The title of my sermon this morning is Hope for Europe.
Hope for Europe.
You know, Europe is in a terrible condition spiritually.
It's probably one of the hardest places in the entire world to find a decent church.
Even though the statistics are going to show it maybe with a high level of Christianity
in places, it's pretty much Roman Catholicism, Lutheranism, other Protestant religions, and
it's some of the most liberal Protestantism in the world.
And if you actually talk to people who live there or if you've spent time there yourself
and tried to find a good church there, it can be very difficult.
You'd have an easier time finding a good church to go to almost anywhere else.
I mean, if you were in even Canada, South America, Central America, the Caribbean, Africa,
you'd probably have an easier time finding a decent church than in Europe.
It's pretty dark over there spiritually.
It's quite dead spiritually.
In fact, I would say there's probably been less soul winning and revival there in recent
years in my lifetime than any other continent in the world.
So while you could point to great works that have happened in places like Africa and Asia,
you could look at the amazing things that are going on in places like the Philippines,
things that are happening in Mexico, South America.
I'm telling you, Europe has really been pretty dead spiritually.
But I want to say this morning that I believe that there's hope for Europe and I have high
hopes for Europe and I'm actually very optimistic about the fact that I believe that God is
going to do great things in Europe in the very near future and that we can be a part
of it.
Now if you would flip over to Numbers chapter 32.
Often in the Bible, a wicked generation is followed by a generation that can be reached
with the Word of God, a generation that is receptive to the Gospel and to the Word of
God.
And over and over again, as you study the Bible, you see these cycles just like we read
about a moment ago in Judges chapter 2, the cycle of turning away from the Lord, turning
back to the Lord, and the pendulum kind of swings back and forth between the generation
that loves the Lord and the generation that rejects the Lord.
Look at Numbers chapter 32 verse 10.
And the Lord's anger was kindled the same time and he swears saying, Surely none of
the men that came up out of Egypt from twenty years old and upward shall see the Lamb which
I swear unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob, because they have not wholly followed
me, save Caleb the son of Jephunneh the king of Zite, and Joshua the son of Nun, for they
have wholly followed the Lord.
And the Lord's anger was kindled against Israel and he made them wander in the wilderness
forty years until all the generation that had done evil on the side of the Lord was
consumed.
So we see here God is done with a certain generation.
I mean there's a certain generation where God says, You know what?
They're doomed, they didn't listen, they have their chance, I'm done with them.
Now even in a wicked generation, of course, there's always a righteous remnant.
Here we see the exceptions, right?
We see guys like Caleb and Joshua, and not only were Caleb and Joshua exceptions in the
sense that they stayed with the Lord, the Bible says they wholly followed the Lord.
So even in a destitute time, a destitute place, a destitute generation spiritually, you can
be that Caleb or that Joshua.
You can be that one where God says, Hey, you know, France is doomed except for this guy
and this guy, man, they wholly followed me.
They shall walk with me in white, they are worthy.
So you know, if you're in a place that's a dark place spiritually, you want to be that
one person that God points to as the exception and says, Hey, here's a guy who wholly followed
me.
But after this doomed generation, what do we see?
We see another generation that actually does follow the Lord.
The children of these people actually end up following guys like Caleb and Joshua.
And instead of becoming the exception, they become the rule, and they end up going into
the Promised Land and seeing God do great things.
And I believe that it's possible for Europe to have revival spiritually in this generation.
Look, the past generation failed, but this generation, I believe, is going to be different.
And I'm going to give you some reasons why I think that.
Flip over to Deuteronomy chapter one.
You're right there in numbers, just a couple pages to the right.
The Bible says in verse 34,
And the Lord heard the voice of your words and was wroth and swear, saying, Surely shall
not one of these men of this evil generation see that good land, which I swear to give
unto your fathers.
Save Caleb, the son of Jephunneh, he shall see it.
And to him will I give the land that he had trodden upon and to his children, because
he had wholly followed the Lord.
Flip over, if you would, to 2 Chronicles.
We already read in the book of Judges, and I'll read it for you again while you're flipping
over to 2 Chronicles, but the Bible said in Judges chapter two, verse 11,
The children of Israel did evil on the side of the Lord, and served Baalim, and they forsook
the Lord God of their fathers, which brought them out of the land of Egypt, and followed
other gods of the gods of the people that were around them, and they bowed themselves
unto them, and provoked the Lord to anger, and they forsook the Lord, and served Baal
and Asherah.
Let me tell you something, Europe has a history of Christianity.
There have been times throughout history where the gospel has gone forth, where there were
powerful preachers that have preached the word of God, where souls have been saved,
where the culture at least has been Christian, because let's face it, even when the children
of Israel were serving the Lord, it's not like everybody was saved, but the culture
was predominantly for the Lord, and then other times, you know, the culture went away
from the Lord.
Look, there have been times in Europe's past where it has been a Christian place,
and a lot of the powerful Christianity that we have in the United States, where did it
come from?
Obviously, it came over from Europe.
The torch was passed from Europe, and that's how Christianity even got to us today in the
United States of America, but as the children of Israel of old, they forsook the Lord.
Today they have forsaken the Lord over there, and what's the result when you forsake the
Lord?
God's wrath is kindled.
God's angry today when he sees a nation that once had the gospel, and they've turned away
from the truth, and they've turned away from the gospel, and let me tell you something,
the United States is on that same path, and if you want to see a glimpse of the future
of America, just go to Europe.
You go visit Europe, and that's a glimpse of what America is going to be like.
We are heading down that path, so you can see how a nation can once have a robust Christian
population and a Christian culture, and you can see how they can let it fizzle out and
die.
That's what has happened in Europe today, so what did God do in order to fix this?
He would raise up judges, so the worship of the Lord would get dead.
It would fizzle out.
It would stagnate.
They'd start to worship other gods.
They would turn away from him, and then he would raise up a man that would be filled
with the Spirit of God, and that judge would turn things around and turn people back to
God.
That's what we need to happen today.
We need some young men of this new generation to rise up and be a spiritual judge that would
turn people in their nation back to God.
Now if you would look down at your Bible there in 2 Chronicles chapter 30 verse 7, here's
the message to Europe, 2 Chronicles chapter 30 verse 7, here's the message that God has
for Europe today, and be not ye like your fathers.
Well, you know, this is just the religion, you know, we're born Catholic, we're baptized
Lutheran or whatever, hey, be not ye like your fathers and like your brethren which
trespassed against the Lord God of their fathers who therefore gave them up to desolation as
you see.
And let me tell you something, today Europe is being punished today for rejecting the
Lord.
And you know what we're seeing?
We're seeing this mass flood of Islam into Europe.
That's not a blessing of God.
That's not good.
You know what?
That is the beginning of the end for Christianity in Europe if that were allowed to just continue
and keep going like that.
Look at history.
When the Muslims come in somewhere, you know what they do?
They take over and they snuff out Christianity.
That's why you see countries that once had great Christian populations where now they're
97% Muslim, 99% Muslim.
Let me tell you something, when you put the New Testament next to the Quran, the Quran's
a piece of junk.
You know why they're 97% Muslim?
They're being forced to switch, okay?
Islam is not just a religion, it's a political movement.
It's a control of empire, okay?
It's not just, oh, these people just happened to put on a headscarf and believe a little
differently.
No, their goal is conquest.
Their goal is world domination, okay?
And they're flooding in and the leadership is bringing them in and they're flooding into
Europe and that is not the blessing of God.
Okay, now obviously the silver lining to that is, you know, people should be grabbing these
Muslim refugees and trying to win them to Christ because at least you could do that
in Europe without getting beheaded or something.
You know, you can at least witness to them, hey, let's try to turn these people to Jesus
Christ but the powers that be, the rulers of the darkness of this world, the reason
that they're flooding Europe with Muslims is to de-Christianize Europe even more than
it already is and bring in this wicked, godless, pagan religion of Islam.
So the desolation that we see of church where less people are going to church in Europe
than ever before and where Islam is just flooding in and where the faith of Christianity
has become a joke where you literally have pastors that are lesbians or something.
That's not even, can't even be taken seriously as Christianity or church.
It's desolation is what it is.
It's an abomination of desolation is what it is and let me tell you something, don't
be like your fathers.
Well, it's just our tradition.
It needs to change.
You know what?
Catholicism isn't working.
Protestantism isn't working.
You need to become an independent fundamental Baptist so you can actually do real soul winning
and preach the real gospel and rip some face on sin and yeah, win some of these Muslim
immigrants to the Lord and make Christianity Christian again.
Light a fire in Europe that will burn and that the gospel will spread like wildfire.
Don't be like your fathers.
Don't be stiff necked as your fathers were but yield yourselves unto the Lord.
Enter into his sanctuary which he had sanctified forever and serve the Lord your God that the
fierceness of his wrath may turn away from you.
For if you turn again unto the Lord, your brethren and your children shall find compassion
before them that lead them captive so that they shall come again into this land for the
Lord your God is gracious and merciful and will not turn away his face from you if you
return to him.
Now like I said throughout history sometimes the pendulum will swing back and forth between
different extremes and we see that in the Bible where we see a generation that loves
the Lord and then we see a generation that forsakes the Lord and there's this back and
forth most notably in the book of Judges but we also see it in the books of Samuel and
the books of the Kings, Chronicles.
I mean this is just a pattern and I believe that many young people today in Europe are
ready to hear the Gospel because Europe is getting so liberal, the churches are becoming
so lame, they're such a joke and then you have Islam flooding in.
I believe that the pendulum is ready to swing the other way and young people are ready for
something different and they're ready to listen to the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
Now let me give you a little bit of my own personal experience.
I only have very limited experience.
Dr. Boyle is going to give his experience in Romania which is much more extensive than
mine but I've had some limited experience in Europe and I'm going to share that with
you now and explain why I believe that there's great hope for major revival to happen in
Europe in the very near future and in our lifetime.
So my first experience soul winning in Europe was back in 1999 and 2000.
So just a little over 20 years ago I went to Europe and I went to several countries
but I was mainly in Germany and I was there for three months and three weeks.
And while I was there, a few things, first of all, Germany where I spent most of my time
was very unreceptive, very unreceptive.
I got a few people saved including, thank God, I got my wife saved.
I met her on that first trip but in general I got very few people saved.
The churches that I went to weren't getting a lot of people saved.
They were just kind of plugging away.
They were kind of like a Caleb and a Joshua where they're serving the Lord.
They love the Lord but they were really having a hard time getting the people to rally to
their cause and it was just a very unreceptive place when I was there.
Not only that, the young people in Germany did not speak English.
While I was in Germany I went to school for a week.
I was 18 years old so I spent a couple days each at a bunch of different high schools
because I just wanted to get the experience of what life was like in Germany.
So I stayed with German families and actually attended public school in Germany.
I attended the school for the smartest kids.
I attended the school that was kind of in the middle and then I attended the other school,
you know.
But anyway, so I attended all three levels of schooling and the thing was that very few
people spoke any English at all.
I mean you had to speak German if you wanted to communicate.
Even amongst the young people there would be some that could talk to you in broken English
like they would ask me the question that every teenager loves to ask other teenagers.
Have you a car?
So that was like the best English I could get out of them.
Or for Christmas I will become a ket was another sentence that I heard because in German becommen
means to receive.
But they thought it was become so they would say like I will become a dog.
I will become a car when I am 16.
So the English left something to be desired.
Most people didn't speak any English.
They spoke very little broken English.
Pretty unreceptive.
That was the way I found things when I was there in 1999 and 2000.
So in 2008 I traveled to Norway.
And I spent a week in Norway and I spent four days of just intense soul winning in Norway
where we were just pretty much soul winning all day.
The church there just kind of kept cycling me through with silent partners and I just
kept soul winning.
I was trying to just take people out and get them motivated about soul winning, win souls
in the Norwegian language.
Now obviously there was a lot more English in Norway.
So it seemed like about half of people spoke English really well.
So in those four days of I mean going out six, seven, eight, even eight hours a day,
we had a total of ten people saved.
I had six people saved and then the pastor that I was working with he had four people
saved.
So we had a total of ten people saved.
And about half of that was all in English and half of that was all in Norwegian.
So it was about half and half between English and Norwegian.
But here's what I found.
It was not receptive because here's what I found about Norway.
It was like 93 percent Lutheran or something.
So when we would and it was and by the way Norway is one of the wealthiest countries
in Europe.
They have a lot of natural resources and most people own like two homes and everything.
So obviously it's easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich
man to be saved.
What we found knocking doors in Norway, we'd knock on somebody's door and they'd be very
friendly and we'd ask them, are you a Christian, do you know for sure you're going to heaven?
This is what they would all say, yes.
You know for sure you're going to heaven, yes.
And it's like okay well how do you know you're going?
Oh well you know I was baptized as a baby and I don't go to church anymore.
I don't really believe it anymore but I believed in it when I was a kid.
I got baptized.
They have this weird thing where they kind of believe in their childhood faith.
They're like you know when I was a kid I got baptized and I believed in it back then and
so yeah I think I'm going to heaven because I've done those things and I go to church
once a year.
But they don't even actually believe that the Bible is true.
They don't actually believe in Christ as their savior.
They don't believe that salvation is by faith.
They don't believe the gospel.
It's just like a cultural thing.
They got sprinkled.
They attend a few events.
They learned Bible stories as a kid and so they just kind of think they're good.
So it's just like no thanks I'm good to go.
That's what I found over there.
So I went to Cyprus.
My next major soul winning experience in Europe is when I went to Cyprus just six months ago.
So when I went to Cyprus six months ago I found tons of people speaking English and
you say well that's just because you know it's a former British colony so you know you
have a lot of English there in Cyprus.
But here's the thing.
I've passed through Germany a few times over the past few years.
I passed through Germany on my way to and from Botswana and did some soul winning there.
And I've just passed through Germany on different layovers to different other places.
And when I did here's what I found.
Now in Germany all the young people speak English virtually all of them and their English
is great.
So I mean just in the 20 years from 1999 to 2019 the situation has completely changed
where now teenagers and young adults they almost all speak fluent English.
I was blown away just in the short time I was in Germany.
Same thing I found in Cyprus and I asked my brother in law who's a teenager over there
in Germany.
I said how do you speak such great English?
Did the education system just ramp up or what's going on?
He said it's from video games because he said basically he said you know we put on a headset
and we're playing these video games with people with Americans.
And so we're chatting on the headset while we play the video games and he said through
video games you know we've really become fluent in English.
Now obviously they're also ramping it up in the schools and everything but through they
listen to American music.
They watch American movies.
They're playing the video games with Americans.
And so they are learning English at an unprecedented level.
In fact let me give you some stats on this okay.
Even back in 2006 and remember I told you this has changed dramatically from 2000 to
2020.
Huge change.
I mean English is just going through the roof over there.
But even in 2006 they did a study on the EU 13 percent of the EU spoke English as their
main language but 38 percent of EU citizens were good enough in English to be able to
hold a pretty good conversation.
Meaning that even in 2006 51 percent of people in Europe you could have a conversation with
in English.
You could talk to them in English.
But folks that's in 2006.
Let me give you some 2012 statistics and remember this is climbing steeply.
So these statistics are outdated that I'm giving you.
But even in 2012 86 percent of people in Sweden spoke English.
Seventy percent of people in Finland English.
Eighty six percent in Denmark English.
Fifty six percent in Germany.
And guess which 56 percent in Germany it is.
It's all the young people.
Thirty nine percent in France.
Ninety percent in Holland.
Seventy three percent in Austria.
Even in Italy 34 percent.
Greece 51 percent.
Cyprus 73 percent.
And we could go through all these.
There's a whole bunch of other countries on here.
I mean English is big in Europe and that's 2012.
I guarantee you in the last eight years it has risen much higher than that.
So the language barrier is being taken out of the way for people like us from America
to go there and do good soul winning in these places.
Not only has the language barrier gotten a lot lower and we're finding a lot more people
speaking English but the young people in Europe are starting to be very receptive to the gospel.
Like I was saying the pendulum is starting to swing the other way.
They're ready for the gospel.
When we went to Cyprus we had 24 people saved in Cyprus.
And out of those 24 people that we got saved, 23 of them were men between the ages of 15
and 25.
So think about that.
Out of 24 salvations, 23 of them fit this exact demographic 15 to 25 years old.
Now that shows that this is promising for the future of these places.
And look it's not that we didn't witness to a whole bunch of other types of people.
We witnessed to the middle aged, we witnessed to people in their 30s, we witnessed to people
of all ages and everybody that we could find.
We knocked doors and that's just the demographic that was just receptive.
They were ready to hear the gospel.
They're not married to the Orthodox Church.
They're not married to the Roman Catholic Church.
They're open to the gospel over there.
Now here's the thing.
What we found when we were over in Cyprus after a few days of soul winning was that
these are the only people that are getting saved is this youth generation.
So we actually, after a few days of knocking doors, we actually decided, you know what,
let's spend less time knocking doors because when we knock doors we're talking to all kinds
of people so we have to work and work and work to find what we called our demographic.
So we decided to just start going to public places where young people hang out and just
heading straight for the young adults.
And we would just, we would literally be walking down the street and we'd just say, that's
our demographic.
Go.
Hey.
There they are.
That's our demographic.
Let's go.
So we had a rule when we were over there soul winning.
We said these are the two groups that we're targeting.
We're looking for people that are 15 to 25 and we're looking for people that are smoking
a cigarette.
All right.
Anybody who's outside smoking a cigarette, boom, beeline, give them the gospel because
people that are smoking a cigarette were usually kind of just hanging out and they were usually
in a social mood and they were open to talk.
So you know, smoking, you know, a lot of these repent of your sins guys teach that you have
to quit smoking to go to heaven.
Smoking can actually help you get to heaven if you're living here.
Just kidding.
That was a joke.
All right.
But anyway, my old pastor used to say, you know, if you smoke cigarettes, you won't go
to hell for that.
You'll just smell like you came from there.
But basically, you know, we would go to the smokers because they're hanging out.
They like to talk.
But I'm telling you, we ended up having the most success just going to places where young
people are hanging out.
We'd go to the boardwalks.
We'd go to the city centers.
We'd go to the pedestrian areas, outside restaurants and just where people hang out.
And we'd just go straight to the young people and they would get saved.
They would respond to the gospel.
Walk up to a group of, you'd walk up to say maybe three, four, five young guys hanging
out talking and you know what, some of them would get saved, some of them wouldn't.
And you'd kind of just separate the wheat from the chaff and get that guy saved or a
couple people saved.
And I'm telling you, I think that that could be duplicated all over Europe.
I don't think Cyprus is unique in that.
Cyprus has the same kind of culture as Greece.
It's almost identical to Greece.
And probably a lot of East Orthodox countries are going to be the same way, countries like
Romania, countries like maybe even Russia or just, you know, Croatia, just different
Eastern European countries.
But I think even in Western Europe, you're going to experience the same thing by just
skipping this older generation that's sort of like that generation in Numbers and Deuteronomy
where God said, man, this generation is wicked.
They all just need to just be consumed, you know what I mean?
Now look, I want the older people to get saved too, but you know what, we need to start with
the people that are receptive.
Why beat our head against the wall when we have a small soul winning force?
When we only have a small team, we got to get the most bang for our buck.
So we don't want to beat our heads against the wall with people who don't want to hear
the gospel.
We don't want to cast our pearls before swine.
So you can go straight to young people.
Now let me talk about the difference between going door-to-door soul winning and the straight
to the young people soul winning.
Let me explain to you the difference, because I don't want you to get the wrong idea.
I'm for door-to-door soul winning.
But let me explain to you the difference between the two, okay?
In America, at Faithful Word Baptist Church where we have 400 people and we have about
200 people out soul winning every week, folks, this kind of just, oh yeah, let's just go
to public places and approach people soul winning, that's not going to work because
you know why?
We're just going to keep approaching the same people, we're going to be on top of each other.
You understand what I'm saying?
We can't take 200 people to downtown Tempe and go soul winning, somebody already talked
to me, you're just going to drive people insane by approaching the same person 50 times.
Even the soul winning in the parks, it's going to be the same people going to the parks over
and over again, you're just going to keep running the same people, you're going to be
on top of each other.
It doesn't make any sense.
When you have a big soul winning army like we have here, like a lot of your churches
back home have a pretty big soul winning crew, that's where it makes sense to really be systematic
so that you're not knocking the same door for the fifth time this month.
So you got to be systematic and then the goal becomes reach every person.
What's the ultimate goal of soul winning?
Preach the gospel to every creature.
How do you preach the gospel to every creature?
Not by hanging out and just finding people out in public because you're just going to
run into the people who happen to hang out at the places you hang out.
Oh, I just do lifestyle evangelism at work and in my neighborhood.
Everybody doesn't work at your work.
Everybody doesn't live in your neighborhood.
We're going to give the gospel to every creature.
So we need a system where we say, okay, we're knocking every door in Tempe, we're knocking
every door in Chandler, we're knocking every door in Phoenix, we're knocking every door
in Mesa.
Second thing, when you're in these European countries that are just so dark spiritually,
it's like a drop of water on a hot stove when you go soul winning because you're not canvassing
the whole city of Paris anytime soon.
You're not canvassing the whole city of Athens anytime soon.
You don't have the manpower.
It makes sense over there to say, hey, if we only have a soul winning team of four people,
let's not go knock on doors of a bunch of people of the last generation that have already
kind of made their choice and they're not really interested.
Hey, let's get the most bang for our buck and let's head straight for the young people
so you can actually get the low hanging fruit, see the salvations, build your team, build
your soul winning army.
Then once you've built up a good crew, then say, okay, now let's be systematic.
Now let's start going through and hitting the neighbors.
And we did a mix of both in Cyprus.
We did door to door and we saw people save door to door.
Door to door soul winning is always going to work because it's biblical.
But you know what, you can also just walk up to people.
Brother Joseph Freeman gave a testimony from South Korea and he said that he found it to
be more effective over there also just to walk down the street and talk to people.
When we're in Guyana, we end up a lot of times just walking down the street and talking to
people.
Belize, Mexico, we're just kind of walking down the street and we do a mix of that and
door to door.
So it's not that door to door is going away because door to door is biblical.
The Bible says every house and it's really the only way to be systematic.
But what I'm talking about is in an area where there's such a disparity in how receptive
it is, where the young people want to hear it and no one else does, I would just go straight
for the young people.
That's what I would do.
Now it's not like that everywhere, folks.
For example, in the United States, we get more people saved or when we've done the crusades
in the park and in the city centers, we find door to door to be the most effective thing
in the United States.
I believe that door to door is the most effective thing.
Even if you have a small team, I think door to door is the best thing in the U.S.
And even in Mexico, you know, in Mexico, I was winning elderly people to the Lord.
I found the elderly and the middle aged were receptive in Mexico.
I'm not saying everywhere.
I'm saying in Europe, there's a new generation that's coming up that I think is receptive
and I think by and large, the older generation just put a fork in it because it's done.
And you say, oh, I can't believe you just write these people up.
Well, you know, why do you want to write off the young people?
Because you know what?
There's only so much soul wanting to go around.
Let's put it toward the people that are going to do the most with it.
And you know what?
Have you noticed that's been kind of a theme at this missions conference from a lot of
the preachers?
Go where it's receptive.
That's biblical.
We've proven that in other messages from the Bible.
We've given the logic behind it.
Go to the receptive people.
Go to the receptive places.
And if people don't want to hear the gospel, you can't cram it down their throat.
Shake the dust off your feet and go to the people that are the most receptive.
That's what I believe.
And I believe that we can see great things happen in Europe.
And we're already starting to see the beginnings of it in Europe by following this philosophy
of go to the people that want to hear this next generation, the youth.
They're ready to swing the other way.
They're ready to react to all the weirdness of the previous generation with all the queer
liberal weirdo libtard junk that they've been doing.
You know what?
The youth are ready to listen to something different.
And you know what?
We need to be there with the truth to give them the gospel when they're at that point.
So yeah, Cyprus was receptive.
People were willing to talk.
Even the people who didn't get saved, many of them listened to the gospel.
They were interested.
A lot of great seeds were planted.
A lot of seeds were watered.
English is everywhere.
So look, if you only speak English, Europe can still be a great mission field for you.
And you can be used by God.
Not just door to door, but also just out in the streets, right?
Because what does the Bible say?
Go therefore into the highway and as many as ye shall find bid to the marriage.
And the Lord said unto the servant, go out into the highways and hedges and compel them
to come in that my house may be filled.
So I'm very optimistic about Europe.
And let me just give you a summary of the reasons why I think that it's going to be
receptive and God's going to do great things in our lifetime.
Number one, the younger generation is showing itself to be receptive.
Fifteen years old to 30 years old is the demographic.
Number two, the majority of the younger generation speaks English.
Number three, the pendulums ready to swing the other way.
The liberals have gone too far.
And by the way, you know, our church really seemed radical 14 years ago when we started.
We don't seem radical anymore.
The old IFB used to think we're crazy.
You know what?
The weirder this country gets, the more transgender story times and all this freakish stuff that
they crammed on our throat, you know what that's going to do?
That's just going to build our church.
Because people are going to say, hang this soft preaching.
Good stinking night.
This world's going insane.
And they're going to come into churches like ours that are actually breathing fire against
sin and it's going to be like, oh man, it's like a breath of fresh air.
Somebody, somebody gets it.
Somebody understands.
Hey, the weirder this world gets, the brighter our light's going to shine.
And the more people are going to be hungry for hard preaching.
Like when our country was fairly normal, you didn't really even feel like you needed
hard preaching, even though you did.
You just thought, nah, I'll just go to my lukewarm church.
But you know what?
When you start seeing all this weirdo stuff every single day, you're going to be like,
somebody preach against this.
Somebody call this out.
And then you got a lot of these old IFB guys are just like, homosexuality's still sin.
You know, it's like, like, like that's some profound statement, like, oh man, whoa, that
was intense.
You know what?
The weirder it gets, people are going to be longing for, they're reprobate.
You know, that's what they want.
Not like, hey, you know, gay marriage, you know.
Let them get married right after, right before they're executed.
You know, it's like, oh yeah, I like this guy.
I'm telling, look, I'm telling you, people are ready to go the other way when you push
them too far.
Folks, the liberals have gone too far.
And you think it's bad here over in Europe?
Good.
Now, I mean, Christianity is a joke over there.
And you know what?
All it's going to do, it's going to push the young people to say, there's got to be some
real Christianity somewhere.
There's got to be something out there.
And then boom, you're there to pop the YouTube card in their hand, right?
And ask them if they know for sure they're going to heaven when they die, preach them
the gospel, and they're ready for fundamentalism.
They're ready for the Bible.
They're ready for the word of God, not some watered down, modernistic, progressive version
of Christianity that's changing with the times.
You know what?
That's not going to combat Islam.
You think, I mean, look, these, these bunch of liberal churches, they're, they're open
to Islam.
Like, like they think like, well, we just need to, you know, realize that we're all
worshiping the same God.
I mean, these are the kinds of things that you hear from people like the Pope.
I mean, is the Pope ecumenical or what with Islam?
He wants to, he wants to get along with them and find the similarities.
And a lot of the Protestant churches are the same way over there.
And that, you know, we've got to be multicultural, you know, and we've got to bring in Islam
and all this stuff.
Look, Islam is out of the pit of hell, okay?
Islam is wicked and Islam is not a religion.
It's a tool of conquest is an enemy of Christianity.
Well, that's just radical Islam.
Really?
That's funny because I look at all these Muslim countries and they all outlaw soul winning.
All of them show me a Muslim country where you can go there and, and win Muslims to Christ
legally.
Am I right?
I mean, look at it, look at it.
I mean, hey, even the, even the most secular Muslim country, which is Turkey, you're not
allowed to proselyte there.
I mean, we still, we still gave the gospel to people when we were there, but technically
you're not allowed and a lot and countries like Iran, you'll literally be hanged if you
attempt to do soul winning there.
So, so are these Muslim countries just all run by radicals?
No, that's what Islam teaches.
The only time Muslims are moderate is when they're in a country where they're not in
charge.
If they're in a country where they're not in charge, then they're like, oh yeah, man,
just, let's just get along with everybody and everything.
But then as soon as they're in charge, they're just like, ah.
Folks, you have to draw, you know what, if you want to, if you want to combat Islam and
I'm not talking about a physical conflict because we don't wrestle against flesh and
blood.
We're anti-war.
Okay.
If you say combat Islam, what I mean is stop Islam from invading your country and the ones
who do come over and win them to Christ.
But you know what?
You're not going to, some Catholic priest isn't going to win them to Christ.
Some lesbian Methodist isn't going to win them to Christ.
You know, it's, but you know what?
I knew of a fundamental Baptist missionary in Germany, Mark Bachman that won like over
a thousand of them.
He had like over a thousand baptized, let alone all the souls saved over the course
of his ministry.
He was winning just tons of these Muslim refugees to Christ as an independent fundamental Baptist.
That's what, that's what it's going to take.
You know, what are the ways to stop Islam from taking over Europe is to take these Muslim
immigrants and turn them into Christians.
The Catholics and Protestants don't have the gospel.
Okay.
Most of the Protestants over there are just Catholic light and they're there hand in hand.
I mean the evangelical Lutheran church in Germany and the Catholic church in Germany,
they're teamed up.
They hold hands and work together and they say the Protestant reformation was just a
big misunderstanding.
It's literally what they say.
And so the liberals have gone too far with the Muslims flooding in, young people are
ready for some bonafide Christianity with a little bit of hair on its teeth, you know,
that's actually going to be able to make a sharp contrast and a difference between Christ
and Islam.
Okay.
And not be one that wants to merge and have Chrislam like Rick Warren or something.
So number one, the younger generation is receptive.
Number two, the majority of the younger generation speaks English.
Number three, the pendulum is ready to swing the other way.
Number four, Europe still has remnants of Christian culture which makes it easier to
win them to Christ than starting from scratch with people who have no exposure to the Word
of God at all.
You know, even though they're not saved over there, even though there are very few good
churches over there, just the fact that they're at least Catholic and Protestant at least
gives them some basis in the basics of Christianity to where they're easier to win to Christ than
the guy with just a bone in his nose or a Buddhist or a Hindu or something.
You know what I mean?
I mean, look, when you're out soul-winning, who do you find easier to win to the Lord,
a Catholic or a Hindu or a Buddhist?
All day long, right?
Why?
Because at least they have some kind of a basic starting point.
Even though they've got the wrong gospel, it's works-based salvation.
At least they have a starting point of a basic understanding of the Trinity, who Jesus is,
things like that.
And you know what?
By the way, my wife grew up in Roman Catholic Church and obviously she didn't get saved
there, but she grew up in Roman Catholic Church, but you know what?
Seeds were planted there where she was at least hearing Bible verses being read.
And she told me that when she was a kid, there were certain Bible verses she would hear at
church.
She didn't understand what they meant, but they would bother her and she'd think about
them.
God has power.
And so she'd hear verses like, I am the way, the truth, and the life.
No man cometh unto the Father but by me.
And now she'd just keep thinking about that and dwelling on that.
And you know what happens is if you respond to the light that you're given, God will give
you more light.
I don't think it's a coincidence that I ran into my wife that day when I was out soul-winning.
I believe that God allowed me to run into my wife out soul-winning and present the gospel
to her in Germany in 1999 because of the fact that she'd already heard the word of God and
her heart had already been tender toward it.
And she had gotten on her knees many times and prayed for God to reveal himself and prayed
for God to show himself and that she could learn the truth.
So God sent a soul-winner.
So the point is, you know, obviously the soul-winners have to be over there for God.
God can't send people that aren't there.
Okay.
But what I'm saying is that there are already people all over Europe, I believe God's working
in their heart already even before the first missionary even touches the ground.
Because they're here, even when they go to church, even through all the poo-poo dust
and hocus-pocus and emptying out of a dust buster and jingling bells and all the wizard
costumes and wizard capes and sprinkling and waving a toilet brush around, even through
all of that, you know what, the word of God is still there, under there somewhere.
And it's more powerful than any of that junk.
The other day I was on YouTube, right?
And I rarely ever watch YouTube, I usually just listen to YouTube.
I'm a very auditory person, I typically don't watch, I just listen.
So I'll usually have like sermons or just whatever on YouTube playing in the background,
right?
So I was working on something and I had YouTube just playing in the background.
And you know how it'll sort of just auto-play the next video?
So for some reason, it just started auto-playing a Catholic mass.
You know, I'm listening to some Baptist sermon and for some reason YouTube thought, I think
he wants to hear a Catholic mass.
I don't know why I did that.
But I'm sitting there, you know, I'm doing my work and here's the thing, this mass, I
didn't know it was a mass though because I can't see it.
You know what I mean?
It's just audio.
So all of a sudden, the next video just starts playing and it's just Oh Come All Ye Faithful
being sung by a choir.
So I was like, oh, yeah, it's a good song.
So I was just kind of letting it play because I liked the song.
Then a guy comes up and starts reading the Bible, except he's reading the Apocrypha,
the wisdom of Sirach.
And so it was all this goofy stuff and I'm just like, I was just kind of listening to
it like, man, the Apocrypha is so dumb, you know, like hearing it, right?
But then another guy jumps up and he starts reading like the book of Luke and then another
guy jumps and he's reading an epistle of Paul because I just was in the middle of something
and not changing the channel right away.
And you know what I was saying?
And then when I put it on the screen, all the wizards were on the screen and I was like,
you know what I mean?
Just like the bright green dragon costumes and the capes.
I mean, those are some weird, those are wild outfits.
Just this is all the dress up and stuff.
And I was just like, Whoa, man, what am I listening to?
You know, because I didn't even know what I was listening to at first.
And then it's a so and so the master.
But you know, the thought that came into my mind through just a couple of minutes of seeing
that was that, you know what, even with all this weird junk and a little Apocrypha thrown
in and even this, you know, the poo-poo dust and the weird outfit and the wafer and everything,
I'm thinking to myself, you know what?
Just these couple of verses that they read were so powerful.
Somebody's got to be sitting out there when they hear those verses about Jesus Christ
and thinking, you know, I need, I need this.
I need to understand that.
You know, it's got to be something stirred in their heart.
You think, right?
And look, I've talked to people who had salvation testimonies where they heard the word of God
in the most unlikely places.
Like my wife heard the word of God in the Roman Catholic Church.
She didn't understand it.
Nobody presented the gospel, but the seed of God's word was planted.
I talked to another guy.
He watched the movie over the top back in the eighties, you know, Sylvester Stallone.
And I guess at the beginning of the movie, I don't remember this part, but I guess the
beginning of the movie, there's like a funeral and they read scripture.
It was like Psalm 23 or something.
And I might be messing up the story, but Psalm 23 is right.
And this guy said he just couldn't get it out of his mind.
And then he just started seeking out the things of God.
And then eventually he found someone to give him the gospel.
Okay.
I talked to other people who said that they heard a Bible verse just quoted in a Hollywood
movie or they just heard, they heard it quoted on the radio or they saw it written on a billboard,
Bible verse and it just, it's God's word planted a seed and they just got that little bit of
light and then they follow that light and then God will give more light and reveal more.
I believe, why am I saying this?
I'm saying that there's a billion people in Europe, very few soul winning churches, very
few revivals or great things happening there even in decades.
But you know what?
One thing that is happening over there, people are hearing the basic story of Jesus.
They're getting little snippets of, and a lot of the Bible versions are corrupt and
they're mixing in the Apocrypha and they're corrupting things, but you know what?
They're getting some legit Bible verses from time to time.
They're hearing some legit Bible verses from time to time and they're getting this stuff
and you know what?
I think God's already working in the hearts of people and I think some of them are tender
to that.
Some of them are responding to that.
Some of them are open to that.
We've got to go find them.
That's what we're doing.
Look, that's what I always pray when I go soul winning.
God lead me to that person that wants to hear, Lord.
Lead me to that person that's ready to get saved, Lord.
Lead me to that one who's tender to this.
Hey, I'm not looking for five people, ten people.
Every time I go soul winning, I'm looking for that one person.
Find that one person.
You know what?
I believe that if we do a missions trip to Europe, if we go to places like Cyprus, France,
you name it, Romania, Croatia, Scandinavia, I believe God will lead us.
If we pray, God will lead us to the people that he's already working on and that already
have that little bit of a seed in their heart of God's word where it fell into some good
ground and I believe we're going to see great things happen.
So there's a remnant of Christian culture that makes it easier to win them to Christ
than starting from scratch with a Buddhist.
Let's face it.
And then number five piece of evidence is that I have a ton of listeners there online.
Folks, if you looked at the YouTube analytics, tons of people in Europe are listening to
my sermon.
Who are all of it?
They're young people.
Why are they listening to my preaching?
Even in Germany, you know, Germany is like, it goes back and forth between a few countries.
For a while, Germany was my number one non-English speaking country that's listening to my preaching.
Even though if you go knock doors there, it's going to be super unreceptive.
But look, I'm telling you, Germany, France, Sweden, Netherlands are in the top ten demographics
for listening to S. Anderson 1611 on YouTube.
Folks, something's happening.
You know, there's something that's right happening.
But you know what?
We need the boots on the ground physically out there reaching people in these places
with the Gospel.
So that's why I'm optimistic about it.
So what's the strategy?
I'll close with this.
I gave you the case for why I'm optimistic about, you know, the back and forth and I
think this generation's ready and English is there.
And let's do it.
Okay.
But what's the strategy?
Number one, focus on the receptive demographic, teens and young adults.
Number two, we need online YouTube content in all languages, not just English.
Because yeah, half the people over there speak English, three quarters of them speak English.
I want to reach the 25% that don't.
So let's get the content in French, German, Greek, Croatian, all of it, right?
Number three, we need to use the internet to help European soul winners connect with
one another, find a church and get organized so that they can be more effective.
Because it's hard to do it alone, folks.
I never would have started soul winning alone.
You know how I know that?
Because I didn't start soul winning alone.
Hey, I wanted to go soul winning my whole life.
But until I found a church that sent me out soul winning, I never did it on my own.
And you know what?
If you've taken yourself out soul winning, I commend you.
But you know what?
I didn't have the guts to do that.
I mean, you know, I remember when I first started soul winning, I was just, you know,
silent partner and learned the ropes from someone who knew how.
And after like a year and a half of going soul winning with other people, I had the
thought, you know, someday I'm going to be a pastor and I'm going to need to go soul
winning by myself if I start a church from scratch.
So I need to get used to that.
I went out soul winning by myself and I hated it.
And that was after being experienced.
I still hated it.
And I did it.
I got used to it.
And when I started the church, sure enough, yeah, the first year almost, I was doing most
of my soul winning by myself.
But it's no fun.
And you know, you need a partner.
You need a soul winning partner.
Why?
For the morale.
For the camaraderie.
So we need to help European soul winners find each other.
That's part of the purpose of this event.
We put out these kind of sermons and put out this kind of content online.
We bring in the Europeans.
We have the Europeans come up and give a testimony.
You know what?
Events that we've done where we did soul winning events in places like Dublin, Ireland or where
we did an event in Amsterdam or an event in Stockholm, Sweden, you know what those events
do?
They help people find each other.
And you know, it's great to talk to people and say, oh, yeah, that's when I met brother
so and so.
And he and I have gone soul winning every week since.
That's what I like to hear about events like that.
We need to help them get plugged into a local church because maybe they can't find a church
but the other guy knows where the church is.
Get them organized.
Get them in churches.
And even if they don't have a church, at least if they can find a buddy to go soul winning
with.
Oh, man, that will make all the difference.
Going alone is very hard.
Even to this day, I don't like to go alone.
I always like to go with a partner.
Number four, we need missions trips to Europe and church planting in Europe by new IFB pastors
who aren't banned yet.
All right?
So I'm not your guy on this one, all right?
I'm here to send you, all right?
I'm disqualified.
I've been DQ'd from the race, okay?
You know, and there are still a couple of countries in Europe that I'm allowed to go
to and I'm going to keep going to those until they kick me out, okay?
But we need mission strips to Europe.
Mission strips to Europe.
And you know what?
It's, look, the mission strips to Europe, they're not going to be maybe as dramatic
as the mission strips to the Philippines or Jamaica or some of these other places.
And you say, well, Pastor Anderson, you've been hammering to go to the most receptive
place.
It's true.
We want to go to the most receptive place in a region.
You know, if we're going to Asia, yeah, let's start with the most receptive.
I want to go to the most receptive place in Europe, too.
But here's the thing about, here, let me make a case for why we would still go to
Europe and do stuff even though, yeah, we could go to these other places and maybe have
a more dramatic mission strip.
Look, it's true.
If we go to Guyana, Belize, Jamaica, we're going to get way more salvations than we're
going to get in Cyprus.
It's true.
I'll admit that.
But let me say one thing, though.
I have way more listeners in Europe than I do in Guyana, Belize, Jamaica, even after
doing those mission strips.
So I kind of, remember how on Friday I was using Phoenix as a microcosm of the whole
world?
And I talked about how they're kind of the poor areas that are really receptive, and
then there are the middle class areas that are a lot less receptive, and we do those
last.
But here's the thing.
How many of our church members came from the really poor areas that were really good soul
winning?
And how many of our church members are middle class?
Look around.
You know, 90% of our church is middle class, okay?
So what I'm saying is, you know, we want to not put all the eggs in that one basket of,
hey, let's just put all of our efforts into these really poor places and these really
third world type places and second world type places.
Look, that's great because that's where you're going to harvest Boku souls.
I'm for that.
But you know what?
We also want to cultivate stuff in Europe because you know what?
In Europe, you have people that are probably more likely to have fast internet and they're
watching every sermon, they're growing, and they're more serious in many ways.
And look, how many people do we have at this conference from Guyana and Belize and Caribbean
countries versus how many do we have here from places like Australia, Europe, and Canada?
So you see what I'm saying?
We don't want to go overboard in our thinking, we want to keep a balance.
And I agree with everything that Pastor Bruce Mejia said, I agree with everything that Pastor
Jimenez said, and I said the same thing on Friday, but we always want to keep the balance
of these ideas.
We don't want to just completely just discard Europe because you know what?
We've got a lot of listeners over there and there's something to be said for evangelizing
Europe and we can go there and get hundreds of people saved.
So it's not a place to just skip, all right?
Again, what's the title of the sermon?
Hope for Europe.
There is hope for Europe.
Amen.
Let's make it happen.
Let's bow your heads in that word of prayer.
Father, we thank you so much for your word, Lord, and that we can see things in your word
that are so relevant to today, Lord, and I just pray that the pendulum would swing the
other way hard, Lord, and that a generation of youth, not all of them, the way is always
going to be narrow that leads into life, but Lord, I pray that many, many tens of thousands
of young people in Europe would be saved this decade and that many of them would be organized
into rock-ribbed, leather-lung, fire-breathing Baptist churches that could shake the continent
of Europe with the Gospel and evangelize every man, woman, boy, and girl, eventually knocking
every single door, and Lord God, we just pray that you would give us the wisdom and the
motivation to be a part of it, and in Jesus' name we pray, amen.
Amen.
All right, it looks like we've broken the record, so how many people do we have here
this morning?
465.
465 in attendance, all right.