I was thinking about it, I'll make sure I'm in a good situation.
I'm glad that you're here.
God bless you.
I'm glad that you're here.
And I think there's a few things we can learn from this.
One, we see a model for soul winning here.
Jesus, who is sending forth his disciples to preach the gospel,
didn't send them out as one giant group.
Obviously, they all went, but he paired them up by two and two,
or as we would say, two by two.
He didn't just send them out as individuals.
He sent them out specifically each person with a partner.
That's why we do our soul winning the way that we do.
Ideally, we do two by two, but I understand that sometimes we have odd numbers, things like that,
and it's not the exact arithmetic that Jesus used,
but nonetheless, it is the principle that we don't just send people out to fly solo.
We don't let people go on their own.
We try to avoid that for a few reasons,
and this shows us the importance of having a partner when you go soul winning.
This is a very important thing.
There's really just three points I want to make real quick
when it comes to the importance of a partner.
Why is it? Couldn't you get more done, Jesus, if you had sent them out one by one?
Couldn't you have covered more ground that way?
Logically speaking, the answer would be yes.
Obviously, if you divide those 12 up into individual teams,
instead of having six, you're going to get more done on paper.
At least, that's the way it seems,
but there's other reasons why you would want to send people out by two and two or two by two,
and those reasons are for prayer, for protection, and participation,
and by participation, I mean companionship.
Those are three good reasons to send people out two by two.
That's why we do things the way we do them.
We didn't just say when we decided, hey, we're going to do this thing called soul winning.
We're going to send people out. How many people should go on a team?
Let's just roll some dice, and it came up snake eyes, and we said two.
Two and a team, right?
We look to the scripture, and we see the pattern which Christ has set with his disciples.
When they went out into every city and lane, into every place, and preached the gospel,
they went with a partner. They had somebody with them.
There's importance in having a partner, and the importance is there.
This isn't an exhaustive list. This is what came to the top of my head.
They're there for prayer. They're there for protection,
and they're there for participation or companionship.
If you want to keep something there in Matthew 6, we'll go back to Ecclesiastes 4 at this point.
We'll make our first point here when it comes to the protection.
Let me start out by saying prayer.
Why have a partner with you?
Well, that partner can pray.
While you're preaching the gospel, they can pray,
or maybe they're going to run some kind of a distraction on somebody.
The dog starts barking, or a visitor shows up,
and you're in the middle of getting the gospel.
You have a partner who's there to help minimize distractions,
and to pray for that person that's giving the gospel.
I believe that's important to do.
If you're the silent partner, and I get it sometimes,
we have to step away and do things,
but we should try to make it a point to not be on our phones,
not looking disinterested, tapping our foot,
waiting just to hurry up and give the gospel
so I can get back to my turn so I can have a chance.
You've got to be praying that the Lord would work on the heart of the one
that is receiving the gospel,
that the Lord would guide the one that's giving the gospel,
and that someone would get saved.
So pray for your partner.
That's all I'm going to say about it when it comes to that point
because I want to get through the rest of these verses.
Also, I'm kind of jumping around here,
prayer, protection, and participation.
I'll go on to the last one, participation.
You're there to, as a soul winning partner,
to also be an encouragement to your soul winning partner.
That's a good way to get to know people.
From between doors, you can be talking, getting to know each other.
That's why it's good to mix it up with soul winning partners.
Don't be one of those people that goes with the same person every time.
I know that sometimes that's just the way it breaks down.
That's just the way it works best.
But if it's possible, try going with somebody you haven't gone before.
Get to know them between the doors.
Finally, even if it's an unreceptive area,
you have the fellowship with the partner.
That's one of the benefits of soul winning two by two.
Maybe it's an area where you're not going to get a lot of people saved.
Maybe no one's going to want to hear it.
Again, it's never a complete loss to go out there and preach the gospel.
Even if no one gets saved, people are being given a chance.
The seed is being planted.
Maybe that's just not their day.
They might hear it again later.
If you're sowing, then someone else will water,
and then the Lord will give the harvest eventually.
I get it that we're never spinning our wheels out there.
It's never a waste of time.
But when soul winning times are less receptive than people like,
the tendency is to get down in the mouth about it.
I hear people complain about this.
I know it's going to come as a shock,
but I myself have complained about this.
I have to catch myself and say,
really, we're going here again?
We're going to this neighborhood again?
We're going to the same part in town where we know it's incredibly
unreceptive and we might see one salvation a week
if we go there with a dozen people for an hour?
I get that.
Especially when you've been to other places,
like certain parts of Tucson and Phoenix,
other parts of the country,
the reservations where you've been to places where it is super.
Have you been to the Philippines?
People are practically falling down and saying,
what, sirs, what must I do to be saved?
It's like when you're going fishing
and the fish are just jumping in the boat.
It's that kind of soul winning.
Those are high points in your soul winning career,
if you want to call it that.
That's not the norm.
We've experienced that.
Then maybe we go to some other area,
some other neighborhood where it's just the demographic
is a bunch of retirees or something,
or they're just very affluent.
They're not interested.
They don't want to hear it and maybe even a little combative
and it's just unreceptive.
We can have a tendency in our flesh
to throw up our hands and say, what's the point?
Why are we even doing this?
And get discouraged.
Again, as I said, it's never a waste of time.
Even when you're out there sewing those seams,
that's still a seam that can germinate later in that person's life.
But it's also not a waste of time
because you're there with a soul winning partner.
You're there with another child of God.
You're there with your brother or sister in Christ.
It's a great opportunity to get to know that person.
Hey, if these people aren't talking at the door,
I guess I could spend a little more time talking
to my soul winning partner
and maybe hear some good stories
or find out what they're like or where they're from
or what their background is.
You start asking people questions
and sometimes you'll be amazed at the answers,
usually in a good way.
Just be careful about the questions you ask,
I guess, on that point.
Talk to your soul winning partner.
They're there for prayer,
but they're also there for participation.
You're there to participate in the soul winning.
Part of that is helping your partner
and participating, having companionship with them,
getting to know them.
Another reason why it's intelligent
to send them out two by two,
why this is a safe move,
is because of protection.
Prayer, participation, and protection.
This is important,
especially when it comes to men and women alike,
but especially when we have ladies out there soul winning.
No offense, ladies.
The Bible does say that they are the weaker vessel,
that if anything is going to happen,
if anyone's going to try anything out there,
it's probably going to be with ladies,
or maybe not.
Maybe it's the guys.
Maybe guys feel like there'll be a chance
for confrontation more if it's a dude.
We're more aggressive in nature.
I don't know.
But if something does go down,
that's why we have a partner there.
I know I mentioned this recently too.
When we're out there and we have ladies soul winning,
we always want to make sure
that there's a group of men that are,
if not within eyesight, with an earshot of ladies.
We don't want to send them
on the other side of the block by themselves,
or we can't even hear what's going on,
let alone see it.
That's part of going out as teams the way we do.
Be there to protect one another.
Be looking out.
By the way, this includes keeping an eye out for dogs.
This is kind of a practical sermon tonight.
We're going to get down into some
of the nigrae of soul winning.
Just some finer details,
the minutiae of going out door by door.
Jesus said, hey, we're going to send these guys out.
They're going to go by two and by two.
We're going to send them out in pairs.
Obviously, he had reasons behind that.
There was reasoning.
I believe this is some of it,
that we have the prayer, the participation,
but also the protection.
I know probably most everybody is familiar
with some of our methods
when we're out there soul winning,
the more practical things
that we have to pay attention to,
but let me reiterate them once again
when it comes to this topic of protection.
Obviously, we don't ever want
to be going indoors alone with somebody.
Do not do that.
Keep an eye on each other.
Men, women, it doesn't matter.
Know where those teams are at.
Kind of keep an idea where somebody is.
Here's a good idea.
Look, these aren't hard, fast rules
that I'm going to follow up on
and make sure you're doing it.
If I ever see it, I might call it out.
I might say to you, hey, this is how we do things.
You shouldn't do that.
Here's another one to keep in mind.
Maybe if you're a team that goes into a home,
maybe somebody should text the other team
or text somebody and say, hey, this is the address.
We're going inside.
One, so that if you're in there to the point
where the soul wedding time ends,
we're not just driving around the block
looking for you, right?
Like, where are they?
Well, I noticed the last invite was here,
but then they just, you know,
we're going to think the rapture happened.
You know, we're going to think
that we got left behind.
We're going to think we got Kirk Cameron, right?
You know, oh no, it's over, right?
I didn't hear a trumpet.
Did you, right?
But what happened is they actually went into a house, right?
And we're just kind of like,
which house did they go in, you know?
Well, it's knock on door number one.
Is it door number two or door number three, right?
Or is it someone would just text and say,
hey, this is the address.
One, it keeps us from literally spinning our wheels
looking for you.
And two, if something does go down,
you know, we know where to find you.
And you know, if something starts happening
inside that house, you know that there's a van load
of big bad Baptists, you know,
right outside the door, right?
Ready to come to your rescue, okay?
So again, I understand this is very practical,
but sometimes you have to make these practical points
because common sense is not always so common, as they say.
Sometimes we just don't think about these things
until someone mentions it, okay?
When it comes again to protection,
a big one around here is dogs, okay?
And this is something I experienced even yesterday
with my son.
I don't know if I should be saying this in front of my wife,
but he was there, right?
But he and I were out.
He was my soul winning partner yesterday, right?
I was glad to have him.
And we went to this one door and there's this,
like it startled me.
Like the guys, the fence came out past the porch,
like we're at the door on the porch.
And then the fence from the backyard came out
like four or five feet.
And this dog, it was some kind of a shepherd dog,
I don't know, came out and it's like,
while I'm knocking on the door, it just barked.
And you know how some dogs just had this
just incredibly loud barks?
And I don't know if it's like these Australian shepherds
or these guys, you know,
my daughter could probably tell me exactly,
you know, how many decibels certain breeds bark at.
But like across the street from my house where I live,
there's the neighbor's dog.
That dog has an incredibly loud bark.
Like you can hear it over a quarter mile away.
I'm not exaggerating.
I've literally paced this out like,
because this dog, whenever they leave, barks and barks.
And we're right next to a park.
Anytime anyone's at the park, he barks and barks.
Anyone walks by, a leaf blows.
You know, people line up
because the elementary school's right there.
They line up all their cars to pick up their kids.
For like 20 minutes, there's just cars slowly creeping by,
and he's just barking.
And this dog, I timed it,
would like bark for like an hour, okay?
And look, when you work at home,
you notice these things, right?
And I've had a conversation with my neighbor,
and he's helped me kind of to,
we've worked together to kind of minimize the barking
a little bit.
And the sad thing is, it's not a mean dog.
He's just barking because he just wants to be played with
or something like that.
But he's one of these dogs
that just has an incredibly loud bark.
I remember we went for a walk,
and I walked to the other side of the block.
There's like houses between us,
and you can still hear this dog barking,
although more faintly, very distinctly.
It's that dog, okay?
And you know how these dogs are in these neighborhoods.
It's like they all say good morning to each other.
Every morning around 6 a.m.,
one dog wakes up, and he starts the whole thing.
And it's like then for like 15 or 20 minutes
while each person in each house respectively gets woken up
and finally decides to do something about the dog
that barks at the same time every morning,
I'm not, this doesn't irritate me at all,
but they, you know, these dogs get up,
and it's like they just want to say good morning
to every other dog in the neighborhood, right?
And this dog had such a loud bark,
and this was a very similar breed yesterday.
Okay, this all relates to my story.
I know I'm kind of chasing a rabbit here,
forgive the pun, but I just did.
This dog, you know, I'm knocking on the door,
it's this dog, same dog.
I mean, it's so loud, it like hurts your ears.
And it startled me.
I literally jumped.
Well, not maybe jumped, but I, you know,
it felt like I jumped.
I don't know if I could jump if I needed to,
to be perfectly honest.
I think I have like a two inch vertical at this point,
but if that.
But he did get me to kind of like startle,
you know, it's like, whoa, you know,
and my heart's racing.
And then, you know what drives me nuts
is when you're knocking on these people's doors
and the dog is just barking,
and they're like, uh-huh,
and you're trying to talk to them,
they're like, yeah.
And the dog's just like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
I mean, the whole time, it's like that loud,
and you're trying to have a conversation,
they're just like, mm-hmm, yep.
People are just, I'm so inconsiderate
with these dogs these days, I'm telling you, right?
Can I get an amen?
But anyway, so I'm talking to this guy,
and then all of a sudden, the dog just darts back,
and he takes off the backyard,
and I'm kind of noticing this in my peripheral.
Like, I'm not, you know, it's just,
it's kind of subconscious.
But I've taken note while I'm talking to this guy.
He's a nice guy, older gentleman,
and there was a younger man,
probably in his late 20s, early 30s,
behind him, kind of at the door,
kind of, you know, listening to the conversation.
And my son's here, and the door's here,
and that door's just slightly jarred.
All of a sudden, that same dog leaps out of the door,
and it's immediately in my son's face,
before I even had time to react.
And thankfully, the dog just wanted to say hi, right?
But it just, it really was a stark reminder to me
of how quickly out there,
when you walk out to someone's house, things can change.
It could have been a very different story, okay?
And I told my son, you know, hey, if that ever happens,
you see that happening, you know, he did the right thing.
He stayed calm, you know, and calmed down,
and the guy quickly got control of the dog.
I was a little peeved that your dog managed
to get past your adult son and yourself
and the door and get all the way to me.
You know, I prefer you just stayed there
and barked in my face, right?
But, and I'm just using this as an illustration.
This is why we send out people with partners,
is for protection.
You know, I told my son, next time,
just, you know, you see that happening,
get behind me, and I told myself, hey,
if anything like that happens again,
try to be more conscious to step in front of him,
you know, and it was like, it was like a millisecond.
I looked down and the dog's just there, right?
And I'm kind of beating myself up, like, man,
why didn't I tackle the dog, you know?
But sometimes things just happen that quick, right?
Why didn't I draw and fire?
You know, kill the guy in the dog's porch,
kill the dog in the guy's porch and walk away.
I'm kidding, all right, I'm kidding.
I will say this, though.
If this situation needs, by all means,
protect life and limb, you know,
if you need to use a firearm, I mean, I'm,
and believe me, the police in this city
and the county sheriff will side with you
if you shoot dogs.
I mean, after all, they're shooting dogs all the time.
They just, you know, the dog looks at them sideways
and they just pop, you know, and just kill them, right?
I feared for my life.
It was like, it was behind a stone wall.
Yeah, but, you know.
Because I've even, and I'm gonna clear this up, too,
because I've talked about this
and I've heard people say, tell me to my face
that it's illegal for you to shoot somebody else's dog
even, you know, in their yard or something like that.
Like, and besides that, I mean, even if it is,
consequences, you know, go out the window.
I'm not gonna face multiple surgeries
for deep tissue damage and medical bills
because I don't wanna break the law
by killing your aggressive dog.
Like, even if I had to face legal consequences,
I'd rather not have to go to the emergency room
and get stitched up and deal with the aftermath, okay?
That's just me.
Maybe I shouldn't be saying this to the pulpit.
You do whatever you want out there, okay?
Don't everyone go out there and start capping dogs.
You're deacon.
Fire, you know.
Safety off, right?
Fire at will, right?
But, I mean, I've had a confrontation with a pit bull,
a pit bull boxer breed on a morning walk
in my own neighborhood where I was literally standing off
with the dog in the middle of the morning,
the first thing in the morning, rather,
and with my gun out, and if he had taken one more step,
I would have unloaded, right?
And so I called the Peabody County Sheriff and said,
what's the rules?
He says, if you feel threatened for your health or life,
do what you gotta do.
And here's the rule.
If that ever happened, the thing you'd wanna do
is holster your firearm afterwards and leave the scene
and get somewhere and call the authorities and report it.
Don't sit there and talk to the homeowner
about what happened, because they're probably not gonna
be happy that a stranger showed up at their door,
uninvited, and even though it's their,
if they can't control their animal or whatever
and it gets out and gets after you,
they're still not gonna be very understanding.
Their take is gonna be, if you hadn't come here,
my dog wouldn't be dead right now.
That's how they're gonna see it.
What has this got to do with Mark VI tonight?
Nothing, I'm just getting stuff off my chest.
But protection, I'm trying to make it more practical.
I could just say, hey, look out for one another
when we're out there and leave it at that.
But let's drill down a little bit more.
We're living in Tucson, people have dogs everywhere,
and I really honestly think it's just gonna be
a matter of time until, I pray not,
but that someone's gonna have to probably do something
about a dog at this point
because it's getting out of hand, some of these dogs.
Okay, but it doesn't have to come to that
if the partners are looking out for each other.
Right, brother Adam?
When it comes to these dogs, he and I are great at this.
We had a little spell where we were
psyching each other out about dogs
and we decided let's not do that anymore
when one of us almost got attacked by Cujo, right?
I don't know who started it, it's probably me.
But it would be like, hey, you stay at the,
and this is good, if you go to a gated fence,
one partner should open up the fence
and kind of keep the gate ready to open and close
and keep an eye out,
because as you're walking towards the door,
you lose track of what's around you,
that's when the dog comes around the corner
that you didn't see, right?
But the partner could see it and say,
hey, get out, dog.
And as you come running,
they can close the gate quickly behind you.
So that was kind of the pattern,
that was the system that he and I had worked out.
And that's a good system, I'm for it.
But what you don't want to do is literally cry wolf,
quite literally, when doing that.
We started having some fun,
which was dog, you know, just to see the other one,
like, you know, get out there.
And, you know, we did that a couple times,
and then one day, I think it was like right over here,
we went into this one house,
and like, I think it was me, this one yard,
and there was, because there's dog sign,
you know, there's droppings, right?
But they were little, right?
So I'm like, well, little dog,
or little droppings, little dog.
And I can't remember if he said yeah,
or he, we saw big ones.
I'm like, yeah, but there's no big,
like, there's nothing here.
Like, we're looking, we're shaking,
you know, come here, boy.
And no one's, nothing's happening.
Apparently some dogs are smarter than others, right?
They know how to play the game.
They wait till you're all the way in,
and we're both all the way in the yard.
And I'm not kidding you, this,
I don't know if, you know,
I don't try not to make too many worldly references
from the pulpit, but if you've ever seen,
I'm not recommending anybody watch this,
if you've ever seen Cujo,
you know, from back in the day,
don't go look that up, okay?
Don't go looking for Cujo,
and go, hey, Deacon said watch Cujo.
I didn't say that, okay?
I mean, I read the book.
Don't read the book either, all right?
But it's about a rabid St. Bernard
attacking, you know, a family.
Leave it at that, right?
This was Cujo, right?
Minus the rabies.
This giant St. Bernard,
and we both turn around at the door,
and he's between us and the gate.
And it's just like, boy.
And I don't know how he got out of there,
but, and I've had similar experiences elsewhere
with other people.
Somehow we managed to get out of there
by remaining calm, right?
And just, we slowly got out of there,
and then as soon as we got,
I mean, he looked like he was ready to pounce, right?
And as soon as we were out,
then he's like aggressively attacking the fence,
like he's, we walk by later,
just like, rah rah rah, like,
try it again, see what happens, right?
I've had other experiences where
we were up in some mining town somewhere
doing small town soul winning,
and it was really weird,
because this whole town is built on strip mines.
Like, they would strip mine,
and then the mining company
actually built residential housing for the employees.
So it's entire neighborhoods
that are built on old levels of strip mining.
The streets are the strip mines.
And trying to think of the name of the town,
it doesn't matter.
It's up north of Safford.
But I remember we were on one of these strip mines,
this portion, and you could look down
right on top of people's houses.
I remember I was looking down on this one house,
and there's this pit bull in this one yard.
Of course, they've got trampolines and kids' toys,
like, oh, that's intelligent.
That's a great dog to have with young children around.
Nothing bad's ever happened in that instance, ever.
Little land sharks.
And there's this dog,
and he's just like sitting on the trampoline.
Well, later that day,
we're walking by that same house,
and it's that same dog.
And all the fences there are like this high.
And we're walking back,
and all of a sudden, me and my partner,
we look up, it was Brother Baron,
for those of you who know Brother Baron.
And we look up, and there's that same pit bull.
And it looked like he just came off like a cycle.
Like, he's been on gear for a while.
You know, if there was a weight bench in the backyard,
it wouldn't surprise me to see the dog using it.
You ever seen these pit bulls?
They're just jacked.
They just look like they're cutting down
for the show or something like that.
You know, they're like 3% body fat,
and they're just like, they've got a six-pack.
You know, pecs and bicycles.
They're just like huge, hulked-out dogs.
And he's standing there, and you know,
it was a scary moment.
I mean, at that point, I did have my hand on my gun.
And then, but he looked like he was ready to throw it out.
But I'm just saying all this,
telling all these stories, because it happens.
You know, this is what, this is,
why go two by two?
For protection.
Look out for each other out there when you're soul winning.
You know, people have been bit on the reservations.
I've been bit out soul winning by a dog.
Nothing severe.
I didn't have to get a big bird Band-Aid or anything,
you know, but I did get bit, you know,
and I've also had to throw rocks at packs of dogs
and things like that.
This is more reservation stuff.
Do you want to hear another res dog story?
No? Okay.
All right, well, there's this one time
we were looking for somebody in the van
driving through the reservation,
looking for a group of, you know, some people that were,
I think it was a couple of ladies
that were soul winning somewhere,
and we're driving through this residential area,
and there's this one dog that comes out,
this little white little, you know,
the res dogs are everywhere.
If you know anything about reservations,
they have packs of dogs that just rove,
which is great, because we're backed up
right up against the Tohono O'odham where we live,
so there's, a lot of times we'll see some strays come through,
but we were on the White Mountain Apache,
I believe it was, in White River,
and we're in one of the residential areas,
and this little cute little dog comes trotting out
in front of the church van to where,
I have to stop in the street for this dog,
because I don't, you'd think at this point
from all the stories I told,
I'd be the type of guy to just run the dog over, okay?
People, it was daylight, there were people around,
I was in the church van, it was marked,
you know, you have to kind of take these things
into consideration, you know,
you don't have to get them back to pastor,
so I heard that you're up there
running over dogs with the church van.
Well, you know, it's a public service,
and that's not what we're there to do.
I think it would be a public service,
but this little dog comes trotting out,
so I have to stop,
as much as I might want to run him over,
and as soon as I stop, this other,
I don't know, it was a big breed,
I don't know, it was just a mutt,
comes lunging out of the grass,
and like barking and biting the tire of the church van,
like going after, like right there,
like trying to attack the church van,
and this is in a residential neighborhood,
you know, 25 miles an hour,
there's like kids riding by on bikes and stuff,
like this is insane, right,
so I just kind of gun it and get out of there,
and I have to continue looking,
I have to come by that same spot,
you know, a couple of minutes later,
trying to find this last group of soul winners,
and same thing happens all over again,
little white dog comes,
I'm like, oh, not this time, right,
and the whole situation played out twice in a row,
twice in a row, I'm not even making that up, right,
so look out, these dogs, they're plotting,
they're scheming, they're planning,
you know, they're not as dumb as they look,
okay, sometimes, they're trying to get us, right,
but I'm just, again, I'm just trying to,
I'm telling some of these wilder stories
because, you know, crazier things have happened.
I mean, I remember being out soul winning
with Brother Hunter years ago
when we were first starting out,
and there was this dog, this wall was like taller than me,
and this dog is like jumping and leaping,
like using the wall to leap and like bark at us,
and his head would come over the wall,
he'd like, it was kind of humorous,
I think I have a video of it,
he would run and go, run, run, run,
run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run,
and we were kind of like mocking it,
like ha ha ha, you know, like laughing,
and then we actually went and knocked on that guy's door,
and then he left while we were around the corner,
and that dog got out
and like came down the street and confronted us,
and was like, not so funny now, right?
And he was kind of coming at us,
like we had to walk across the street
and yell at him and like swing things,
I think he came rushing at us
and I started swinging my Bible,
that's the only thing that stopped him.
I'm trying to think of any other dog stories I have
since I'm on a roll tonight,
but, you know, I'm just pointing these things out,
these happen, these things happen,
people leave, gates open,
you walk into a yard,
assuming there's nobody there
that happened but Brother Gabriel too,
we did that once, we walk in the yard
and we both turn around
and there's like a Rottweiler there at one point,
and the homeowners, they don't really care,
some of them, they're just like,
well, you came in here, you know?
So look out for each other,
protect one another,
thankfully the worst of it is dogs, you know,
we're not having to like look out for the authorities
or anything like that, but,
or, you know, that's another example,
if you are in an apartment complex
and the apartment manager shows up,
run distraction on that guy or gal.
You know, if the cops show up, you know,
the longer they have to deal with you,
the longer the rest of the team can go soul winning,
right, till they can round us all up.
And look, I'm not suggesting anyone here
do anything they're not comfortable with, okay?
I get it, you know, if you got arrested
and spent the night in jail,
your boss would probably wouldn't,
would probably frown upon that,
my boss would probably give me a raise,
I'm just kidding, right?
If I ended up in jail and passed around just to find out,
he'd say, attaboy, okay?
You know, but if these apartment managers show up,
you know, I'm not saying be rude,
I'm not saying start getting a yelling match,
but, you know, maybe run a little distraction on them,
look out for one another when you're out there.
I had you go to Ecclesiastes 4,
I better read some scripture,
well, not be one of these old IFB guys
that reads one verse and then tells stories
the rest of the time.
Ecclesiastes, although I think I'm entitled to doing that,
everyone's the blue moon.
Ecclesiastes 4, verse 9,
two are better than one
because they have a good reward for their labor.
Two are better than one, right?
For if they fall, the one will lift up his fellow,
but woe to him that is alone when he falleth,
for he hath not another to help him up.
And this is a great verse on companionship,
friendship, marriage, all these things,
you know, it is not good that the man should be alone.
It's not good, you know, I believe,
to go out there by yourself.
You should try to avoid that if you can.
Again, if two lie together, then they have heat,
but how could one be warm alone?
And if one prevail against him,
two shall withstand him.
And notice this, like all the way through this,
we're talking about two, right?
Two are better than one,
you have to have another to lift him up.
If two lie down, they have heat.
If one prevail, two shall withstand,
but notice it closes in verse 12, the latter half,
and a threefold cord is not quickly broken.
So threefold obviously means three.
There's three strands in that cord, right?
There's three individual strands making up one cord.
But we've been, you know, in these preceding verses,
talking about two, and all of a sudden it jumps to three.
And I don't know where I heard this,
but I thought it was a really good application,
is that, you know, that third cord is the spirit, right?
Because as Jesus said,
that if two of you shall agree on earth as touching anything,
it shall be done of them, of my Father which is in heaven,
for where there are two or three gathered together in my name,
there I am in the midst of them.
You know, we go out two by two,
but really we're going out in teams of three,
because we have the spirit.
There's two of us, but it's a threefold cord, right?
When we do things God's way,
and we're doing his work, you know,
he's going to be in the midst.
God is laboring with us.
And he's going, you know,
we're going to have a threefold cord that cannot be broken.
This is why elsewhere in Luke 10,
when he sends out the 70,
it says that he sent them out,
and two before his face, into every city and place,
whether he himself would come.
So he wasn't like, you guys go soul winning,
I'm just going to hang back.
You know, he was involved in the soul winning.
He also participated in the soul winning program,
you know, of the ministry.
And that, you know, the same is true today.
You know, we are sent out into every city and place.
We are called to go preach the gospel to every creature.
We go out two by two,
but we have to understand that when we're out there,
Christ is also present.
He sends us where he himself will come,
spiritually speaking, obviously.
We take the word of God and we preach the word of God.
The spirit is there working alongside us.
We have that threefold cord
because we have us, our partner,
and the spirit.
Let's move along here.
It says there also at the end of verse seven,
and he gave them power over unclean spirits.
He gave them power over unclean spirits.
Notice how this works here, the dynamic.
He, Jesus, gave them, the 12 disciples,
power over unclean spirits.
He didn't say every person that ever gets saved
has power over unclean spirits or demons, right?
They were empowered by the permission of Christ.
They are empowered by permission.
This is something he granted on them.
This is like part of those special miracles
that God gave that would be a sign at that time.
I do not believe this is for us
to take upon ourselves today.
If you would go to Acts chapter 19,
Acts chapter number 19.
I bring this up because this is something
that charismatics take upon themselves, don't they?
In the Pentecostal churches,
the Catholic churches even, they have,
this is a real big thing,
exorcisms.
The Benny Hinn crowds and others
where they're gonna exercise the demon of alcoholism or whatever.
You have a hereditary demon.
They run wild with this stuff
because it makes for a good show.
Sometimes people just want to go to church
and be entertained.
They just want to see a good show.
I get it's exciting.
Ooh, casting out demons, right?
People get into this stuff.
But in the scripture here,
what we see is that Jesus gave them power.
This is something that he granted unto them,
specifically the 12 disciples.
I don't think this is something
for us to take upon ourselves.
We know that Paul, Peter, and the 12 disciples,
they also had this ability.
We see a little bit of that in Acts,
but notice the biblical example
of exorcism, right?
Of actual people who try to take on demons,
you know, without, you know,
they take that responsibility upon themselves.
Look at Acts 19, verse 13.
Then certain of the vagabond Jews,
exorcists, took upon them to call over them
which had evil spirits,
the name of the Lord Jesus,
saying, We adjure thee by Jesus whom Paul preacheth.
So these guys are trying to go
perform an exorcism,
and there were seven sons of Sceva, a Jew,
and of the chief priests which did so.
And the evil spirit answered and said,
Jesus I know, and Paul I know,
but who are ye?
He's like, I recognize Jesus' authority.
I even recognize Paul's authority,
but you have no authority.
Who are you? You're nobody.
And the man in whom the evil spirit was left,
leaped on them and overcame them
and prevailed against them,
so they fled out of that house naked and wounded.
They end up getting assaulted, right?
One guy, seven sons, right?
They have great strength.
You know, this is not for us to take upon ourselves.
It's not something we should be doing, okay?
And you say, Well, what about it?
You know, I've seen it.
I've seen it on YouTube.
I've been to church services where it's happened.
You know, I've been to these
Pentecostal, charismatic church services
where I've seen people
who were allegedly possessed of devils
and have seen them cast out.
Well, my opinion, my take on it
is that modern exorcists, so called today,
are just spiritual hustlers, right?
They're con men that might even be working
in tandem with demonic forces, right?
They're like acting like they don't know each other.
I mean, it's possible, right?
It's like a pool hustle, right?
Or a basketball hustle.
You know, the guy shows up.
They act like they don't know each other,
but they've been working together, you know,
and they know each other's moves
and now they're gonna take these other teams' money
because it's a con, right?
It could be the same thing spiritually.
You know, well, that's far-fetched.
Well, it's like, if you think that,
I mean, we're talking about exorcism.
If you're gonna think that's far-fetched,
like, you know, what else is off limits to talk about?
What else, you know, seems, you know, unlikely?
We're talking about people casting out devils, right?
So, you know, I believe that's one possibility.
That's one explanation.
It's like, well, I've seen it happen.
Well, it might just be that, you know,
that person is a false prophet
because, you know, let's face it,
these Pentecostals, these Charismaniacs
are preaching repenting your sins, salvation.
They don't believe in once saved, always saved.
They believe in work salvation.
They're preaching work salvation, right?
They're false prophets, folks.
You know, Benny Hinn is a false prophet.
A lot of these others, you know,
very popular preachers, these charismatic preachers
who cast out demons,
even if that's not authentic, are false prophets
and likely possessed of the devil.
I mean, have you ever seen Kenneth Copeland?
The guy looks like a devil.
You know, he looks like he could be possessed of devils.
He probably is because he's a false prophet.
Whenever you see some preacher making millions of dollars
and flying around in a private jet,
he's a false prophet.
He's speaking lies for filthy lucre's sake, okay?
Speaking lies in hypocrisy, okay?
Well, you know, say, well, what if they're not, though?
You know, like the Catholic priests, right?
They're real big on this.
I watched a couple interviews of these priests
that this one priest was saying that he,
on several occasions, he's spoken to Satan himself.
Like, you're so full of yourself, right?
They just want to sound important.
Well, you know, I cast out devils.
I've even spoke with Satan.
Yeah, right.
Satan would be like, who are you?
He'd be like these guys in Acts 13,
like Paul I know and Jesus I know.
Who are you?
You're some guy in a dress.
You know, a Catholic priest would probably like
to be thrown out naked and wounded
because they're typically perverts.
There, I said it.
I'm typically a bunch of pedophiles.
There, I said it.
Right?
And these priests, they want to say,
oh, you know, I cast out devils.
Well, they're either working in tandem
for like the spiritual hustlers that they are
or they're just useful idiots.
Maybe Satan allows people to get, you know,
say, hey, you're going to go there.
You're going to possess these people.
And when the Catholic priest comes along
or the, you know, Pentecostal comes out
and sprinkles, you know, so-called holy water
or anoints them with oil and starts speaking in tongues,
then I want you to leave the body
and make a show out of it.
So everyone will look at that and think,
oh, this must be the power of God.
This must be where the truth is.
It must be inside the Catholic church.
It must be inside some, you know,
apostolic Pentecostal church.
After all, they're the ones casting out demons.
You see what I'm saying?
Satan could work to lend authenticity
to that church, to the Catholic church,
to the Pentecostal church.
They could be working in tandem with them
or at the very best be useful idiots, right,
that are being used, that are just simply pawns
in Satan's, you know, plan.
Let's move on.
I got to get through the rest of these verses, though.
So we saw verse seven, he called on the twelve
and began to send them forth two by two
and gave them power over unclean spirits.
He gave them power.
It wasn't something they took upon themselves.
And then it says there in verse eight
and commanded them that they should take nothing
for their journey, save a staff only,
no script, no bread, no money in their purse,
but be shod with sandals and not put on two coats.
And he said unto them,
in what place soever ye enter into an house,
there abide till ye depart from that place.
So when he's sending them out two by two,
he's telling them don't take anything for your journey.
Don't take script, which, you know,
that'd be a form of payment.
Don't take your purse, what has actual money in it.
Don't even take a second coat.
You know, don't take any provisions for the journey
because when you go there,
you're going to enter in a house
and that's where you're going to abide
till you depart from that place.
So the idea is that they would go into these cities
and villages throughout Judea
and when they would find someone that would receive them,
that would be kind of like their operating base
for that time while they would,
so that they would from there go and preach the gospel.
And they would return to that same house
and that's where they would have
all their provisions met.
That's where they would have a second garment.
That's where they'd have somewhere to lay down their head.
That's where they would be fed by other people, right?
And this makes sense as far as I'm concerned.
And this makes sense especially in that time
because now they're able to travel light, right?
They're not having to take all this stuff with them
and find some place to set up and haul everything.
They could show up, have their needs met
and then focus on the work of ministry
going out and preaching the gospel, okay?
And again, this is a great couple of verses in this chapter
that help us with how we're going to model
our own soul-winning program.
As we saw, we're going to go out two by two
but also this is a good, you know,
this isn't something we haven't really gotten into here
but other churches have is where you have
more regional soul-winning times
which are based out of places where people live.
For example, if we had people start to attend this church
that lived maybe on the far northeast side of Tucson, right?
That's kind of hard for us to get there
because of how wonderful the highway system here is in Tucson.
I'm trying not to go off on that, okay?
But you know, on our east side blitz,
it took about 30 to 45 minutes just to get across town, right?
So that's time wasted.
Whereas if you had a group of people
that kind of lived up in that region, you know,
rather than come all the way to the building
and then drive all the way back up there
and then come all the way back,
they could just all meet up there in somebody's house
and kind of disperse from one place, right?
So it's that similar principle or concept, right?
But again, what's taking place in the story
is that the ministers, the full-time workers
of the ministry are relying on those that they minister
to supply their need, right?
Don't forget that these are the same disciples
that were told to forsake their worldly living, right?
To forsake their career, you know,
several of them as fishermen,
to forsake, you know, their tax booth, right?
Levi at the receipt of custom,
Peter, James, John, Andrew to leave their fishing boats
and their father to go and to become fishers of men.
They had to leave that worldly income behind, right?
What this shows us is that it is biblical
for pastors, deacons, evangelists,
people who are employed by the church to be paid, okay?
And I'm just, you know, and again,
I'm just bringing this up
because we're just going through Mark.
You know, people are going to go,
oh, you know, the Baptist church,
oh, they're preaching about money.
I very rarely bring up tithing
or this subject at all in this church.
And I don't need to.
You saw the bulletin.
You know, we're out of the red.
We're out of the red every month.
Our bills are paid.
And I very rarely ever have to preach about money, if ever.
I mean, I could probably count on one hand
over the last five years that I've brought up
any sermon that's specifically dedicated to this subject.
But here we are tonight,
and we see this as the example in Mark
where the disciples are going to rely on other people
to meet their needs.
They are the full-time workers.
They're out there in Jesus's ministry
dedicating their lives to preaching the gospel,
and he's saying, hey, you're going to rely on other people
to meet your needs, okay?
Go to 1 Corinthians 9.
I know we know it, but we're going to take the time
because I'm going to preach it tonight,
and then maybe I won't have to preach it
for another, you know, several years.
So let's just get through it, okay?
Paying preachers and pastors and church staff is biblical.
And there's people out there.
There are people who would disagree with it vehemently, okay?
And they have all their arguments.
We won't dive into all of it tonight,
but, I mean, I think it's just so clear
in 1 Corinthians 9 and elsewhere
that this is biblical,
that pastors, preachers who are full-time in the ministry
should have their needs met by the church.
I'm not saying that they should be like,
as I just mentioned, the Kenneth Copelands,
the Joel Olsteins of this world
who are living in literal mansions
and driving Ferraris to church.
If I start showing up in a sports car
and wearing long suits all the way down
and I'm just blinged out or whatever,
then let's talk.
Let's talk about my salary
and what's going on here, okay?
But, folks, this is like the only suit coat I own.
The other two are very old
and need to go to the dry cleaner,
and quite frankly, they don't fit anymore,
not because they're too big.
And it's missing a button, all right?
It's the same tie, it's the same shirt.
These pants are five years old,
and I've got four pair of them,
and I bought them at JCPenney.
These shoes are not exactly the shiniest shoes.
I can't really be accused of
just being in the Baptist faith for the riches
because there is none, okay?
I'm not rolling it up here.
I know there's the joke, the deacon money that's out there.
Not a thing, okay?
You want to know what is a thing?
Deacon debt.
That's a thing, all right?
And you're welcome to that anytime you want it.
You want some of my debt?
I'll give it to you.
But paying preachers and pastors is biblical,
and again, I'm not saying they should live
an exorbitant lifestyle,
that they should live well beyond their means,
but they shouldn't be paupers either.
They shouldn't be made to be living in poverty,
and some people want to treat their pastors this way,
and it's wrong.
I mean, what kind of respect are you showing your pastor?
I remember I had a pastor,
and I don't know if he was referring to himself,
but he told me a story about when there was this preacher,
and I'm pretty sure he was eluding himself.
It was like that thing with Paul in the body,
or the body, I can't tell.
I knew a man years ago.
I think he was referring to himself when he was poor
and living in a single, wide trailer
and pastoring a church and didn't have a lot of money.
There was a family in his church that slaughtered a pig.
This is in Pennsylvania, folks, okay?
They slaughtered a pig, and they thought,
well, hey, let's bring the pastor some meat,
and that would have been a nice thing to do
to help the pastor support him.
Hey, here's a ham hock.
Here's the back end.
Did they give him the best cuts?
You know what they brought him?
The head.
They brought him the literal pig's head
and said, hey, we've got this for you.
We kept all the pig.
Look, it's your pig.
Do whatever you want with it.
People get that kind of mentality.
We'll just give pastor the scraps.
After all, he's just the preacher.
He's living in a lap of luxury over there
in a single, wide trailer or whatever.
This should not be our mentality.
We shouldn't expect the people
that are sowing to us spiritual things
to be nearly destitute,
as if that's some kind of spiritual badge
or something like that.
We should take care of the men of God
who are preaching to us the word of God.
I'm not saying we need to buy them
a Ferrari or whatever,
but we should at least pay their salary,
help them.
I get it.
Not all churches can do that.
Not every church can support a pastor full time.
It's just simply not big enough.
Paul sets that example.
He doesn't say a pastor must rely on the church,
but sometimes, if it's possible,
I think that's ideal.
I think that's the ideal situation,
that a pastor would be supported
by the church financially,
have his needs met,
and then he could dedicate himself,
like the apostles,
to the word of God in prayer
and pastoring that flock.
Let's get into 1 Corinthians 9.
He says in verse 1,
Am I not an apostle?
Am I not free?
Have I not seen Jesus Christ our Lord?
Are not ye my work in the Lord?
If I be not an apostle unto others,
yea, doubtless I am to you,
for the seal of mine apostleship
are ye in the Lord.
So people are calling into question
the authenticity of Paul's apostleship,
whether he's legit,
and he's saying,
I know I'm legit,
and you of all people should know it,
because I want to be the Lord.
Mine answer to them that do examine me is this.
Have we not power to eat and drink?
We're just like everybody else.
We've got needs that need to be met.
Have we not power to lead about a sister, a wife,
a sister in the Lord,
as we talked about,
as well as other apostles,
and as the brethren of the Lord,
and Cephas, which is Peter, right?
They're saying, you know,
there's other apostles,
there's other people that are in the same position.
They're married with kids.
They're leading about a sister or a wife, right?
Or I only in Barnabas
have we not power to forbear working.
And he's not saying,
don't we have the power
to sit around and be lazy all day?
That's not what he means by that.
By saying forbearing working,
he's talking about,
do we not have the power as apostles
to forego a secular job
and take a wage of the church?
And, you know, this is rhetorical.
He's just saying, you know,
as a matter of fact, we do, right?
Who goes to war?
And then he kind of brings this up,
uses this as an example.
Who goes to war for any time at his own charges?
You know, if you got conscripted in the army,
you got drafted,
they're going to supply all of your needs, right?
They're going to pay for your boots.
They're going to pay for your garb.
They're going to pay for your room and board.
They're going to pay for everything.
They're not going to expect you
to be in the army and work a job, right?
And that's the example that he's using.
Who planted the vineyard
and eateth not the fruit thereof?
What guy goes out and plants a field
and then starves to death?
You know, he's going to eat of that field.
Who feedeth the flock
and eateth not the milk of the flock, right?
He's raising a whole flock.
Of course that flock is going to sustain him
as he's working.
Say I these things as a man
or sayeth not the law the same also.
For it is written in the law of Moses,
thou shall not muzzle the ox,
excuse me, muzzle the mouth of the ox
that treadeth out the corn,
which is a literal law in Deuteronomy,
I believe it is, where the law is
you shall not muzzle the ox that treadeth out the corn.
Meaning when an ox is grinding corn in the mill,
the beast of burden,
they were not to literally put a muzzle on it.
And then Paul explains why that is.
Sometimes you read these laws in the Old Testament
and it's like, what, really?
You really got to get down to that detail?
Like, hey, don't muzzle an ox that's treading out the corn.
Well, okay, good thing he told me that.
Sometimes we wonder like, what's the point of that?
Well, a lot of these things
that were literal back then
are a picture of the ministry.
They're figurative in nature, right?
Because he explains at the end of verse nine,
the ox that treadeth out the corn,
doth God take care for oxen?
Is God put that law in there
because he's just so worried about oxes,
about oxen getting a meal?
Or saith he altogether for our sakes,
for our sakes, no doubt that this is written.
He's saying he wrote that law
so that we would learn something.
And what's the lesson we should learn from that?
That he that ploweth should plow in hope
and he that thresheth in hope
should be partaker of his hope, right?
Meaning the guy that goes out
and works hard should expect recompense.
Like if he's laboring in something,
there's nothing wrong with him receiving a wage.
I'm pretty sure anyone in here that has a job
isn't doing it for the love of work, right?
You don't, the payday doesn't come around,
you don't go, it's okay boss, I don't need that.
You just look at him, tear the check up,
I'm here for the love of the job.
You know, I just love,
no, you're like pay me.
And if they didn't pay you,
you'd be fine on a job that would pay you, right?
Well, newsflash, the ministry is work.
That's why it's called the work of the ministry, right?
That's why they're called laborers in the ministry, right?
And it's work, right?
And just like any other job,
people that are working in the ministry should be paid.
You know, if possible, they should receive a wage.
This is just biblical.
This isn't me trying to get your money, okay?
This is biblical.
Look at verse 11.
If we have sown unto you spiritual things,
is it a great thing if we shall reap your carnal things?
If others be partakers of this power over thee,
are not we rather?
Nevertheless, we have not used this power,
this ability to forego secular work,
but suffer all things, we put up with it.
Paul said that he labored night and day.
Lest we should hinder the gospel of Christ.
Do you not know that they would minister about the holy things,
live of the things of the temples?
Now he's referring back to the Levitical priesthood.
So you remember the Levitical priesthood?
Those that labored at the altar ate of that which is sacrificed.
When the sacrifices came,
God always gave a portion to the priests
of the tithes that were brought.
And they which wait at the altar are partakers of the altar,
even so the Lord hath ordained that they which preach the gospel
should live of the gospel.
Those whose full-time work is the preaching of the word of God,
the ministering of the word of God,
should live of the word of God, okay?
And you say, I mean, doesn't that seem pretty obvious?
I mean, do I have to really sit here and break this down
and try to expound?
I mean, it's just so on the nose.
Like, it's like, oh, yeah, there it is.
First Corinthians nine.
And I remember years ago when I first got saved,
there was a guy that was, he was, he said,
oh, you're not, you know, tithing isn't biblical.
And I just quoted that verse to him.
This is a much older gentleman.
You know, a guy I respected and still do,
and he's passed on, he's in glory now.
But he said, you know, tithing is not, I don't tithe.
He said, I give my church, but that's not because I'm commanded.
Tithing is an Old Testament thing.
And I just quoted, they that live with the gospel should,
excuse me, they that preach the gospel should live with the gospel.
He had nothing to say to that.
He's like, well, you got me there, right?
Because it's just so plain.
How are you going to argue with that?
And yet people do.
And yet there's people out there that will argue
that tithing in the New Testament is not biblical.
You say, why would anyone argue something that is so crystal clear?
I'll tell you why.
Because it's the same people that don't want to go to church.
Because, you know, here's the thing.
Every church takes tithes.
Every church that you see preaches tithing.
How do you think they keep the lights on, right?
How do you think we have such nice things?
How do you think we have that piano and these chairs
and those lights and this carpet?
It's all paid for by the tithes.
We're going to have some ice cream sundaes tonight
after the service if I ever get done, right?
I'm just letting it thaw out, okay?
I'm just letting it soften up a little bit, okay?
You know, how do you think we pay for that?
The tithes, right?
So when people take issue with tithing,
they just excuse themselves from going to church anywhere.
Think about it.
Well, I'm not going to go anywhere where the pastor preaches tithing
because it's unbiblical.
You know, I'm not going to let a leaven leaven the whole lump.
You know, I'm so holy, I want to only go to the church
and it has perfect doctrine in every area.
So if you're going to say that tithing is unbiblical,
you've just excused yourself from attending
every single church in the world.
And now you can just sit at home
and have an online ministry.
You can make YouTube videos and go to message boards
and try to witness to people.
You know what I mean?
Like, you can have fake church at home.
You can just have some people get together in your living room
and call it church, okay?
Well, there's no pastor and no one's getting paid.
That's why, okay?
And I know I got to close it.
I got to wrap this up.
But look at verse 11 back there in Mark chapter number six.
Again, we're just going through Mark chapter by chapter,
verse by verse, slowing down, kind of looking
at these verses a little bit more.
It says in verse 11,
And whosoever shall not receive you nor hear you,
remember, because he's talking about, you know,
sending them into the cities,
and if there's no one there, they'll take you in.
When you depart thence,
shake off the dust under your feet
for a testimony against them.
Verily I say unto you,
it shall be more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrah
in the day of judgment than for that city.
Again, another great principle
when it comes to soul winning.
Don't, when you have a bad experience at a door,
don't dwell on it.
When someone's rude to you,
and look, if you go soul winning long enough,
and it probably won't even take that long,
especially for something, you know,
probably quicker for some of us than others, right?
I don't know what it is about my face,
that just people just like,
I'm going to insult this guy,
I'm just kidding, right?
But we're going to all probably
have unpleasant experiences at the door.
It's just a matter of time.
Don't dwell on it.
I mean, I've gotten to the point
where it's amusing,
where I just, I mean,
I feel bad that the person's not going to get saved,
but it's just like, you know,
they're just being so rude and irate,
it's just like, dude, what's the problem?
You know, but what I don't do is just go,
I can't believe that guy said that.
Oh, and then just like, you know,
30 minutes later, I'm still just dwelling on it,
talking to my soul winning partner
about it, telling everybody else
about this horrible experience I had at the door.
I'd rather just forget about that.
And you know, I know I've told a lot of stories tonight,
and don't worry, I can't tell any
because nothing's coming to mind.
I'd like to sit here and tell you
about all the people that were curt and short with me,
but I can't because you know what?
I shook the dust off from under my feet
and went about my day.
You know?
They're going to have to wake up tomorrow
and decide whether or not they want to be a jerk again.
You know, I don't have, you know,
I'm going to make the decision.
I'm just going to forget about it and move on.
So that's a good principle there.
If they don't receive you,
just shake the dust off your feet.
Don't let it cling to you, right?
That's kind of the picture there.
Don't carry it with you to the next town
or the next door.
A story's coming to mind.
It's like I learned this lesson.
Like I had one bad experience, you know,
and this was years ago, this book,
and again, I tell some of these examples.
I don't paint myself in the best light,
but just so you all know that I'm human too,
that I lose my temper.
I know it's a shock that, you know,
sometimes I have a bad day out there,
and this is years ago where I found myself,
you know, getting very short with a guy.
He was being very confrontational,
and he was, you know,
he was disrespecting my pastor,
saying negative things about our ministry,
and I took it personally, you know,
and I kind of told the guy off,
and he kind of told me off,
and I told my soul winning partner.
I said, you know, I try not to do that.
I won't do that again,
and then like five minutes, you know,
10 minutes later,
I'm still thinking about that guy,
and then I have another bad experience,
and this guy was trying to Judaize me.
He's trying to tell me that, you know,
we got, you know,
he's some kind of Hebrew roots or something.
I don't know.
It was years ago,
but all I know is I remember,
because I, you know,
that first experience clung to me.
I didn't shake the dust off my feet,
and I was kind of on edge already.
That's how I found myself,
like at the end of his driveway,
yelling at him,
like, you Judaizer,
you're going straight to hell.
No, no, no, no,
and my soul winning partner is like,
whoa, dude.
You need to chill out.
And, but then it kind of dawned on me.
It's like, you can't be like that.
You got to shake the dust off your feet,
because what if the person at the next house
is looking out their window,
and they see me screaming at,
you know, their neighbor,
even if the guy deserves it,
even if, you know,
he really does deserve to hear those things.
You know, it's probably not the time
and place to do it.
You know, just say,
all right, have a nice day,
and leave.
You know, and thankfully,
you know, in the many years that since then,
I've learned to do that,
to shake the dust off my feet.
And I think this is something
that people have to practice,
because when I,
even to this day,
sometimes I'll see people soul winning,
we'll be out there soul winning,
and I'll notice this.
People will come back,
oh, man, this guy,
and they'll have some negative story.
It's like, dude,
you got to shake the dust off your feet
and just move on.
Just forget about those people, right?
And pray that, you know,
someone makes it back to them someday,
and that they're more receptive that day,
you know?
You know, leave a good taste,
if you can, in their mouth.
Try not to be a source of,
you know, a reason for them
to continue to reject the gospel.
Yeah, I remember last time
some Baptist came around to my door,
a bunch of jerks.
Like, we don't want to,
that's not the reputation we want, right?
I think if people are rude and curt
and short with me at the door,
and just, it's like,
okay, great,
then I don't have to waste my time
talking to somebody
that doesn't want to hear it,
and then go find somebody that does, right?
So, anyway, verse 12,
Verily I say unto you,
it shall be more tolerable
for Sodom and Gomorrah
in the day of judgment
than for that city.
That's a pretty powerful verse right there
that you can preach a whole sermon about.
Like, people that reject Christ
and the gospel
are lower on the totem pole
than Sodom and Gomorrah.
That's pretty low.
And they went out and preached
that men should repent.
And let me put, emphasize the fact
that there's a period there
right after the word repent, okay?
It doesn't say,
that men should repent of their sins,
which is not a phrase that's in the scripture.
It's not there.
You won't ever find it.
You'll find it in the Book of Mormon.
It's all day long in the Book of Mormon
who are preaching a false gospel
of works salvation.
And if I have to repent of my sins
to be saved,
that's works, okay?
We're saved by grace through faith
and not of works.
It is the gift of God.
I don't do anything other than believe.
That's why Jesus said,
whosoever believeth in him
should not perish
but have everlasting life, okay?
To him that believeth
and worketh not, okay?
And repentance is work.
If you're telling me
I have to repent of my sins
to go to heaven,
that's a lot of work
because there isn't a righteous man
on the earth which sinneth not.
We've all come short
of the glory of God.
We all sin every day.
If I could lose my salvation
by sinning, I would, okay?
In verse 13,
and they cast out many devils
and anointed with oil,
many that were sick
and healed them.
I want to put emphasis
on the words many, many, twice.
Many with devils
and many that were sick.
The need is great today, okay?
Not for these specific things
but there's people out there
as Jesus said,
the harvest truly is great
but the labors are few, okay?
We've got some great tips
on soul winning here, right?
From the story,
go two by two,
shake the dust off your feet,
you know,
and have a good attitude
when you're out there.
Look out for one another,
pray for one another
while you're preaching.
You know, participate in the program
and that's probably the point
I want to end on.
Participate in the program.
Why?
Because there's many that need
a soul winner to come to them.
Why do you always preach
on soul winning?
Well, I can't help it tonight.
I'm just going through the passage.
It's literally what Jesus
is doing in the passage.
You know, we bring it up a lot
because it's needed
and the people that are going
need to stay motivated
to keep going
and you know,
there's a message that needs to,
you can't preach about
soul winning too much.
You really can't, okay?
But that's the message tonight.
Let's go ahead and close
the word of prayer.
Dear Lord, again,
thank you for the great example
that you've set for us
and Lord, in so many ways, Lord,
and the way that you model for us
in every area of life,
but even in the ministry
when it comes to soul winning,
you've given us a great model to follow
going out there two by two.
Lord, I pray you'd help us
to know that when we're out there
laboring for you
and you're with us,
that it is a three-fold cord
and Lord, I pray that you'd help us
to continue to do a great work here
in Tucson for you
and that we would see many souls
come to Christ through this ministry
in the years to come.
We ask these things in Jesus' name.
Amen.
All right, well, we'll go ahead
and sing one more song
before we're dismissed
and don't forget
we're going to be having
ice cream sundaes
immediately after the service.
Please open up your songbooks
to song number 147.
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 38, 40, 40, 46, 48, 49, 48, 49, 49, 50, 51, 57, 58, 61, 61, 51, 54, 67, 57, 58, 60, 61, 58, 61, 68, 69, 67, 62, 69,
The everlasting wind, so what a piece of wine.
We heave on the everlasting arms.
We heave, we heave, we heave, we heave, we heave, we heave.
We take care together from all alarms.
We heave, we heave, we heave, we heave, we heave,
we heave, we heave, we heave, we heave, we heave,
we heave, we heave, we heave, we heave,
we heave, we heave, we heave, we heave, we heave,
we heave, we heave, we heave, we heave, we heave, we heave,
we heave, we heave, we heave, we heave, we heave,
we heave, we heave, we heave, we heave,
we heave, we heave, we heave,
we heave, we heave,