, you've got these clowns out there trying to push this false doctrine, and it's a false doctrine. It's the same thing throughout the Bible. Call on the name of the Lord. Then began men to call on the name of the Lord, call on the name of the Lord. Then he called on the name of the Lord, he called on the name of the Lord. And it's like, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, no, no, you don't have to say anything. You've just got to believe. Yeah, believing, putting your trust in Jesus Christ, includes calling on the name of the Lord for salvation. Bizarre. Okay, and you'll get this. We had some people here that started trying to sow the odd seed of that. We had a guy who was trying a bit of that. Yeah? You've got to squash that straight away. Okay, squash it. It's nonsense. It's the same thing. Yeah, putting your faith in Christ, includes calling on the name of the Lord. That's what it is, okay? So, yes, there are people that pretend to get saved. Yeah, there are people that will pray with you and won't get saved. Shock horror. Anyone surprised by that? No, there are liars out there. There are people that say they believe and don't really. There are people that just want to please you. There are people pleasers out there. There are people that don't have the guts to say, actually, I disagree with you. There's all that sort of stuff. But no one here, I hope, is just going, right, you've just got to say a prayer. No, they're trying to explain and preach to God. So we're going to look at that. Because believing is putting your trust, your faith in Jesus Christ. You do that by calling on the name of the Lord, okay? There's a point. There's a point. There was something really fishy about him. It was back when Pastor Thompson first visited. And there was just something odd. He was very prideful. He was very like, just the way he was talking to our pastor, to his wife. There was just something off about him. And when I, because he was getting baptised, I said, okay, so when did you get saved? And he goes, oh, something about, oh, I just, you know, I just believed or something. And it was just weird. And I said to him, I said, yeah, but was there a point? Because there's a point. There's a time in your life where you accepted your need for a saviour. You accepted that you were destined for hell when you put your faith in Jesus Christ. Now, some people can't tell you the day. Some people might have heard a couple of different gospel presentations and not sure which one it was, which made them do it. But they know there was a time when they put their faith in Christ. This guy was like, no, I just believed. I said, well, did you call upon the name of the Lord? And he was like, and he kind of, well, it was a bit of a just weird answer. I remember, I think I said to Pastor Tom, it was a little bit funny. Anyway, we had the norm, what was that clown that was here? Costa. We had this Costa guy try that one on the call on the name of the Lord. And then he had some silly video on his channel. It was a funny video. Someone said, this guy looks like, he looks like a serial killer. He really did look like a serial killer. It's just some guy in a comment came on and said, you look like a serial killer. And he's sitting there sweating on camera, just telling everyone about how, you know, we believe in a work salvation. Did anyone, I don't know. I mean, if you could get paid for saying the name of Jesus, I mean, that's a cool bit of work, isn't it? Because that ain't work. Yeah, that's ridiculous. By calling on his name. So this guy was coming up with this. And then this clown that we'd baptised here then came on going, I heard it come out of, I think it was Taverner. I've heard it come out of Taverner's mouth. Yeah. He said to me, did you call on the name of the Lord? Or something along those lines. Yeah, I've heard it. Yeah. You've got to call it, you've got to put your faith in Jesus Christ. All this, oh, well, I just believed. I just, yeah. These are the types of people that basically think that they were clever enough to believe, weren't they? No one preached them the gospel, they just believed. They just read the Bible and said, it's a false doctrine. Okay. Be careful for these people out there. Okay. So anyway, where are we? He said, he said, verse 10, And that's the first righteousness that we spoke about last week, isn't it? That's the righteousness of Jesus Christ, which is imputed unto us by faith. And that's because they're the same thing. Okay. They go together. He said, Because he's just, that's the same thing, isn't it? He just, like, you could use one or the other. Yeah. Who said believe in him? Believing on him, yeah, putting your faith in him is confessing with your mouth with believing in your heart, right? Okay. Then it then says, For there is no difference between the Jew and the Greek for the same Lord over all is rich unto all that call upon him. And just in case there are any Zionists out there, I'm sure we haven't got any Zionists in this chat. But there's no special treatment. Yeah. No special treatment. Amazing, isn't it? For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. Yeah. Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. Now the goal of soul winning is to teach and preach Jesus Christ with the goal of that person, putting their faith in him for salvation. Okay. That's our goal. Part of that is accepting that they're a sinner. That's part of it. That they deserve hell. Yeah. That's what we do, don't we? We get them to accept their sin, that they deserve hell. We get them to accept that hell's eternal. Yeah. You've kind of got to accept what hell is because you've got to watch for that, don't you? So when you preach the gospel, we want to make it clear you don't have to lay with the point. They need to understand what hell actually is because there's a lot of false versions of hell out there, aren't there? They've got to accept that Jesus Christ, who he is. If you're putting your faith in someone, that's putting your trust in him. That means you kind of need to understand who he is. And that, again, there's a lot of weird stuff out there. So we want them to understand that he's the son of God. He's therefore equal with God. He is God in the flesh. Yeah. So we teach that. We teach what Jesus Christ did, that he died, was buried and rose again. And that has paid for all their sins, past, present and future. And for me, if you're not, I don't see the reason to not explain that part of that death was a spiritual death in hell. Because why take that away from the Lord Jesus Christ? We do that. Then we teach them that the only thing you have to do to get saved is to put your faith, your trust in Jesus Christ. Obviously, that is calling on the name of the Lord. When you call on the name of the Lord, it all goes hand in hand. And then we teach, obviously, that, and that kind of is it, isn't it? Because really, that also means that you can't lose your salvation. Otherwise, you're doing something other than putting your faith, your trust in Jesus Christ. There's no other way around that. As soon as you say, well, you could lose it for this, or, well, as long as I did that, or I'm automatically going to do this now, I would never do that. Whatever you start adding to it, you're basically saying it's not just belief. It's believe and persevere. It's believe and not do certain sins. It's believe and ask for forgiveness every time I do this, whatever other nonsense these people like to come out with to try and basically cling on to some form of work salvation, some form of their, they're able to do it. Now, how we do that, in what order is it set in stone? OK, it's not, you don't have to do it. But however, our church has followed on from many other churches that have got, and it's been going on for many years where people have been using something called the Romans Road. And then, look, people have different verses they like to that. But in that sort of order, I think it's a good way of doing it. Yeah, that's been done for many years. It's been very effective. And again, just I'm always wary of people that suddenly got a new way. Oh, yeah, well, don't worry, like men of God have been doing this for years. You know, your church leader, your pastor, other pastors, his pastor, they've all been doing it this way. But I've got something better. I've got my own way. I actually start all the way over there and then carry on here and then go back there and everything else. Like, why? Why can't you just follow what you're told? Is it because you're too prideful? Yeah, that's weird. We don't have that here. I'm not picky on anyone here, not that I know of anyway. And just a point on that as well. It's preaching the word of God to people. It's getting them saved with those points. It's not trying to come up with the best, latest, newfangled analogy that no one else has heard before. Because it's just about lifting yourself up, isn't it? Well, it's when I gave them the tenth analogy, then they finally got it. You liar. When you gave them the tenth analogy, they finally just got so sick of it, they just want to agree with anything you said. OK? OK, that's not soul winning. OK, soul winning is preaching the gospel. Yeah, the odd analogy helps for them to understand things, but it's preaching the word of God and explain the word of God as you do it. OK? So, like I said, we have a way that we like people to follow, and I'll just explain that way quickly. And we count salvation when someone understands fully and calls on the name of the Lord. Verse 13 says, for whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved in full faith. So we count salvation, we go, yeah, I believe they really understood all of those points and they've now called upon the name of the Lord in faith. And look, for those who have ever had their heads turned by this, yeah, I would just say, look, like, just remind yourself. Because, look, false doctrine can make people a bit unsure, sounder than everything else. Like, come on, I'm sure you've had people when you preach the gospel who have said to you, I believe every single one of those points, you go, are you ready to call on the name of the Lord? And they go, no, I'm just not ready. They don't go, oh, no, I don't believe that I should say anything. They're just like, no. Yeah, they believe in inverted commas. They believe what you're saying is true. But that's not the point, is it? What's belief? Putting your trust, your faith in Christ. I mean, we teach that from that point, from where we say believe. What does that mean? Putting your faith, putting your trust in, not just believing in terms of that that happened or anything else. And that's what the belief is, is making that choice to put your faith in Christ as salvation. And all of us, I'm sure many people have here had those people who said, believe, believe, believe all of that. Yeah, agree with it all. However, I'm not ready to believe on Jesus. OK, and that's the key point, isn't it? And that's what calling on the name of the Lord is. Now, like I said, they might call on the name of the Lord and still not believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and be really genuinely putting their faith in him. But if we just go by what we feel and some people will come away and go, yeah, I'm really sure about that one. Another one might go, I'm not so sure about that one. And God knows at heart. Yeah, we don't know. But accounting salvation isn't, look, the number isn't really the important thing, is it? Nice for us. Nice to have a kind of reference and have an understanding. OK, yeah. We like to like have an idea of what we're doing and what we believe we're getting saved. But that's not the point. God knows, isn't he? But all we can do is be as thorough as we can. But part of that is then putting then be willing to trust Jesus Christ by calling on his name for salvation. OK, right. Now, you might be sitting there going, well, it's not my thing. I'm no good at it. OK, it's not my calling. Anyone heard people say this sort of stuff before? Yeah, I don't think I'm ordained to preach. I had a guy say, I'm not ordained to preach the gospel. Yeah, you are if you're saved. OK, if you're saved, you're told to preach the gospel. Verse 14 says, And how shall they hear without a preacher? These are rhetorical questions. None of that's happening. OK, it's not real calling if you don't believe. They can't call on the name of the Lord if they don't believe. Yeah, they could say they could say some sort of prayer that they didn't really agree. They could pretend to be saved. But it's not calling on the name of the Lord if you don't believe. Yeah. They can't believe if they haven't had the gospel preached to them. It says here, and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? OK, so no one, no one is sitting at home reading the Bible and then goes, I got it. I got it. I had a guy today that told me he read the Bible. He said, I've read the Bible more times than you. Yeah. I read it 17 times, he said. I was like, wow. I said, OK. And I love it when people do this. OK. When I got a word in Edgerays, I said, so you've read the Bible many times. Can you tell me what the Bible says you got to do to go to heaven? He started telling me how you got to have a heart as light as a feather. Then it was like, you got to like, you know, have a kind heart and blah, blah, blah. And you've just got to be really good to other people and all this stuff. Maybe he hadn't read the Bible 17 times, but he read it 17 times and he never got salvation because how should I hear without a preacher? OK, they have to have it preached to them. How should they believe in him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher? And look, no one's having the gospel preached to them if people aren't going out and preaching the gospel. And now look, there are people that will, yeah, they will search for the truth and maybe find a gospel presentation online or something like that. However, that's not, that's not, oh, well, that's, they're the only people that get saved. They're people that you'll knock on the door and they maybe weren't even thinking about it. And they're the people that we're trying to reach, aren't we? We're trying to reach all people. Another one you might knock on the door like someone had today and the guy's going, I just, you know, I know I'm not going to heaven. I've been studying the Bible, et cetera. Sometimes you literally have people say, what must I do to be saved? I mean, like many people have got different testimonies, these sorts of things, but other times you knock on the door and they're like, I don't know, what can I show you? And then sort of five minutes later, they're just like, wow. And then, and then they get, sometimes five minutes later, they're like, OK, you finish yet. But sometimes they want to hear, don't they, after they start hearing the word of God, because it comes from the word of God, doesn't it? Verse 15 says, And how shall they preach except they be sent? As it is written, how beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace and bring glad tidings of good things. And that's where the church comes in. OK, that's where it's important, it's so important to have a church sending you out. And we've talked about this before. There are people here at this church that previously were sent out by churches 1000,000 miles away. However, we now have a church here in this country which is sending you out to preach the gospel. And it's so important to be getting sent out, isn't it? And many people know as well that before they had this church, even though they were being sent out by a church, how many thousand miles away, to all intents and purposes, they weren't soul winning anywhere near the consistency and the regularity that they are now at a church, which is sending them out every week. That there isn't, you know, it's just people are soul winning. We're soul winning, we've got time to go soul winning, we've got marathons and there's soul winning. And that's why the church has to be sending people out, doesn't it? Now, notice how they're sent. They're not waiting for people to come to them, are they? They said here, how shall they preach except they be sent, sent to preach? And this is talking about preaching the gospel. This isn't talking about preachers behind a pulpit, okay? This is going out to preach the gospel. How shall they preach except they be sent? And you have to turn to Mark 16, 15 says, And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. Because this spiritual warfare isn't just sitting back and repelling attacks. I think sometimes people see this, oh, armour, and they're just thinking about it, it's just kind of defence, defence, defence. No, we're in a battle, yes? Spiritual warfare is taking a battle to them. Don't you want to take the battle to the enemy? I mean, what do many people say? What do many people say is one of the best parts or one of the most effective ways of defending is what? Attack, attack, attack. And we do that, well, before I turn there, I'm just going to read 2 Corinthians 10, 4, which says this, For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds. The pulling down of strongholds, okay? And that's the spiritual battle, that's what we're doing. We do that first and foremost by putting our shoes on and marching into battle in the first place. Okay, without the shoes on, you ain't pulling down no strongholds. You're not doing anything. Without going soul winning, you're not doing anything for God. Now, there are seasons, okay? There are times, and because with a church like this, we're going to have people, you know, who are expecting babies, you know, close to giving birth or maybe, you know, they've got a new baby or there's other reasons, there are illnesses, there's sickness, there's other issues. However, however, if when you look at a, you know, when you look over your life as a general, as a safe person, you ain't in a battle if you ain't preaching the gospel, okay? We're called to go out and preach the gospel. We put our shoes on, we march into battle, and when we do that, he said, the weapons of our warfare, he said, they're mighty through God, they're pulling down the strongholds. We're breaking through. We're destroying the enemy as we do it. You really are, when you go out and you're going to areas, you're preaching the gospel, you're pulling down strongholds, you're pulling down strongholds in the individual life. Sometimes you're pulling down spiritual strongholds in areas. Anyone ever gone into areas where suddenly it's almost, and I don't want to get too spooky, but it's dark, isn't it? You go into areas and people are suddenly slamming doors, slamming doors, slamming doors. You know, there's false prophets around, there's all sorts of weirdness, and then you've got to turn the corner and suddenly there's all these people getting saved maybe in the next neighbourhood. And it's, look, there are strongholds out there, I don't know how it all works, but there's some crazy stuff out there, isn't there? Okay, and when you go out and you preach the gospel, you're pulling down those strongholds, we're taking a battle to them. And that's what we want to do, don't we? We want to take the battle to the enemy. Having our feet shod with the gospel, there's also some beautiful footwear. He said here, he said, how beautiful are feet of them that preach the gospel of peace and bring glad tidings of good things. I often looked at that and thought, well, man, you know, that's pretty cool that he looks down at our feet and sees that they're beautiful. But I believe he looks down at our feet and sees they're beautiful because God has a healthy love and respect for a good, honest work boot. He's got for a good, solid military boot. That's what he's looking down at and seeing because that's what your feet are shod with, with the military boot of preaching the gospel, when you go out and preach the gospel. That's what's beautiful. He's going, I can see my reflection in that boot. That's some good shoe shining. You guys are out there and you're preaching properly. That's some proper bit of work boot out there. Yeah, that's what God's looking down and going, how beautiful are the feet of those, of them, sorry, that preach the gospel of peace and bring glad tidings of good things. That's what we're doing, going out and giving some good news as well. It's not exactly a hard thing to do. It's not like you've got to go out and just tell everyone that they've got no chance. No, we're going out and giving them good news. Why wouldn't you want to do that? So with that, though, why is it the feet? Why is it the feet? Because preaching the gospel is something that we actively go and do. That's what I said. So that's why the whole point is a feet, because it's something that we have to actively get on, be prepared to go out and do. And that's not going to work, is it? It's not good enough at work. There are people that are like, oh, well, I think this job, I'm going to be able to preach. Look, cool, if you didn't preach the gospel at work, cool. That's not soul winning. It's not soul winning. That's a great bonus. You can preach the gospel at work. I had a job where I could preach the gospel at work. Great. I learned to preach the gospel at work. Brilliant. However, it ain't soul winning. It's not something to swap for soul winning. It's a great extra if you can. Online isn't preaching the gospel. Okay, look, yeah, you could do some good stuff online. You could post some videos online. Yeah, you can, you know, put some cool status updates. You can do all sorts of different stuff, but it's still not going out. Yeah, there's no, what's this analogy then if it's sitting there typing? No, the analogy is going out the old fashioned way and knocking some doors. Yeah, we go out and knock some doors, don't we? Yeah, nothing wrong with the old fashioned way of soul winning. We don't have to get too newfangled with this. Yeah, well, it's all right because I just sit there. I go on all these different forums and posts like Bible Ways to Heaven. No, God said to go ye into all the world, preach the gospel to every creature. So you might be going, well, but I don't get many people saved. Some people say that. Some people, look, not everyone will get the best results maybe. And there'll be periods of time where kind of it's not maybe, it's just not maybe getting those results sometimes. Someone said to me earlier, I'm going to open my Bible for a couple of times. That happens to all of us. You know, you get these times. Some people go, it's a waste of time when I go. Well, verse 16 says this, it says, but they have not all obeyed the gospel, for Isaiah saith, Lord, who has believed I report? So then faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the word of God. So they don't all get saved. But if you go out and preach the gospel, people will eventually get saved. If you go out, you preach the gospel, you're diligent. You do what God tells you to do. You preach it clearly. You preach it loudly. Eventually people are going to get saved. You have to turn to Isaiah 55, 11 says, so shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth. It shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in a thing whereto I sent it. Okay, look, you go out, you preach the gospel, you're going to get success. It's going to happen eventually. It might take a while. You might get, look, you go to some, some terrible area. If your motivations are right and you just want to get people saved, I believe eventually you're going to get people saved. If your motivations are, guys, you've got to get to the posh areas because I need to get some rich people into the church, maybe we're not going to get anyone saved, okay, because they're not usually very receptive, but we do believe we should preach everywhere around us as well. Okay, so we've seen that it's a part of our armour, okay, that people need to preach to them, and they need preachers to do that, right? Preachers need sending out. We saw that, that most won't get saved, but God's word will always eventually prosper, okay? It will. It doesn't return unto him void. It will accomplish, okay? But if that's still not enough for you, maybe you're sitting there going, maybe, look, some people get hard, they get a hardened heart to soul winning for various reasons. People get like that. Okay, so if that's still not enough for you, if you're still not convinced, not inspired, I also think there's a few ways that preaching the Gospel protects you. Okay, so aside from the fact that it's part of the battle, aside from the fact that you ain't prepared for battle without preaching the Gospel, I actually think that preaching the Gospel does, does protect you in various ways as well. Turn to Proverbs chapter 14. Proverbs chapter 14. So regularly preaching the Gospel, and I'm going to use the word regular here with this, okay? If you preach the Gospel once, for me, that's not having your feet shod with the preparation of the Gospel of peace. Regularly preaching the Gospel, and that includes going out as a silent partner. For me, if you're part of a pair preaching the Gospel, you're regularly preaching the Gospel. Number one, protects you from pride. Preaching the Gospel protects you from pride. Proverbs 14.3 says, in the mouth of the foolish is a rod of pride, but the lips of the wise shall preserve them. And look, it's very hard to be prideful if you're regularly out knocking doors. I said this the other day, just as I was knocking some local area stuff, and I've done a couple, I think for whatever reason I got on a Sunday and a Wednesday, so I didn't even have like the Sunday where it's usually a little bit more receptive going maybe into Basildon. I've done a bit like, and I've been hitting this air, which is the driveways are getting a bit longer, you know, it's that sort of thing, getting a bit bigger. And I think I just said to either my wife or one of my kids, I just said, you know, it's a funny thing with preaching the Gospel. If there's any way to make sure you don't get prideful in life, it's just preaching the Gospel, because how can you, it's so hard to be prideful when you're getting wafted away like a bad swell, when you're getting people literally just like, oh, well, that's very nice. I'm sure you're happy with that. Slam door, people slamming doors, people mocking you, scorning you, belittling you. It's hard to be prideful with that. And that's why I find it even more amazing when you get people that claim to be saved, claim to be soul winners, claim to be mature Christians that are so full of pride and it's oozing out of them. It's weird, isn't it? Because it's like, hasn't the soul winning knocked that out of you by now? Because you realise that to most people, they think you're a bit of a joke, don't they? To most people, they're just mocking you and everything else. It gets rid of the pride, doesn't it? It said here that the lips of the wise shall preserve you. Who are the wise? Well, he that winneth souls is wise. You're going, winning souls, you're wise and those lips that are preaching the Gospel will preserve you. Yeah, they preserve you from pride because pride goes before destruction, the haughty spirit before fall. So, look, when you're out preaching the Gospel, I believe it does, the more regularly you're doing it, you can't just be like, I'm the man, you know. Imagine like you're walking up to the door like this. Knock on the door, go away! It's not happening, is it, really? After a few of those, you're like, yeah, I'm not actually anything special. Yeah, I'm just trying to preach God's Gospel and most people think I'm a joke, yeah. But we don't care, do we? Because we still go out and preach the Gospel, don't we? Okay, turn to Galatians chapter 1. Regularly preaching the Gospel protects you from pride and number two, it protects you from false prophets. You know that, regularly preaching the Gospel protects you from false prophets. Galatians chapter 1 verse 6 says, I marvel, Galatians 1 verse 6, I marvel that ye are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ unto another Gospel, which is not another, but there be some that trouble you and would pervert the Gospel of Christ. And Paul is marvelling that these churches in Galatia are tolerating these false prophets, okay. Preaching the Gospel keeps those salvation verses on the tip of your tongue, doesn't it? So these guys are, look, whether or not you believe it, it's the individuals that he's talking to or maybe it's just as a church as a whole, maybe becoming like, you know, he's worried about them turning into apostate churches. Whatever it is, look, when you preach the Gospel regularly, those salvation verses are just there, aren't they? When you hear that false prophet, especially when it comes to salvation stuff, and you hear some of that, what should happen is the things that you're regularly preaching or regularly hearing preached should just come into your head, shouldn't they? You're like, wait a second, that doesn't add up. Wait a second, what are you talking about? What are you talking about, repent of your sins? Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ that thou shalt be saved. What are you talking about? By grace, you say through faith and not of yourselves. It's a gift of God, not of works, as any man should. What are you talking about? That should be what happens, because many people here, I'm sure, could probably memorise a lot of salvation verses without even trying to. I mean, I don't know about you, but I've never tried, sat down and go, well, I've got to do a Bible memory thing of this, you know. And I did, I thought, you know, maybe that would be a good one to do, but I realised quickly, I already kind of know most of these verses, just because if you preach them a lot, you're just regularly saying them, they just get written on your heart, don't they? Regularly saying them, they get written on your heart, and that is a good protection, isn't it? A good protection, because, like, that's what you need, you need it in your heart. The word of God in your heart, and that protects you from, you don't have to go, oh, man, I've got to study this out, because straightaway, a salvation verse pops into your mind, or something about maybe the deity of Christ, or so, whatever it is, where people try and hit you with it, you go, well, you know, something, whatever it is, whatever it is, eternal fire, you know, what are you talking about? You know, we're the beasts of false profit, and shall be tormented day and night, forever and ever. And what's good about it as well, because I don't know about you, but sometimes, if I've tried to memorise passages, I kind of forget the reference, but when you're showing people, and make a point of saying, as it says, and make a point of saying the verse reference as well, and you just memorise the verse references as well, so if you need to go there, if you're like, well, I kind of know it says something like that, you know where you're going, which makes life a whole lot easier as well. And like I say, many I would say probably have memorised that, you know, 1 Peter 3.15 says, But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts, be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason for the hope that is in you with meekness and fear. We're going to look at that verse. Turn to Ephesians chapter 4. We should be ready, we should be ready, we're going to turn to Ephesians 4, we should be ready, sorry, to answer every man. And how are we ready? We're ready when we have it written in our hearts, aren't we? Yeah, you're ready, people want to go, well, what, you believe it's grace through faith? Well, look, I've got it written on my heart. I've got it written on my heart. People say to you, well, you know, I don't, well, has everyone sinned? You know, what is a sin? Well, sin is a transgression of God's law. But all have sinned, they've come short of glory. Oh, what are you talking about? Well, surely we're not all going to hell, well, the way to sin is death, and et cetera, et cetera, yeah? Okay, sorry, we're moving on. Turn to Ephesians chapter 4, regularly preaching the gospel. Number one protects you from pride. Number two protects you from false prophets. And number three protects you from the temptation of sin. I believe that going out regularly preaching the gospel protects you from the temptation of sin. And I'm not trying to say you're going to be sinless in case no one misquotes me here, but it protects you from that temptation. Ephesians 4 and verse 17 says this, I say therefore, Ephesians 4, 17, and testify in the Lord that ye henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk in the vanity of their mind, having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them because of the blindness of their heart, who being past feeling have given themselves over unto lasciviousness to work all uncleanness with greediness. So Paul's calling them to not behave like the world does, yeah? By the way, it's clearly not automatic, is it? And I don't think anyone needs to be told that. Lasciviousness is looseness, a regular indulgence of animal desires, wantonness, lustfulness. To work, then he said, all uncleanness with greediness. And I'll tell you what, doesn't knocking on some of those doors put you off? Does it put you off the sinful lifestyle? Some of those doors you knock on. You just think, wow, I'm glad I haven't gone down that route and I sure as hell don't want to ever go down that route. And you know what, for kids as well, it's a great educational one, isn't it? Kids are seeing that, like, when my kids are with me and just seeing sort of just the way some people live and, you know, the bins full of bottles. I mean, there are a lot of bottle collectors around, aren't there? But they're not bottle collectors, really, are they? OK, but the bins full of just empty bottles and they answer the door and it's not like you see this happy, you know, muscle-bound, tanned person like in the adverts. You just see someone whose skin's wrecked, who just looks like they're kind of, they're slurring as they answer the door, they're just like... You know, a lot of the time, they're slamming the door in your face. They're just so poisoned by booze all their life. You know, it's better than anything you could tell them. You've got first-hand examples of why you shouldn't go down that route, yeah? Those alcoholic faces. The rushing off, the rushing off, you've got the gospel on your door and you're rushing off because through your front room window on your huge 60-inch plasma is a load of rainbow-lace-wearing sod lovers kicking a ball around. Now, don't get me wrong, yeah, I like the game of football, but you know what, isn't it sad when people idolise it so much, yeah? And when I say I like the game of football, I don't watch all those sod lovers, OK? I like watching my boy play football. I used to like playing football, but going and watching all that and they're almost rushing away going, sorry, mate, got to go, and you're like, you could have got saved. Oh, yeah, I am interested, but got to go. What a shame. And doesn't it put you off going down that route? Does it put you off getting into, you know, oh, man, got to watch that random load of people with a random owner and a random manager and a random bunch because they're from an area that I once knew and probably didn't even grow up in? Got to watch them, you know? No, it just puts you off, doesn't it? So I don't want to see that rubbish because look what it does to people's lives. It ruins their lives. It becomes their whole life is about that vanity and worse because then they're just getting brainwashed by all the sods and everything else in it. How about when someone asks the door, dressed like a literal whore? Dressed as a literal whore and they answer the door and it just makes me think, aren't I pleased that we come to church around just God-loving people that just want to dress normally, appropriately, modestly. Aren't I pleased that we haven't gone down that route and be poised, but aren't I pleased that we're not into that sort of stuff? We think it's okay to answer the door next to nothing and stand there talking to people on the door and sadly, it can be men and women, can't it? Just crazy. But it does, doesn't it? Because you're full of the spirit. You're not knocking on the door going, oh, yeah, she looks awesome. You're knocking on the door just thinking, what shame, how sad is that? How sad is that that people think that's okay? You're in a house dressed like a prostitute. Pathetic, isn't it? And it does help you with that, I think. The people that are high on drugs, they're out there, aren't they? Knock on the door and their eyes are like this sometimes and a lot of the time you just smell, a lot of the time it's weed, isn't it? You just smell it everywhere. It just stinks, doesn't it? It stinks everywhere you go a lot of the time when you're trying to preach the gospel and their eyes are away and then people like this guy earlier just start coming out with that sort of rubbish. Like a guy I spoke to earlier, I don't believe in heaven. I said, oh, okay, okay, so what is it you believe? And then he basically went to describe a version of heaven where it's like forces, man. You know, you go up and then you live in glory as a life force. I don't know what it sounds like. It sounds like a version of heaven to me, but, well, probably high as a god. I didn't look. Like, all that stuff, it's just, but it does, it puts you off all of that, doesn't it? Yeah, because, look, you might go, oh, brother, why do you need putting off that? I tell you why you need putting off that, okay? Because all Christians have a capability of backsliding. Yeah, take heed, yeah? Take heed, Jay. You thinketh he standeth, take heed lest he fall, okay? Anyone here can fall. You can all fall. And you know what soul winning does? It reminds you of what that other life is like. It reminds you what that is. The jungle to get to the front door. How about that? How many of those were you? You're like climbing through bramble bushes just to knock on someone's door. And you're just thinking, like, what? And for you, you're thinking, yeah, I don't want to ever get that lazy that I can't even get to my front door because I'm just going to get my head ripped off by the brambles. It's bizarre, isn't it? But you see it, and it should inspire you, shouldn't it? And it does remind you that the pleasures of sin are only for a season. Now you turn to 1 Timothy 4, but Hebrews 11, 25 says of Moses that you're choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season. Because, look, you've got to watch it. People will then go so far the other way where they try and act like there's no pleasure in any sin. Look, sin can be pleasurable for a season, but the effects, the long-term effects, the after effects will ruin your life, okay? But it reminds us, doesn't it, when we see that? It's only 1 Timothy 4. Regularly preach the Gospel, number one protects you from pride, number two protects you from false prophets, number three protects you from the temptation of sin, and number four, I believe it protects you from laziness as well. Preaching the Gospel protects you from laziness. 1 Timothy 4 and verse 7 says this, But refuse profane and old wives' fables, and exercise thyself rather unto godliness. For bodily exercise profiteth little, but godliness is profitable unto all things, having promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come. You know, there is some benefit to bodily exercise. There is some benefit. It might profiteth little, but it's still profit, isn't it? Yeah, he didn't say it doesn't profit at all. He said it profits little. And a few hours soul winning each week is more exercise than half this nation, probably. It really is. A few hours of soul winning a week is probably more exercise than the probably, I would say, I'm guessing here, probably about 50% of this nation, who, you know, it's probably, it's sometimes probably the most exercise they get is flicking buttons on a remote control or maybe on a video game controller. Going out soul winning, you have to be prepared to pound the streets a bit. Yeah, and you know what, and this is something I was talking about the other day, and I was just, you know, something that I try and do when I'm soul winning is I want to rush to a door, okay? I want, you know what I want? I want my silent partner, if they're silent, I want them to be shutting a gate behind me, yeah, to leave the house in a good order as we've come in, and I want to be going to that next door and knocking on that door as soon as I can, okay? And I want, and if I've got a silent partner that can talk as well, then I'm usually moving away quite quickly after I knock. I'm not knocking, waiting a minute, knocking again, waiting another minute. That for me is a waste of time. Yeah, I'm going to knock loudly. I'm going to ring on the doorbell, and then I'm going to leave, I'm going to then start moving on and make sure my silent partner's got something to give them if they do answer and get to the next one. And I want to be like active and moving, you know? Not kind of just wandering and sauntering down the road, having a little gas and everything else, and you won't get the numbers like that either. It's a game of numbers. It's a game of numbers. You're trying to find the people that want to listen. You need to get out and you need to be active. You need to be busy with that, yeah? And when you're doing that, you are putting some exercise in, and even better because it's a part of godliness too, which is profitable unto all things. So you're getting a profit of godliness and you're getting that little profit of the exercise as well. Lazy isn't good, is it? Okay, lazy ain't a good thing. Soul winning gets you up and active. And by the way, that should also be the case all year round as well, because, you know, and other than with young children, okay, young children, you need to be careful when it's minus five outside, yeah? You need to be sensible about those sorts of things. Kids don't deal with the cold like adults do, but Proverbs 20 verse four, you don't have to turn there, you turn to John 17, Proverbs 24 says, the sluggard will not plow by reason of the cold, therefore shall he beg in harvest and have nothing. And maybe your soul winning success is lacking because you're a fair weather soul winner. I reckon if I did a tally of who turns up in winter soul winning and summer soul winning, I bet I'd see a big difference. Big difference. What's the difference? It's just because it's cold. That's it. And you know what? That's when we need most people out because that's when people are less likely to answer the door at night. That's when people are less likely to actually want to hear you. That's when people are less likely to want to leave that crack in the door open for long enough to dare, you know, cost them an extra 50p on the heating over that sort of 20 minute conversation. That's when we need the people out soul winning. And that's when sadly a lot of people start making more and more excuses because they're fair weather soul winners. You're not going to be a fair weather soul winner. You're going to get out there in the cold, put something warm on, pound the streets, get people saved, yeah? And he said here, the sluggard will not plough by reason of cold, therefore shall he beg and harvest and have nothing. And I think maybe many people, maybe many people don't get as much success when they're out soul winning because they're fair weather soul winners. You turn into John 17, we looked at regularly preaching the gospel. Number one protects you from pride. Number two protects you from false prophets. Number three protects you from the temptation of sin. Number four protects you from laziness. And number five, it protects you from the bubble. It protects you from the bubble. John 17, 15 says this, I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil. Look, we're not supposed to be out of the world, okay? We have to dwell among them. Now, we want to be separate in how we live. Yeah, we're told be ye separate, but we still have to live amongst these people, don't we? We have to be around these people. We're to dwell among them. And for some, it's easy to start almost living out of the world. You can get your own little bubble of social media if people are on that sort of thing. You get your own little bubble of friends that you only talk to for some jobs now, more and more nowadays. You could be working from home. You could be in your own little bubble. You can really have hardly any contact with the outside world. And I don't think that's a good thing because that home bubble social media church bubble isn't really interacting with real people, and then you become out of touch with the world. And then you find it hard to relate to people when you're preaching on the door. You find it hard to really understand. You can start to find it hard to even understand what they're saying. I mean, the way our language seems to be going nowadays, you know? Sometimes you're preaching to ghosts on the door, and you go, oh, you know, mental note. Never heard that word before. Bit rude. Things that you start to learn. You're learning because you interact, you're being around people, right? And then you're getting out of that bubble which so many people seem to be going into in life, right? We need to still be able to relate. And look, to still have some varied contact, isn't this increasingly contact as well? Because, look, like I said, you learn more about people, you learn how to interact with people, you learn... Look, a lot of people pick up on cues of body language, cues of things like that. You learn to be more of a people person. Now, not everyone's a people person. Some people are more people people than... Is that right? Is it people persons? I don't know. Some people are more people people than others, yeah? However, going out soul winning helps teach you to become more of a people people, doesn't it? Okay? Or a people person. People person. Okay, Jude, verse 22 to 23, you turn to Revelation 12, but Jude, verse 22, you turn to Revelation 12, says, And of some have compassion, making a difference, and others save with fear, pulling them out of the fire, hating even the garment spotted by the flesh. If you're not having regular interaction, how are you going to know which one's which? How are you going to know who needs the compassion and who needs to be saved with fear? How are you going to know that? You know that by getting used to being around people and getting to understand people. You start to understand the cues, et cetera, and you do that by regular soul winning. The regular soul winners understand. They understand which people may be... Because some people ask you, you go, well, what about then and what about this? And the thing is, for me, it's very individual. So you knock on one door and, look, I won't even... For some people, you read the cues, you see, and it's not just the door shutting, you just see cues, don't you? And that person, I ain't even going to necessarily ask them the big question. I haven't even had a chance because the cue's gone there. And then with other people, even though they're saying they're not interested, you could kind of get a feel, but they are sort of open to talking. So they might not be interested in church, but they might be interested in the Gospel. And the more soul winning that you do, the more you start to understand people and read people and understand people and understand how to talk to people and get that, and not just be a robot on the door. Because we don't want to be robots on the door, do we? No one really wants to talk to a robot. The eternal revelation of 12. Regularly preaching the Gospel. We're going to do the last one now. Number one protects you from pride. Number two protects you from false prophets. Number three protects you from the temptation of sin. Number four protects you from laziness. Number five protects you from the bubble. And number six, it protects you from criticism. It protects you from criticism. Revelation 12.10 says, And I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, Now is come salvation and strength and the kingdom of our God and the power of his Christ, for the accuser of our brethren is cast down, which accused them before our God day and night. And we looked at last week how our enemy accused us basically of various unrighteousness. That's what he's accusing us of. Well, he's done this, that, that, that. He's just like that horrible sibling. Not a horrible sibling that's just constantly telling tales, finding anything they can. That's who the devil is. He's just a nasty sibling. But he's not really a sibling. But he's just constantly trying to accuse you of stuff. And by the way, not preaching the Gospel is a part of unrighteousness that he will be accusing you of. So-called Christian, but he can't even go and open his mouth and preach the Gospel. It's the first commandment. It's the first love. It's what we're told to do. And if you're not doing it, straight away, you don't really have your breastplate unrighteousness on either, okay? You're basically taking that off as well because it's part of righteousness. It's following the commandments of God. And what's one of the commandments of God? Go ye therefore into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature. So if you're not doing it, you're just giving him just an attack and attack and attack. And it's not just him. It's not just him up there in heaven just accusing you, accusing you, trying to pull for me like some sort of protection down for you to be able to attack you, but his children do it as well. His children are looking for ways to attack, to criticise so-called Christian, but... And look, I had that, like I said before, I had that for not going twice a week on top of running a church from old Doreen and others who try and push that on you. And this is what they do. They're trying to find a hole, trying to find something, you know? And they'll do the same with you as individuals, okay? They'll do the same. They want to be like, oh, yeah, a great church, but half of them don't even go soul-winning anymore. You know, they're constantly looking for attacks. My wife got it. My wife got it when James was born. After James was born, when we first started the church, she was in the whispers, you know, because she hadn't got out soul-winning again, yeah? And it's just bizarre. And then after the various medical procedures, you just slowly start to see just the little comments, are you going soul-winning? Are you not going soul-winning? It's just like, what on earth is wrong with you? After, you know, to not go on about certain things which have been gone through, but they're looking, they're just trying to find something. And if she hadn't, though, or if I hadn't, if I'd cut down on soul-winning or something else, then they've got a hole, and then the attack, then the criticism, and then they start, that's to then try and discredit you and everything else, yeah? So, again, it does protect you from criticism, and, look, I'm sure others here have received it, whether legitimately or not, just little hints here and there, times when you haven't, and people, they want to put pressure, put pressure. We had, like, new people getting it, like I spoke about earlier this morning. We had, like, new people that left because of it, because of the pressure, because of the... They were saying, they described it as... It's a word, so I'll say it. They described it as bitchiness from, and they named people that were previously at our church, about not going soul-winning, and someone who had only just got saved and started coming to our church. I mean, look, they're looking for it, and it's part of your whole protection, and it's the protection on your feet, but ultimately it kind of works hand in hand with the breastplate of righteousness as well. Well, what's the answer to that? 1 Peter 1.15, because we are going to get attacked for anything they can, is, but as he which hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation. That's behaviour. That conversation or behaviour includes going out and preaching the Gospel. You're going to get accused one way or another. They're going to find stuff. They're going to try and find stuff on you. Look, and that's why we need that whole armour of God on, and I'm sure that there are many more, but for me that's a lot of protection from those hobnail boots, isn't it? That's not a bad amount of protection. That's what I thought about when I was writing notes for this. Number one, it's from pride. Number two, from false prophets. Number three, from the temptation of sin. Number four, from laziness. Number five, from the bubble, and number six, from criticism. But aside from all of that, without them on, you're not even going to battle in the first place. So aside from that, if you don't even have them on at all, if you never put them on at all, you're never going to battle. And what a waste. What's the point in being in the army if you're not going to go to battle? And like I said, the best form of defence is what? Attack. Yeah, let's get out of there and attack, pull down the strongholds. That's why Paul said in your feet shod, with the preparation of the Gospel, of peace, so I went a little bit over time there. That's number three, that's the shoes, and we'll be looking at number four next week. On that, let's pray. Father, thank you for your word. Thank you for your armour. Thank you for that whole armour of God that you give us. Thank you for the shoes. Thank you that you show us what that is, how our feet are prepared for battle. It's by preaching the Gospel, Lord, and help us to just always have a heart at this church for that. Help me to always lead from the front with that, help me to never just give into the flesh with that, like sadly so many preachers through history have, and help me to always just lead that charge, preaching the Gospel, Lord, going out there and just preaching your word as you've told us to, going out and knocking doors. Help everyone here to also just have a heart for it, to just keep persevering, keep just plugging away, preaching the Gospel. Preach it, preach it clearly and accurately, Lord, as well, being diligent with it, trying to improve upon it all the time. I'll just always be wanting to train and get better at what we do and keep improving our skills with just getting people saved, Lord. We know it comes down to the word of God, but we also want to be as effective as possible with that, help us to do that, and ultimately that comes from going out and preaching the Gospel, from getting that practice in as much as is sensibly possible in our lives. Lord, help us to not be the Roman, candle, Christian types, help us to just be consistent, thorough, getting out and preaching the Gospel in the week, Lord, and on a Sunday here at church. Lord, help us to do that this week, and return on Wednesday for another day in the house. In Jesus' name we pray all the less. Amen. Amen. Okay, we're going to sing song number four in our white hymnal, No Disappointment in Heaven. Let's go. Our earthly horizon Will never appear in the sky For all the sunshine and gladness With never a song or a sign Are bound for that beautiful city By the waters we've bred for his own Where all the redeemed of all ages Sing glory around the white throne Sometimes our grown ones sing for heaven And no reason there shall be hold What a joy that will be when my Savior I see In that beautiful city of gold We'll never pay rent for our mansion The taxes will never come due Our garments will never grow threadbare But all will be famous and new We'll never be hungry or thirsty No anguish in poverty there For all the rich counties of heaven Is sanctified, children will share Around that beautiful city By the waters we've bred for his own Where all the redeemed of all ages Sing glory around the white throne Sometimes our grown ones sing for heaven And no reason there shall be hold What a joy that will be when my Savior I see In that beautiful city of gold We'll never pay rent for the good Lord The funeral train in the sky The graves on the hillside of glory For there we shall never more die The old will be out there forever Transformed in a moment of time The immortal will stand in his likeness The stars of our sun to our shine Outbound for that beautiful city By the waters we've bred for his own Where all the redeemed of all ages Sing glory around the white throne Sometimes our grown ones sing for heaven And no reason there shall be hold What a joy that will be when my Savior I see In that beautiful city of gold Thank you Father for all the great things you've done for this church and for our lives Please help us to respond to your preaching Please help us to just live for you this week And allow us to return on Wednesday And on Sunday again You have to be in your house again And ask him for it in the name of Jesus Christ The Lord your Savior Amen Amen Right guys if you want to get coming round the pulpit We'll try and get a quick photo in Hi there brother Ian Tavener here at Shaw Foundation Baptist Church UK I'd like to show you today how the Bible says that you can be 100% sure that if you die today You are going straight to heaven See the Bible says in 1 John 5.13 that ye may know that ye have eternal life You can know that you have eternal life There's only one thing you've got to do Now unlike all the religions of the world and all the versions of Christianity of the world Which will tell you that you've got to be some form of good person to go to heaven You've got to do the commandments You've got to please whatever God it is enough to go to heaven The Bible stands alone It says that no no no it's got nothing to do with how good you are There's only one thing you've got to do I'd like to show you that over the next few minutes Now in the book of Romans in Romans 3.10 It's important to point out that God says that there is none righteous No not one That means there's no one perfect I'm not perfect You're not perfect No one in the world is perfect And it goes on to say in Romans 3.23 For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God Okay that means that we are all sinners Every single one of us is a sinner If you don't know what a sin is A sin is basically when we transgress God's laws So when we do something God told us not to do Or we don't do something God told us to do We are sinning Now obvious sins are things like murder and adultery Stealing But you know the Bible says that lying is a sin We've all lied and the Bible says even the thought of foolishness is sin We all have many foolish thoughts So the Bible's clear we are all sinners Every single one of us Now have you ever wondered what the punishment for sin is? Well the Bible says in Romans 6.23 For the wages of sin is death Okay now that's obviously talking firstly about a physical death We see that in the world We see many physical deaths But it's also talking about a spiritual death Often called the second death Now in the book of Revelation The second death is talked about a bit And in the book of Revelation chapter 21 and verse 8 It makes it really clear who's going to that second death The Bible gives a list of people It says but the fearful and unbelieving and the abominable And murderers and whoremongers and sorcerers and idolaters And you're probably thinking that's a pretty rough list of sins Maybe you haven't done any of those sins or you feel like you haven't Well this list would be every sin in the world But God just uses one sin to show that it's everyone in the world If I told you a lie now that would make me a liar We've all lied The Bible says let God be true and every man a liar And that list finishes with and all liars That's now everyone in the world Shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone Which is the second death Now that's commonly referred to as hell And the Bible says that we are all destined for that lake of fire and brimstone And it's not just a quick death in there The Bible says that we shall be tormented there forever and ever Right, you don't want to go there I don't want to go there I don't want you to go there And the Bible says that there's a way that we don't have to go there And in Romans 5a it says But God commendeth his love toward us Because God loves us In that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us Okay Jesus Christ came and died for us Now we've got to understand something about Jesus Christ In 1 Timothy 3.16 the Bible says And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness God was manifest in the flesh Now this is referring to Jesus Christ In the Gospel of John chapter 1 verse 1 It says In the beginning was the Word And the Word was with God And the Word was God The Word with a capital W is always Jesus Christ And it says in verse 14 And the Word was made flesh And dwelt among us and we beheld his glory The glory is of the only begotten of the Father Full of grace and truth Clearly talking about Jesus Christ there Now something we also need to understand about Jesus Christ being God Is something that's referred to as the Trinity See there are three, three people that make one God God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit Now they are all separate but they all come together to make one God Okay in the book of 1 John chapter 5 verse 7 The Bible reads For there are three that bear record in heaven The Father, the Word, remember that's Jesus Christ And the Holy Ghost and these three are one Okay so Jesus Christ is God in the flesh He comes to this earth We know that he was born in a manger He lives as a person on this earth He lives a sinless life And he's doing miracles, he's doing amazing things He's healing people He's giving sight to the blind He even brings the dead back to life Now he's doing all that to show that he is God in the flesh That he is the Christ But he gets arrested, he gets beaten He gets whipped, tortured He gets the beard ripped out of his face A crown of thorns planted into his skull And eventually gets nailed to a cross He then dies He dies on that cross He then spends three days in hell The Bible says that his soul was not left in hell Neither his flesh did see corruption Because on the third day he rose again He showed the holes in his hands And forty days later he went up into heaven Okay, so we've just discovered If it was new for you Or we've just reassured you that Jesus is God in the flesh The Bible's clear about that So why on earth Did God in the flesh get arrested, get beaten Get nailed to a cross Why did he spend three days in hell Well there's a verse in the Bible That sums it up in a nutshell In the book of 2 Corinthians chapter 5 verse 21 The Bible says For he, and this first he is God the Father Had made him, this is Jesus Christ, God the Son To be sin for us Who knew no sin He lived a sinless life That we might be made the righteousness of God in him And what that verse is basically saying is that Jesus Christ swapped with us He took the punishment That every single one of us should have got And should get For every sin we've ever done Past, present and future He took all of the punishment for that So that we might be seen as righteous in God's eyes That is amazing isn't it That is amazing And what love that a God would do that for us But But does that mean we're all going to heaven Sadly not Sadly most people are going to hell Now there is only one thing we've got to do to go to heaven And someone asked this question in the book of Acts Chapter 16 verse 30 They said what must I do to be saved That's a good question isn't it You don't want to go to hell What must you do to be saved Do you know what the answer was The answer was believe on the Lord Jesus Christ And thou shalt be saved and thy house believe They didn't say believe and be a good person Believe and go to church every week Believe and get baptised Believe and stop certain sins Believe and never sin again It was just believe And the most famous verse in the Bible says exactly that John 3 16 says for God so loved the world That he gave his only begotten son That whosoever believeth in him Should not perish but have everlasting life See the Bible is clear that we need to just believe in Jesus Christ be saved Now when it says believe in Jesus There is something that word means that we would understand it more as So for example if I said to you Look I want you to go and do something really important for me I believe in you Am I saying I believe you're a real person No Am I saying I believe that you exist No Or am I saying I trust you I'm saying I trust you and in the same way Jesus Christ is saying You have to trust that his death on the cross His burial His resurrection That has paid for all of your past present and future sins See many people say yeah I believe in Jesus Yeah yeah yeah I believe that he's the son of God I believe he's God in the flesh I believe he died on the cross to pay for my sins But I've got to be a good person to go to heaven I've got to follow the commandments I've got to get baptized I've got to turn from my sins I've got to stop certain sins I've got to want to stop sinning on many many things Me me me I I I That's not trusting Jesus That's trusting yourself And the Bible's really clear It's one or the other Okay so when we trust Jesus Christ When we believe in Jesus Christ The Bible calls it a gift In Romans 6 23 I read you the beginning of this verse Which says for the wages of sin is death Remember that's death in hell But the Bible says But the gift of God is eternal life Through Jesus Christ our Lord So if it's a gift Surely that means we don't have to do anything for it Because you don't pay for a gift do you If I said to you Hey happy birthday here's a gift for you Here's a present And I had it wrapped up and I gave you a present I said to you but you've got to give me 20 pounds for that Was it a gift? No way you've had to pay for it If I said here's a gift for you Happy birthday here's a present for you Here's a gift But in return you've got to come to our church And clean it Hoover it Wash the walls And everything else Would that be a gift? No way you've had to work for it And in the same way if I said to you Here's a gift But you've got to never do certain sins for the rest of your life You've got to never lie ever again Or anything else like that You've still had to work for it And it is not a gift And in Ephesians 2 8 and 9 He makes it really clear God Through faith Faith trusting Jesus Christ And that not of yourselves It is a gift of God Not of works Lest any man should bow See the Bible is clear We do not work for heaven at all And the problem is if we believe that we work for it Then we're not trusting in Jesus Christ And therefore we're not saved And we can't know that we have eternal life In fact we don't have eternal life It's a gift What a lot of the time puts people off And offends people And accepts them Because in their mind they're thinking What do you just mean that you can believe in Jesus Christ And then you can just go and do some sort of wicked sin And you'd still go to heaven Well yes you would still go to heaven But let me explain how that works See the Bible says in John chapter 1 verse 12 It says But as many as received him Talking about through faith in Jesus Christ As many as received him, Jesus Christ To them gave he power To become the sons of God Even to them that believe on his name So when you believe in the name of Jesus Christ You become a son of God And for women you become a child of God We all become children of God The second we believe on the name of Jesus Christ Now Many people have children I have children And when my children are naughty Now my children can do some bad things And some children can do some terrible things But they can never stop being a child There is nothing my children can do Any of them Where they would then stop being my child In fact they could never Even if they chose to Stop being my child And in the same way once we become a child of God Nothing can stop that We can never stop being a child But when we do do bad things God does punish us in the same way that we punish our children Because we love them In Hebrews 12.5 the Bible says My son talking to children of God Despise not, don't hate thou The chastening, that's the punishment of the Lord Nor faint when art rebuked of him That's when you're told off For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth And scourgeth, that means he whips Every son whom he receiveth See if you did go out and committed a terrible crime God will make sure you get punished in this life But it's got nothing to do with eternity in heaven Because that was a gift That was given the second You put your faith in Jesus Christ Okay so We know that we have eternal life through Jesus Christ Our Lord, we know it's a gift Okay that's pretty obvious And we know that we cannot lose him And the Bible says actually In John 6.47 Jesus said Verily, verily, I say unto you He that believeth on me Have everlasting life Present tense, you have everlasting life If you have everlasting life You could never lose it But it was never everlasting And there is verse after verse in the Bible That makes that clear Another great one, John 10.28 says He talks about He talks about people that have believed in Jesus Christ And he says My sheep hear my voice and I know them and they follow me And I give unto them eternal life And they shall never perish Neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand My Father which gave them me is greater than all And no man is able To pluck them out of my Father's hand See when Jesus Christ holds us and God the Father holds us There is no way that anyone And that includes yourself can take that away You are sealed with the Holy Spirit The second you believe you have everlasting life Okay If you believe all of that Like the Bible says Number one, you are a sinner You are a sinner Number two, the Bible makes it It makes it clear that the punishment for sin Is death in hell forever Number three That Jesus is God in the flesh Number four That he died, was buried And rose again the third day To pay for all your sins Number five, that the only thing The only thing you have to do To be saved Is believe Trust Jesus Christ And number six, once you believe It's a gift, you become a child of God It can never be taken away You can never lose that salvation If you believe all of that There's only one thing you've got to do To show God you believe The Bible says in Romans 10.9 That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus And shalt believe in thine heart That God hath raised him from the dead Thou shalt be saved It doesn't say you might be saved It says you will, thou shalt Be saved So that's calling on the name of the Lord Jesus Believing in your heart That Jesus Christ is God That he died, buried And rose again To pay for all your sins It says you will be saved It goes on to say in verse 13 Of chapter 10 of Romans For whosoever shall call upon The name of the Lord shall be saved If you believe everything that the Bible says That I've showed you today All that's left to do Why not ask Jesus Christ to save you I'd like to lead you in a short prayer now It's not about any magic words It's what you believe in your heart But if you believe in your heart Why not ask Jesus to save you Just repeat after me Dear Jesus, I know I'm a sinner I know I deserve to go to hell But I believe that you are God That you came and died on a cross You were buried and rose again the third day And that has paid for all my sins I'm trusting in you And only you Please take me to heaven when I die Amen Now if you've repeated that prayer And you believe that in your heart The Bible says you're saved The Bible says that you are now You are now A believer You are now a child of God And no one can take that away And nothing can change that from this day onwards If you have done that prayer I'd love you to send us Send us an email, get in contact, let us know We'd love to help you out now with the next steps To take as a Christian to help your life Go as well as you can Please get in contact And have a great day And if we never see you again we'll see you up in heaven God bless you You