All right, turn to your Bibles, if you would, to Matthew 11.
Matthew 11.
While you're turning to Matthew 11, I'm going to go ahead and start off with an introduction
and first a start and a word of prayer.
Dear Heavenly Father, thank you so much for this day and thank you so much for this missions
trip that all these people got saved, just please help me be full of the Holy Spirit
to edify everyone with your word in Jesus Christ's name we pray, amen.
So I wanted to start off by saying first thing, thank you so much everybody who's been here,
thank you so much Pastor Thompson for starting the church here in Hawaii.
Truly and from the bottom of my heart, I know it's a really huge blessing to the people
of Hawaii, Akama's, Judy, and us here I know are overly ecstatic that God put in your heart
to be able to help do a great movement here and I just wanted to start off by saying that.
You guys here, yeah, give them a round of applause, it truly is a huge blessing to have
a church in your hometown and you know, as it says, that they know there will be a prophet
among them.
But let's start off by saying this, to you guys who are here, you know, repeat here the
second time and those of you I met for the first time, you could be doing anything you
wanted to, you know, some people are here on vacation and there's nothing wrong with
vacation, you know, some people will downplay when people have extra money to go on vacation,
hey, every good gift comes from above and we know God is the one who owns the cattle
on a thousand miles, so when God bestows upon a man extra finances to be able to provide
for his family and they see it deemed fit to go on vacation here in Hawaii or wherever,
you know, I know it's hard to suffer with the people of God rather than enjoy the pleasures
of sin for a season, but with that being said, you could be, my stepdad works for a magazine
company in the island of Kauai called 101 Things to Do on Kauai and don't, you know,
misunderstand, you could be finding anything to do with your time while you're here, you
could be on a helicopter tour, you could be on a boating tour, you could be on a historical,
you know, tourist attraction, you could be on a romantic night out, there is literally
endless amounts of things you can do while you're here in Hawaii, but you guys saw it
as important to be here for the grand opening of Sure Foundation Baptist Hawaii and it is
truly important for you to know this message, I believe, and it is, the title of this message
is simply a 15-minute message. Sounds strange, what do you mean, a 15-minute message? Well,
you know, like I was saying, you could be doing anything you wanted while you were here,
you could be out on a dinner, you could do whatever you want, but you saw it as important
while you were here in Hawaii to hear the man of God preach, to hear, you know, Isaac
preach and everyone that's here, Pastor Thompson tomorrow, Brother Roger, or Pastor Roger Jimenez
who was here, and it, you could have been doing anything, but you saw that of most important,
you saw first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and because of that, now you get to enjoy
being in Hawaii for a little vacation, but where you are in Matthew 11, we see an example
of this, it says, for instance, in verse 7, it reads, And as they departed, Jesus began
to say unto the multitudes concerning John, What went ye out into the wilderness to see?
A reed shaken in the wind? But what went ye out for to see? A man clothed in soft raiment?
Behold, they that wear soft clothing are in kings' houses. But what went ye out for to
see? A prophet, yea, I am, or this is Christ speaking, I am, I say unto you, am more than
a prophet. For this is he of whom it is written, talking about John the Baptist, Behold, I
send my messenger before thy face, which shall prepare the way before thee. That is what
we are here in Hawaii doing, it's not necessarily the messenger that is the thing, it's the
message of God that you guys are hearing, a 15 minute message, how much, you know, people
try to downplay when they're hearing someone speak on any one matter, you know, oh, I only
have 10 minutes, can I explain something to you? When we hit the door of someone going
out so many, can't it change their life, 10 minutes, just explaining them to the word
of God, salvation, 10 minutes earlier, they weren't saved, 10 minutes later, they're on
their way to heaven. Every time I stop them and say, can I have 10 to 15 minutes just
to explain to you how you can know you're going to heaven. Now that I can know, not
that someone can say this of you, but that you can know, we know that the Bible teaches
these things were written that believe in the name of the son of God, that ye may know
that you have eternal life. The goal of preaching the gospel and going out so many is not to
come up with numbers and be into, oh, I got three, eight, 20. We don't necessarily know
who truly put their faith in Christ. And it is good to use numbers as a way to measure
our works that we are, you know, the Bible mentions a lot of people being saved, but
nevertheless, it's for them to know for sure they're on their way to heaven. And that the
numbering is for us to be able to look at something and say, Hey, our efforts aren't
in vain. Work is being done. We know that so many people got saved. And if someone got
saved that wasn't claimed, you can at least know that those who weren't claimed, it ends
up evening out at the end of the day. But we see men in the Bible using short time periods
to relay a strong message. Turn if you would to Acts seven, this is an example of a man
of God being used powerfully to get a strong message out in a short period of time. And
I'm talking about Stephen, the disciple, and he was, you know, a zealous man. He was the
first martyr in the New Testament that we see. And why was he martyred? Why did they
kill him? You know, if we look at the whole entire chapter seven, there's a lot to read.
And I'm not going to go into it all for sake of time. But look down at you would at verse
51. It reads, he stiff necked and uncircumcised and hardened ears, you do always resist the
Holy Ghost, as your fathers did, so do ye, which of the prophets of not your fathers
persecuted, and they have slain them which showed before the coming of the just one of
whom he had been now the betrayers and murderers, who have received the law by the dispensation
of angels and have kept and have not kept it. And the next passage goes into the Pharisees
reaction to Stevens preaching. We just went through all of chapter seven is Stephen explaining
the concepts of the Old Testament, all the men of God, the prophets, Abraham and all
this stuff. He summarized the whole entire New Old Testament. I don't know how long this
preaching went down. But from 51 to 53 doesn't seem like it was much longer than probably
15 or so minutes to call out the Pharisees for what they were. And like I said, I don't
know for sure how long that was, but it was a short message. And it was a message that
pricked them in their hearts. And because of that they killed the man of God for preaching
the words of God. We need to understand that you guys are to be fed with the word of God
and it is true. I heard pastor Roger Mendez say this last night. We're preaching to the
choir. Everyone here is very well versed in their Bibles. You guys have been studying
to show yourselves proof. The leaders in our church, the leaders in our movement have obviously
done a lot more study and we need to understand that even if you know this simple truth, I
get it, Dave. Eternal security, that's easy. I get it, David. You know, the virgin birth
is easy doctrines. We're not as independent fundamentalist Baptists. We need to stick
to fundamentals and portray the importance of any one message. And if you know it, don't
think to yourself, well, I'm just going to clock out, you know, bow thine ear unto the
understanding of the words of God. And even if you know the simple truth that the man
of God is preaching to you, just be thankful that you are able to sit in a place where
you can hear the word of God. So many places in the world you can't even, we can't even
gather together like this without being truly persecuted. And we're not persecuted here
in Hawaii in America for believing in the Lord Jesus Christ, assembling, no one's trying
to kill us. No one's trying to prevent this. Sometimes people do, but we're just going
to keep doing it even if they try to stop us. The 15 minute message is what I want to
help you guys to understand. For you, the hearers, don't clock out if it's a simple
truth that you know. Be willing to learn something, even if it comes from anyone. You know, I
know some people like this pastor more than that pastor, some people like this preacher,
this type of preaching and so on and so forth. When you come to church and you hear a man
of God speak, open your ears, open your heart, be ready to learn something, even if it's
a simple truth. It's just a 15 minute message and we know, for instance, in the leadership
class we go to a book called Jack Kyle's Teaching on Preaching and I went through the book when
I was at Faithful Word and we're going through the book again with you guys and the major
thing that I remember learning from the book was we need to get one simple truth through.
If there's one thing you guys can hear tonight is that a 15 minute message, a 10 minute message
can be life changing. It took you 10 minutes or 15 minutes to be saved. It can take you
10 minutes or 15 minutes to get a sin out of your life and maybe you never do. I don't
know how many of you got saved yesterday, a week ago, a year ago, five years ago, been
saved your whole life, not in church. I don't know the walks of life that you guys are all
in and how much of God's word you understand. So the man of God, and this is the next point
I want to get into, needs to understand the severity of who you are preaching to. You
know, Pastor Thompson sees it important to be able to bestow upon all of us the words
of God. He's trying to break it down into bite sized pieces and feed it to us that we
can be nourished with God's word. And sometimes it's deep truth and sometimes it's not. But
nevertheless, even if it's not a deep truth or deep philosophical doctrine, we can still
learn something with that. And that's the next point I want to go into is for young
preachers, and that includes me, I fall into this category too. And you know, don't think
to yourself, if you are a young preacher that I only get to preach for 10 minutes or 15
minutes, I'm just going to go through the motions and read just a couple of passages.
Take this seriously. We need to take the work of God seriously. What if I died tomorrow
night? What's the one thing I want everyone to take away is that your life could be changed
within 15 minutes. If a man of God preaches you salvation and you get saved and a man
of God preaches you on any one subject, it could be life changing for all we know. The
Bible says in Romans one, we live from faith to faith and as it is written, the just shall
live by faith. And you know, what did Peter asked? Jesus came to the Apostle Peter at
the end of his ministry before he ascended on into heaven. And he says, you know, Peter,
love is thou me says, you know, I do. And he repeats himself three times. He says, feed
my sheep. That is the point of a 15 minute message for anyone who's a preacher. What
if you get given an opportunity to preach at a, I don't know, like a college or a retirement
home or something like that, but they're like, you have a 15 minute slot. Oh, I don't want
to do it. It's not worth it. I can't get a good point across in 15 minutes. Wrong attitude.
Change the lives in 15 minutes. Preach the gospel if you have to. It doesn't matter.
Anything that comes from God's word is going to have power because it is where the words
of God are where power comes from. It's not necessarily the messenger. It's the message
that is important. And of course, you know, the messenger is important. You know, everyone
is important as preachers, but I just want you to know, feed the sheep. We are all sheeps.
We are all brothers and sisters in Christ. And don't think that, oh, you know, I remember
a faithful word at preaching class. We would do five minute sermons and some people would
be like, oh, I can't get anything out of five minutes. It's like, take it seriously.
If that's all you got, then do the best you can with that 15 minutes. You know, every
good gift comes from above. And what does it say in Ecclesiastes 9 verse 10? It says,
whatsoever thy hand find it to do, do it with thy might. For there is no work nor device
nor knowledge nor wisdom in the grave, whither thou goest. Whatever we do, if I'm cutting
trees for a living, do it with all your might. If you're preaching a message to someone,
do it with all your might. I know it says your hand, but you can apply that to preaching
a message as well. You know, head the pulpit hard and so on and so forth. But you know,
I just wanted people to understand the severity of our time because here's the one commodity
you will never get back. It's time. Time is what matters. And we need to understand as
God's people to redeem the time because the days are evil, wherefore ye are not unwise,
but understand what the will of the Lord is. Time, 15 minutes. I could hear, I know
that in my life and in my walk of faith, I've heard messages of things I never knew that
changed the course of my life forever. Getting a sin out of my life, understanding a deep
doctrine on it. Name the subject that the Bible has to shine light on, but let's redeem
the time. And if you are a preacher, preaching the word of God, take this seriously and understand
whether it's half an hour, 15 minutes, one hour, you can change a life. You can change
even the life of a Christian to better become a soul winner, to better serve the kingdom
of God and get more people to go to heaven because you helped them purge a sin out of
their life. Me included. I'm not without sin, but we need to, when the man of God preaches
on my sin, your sin, take it, listen, try to get it out of your life, forsake those
things which are behind and move forward on those things which are to come. And I want
to leave you on one last thought. It's ultimately, let's not just go through the motions. And
if in your life, you're not at church, you're just in your day-to-day living, your boss,
your parents, your friends, don't think that information coming from someone is not relevant
to who it's... I can learn something from a five-year-old right now, sincerely. Now
I know foolishness is bound in the heart of a child, but the thing is, if you ever
think you've reached the pinnacle of knowledge and information, you've just learned nothing.
Anyone can teach you something. And we don't believe in women coming up on this pulpit
and preaching the word of God because the Bible says that women are to keep silent in
the house of God. But when a wife's at home or a mother is talking to their children,
wise up, bow your ear, listen to your parents, listen to your mothers, women talking amongst
each other, men talking to other guys at work, your boss, and so on and so forth, whenever
you find an opportunity in your life to learn something, go at it with an empty cup, so
to say. Don't pretend like you know it all. You may learn something. And that's what I
want us to know. A 15-minute message can change your life. I know it changed my life. I got
saved in 10 or 15 minutes. So I think we can learn to cast sin out of our life and become
more fruitful and sharper instruments for the things of God with even 15 minutes.
We're going to bow our heads and have a word of prayer. Dear Heavenly Father, thank you
so much for this day, and please fill the next preacher with your word to preach boldly
and to feed us all with more of your word. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.