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James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, to the twelve tribes which are scattered abroad, greeting.
My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations, knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience,
but let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing.
If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God that giveth to all men liberally and upbraideth not, and it shall be given him.
But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering, for he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea, driven with the wind and tossed.
For let not that man think that he shall receive anything of the Lord, a double-minded man is unstable in all his ways.
Let the brother of low degree rejoice, and that he is exalted, but the rich, and that he is made low, because as the flower of the grass he shall pass away.
For the sun is no sooner risen with the burning heat, but it withereth the grass, and the flower thereof falleth, and the grace of the fashion of it perisheth, so also shall the rich man fade away in his ways.
Blessed is the man that endureth temptation, for when he has tried, he shall receive the crown of life which the Lord hath promised to them that love him.
Let no man say, "When he is tempted, I am tempted of God."
For God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man, but every man is tempted when he is drawn away of his own lust and enticed.
Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin, and sin when it is finished bringeth forth death.
Do not err, my beloved brethren, every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.
Of his own will begat he us with the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures.
Wherefore, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath, for the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God.
Wherefore, lay apart all filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness, and receive with meekness the engrafted word which is able to save your souls.
But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves. For if any be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man, beholding his natural face in a glass, for he beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was, but whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein, he, being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed.
Any man among you seem to be religious, and bridleeth not his tongue, but deceiveeth his own heart, this man's religion is vain.
Pure religion, and undefiled before God and the Father, is this, to visit the fatherless, and widows, and their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.
Dear Heavenly Father, Lord, thank you for an amazing missions conference, we pray that you would just fill Pastor with the power of your Holy Spirit, and have us your children be edified, in the name of Jesus we pray, amen.
Amen, this morning we're talking about the country of Armenia, and before I get into the sermon, I just want to give you a little bit of information about Armenia, because I know some people may be totally unfamiliar with this country, where it even is.
I don't know anything about it, but Armenia is a country in Asia, and is bordered by Georgia, Iran, Azerbaijan, and Turkey, and one of the most famous things about Armenia is Mount Ararat, okay, which is what this picture is behind me, the greater and lesser Mount Ararat there.
This is very significant in the Bible, because it's where Noah's Ark landed after the flood, it was in the mountains of Ararat.
Another interesting thing is that the word Armenia actually occurs twice in our King James Bible, and the underlying Hebrew word for Armenia in both of those places is Ararat, and so the King James is translating it as Armenia,
because those two things have been synonymous in many ways throughout history, and so that's one really interesting thing about Armenia.
So the people in Armenia are very proud of this fact that humanity started right here, you know, the entire human race comes from Armenia, because this is where Noah got off the Ark.
And so the imagery is just everywhere, a lot of businesses will have Ararat in the name, the bottled water that people were drinking said Noah on it, like that was the brand name.
You'd go to art museums, and there are just pictures of Noah's Ark everywhere, and it's a big thing over there, Mount Ararat, that's huge.
Another famous thing about Armenia is that it's the first country in history to make Christianity the state religion, all the way back in AD 301, so that's before the Roman Empire adopted Christianity.
They have a totally unique alphabet, first of all the language is its own branch of the Indo-European family, so it's not really related to any other language, except just that it's part of the giant Indo-European family.
So it's a very unique language, they have their own unique alphabet that is only for Armenian, and it was invented all the way back in AD 405 by a guy named Mesrop Mashtots, and he actually then used that alphabet in order to translate the Bible into Armenian.
And this is one of the reasons that I actually really wanted to learn Armenian was because of the fact that I've been really interested in biblical languages over the last many years, trying to become an expert on all things King James Bible related and getting into the original languages and the history of the text and everything like that.
And it turns out Armenian is of course very significant for that because of the fact that they have one of the oldest Bible translations that's still around.
So besides Greek, Hebrew, Latin, other important biblical languages believe it or not are Armenian and Georgian and Syriac because those are languages that have early Bible translations.
And so that evidence can be important for backing up the fact that our King James Bible is the word of God and that the modern version crowd is wrong.
And so that's one of the reasons why I picked. Actually, one of the other reasons was back in 2016 when we were dubbing marching design into a whole bunch of different languages, I came across the Armenian language and I just thought the writing looked so cool.
And I thought to myself, man, I would love to learn that someday. And so, you know, eight years later, I had the opportunity to study the language, learn the language. I spent a few months learning the language before I went over there and I knew about 1000 words really well as my goal, like 1000 words that I knew like the back of my hand, I learned the grammar and everything, so I wouldn't say that I was fluent at all, but I was definitely able to get by and say whatever I needed to say.
Obviously, I learned more while I was there. Also over there, that's kind of the language section over here. If you get a chance to check it out after the service, you'll see that we have that book there on the table, which is really cool because that is sort of the par excellence manuscript of the Armenian Bible.
It's the four gospels from 900 and some odd A.D. So we're talking about something that's about 1100 years old. So obviously our King James replica is pretty cool. That's 400 years old. This is like 1100 years old. It's an exact facsimile, really interesting. It's got interesting pictures in it and stuff. So I hope you'll take a chance to look at that.
On the wall, we have those big giant poster boards. I wrote those Bible verses in Armenian so that you can see what the handwriting is like because the handwriting is a lot different than the printed language.
So at this time, before I get into the sermon, at this time, I would say you really have to know some Armenian in order to be effective over there. If you're just an English speaker, this is probably not going to be a good place to go do a mission strip because the lingua franca over there for a long time has been Russian because Armenia used to be part of the Soviet Union, so a lot of people there speak Russian as a second language, but the young people are switching over to English.
So I think in about 10 or 15 years, you could do an effective trip over there as an English speaker talking to the young people, but unfortunately, they are not there yet.
So when I was over there, I was able to win people the Lord using like a mix of Armenian and English. And let me say this, that's how I started out soul winning in Spanish as well.
There are a lot of people out there that are interested in learning Spanish so that they can go soul winning among Spanish speakers. And long before I ever won somebody the Lord 100% in Spanish, I won probably about 15 to 20 people the Lord using Spanglish.
And you know, Spanglish is something we kind of joke about and laugh about, but Spanglish is a real thing. If you actually go to border towns in the United States and turn on the radio, they will be talking in Spanglish, just indiscriminately going back and forth between English and Spanish.
Long before I was ever able to get someone saved 100% in Spanish, you find the people who speak a little bit of English, and then you can use a lot of Spanish, a little English. When you run into problems, you can go back and forth, and between your knowledge of Spanish and their knowledge of English, you can actually get the point across and get through, and that's actually very effective.
I won almost 20 people the Lord that way in Spanish before I ever was able to get through the whole thing. So that's a good way to warm up to that process. I did the same thing when I was in Cyprus, like a mix of Greek and English, mix of Armenian and English, that's what I was doing when I was over there.
So first of all, let me give you a bunch of positive things about Armenia, and then I'm going to give you some negative things about Armenia, then I'll get into the preaching. So positive things about Armenia, my favorite thing was just great tasting water everywhere. The best water I've ever tasted in my life, and I'm talking out of the bathroom faucet.
And so, you know, you think about how you're always having to buy bottled water. When I was over there, I just drank straight out of the tap, because everybody told me, "Oh, it's the best water." You taste it, and immediately you can tell this is good water.
Water fountains are everywhere, and when there's no water fountain, you just go into a bathroom, literally, I mean, can you imagine America just going into a public bathroom, just flipping on the faucet?
Well, those of you who grew up in the '80s, that's how we lived back then. But anyway, it was just wonderful just being able to just carry around an empty bottle, go into any bathroom, fill it up, and it was just ice cold, wonderful tasting water.
The food was also just really fresh and healthy everywhere, and as long as you're not in a touristy area, the food was really cheap.
I ate pretty much the same breakfast every morning, these two pastries, one filled with potatoes, the other filled with bananas, and for two pastries like that, that stuffed me to the gills, 50 cents.
Pretty much everything there was a quarter. It was like, pastry, quarter. Ride the bus, one quarter. Ride the metro, one quarter.
So that was a cool thing. Another thing that I loved was the traffic lights over there were really cool. Now, I know this might seem like a weird thing, but it had this thing where it always had this little countdown telling you how many seconds until the light turns green, and then there were countdowns telling you how many seconds until the light turns red, so they were just living in the year 2032 when it came to their traffic lights.
So for a poor country, they had some killer traffic lights. So it was like, yeah, this light's going to turn green in 53 seconds, and you just knew that all the time. It was really cool.
So I liked that. The taxis and bus rides were really cheap. Like I said, 25 cents to ride the bus, and then taxi rides, you could pretty much go anywhere in town. They had an app that was sort of like Uber, but it was called Gigi, and you would just fire up the Gigi app.
They got an app for you over there. And it was literally just to go like anywhere in the city is like four bucks. So it was just a great, it was like Uber, but just way cheaper, okay?
Another thing I thought was pretty cool over there is that the Bible in their language, the word for Bible literally means the breath of God. That's what they actually call the Bible. So talk about believing in inspiration.
I mean, they just call it, it's the breath of God. It's God breathe. And everybody that I talked to over there said, oh yeah, the Armenian Bible matches the KJV in English.
And so I did read a lot of the Armenian Bible. So far, I think I've read like 60 some chapters. I'm trying to read the whole New Testament, but I'm like 60 some chapters in, they have a great translation, and I'm also studying that old manuscript and everything.
And I went to the Armenian Bible Society while I was there. And usually when you just go to a country, just sort of generic Bible Society, usually they're promoting wrong versions, modern versions, modern texts, right?
Usually we have to rely on like a good Bible Society, like the Trinitarian Bible Society to help us out with stuff, right? But you just walk into the Armenian Bible Society, they had Greek New Testaments. It's all textus receptus.
They had the Armenian Bible, which is a good Bible. And then every English Bible that they had was a KJV. They didn't even have the New King James. It was just all KJV. So that was really cool.
And by the way, here's a side note. It's funny how you go pretty much anywhere in the world and it's all KJV everywhere.
In America, you got modern versions all over the place. But if you go to South America, like Diana, you go places in the Caribbean, you go places throughout Africa, and the King James dominates everywhere. And those of you who have gone on mission trips know that the King James is everywhere.
So praise God for his word, doing great works all over the world.
Okay, so here's some negative things about Armenia. People just stare at you for no reason. They just glare at you. You know, I felt like, for the most part, it was a pretty unfriendly place.
There's a lot of people staring at you and glaring at you, and I'm just like, take a picture, it'll last longer. Why are you staring at me like that?
People are rude. Customer service was horrible. Like you walk into a store and ask like, hey, do you have, I don't know, do you have this product? I don't know, go ask somebody else. It's like, what? What in the world?
Okay, people constantly just cut in front of you in line everywhere. You'll be waiting in line for the register. Somebody will just jump in, oh, sorry, I'm in a hurry, and just take your spot. What just happened?
When I first got to Armenia, I'm at the airport, and it was just a super long line for passport control, so I ended up having to wait a little over two hours in this line for passport control, which isn't really normal.
Usually it's like 30, 40 minutes, so I had to wait like two hours. Now look, I'm a super patient person with stuff like that, like I don't mind waiting for two hours, you know, it's no big deal at all.
This was like the most stressful two hours of my life, and let me tell you why. Because it wasn't waiting for two hours, it was fight to keep your place in line for two hours, because people are just, if you didn't fight for it, everybody's just going to flow by you, and you never advance.
So it was like strategic foot hand placement, just kind of blocking, and just kind of knowing when to make eye contact, when not to make eye contact. I would say that I did a pretty good job, because over the course of two hours, I probably lost about like five places in line, which I felt was pretty good, like a score of negative five.
You know, other people were getting like a plus 20, okay, because everybody's just, if you literally just turn your back, this little woman was like, zip, and she just looks at you like, sorry, sucker.
So it was a super stressful two hours. And then while we were doing that, a couple people just started screaming at each other about the cutting. This old man and this like 20 year old woman got in a screaming fight, and you know, the old man was in the right, because he's the one that got cut off.
Later in the day, there were people screaming at each other in public and everything, so yeah, there were some rude people cutting you off.
Okay, the driving was just insane. Now thankfully, I didn't drive. I just walked everywhere, took buses, used Gigi, but I did not do any driving, but everybody just drove like an absolute maniac, but even just walking around, it was dangerous, because you'd have a green crosswalk, and cars will still run you over.
And I remember there were a couple of times that I jaywalked, and I was just thinking to myself, this jaywalking is identical to using the crosswalk, because like, nobody's going to stop anyway, so it's like, what's the difference?
They're like, wait, it's red. That doesn't seem to stop these people. I actually got bumped by a car. I wouldn't say I got hit by a car, but I got hit by a car.
I got bumped, you know, I didn't get hurt or anything, but I mean, and I saw cars bumping other people, like, you got to watch out, and basically what you had to do, you had to take like a leap of faith, because what would happen is, if you're just waiting, you're just never going to get to walk across, so you kind of had to step in front of cars and look at them like, and then they stop, and it's like, okay, so there's a little bit of faith required there for using crosswalks.
Another thing that was kind of weird was, you go to a restaurant, no napkins at any restaurant. I ate at fancy restaurants, I ate at cheap restaurants, the whole time I was there, I never saw a napkin the entire time I was there. Instead, there's a tissue box on the table.
So, I mean, little thin little tissue, and you're just kind of like, is this supposed to be a napkin? Like, disposable tissues instead of napkins, that was kind of weird. And then the women wear way too much makeup, like, they wear a ridiculous amount of makeup, but I will say this though, that the whole time I was there, here, let's end on a positive note before I get into the message, the whole time I was there, I didn't see any freaks or weirdos, queers, transvestites.
Lesbians, like, just didn't exist. And it was kind of refreshing that just all the men, you know, were normal, all the women were feminine, like, it was just, everybody was just a normal person. And I remember just when I landed at my layover in Chicago on the way home, just already at the airport, there were just these weird lesbians, I was just like, all right, we're home, a bunch of weirdos, but I did not see a single weirdo the whole time I was there.
Let me just kind of describe the way, kind of the clothing and the culture a little bit. You know, everybody puts a lot of work into their appearance. They're probably a little too into their appearance, okay, because, I mean, we're talking just, everybody's in designer clothes, this is a poor country, and everybody's in real nice clothes, name brands, men have the haircut and everything, everybody's very groomed, which in some ways is good. I mean, everybody's looking nice and presentable and everything like that.
And then I would say that the ladies pretty much had one of two looks. They either wore like the modest, the long dress down to the knee, modest type of feminine dress, and they pretty much just look like they're going to the prom all the time, like, I mean, just really putting a lot of work into that.
They're just, everybody's super dressed up all the time. Or I would say about half the girls were dressed in feminine dresses like that, and then the other half wore what I would call like a tomboy chic, that's what I kind of came up with that term, of basically like wearing like baggy jeans and a t-shirt and a baseball cap, but all like really fancy designer version of that.
So those were kind of the two looks that I saw on the ladies. And then this is something I've never seen in the United States. I saw like three different women just in the short time I was there that had a bandage on their nose, because they had just gotten a nose job.
So there's just a lot of nose jobs going on, and a lot of women like inflating their lips. I don't know what they do, I don't know what that is, some kind of injections or something where they make their lips swell up. That seemed to be a thing over there as well. But anyway, that was kind of the things I liked, things I didn't like. But 95.2% are members of the Armenian Apostolic Church.
So when it comes to the religion of Armenia, and let's get into the sermon now, Matthew chapter 24, Matthew chapter 24 in your Bibles. 95.2% are members of the Armenian Apostolic Church, which is similar to like East Orthodox or Roman Catholic type of thing.
A bunch of incense and candles and hocus pocus and this kind of stuff, and you know, worshipping Mary and the saints and all that stupid stuff. So that's pretty much the main religion, 95.2%.
So the first guy that I got saved when I was there was a guy named Michael, and after he got saved, I gave him a New Testament, and we ended up talking for like a really long time. And he told me, he said, "Most Armenians are nominally Christian, but they don't know or care what they believe." He said, "People in Armenia, members of the Armenian Church, they pretty much don't know what they believe and don't care."
He said, "I'm interested in what you're saying. I care about this." But he said, "The vast majority of people simply don't care." So here's an appropriate scripture about that, because of course Mount Ararat is associated with Armenia.
Look at Matthew chapter 24 verse 37, "But as the days of Noah were, so shall also the coming of the Son of Man be," Matthew 24, 38, "For as in the days that were before the flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered into the ark and knew not," watch that, "they knew not until the flood came and took them all away, so shall also the coming of the Son of Man be."
In the parallel passage in Luke 17, it says the flood came and destroyed them all. And until the flood came and destroyed them all, they didn't know. They're just eating, drinking, marrying, giving in marriage, they're buying, they're selling, they're living their lives.
People just not caring about spiritual things, not caring about the things of God. But guess what? The flood is coming. And once God destroyed the entire world with water, but the same heavens and earth that He destroyed with water, one day He's going to destroy with fire.
And of course Christ is going to return in flaming fire, taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. And many people today are like, you know, what Michael said about these Armenians, that basically they just don't know what they believe in, they don't care.
They're just living their lives and they don't care. Well guess what? It's appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment. And it's important that people know for sure that they're going to heaven when they die.
And not caring about that is a big problem. Of course Romans chapter 3 famously says, there is none that understand it, there's none that seeketh after God. They're all gone out of the way, they're together become unprofitable, there's none that doeth good, no not one.
And so there's a lack of seeking for God. Now when it comes to the book of 2 Chronicles that I've been preaching through on Wednesday night, seeking the Lord is a big theme in the book of 2 Chronicles.
If you would turn to John chapter 5, but I'm going to read for you some verses from 2 Chronicles. Chapter 11 verse 16 it says, "After them, out of all the tribes of Israel, such as set their hearts to seek the Lord God of Israel, came to Jerusalem to sacrifice unto the Lord God of their fathers."
2 Chronicles 12, 14 he did evil because he prepared not his heart to seek the Lord, speaking of Rehoboam. Chapter 14 verse 4 he commanded Judah to seek the Lord God of their fathers and to do the law and the commandment.
Chapter 15 verse 12 they entered into a covenant to seek the Lord God of their fathers with all their heart and with all their soul. And that whosoever would not seek the Lord God of Israel should be put to death, whether small or great, whether man or woman.
2 Chronicles 20 verse 3 Jehoshaphat feared and set himself to seek the Lord and proclaim a fast throughout all Judah. And Judah gathered themselves together to ask help of the Lord even out of all the cities of Judah they came to seek the Lord.
So just again and again in 2 Chronicles it's saying people sought the Lord. These people didn't seek the Lord. And they got destroyed. They're wicked. They're ungodly. These people did seek the Lord.
Folks, we've got to seek the Lord. And the people of our media, they need to seek the Lord. What does the word seek mean? It means to look for. To search for. Right? And we need to know what we believe.
We need to care what we believe. We need to figure out what we believe. And we need to figure out what the Bible says. So that we can know for sure that we're going to heaven based upon the Bible.
Of course, those of us who are here in our church, obviously we already know that. But there could be some people here today that don't know that. You better seek the Lord while he may be found.
And so the people of our media need to seek the Lord. The Bible says ask and it shall be given you. Seek and you shall find. Knock and it shall be opened unto you. For everyone that asketh receiveth.
And he that seeketh findeth. And to him that knocketh it shall be opened. Look at John chapter 5 verse 39. John chapter 5 verse 39. It says this. Search the scriptures. Search the scriptures.
For in them ye think ye have eternal life and they are they which testify of me. Jesus is talking to people who think that they have eternal life. He says you think that you have eternal life.
But you know what you need to do? You need to search the scriptures. You need to see what the Bible actually says. Because your little ritual and poofoo dust and candles and idols and images and rituals and your little song and dance isn't going to get you to heaven.
You need to search what the Bible says and figure out how to go to heaven according to scripture. It's funny. I went to a church there and the pastor's son at the church, I was talking to the pastor's son.
And he told me that he had asked other Armenians why do you cross yourselves? He said why do you do this sign of the cross thing? Why do you do that? Where is that in the Bible?
And they said well I don't know. Nobody could tell him. Nobody could tell him where that came from. Nobody could tell them where that is in the Bible. And he said you know what? I'm not going to do it then.
He said why should I do that then? Tell me one reason why I should go like this right now. Show me that in the Bible. And so he's not going to do it because he's not going to do just some man-made ritual that's not in the word of God.
Read the Bible. Follow the word of God. Roman Catholic, East Orthodox, Armenian Apostolic, you know what? It's pretty much all the same unbiblical, idolatrous religion and they need to get saved by trusting Christ to save them by faith alone.
It's the same solution for them all. But step one of that is to start actually caring what you believe and figuring out what you believe and why. Because if you don't care, if you're just going through life, eating, drinking, buying, selling, marrying and giving in marriage, and then you just don't know.
Until the flood comes and destroys you. Oh, I didn't know. Well guess what? The truth is out there. The Bible is available. The word of God is available in your language. Seek ye out in the book of the Lord and read. Search the scriptures for in them you think you have eternal life.
But they're going to tell you about the real Jesus and the real salvation through Jesus. So it's very important. So number one, Armenians need to seek the Lord through his word. And number two, the word of God has the power to save.
The word of God has the power to save. Go to Luke 24. Luke chapter number 24. So five days later, after Michael got saved, I was talking to Michael again. And I'd given him a New Testament the first time I talked to him and he came to me and told me that he'd started reading the New Testament and he was reading in the Gospel of Mark where I had him reading.
And I ended up being able to give the Gospel to a friend of his while he was there. And it was a big long conversation, but it was cool because as I was talking to her and giving her the Gospel, Michael, who was just, you know, newly saved himself, he was backing me up the whole time.
And basically reiterating to her and telling her that what I was saying was true. And obviously, you know, helping out with a little bit of the language and stuff because, you know, we're all kind of working here with a couple of languages because they spoke a certain amount of English, I spoke a certain amount of Armenian.
Both of us weren't quite there, you know, but over time and through patience, we're able to communicate pretty well. And so, you know, we're all having this conversation and he's helping me out. He's explaining her. And it's funny because as I'm preaching the Gospel to her and she's giving me objections, he says, that's exactly what I said.
And he showed me where I was wrong about that, but that's what I said, the same thing. So that was kind of cool just having him there to back me up as I was talking to her. So she had gone to an evangelical church in Armenia.
She was actually not Armenian apostolic church. She'd gone to an evangelical, like non-denom type church since she was three years old, but she did not know for sure she was going to heaven because she said that she knew that she was guilty about some things. And she said, that's why I don't know if I'm going to heaven because, you know, I'm guilty of some things. Well, aren't we all?
Right? We've all sinned and come short of the glory of God. And she said that she believed that in order to be saved, you had to believe, but you also had to live a good life. So it was like a workspace salvation. No surprise.
So I start giving her the Gospel and as I'm preaching the Gospel to her, she's talking to me and says, wait, she said, can I record you? Because she said, the words that you're saying to me right now are melting my heart.
And so I just want to record this right now. And it made me think of this, Luke 24 verse 27, beginning at Moses and all the prophets. This is Jesus, of course. He, Jesus, expounded unto them in all the scriptures, the things concerning himself.
And then look at verse 32. They said one to another. Did not our heart burn within us while he talked with us, by the way, and while he opened us the scriptures. And look, of course, you know that when I was preaching to her and she said, hey, can I record this because my heart is melting.
Okay. It's nothing that I was saying. I wasn't saying anything clever or interesting or I didn't have some special illustration. It's the power of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Word of God. And she's been going to an evangelical church her whole life, but she's hearing something different.
She's hearing something powerful from the Bible that just melted her heart. And she said, I want to record this. I said, don't record this. I said, I already made the video. Here you go. Let me send you the link.
So I said, there's no reason to record me because I said, I'm just going to send you a link. And so I ended up sending her the links to the Bible Way to Heaven and stuff. I said, that way you can go back and listen to this again, review this, share this with other people.
Of course, you know, ultimately she ended up getting saved. But in the process of giving her the Gospel, the subject of chastisement came up a lot, actually, of those who are saved. So if you would go to Hebrews chapter 12.
Hebrews chapter 12. But while you're turning there, the Bible says, faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. And you got an unsaved person and they hear the Word of God, their heart burns within them, right?
Their heart melts, as she put it, in her English that, you know, because I looked up melting, heart melting in the Bible and it was all people being scared.
I found like, you know, 12 verses or something where people's hearts melted. I was like, none of this is going to work for my sermon. Because that's not what she meant. You know, what she meant was just that her heart was touched, her heart was stirred, her heart was moved by the Word of God.
Why? Because the Word of God has power to save. And faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. You got people that are not necessarily seeking after God, but then the Word of God comes in and it stirs their heart and stirs their soul.
And so obviously Michael and his friend, they were actually ones who did care and they were somewhat seeking after God and their heart was stirred as well. But we've all had situations where people were not interested. I mean, those two were interested.
But we've all had situations where people were not interested, but then when they start hearing the message, they get interested. We've all seen that as well.
James 1-18 says, "Of his own will, begat he us with the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures." God begat us with the Word of God, the Bible says.
"Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible by the Word of God, which liveth and abideth forever." The Word of God is that seed planted in our heart that saves us.
Acts 11-14, "He shall tell thee words whereby thou and all thy house shall be saved." It's the Word of God that has the power to save people.
So we're talking about this issue of people who are saved being chastised for their sins or that God would chasten and chastise the saved after they have received Christ as Savior.
And I tend to talk about this a lot in my soul winning because a lot of people have this attitude of, well, if the Gospel's free, if salvation's free, if you just believe on Jesus and you're saved, well then what if you go out and do all this bad stuff afterward?
And they have this wrong idea that you can lose your salvation. And so, typically, if I explain the chastisement of the Lord to people, this clears that up for them right away because then they understand.
Okay, it's not that you just go out and sin and do all this stuff and have no consequences, but whom the Lord loveth, look down at your Bible if you would there, in verse 6, "Whom the Lord loveth, he chasteneth and scourges every son whom he receiveth."
And so, you see here that it's not that you just go out and sin and have no consequences. If you're a saved Christian, if you're a child of God and you break God's rules, he's going to discipline you.
He's going to chastise you. He's going to scourge you. But he's not going to send you to hell. He's not going to take away your salvation from you. You're still saved because Jesus paid for all of your sins.
So, when we first started talking about this issue of God chastising his children, you know, she demanded to see proof of this because she was skeptical. She acted like, "I've never heard of that. I don't know if that's true. I want to see that in the Bible," she said.
Because, you know, yeah, that just, it didn't really click with her right away. So, I took her to Hebrews 12, showed it to her, and after I showed it to her in Hebrews 12, she just immediately accepted it and embraced it.
Why? Because of the power of God's Word. God's Word has power in the sense of power, like dynamic power, but it also has power in the sense of authority.
Well, hey, if that's what the Bible says, it's what the Bible says. And so, once I showed it to her in the Bible, then she immediately embraced it.
And the reason why she was struggling with it, after she'd already, a little bit later on, prayed and received Christ as Savior, she brought up the fact that she didn't feel like she'd ever been chastised by God when she did wrong things.
That's why she wasn't familiar with that concept. And I said, "Well, that's because you weren't saved." I said, "You know, buckle up, because from now on, you are going to get chastised. You know, you didn't get chastised yet because you weren't saved."
So, I thought that was kind of funny. So, number one, Armenians need to seek the Lord through His Word. Many of them think they have eternal life, but they need to search the Scriptures.
They need to start caring about what they believe and why. And let me just tell you this, I felt that people there didn't know the Bible. The members of the Armenian Apostolic Church didn't know the Bible.
This doesn't really surprise us, because when we get around Catholics in America, do Catholics typically know the Bible pretty well?
No, in fact, I was just soul-winding a few months ago and had a Roman Catholic tell us, "Hey, our religion, one of the things we're bad at is we don't read the Bible." Like, you know, as members, we don't read the Bible.
And of course, Catholics will brag about how in their services they read portions of the Bible out loud and whatever, but the thing is, the people aren't reading the Bible on their own, and they're typically not paying attention, I think, when they're in church anyway, hearing the stuff read.
Because when you talk to Catholics, they typically don't know the Bible very well, you know? And so I found that even talking to some people in Armenia who were lifelong members of the Armenian Apostolic Church, and even made statements about how, "Oh yeah, my family's really into the Bible, and we read the old, ancient Armenian text, and we're into it, and we know stuff," but then finding out that they lacked even just like a basic knowledge of Bible stories, you know?
Obviously they know about Noah's Ark. But I'm saying, you know, there was just a lack of knowledge, and I had to explain a lot of things about the Trinity. I had to explain a lot of just basic Bible stories and Bible teachings.
They need to seek the Lord through the Word of God in Armenia. Number two, the Word of God has the power to save. The Word of God can melt those hearts, right? And get through to people. It has power.
And number three, this morning, is that God will lead us to people who are ready to receive His Word. God will lead us, okay? So I was on the bus, riding into town with a buddy of mine, whom I had been trying to win to the Lord.
So I'd already preached to this guy for hours. He hadn't got saved, but he was close. He even told someone days later, he said, "Hey, I'm close to getting saved." Somebody asked, they asked this guy, "Are you saved?"
And he said, "Well, I'm not." He's like, "I'm not quite saved, but I'm getting close. He's working on me." And so it's just funny that he just expressly said that. But we're sitting on the bus, and this is a guy that I'd been, you know, working on and trying to get him saved, and he was almost saved.
And so I was actually reading the Bible with him on the bus. Like, we have a Bible open, and I'm reading the Bible with him on the bus. And then this other guy sees that and comes over to us and says, "Hey, what Bible are you guys reading? What are you doing there?"
And so that was just one of those situations where God just has the fish just jumping right into the boat. Right? That's what you love when they're coming to you and asking you about it.
So this was obviously a divine appointment, especially because as I began to talk to this young man that asked me that, turned out that he had been on some kind of exchange to the United States briefly.
And while he was in the United States, he stayed with an evangelical Christian family. So he was kind of familiar with evangelical Christianity.
And while he was over there, they had kind of exposed him to the idea of creation and things like that. And I guess he had gone to the Ark experience. You know, it makes sense, you're an Armenian in America, you know.
You know, check out the Ark experience. So he'd been over to the Ark experience, which I believe is in Kentucky. Is that right? So he went over to that thing in Kentucky. So he'd already had some seeds planted from some evangelical Christians.
So he was, he was almost there, but he did not know if he was going to heaven. He didn't know that it was by faith and stuff like that.
But I ended up winning him to the Lord. And it was just so obvious God brought this guy across my path. Because it was just like perfect. I mean, the guy's just right there. We're just reading the Bible. He comes up to us.
And then he ends up already having a background where people are probably praying for him. That family that he stayed with had probably been praying with him or praying for him, I should say.
And, you know, the seeds had been planted. Somebody else had watered. And he, and he said, oh yeah, I've been watching a lot of stuff online. I've been watching Answers and Genesis and this other stuff.
You know, and here's the, all that stuff that he's watching and hearing is sort of planting the seeds in his mind. He's getting exposed to the Bible, getting exposed to evangelical Christianity.
But he needed a clear presentation of the Gospel, right? He needed somebody to break it down for him clearly. Salvation. The Roman's road. How to be saved.
And so the thing that I took away from that was that God had led that guy across my path and that if we go out soul winning or if we go on a missions trip, God is going to lead us to those people that are ready to receive the word of God.
Here's some verses on that. First of all, the famous verse Proverbs 3, 5, and 6. "Trust in the Lord with all thine heart and lean not unto thine own understanding.
In all thy ways acknowledge him and he shall direct thy paths." Right? I believe that in life in general, God is directing my paths.
You know, because I'm trusting him, I'm not leaning in my own understanding, I'm acknowledging him constantly, and therefore God is directing my paths.
I don't believe God's directing everybody's paths. Nope. But if you're trusting in the Lord, God's directing your paths.
And so this is why we pray when we go out soul winning and we say, "Lord God, please lead us to that one person who wants to get saved. Lead us to that person who's receptive.
Lead us to the ones that want to hear the gospel." And I'll sometimes even pray, "Lord, let the time wasters not be home."
People that aren't interested, people that aren't receptive, let them be gone. Let them not hear the doorbell.
So that they don't waste our time and guide us to the ones that are ready to hear the gospel.
And you know that if you've done soul winning for any amount of time, you've had situations where you showed up and it was like, "Wow, God brought me to this person at the exact time in their life where they're just ready."
You run into people that are like, "Wow, we were just talking about this and then the doorbell rang." Or something like that, right?
Or, "You know what, I was just talking to my Baptist uncle yesterday or something and then boom, you're here today."
And it's just like God leads us to these people. Or how many times I've showed up soul winning in a random area, first door somebody gets saved.
Even in an unreceptive area. That just happened to me like two weeks ago. I knocked a door in an unreceptive area, first door, person saved.
Whenever that happens, I always think to myself, "I don't know if anybody else is getting saved because I was clearly here for this guy and this ain't a receptive neighborhood.
But I'm going to do all the other doors anyway, you know?" But God leads us. You know, this is what I think is so dumb about people who kind of poo poo soul winning
and they kind of think that soul winning is a big joke or that we're just going through the motions. You're just getting around and praying with people, right?
Just these kind of non-soul winning losers that not only do they not do the work, but then they criticize those who are doing the work.
You guys are just going around, just praying with people, blah, blah, blah. You know, stop and think about it, my friend.
Does God want people to get saved or not? I mean, is God serious when He says He's not willing that any should perish?
Is God serious when He says that He loved the world? Okay, so God wants people to get saved.
Okay, He's telling us, "Go into all the world. Go preach the gospel. Go out into the vineyard. Go out and pray the Lord of the harvest that He'll send forth laborers into His harvest."
So then a laborer shows up and says, "Alright, I'm here. Let's go." And then that laborer prays and says, "God, lead me to people that are receptive." Right?
Then we go out and we find that receptive person. We present them a thorough presentation of the gospel. We don't just wham, bam, one, two, three, repeat after me.
No, we do a good job around here. We're thorough. We teach our people. We teach each other to be thorough and explain everything.
And we get through the pun of salvation. We pray with that person. Oh, God's up in heaven just, "Oh, it's just all a big joke. You're just praying with people and they're not even getting saved."
What is that? Like how stupid do you have to be to actually believe that? That God's up in heaven wanting people saved. We're down here wanting people to get saved.
We're praying for God to lead us. God says He's going to answer all our prayers according to His will. And then we're praying God lead us to the people that you want us to talk to.
Then shouldn't we assume that God actually is leading us to the people that He wants to talk to? I thought when we pray we're supposed to pray believing.
Because the double-minded man is unstable in all his ways and let him pray without doubting, nothing wavering. Right? Hey, if you pray believing that you receive your petitions, I thought God answers those prayers.
So I just thought that when I knock on somebody's door and they're actually receptive and want to talk about Jesus, and then they actually listen to the Gospel and agree with it and bow their heads and pray and receive Christ, I consider that an answer to prayer.
But then you got a bunch of bozos who are lazy, who won't do the work of God, and then they're just like, "Uh, you just went out and just prayed with people."
Oh, so what you're saying is God doesn't care about souls. He doesn't answer my prayer. He's not taking my prayer seriously. He's not taking my work seriously. He's not taking our church seriously.
And it's all just a big joke. And it's all just a big game. What kind of a doctrine is that?
Well, where are all these people that you went to the Lord? Well, some of them are in freaking Armenia.
Where are all these people that you went to the Lord? I don't know. The Bahamas? Where are all these people that you went to the Lord? Samoa? Where are all these people that you went to the Lord? Columbia?
Where are all these people? Dominican Republic? I don't know. Where are all these people? Vanuatu? Tuvalu? Fiji? I don't know. Where are all these people? Germany? I don't know. A thousand of them are in Germany.
Where are all these people? I don't know. Why is your church microscopic? Where are all these people that you went to the Lord? Why do you run 20 on Sunday morning? Can you explain that?
You know, it's just like, hey, where are all these people? Where are all these people? You know what? They're in other churches. Do you think that everybody that we've went to the Lord goes to our church?
In fact, we just recently had some people that I went to the Lord leave the church. Hey, thanks for giving me sound. Guess what? Other churches have people in them that we went to the Lord. Amen?
And you know, we don't care because we're not trying to win them to faithful word. We're trying to win them to Jesus. We don't care where they are. We don't care where they are. I care where they're going to be, which is heaven. That's what I care about.
But folks, if you don't think soul winning is real, then you must think God is just kidding when he said he wants people to be saved. You must think he's just kidding when he tells us to go out and get people saved.
You must just think that he's just kidding when he says that the word of God, he that goeth forth and weepeth bearing that precious seed, will doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his seeds with him.
I guess that's just a big joke to you because I thought that if I go out weeping, bearing precious seed, I'm going to come back with results. That's what I thought.
Now look, obviously this isn't Burger King. You're not going to have it in 90 seconds or something, but sometimes you've got to put in work.
You know, I love what Brother Anselm said about going soul winning for a year without getting people saved because he was in an unreceptive area.
You know what? That's not even crazy because here's the thing.
I can tell you that right here in Arizona there have been times when I went up to 50 hours of soul winning with no salvations in unreceptive areas.
That's life. Other times you're getting people saved one after the other.
You know, and it's like he said, there are seasons of fruit bearing, there are seasons where it's a dry spell, but you know what?
Everybody who goes soul winning gets people saved unless they're not saved.
Eventually, if you're saved and you go out soul winning, you will eventually get people saved.
And if you put in a lot of time, you will eventually get in a lot of people saved.
Now, look, I remember when Dave Berzins first came to our church and we went out soul winning and the first several times we went soul winning.
Like, I would say, I don't know, we probably went four, five, six, maybe even seven times and no one got saved.
And I kept telling him, like, stay with this. It's eventually going to work.
Like, somebody's going to get saved. But I'm telling you, it was just like nobody was getting saved, you know?
And then, you know, a different example, Brother Segura, the first day that Brother Segura showed up and I went soul winning with Brother Segura.
I wasn't even planning on going that night, but he called the church and was like, hey, I'm here to go soul winning.
And we had changed the soul winning time. There was some mix up or something.
But I said, hey, I just live a half mile away. I'll come down there and I'll go soul winning with you.
And so I came down here. This is in like 2009 or something. Yeah, 2009.
I come down here and we just, last minute, we just go soul winning.
And I kid you not, we literally had like 20 some people saved.
It was insane. It was the most insane soul winning experience of my life to this day anywhere.
And I've been on a lot of these mission trips. I've been to Botswana. I've been to Guyana.
I've been to Aruba. I've been to some of these places.
And I'm telling you, we had the most incredible night of soul winning that I've ever had in my entire life anywhere in the world.
And it was literally a mile from here. It was one mile. It was literally just right across 48th Street in that neighborhood.
I walk up, start preaching the gospel to some teenagers and people just, people just started crowding around.
And people just kept, people were just coming over and just all the whole neighborhood kids were coming over, teenagers are coming over.
And I told them, I said, "It's not normally like this." I said, "Hey, this doesn't happen this way every time."
I'm like, "This is something special." And it was just the most incredible soul winning I've ever seen.
It was just like so many people got saved. And then it got to where it was dark and it was kind of, it was later than I would normally knock doors.
But I just told them, I said, "I don't want to stop because we're on fire." I'm like, "We can't stop."
It was like when Joe Ash is like smiting the earth and Elisha is like, "Don't quit. Don't stop."
I was like, "Dude, I don't even want to stop." And so we ended up going soul winning until like, I don't know, 9.30 or something crazy.
I don't remember what time we stopped. But it was like we pushed it a little bit until we could tell that things were kind of dying down.
But wow. But then another time you can go and it's just, I've, look, even years later after that, I've gone months without getting someone saved.
But I was going soul winning every week. Okay? That's life. But let me tell you something. Soul winning works. It just does, okay?
People who tell me that soul winning doesn't work, my response is always saying, "No, you don't work." Soul winning doesn't work. You don't work.
You don't work is what you really meant to say. I don't work. That's what you meant to say.
Soul winning works. And if soul winning doesn't work, I don't even know why we would even go to church or even read our Bibles or even believe anything that it says.
Because the Bible is constantly talking about evangelism. And if we're supposed to believe that God's plan for America or that God's plan for the world
is that just some pastor gets somebody saved every ten months or something. And that churches get one person saved a year or three people saved.
How are you going to evangelize the world like that? Hey, I believe that the power of God is available to get people saved.
And most importantly, I believe that if I show up for soul winning, God's going to lead me. And that if I show up on a mission strip, God's going to lead me.
God's got a plan. And again, sometimes we don't know what God's doing because some of those dry spells like Brother Anzal, you know, you went out and preached for a year
without results. You know what? How do you know that some of those people didn't get saved later? Did you give the Gospel to anybody during that time?
A lot of people didn't even want to listen. Yeah. Hey, I went out soul winning one time for eight and a half hours straight. No one even let me present the Gospel.
For eight and a half hours in Norway. Not a receptive place. Eight and a half hours of soul winning in Norway didn't even give the Gospel a single time.
God over the course of a week, ten people saved over the course of a week. I had six people saved. The pastor had four people saved, you know, through our collective efforts.
We had ten people saved over the course of a whole week. But one day of that was eight and a half hours of not even giving anyone even, I don't even think we even gave out a Bible verse
for eight and a half hours. But you know what? You never know what you're even accomplishing. Even just the track that you leave behind could at least plant a seed.
Get people thinking. Get a Bible verse into somebody's mind. You know, just the fact, what about just the fact that other Christians might see you evangelizing?
And they might just get a little bit inspired. Because I remember being a teenager doing nothing for the Lord and seeing someone evangelizing and I said, I should be doing that.
That should be me right now. You don't know what you're accomplishing. Folks, if you show up, God will use you.
But if you don't show up, God can't use you. If you're not there reading the Bible, ready to preach the Gospel,
doesn't matter if the guy on the bus is receptive and been primed and prepped for you, because if he comes up to you and you don't even know how to give the Gospel.
Or he's not even going to come up to you because you don't even have Bible in hand. Right? And so the point is that if we show up and we make ourselves available for God to use us,
he's going to use us. You know, Psalm 32 verse 8, "I will instruct thee and teach thee in the way which thou shalt go. I will guide thee with mine eye."
This is the Lord speaking. "Be not ye as the horse, or as the mule, which have no understanding, whose mouth must be held in with bit and bridle, lest they come near unto thee."
He's saying, "Look, I'm going to guide you. I'm going to lead you, but God is saying I don't want you to be like a horse or a mule where I have to put a bit in your mouth and pull you and shove you."
You know, he's like, "Just do what I say. Go into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature. Show up. Be available."
"Who will go for us?" the Lord says. "Here am I. Send me," says Isaiah. I love what Brother Hiles said. "There's always a prepared place for a prepared person."
The Apostle Paul said in Romans 1.15, "I am ready, so as much as in me is, I am ready to preach the Gospel to you that are at Rome also."
I'm ready to preach the Gospel. Can you say that? Could you say right now that if someone approached you and said, "What must I do to be saved," would you be prepared to show that person the Gospel from the Bible, from the Word of God?
I mean, it's a good question to ask yourself, right? Are you ready to preach the Gospel? Because there's always a prepared place for a prepared person.
You know, not only that, while I was in Armenia, God led me to a good church while I was there. You know, and there were a bunch of Baptist churches, a bunch of Evangelical churches. I didn't really know which is the good one.
I don't know. I didn't know anything about it. But yet, I just happened to just, first church that I tried ended up being a great church, and I ended up getting to preach there four times.
So I actually got to preach four full-length sermons. I was in Armenia for four weeks. I thought I was getting a break from preaching. You know, four weeks in Armenia, I preached four full-length sermons.
I loved it. It was great to have that opportunity. But you know what? That's just God leading me to the right place at the right time so that I could be used in that way as well.
So here's the moral of the story. Show up, and God will use you. Learn how to present the Gospel, and God will use you. Go, and God will lead you.
How can God lead you if you're not moving? If you're not going? You know, sit in the car, and you can just turn in the steering wheel. And you just sit in the parking lot, and you just turn in the steering wheel.
And you know what? God's just turning your steering wheel, and you're like, "I don't know why I think nothing's happening." Because you didn't step on the gas. You see what I'm saying?
And you know, all this criticism of soul winning, and you know, "I don't know if these numbers are real," and whatever. You know what? You're right, the numbers aren't real because we actually got more people saved than what we claim.
We actually got way more people saved than what we claim. Because whenever we have doubt about salvation, we don't count them.
Because when we go and preach to a school in these countries, like, weren't there some schools that were preaching even this year in 2024? Where did we preach in schools this year in 2024? Somebody help me out.
Tuvalu? Yeah, so how, like, how many students?
We preach to 30 classes or 30, roughly like 30 students.
30 students each in three different classes. They preach to, like, a group of 30 students, and they preach the gospel to the whole class, and they don't count the salvations unless they deal with the people one-on-one.
Right.
Okay? I went, when I was in Botswana, we'd go to, like, a classroom, 30, 40 students, preach to them, have them raise their hand. And you can watch those videos. You can watch me giving the gospel to those students, and you can see their faces, you can see them reacting, and everything like that.
And then you can see the ones that raise their hand, pray, receive Christ, you know, and you can just look at them and look at me and watch the interaction, and you know some of them are getting saved.
Like, I'm not saying they're all getting saved. You know some of them are getting saved. And we don't count any of those.
When we were in Guyana, sometimes I would preach to the entire school assembly in one shot. Other preachers did the same thing, where we'd preach to literally 500 people at a time, 600 people at a time, 700 students at a time, give them all an oppo- we'd preach the gospel, give them all an opportunity to pray and receive Christ, like half the crowd would repeat the prayer.
And look, I understand that a lot of those people aren't getting it, because we're not dealing with them one-on-one and actually gauging their understanding and tailoring it to them, personalizing it. But I guarantee you, a lot of them did get saved.
We preached to 600 people, and you know, 300 of them are praying the prayer. You know, I don't know, how many of them got saved? 50? 100? 150? No, no, we'll get to heaven and find out. But let me tell you something, we don't count- you know what we count? Zero.
All of our soul winning numbers are based on people that we personally talk to, either one-on-one or in a small enough group where we can interact with each person, gauge their reaction, dialogue with them, talk to them, make sure that they understand and that it's, you know, paced and set for them.
And that's what we count. And then a lot of times, I'll go through the whole plan of salvation with somebody, pray with somebody, and just be like, I don't know if that person really got it, not counting them. I prayed with people in Armenia that I didn't count, because I'm just like, I don't know for sure that they got it.
But you know what, someone probably did. You say, yeah, but you probably prayed with some people that didn't actually get saved. Yeah, I probably did. I probably did, because sometimes there could be people who are just going through the motions with us, and they're just saying that they believe, and they don't really believe, and they're just playing along. Absolutely.
Obviously, we won't really know until we get to heaven. The exact caliber. But you know what, I'll tell you this right now, our numbers are legit. Okay? Either, if anything, if anything, we probably got a little bit more people than that saved, because for every faker that didn't get saved, there's another person that we doubted that actually did get saved.
Or another person in a crowd of 500 that we preach to that did get saved. But you know what, it's so funny, all the critics out there, you know, the critics though, they're usually doing nothing.
And they got the beam in their eye of doing nothing. And then they're trying to critique our soul winning program. Like, oh, well, are you, you know, oh, you want somebody, Lord, are you going to disciple them for the rest of your life?
I don't know, that's a good question for Philip in the Ethiopian eunuch though. Because Philip won the Ethiopian eunuch to the Lord, baptized him, and then he was teleported away.
Scotty just beamed him up. The spirit whisked him away, zero discipleship. Okay. Look, my friend, if you go, God will lead you. But if you're sitting in the parking lot, criticizing all the other drivers on the road, and you don't like the way they're driving, you don't like the way they maintenance their vehicle, or whatever, and you're sitting there, and God is, you're just sitting there, and you're like, why does the steering wheel keep moving?
That's God trying to direct you. But the problem is, you don't have the key in the ignition. You haven't started the vehicle. You have the parking brake on. You're still in park. You haven't shifted into drive. That's why you're not going anywhere.
But let me tell you something. If you shift your spiritual vehicle into drive, release the parking brake, check your mirrors, put your hands on the steering wheel, God's going to direct you. That's enough word of prayer. Father, we thank you so much for your word, Lord. We thank you for the power that it has to save.
Lord God, I pray that the people of Armenia, as well as Catholics and Orthodox everywhere, would understand their need to seek you through your word. And Lord God, we know your word has the power to save them.
And so please, Lord, lead us to the ones that are ready to get saved, or lead us to people in whom we can at least plant the seed, or water that seed. And in Jesus' name we pray, amen.
Come on, take your hymnals together. Go to hymn 322, hymn 322, "Living for Jesus." Hymn number 322. We'll lift our voice together on that first. 322, "Living for Jesus, a life that is true." 322. Sing it out together now.
Living for Jesus, a life that is true, Trying to please Him in all that I do.
Healing the legions that are in and please, This is the pathway of blessing for me.
O Jesus, Lord and Savior, I give myself to Thee, For Thou in my atonement is give thyself for me.
I own no other master; my heart shall be Thy throne. My life I give and swore to live, O Christ, for Thee alone.
Living for Jesus, who died in my place, Bearing on Calvary my sin and disgrace,
Such love comes straight to me to answer his call. All hope is leading and give him my all.
O Jesus, Lord and Savior, I give myself to Thee, For Thou in my atonement is give thyself for me.
I own no other master; my heart shall be Thy throne. My life I give and swore to live, O Christ, for Thee alone.
Living for Jesus, wherever I am, Doing each duty in his holy name,
Willing to suffer affliction and loss, Beneath each trial a part of my cause.
O Jesus, Lord and Savior, I give myself to Thee, For Thou in my atonement is give thyself for me.
I own no other master; my heart shall be Thy throne. My life I give and swore to live, O Christ, for Thee alone.
Living for Jesus, through earth's little one, My dearest treasure, a light of his smile,
Seeking the lost one he died to believe, Bringing the weary to my breast again.
O Jesus, Lord and Savior, I give myself to Thee, For Thou in my atonement is give thyself for me.
I own no other master; my heart shall be Thy throne. My life I give and swore to live, O Christ, for Thee alone.
In that good thing this morning, be honest with us.
(Instrumental music playing)