[ Silence ]
>> Good evening, ladies and gentlemen.
Welcome back to Faithful Word Baptist Church.
It's so nice to see you all here for our Thursday night service.
Find your seats now.
Take a slalom.
We'll go to Hymn 254.
We'll get started tonight.
Hymn 254.
254, "Whosoever will may come."
Number 254.
Once you've found your place, we'll start on that first verse together.
"Whosoever heareth, shout, shout the sound."
Number 254.
Lift it up on that first.
254.
"Whosoever heareth, shout, shout the sound, spread the blessings, heartaches all the world around.
Tell the joyful news wherever man is found, whosoever will may come.
Whosoever will, whosoever will, send the proclamation over valour and hail.
'Tis the loving Father calls the wonder home, whosoever will may come.
Whosoever cometh in the delay, now the door is open, enter while you may.
Jesus is the true, the only living way, whosoever will may come.
Whosoever will, whosoever will, send the proclamation over valour and hail.
'Tis the loving Father calls the wonder home, whosoever will may come.
Whosoever will, the promise is secure, whosoever will forever must endure.
Whosoever will, 'tis life forevermore, whosoever will may come.
Whosoever will, whosoever will, send the proclamation over valour and hail.
'Tis the loving Father calls the wonder home, whosoever will may come."
Amen. Good start to our singing tonight. We want to go and ask Lord's blessing on the service, so if you would put your heads together with me.
Dear Heavenly Father, we come before you tonight and we thank you for the privilege that we have to be in church on this Thursday night.
We ask Lord your blessing upon us as we lift our voices to you in praise and worship.
We just ask that you help our hearts to be stirred and edified as we sing out these songs unto you.
And Lord we ask that you please open our hearts and ears to receive the message tonight.
We also fill the preacher with your Holy Spirit, fill him with power and with function and that you would just give him the words to speak and that all of us would be attentive.
And that all that said and done would be glorifying and honoring to your name and it's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen.
397 is next, number 397. Little is much when God is in it.
397 begins in the harvest field now ripen there's a work for all to do. 397 lift your voice on that verse now.
In the harvest field now ripen there's a work for all to do.
Arms unholy, so God is calling to the harvest call of you. Little is much when God is in it. Plague or not, for wealth or fame.
There's a crown that you can win in. It will go in Jesus' name.
Does the place turn bulk to labor? Seems so small with little known. It is great when God is in it and will not forget his own.
Little is much when God is in it. Plague or not, for wealth or fame.
There's a crown that you can win in. It will go in Jesus' name.
Are you laid aside for service? Body warm with toilet care. You can still be in the battle in the same place of prayer.
Little is much when God is in it. Plague or not, for wealth or fame.
There's a crown that you can win in. It will go in Jesus' name.
When the call of year has ended and the race on earth has run.
He will say to all the faithful, welcome home, my child will die.
Little is much when God is in it. Plague or not, for wealth or fame.
There's a crown that you can win in. It will go in Jesus' name.
Amen. Good singing.
All right. I'll have much to add. But if you still want a bulletin for the week because of the schedule, go ahead and raise your hand right now.
I see that hand way in the back over there. A couple of little kids that don't really need it.
But anyways, other than that, do we count soul winning or do we just wait for Sunday? Sunday it is. That's all I got.
Next song.
Find the insert in the front of your hymnals with the hymn entitled Bright in the Corner.
We'll sing one more song before the reading of the scripture.
Bright in the Corner. Do not wait until some deed of greatness you may do is how this begins.
Bright in the Corner. Let's sing it out together now.
Do not wait until some deed of greatness you may do. Do not wait to shed your light afar. To the many duties ever near you now be true.
Bright in the corner where you are. Bright in the corner where you are. Bright in the corner where you are.
Someone far from harbor you may guide across the bar. Bright in the corner where you are.
Just above our clouded skies that you may help to clear. Let not narrow self your way debar.
Go into unheard alone make all your song of cheer. Bright in the corner where you are. Bright in the corner where you are.
Bright in the corner where you are. Someone far from harbor you may guide across the bar. Bright in the corner where you are.
Here for all your talent you may surely find a need. Here reflect the bright and morning star. Even from your humble hand the bread of light may feed.
Bright in the corner where you are. Bright in the corner where you are. Bright in the corner where you are.
Someone far from harbor you may guide across the bar. Bright in the corner where you are.
Amen. Good singing tonight.
Alright at this time please turn your Bibles to chapter 8 in the book of Acts, Acts chapter number 8. Once again please turn your Bibles to Acts chapter number 8.
Acts chapter number 8 the Bible reads. And Saul was consenting unto his death. And at that time there was a great persecution against the church which was at Jerusalem.
And they were all scattered abroad throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria except the apostles. And devout men carried Stephen to his burial and made great lamentation over him.
As for Saul he made havoc of the church entering into every house and hailing men and women committed them to prison.
Therefore they that were scattered abroad went everywhere preaching the word. Then Philip went down to the city of Samaria and preached Christ unto them.
And the people with one accord gave heed unto those things which Philip spake hearing and seeing the miracles which he did.
For unclean spirits crying with loud voice came out of many that were possessed with them and many taken with palsies and that were lame were healed.
And there was great joy in that city. But there was a certain man called Simon which before time in the same city used sorcery and bewitched the people of Samaria giving out that he himself was some great one.
To whom they all gave heed from the least to the greatest saying this man is the great power of God. And to him they had regard because that of a long time he had bewitched them with sorceries.
But when they believed Philip preaching the things concerning the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ they were baptized both men and women.
Then Simon himself believed also and when he was baptized he continued with Philip and wondered beholding the miracles and signs which were done.
Now when the apostles which were at Jerusalem heard that Samaria had received the word of God they sent unto them Peter and John who when they were come down prayed for them that they might receive the Holy Ghost.
For as yet he was fallen upon none of them only they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus.
Then laid they their hands on them and they received the Holy Ghost.
And when Simon saw that through laying on of the apostles hands the Holy Ghost was given he offered them money saying give me also this power that on whom so ever I lay hands he may receive the Holy Ghost.
But Peter said unto him thy money perish with thee because thou hast thought that the gift of God may be purchased with money.
Thou hast neither part nor lot in this matter for thy heart is not right in the sight of God.
Repent therefore of this thy wickedness and pray God if perhaps the thought of thine heart may be forgiven thee.
For I perceive that thou art in the gall of bitterness and in the bond of iniquity.
Then answered Simon and said pray ye to the Lord for me that none of these things which ye have spoken come upon me.
And they when they had testified and preached the word of the Lord returned to Jerusalem and preached the gospel in many villages of the Samaritans.
And the angel of the Lord spake unto Philip saying arise and go toward the south unto the way that goeth down from Jerusalem unto Gaza which is desert.
And he arose and went and behold a man of Ethiopia and eunuch of great authority under Candace queen of Ethiopians who had the charge of all her treasure and had come to Jerusalem for to worship was returning and sitting in his chariot read Isaiah the prophet.
Then the spirit said unto Philip go near and join thyself to this chariot.
And Philip ran thither to him and heard him read the prophet to say us and said understand is thou what thou read is.
And he said how can I accept some man should guide me.
And he desired Philip that he would come up and sit with him the place of the scripture which he read was this.
He was led as a sheep to the slaughter and like a lamb dumb before his share so opened he not his mouth and his humiliation his judgment was taken away and who shall declare his generation for his life is taken from the earth.
And the eunuch answered Philip and said I pray thee of whom speak is the prophet this of himself or of some other man.
Then Philip opened his mouth and began at the same scripture and preached unto him Jesus.
And as they went on their way they came unto a certain water and the eunuch said see here is water what hinder me to be baptized.
And Philip said if thou believest with all thine heart thou mayest.
And he answered and said I believe that Jesus Christ is the son of God.
And he commanded the chariot to stand still and they went down both into the water both Philip and the eunuch and he baptized him.
And when they were come up out of the water the spirit of the Lord called away Philip that the eunuch saw him no more and he went on his way rejoicing.
But Philip was found at Azotes and passing through he preached in all the cities till he came to Caesarea.
Dearly father thank you for this opportunity to gather here tonight and thank you for this missions conference.
Lord I pray that you just open up our ears to hear and to receive the message that is going to be preached to us by brother Caleb.
Amen. Amen.
All right. So I want to thank everyone for being here tonight.
I also want to thank Pastor Anderson for giving me the opportunity to preach about Vanuatu today.
So if you're you're here in Acts chapter number eight and look down at verse thirty six where the Bible reads.
And as they went on their way they came unto a certain water and the eunuch said see here is water what hinder me to be baptized.
And Philip said if thou believest with all thine heart thou mayest.
And he answered and said I believe that Jesus Christ is the son of God and he commanded the chariots to stand still.
And they went down both into the water both Philip and the eunuch and he baptized him.
So the title of my sermon comes from verse number thirty six where it says see here is water.
And it's just more or less a play on words of a recent trip that we took to the island country of Vanuatu.
So in Vanuatu we had three soul winners and we were able to get one hundred and twenty seven people saved in the course of about a week.
So what I want to do is use this story here in the book of Acts and Acts chapter number eight to talk about the trip and just describe some of the things that happened on the trips that we took about two months ago.
Now keep your place here in Acts chapter number eight because we're going to go back and forth through it and maybe just keep like a paper or something in there.
But this is a way of introduction.
Acts chapter number one verse eight says this but ye shall receive power after the Holy Ghost has come upon you and ye shall be both.
You should be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem and in Judea and all Judea and in Samaria.
And unto the othermost part of the earth. Now the principle we find here in Acts chapter number one is this is that you first start preaching the gospel in your local area and then you go global.
Kind of what Raymond constantly talks about about just you reach your local area first and then you're able to go and reach the rest of the world.
And that's the principle that the disciples use they preach the gospel in their local area first in Jerusalem and then they eventually spread out to different parts of the world.
And for instance here like in Phoenix we've knocked a lot of doors I would say probably all the doors within a 20 mile radius other than like new builds have been knocked by or not 20 mile 20 minute radius have been knocked by our church.
Also you know for instance South Phoenix I personally has have probably knocked different parts of South Phoenix maybe five to even seven times since I've been here and our church has probably knocked it between like 12 to 15 times.
So we've been doing a lot of soul winning in this local area and I believe because of that God's opening up doors to be able to preach the gospel in places around the world.
Now, we don't just even reach all the poor areas either we've reached people and more or less the rich air what we consider the rich areas or the middle class upper middle class areas here in Phoenix like parts of our to key where you know the houses are expensive there.
We actually knocked out most of the houses or a lot of neighborhoods in our to key or different parts of Scottsdale and Arcadia we've knocked out a lot of those parts of that area.
So I believe because we've been faithful to preaching the word of God God has opened those doors for us to be able to preach in foreign countries.
Now turn back to or you should be an axe look at acts eight five the Bible reads in acts eight five then Philip went down to the city of Samaria and preached Christ onto them.
And the people with one accord acts eight six and the people with one accord gave heed onto those things which Philip spake hearing and seeing the miracles which he did for unclean spirits crying with a with loud crying with loud voice came out of many that were
possessed with them and many taken with policies and that were lame were healed and there was great joy in that city.
So we see here in Acts chapter number eight before he even runs into the Ethiopian eunuch Philip is already preaching in the gospel in Samaria and how do we know it was the gospel.
Well look at acts eight twelve the Bible reason says but when they believe Philip preaching the things concerning the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ they were baptized both men and women then Simon himself also sorry then Simon himself believed also.
And when he was baptized he continued with Philip and one wonder beholding the miracles and signs which were done so we see in acts eight twelve and 13 that many of the people that Philip was preaching to that they ended up believing in Christ they put their faith in Christ.
And then they were all so baptized and then even Simon the former sorcerer because I don't believe he was a sorcerer after he got saved but you know we often call him Simon the sorcerer he ended up getting safe he ended up putting his faith in Christ and then he ended up getting baptized.
Now look at acts eight twenty five Bible reads in acts eight twenty five and they when they had testified and preach the word of the Lord returned to Jerusalem and preach the gospel many villages of the Samaritans and the angel of the Lord spake unto Philip saying arise and go toward the south unto the way that goeth down from Jerusalem onto Gaza which is desert.
So God gives Philip the opportunity to go to a not too far but it's a foreign field, not close to Jerusalem to be able to go preach there.
And it says in acts eight thirty eight twenty seven and he arose and went and behold a man of Ethiopia, a eunuch of great authority under Candace, Queen of the Ethiopians, who had the charge of all her treasure and had came to and had come to Jerusalem for to worship.
Whereas returning and sitting in his chariot reading and in his chariot read it say it's the prophet. Then the spirit said unto Philip go near and join thyself to this chariot.
So I believe that since Philip was already preaching in his local area, already doing soul winning, already reaching the lost in his local area, then God gave him the opportunity to be able to preach to the low hanging fruit that we know as the Ethiopian eunuch as he was going down to Gaza.
And just like Philip was doing a lot of soul winning in his day, you know, again, our church has done a lot of soul winning here in the Phoenix area as well as Arizona and then even just different parts of the country and around the world.
So I believe because of that, God has given us like he's opened doors and just other places for us to be able to preach.
Now this leads me to the reason why we chose to do some soul winning in Vanuatu and I'll get to what a Vanuatu is in a in a moment.
But before going to Vanuatu, I would say maybe earlier this year when we were planning our trip to Fiji, I heard about Vanuatu.
We were in a group chat on WhatsApp and someone was like, hey, after we're done soul winning in Fiji, maybe we should go to Vanuatu.
So that was the most I knew about Vanuatu. I just heard it in a chat.
So then after that, it was around July.
A lot of people have, you know, obviously have Labor Day off.
So someone came up to me and they're like, hey, we should probably plan another trip to to do another to do another mission trip somewhere.
I was just like, yeah, it's a great idea.
So at first, what we were thinking of doing is we thought we were going to go to Africa, but the problem with going to Africa was the tickets were just way too expensive at that time for some reason.
So then because of that, we were thinking, well, maybe we can go somewhere in the South Pacific again.
But I didn't necessarily want to go back to Fiji since we were already in Fiji a few months ago.
So because of that, what was going on was there was a deal on Fiji Airways where you can get from our airlines, wherever you call it. But you can get a ticket for seven hundred dollars that we get you from LAX to Fiji.
So we're like, OK, so we definitely we can at least get to Fiji.
So now we've got to figure out what country we can go to in the South Pacific.
So Raymond was already planning on going to Samoa at the at somewhere in September, but we didn't have the dates settled on when he was going.
And then on top of not having the dates settled on when he was going, we didn't know if he can take other people because at the time it was just supposed to be Raymond and Alex that were going.
So we didn't know if he was going to be able to have a bigger group that went with them.
So anyway, what ended up happening was this was that I was talking to the person.
I said, well, this is my these are my three criteria for going to another country.
And it was this it was that if I'm going to go to Fiji, first of all, it's only going to be a layover.
I did again. I just didn't want to go back to Fiji since we were already there.
And we did missions earlier that year.
My second criteria was this since we were trying to go the week of Labor Day was that I wanted to go somewhere that had flights like to another country that because let me back up a little bit.
Fiji is a pretty big hub for getting to other countries in the South Pacific.
So because of that, I was just like, hey, I want to have a go to a place that has multiple flights back and forth to Fiji every at least every one flight a day.
So just in case we miss one flight or something happens, then we only have to wait 24 hours to get the next flight rather than having to wait a few days.
Because, for instance, with Tuvalu or Tuvalu, the only way we can get to Tuvalu was that they only had two flights a week.
And those flights were on Monday and Thursday.
So I just wanted to make sure that we had a place that we can get to, you know, we can get flights every day.
So in case something happens, then it would make it easier to be able to get back to the U.S.
And then I didn't want to go somewhere that was too expensive.
Now, the problem with that was was that many of the places in the South Pacific, they were just really expensive to get to or they didn't meet that criteria of having multiple flights per day.
So that was the big problem we faced.
So while we were just checking all these different countries, the only two countries that met those criteria that that criteria was either Samoa or Vanuatu.
So because of that, we were just like, you know what, let's just go check out Vanuatu and see how it is.
And I believe it was a great choice for us because of that.
Now, I'm going to have you turn to just to get you somewhere.
Oh, it's fine.
So anyway, because of that, that's all we ended up changed, choosing Vanuatu for our mission strip.
So while we're planning out the trip, what's funny is that we're on face someone's on Facebook and they sent like a video of a Baptist pastor inside of Vanuatu, literally praying for missionaries to come.
So he's like, hey, you know, I'm praying that some guys will come to Vanuatu, you know, that are missionaries and do a missions to missions trip there.
And I see the video.
I'm like, well, his his prayer has been answered because we're going to Vanuatu.
So we ended up buying our tickets and then, you know, I'll go into some detail of what happened while we were there.
So that gives you an idea of just why we chose Vanuatu.
It wasn't anything special.
The Holy Ghost didn't come in my bedroom after I finished reading the Bible in the morning and said, hey, you're going to Vanuatu.
Now, it was just that we had different criteria that we want to meet before we ended up going.
So anyway, just to give you an idea or just again, some fun facts about Vanuatu so you'll know a little bit more about it is that it's another Melanesian country.
It's about five hundred miles east of Fiji.
So you have Fiji here and then Vanuatu is five hundred miles away from that.
And then if you're still not familiar where Fiji is, then it's roughly about you know, where Australia is, it's about eleven hundred miles away from Australia west.
So eleven hundred miles west of Australia, you'll find Vanuatu.
On top of that, it's again a Melanesian island.
So with Melanesia, earlier I said in my earlier sermon, I said Papua New Guinea, that's where it kind of the borderline, but it's actually Indonesia, too.
So Indonesia and Papua New Guinea, they share like a border.
So those as far out as Indonesia and then far out west is Indonesia and then as far out east as Fiji.
So that's that Melanesia area.
Melanesians, again, they are as like a people group, they're dark skinned people that have the ability of growing blonde hair, especially as young children.
I mentioned that this morning just for people who weren't here this morning or didn't hear the sermon this morning.
But Melanesians are darker, they're dark skinned, so sometimes my complexion, lighter, darker, it varies.
But they they can grow blonde hair as a child and then as they grow older, the blonde hair goes away.
So that's just something interesting about them.
On top of that, the country is made of 82 islands and out of those 82 islands, 65 of those islands are inhabited.
And only 14 of those islands have a surface area of 100 square kilometers.
That doesn't really matter to us in the US because we don't use the metric system.
So anyway, all the islands are part of this thing called the Ring of Fire.
And what the Ring of Fire is, it's just this it's a part of the it's a part of the South Pacific that has a lot of volcanic activity.
So you'll have a lot of places in that area where you'll see a lot of volcanoes and they believe that's how a lot of these islands are formed in that area is because the Ring of Fire.
And even in Vanuatu, there is an island with an active volcano where people go and you can actually see it spewing out lava.
On top of that, Vanuatu, pretty much any natural disaster can be found in Vanuatu.
They get cyclones on a regular basis, tsunamis, earthquakes, mudslides, pretty much most things most natural disasters you can find in Vanuatu.
And then on top of that, they have about 200 earthquakes a year.
But the thing is, is most of the earthquakes are like less than five, like a magnitude five.
So it's not as that big of a deal.
The three largest islands are Espiritu Santo, which that sounds familiar if you know a little Spanish.
The other one is Mala Kula.
And then where we were at is an island called Afate.
So that's where the capital is and where we did most of the soul winning, which is Port Villa.
And that island itself has a population of about 50,000 people.
Now, if you want to go to any of the other islands that are in Vanuatu, then you have to take either a boat or a ferry.
Now, the problem is, is before we I think earlier this year, they had an airline that actually went to every single island or at least most of the major islands that had runways.
But the problem is, I guess through some corruption and just other things that were going on, the airline ended up closing down and it just became a big disaster over there.
So then because of that, they just there's no airline that takes you to the other islands.
So the only way you can get there is by taking a boat or a ferry.
And it can take between a day and up to maybe even a week to get to certain islands, depending on where you're trying to go.
On top of that, they have a normal parliamentary system.
What that means just like a normal government like how we do here in the U.S.
But you do have chiefs that rule certain parts and areas of Vanuatu. So in some certain cases, you may have to get a permission from a chief to be able to do things in a certain area, which I'll explain that a little bit later.
It was ruled by it was one of one of the few countries that was ruled by both the French and British at the same time for until its independence in 1980.
So some of the languages that are spoken there are obviously English and then French.
And then they have another language called this llama, which is kind of like a pigeon English.
So if you know, if you hear this llama because we went to a church in the church, they're preaching in this llama for the Sunday service.
You would probably understand about 50 percent of what they're saying.
I understood that they're preaching on Father's Day, but I didn't know like every single detail what they're saying. But you can under you can kind of pick up some of the things that they're saying.
Now, when it comes to the food, the food was OK for the most part.
I say it like that just because the food was really expensive.
So you weren't I wasn't really able to enjoy anything that was that that may have taste a lot better.
And we got a lot of our food from a market. So like at the market, they sold like fresh fruits and vegetables and stuff like that.
But then they also had people kind of like cooking at a restaurant type style place.
But the only thing is, I know for a fact, they are putting MSG in the food like there's no doubt about it.
But to me, MSG stands for so good.
So it didn't really matter. You got to you got to take what you got to take when you're or eat whenever you're in a foreign country.
So when it comes to animals, I didn't really see too many animals other than the there's a banded iguana there.
So it's like an iguana that like at the place we stayed at, I guess there was a wild iguana that came by and it was like it's green and like kind of like a bluish color.
So it has different stripes on it. But outside of that, you have really huge spiders.
I mean, the spiders are probably about that big and you just see them all over the place.
But the cool thing about is none of the spiders are venomous.
The only ones that are venomous are the only animal that's venomous there is that they have some centipedes that are venomous.
And then while we were snorkeling, there is a we we saw something in the water and the guy was telling us it was an eel.
But I have kids and they love animals. So I kind of know a little bit about animals.
And I saw it. I was like, that ain't no eel.
What it was was it was a banded sea snake and sea snakes are one of the most venomous snakes in the world.
So we ended up seeing in the water, but it was more afraid of us than we were of it.
So it wasn't really that big of a deal. But we did see that.
And then we went to a snorkeling spot and we were able to see like different species of fish and stuff.
So it was really cool there. And it's a really nice place.
I was just telling Raymond this a little bit earlier. If you want to kind of figure out a country that some people have been to, it's like a mix.
If you if Hawaii and St. Thomas, you know, they ended up getting married and they had a child, then that would be Vanuatu.
So that's that's how I would describe it, because it's like it's it has some touristy stuff that you can do there.
But it's not as touristy as somewhere like Hawaii. But it's still really nice. It's a really nice place.
I would say it's like a little it's a step above St. Thomas, but not quite at Hawaii level.
But the water is like really nice there. It's like that really nice blue color, like the sky blue color in certain areas.
And then depending on where you go, you'll see the water, the different colors of the water chain.
So you'll see like a really light blue color, a sky blue color, and then it'll kind of go into like a navy blue color.
So it's really it's really, really nice there. On top of that, there's about 350 million people.
And then you have obviously most a lot of people are locals, but then they do have an Asian population there.
So there's a lot of people from Vietnam that ended up moving to Vanuatu.
And then there's a lot of Australians. And how that works is that if you go to Vanuatu and you stay there long enough, then you can become a citizen.
I think they charge something for it, but you can become a citizen of Vanuatu if you stay there for long enough.
And I've seen other countries do that, too. I think Ghana does the same thing.
They drive on the right side of the road, which is contrary to all the other most of the countries in that region, because in Fiji and Tuvalu, we're driving on the left side of the road.
But there we're actually driving on the right side of the road, just like here in the U.S.
So there is no difference between driving here or there. And the only other place in that area that's like that is New Caledonia.
On top of that, I spoke about the languages, but Islam is one of the big languages that's spoken there.
On top of that, the people were very nice. They're very humble. The people were really friendly.
Not everyone I talked to or we talked to got saved, but most of them, they would listen to the gospel whenever they had time.
And then one interesting thing is that everything is closed down on Saturday. So there's a lot of seven-day eventists there.
So because there's a lot of seven-day eventists in Vanuatu, a lot of things are closed down on Saturday.
But then Sunday, things were even worse. It was just empty because Vanuatu is supposed to be a Christian nation.
Now, on top of that, let me just go over some quick highlights and then I'll get into some more verses in Acts chapter number eight.
But one cool thing is that how getting to Vanuatu works is that you literally can get on a flight.
And I was talking about this earlier. You can get on a flight at around midnight, 1 a.m. in the morning from LAX.
And then within 10 hours, you'll be in Fiji. And all you have to do is just wait for you have like maybe an eight to nine hour layover.
And then you can take a daily flight to Vanuatu. So they have a flight that leaves every day at around 2.30 p.m.
And then you can get to Vanuatu that way. So what we ended up doing is that once we got to Fiji that morning,
we got there at like six in the morning. And then after we got to got through immigration stuff, we left the airport.
And then literally, if you walk 20 minutes down the road to there's a university where we did some soul winning there on our first trip in Fiji called Fiji National University or FNU.
So we ended up going there doing some soul winning. And within like an hour and a half or two hours,
we were able to get like six people saved just on the layover because it's so easy to leave the airport and then just walk back and then catch our flight.
So that's what we ended up doing. Now that one of the places we stayed at, they said that you need we need to get to the because it was at like a guest house Airbnb type place.
They said we need to get there before things get dark. If it gets dark, then you're not going to be able to navigate to be able to get to to the house.
So our flight didn't get in until like 315, 330. So we had to rush through immigration.
After we rushed through immigration, we ended up getting the rental car.
So the thing is, in Banuatu, the sun starts setting around five o'clock, similar to here, you know, during the winter.
So at that time, we're like rushing to the place and the place is like about 40 minutes from the airport.
So by the time we got there, we actually went the wrong way. So then we had to turn around and then get to the place.
And then by the time we got to the place, it was five. The sun started setting and then they already closed their office so we couldn't find anybody.
The only people that were there were not people unless you're a weirdo. They were dogs.
There was just a bunch of dogs there. And then we we like we're trying to find how to get into the guest house.
And then luckily, the person who owned the guest house ended up coming and then giving us the key and then we were able to get in.
So it wasn't that big of a deal. But one cool thing was is that where we were staying was right on a river.
You literally just had to walk down a hill and then you're right by by this river.
And we have pictures of it back there so you can see it whenever you get a chance. But it was a really, really nice place.
And then one cool thing was was that about the place we were staying was just that because it was kind of a little far out from the city, there is no light pollution.
So if you're someone who's kind of into astronomy, you can see like so many stars when you were there.
And what I learned how to do while I was on the trip was that I learned how to do astrophotography with my phone.
As long as you have a tripod and a decent phone and the right app, you can take pictures of like the sky at night and they look really, really, really cool.
And I think I'm pretty sure we have a picture of that in the back also. So if you want to take a look at just to see how it is.
So now on this trip, because it was self funded, we only did like roughly two or three hours of soul winning.
So we didn't really do a lot of soul winning just because we want to enjoy our time there.
So we wanted to, you know, like the church's standard when it comes to, you know, if the church pays for some of the things on the trip, then it's, you know, you do five hours of soul winning roughly.
So we did roughly about three hours of soul winning just because the sun sets so early.
So so it wasn't easy for us to and where we were staying at was just so far off from the university that we were doing most of our soul winning at.
So because of that, it just made it easier if we ended up just doing a shorter amount of time soul winning and then just, you know, got to see around the island and just enjoy it.
One thing we ended up doing is that we drove around the whole island. So I brought this, you're probably not going to see it unless you're in the front.
But this is something they give you at the airport. And it's just like a map of the country.
And again, you're probably not going to be able to see it. But this kind of gives you an idea of how the country or at least the island that we're on look and where we're staying.
Again, you're probably not going to be able to see it, especially if you're in the back. We are staying here.
And then where we ended up going, what was I going to say? So we ended up staying here and we ended up just driving around this whole island. It's like maybe I'd say an hour and 15 minute drive.
But once we it wasn't that long, but we were able to see everything. It was a really, really, really nice scenic drive.
So we did go to church there. There was a Baptist church. It was called Grace Bible Baptist Church. So people are really nice.
We ended up going there because they only had two services. They had a Wednesday service and a Sunday service.
So for their Wednesday service, they happen to speak English that like they when they do their preaching, it's typically in Islam.
That's the native language there. But they ended up doing they ended up having some services that were in English.
Like they have like I think three Wednesday night services that are abyssal and then one service that's in English a month.
So we just happened to come when they had that one English service that month. So we're able to hear the preaching English.
The people are really nice. And then on Sunday, we went back and then they ended up giving us some like a small little thing of honey for some reason.
I don't know why, but they're like, hey, it's sweet that you stop. That's what it said on those like it's sweet that you stop by. Here's a little honey.
I was just like, all right. So they gave us that. But again, they're really friendly.
I don't have a good idea of like exactly their beliefs, but they were really nice. It was a really nice church to visit.
They talked to us and so on and so forth. So I have nothing bad to say about them.
Another funny thing is is that when I was there, people would say whenever I would talk to someone, they would say, hey, you're African.
And technically, I'm African. Yes. I mean, I was born here, but my parents are African. And I'm just like, how do you know?
So because these guys, they just somehow knew that I was African because most other places, they just think I'm American.
Even in Africa, the times I've been to Africa, they think I'm American. They don't think I'm African.
So I was surprised. But I guess what's going on is that in those countries, you know, if you're black, then you're probably from Africa.
They don't think that maybe a lot of black people come to visit from the U.S. or something. I don't know exactly why.
But I was just like, hey, they're right. I mean, I don't know what to say, but I just thought that was interesting that they were able to peg it.
They're like, hey, this guy's an African. So I was like, hey.
Another funny thing was that when people would walk around, they would have machetes, like a bunch of people just had machetes.
So you'll just see guys walking around with a machete the whole time you're there.
And it was kind of sketchy because you would like walk to different places and the guys would literally just they'll have like a really, how should I put it, just they look like they're going to rob you.
So they have this like really bad look on their face just like and they just have a machete in their hand just walking around like that.
So then the way I figured out how to like fix that, if I just didn't trust the guy, I would just say hi.
And then their whole demeanor would just change. It's like the guy has a machete. He's just looking all rough and tough and all this stuff.
And I'm like, hi. He's just like, oh, hi. And then that was it. That's how I fixed that.
Just by saying hi to the guy. So I don't know. It just worked for me.
But that's literally how they were there. It's just that I don't know why.
Then I even asked them, hey, why do you guys walk around with machetes? And they're just like to cut things down.
That's what they literally told me. I was just like, all right, good answer.
So another cool thing is and you'll probably see a picture of that. They had a really, really nice waterfall.
And that's where I asked them about the machetes, because there was like out.
So walking to the waterfall was just kind of it was really nice because there's like these different pools of water and they're really blue as you walk to it.
But then the problem was, was that you had to pay twice.
So they had like an entrance fee that was like twenty U.S. dollars and then they had another fee that was like fifteen dollars.
And how they how they did it was they had like they're currently having some land dispute to get to the waterfall.
So like some Chinese guys bought part of the waterfall.
So because of that, they you know, you pay and you pay to like the natives to get on the property and then you pay again after you walk maybe like half a mile.
And then you have to pay another time because that's where that's the part of the land that the Chinese own.
So it was just I mean, it was a really nice waterfall when I got there, but it was just you know, that was kind of an issue.
So they're saying they're trying to fix that and figure out what's going on with that and get that settled.
But, you know, it's just it's just one of those things.
Just trying to think of anything else I want to say before I move on. Oh, one cool thing is they had this really, really nice place that we went snorkeling at and it's called the Blue Lagoon.
And this water was like super blue. And on top of it being super blue, like no one was there.
So like I would say because, you know, like if you've ever been to Hawaii, like just a lot of things are super crowded in Hawaii.
But there nobody was there. It was just like.
I would say at the peak time we went at like two thirty p.m.
and there was like at one day it was like fifteen people there and then the next day it was like less than ten people there the whole time.
So I thought that was cool. And then even walking to the waterfall, there was like only there was no one at the waterfall.
When I walked there, it was just people like a lot of the locals just doing work like around the waterfall, like digging holes and cutting down trees and stuff like that.
So anyway, let's go back to some Bible.
So that just gives you an idea of kind of what we did while we were there a little bit.
Just gives you more insight on Vanuatu and just to help you understand just kind of how the culture is and just things in Vanuatu.
Because I'm sure many of you didn't have not heard about it before.
Now, I'm going to talk about I'm just going to go ahead and start talking about a lot of the soul winning that we did there inside of Vanuatu.
So my first point was was this and I got to remember it because I've been talking so long about so much about Vanuatu.
My first point is just that, oh, yeah, God's going to open doors.
If you're soul winning here in the US, God's going to make sure he opens doors and other places so that you can reach people globally.
But my second point is this is just because someone says that they're a Christian doesn't mean that they're safe.
I know that's a simple principle. It's something we all know.
But we use the term Christian very loosely in twenty twenty four.
And even Catholics, if you ask a Catholic, are they a Christian?
The Catholics often get to say, no, they're not.
But then they still group Catholics into Christianity when they do all their statistics and stuff.
And the Bible says in Matthew seven thirteen, enter you at the straight gate for wide is the gate and broad is the way that lead to destruction.
And many there be which go many there be which go in there at because straight as the gate narrows the way, which leads on to life and few be there that find it.
Now, Vanuatu is considered to be a Christian nation.
So some of the stats on that, it's 90, roughly 93, 94 percent Christian.
And then it's roughly five percent animism.
And if you're familiar with that, it's just like the worship of animals.
And then it's one point four percent by faith and then it's about point six percent other.
So and then when it comes to Christianity, there is a lot of Protestants there and specifically Presbyterians.
We ran into a lot of Presbyterians while we were there.
Seventh Day Adventists, we ran into a lot of Seventh Day Adventists, not that many Jehovah's Witnesses.
And ironically, we ran into a lot of Mormons.
There were a bunch of Mormons there.
We counted probably for the time we were there, there was probably like eight pairs of Mormons.
So like around 16 Mormons like just out walking about trying to preach their their false gospel and stuff.
So yes, so that that was something that I found interesting there that there like there's a lot of Mormons there, even more than I saw in Tuvalu and Fiji.
Like there is a lot of Mormons.
Now, in Acts, chapter number eight, verse 30, the Bible reads and says, And Philip ran tither to him and heard him read the prophet.
He says and said, and said, Understand this style, what thou readest?
And he said, How can I accept accept some man teach us?
Sorry, accept some man to guide me.
And he desired Philip that he would come up and sit with him.
The place of the scripture which he read was this.
He was led as a sheep to the slaughter and like a lamb dumb before his shearers.
So open he not his mouth.
In his humiliation, his judgment was taken away.
And who shall declare his generation for his life is taken from the earth.
Now, in Vanuatu, out soul winning.
I don't think I met anyone who was saved.
And we did a lot of soul winning at the university because again, there there was another University of South Pacific, which is all over the South Pacific.
Like that's where we did a lot of the soul winning in Fiji and then also Raymond and Alex did some soul winning there in Samoa.
So that's where we did a good chunk of our soul winning.
And we didn't the reason why we did a lot of our soul winning there is that we didn't know how people's English was going to be.
So when in doubt, if you don't know how well someone's English is going to be in a country, the best thing to do is try to go to a university.
And at the university, our English was great.
And I don't think I necessarily taught too fast, but I didn't really have to slow down the way I spoke to them.
They understood everything I said, you know, as I talked to them.
Now, we did meet some guys from Fiji from what's called the Campus Crusade.
And I remember Campus Crusade when I was in college.
And typically they don't really have the right gospel here.
However, when we were in Vanuatu, there were some guys from Fiji that ended up coming from the Campus Crusade that happened to be, I guess, evangelizing there while we were in.
We were on the University of South Pacific's campus.
So I ended up running into a few of them.
And when I talked to them, they actually gave me the right answers when it came to salvation.
Like, at least I talked to three different people that happened to be with the Campus Crusade, and I would say two gave me a solid answer on salvation.
One, I think he was saved, but his response wasn't that great.
But those are the only saved people I can think of that we met out soul winning.
I'm not saying there weren't any saved people there.
It's just there weren't that many that we met even on the college campus or when we actually did some soul winning out and about.
And again, most of the people we talked to were like Presbyterians, Catholics, Seventh-day Adventists.
And again, we did talk to some Mormons while we were on the trip.
One cool thing is we went to, and you're not going to see this, but I'm just going to point in the direction maybe after service I could show you on this map.
But we went to this little island.
So it's called Pele Island on a Saturday.
And what I thought when it came to going to Pele Island, we were going to do some soul winning there as well as a little recreation.
So it's a place where you just go swimming.
And what ended up happening was I thought the island literally only had like 10 houses there.
So we took we went to a wharf and then we ended up taking about a 20 minute boat ride to 20 to 30 minute boat ride to Pele Island.
And when we got there, what ended up happening was that as soon as we got on the island, they said that we needed to have the chief's permission to be able to preach there.
But then the problem was, is that as soon as we got there, the chief was literally getting on a boat to leave the island.
So we're like, well, how can we get the permission of the chief if he's getting on a boat and leaving the island?
Well, his brother happened to be there and I guess he's like second in command once the chief is gone.
So what ended up happening was that Rob ended up talking to the chief's brother and then he ended up preaching to him the gospel and he ended up getting him saved.
So then after Rob got him saved, the guy was like, you guys can preach to anyone you want on this island.
So we were like, perfect. But the problem was we were already while Rob was preaching to the chief, we already started preaching to other people.
So it didn't really matter. But but we did have permission.
So we were like, OK, this is great. So when we got to the island, we went soul winning for probably about two hours.
And within those two hours, we were able to get about 13 people saved.
And it wasn't like we were putting that much effort into like trying to preach to people because a lot of the time I was just walking around the island looking at it and then just going up to people and just, you know, making small talk with them.
Rob, on the other hand, he was talking to he ended up giving the gospel to this lady named Janet.
And then the cool thing is that after he gave the lady this lady the gospel, she like became his silent partner out soul winning.
So then what she would do is she would give she would like take him to different family members.
So she took him to his aunt, her aunt. And then Rob ended up preaching the gospel to her to her aunt.
And then he ended up getting her aunt saved. And then he ended up she ended up taking him to other people.
And then he just was like getting the people saved that she brought him to that she was bringing him to.
So I thought that was really cool. And then for it to be like a remote island, I was surprised that their English was pretty decent.
Like you could communicate with these people with no problem. Like I remember talking to some an older lady and she was just telling me how she's been on the island her whole life.
I'm like, how did you learn the English? You know, your English, you know, since I'm speaking to you in English.
And she was just like, well, how I learned it is just that we have a school here and then in the school they actually teach them English.
So English was not an issue on that island. So I thought that was something that was pretty cool.
Now, and one cool thing about the this island is that it only has five hundred people.
So say if we were to go back, I think it would be a good place to do like a soul winning marathon to try to knock out that whole island because it's not really that big.
And they only have we only knocked pretty much one village, but they have four villages on the island.
And I think it's something that we can probably in a week we could probably get that whole island knocked out and of Pele.
My next point is this third point is that you need a believer to expound the Bible to the lost.
Now, why bring that up is that while we were in Vanuatu, we met a lot of people that were quote unquote Christians and even trying to quote unquote serve God and read the Bible.
But these people were not saved. I again, I didn't meet when I was in Vanuatu.
I think I didn't meet any people out soul winning that was for say, but it was good because a lot of people were low hanging fruits and we were able to preach to them and get them saved in a pretty in a relatively short amount of time.
Now, Acts 834 says this and the eunuch answered and answered Philip and said, I pray thee of whom speakest thou of whom speakest the prophet this of himself or of some other man.
Then Philip opened his mouth and began at the same scripture and preached unto him Jesus.
So we see in this passage that again, the Ethiopian eunuch, he had the Bible.
He didn't really understand what was going on in the Bible.
And he needed Philip to expound the scripture to him so he can understand how to be saved.
And same thing goes on in our day and age is that unsafe people are not going to be able to read the Bible on their own or have some another unsafe person talk to them.
And then that person gets saved. They need someone who is saved to be able to preach the gospel to them.
And I strongly believe that because to me, it doesn't really make that much sense how an unsafe person that doesn't understand the Bible that's going to hell can preach to someone and get that person saved.
And I think Acts chapter number eight is a very good text verse from the Bible that it kind of explains that that.
Hey, we have an unsafe we have an example of an unsafe person that didn't know the Bible or that that's trying to read the Bible that can't understand it.
And then you needed someone who was saved to expound that to them.
The Bible says in First Corinthians one eighteen for the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness onto us, which are saved as the power of God.
So the preaching of the cross according to the Bible to unsafe people, it's foolishness, it's dumb.
So how can someone who thinks the things that are in the Bible are dumb or they don't make sense, how can they expound the word of God to someone else and get them saved?
To me, it doesn't really make that much sense.
And then on top of that, First Corinthians two fourteen says this, but the natural man receiveth the things, not the things of the spirit of God for their foolishness onto him. Neither can they know them because they are spiritually discerned.
So unsafe people are spiritually discerned. They can't rightly divide the word of God.
So, again, how can they be able to get someone saved if they really don't even understand what the Bible is saying?
Now, I want you to turn to First Corinthians chapter number three, keep your place in Acts eight, but First Corinthians chapter number three.
And when you get there, look at verse three, First Corinthians three, verse three.
Now, what's the solution? The solution is this is that we need to go out and preach to these people who are lost and get them saved and then have other believers expound the Bible to to to unsafe people so that these people can let other unsafe people can get saved.
So the Bible says faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the word of God.
Now, the Bible says in First Corinthians three, verse three, it says for you are yet carnal for whereas there is among you envy and strife and divisions.
Are you not carnal and walk as men for while one sayeth I'm of Paul and another I'm of a Paulist.
Are you not carnal who then is Paul and who is a Paulist but ministers by whom you believe even as the Lord gave to every man.
I've planted a Paulist water, but God gave the increase.
The Bible says that, you know, Paul and a Paulist, they're ministers, so other people can believe and you could be that too. If you're saved, if you, you know, understand salvation, you believe in Christ, then you can be able to expound the word of God to other people so that they can get saved.
And that's our goal is to try to reach as many lost people as we can.
So and every man has that it's just are those people because you know there's people in my life that you're probably never going to see or talk to that it's my responsibility to give them the gospel.
And then there's people in your life that you're I'm never going to talk to.
And it's your responsibility to give them the gospel.
And that's why God puts them in there in our lives.
So you need to just take the time and try to, you know, preach that person the gospel.
And that's how those people are going to get saved.
Now, I bring that up because in when we were in Vanuatu, we had a lot of people that were like that, where for instance, Rob, he was talking to a Seventh-day Adventist lady.
And the Seventh-day Adventist, she was actually receptive to the gospel, but she was with her friend and her friend kept trying to pull her away so that she couldn't listen to Rob.
But the lady kept listening and Rob and her were talking for a pretty long time.
I think it was like almost 45 minutes.
And eventually at the end, Rob got her to denounce, you know, Seventh-day Adventism.
I don't know how you put it, but he ended up getting her to denounce Seventh-day being a Seventh-day Adventist.
And she ended up putting her faith in Christ.
And same thing with me while I was on the college campus soul winning.
I was talking to, I talked to a lot of Seventh-day Adventists and I had, I'll be honest, they had my head, they had me scratching my head because I was talking to one guy in particular.
And this happened twice while I was there.
But I know enough about the Seventh-day Adventist doctrine that I'm like when people tell me they believe something, I'm kind of like skeptical.
For instance, like when Seventh-day Adventists, they believe in a thing called annihilation.
So they first of all, they believe in soul sleep. And what that means is that as soon as someone dies, then their soul just rests on the earth until the great white throne judgment.
God then after the great right throne judgment, God ends up judging them.
And then he cast them into the lake of fire and then they're annihilated.
So they believe in those two doctrines of soul sleep, where a person if they die, they don't go straight to heaven or hell.
They just sleep in the ground until Jesus comes back and then the great white throne judgment and so on and so forth.
And then they get annihilated. So they don't necessarily, they don't really believe in hell.
And then on top of that, I remember seeing this in the past and I had to check like the internet to see.
But I remember Seventh-day Adventists thinking that Jesus Christ was Archangel Michael.
So a lot of them did not believe that Jesus Christ was God. They say he's like Archangel Michael. And then they had a lot of just other weird and false doctrine.
But I'm talking to this guy, like I'm preaching the gospel to this guy and I ask him about hell.
And what I've been doing lately is when I talk to people about hell, I'll say things like, hey, do you believe hell is a literal place of fire and torment?
And he was telling me yes, because what goes on is that I've knocked a lot of doors in Mesa. And the thing is, is Mormons in Mesa do not believe or just Mormons in general do not believe in hell.
So they think that hell is just a place where you kind of get reformed if you're not like an ex-Mormon.
So sorry, Rob, you know, but you're not an ex-Mormon, then you're not going to, you know, if you're an ex-Mormon, you're doomed.
But if you're not an ex-Mormon, but you're bad, then, you know, God's going to reform you.
And then eventually you'll go to one of the three, you know, heavens or whatever, probably the lowest one.
So that's what they believe. So they don't think hell is an actual place of fire and torment.
So because of that, since I know Seventh-day Adventists don't believe hell is a place of fire and torment, then I would often ask them that, too, because they believe in annihilation.
So I'm talking to this guy and then he's saying that I'm like, hey, do you believe hell is a place of fire and torment?
He's like, yes. I'm like, are you sure? Because I was like, Seventh-day Adventists don't believe that.
And he's just like, yeah, I believe that. So I was just like, OK. And I was just like, well, do you believe Jesus Christ is Archangel Michael?
And he was just like, no, I believe Jesus is the Son of God. So I was just like, something's wrong with this, because I'm like, this is a little too easy for the God to, like, give me all the right answers.
And in my head, I'm like, I know for a fact Seventh-day Adventists don't believe that. So it got to the point while I'm talking to the guy, I'm like, look.
I said, I'm glad you believe that, but that's not what Seventh-day Adventists believe.
I literally pulled out my phone and then I went on the Seventh-day Adventists website to make sure that's what they believe.
But then I was confused because it was just like I couldn't find it.
Like they were saying the stuff I thought that Seventh-day Adventists believe was not what they were actually saying on the website.
So I was just like, whatever. So I just kept preaching the gospel to the guy.
And then after that, I was just like, well, I said I kept talking to him about it.
And another thing I was pretty sure that Seventh-day Adventists believe is that if you don't keep the Sabbath day, then you're not going to be able to be saved.
They'll say salvation is by faith, but then they're really adamant that you have to keep the Sabbath.
So as I'm preaching to him the gospel, I'm just like, hey, do you have to keep the Sabbath to be saved?
He's constantly saying no. So I'll be honest, I was kind of confused that this guy was just like getting like he wasn't.
He's saying he's Seventh-day Adventist. He said he was a Seventh-day Adventist for a really long time, but he's given me all the right answers.
Or at least he's not giving me the Seventh-day Adventist doctrine. So after I gave him the gospel, I just got to the end.
And I was just like, I don't really know what to do. So I just was like, all right, this is what I'm going to tell him.
I said, hey, look, man, I said, I'm not a Seventh-day Adventist. I'm never going to be a Seventh-day Adventist.
I said, I don't believe you have to keep the Sabbath day. I believe that was done away with in Christ.
So I was like, if I was to work every Saturday or Sunday or whatever you believe about the Sabbath and not take any rest
and not regard the Sabbath, where would I go? And he was like, you would go to heaven. I was just like, OK, let's pray.
So then I was just like, whatever. Because at that point, it's like, what else can you ask the guy? It's like, I don't know.
You know, I just threw my hands up on that. Another one, and I think this is a really good story, was that I was talking to a Mormon guy.
So we were soul-witting on the campus. And then I was talking to a Mormon and the guy, he ended up happening.
He was sitting on a bench, and I ended up trying to preach to him the Gospel. And the same thing, since I knew Mormons.
Whenever I talk to Mormons, just to kind of make sure, just to not waste too much time on them,
I just make sure to see what they believe about hell. Because if they start saying hell is not what the Bible says hell is,
then I'm not going to waste that much time trying to preach to a person who doesn't believe in hell.
Because if you don't believe in hell, then what's the need of the Savior if you're not going to believe in hell?
But anyway, so I ended up talking to him, and it was kind of the same thing with him and the Seventh-day Adventist.
Some of the stuff that I'm thinking he was supposed to give me some pushback on, some of the questions, he wasn't giving me pushback on.
I asked him about hell. He's actually agreeing with me on hell, even though he told me he was a Mormon.
Mormons don't believe that Jesus Christ is God, so I was telling him, hey, the Bible says Jesus Christ is God, showing him verses.
He wasn't really giving me that much pushback on that. So with Mormons, anyone who's been soul-winning in places like Mesa and talked to Mormons,
you know that Mormons are extremely deceptive. So what they'll do is they'll agree with everything you're saying,
and then just to waste your time, and then towards the end, let's say you talk to them for about 15 minutes,
towards the end they're going to say, oh yeah, we're just like you, I believe the same thing you believe.
And then what are they going to say? Faith without works is dead. I know, I'm sure every person that's talked to a Mormon
and who's been soul-winning for long enough has seen that. So anyway, I'm just like, I didn't trust the guy, I'll be honest.
So because I didn't trust the guy, I just was like, I don't know what got me, but I was just like, I feel like this guy is just like pulling my chain.
So I was just like, you know what, I'm just going to go off on Mormonism and just see what he says.
So I just literally went off on Mormonism. I was saying as much bad stuff as I could about Mormonism just to see what he said.
So I was just like, you're a Mormon, huh? I was like, you know Mormonism is a cult?
I said, you know every Mormon is going to hell? I was like, you know they don't believe the Bible?
I was like, you know what Mormons believe? And this is what I'm telling them, you know what Mormons believe?
They believe that God is on a planet called Kolob and he's sleeping with all these different women populating planets.
I was like, did you know Mormons believe that? And then the guy was just like, no I didn't.
So I was just like, well that's what they believe. So I'm like preaching to them and then I'm like just getting really passionate about it.
So then I'm like, you know what, because he was black. So I was just like, and with, I don't use the race card much, but when I do.
I use it with Mormons. So anyway, because he was black, I'm just like, you know what, I'm going off.
So I was just like, hey, I'm like, what's in your book bag? I'm like, you have a Book of Mormon in your book bag right now, don't you?
Because I was like, pull that Book of Mormon out. And lo and behold, he had a Book of Mormon in his book bag and then he ended up pulling it out.
So then I'm like, let me show you something. So the problem was, was this.
So it was all good up until this point because I know in the Book of Mormon, I'm going to read the verses out.
It says that pretty much if you have dark skin that you have a curse.
So I was just like, I know it says it in there, but the problem is the Book of Mormon is a big book of a bunch of garbage.
So the problem is I don't remember where it was. So I'm like sitting there trying to turn and find the pages of where it's at.
And I just couldn't find the page of where it said like, you know, people with dark skin a curse.
So I'm like sitting there for like 10 minutes, just like, hey, hold on, just just be patient, just wait.
Just be patient with me. I'll find what I'm trying to. I'll find what I'm trying to show you.
Just give me a few minutes. So I got to the point. I was just like, you know what? I'm going on the Internet.
I pulled out my phone. I was just like, where do Mormons believe or where is the say in the Book of Mormons that black people are going to hell?
So then I found the verses or that they're cursed. I was just like, OK, sounds like let me show you this.
So then I ended up showing him this. So actually, there's three verses that in the Book of Mormon that say that people with dark skin are cursed.
I'll just quickly read about to you. It says in Alma and this is not Bible, so bear with me.
I'm just they try to make it sound like the Bible, but it's not. But it says Alma three six.
It says, And the skins of the Lamanites were dark according to the mark which was set upon their fathers,
which was a curse upon them because of their transgression and rebellion against their brethren who consisted of Nephi.
And don't name your child Nephi because we know you're you're a Mormon.
But anyway, Nephi, Jacob and Joseph and Sam, who was just who were just and holy men.
So also in third Nephi chapter number two, verse 15, it says in their curse was taken from them and their skin became white like the Nephites.
So once you're the curse is taken away from you, you know what you become white.
And that's what it says in the Book of Mormon. So if you want if you want if you're a true racist, then you know what you do.
You go become a Mormon. That's that's what I believe about that.
But this is the big one is second Nephi five twenty one or five twenty twenty two through twenty three.
So bear with me. It says, Wherefore, the word of the Lord was fulfilled, which he spake unto me,
saying that in some in as much as they will not harken unto the words, they shall be cut off from the presence of the Lord.
And behold, they were cut off from his presence.
And he had caused the cursing to come upon them, yea, even a sore cursing because of their iniquity.
For behold, they had hardened their hearts against him that they became like unto a flint.
Wherefore, as they were white and exceeding fair and delightsome, that they might not be enticing unto my people.
The Lord did cause a skin of blackness to come upon them.
And thus saith the Lord, I will cause I will cause that they shall be a loathsome,
that they shall be loathsome, loathsome, sorry, unto thy people, save they shall repent of their iniquities.
And the curse shall be the seed of him that mixeth with their seed, for they shall be cursed even with the same cursing.
And the Lord spake it and it was done.
But you can clearly see from the Book of Mormon, they say, hey, if you're, you know, these guys are getting cursed,
so their skin's no longer going to be white, but it's going to be a skin of blackness and it's going to be loathsome.
So I showed this guy this, and I'm like, you know Mormons, and I guess I have the dates wrong,
but I'm like, you know Mormons didn't allow black people to join Mormonism until like the 1960s,
but I think it wasn't even until the 1970s when they actually let black people join Mormonism,
where they said, oh, blacks can join join the Mormon church at that point.
So I'm telling them all this and I can see, you know, he's opening up and things are making sense to him.
So then I also told them, and this is something I know about Mormons, is that they teach that marriage is eternal.
So if you're having problems with your spouse now, don't become a Mormon,
because you have problems for all eternity.
But these Mormons, they believe that you have to get married in the temple,
and then once you get married in the temple, then you become, you know, you have this eternal marriage,
and then you're with your spouse for all eternity.
So I'm like, that contradicts the Bible, and I'll just quickly read these verses,
but if you're familiar, I'm not going to have you turn there just for sake of time,
and Matthew 22, some guys come to try to tempt Jesus,
and they give this elaborate story about a man, he's married to this woman, he dies,
and then that man dies, so then his brother is supposed to take her to be his wife,
the brother takes her to be his wife, and then he dies, and it gets to the point that seven brothers do this.
So they're giving Jesus this weird scenario, and then they said, hey, the woman dies also,
so in heaven, who's this woman's husband going to be?
So then Jesus answers in Matthew 22, 29, it says,
So we have clear scripture from the Bible that says, hey, when people die, you're no longer married,
you know, you're going to be like angels where angels are not given into marriage,
so we're not going to be given into marriage either.
So I showed them all these verses, and I was just like, hey, I'm like, I just kept emphasizing that Mormons are evil and wicked,
and, you know, they're going to hell, they have really bad doctrine,
and the guy eventually was just like, yeah, you're right, I see what you're saying,
and then he started opening up, and he was just like, well, he was searching,
like he went to many different churches in his life, and he just never felt like he knew what the truth was,
so then because of that, that's why he ended up just going to the Mormon church.
I was like, well, now I'm showing you the truth, that salvation's my faith, that you can't lose it, and now you know this,
so now at least you have that truth, and you can, you know, live your Christian life from there.
So one other thing I did was that, because I was like, I didn't want the Mormons influencing the guy,
I said, hey, what I'll do is this, I'll give you my number,
and I said, what I'll do is that if you have any questions, feel free to contact me,
because I just didn't want him, like the Mormons, like let's say he gets saved,
and the Mormons start talking to him and start trying to like subvert him again and all this stuff,
so I said, hey, I'm going to give you my number, and then I said, if you have any questions,
just, you know, feel free to send me a text message.
I said, I may not answer right away, but I'll try my best to answer you if you have any questions,
so I think because I said that, he was able to open up more, and then he was able to get saved,
so then after he got saved, what's funny is this, it was our last day soul winning,
so what I ended up doing was this, I ended up, I had two New Testaments, and then he had his Book of Mormon,
so I was just like, hey, you know what, let's do a two for one trade.
I said, I'm going to give you two Bibles if you give me that Book of Mormon, so then he was just like, okay,
so I was just like, perfect, so then I gave him two New Testaments, he gave me the Book of Mormon,
and then I gave it to the ex-Mormon there, Rob, so he has it still.
I don't have it because it's evil, whatever, it's probably filled with demons or something, but anyway,
you know, so that was, I think, a really good success story when it came to preaching to someone who was lost,
who they were seeking to try to get saved and understand the Bible, but they're going in all the wrong directions,
and you know what, I was there to help preach the gospel to that guy so that he was able to get saved,
and that's what we do when we go on these mission trips is I'm sure other people have stories like that
of different places they've been or different people they've talked to about soul winning,
where you're that person's, you know, that person's, I guess, the way that person can understand
what the Bible says about salvation, and you'll be that person that leads that person to Christ so that they can get saved.
You know, there's a lot of people, how should I put it, there's, sometimes you just need a specific person
to talk to someone, and then that person can help open that person's eyes, and that person can be able to get saved,
and you know what, that person's you, that person's you when you go out and go soul winning.
I think of just many different stories of people saying, like, I know recently Ramon, we were out soul winning here in Phoenix,
and we were knocking an apartment complex, and then some lady was contemplating suicide,
and Ramon ended up preaching to her the gospel, and then she ended up getting saved,
and Ramon was just at the right place at the right time to be able to preach to that lady so that she could get saved.
And same thing with us, hey, when we go out on the foreign mission field, we're at the right place at the right time
to preach to the right people so those people can be able to get saved.
Now, last thing I want to get to is this, or two more things and I'll be done, but look at Acts 8.36.
Acts 8.36, it says in Acts 8.36, "As they went on their way, they came unto a certain water, and the eunuch said,
'See, here is water, what doth hinder me to be baptized?' And Philip said, 'If thou believeth with all thine heart, thou mayest.'
And he answered and said, 'I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.' And he commanded the chariot to stand still,
and they went down both into the water, both Philip and the eunuch, and he baptized him."
So one cool thing about this trip in Vanuatu was that after we got people saved, we ended up talking to the people,
I would say on average for like 10 to 20 minutes after they got saved, and what we were doing was we were trying to get the people to live for God.
You know, we see here the eunuch wants to get baptized because baptism is the first step of obedience and of serving God after you get saved.
Obviously, we didn't baptize anyone on that trip, but we tried to point people in the right direction.
We pointed people to the Baptist church that we went to and said, "Hey, if you want to go serve..."
What we would say is, "Hey, try to go to this Baptist church so you can be able to serve God."
On top of that, we would give them a lot of material. We gave them Bibles.
We gave them our custom YouTube cards with different videos and stuff on it.
And then we had a QR code which they could scan and then get on our email list for the church.
And we just took extra time in talking to them about the Bible.
What I often did was after I got someone saved, kind of as a test but then a way to encourage them to keep serving God,
is I would take them here to Acts 8 verse 36 and I would tell them about how a lot of these false modern Bible versions take out Acts 8.37.
So I read the verses out and say, "This is why I'm giving you a King James Bible."
So you'll know that it has everything you need in here, unlike all these other modern Bible versions.
They take out verses, they remove things, and they change things.
So now you have the truth and all you have to do now that you're saved is just read the truth and that's going to help you grow as a Christian.
So I would take the time to try to edify them and just help them where they would be able to get on their feet as a new believer to be able to serve God.
So that's one thing I really liked about Vanuatu. The people were extremely friendly.
Whenever you would preach to them, they were extremely thankful. They loved that we were there.
So it was a really good place to go soul winning for the short time we were there.
Now last thing I want to talk about is this. Look at Acts 8.39 where the Bible reads and it says,
"And when they were come out of the wall, the spirit of the Lord called away Philip, that the eunuchs saw him no more, and he went on his way rejoicing.
But Philip was found at Aztos, and passing through, he preached in all the cities until he came to Caesarea."
So what ends up happening later with Philip and the eunuch is that after the eunuch gets baptized, Philip just disappears and the eunuch sees him no more.
And unfortunately, just because of how the trips go, we're not church planting or anything, but a lot of these places that we go soul winning,
they already have a good church where they have a church there, so the best thing we can do is try to point them to that church so that they can serve God.
We're going there to get people saved and we can even see here in this passage that that's what Philip did.
He got the eunuch saved and then what did he do? He just disappeared and went somewhere else.
And unfortunately, that's just kind of how life leads. That's the things that happen in life where we may go to one place and go soul winning there and do a great work for God
and then once we're done with that place, we may end up going somewhere else later to try to be a blessing to some new country and see how that new country is when it comes to receiving the gospel.
But in 2024, there's a lot of ways you can follow up with people, especially since you have things like WhatsApp where you can talk to people around the world for free.
So there's still ways where you can encourage people to try to serve God and serve the Lord.
It's not like here where they don't really have any ways of communicating. In 2024, we do have ways of communicating via email, WhatsApp, just different things, Facebook.
So there's ways you can keep in contact with your converts if you need to be able to serve God.
But with these mission trips, we want to do that, but our goal is just to try to get as many people saved as we can in different places because some of these places are not reached with the gospel at all.
I mean, we saw that in Vanuatu where, again, we talked to a lot of people and I did not meet any people who were saved there.
So there's obviously a need for people to go preach the gospel in Vanuatu.
But then there are other countries that we want to visit that we want to go and preach the gospel to the people as well.
Now, I'll have you turn to Matthew chapter number nine and that'll be it.
But Matthew chapter number nine, Matthew chapter number nine.
And last thing I want to say is this in Matthew nine, verse thirty five.
When you get there, Matthew nine thirty five, the Bible reason it says, and Jesus went about all the cities and villages teaching in their synagogues and preaching the gospel of the kingdom and healing every sickness and every disease among the people.
But when he saw the multitudes, he was moved with compassion on them because they fainted and were scattered abroad as sheep having no shepherd.
Then, saith he unto his disciples, the harvest truly is plenious, but the laborers are few.
Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest that he will send forth flavors into his harvest.
So I bring all that up to say this is that I don't know the next time we'll be going to Vanuatu.
I would love to go back because I think it's a it's a really nice place.
I think it's receptive to the gospel.
Again, their English was better than I thought it was going to be for talking to people because we actually talked to people who were not just on the college campus.
We actually talked to just local people and their English seemed to be OK.
Like I remember preaching to a few people and their English was fine.
Same with we went to like an island over there and their English was good too.
So I think it's a good place where we could definitely go back.
But we just need laborers.
We just need people who are willing to take that time out of their schedule and out of the day to be able to go to these foreign fields so that we could be able to spread the gospel and preach the gospel and get many people saved.
And I pray that we can find more hidden gems like Vanuatu because I believe it was a hidden gem.
Again, I didn't know about Vanuatu until like a few months ago, and I think it's a hidden gem.
I'm sure there are other hidden gems like that around the world.
And I think that's something that we can strive to do is try to find these hidden gems where we can preach and evangelize and get many people saved.
Let's pray. Lord, I thank you for all you've done.
Thank you for giving us the opportunity to preach in Vanuatu and just learn more about the people and be able to make an impact there.
I just pray that you can keep blessing our church and blessing just soul winners around the world as they try to preach the gospel and get many, many people saved.
Thank you for all you've done, Lord, and I praise you. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen.
Before we sing our last song this evening, if you would like to help take down decorations or anything, don't take all of them down.
Meet with Mrs. Ball right here in front of the pulpit after we sing the last song.
So take your song, let's go to hymn 315. We'll get, we'll be the smiths singing 315.
Take my life and let it be consecrated, Lord, to thee. 315.
Sing the sounds together now. 315. Lift up your voice on that first now.
Take my life and let it be consecrated, Lord, to thee.
Take my hands and let them move at the impulse of thy love, at the impulse of thy love.
Take my feet and let them be swift and beautiful for thee.
Take my voice and let me sing always only for my King, always only for my King.
Take my silver and my gold, not of my good I withhold. Take my moments and my days, let them flow in ceaseless praise.
Let them flow in ceaseless praise. Take my will and make it thine, it shall be no longer mine.
Take my heart and it is thine own, it shall be thy royal throne, it shall be thy royal throne.
Hopefully you can hear me really quickly, we need volunteers to hop on and break everything down, but please do not take anything down.
You know, we would like if you want to volunteer to please come up here and the people in charge of the breakdown will guide you as to how to break things down.
We don't want to lose any decorations. Some stuff belongs to people.
Hopefully everybody can hear me, I don't know where the mic is at, but other than that, you're dismissed.
If you want to help out, please come up here as soon as you can.
Thank you for watching!