Now in Ezekiel 22, we just heard that great litany of the sins of God's people
and all the wickedness and filth and pollution in the land.
The princes, the prophets, the priests had all done wickedly.
There's no one who was standing up for what was right.
And at the very end of the chapter, it says in verse 30,
And I sought for a man among them that should make up the hedge
and stand in the gap before me for the land,
that I should not destroy it, but I found none.
Therefore have I poured out mine indignation upon them.
I have consumed them with the fire of my wrath.
Their own way have I recompensed upon their heads, sayeth the Lord God.
Now when we read these verses, it's clear that if God could have found someone
that would have made up the hedge, that would have stood in the gap,
then he would not have destroyed them.
But because he found none, he destroyed the land.
And this is one of many, many scriptures in the Bible
that teach us how one person can make a difference
in a city, in a state, in a nation,
and that it's not that just whatever's going to happen
is going to happen no matter what we do.
This stupid Calvinist doctrine that just says,
Oh, whatever happens is going to happen,
and, you know, we just sit back and just kind of watch it all play out.
No, we have the power to change things and to make a difference,
and we can be the one that is the difference between God's wrath and judgment
and God's mercy and delight.
We can be the person like Aaron was who stands between the dead and the living.
And it's not just this thing of, well, we go through the motions
and we live our lives, we go to church, we win a few souls.
No, we can actually make a huge difference in the world that we live in today.
And I'm not just talking about preachers.
I'm not just talking about pastors.
Even those who are just a layman in the church
can do great things for God and make a big difference.
And even those who are ladies, even young children,
can be used by God to do great things for God.
All throughout the Bible, go to Acts chapter 19,
but all throughout the Bible we see great men and women
that actually did things that changed the course of history
and that changed the course of a nation, whether for good or for evil.
But a great example of this is obviously the Apostle Paul.
In Acts chapter 19, the Bible just gives us a few highlights of his ministry,
but it says in Acts 19, 10,
And this continued by the space of two years,
so that all they which dwelt in Asia heard the word of the Lord Jesus,
both Jews and Greeks.
Now, this is not talking about the continent of Asia.
This is talking about what we would know as the modern-day country of Turkey,
or sometimes known as Asia Minor.
But still, this is a great nation, a huge amount of people,
that all of them heard the word of God through the Apostle Paul
and the people that he worked with.
He wasn't just a one-man show.
It would be Paul with Timothy and Paul with Titus
and Paul with Lucas and Demas and Marcus and Aristarchus
and the people that he worked with.
But you know what? He was the leader.
They were there because he brought them there.
And one man, the Apostle Paul, was used by God
to reach this whole nation with the word.
He said they all heard the word of God in those two years.
Now, look if you would at verse 24.
It says, For a certain man, this is in Ephesus,
which is in that area of Asia.
It says, For a certain man named Demetrius, a silversmith,
which made silver shrines for Diana,
brought no small gain unto the craftsmen,
whom he called together with the workmen of like occupation,
and said, Sirs, you know that by this craft we have our wealth.
Moreover, ye see and hear, that not alone at Ephesus,
but almost throughout all Asia,
this Paul hath persuaded and turned away much people,
saying that they be no gods which are made with hands,
so that not only this our craft is in danger to be said it not,
but also that the temple of the great goddess Diana should be despised
and her magnificence should be destroyed,
whom all Asia and the world worshipeth.
So not only is the Bible telling us,
hey, everybody in Asia heard the word of God through Paul
and the people that he trained,
but not only that, even the world, even the ungodly,
even the heathen are bearing witness to that,
saying in verse 26 that this Paul hath persuaded
and turned away much people,
and he said, almost throughout all Asia.
You know, God can correct him a few verse earlier and say,
no, it was all Asia.
Not almost all Asia, it was throughout all Asia.
And that just shows the kind of impact that one man can make.
Now flip over if you would to Matthew chapter 5.
Matthew chapter 5.
While you're turning there,
let me read for you from Philippians chapter 2 verse 15.
It says that ye may be blameless and harmless,
the sons of God, without rebuke,
in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation,
among whom ye shine as lights in the world.
So he's saying you're in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation.
Like was described in Ezekiel 22, where we started,
where he described all the crookedness and perversity,
but he said you shine as lights
in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation,
holding forth the word of life.
Now look at Matthew 5.14.
It says ye are the light of the world.
A city that is set on a hill cannot be hid.
Neither do men light a candle and put it under a bushel,
but on a candlestick, and give it light unto all that are in the house.
Let your light so shine before men,
that they may see your good works,
and glorify your Father which is in heaven.
Flip over to 2 Corinthians chapter 4.
What's the Bible telling us here?
We're the light of the world.
The world today is in darkness,
and we live in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation.
We are supposed to be shining as the lights in that darkness,
and it doesn't matter how bad our nation is,
or you say, well, you know, our country's just gotten so bad,
and our culture is so wicked,
but the darker it is, the brighter our light can shine,
and when light meets darkness, light wins.
I mean, think about it.
If there's darkness and light both in the same place,
the light overpowers the darkness,
and the darkness is gone, okay?
We need to stand up, make up the hedge,
stand in the gap, not hide it under a bushel,
not be ashamed of the word of God,
not be ashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ,
not be ashamed of Jesus or of His words,
but we need to stand tall, shine forth the light of the gospel,
and if we will be bold today,
we can make a great difference in our world,
and we can shine the glorious light of the gospel.
Look what the Bible says in 2 Corinthians 4 verse 3.
It says, but if our gospel be hid,
it is hid to them that are lost.
Again, it's not just a question of,
well, whatever happens, happens.
No, look, the world is in darkness today.
There are people who don't know the gospel.
Our world is getting more wicked every single day.
Somebody needs to shine the light,
and there's a big if here, if our gospel be hid,
and it's up to us to make the decision
whether our gospel is going to be hid or not.
That's what that if is about there.
If our gospel be hid,
then it will be like it was in Ezekiel
where he seeks for a man to stand in the gap
to make up the edge, and he finds none.
The gospel is hid there.
He says if our gospel be hid,
it's hid to them that are lost.
Look, who suffers the lost when they don't hear the gospel?
But he says, in whom the God of this world
had blinded the minds of them which believe not
lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ
who is the image of God should shine unto them.
For we preach not ourselves but Christ Jesus the Lord
and ourselves your servants for Jesus' sake.
For God who commanded the light to shine out of darkness
hath shined in our hearts to give the light
of the knowledge of the glory of God
in the face of Jesus Christ.
But we have this treasure in earth and vessels
that the excellency of the power may be of God
and not of us.
So what does the darkness represent?
Well, the darkness represents ignorance.
Ignorance of the gospel, not knowing the gospel
because he emphasizes there in verse number six
the knowledge of the glory of God.
You know, people just knowing the truth,
knowing what the Bible actually says,
knowing who God is, knowing who Jesus is,
knowing how to be saved.
Most people have never really heard a clear presentation
of how to be saved, of exactly what they must do to be saved,
which is simply to put all of their faith and trust
in the Lord Jesus Christ as their savior.
Darkness also represents wickedness,
ungodliness, and perversion,
which we've seen come up in a lot of these verses also.
We have the solution to both problems.
We have the light of the glorious gospel
of salvation by faith in Jesus Christ alone,
and we also have the light that will shine the light
and expose the wickedness and ungodliness and filth
for what it is and show people a more excellent way,
show people a way to live their life
that would be honoring and pleasing to God
that will not bring judgment upon them personally
and upon our nation as a whole,
teaching them how to live soberly, righteously,
and godly in this present world.
Now, we have a lot of tools today in these last days
that people have not even had in the past,
if you think about it.
Go, if you would, to Daniel chapter 11.
This is one of my favorite scriptures in Daniel chapter 11.
But in Daniel chapter 11,
this is a scripture that has to do with the end times.
If you get the context of Daniel 11,
it has to do with the times of the Antichrist
and the tribulation and things like that.
So it's talking about the very last days.
So this is not something that's obsolete.
This is something that's still coming in the future.
This is prophetic of the future today
when we read this in Daniel 11, 32.
It says, and such as do wickedly against the covenant
shall he corrupt by flatteries.
But the people that do know their God
shall be strong and do exploits.
And they that understand among the people
shall instruct many.
Yet they shall fall by the sword and by flame,
by captivity and by spoil many days.
Now, let's talk about the tribulation
when a lot of people are going to be in prison.
They're going to be fallen by the sword.
A lot of God's people are going to be persecuted.
But you know what that tells me?
That tells me that some of the greatest works for God
that have ever been done are yet to be done in the future.
It's not all in the past.
It's not that we read the Bible
and read about all the glory days of the Bible characters
and all the great things for God that they did
and we read about the Apostle Paul
and we read about Peter
and we read about even the Old Testament saints
who did great things for God.
Elijah and Elisha and Jeremiah
and all these different people.
No, God is saying that even in the end times,
even all the way to the bitter end
with the tribulation and the anti-Christ in power,
even at that time,
God's people will do great exploits for him.
They'll do great things.
And they will instruct many people.
There's no reason to think that in these last days
it can't be done.
People say, oh, you know, the world's too wicked.
We're living in the Laodicean church age.
I don't even believe in that, by the way.
That's why we're all lukewarm.
Well, speak for yourself
because we don't have to be lukewarm.
We could be fired up.
We could be zealous.
And we can do great exploits for God
and instruct very many people.
We can make a big difference in our city,
in our state, and even in the nation,
and even in the world
if one person will decide to take it seriously
and to decide, you know what?
I'm going to instruct many.
I'm going to get the gospel to a lot of people.
I'm going to talk to as many people as I can.
I'm going to spread the word of God.
And, you know, I mentioned that we have tools
that some people didn't have throughout history.
You know, one of the things that I thought of,
I made a list of things that we have.
How about just cars?
I mean, think about it.
We have cars.
So when we finish preaching on a Sunday morning,
you know, we can hop in our cars
and drive 25 minutes away
and go soul winning in a place that, you know,
on foot would take a long time to get there.
But we just hop in the car and we can go there.
And that makes it very possible
for Faithful Word Baptist Church
to knock every door in the valley, the Phoenix Valley.
Now, we're not there yet.
We have a long ways to go.
But we've put a massive dent in it.
And there's no reason why our church,
as we continue to go soul winning,
will not eventually shade in the entire map
and have knocked every single door.
And many doors that are close to us,
we've knocked four and five times.
But, you know, without cars,
we'd be knocking them a sixth and a seventh time
and driving people nuts.
But the bottom line is,
we have the technology of vehicles and cars
where we can drive all over the place
and we can get there quickly
and we can spend time knocking doors
and winning souls to Christ.
How about this?
We even have Bibles to hand out to people.
I mean, throughout history,
people didn't have a Bible to just hand somebody.
You didn't just go out soul winning throughout history
and everybody you win to the Lord just,
oh, here's a Bible, here's a New Testament.
Because back then, printing a Bible
was a major undertaking
when the printing press was first made.
It was expensive for a Bible, very expensive.
But how about this?
What about before the printing press was even invented?
And you go back to when it was written out by hand.
It was a handwritten manuscript.
You didn't just go and hand out Bibles
that took somebody months and months to copy out.
You know, you would just be handing out
just a very small portion of the Word of God, if anything.
You know, you'd get your hands on just a small piece of it
and it would be valuable.
A lot of it had to be memorized and just spoken
and you would just have to speak the Word of God
and just preach the Word of God from memory
and teach people to memorize verses and chapters.
But we could actually hand somebody the entire Bible
and they can have all this knowledge
and all this wisdom and all this information
and potential growth at their fingertips
just from being able to hand them a Bible.
We're all carrying the full Bible
and we go out soul winning.
And then when we get somebody saved,
we can just hand them a Bible or hand them a New Testament.
And I mean, that makes a big impact
because especially if they actually read it.
You know, and that's why when I win somebody the Lord,
I usually try to talk to them about the importance of Bible reading.
I like to stick a bookmark and show them,
hey, start reading here and here's a plan of how to read it
and everything like that.
That's a great advantage that we have.
Not only that, but obviously we have the Internet
where, you know, we can put stuff out on the Internet,
put preaching on the Internet and people all over the world
are able to download it and listen to it and hear it.
We have things like, you know, preaching CDs and DVDs
that we can hand out to people
and just put all this information in their hands
and get them all this teaching.
And then not only that, but we have, you know,
the foreign language materials
where if we want to win people to Christ of a foreign language,
people who speak Spanish or people who speak Swahili or whatever,
we can just go down to the store
and pick up all kinds of books, CDs, tapes
and go on YouTube and there's all kinds of training on there
to learn foreign languages.
And we can give the gospel to people in all different...
You know, in the past it was hard to learn a foreign language.
You'd have to go live there or something.
You know, a lot of the Bible translators
in the time of the Middle Ages,
you know, they struggled to learn Hebrew.
It's like you didn't just go buy a Hebrew tape or a Hebrew CD
or, you know, to translate the Old Testament.
A lot of times they just had the New Testament
because, you know, the Old Testament was inaccessible to them
because nobody knows Hebrew.
Nobody knows how to speak it.
And so we have all these things at our fingertips,
all this knowledge, and the Bible also talks about
in the Book of Daniel how in the last days knowledge would increase.
It says, many shall run to and fro and knowledge shall increase.
So we have all this knowledge at our fingertips
to be able to have an entire Bible,
study it, hand them out, learn how to speak foreign languages,
give people the Gospel from all over the world,
get in our car and drive places.
You know, we could actually do a lot for God
if we put our mind to it is what I'm saying today.
If we got serious about it and say,
you know what, I'm just going to talk to as many people as I can.
I'm going to give the Gospel to as many people as I can.
We could really make a big difference
and really let our light shine
and put a huge dent in this city for the Gospel of Jesus Christ
because honestly, and go through it in Matthew chapter 10,
because honestly, with a church our size and our church is growing,
we have the manpower to knock all the doors.
I mean, just stop and think about it.
I want you to comprehend this, that we live in a big city.
Phoenix has about four million people in the surrounding area,
you know, like a one hour radius or a half hour radius or whatever,
just the main area of just contiguous civilization.
It's a huge amount of people, four million people.
It's a major US city.
In fact, in the city limits of the city of Phoenix itself
is about 1.6 million people,
which is the sixth largest city in America
of people actually in the city limits.
It's a huge city.
But little old Faithful Word Baptist Church
has knocked the doors of a huge percentage of that city.
I mean, we have knocked it out.
And many of the doors, especially in our area,
we've knocked four, five, six times.
And we're still growing and we're still going to keep doing it.
You know what?
Just think about the magnitude of saying,
OK, in 2014, there's a church in Phoenix
that's dedicated to knocking all the doors
and over the course of 10, 20 years is going to knock every door
and most of the doors repeatedly with the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Think about it.
That means that in Phoenix, you know,
there's really not an excuse to not be saved.
And many, many people will be saved that would not have been saved
had the gospel not been clearly brought to them
and clearly presented to them at the door.
But think about what if our churches didn't exist?
Just stop and think about that.
Because I do not think,
and there are other soul winning churches in the Phoenix area,
but no one who does the magnitude of soul winning that we do.
No one's doing it the way that we do it
in the magnitude that we're doing it in Phoenix, Arizona.
It's just not happening.
And I'm telling you something.
There are all kinds of other cities across America
that need a church to do the same, to get the same vision
and do the same thing.
And it's possible.
One man out of this congregation,
one man who's listening to the sound of my voice
right now in this congregation,
one man could walk out of here and go start that church
that would do that in some other city
of one million, two million, three million, five million people
and be that person that starts that church
and says, you know what, I can't save the whole world.
I can't get the gospel to the whole world.
But here's a major city where everybody's going to get the gospel.
Everybody's going to hear about it.
And not everybody's going to receive it.
Some people are going to hate that church,
but they shall know that a prophet has been among them.
And they'll know that there was somebody
who stood up for what was right, hated sin,
hated sodomites, hated all the filth and iniquity
and stood up and loudly proclaimed the gospel of Jesus Christ
by faith alone and got it to every door.
Who is that man?
Who is that person that's listening to the sound of my voice right now
that would say, you know what, I'm going to be that man
and I'm going to go to that city and I'm going to claim that city
as a territory that I will be personally responsible
to make sure that every door gets knocked
and I'm going to recruit people and I'm going to train people
and I'm going to have the church and the services
and I'm going to get it done.
It's possible. It could be done.
But there has to be a man among them that would stand up
and say, you know what, I'm going to stand in that gap.
And when you think of the gap, you can look at a map of the United States
and think about where all the best soul-winning churches are
and then there'd be gaps, wouldn't there?
You know, there'd be gaps where you look at who's doing it there.
Somebody needs to stand in that gap.
You know, there are cities across America
where nobody's aggressively doing soul-winning,
where nobody's preaching hard,
nobody's the light shining in the midst of the crooked nation.
We need a man to stand up and say, you know, I'll be that man.
But besides that, even if you're not going to go be that man,
but you know what, we do need those guys to do that
because we do need the leaders that will go and start church in other areas.
But even just you as if you say, you know what, I'm not a preacher,
I'm not a pastor, but you know what, even if you would just get serious
about soul-winning and stay consistent with it week after week,
you will win a great multitude of people to Christ if you do it week after week.
And it's not the Roman candle Christian who gets all excited for six months,
but the one who's instant, in season, out of season, year after year,
decade after decade, you will win hundreds of people to the Lord
if you just stay at it, stay at it, keep doing it, keep doing it.
And by the way, one of the people that you win to the Lord
could be the guy who is sent out to that city, who has that calling on his life
to go do that.
And you say, well, I'm a lady.
You know what, you could win that guy to the Lord out of soul-winning
just as well as he could.
Ladies are very effective on soul-winning.
Sometimes ladies can be even more effective than men on soul-winning
just because they're nice, you know, and people want to talk to them more, you know.
Sometimes they have better people.
Sometimes women have better people skills and are friendly
and they're good at talking to people and they're effective.
And they could win that guy to the Lord.
Or, you know, you're a mother, you could raise that guy.
You could raise that boy to the Lord and dedicate him unto the Lord
and basically, you know, send him up.
You know, I've heard often people mockingly call a certain preacher
like these mama called preachers.
Mama called and papa sent, amen.
You know, what's wrong with the mama called preacher?
Why doesn't mom teach her son and say, hey, why don't you grow up and be a preacher?
Why don't you grow up and pastor a church?
Why don't you think about going to some city and evangelizing that city
with the gospel of Jesus Christ?
So where he got the idea from?
You know, who called me?
Sorry, the Shekinah glory of God, which doesn't exist,
did not come into my bedroom and light up the room
and I heard a voice that told me to go start a church.
You know what?
The Bible says if any man desire the office of a bishop, he desireth a good work.
Who cares who put the idea in your head?
Mom, dad, pastor, whoever.
But you know what?
Mom could raise up a great young man and teach him the word of God
and he could go out and be that great man that would go out
and start that church and stand in the gap and make a difference.
But it's not just pastors we need.
We need church members that will head up the soul winning times,
that will be the soul winning leadership,
that will be the soul winning directors,
that will go out and organize it and be on the street
and be in the trenches and be on the front lines and get it done.
Look, we can do a lot for God as a church
that's made up of individuals who are serious about serving God
and you are important and you are part of that team
and you're part of that plan.
All of us.
And don't ever get this attitude that you're expendable because you're not.
I've heard people say, well, we're all expendable as Christians.
God will do it with or without us.
I don't believe that for one second.
None of us is expendable.
If your gospel is hid, it's hid to the lost.
If my gospel is hid, it's hid to the lost.
I'm not expendable.
I'm not just replaceable, but neither are you.
No one is.
We're all different.
There's no one who's just like me.
There's no one who's just like you
and God is going to use us all in our own way
and if we are not doing it, it's not going to get done.
If our gospel is hid, it's hid to them that are lost.
Look at Matthew chapter 10.
Did I have you turn there?
Matthew chapter 10 says this in verse 26.
Fear them not therefore, for there is nothing covered that shall not be revealed
and hid that shall not be known.
What I tell you in darkness, that speak ye in light
and what ye hear in the ear, that preach ye upon the housetops
and fear not them which kill the body but are not able to kill the soul
but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.
God's saying, look, you need to be preaching the word of God from the housetops.
That's what we need.
Our church should not be invisible unto our community here.
We should be on the housetops.
We should be in the highways and hedges.
Everybody should know who we are because we should be everywhere.
Every time they turn around, somebody's knocking their door.
Every time they turn around, somebody at work is talking to them about the gospel.
Every time they turn around, they're hearing it again and again and again and again.
We need to be shouting from the housetop.
We need to take our light out from a bushel and let it shine
and let the glorious light of the gospel shine in
and we can get a great multitude of people saved.
Thousands will be saved.
Yea, tens of thousands will be saved.
And here's the thing.
When you win people to the Lord, you know, hopefully, eventually, they're going to win others to the Lord.
And you don't even, you won't even know the full impact of what you've accomplished until you get to heaven.
But we need to stop and realize our personal importance.
We need to understand our importance in God's plan.
You know, God, and you know, there's so much preaching to de-emphasize us.
And, you know, I understand people, maybe their heart's in the right place.
They want to give God all the glory.
You know, God gets all the glory.
Of course, Jesus gets all the glory.
Without him, we can do nothing.
But we want to be careful that we don't de-emphasize ourselves to the point where we think we don't matter.
It's stupid, because then what do we end up doing?
Oh, we don't matter.
And then we start acting like our life doesn't matter.
No, we need to realize, hey, we do matter.
Because God has called us with unholy calling.
It's not according to our works, but it's according to his own purpose and grace.
But he has called us with unholy calling.
I love how we, as Christians, are God's chosen people.
We're God's elect.
And you know what?
Think about it.
Whenever you hear the word chosen in the Bible, a lot of times it'll be in regard to military soldiers.
You know, they had certain chosen men that were warriors.
In the Old Testament, the word chosen is used like that.
And it's basically like the elite fighting force.
You know, the certain chosen men that are with David that are the best fighters or whatever.
And that's what we are.
You know, we're chosen.
We're elect.
We are an important part of God's plan.
And he has committed unto us the ministry of reconciliation.
Meaning that he is relying upon us to get it done.
He's not going to do it without us.
He's committed it unto us.
He's trusting us with it.
That's what committed means.
He's trusting us to get it done.
He's relying on us to get it done.
And you know what?
You can say all day long, without him we can do nothing.
And that's true.
But you know what?
Without us, he can do nothing.
And you can say that's blasphemous all you want, but it's not blasphemous.
Because you know what?
He has to use us to do it because that's what he has said in his word that he would do.
He said, as long as I'm in the world, I'm the light of the world.
That's what he said.
And you know what he says now?
You're the light of the world.
So he says, as long as I'm in the world, I'm the light of the world.
But today, we're the light of the world.
And you know what?
You can sit there and say, oh, God will do it all.
While you sit around and do nothing, you think God's just going to do it all.
That's a false doctrine.
And you can hide behind all this ultra spiritual, oh, you know, we just need to give God all
the glory to the point where we just sit around and do nothing because God does it all.
It's all God.
You're putting the emphasis on man.
We're all expendable.
It's all about God's plan.
No, look, God has commanded us to do it.
He said he's going to use us to do it.
So don't de-emphasize us to the point where it's just all God's going to do it all by
himself.
God is not going to knock these doors.
He told you to knock them.
And it's ridiculous to just say, oh, God's going to do it.
You know what?
God does not appear unto people and give them the gospel.
No, he sends us to do it.
But God himself won people to the Lord when he was walking this earth as Jesus Christ.
Jesus Christ won people to the Lord.
But you'll notice that even, even when Jesus appeared unto Saul on the road to Tarsus,
he didn't even win him to the Lord.
He didn't even give him the gospel.
You know what he said?
Go see a guy named Ananias and he'll tell you what you need to do.
And Ananias gave him the gospel and Ananias won him to Christ.
And then when Cornelius is praying and fasting, did God just show up and just win him to Christ?
Did God just show up and give the gospel to Cornelius?
Because God just does it all on his own, right?
It's all God that does it.
No, you know what God said to Cornelius?
Go talk to a man named Simon Peter.
He'll tell you how to be saved.
And then Cornelius went and Simon Peter had to be obedient to go when the messengers brought
him and Simon Peter had to go and give that man the gospel and get him saved because God
uses us.
God uses man.
God sought for man.
And he's going to use people.
He doesn't just do it by himself.
And so no, he's not going to get the gospel of the Phoenix area without us.
So don't get the, oh, we're expendable, we don't matter.
Yes, we do matter.
And start living your life like it matters.
It'll make you look at things differently when you realize, hey, I have a job here.
I have a role to perform and if I don't get it done, it's not going to get done.
Because it's God's plan for my life and it's people who God wants me to reach and I have
to step up to the plate and get it done.
And if I'm not there, it's just not going to get done.
That's the true story, my friend.
And you can sit there and play all these theological games.
Oh, Pastor Anderson's putting the emphasis on man.
You know what?
There is an emphasis on man in regard to soul winning because that's who God has committed
unto us.
And it's a privilege.
It's a great honor that God has chosen us to be his vessels that would go to preach
the gospel.
And that God would even commit such an important job unto us is an honor and a privilege that
he has made us ambassadors for Christ.
That we speak to people in Christ's stead, beseeching them to be reconciled to God.
That's a pretty big responsibility.
The Calvinists, they want to shirk that responsibility.
They sure sound spiritual because God gets all the glory.
He does everything by himself.
He doesn't even need us.
We're nothing.
We're dirt.
We're scum.
He does it all himself.
Wow, that's so reverent of you as the world goes to hell.
That's not what the Bible teaches, my friend.
It's a lie.
Because the true story is that God is giving us a job and he expects us to get it done.
And if it's hid, it's hid to the laws.
He seeks for a man.
He doesn't find one.
It's destroyed.
And there are places all over the world today being destroyed today.
Places, messed up places all over the world.
Countries all over the world.
Cities all over the world where people are starving to death.
Diseases rampant.
You know, warfare is just wreaking havoc in the region.
And people are suffering and dying.
And you know what?
It's the wrath of God today that allows those things to take place.
Because of people not believing the gospel of Jesus Christ and walking in his ways, he
sends punishment like that.
Why?
Because he sought for a man in those places and nobody stood in the gap.
Nobody made that difference.
But you know what?
Not so in Phoenix, Arizona.
We're going to get people saved.
We're going to get people the gospel.
And you know what?
You know, people who live in Phoenix, Arizona are fortunate to live in Phoenix, Arizona
because at least someday somebody's going to knock their door and give them the gospel.
Hopefully multiple times.
And hopefully people that they run into at the store and in their home school groups
and circles of friends and wherever at work.
You know, they're going to run into a lot of people that are going to give them the
gospel.
And people are going to knock their doors.
And you know what?
It's better than growing up in some place where nobody's doing the soul winning.
But you know what?
We need to make that difference in other communities also.
And we need to not drop the ball.
Let's not live in the past as a church.
We don't want to be like that church in Revelation, Sardis, where it was said they have a name
that they live but they're dead.
You know, we don't want to be like a church that has a reputation for going out and knocking
a ton of doors, getting a ton of people saved.
But it's not happening anymore.
We need to be the one that still continues and pushes forward.
And you know, our church has been around now for almost nine years.
But honestly, it's really not measured in years.
It's measured in decades.
You know, to really do a great work for God takes decades.
And so we need to stay in it for the long haul, keep doing it.
And you know what?
You need to decide today that you're going to be a part of it.
God is seeking out people like you.
And He's not looking, and by the way, you don't have to have some special talent or
speaking ability.
You know, I mean, I'm proof of that.
But let me tell you something, you don't have to have a special talent or speaking ability
because God said that He doesn't even call many wise, many skillful.
He uses the foolish things of this world to confound the wise.
And so He'll use the humble person who just says, here are my lords, send me.
So don't sit there and say, well, I'm not a good speaker, I'm not talented.
You know, there are people in this church that go soul winning consistently every week
that are some of the shyest people in this church, and they're making a great difference
for the Lord Jesus Christ.
Isn't that the truth?
Some of the shyest people, they're not somebody who's just, boy, just great people skills,
great at just meeting people.
But you know what?
They're effective, and they're doing it every week, and they're getting person after person
after person saved, and God's using them, and they're going to have great rewards in
heaven.
And you know what?
That could be you too, because honestly, anybody can do it.
Anybody can be a soul winner.
I've seen people stammer and stutter and get people saved.
I've seen the shy and those who are awkward easily win people to Christ because of the
fact that the Spirit of God is who does the work.
And you've just got to get out there and be a chosen vessel that could just be used
by God.
You know, you don't have to be the coolest person or the best speaker or the best looking
or the one who's talented and has all the wit and charm and everything like that.
You know what?
God just uses everybody.
And you need to personally decide to be that man or that woman and just say, you know what?
I'm going to be a part of the team.
I'm going to make a big difference for the Lord.
You know, people's souls are at stake.
It's heaven and hell that we're talking about, and I'm going to get serious about it.
I want to be used by God.
I'm going to be out there consistently.
I'm going to do something big for God.
I'm not just going to let it happen all around me and not be a part of the team.
Because honestly, if it were just me by myself, there's no way.
I could never knock all the doors on that map, even in my entire lifetime.
It's not humanly possible, but we can do it as a team.
And each of us as individuals can make a huge impact and make a great difference for the
Lord by going out and soul winning.
And you know what?
It's easy to start soul winning because you just do it as a silent partner.
This is how hard it is to go soul winning.
You just show up at the soul winning time.
And nobody's going to make you do anything.
I mean, here's the thing.
When we go soul winning, you just show up at the time and you just go along as a silent
partner.
I mean, the first time I went soul winning, I went with a guy and I just followed him
and I just listened.
You know, we went out two by two and I just followed him and listened and he talked and
did everything.
And I just watched what he did and I just tried to learn from him.
And then toward the end, I went out with him for a few hours.
And then after a couple hours, I said, hey, let me get the next door.
You know, I didn't really know what I was doing because I'd never been soul winning
in my life.
So I knocked on the next door and I was nervous and, you know, kind of stammering and everything.
And I didn't give anybody the gospel but, you know, I invited them to church.
I asked if I'd give them the gospel.
They didn't have time.
But you know what?
That was just me getting my feet wet, you know.
And then the second time I went soul winning, I didn't say anything.
I was just a silent partner.
I just followed along and just listened and learned.
But you know what?
After a while, you'll want to do the talking.
Once you, once you, because you know what you'll do?
You'll go out and you'll say, oh, this is easy.
I can do this.
Pretty soon you'll be, you know, get out of the way.
Let me get this door.
Pretty soon you'll be fighting over the door who gets to talk.
I remember back when I started soul winning, you know, you'd kind of be getting in front
of, hey, how's it going?
You know, do the talking.
But honestly, you know, a great example of this is Pastor Dave Berzins up in Prescott
Valley, Arizona because when he first went soul winning with me, he went with me for
months as a silent partner.
For months.
He just went along, didn't say a word.
Just listened, prayed for the people in his heart and just listened and learned.
And you know, we had all the great fellowship talking to each other and going from door
to door, the camaraderie.
And then after a couple months, he decided it was, it was the new year's resolution.
You know, it was just the turn of the year.
And he said, you know, starting in the new year, I'm going to start doing the talking.
I want to start talking.
And I remember the first door that he talked at, he literally, he was nervous.
He was shy.
He dropped the Bible.
You know, he's giving the book, drops the Bible, picks it up and everything.
And the guy got saved.
Teenage boy, he got saved.
So what if he dropped his Bible?
So what if he was nervous?
What's that worth to win that teenage boy to Christ and he's saved eternally?
Okay.
It's, it's, it's not hard to get started.
The hardest part is just getting out and doing it.
The hardest part is just showing up and just saying, okay, I'm here.
We'll pair you up with the loud mouth, you know, that will do the talking.
You don't have to say anything.
You just come along and learn.
And, and you know, nobody's going to force you.
Okay, well you need to start talking.
You've been doing this for two weeks.
You need to start talking.
No, you know, it's in your own time.
When you feel like you're ready to start doing the talking, then start doing the talking.
But it's honestly, you know, it's just people are afraid to, to take that first step of
just showing up.
But honestly, it's not that hard to just walk around with somebody.
You know what I mean?
And you say, well, but what's the point?
If I'm not going to say anything, then why even show up?
Because here's the thing.
If you show up, let's say we have a whole bunch of people that go soul winning.
Like, for example, on a typical Sunday or Wednesday, most of the people that show up
for soul winning already know how to do the talking.
Like on a typical Wednesday, sometimes everybody already knows how to do the talking or three
quarters of the people, right?
But here's the thing.
What if we had an equal number of people show up who were new to soul winning?
We'd be able to just split, we'd be able to double the soul winning force.
If we have ten people show up for soul winning and they all know how to do the talking, we're
going to send them out two by two, that's five teams.
Okay?
But what if we have ten people who know how to do the talking and then ten silent partners
show up?
Say, you know, I'm not doing any talking.
I'm just here to learn.
But you know what?
Now we have ten groups going out.
Plus, you know, you ever go to a church and feel like, you know, you're not really making
friends, you're not really getting plugged in, you're not really in the inner circle,
as it were?
You know, it's easy to get in the inner circle of Faithful Word Baptist Church.
You know, you want to crack in to the clique, be a part of the cool group.
All you have to do, seriously, is just show up at soul winning time.
Because the thing is, if you show up at the soul winning time, you get to know people.
I mean, one of the best ways to get to know people is to go soul winning with somebody
because, you know, all that time between doors, you're fellowshipping, you're talking to each
other, you're making a friend, and you're getting to know people, you're learning how
to do it.
And honestly, it's a way to also just work, you know, you bond by working together and
being on a team with somebody out soul winning.
It's a great opportunity.
And honestly, we try to make it easy at our church because not only do we have the long
soul winning time on Sunday afternoons, but we've also got the shorter soul winning times
during the week.
You know, Monday nights with Brother Richard Miller, we've got Wednesdays right before
the service at 5.15, we've got other people are going all different days, and we've got
the Sunday time out in Gilbert, we've got the Sunday time over here, we've got people
that are going on Thursday nights, we've got all different times, all different places,
you know, you can do it.
And honestly, God can use you to be a great soul winner.
Plus, when you go out door to door, then you'll have the confidence to carry that over into
work and personal life.
I mean, just, you know, one thing I thought about is just imagine if we just gave the
Gospel to everybody that we knew, everybody that we come into contact with.
I mean, think about, you've heard of the six degrees of separation, you know, how we're
all connected, and how I know somebody who knows somebody who knows somebody, and no
one on the planet is more than, you know, six people away from you, friend of a friend
of a friend of a friend of a friend or whatever.
You know, if we would just give the Gospel to the people that we deal with every day
at work, people that we deal with just, you know, in business or just in our everyday
neighborhood or whatever, you know, we could reach this city with the Gospel, make a huge
difference.
And it doesn't matter if you're man, woman, boy or girl, you could reach people, you could
make a big difference in your circle of friends and in your sphere of influence.
And so I want you to just think about what I've said tonight and just decide that you're
going to stand in the gap, you're going to make up the hedge, you're going to be a person
that God uses greatly, not just somebody who just goes to church and kind of, you know,
goes through the motions, maybe, you know, gives the Gospel to somebody once in a blue
moon, if that, but you decide, you know what, I really want to do something big for God.
I want to be one of those people that Daniel was talking about that would do exploits.
I want to be one of the people that God said they would instruct many.
I want to be somebody who's given a lot of people Bibles and teaching them and getting
them saved and I want to be the one who stands up for what's right and proclaims it from
the housetops and is not ashamed of the Gospel.
Why would you be ashamed of the Gospel?
Why be ashamed of the Bible?
I mean, think about it.
It's so weird that Jesus said, you know, if you're ashamed of me and of my words in this
evil and adulterous generation.
You know, isn't it the evil and adulterous generation should be ashamed before us?
Why are we ashamed to stand up to wickedness?
You'd think the wickedness would be embarrassed at us.
You'd think that they'd worry about what we think of them.
But we're worried about what they think of us.
They're living an evil and adulterous life and we care what they think.
Why?
You know, we need to just care what the Lord thinks and just stand tall and just stand
strong on the Word of God, on the Gospel, on righteousness and stand against all the
garbage that's out there and just be bold.
Boldness today.
And there are men in this room that should think about, you know what, I need to get
serious about, you know, thinking about pastoring someday or thinking about, you know, being
that man that would take on a city and conquer that city for the Lord Jesus Christ and for
the Gospel.
Not saying we're going to change the politics.
You know, the politicians of that city will always be wicked, you know, and the majority
is always going to be going to hell.
But when I say conquer that city for Jesus Christ, I'm saying you go to that city and
say everybody in this city is going to hear the Gospel, hopefully repeatedly.
And God said to Ezekiel, he said, look, you're going to preach them and whether they hear
or whether they forbear, they will know that a prophet has been among them and that all
the world may know that Jesus Christ is Lord.
And that even if they don't accept it, even if they don't believe it, even if they don't
change anything about their beliefs or about their life, but just the fact that everybody
in that city would know what the truth is.
And even if they're not saved, everybody would know how to be saved.
And even if they don't live a life that's right, at least they would know what is right
and they've heard somebody tell them what was right.
You need to decide to conquer that city and those who that is not the calling, because
that's only a minority who are going to go out and do that.
But those of us that are going to stay here, we need to decide we're going to conquer Phoenix
because the job is not done.
Let's conquer Phoenix.
Let's conquer Tempe.
Let's conquer Chandler.
Let's conquer Gilbert.
Let's lay claim to it and say, you know what, hey, maybe maybe there are people in this
world that are not here in the Gospel and they don't have a good church to go to.
But you know what?
Our area is not going to be one of them.
We're going to conquer our area for the Lord Jesus Christ.
Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer.
Father, we thank you so much for your word, Lord, and we know that you're seeking today,
Lord, just like you were in Ezekiel's day.
We know you're seeking for a man.
We know you're seeking for a woman.
We know you're seeking for a boy or girl.
We know you're seeking for people that you could use to do great things.
And, Lord, we just pray that you would use us.
And, Lord, I pray that every single person in this room would decide that they want to
be a person that makes a big difference.
One person, one woman, one boy, one girl could make a huge difference, Lord.
And I pray that everyone would realize that and that they would not take it lightly or
think, oh, I'm not that important.
I don't really matter that much.
I'm expendable.
I'm replaceable.
Lord, I pray that every person would realize that they are unique and special and that
you can use them in a way that you can use no one else and that you can use them to win
people unto you that no one else could win.