In 2 Chronicles chapter number 30 we read about this great revival in the days of Hezekiah
and about Hezekiah, the king of the southern kingdom of Judah, reaching out to the northern
kingdom, the bunch of heathens up in the northern kingdom that had been away from the Lord so
long and trying to get them to participate in celebrating the Passover.
Now before I preach about this, I want to start out by just talking a little bit about
the conference that we're having here and a little bit about our philosophy here at
Faith Forward Baptist Church of Missions, which I like to call Common Sense Missions
because the missions that we participate in here and the things that we're going to be
hearing about over the next few days are based upon the idea that we want to see results
when we go out and preach the gospel, when we go soul winning, when we go to other countries
and evangelize, you know, we want to do things that work, we want to use common sense and
of course be filled with the Spirit, of course led by God, but also to use the brains that
God gave us to do some common sense missions.
Some of the principles of common sense missions are as follows.
Number one, we like to focus on going soul winning in places that are receptive, right?
Hey, if there are people out there who want to hear the gospel, why not go preach to people
who want to hear the gospel rather than beating our heads against the wall with people who
don't want to hear the gospel, right?
And so many times we have this admonition in scripture that if any man will not hear
your words, if any house will not receive you, if any town or city is unworthy of you,
then shake off the dust of your feet and go to another one.
And so places that are receptive.
How about just the common sense of focusing on places that are close, right?
It doesn't make sense to just go to the other side of the world to go win souls and ignore
the souls that are right here among us, right down the street, one state over, one country over, right?
So going places that are receptive, number one.
Number two, going places that are close.
Now I know many of you are from other parts of the world.
It makes sense for you to evangelize the places that are close to you, for us to evangelize
the places that are close to us.
For far too long, Christians have gotten all excited about missions in Timbuktu and they're
not even going soul winning in their own town, right?
We got to start with places that are close.
Number three, places that speak English or whatever language you speak.
Obviously it makes sense to start preaching to people that speak our language.
And if you speak Spanish or if you speak whatever the language, then you go to the people that
speak your language.
And then number four, places that are safe and legal, right?
Because yeah, there are places where it's illegal to go soul winning.
And we could get up and mourn and lament about all the places that we cannot go soul winning,
but what about all the places that we can go soul winning?
And I just firmly believe that if we evangelize every area where it's safe and legal, God
will open new doors in other places.
You know, we're asking for seconds, well, we need to clean our plate with what we've
got right in front of us on our plate.
And so it makes more sense to go somewhere that's safe than to go somewhere that's dangerous.
It makes more sense to go somewhere where it's legal than to go somewhere where it's
illegal because we can be, and what do all these things have in common?
They're all focused on getting results, using common sense and actually preaching to the
most people who actually want to hear the gospel, who can actually understand what we're
saying, who are actually within our proximity and who it's actually legal to preach to.
And then I believe that once we do that, the other doors will open.
You see, things are constantly changing in our world, right?
You know, 20 years ago, if you went to Germany, virtually nobody spoke English, right?
But now you go to Germany and lots of people speak English.
Lots of people all over Europe speak English.
And so, you know, if we go to the places now that speak English, other places, they'll
actually probably know more English 20 years from now.
Or we'll reach more bilingual people and we could send the people who speak Spanish
to the Spanish-speaking country.
We can send the people who speak, you know, Czech or Croatian or Polish or whatever, you
know, back to their respective countries to be able to do that work for God.
So that's just kind of a quick overview of our basic philosophy of missions.
Here's just a quick overview of what we're going to hear about at this conference.
This conference is all about missions that have already happened.
So this isn't a theoretical pie in the sky, here's what we'd like to do.
We're going to hear about a lot of successful missions that have already happened.
And of course we'll also be looking to the future for what the next big step is, the
next big missions trip as well.
But tomorrow morning we're going to hear about soul winning in the Muslim world.
Now again, this is not our focus because it's not legal, it's not safe, but it's still
pretty exciting to be doing anything in the Muslim world and getting people saved.
We're not necessarily going to pour all of our money and resources and time and energy
into it, but it's exciting to be doing anything there and it's good to talk about what's possible
and what's not possible in the Muslim world.
Then tomorrow night we're going to be hearing about soul winning in India.
In many ways India is unreceptive, but there are some very receptive areas in India where
a lot of people do speak English and where people are ready to be saved.
And we've already had a very successful trip there and that's just the tip of the iceberg.
There's a lot more work to be done over there in that part of India.
We're going to be talking about soul winning on Indian reservations, which is a great kind
of quasi-foreign mission field that's right here within the United States of America,
all of these different Indian nations.
Pastor Shelley's going to be preaching on Friday night about the Bahamas.
And again, all over the Caribbean you've got all of these islands where there are many
people, we might think of it as some exotic, fun, foreign, touristy destination, but for
the people that live there, it's just where they live and most of the people who live
in the Caribbean are pretty poor.
And guess what?
Poor people are more receptive to the gospel than rich people who just kind of think that
they have life by the tail and it's easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle
than for a rich man to be saved.
And so the Caribbean is a great mission field that we're going to hear about that's right
here close to us.
We're going to hear about soul winning in England and church planting in England and
all of the possibilities over there.
You're not going to believe this, but they speak English over there.
I wouldn't know because I've never been there and I'm not allowed to ever go there.
They don't want me.
But we're also going to hear about soul winning in Greece.
So that'll give us a little bit of a Eastern Europe kind of flavor of what that's like
because Greece is representative of probably a lot of countries that are dominated by the
East Orthodox Church and that speak languages other than English for the most part.
And then on Sunday, it's going to all be about Africa.
We're going to be hearing about soul winning in Nigeria and in South Africa.
And there's all kinds of great stuff coming up at the conference for us to hear about.
And so I hope you come to as many sessions as possible and learn about what is going
on in the world, what kind of soul winning is out there, and what kind of missions we've
already been involved in, our churches and like-minded churches.
I think you're going to be blessed by all those sermons.
So tonight I want to preach through this passage about 2 Chronicles chapter 30 with Hezekiah.
And this might seem like an unlikely passage to preach about for missions or soul winning.
And I'm just going to be real honest with you why I'm preaching on this passage because
I was kind of overwhelmed at the thought of just like, you know, preaching on Wednesday
night, a kickoff sermon for the conference, missions, soul winning.
Because I was just thinking to myself, I mean, you can go anywhere.
I mean, there's just so many passages to turn to because guess what?
God wants us to preach the gospel to every creature, the Great Commission, those last
words that He gave to His disciples before sending them up to heaven.
I mean, it's really just woven into the warp and woof of the entire Bible.
We're to reach the lost for Christ with the gospel.
So you could go anywhere.
I mean, all over the New Testament, there are all kinds of classic missions, passages
and classic soul winning passages that I could have chosen.
And frankly, the reason that I chose this is that I just happened to be reading the
day that I was coming up with the sermon.
This is what I read in my Bible that day.
And it just happened to be what I read.
And I just thought, wow, there are some great principles for missions right here in this
passage with Hezekiah.
So let's start out in verse number one.
Let's go through this.
And this is Wednesday night.
So maybe it'll be kind of a quasi Bible study in the sense that we're going through verse
by verse.
But look at verse number one.
It says, and Hezekiah, 2 Chronicles 30 verse 1, Hezekiah sent to all Israel and Judah and
wrote letters also to Ephraim and Manasseh that they should come to the house of the
Lord at Jerusalem to keep the Passover under the Lord God of Israel.
Now this is a great picture of people coming to Christ because Christ is our Passover,
the Bible tells us, right?
Christ, our Passover is sacrificed for us.
So the northern kingdom of Israel had gotten far away from God.
They're worshiping idols.
They've been wicked, just generations of wicked people.
God has already brought judgment upon them and they're being carried off captive into
Assyria and really unto the uttermost parts of the earth.
Judah is the more righteous kingdom in the south.
They kind of go back and forth between good and bad kings.
Whereas Israel pretty much just always has a bad king.
Judah will sometimes have a good king, sometimes have a bad king.
So Judah has a good king, they've got Hezekiah.
And Hezekiah sends even up to the northern kingdom, Ephraim, Manasseh, and he's calling
them to come to the Passover, which again could be a picture of just calling them to
God in general, calling them to come to Jesus Christ, calling them to be saved.
We could look at this with a spiritual application.
And again, what did I say as far as the missions philosophy of our church?
Somewhere that's close, Hezekiah, he's already experiencing revival in the land of Judah.
He's already reaching his people, but he says, hey, let's reach further.
Well, it just makes sense.
The next step is to reach out to that northern kingdom because it's right there.
So he's going somewhere that's close.
But not only that, he's reaching out to people that in the past have had a history of worshiping
the Lord.
Maybe it's 50 years back, 100 years back, 200 years back, right?
But if we can go places where they already have that history of having once worshiped
the Lord, once had good churches, once been a Christian nation, then sometimes it can
be easier to re-dig those wells than to necessarily start from scratch.
Look at verse number 5.
The Bible says, so they established a decree to make proclamation throughout all Israel
from Beersheba, even to Dan, that they should come to keep the Passover unto the Lord God
of Israel at Jerusalem, watch this, for they had not done it of a long time in such sort
as it was written.
So he's saying, look, a long time ago they've done it, but it's just been a really long
time.
And you know, there are a lot of places across this world that have once had a lot of Christians,
at once had a lot of good churches and Bible preaching and Bible believing Christians going
on, but where the fires have just died.
The fires of the gospel have just died out, or they've just gotten so small and somebody
needs to go stir those embers and get things fired up once again.
And in fact, you know, in 2023, I mean 2,000 years approximately after Christ, most places
have at one time or another experienced some kind of revival.
Things have been evangelized repeatedly.
It's pretty hard to go somewhere that's never heard the gospel before.
But look, it just makes sense.
If they've done it in the past, you can go to these people and say, hey, you know what,
it's been a long time maybe since you've heard this kind of preaching.
Maybe you guys have drifted away from Christ, but I'm here to call you back to the truth.
And it's better than going somewhere where you're just starting from scratch, right?
So we see that he's going somewhere where they have worshiped the Lord in the past.
Some of the most receptive places that we've gone soul winning are places that have been
historically Christian.
For example, we're going to hear about India tomorrow night, I don't want to steal Brother
Daniel Ryder's thunder.
But you know, the thing is, obviously historically, many of those places have been very Christian.
But the reason that we originally had the idea to go there was because I had received
an email, I preached about it from the pulpit, and then I received emails from people who
lived there and they said, you know what, you're right, what you're saying is accurate
that this area is very Christian or Baptist, but he said, we're dying over here.
The churches are dying, the Hindus are slowly taking over, we need somebody to stir things
up over here.
We need soul winning over here, we need somebody to come evangelize.
And so we can kind of see some of these principles at work right here in this passage.
Let's jump down to verse number seven, and let's get the message that's being preached
by Hezekiah and his messengers.
Verse seven, be not ye like your fathers, and like your brethren, which trespassed against
the Lord God of their fathers, who therefore gave them up to desolation as ye see.
Now be ye not stiff-necked as your fathers were, but yield yourselves unto the Lord and
enter into his sanctuary, which he hath sanctified forever, and serve the Lord your God, that
the fierceness of his wrath may turn away from you.
Now when it comes to soul winning, when it comes to evangelizing or preaching the gospel,
the gospel's good news, but there's a negative component to it as well, isn't there?
And we're going to see the positive message in verse nine, but right now we're seeing
more of the negative component of the message, because the message is going to be both right.
Before we can tell someone how to go to heaven, they kind of need to realize that they're
on their way to hell, or else they won't even realize why they even need to be saved.
I mean, even the very word saved implies that you're being saved from something.
And when you're doing foreign missions, a lot of times you're going to be going to places
where there's a false religion that's entrenched, okay?
So if we go soul winning on the Indian reservation, you know, it's their traditional pagan religion
is sometimes what they're steeped in, right?
If we were to go soul winning in Poland, it's going to be Roman Catholicism, right?
That they're going to be big time steeped in, right?
If we go soul winning in Greece, it's going to be the East Orthodox Church, which is like
Roman Catholicism, except just a little bit worse.
Be not deceived on that score.
It's total works-based salvation, my friend.
If we went to India, you know, a lot of them are going to be steeped in Hinduism, right?
Obviously Muslims that are steeped in Islam.
And so there's a repentance that is needed where these people are going to have to forsake
that false religion of their ancestors, aren't they?
And you know, we always get a lot of flack for not believing in repentance, but let me
tell you something, we believe in repentance big time.
We just don't believe in works-based salvation.
We don't believe that salvation is a 12-step program.
If we don't believe in turning over a new leaf for salvation, I'll tell you the repentance
that we believe in is that Hindus need to repent of Hinduism and believe on Christ.
Roman Catholics need to repent of their pagan, papist Roman religion and get saved by the
blood of Jesus Christ.
That's repentance.
They have to turn from idols to the true God.
It's not, well, turn over a new leaf in your personal life, clean up your life, stop sinning.
That's works.
No, it's, hey, you're in the wrong religion, buddy.
You need to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved.
You know, the Hindus can't just add Jesus to their pantheon, right?
The Muslims can't just say, well, I'm going to do Mohammed and I'm going to believe in
Jesus as my savior.
No, no.
They're going to have to repent of that.
And sometimes it's hard for people because they get their ethnicity and their religion
so interwoven.
It's like they think that, you know, to stop being a Hindu is like to stop being Indian
or something.
But what does the Bible say over and over again?
Be not like your fathers.
Be not like your brothers.
You know, just because dad went to hell, it doesn't mean you have to just go to hell just
because dad went to hell.
You know, hey, I'm glad you love your dad.
I'm glad you like to go places with your dad, but don't let that be one of them.
I like to go places with my dad too.
And if my dad were going to hell, I don't want to go there with him.
Thankfully, my dad is saved and on his way to heaven.
And so we're both going to the same place.
But you know what?
Everybody at some point has to switch over from a false religion to the gospel.
I mean, even Abraham, you know, what Abraham's father and grandfather worship idols.
They worship false gods.
And Joshua tells the people in Joshua chapter 24, he says, look, you know, if you guys want
to go back to your heritage, your fathers worshiped idols on the other side of the Euphrates
River.
That's where you come from.
That's your heritage.
And you know, if you want to go worship those gods, go ahead.
But as for me and my house, we'll serve the Lord.
But he said, hey, Tara and Abraham's parents, and they worshiped idols.
They worship false gods.
You know, the Native American says, oh, you know, this is our traditional religion.
Well, oh, okay.
Well, I guess as a white European, what's my traditional religion?
Is it Zeus?
Is it Thor?
You know, what is it?
Some stupid Scandinavian paganism?
Some stupid Greek mythology?
Some stupid Roman paganism?
Hey, it's all garbage, just like the false gods of every indigenous people group are
garbage.
It's not racist to say that your false gods are garbage because white people's false gods
are garbage, too.
Every indigenous religion is garbage.
Only Jesus Christ is the way, the truth, and the life.
And so a lot of people are steeped in false religion.
We go as a missionary, and we say, hey, it doesn't matter what your culture is, what
your nation's doing, what dad's doing, what your brother's doing.
You personally need to get saved.
You need to come down here, and you come to the Passover.
I don't care what the rest of the northern kingdom is worshipping the golden calf.
No, you personally, why don't you be different than dad, and why don't you believe on the
Lord Jesus Christ as your savior?
Don't be stiff-necked.
Don't be stubborn.
Look at verse 9.
We get the positive message because we have a negative side.
And what's the negative side?
Repentance.
You've got to repent of your false religion because you can't just add Jesus on to a works-based
salvation.
Add Jesus on to Islam or Hinduism or Buddhism or anything else.
You've got to turn from that false religion and turn to Christ as your savior.
That's a biblical repentance when it comes to salvation.
Here's the positive message, verse 9, because the gospel's good news.
If you turn again unto the Lord, your brethren and your children shall find compassion before
them that lead them captive, so that they shall come again into this land, for the Lord
your God is gracious and merciful and will not turn away his face from you if you return
to him.
Look, Jesus said, him that cometh to me, I will in no wise cast out.
Right?
Nobody's going to come to Jesus and say, hey, Jesus, you know, were you talking about me
when you said, whosoever believeth?
No.
You think I may you?
Get out of here, punk.
No.
Anybody who comes to Christ is going to be saved.
Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.
Right?
Salvation's available to everyone, and God is loving, God is gracious, God is merciful,
and people think, oh, man, I have such a sinful, wicked past, there's no way God will forgive
me.
Anybody who believes on Christ will be forgiven of any wickedness that they've done in the
past.
There is no sin that they've done in the past where God can't forgive that sin.
If they will just believe on Jesus Christ, everything can be forgiven.
Anyone who believes on Christ will be saved, and all their sins will be forgiven.
But why?
Because God's gracious.
I mean, God doesn't have to do that, but God is merciful.
God is gracious.
God loves people.
That's why he came and even paid for our sins in the first place.
And so the Bible says here, God's gracious and merciful.
He's not going to turn you away.
Right?
And whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed.
You know, nobody's going to come to Christ and then, ah, you know, it turns out Christ
isn't even going to save me.
No, no, no, if you come to him, you'll be saved, right?
That's a positive message.
It's good news.
It's the gospel.
What a deal.
Salvation is free.
Paid for by the blood of Jesus, right?
So what's the reaction to the message, right?
We've seen the negative message.
We've seen the positive side of the message.
Now let's see what's the reaction to the message.
Verse 10, it says, so the post passed from city to city through the country of Ephraim
and Manasseh, even into Zebulun, but they laughed them to scorn and mocked them.
So in general, the reception's negative.
And guess what?
When you go out soul winning, when you go out evangelizing, you can't just expect everybody
to get saved or everybody to want to hear the gospel.
Broad is the way that leaded to destruction.
And many there be which go in their act because straight is the gate and narrow is the way
which leadeth into life and few there be that find it.
Even if we succeed, if Faithful Word Baptist Church and all of the other churches that
are represented in this room and all of our friends that are not here, even if we succeed
and we were to literally present the gospel to every person on this planet, like we just
made sure that every person on this planet heard the gospel, most people will go to hell
anyway.
Why?
Because being saved is a personal choice and broad is the way that leads to destruction.
Many there be which go in their act.
And so you should expect that when you go out to preach the gospel, not everyone is
going to respond to this message the way that you would hope.
A lot of people are going to laugh at it.
They're going to make fun of it.
They're going to think it's stupid.
I mean, the Bible says they laughed them to scorn.
I mean, this means they didn't just laugh a little bit like, oh, no, thanks.
They laughed him to score like, are you serious?
I mean, they're straight making fun of them, mocking them, ridiculing them.
They probably, you know, I mean, obviously they didn't have this back then, but they're
probably going on their morning talk radio show in the Northern Cape.
Hey, has anybody else heard from these guys up from Judah?
Anybody else have these guys come knock on your door?
You know, because the most brain dead form of communication on this planet is morning
radio.
Okay.
So you know, that's the kind of stuff that they're probably laughing at it, making fun
of it.
It's a big joke to them.
But you know what?
At the end of the day, though, there's nothing funny about going to hell.
There's nothing funny about the love of God.
There's nothing funny about Jesus dying on the cross for your sins.
There's nothing funny about the bodily resurrection of Christ.
People that mock at it, people that laugh at it, man, they're doing that to their own
destruction.
And the joke's on them, unfortunately, because one day God will laugh at them.
Sad.
But they laughed them to scorn, and they mocked them.
But look at verse 11, nevertheless, in spite of that, divers.
This just means basically assorted, right?
Just an assortment, various people, certain people, of Asher and Manasseh and of Zebulun
humbled themselves and came to Jerusalem, right?
And again, this is symbolic of coming to Christ.
They're coming to the Passover.
You know, what does it take to be saved?
It takes humility.
They're going to have to realize, hey, maybe my country's national religion is wrong.
You know, maybe mom and dad were wrong.
Maybe I've been wrong, and I'm a sinner, and I deserve hell, and I need Christ.
It takes humility to fully trust Christ rather than trying to earn your way to heaven through
whatever the religion that you choose, whether it's an apostate form of Christianity or whether
it's just an outright pagan or heathen religion.
And so some people, you know, a mix of people, just people here and there, not the majority,
not the mainstream, but man, people here and there out of Asher, Manasseh, and Zebulun,
you know, they had some people saved.
Some people came down to Jerusalem, you know, and so they had success.
It's a success.
See, for us, it's a win.
Getting people saved is a win.
We're not necessarily going to turn the whole culture around.
We're not going to just, you know, it's not going to be on the news 30 years from now.
You know, India is no longer a Hindu country, you know.
Faithful word was here and, you know, they're just not Hindu anymore.
Hinduism is, you know, obviously that's not going to happen, but you know what?
Every Indian that we win to the Lord is a win for the Lord.
Everybody we win to the Lord in the Bahamas or England or Greece or on an Indian reservation.
In the Muslim world, that's a win, you know, getting divers saved, right?
Getting some of them saved is a win.
And so you're going to have a mixed reaction.
The majority is not going to be saved, but if you do missions, you will get people saved
if you're doing it right, okay?
I love what one preacher used to say.
He said, if people aren't being saved, either the gospel's not being preached or the gospel's
lost its power.
Amen?
I mean, the gospel is effective.
Now look at verse 12.
This is kind of interesting.
Here's what I drew from verse 12 is that evangelizing and doing missions actually keeps the church
healthy at home.
The Bible says in verse 12, also in Judah.
Now Judah is what?
Judah is the base.
Judah is the base out from which missions is going, right?
Hezekiah's home is in Judah.
Judah is trying to evangelize Israel, okay?
Also in Judah, the hand of God was to give them one heart to do the commandment of the
king and of the princes by the word of the Lord.
So notice how as they're evangelizing the northern kingdom, God's blessing at home.
God is giving them one heart to do the commandment of the king and of the princes.
Here's another word for one heart, unity, unity, right?
So God's blessing with unity, God is actually doing a work in the hearts of people at home
so that they will actually follow the good leadership that the king is providing and
that they're following the word of God and they have unity and they have one heart.
You know, a healthy church dynamic is when you have a church that's evangelizing, right?
I feel like Faith Forward Baptist Church historically and at present has had great unity.
I feel like this is a church in one accord.
I've been in churches where it didn't feel like it was in one accord.
You know, you have very different factions and people going very different directions
and there's discord and strife and a lot of problems and infighting.
You know, obviously we've had a few battles over the years but you know, the reason that
everybody could maybe point to those battles right away is because there's so few of them.
It's like there's like these two or three big battles you can think of but what about
all the peace?
What about all the unity?
And I'll tell you why I believe that our church has a lot of unity is because our church is
in one accord about evangelizing because the vast majority of our church presents the gospel.
We don't just have a church where the pastor preached the gospel and the people in the
pew don't know how, right?
More than half of our church is out there knocking doors.
More than half of our church is witnessing to friends on the job, school, work, wherever.
We've got a great majority of our people that are actually out there doing the work of evangelizing,
signing up for the missions trips, literally going to other countries and preaching the
gospel and even the people who aren't necessarily even out there doing it, they love the fact
that everybody else is doing it, they're for it, they're with us in spirit and everything
even if they haven't taken the step to kind of get their butts out there and do it themselves
which you know, we want everybody to get out there and do it themselves but you know what,
being into evangelism and so on, it puts things in perspective, heaven and hell and then you're
not sitting there arguing about the carpet because you're thinking about the big things.
You know what I mean, you're not sitting there worried about it, you can tell we're really
worried about our facility here, it's real important to us but the point is that when
you're out there soul winning and stuff, hey, the building is a tool, right, the vehicles
are a tool, everything's a tool, we're all in it to win souls at the end of the day and
having that emphasis of soul winning and missions, you know what I mean, it keeps us focused
and keeping the main thing the main thing and so I think that that is what we see here,
God giving them one heart, why, because they're evangelizing, because they're doing missions.
God actually blesses the base for what they're doing abroad.
You know, think about it, it's funny because I call our missions program common sense missions
and to me it's just like well yeah, common sense, duh, you know, go to places that are
closed, places that speak English, places that are receptive, places where it's safe
and legal, like to me it's just kind of a common sense but you know what's kind of funny
about it too though is because it's common sense missions if your goal is to get people
saved which that's our goal but if the goal is like building your church then our evangelism
makes no sense, it's the opposite of common sense because like we're literally like hey
let's all pile in a van and go soul winning three hours from here, hey we're going to
go to an Indian reservation three hours away and knock every door for just week after week
after week just spending thousands and thousands of dollars, thousands of man hours just going
up there just evangelizing, evangelizing, evangelizing, you know and you say how is
that going to grow the church, these people can't, there's no way they're going to come
to church, they can't make it, if anything the best case is to get them plugged in up
there at a church up there, how is that going to grow Faithful Word but yet Faithful Word
just keeps growing, even though we're not just knocking just right near us, we're knocking
doors 30 minutes away, 40 minutes away, two hours away, you know if we fly to some country
like Bahamas and do a bunch of soul winning, you know how many of those people are going
to be added to our church but you know what, here's how it works though is that God just
sees the evangelizing that we're doing and He just blesses us at home and so it's like
you know Hezekiah, he's evangelizing into the northern kingdom and what does God do,
God blesses at home, God gives them one heart at home, God shores things up in Judah at
home and then look at verse 13, and they're assembled at Jerusalem much people to keep
the Feast of Unleavened Bread in the second month, a very great congregation, man big
results is what we like to see right, we like to see lots of people saved, big results and
God gives a big harvest if you work hard for the Lord, God gives a big harvest, another
thing in verse 14 it says, and they arose and took away the altars that were in Jerusalem
and all the altars for incense they took away and cast them into the brook Cai-dron, these
are altars to false gods or even altars to the Lord that God just didn't approve of because
He said hey, I want you worshipping at the central location, we've been talking about
that in the Deuteronomy series, the place which the Lord shall choose not just under
every green tree and on every corner and in the high places, so they take these implements
of false religion and they destroy them and again this points us back to the right kind
of repentance with regard to salvation, right, forsaking false religion turning to the biblical
salvation of the Bible.
But the last point that I want to make here is in verse 14 it says, or I'm sorry in verse
18, jump down to verse 18 is that when we're out evangelizing whether we're soul winning
here at home, whether we're doing missions in a foreign country, obviously there's a
negative component to our message and there's a positive component to our message, but the
last admonition I want to really give you out of this passage before concluding things
is I want to say this, be nice, be patient with people and don't expect people to be
right on the first time you have a conversation with them.
Now look what the Bible says in verse 18, for a multitude of the people, big results,
amen, not the majority, not the mainstream, but still big results.
A multitude of the people, even many of Ephraim and Manasseh, Isaacar, Zebulun, had not cleansed
themselves, yet did they eat the Passover otherwise than it was written.
But Hezekiah prayed for them saying, the good Lord pardon everyone that prepareth his heart
to seek God, the Lord God of his fathers, though he be not cleansed according to the
purification of the sanctuary, and the Lord God hearkened to Hezekiah and healed the people.
You know you can also use this again just to kind of point out the folly of the repent
of your sins salvation, that you have to be totally cleaned up and clean up your life
in order to be saved, when in reality it's just as I am, without one plea but that thy
blood was shed for me.
That's how we get saved.
But the thing I want to point out here is that Hezekiah, as he evangelizes the heathen
up in Israel, he understands that these people that they're reaching are not going to be
dotting all the i's and crossing all the t's necessarily from day one, because they literally
just showed up.
This is done on a short notice, and in fact if you remember at the beginning of the passage
we saw, because we read the whole chapter before the service, but we saw that at the
end of verse two there, if you want to just glance up at it, that they kept the Passover
in the second month.
Ideally you're supposed to keep the Passover in the first month.
But if you remember, in the Mosaic law, God did have an exception, He said, hey, if you're
not able to do it in the first month, you can push it back to the second month, which
is symbolic of the fact that God's the God of the second chance.
God's the God of the second chance.
Hey, you missed Christ in January, get Him in February.
But guess what?
It's not happening in the third month.
So God's not the God of unlimited chances, but He is the God of the second chance.
And so the fact that they're doing it in the second month shows you that this is something
that they're throwing together at the last minute.
It's last minute, because if they would have had more time, they would have planned it
for the first month.
But they're like, no, no, no, we can't make it happen that fast, we're trying to get this
to happen, we want to get people to Christ, let's do it in the second month, it's better
than nothing, let's get this done.
And so everything's happening in haste.
And so these people are brand new, they just showed up, and so they don't really know the
drill.
I mean, they've been living in a heathen country, they've never seen the Passover in their lifetime.
So of course when they show up, their heart's in the right place, they want to serve the
Lord, they want to partake of the Passover rightly, but they just don't really know the
drill, they haven't done the proper preparation, they don't really know.
And Hezekiah says, you know what, God, please just pardon these people because they're trying,
they're seeking, their heart's in the right place, they're coming in the right direction,
they're coming to Christ as they are.
And of course the Bible says in verse 20, the Lord hearkened to Hezekiah and healed
the people.
God accepts what's going on here, even though it's not a crossing of every T and dotting
of every I, God says, hey, I see what's going on, I see the heart.
And throughout the Bible, God is merciful and gracious to those whose heart is right,
they're not defying the Lord or anything, but God sees the heart.
And sometimes it's possible for us, who've been in church for many, many years, we've
been in church for years and years and years, to then be at the door with somebody, we've
been talking to them for all of eight and a half minutes, and then to kind of jump down
their throat because they get something wrong.
Or they say something a little bit wrong.
And here's what you have to understand, you know, is that when you're going out sowing
from our church, you want to be a good ambassador of our church, and we want to bring people
to Christ with kindness and meekness, instructing those that oppose themselves, if God, per
adventure, will give them repentance in the acknowledging of the truth, right?
Want to be gentle, want to be meek, want to be kind, want to be a good ambassador for
the church, not expecting everyone to have it all together, because frankly, even people
that are saved today, your average saved person today goes to a church that's very lean on
doctrine.
Right?
I mean, let's face it, even those who are saved, so if I knock on somebody's door, and
I ask them about salvation, and they say something like, you know, well, I'm going to heaven
because I have a personal relationship with Jesus, you know, I'm not just going to automatically
assume that that person's not saved.
Or if they say something along the lines of, you know, oh, well, I asked Jesus into my
heart or something, you know, it's like, you know, all of those are just ways that
people express themselves about, you know, obviously we would love to hear the clearest
possible answer, you know, I'm going to heaven because of faith alone, because I have believed
on the Lord Jesus Christ as my savior.
That's what we'd love to hear, like that really doctrinally correct, clear answer.
But what you have to understand is that a lot of people, they are just repeating stuff
that they've heard, and, you know, if you were to ask me when I was 14 years old, what
do you have to do to go to heaven, I would have said, you've got to have a personal relationship
with Jesus.
That's what I would have said, seriously.
But see, what I meant by that, what I would have meant by that though, because I always
knew that it was by faith alone, because I'm just hearing that so many times, that's what
I would have said.
But here's what I would have meant by that, a relationship like a father-son relationship,
like I have personally accepted Christ as my personal savior.
I'm not relying on my parents' faith, or my church's faith, or my church attendance.
I have personally received the Lord Jesus Christ as my savior.
He is my father, I am his son, and that's the relationship.
But see, a lot of people when they say personal relationship, they could mean like, you know,
that they're constantly working on that.
You know, it could be a works-based thing, am I right?
You don't really know.
It's not really a biblical terminology, so who knows what they mean?
That's why we, who know better, we try to stick to biblical terminology, calling upon
the name of the Lord, believing in Jesus.
These are the type of things that we like to say, by faith.
We talk about grace, and faith, and calling upon the Lord.
We're not necessarily going to talk in these terms that maybe liberal churches would use,
but at the same time, when we run into people who that's what they've been taught, we need
to be patient with these people and just understand that, you know, this is just what they know.
They're not as schooled as we are in these things, and so be kind, be nice, be patient.
And the thing is, you know, especially when you're talking to an unsaved person, they
don't get it.
That's why they're not saved, right?
So you want to very kindly and gently, nicely bring them to salvation.
You know, Hezekiah is not the kind of guy that's just going to blow people out of the
water because they're not getting it right, and you know, maybe they just got saved, and
they don't understand everything perfectly.
Or maybe they're already saved, but they haven't really had any growth because they've been
in a liberal church.
Well, let's be kind to them, too, and try to bring them over to our side, and little
by little, teach them line upon line, precept upon precept.
These aren't people that have heard the truth and are just stubbornly rejecting it, and
they're just stuck on heresy, stuck on false doctrine, and they've already listened to
all the sermons about it, and they don't care.
They're still whatever.
You know, a lot of people just don't know better, right?
And that's what we have here.
These people, they're not malicious.
They're not coming down here saying, you know, I'm going to do the Passover my way.
I'm not going to do all this cleaning and purification.
I don't need that stuff.
They just don't even know about it.
They just didn't have time.
They haven't been exposed to it.
They don't know what to do.
Bless them, God.
You know, and we've got to be the same way.
We've got to be patient and loving and kind with people, because we need to understand
that, you know, everybody's not spending three hours a week at Faithful Word, you know, just
going through the Bible line by line, right?
And I bet if you go back in your mind to when you were first saved, you had some goofed
up ideas.
And then if you go back to before you were saved, well, you were just completely screwed
up because you weren't even saved.
You know, we've all been there.
And so, again, you know, as we round out this passage, we see in verse 26 there's great
joy.
Man, it's exciting when people get saved, evangelizing, having success.
God's watching.
He blesses.
God blesses in verse 27.
God blesses the people.
And then in chapter 31, verse 1, they not only break down the images in high places
in Judah, but then they actually go up into the northern kingdom and actually desecrate
some idols and altars, even up in the northern kingdom.
They end up trashing some of that false religion and so forth.
And so let me close on this thought, you know, we can have a major impact in this world.
One person, one church, one group of people can have a major impact in this world.
I'm not saying we're going to change the mainstream culture.
We're not going to turn an entire nation around as far as the mainstream, but we can have
a big impact.
You see, when it comes to the kingdom of Israel, the ultimate trajectory of the kingdom of
Israel did not change.
The northern kingdom was done.
They were done.
When Hezekiah evangelized it, they were already doomed.
It was already a lost cause.
The northern kingdom of Israel was a lost cause.
But you know what he did?
He made a difference in the lives of a lot of individuals.
Lots of individuals from Isaacar, Manasseh, Ephraim, Zebul, and Asher.
Those individuals, lots of them came down.
Lots of them heard the word of God.
Lots of them heard the gospel.
Lots of them are in heaven right now because of Hezekiah and his people and what they did.
The ultimate trajectory of Israel stayed the same, but we can have an impact.
We can make a massive difference in the lives of individuals, even large numbers of individuals.
Thousands of people.
Tens of thousands of people.
Our church has already reached tens of thousands of people with the gospel.
We can reach hundreds of thousands.
We can reach millions with the gospel.
We heard the gospel in this story.
Everybody at least got the message.
Lots of them responded.
What else can you ask for?
All I want to do is make sure everybody hears the gospel and get a bunch of people saved.
That's the goal.
There's absolutely no reason why Christians cannot get the gospel to the entire world
in our generation.
There's no reason in the world why we cannot do it.
Not saying everybody's going to get saved.
Most will reject it.
But it's a lot easier for me to live with the fact that someone heard a clear presentation
of the gospel, rejected it, and just went to hell because they chose to reject it.
That's a lot easier for me to live with than to think that someone went to hell only vaguely
being aware of the gospel.
Because let's face it.
Everyone in the northern kingdom of Israel knew what was going on in Judah.
They knew the temples there.
Do you think people in the northern kingdom just didn't know that the temple existed?
Or they didn't know that there was a Levitical priesthood?
They didn't know about the Passover?
Obviously, they're right next door to Judah.
They all knew what was going on down there.
Couldn't they have just come down a year earlier and said, hey, will you teach us about the
Lord?
We want to worship in Jerusalem.
We want to do the Passover.
We want to do the feast with you guys.
And you know what?
Obviously, there probably were trickles of people doing that all along because everybody
in the northern kingdom is vaguely aware of what's going on in the southern kingdom.
Just like everybody in this world is at least vaguely aware of Christ and the gospel story
and whatever.
But let's face it.
For most people, that's not enough, my friend.
Most people are kind of at a stage in their life where they can kind of go either way.
A lot of people are just kind of on the fence.
They can go either way.
And you know, maybe they're vaguely aware of the gospel.
I don't want them to be vaguely aware of the gospel.
I want them to hear a clear presentation of the gospel.
And I want to pull them out of the fire.
And that's what we need to be doing.
Pulling people out of the fire.
And sure, they could all come to Christ if they really wanted to.
They've heard verses.
They've heard about Jesus.
They're vaguely aware of it.
If they seek, they'll find.
If they ask, they'll be answered.
But I want to pull them out of the fire and get as many people saved as possible by giving
a crystal clear plan of salvation.
Why?
Because when the proclamation goes out, when the soul winners go out, when the missionaries
go out, more people get saved.
Way more people in the northern kingdom of Israel got saved because of what Hezekiah
did than if he had done nothing.
If he had done nothing, a few people would have just heard about it and taken the initiative
to come down.
But let's face it.
Most people in this world don't really take initiative spiritually, do they?
They're just busy with everything else.
We need to grab them and shake them and bring them to Christ.
Not literally, okay?
But proverbially speaking.
Remember, let's go back to the point about being nice, all right?
Listen to me!
Get saved!
Are you nuts?
I've been soul winning with some people, I kind of feel like that's kind of how they
are.
You've got to mellow out a little bit.
You know, one man, one woman, one generation, one church, one group of people can make a
huge difference.
Let's get out there and do something with our lives that matters.
Let's do something big, right?
I mean, we could just sit and rest on our laurels and talk about what we did five years
because we did some pretty cool stuff five years ago.
But you know what?
We also did some pretty cool stuff in the last 12 months.
But you know what?
Let's do something cool in the next 12 months.
And you personally, whoever you are, man, woman, boy, girl, why don't you decide that
you want to make your life matter for souls?
That you want to pull somebody out of the fire, that you want to get involved because
not only do we have common sense missions at our church, we also call it DIY missions.
Because you know, if you want something done right, sometimes you just got to do it yourself.
You know what I mean?
So we don't just throw money at a bunch of people on the other side of the world and
just hope that they're doing what they say they're doing.
No, we in many cases get on a plane and go.
Who here, let me ask for a quick raise of hands.
Who here in this room tonight, I mean, we have hundreds of people here tonight.
Do we have the, what's the attendance tonight?
So we have over 300 people in church tonight, okay?
Let me ask you this.
Who here in this room right now would say, I have personally done soul winning in a country
other than the United States of America?
Put up your hand right now if you have done soul winning.
And look around, it's more than half the crowd.
This is called DIY missions, right?
Doing it yourself, getting out there and doing it.
Some of you cheated because you're from another country.
But I'm saying, even just amongst, I could have done the same thing two weeks ago at
our church and still a multitude of hands would have gone up and said, yeah, you know,
we're okay.
Okay, fine.
We'll get rid of the cheating.
Who's done soul winning in a country other than the country where you live?
Virtually the exact same thing.
Because even the people that are from other countries, they've done soul winning in the
US.
They're literally this week, they're a missionary to America.
They're literally on a missions trip to America, evangelizing the heathen in America.
You know, DIY missions, getting involved, doing it yourself, participating.
It's a beautiful thing.
Let's get out there and do something with our lives that matters.
I really hope that over the next few days, you're inspired by what you hear and you get
motivated to want to get involved in it.
And by the way, we're not raising any money.
There's no financial goal for this conference at all.
The financial goal for this conference is just survive.
We don't even care.
You know, we're just, you know, we are not here to raise money for anyone.
We're not raising money for our church.
We're not raising money for missionaries.
There's no, I mean, we pass an offering plate just like a normal church, but like there's
literally no goal.
I don't even have a goal financially.
Yeah, there's nothing.
There's no thermometer.
There's no spin the wheel.
But here's the thing, because here's the thing, we're not trying to get you to donate because
there's literally nothing to donate to.
I'm not kidding.
What's the goal?
Because when I was growing up, usually the missions conference was about raising money
for missionaries.
You know, I'm not against them raising money for missions and doing their thing.
I'm just telling you what we're trying to do because I just want you to know what the
goal is for this week.
The goal for this week is just that you get excited about missions so that you either
A, go soul winning wherever you live so that you'll just, I'm not trying to get you to
cross the ocean.
I just want you to cross the street and go soul winning, right?
I just want to get you to just cross the street and go soul winning.
Maybe hop into a church van and go to an Indian reservation a couple hours away.
Maybe hop into the van, do a small town soul winning two hours away, and maybe hop on a
plane to the Bahamas.
You know, I mean, there are a lot worse places for God to call you, you know, than to go
to some Caribbean destination and go soul winning.
You know, that's all I'm trying to do is just get you pumped, get you excited so that you'll
get out there and do something yourself.
Whether here or abroad, I'm not trying to get you to pay someone else to do it, I'm
trying to get you to do stuff yourself.
That's what I'm trying to do.
I hope you'll get excited, I hope you'll pray for the work that we're doing and get involved
in it.
Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer.
Father, we thank you so much for our church.
Thank you for this conference, thank you for all the wonderful visitors that are here
visiting us.
Lord, I pray that they would also get whatever they need from this conference.
I pray that you would pour out your spirit upon this conference, Lord.
Pour out your spirit upon every single preacher.
Help every single preacher to speak in the fullness of the Holy Ghost and that we would
not have any sermons this whole week that are just dry of the Holy Spirit's power, but
that everything would be spirit-filled and spirit-led.
And Lord God, I pray that you would just move in the hearts of your people and that decisions
would be made at this conference that would impact the lives of people, Lord.
That they would be saved and that many people would hear a clear presentation of the Gospel.
In Jesus' name we pray, amen.