Now in Luke chapter number 9, the part that I wanted to focus on is the part dealing with
Jesus Christ's ministry sending out His disciples into all these different towns and villages.
It starts out in verse number 1, He called His 12 disciples together, gave them power
and authority over all devils and to cure disease and He sent them to preach the kingdom
of God and to heal the sick and He gives them these instructions to basically sends them
out two by two.
The same thing is found in Matthew chapter 10 when it describes Him sending them out
two by two to preach the gospel and He also gave them power to do some miracles that Jesus
was doing at the time and they went out everywhere preaching the gospel.
Look if you would at verse number 52, it says, and sent messengers, actually look at verse
6 and then look at verse 52, verse 6 says that they departed and went through the towns
preaching the gospel and healing everywhere and then it says in verse 52, and sent messengers
before His face and they went and entered into a village of the Samaritans to make ready
for it.
Look at verse 56, for the Son of Man has not come to destroy men's lives but to save them
and they went to another village.
Now I want to preach about this because this coming Saturday we're having our next soul
winning marathon in a small town and it's been about six months since we've done one
of these because of various things that happened.
We ended up only doing three last year instead of four but why do we do it?
Why do we go to these small towns?
Why is it that we would take the time to get in our cars and drive all the way to some
podunk town that most people have never even heard of?
Who has heard of the town that we're going to this Saturday before now?
Okay, one, two, three, four, five native Arizona people which is an extremely small percentage
that have even heard of it.
So why go there?
Why spend the time?
Why spend the energy to go to these small towns?
Well if we stop and look at Jesus Christ's ministry, if we read Matthew, Mark, Luke and
John you'll find that it was very important to Jesus to go to every small town, every
village and preach the gospel there.
Just in this chapter the concept is mentioned three times.
But all throughout Matthew, Mark, Luke and John you'll see the same thing.
You see Jesus is concerned about the salvation of every individual.
It's not just a crowd that he cares about.
God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believeth in him
should not perish but have everlasting life and that whosoever, that's each and every
individual.
The Bible says that the gospel is the power of God and the salvation to every one that
believeth.
You see God loves and cares about the individual and when you look at Jesus he wasn't just
always trying to go find where's the biggest crowd I can preach to.
In fact you'll notice that when he saw multitudes about him many times he would leave and go
somewhere else.
Because of the fact that Jesus was constantly talking to people one on one, stopping and
just talking to one person there'd be a big crowd but then he'd see one person and go
talk to them.
You think of in Matthew 10 when great multitudes are thrown to Jesus he sees one man, Matthew,
a publican, sitting at the receipt of custom.
He goes to him, seeks him out, preaches to him and all of his friends who were publicans
and sinners.
Jesus is constantly talking to a blind man here, a deaf man here, a Zacchaeus up in a
tree, a short man, a despised man, a sinful man, up in a tree because he wanted to see
Jesus and he was too short to see above the crowds.
He was not the coolest guy in the neighborhood.
He was looked down upon for being a government extortioner is what he basically was and he
decided after he got saved he was going to give back a lot of the money that he'd rip
people off.
But he was up in the tree and Jesus points him out and says hey Zacchaeus, you know the
song?
Zacchaeus was a wheeler.
But anyway he calls Zacchaeus to come down and he says I'm going to eat at your house
and he basically spends lunch with this man preaching to him the word of God.
You see we ought to not lose sight of the fact that every single person matters.
Not just the crowd, not just the throng, not just Phoenix, but no, every little small mining
town in Arizona, those people need to hear the Gospel and the truth of the matter is
that the people living in these small towns and villages have less of a chance of hearing
the Gospel from anyone than someone living in Phoenix because of the fact that there
are several churches in Phoenix that at least preach the Gospel, that knock some doors,
that do some kind of soul-willing, but many of these towns have never had a good church
in the whole existence of the town and they need somebody to go and preach the Gospel
and Jesus Christ made a point in his three and a half year ministry, the Bible is very
clear, that he went to every town and village in all of Israel and the ones that he didn't
go to, he sent his disciples to go to, he sent his apostles to go to, to go to every
little village.
Now a village is, think about the word, it's a very small town.
Let me give you some other scriptures on this, you can turn to these or not, but Luke 8.1,
I'm just going to go through them quickly, you might want to just listen, but Luke 8.1
says this and it came to pass afterwards, let's talk about Jesus, that he went throughout
every city and village preaching and showing the glad tidings of the kingdom of God and
the twelve were with him.
Look at Luke chapter 10 verse 38, now it came to pass as they went, that he entered
into a certain village and a certain woman named Martha received him into her house.
Luke 13.22, and he went through the cities and villages teaching and journeying toward
Jerusalem.
Chapter 17 verse 12, and as he entered into a certain village there met him ten men that
were lepers which stood afar off.
So just in the book of Luke alone, you can see just over and over again this mention.
Flip back if you would to the book of Mark.
Mark chapter 1 verse 38 is the first mention, and I love the way he says it in Mark 1.38,
he said unto them, let us go into the next towns, that I may preach there also, for therefore
came I forth.
He said, the reason that I'm even here on this earth for three and a half years, spending
my time, and obviously he'd been on earth for thirty years before he started his ministry,
but in these three and a half years he said, the reason why I'm here, my purpose in life
during these three and a half years before I'm crucified for the sins of mankind is to
go to every town and village and preach the gospel to every creature.
It says in verse number 6 of chapter 6, go to Mark 6.6, it says, and he traveled because
of their unbelief, and he went round about the villages teaching.
He didn't just stay in the big city, he wasn't just at the temple in Jerusalem, look at verse
56 of the same chapter, and whithersoever he entered, into villages, or cities, or country,
that's just out in the middle of nowhere, they laid the sick in the streets and besought
him that they might touch if it were, but the border of his garment and as many as touched
him were made whole.
Look at chapter 8 verse 27, and Jesus went out and his disciples into the towns of Caesarea
Philippi, and by the way he asked his disciples, saying unto them, whom do men say that I am?
Back in the book of Matthew, you don't have to turn there, but Matthew 9.35 says, and
Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching
the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every sickness and every disease among the people.
Look at Acts 8.25, Acts 8.25, this is the early church, this is after Jesus Christ has
already died and been buried and risen again, and has sent it up to the right hand of the
Father.
In Acts 8.25, speaking of the early church, the disciples says, and they when they had
testified and preached the word of the Lord, returned to Jerusalem, and preached the gospel
in many villages of the Samaritans.
Now we should be following this example, I mean if this is what Jesus Christ's method
was, if this was the method that he gave his disciples, if this was the method of the early
church in the book of Acts, this ought to be our method today of going out two by two,
preaching the gospel to every creature.
It was the last thing he said before he sent it up to the right hand of the Father.
He said, go ye therefore into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.
And so if it was good enough for Jesus, if he preached it to his disciples, if he commanded
it to them before he went out to heaven, if the apostles and disciples and early believers
in Acts 8, if that's what they did, we ought to be following this plan.
Now first turn to Acts 1.8 if you would, you're in chapter 8, just go back to chapter 1.
You see the Bible says in Acts chapter 1 verse 8, but ye shall receive power after
that the Holy Ghost has come upon you, and ye shall be witnesses unto me.
Now look at the location.
Both in Jerusalem, that's where they lived, that was where they were.
Both in Jerusalem, because when he was speaking to them in Acts chapter 1, they were at the
Mount Olivet, right outside Jerusalem, a Sabbath day's journey from Jerusalem.
The Bible says that after he talked to them here in Acts chapter 1, they went to Jerusalem
into an upper room where abode, that means that's where they stayed, that's where they
lived.
Where abode, both Peter, James, John, his brother, and the list of disciples there.
And they lived there, so he says you're going to be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem
and in all Judea.
Now Judea was basically the province of the Roman Empire where Jerusalem was located.
And so this area of Judea had all kinds of towns and villages and small areas.
He said I want you to preach the gospel, yes in Jerusalem, but also in Judea.
And then he said in Samaria, Samaria was the next province over, it was basically just
north of Judea.
He says, and in Samaria, and he said unto the uttermost part of the earth.
And so that command, that mandate, we can take that today and say okay, we're going
to preach the gospel in Phoenix because that's our Jerusalem.
But if we're going to reach Judea, we're going to have to have some men and women who will
be willing to make a little bit of a trip, like these men had to take a little bit of
a trip to get to these other towns in Judea in order to get to the towns of the Samaritans.
They had to take a little bit of a trip in order to get the gospel to these other towns
and villages so that every single person could have a chance to hear the glorious gospel
of Jesus Christ.
If we don't take it to them, who's going to, is what I'd like to know.
Who's reaching these small towns?
I remember the first small town soul winning marathon that we did was in Gila Bend.
There was one southern baptist church in the town.
Everything else was, I think there was a Jehovah's Witness and some kind of a charismatic, rolling
in the aisle, speak in tongues, bark like a dog, slobber on yourself church.
And then there was the southern baptist church.
So we're knocking doors and we knocked on the door.
I personally actually knocked on the door of the assistant pastor of the baptist church
in the town and I knocked on his door and he said, what in the world are you guys doing
here from Phoenix in Gila Bend?
And I knocked on his door, I explained to him, I said, you know, our goal, we're knocking
every single door today, we're giving the gospel, we're showing people the gospel.
And I said, you see down the street right there, I said, there's a house down the street
right there.
And I said, there's a young seventeen year old boy from Mexico and he's lived here for
a few months.
I said, he just got saved.
I said, I knocked his door about a half hour ago and he just got saved.
And this is what the assistant pastor of the baptist church said, rock on!
So you can tell, they were a lot like us, right?
So he's like, rock on!
I was like, okay.
And I started talking to him and they were not using the King James Bible, they were
using the NIV, the New International Version.
I said, have you ever knocked any of these doors, or, no, no, we're trying to come up
with an outreach plan.
Well, here's an outreach plan.
Open your Bible and read it.
The Bible says that you're to open your mouth boldly and make known the mystery of the gospel.
Here's an outreach plan for you.
You walk up to somebody by putting one foot in front of the other and repeating the process,
then you open your Bible and open your mouth and give them the gospel.
And when you're in a town that has 1800 people in it, it's not that hard to fulfill the command
to preach the gospel to every creature in that town if you're passing a baptist church
in that town.
And yet you say, oh, I don't know, we've got to come up with some kind of a midnight basketball
or something to get the gospel out.
Why don't you just walk up and give people the gospel?
You say it doesn't work.
Then why did it work when we did it?
When we drove down there and had a bunch of people say, and people wanted to hear it when
we were at Gila Bend.
People were inviting us in.
Now, Brother Dave was sunburned because he didn't get invited in.
I don't know why.
It's one of those things where everywhere I went, I was getting invited in, other people
were getting invited in.
Come on in.
They were just thrilled to have somebody visiting their town, I guess.
But we went in and talked to them.
They were receptive.
They wanted to hear the gospel.
They said, wow, I wish your church was in our town.
We'd like to go there.
And we were able to preach the gospel and get the job done.
I talked to this guy.
He was so confused.
This Baptist pastor, I asked him, do you know for sure if you died today that you'd go to
heaven?
He said, I'm not sure.
This is what he said, literally.
He said, I know I'm saved.
He just said, I'm just not sure if when people die when they're saved that they go to heaven.
That's literally what he said.
And I don't remember who was with me who could verify that that's really what he said.
But was somebody in the auditorium, my soul any part of that day?
I don't remember.
But anyway, he literally said, I'm just not sure.
I think maybe they just sleep in the grave and then maybe like later at the resurrection
to come out.
And I basically just took my Bible and just showed him some scriptures.
I said, to be absent with the body is to be present with the Lord, it says here.
I said, Paul said that he had a desire to depart.
He said, for me to live is Christ and to die is gain.
He said, I have a desire to depart and to be with Christ, which is far better.
He didn't say I have a desire to go lay in the grave sooner, to wait for the trumpet
to sound.
He said, I have a desire to depart and to be with Christ, which is far better.
The Bible makes it so clear.
And I showed him all these scriptures.
And when I was done showing the scriptures, he's like, you're right.
He said, you're right.
Yeah, definitely your soul goes immediately to heaven.
And the funny thing was this guy had a master's degree from some theological cemetery somewhere.
And he said, oh, I'm a scholar.
I know the Greek and the Hebrew.
But he didn't even know the most basic point that the moment that you die, the soul goes
to heaven or hell according to the Bible.
And when I showed it to him, he believed it.
I don't know what is going on with these churches, but they're not getting the job done.
I don't care what's going on with them.
Hey, I'm not going to let these people go to hell just because there's some church in
that town that says Baptist on it that's preaching another gospel that doesn't even know the
basics, that's using the wrong version, that doesn't even care enough to walk across the
street and give somebody the gospel from their own house.
Hey, I'm telling you something.
Our church is going to reach our Judea, which is Arizona.
And four times a year, we go out and we knock every single door in one of these towns and
villages in Arizona.
That means in ten years, we'll knock the doors of 40 towns.
You see, if every church in America would get a burden for their Judea, the town's small
town America would get the gospel.
But it's not getting the gospel right now because people can't see outside the little
box of maybe just right around where their church is, maybe just a one mile radius or
a couple miles.
I would love to see our church knock every single door in the valley here of Phoenix.
And we're already doing it.
Look at the map.
We're going to have to put a huge bite out of it.
We're going to do more and more and more.
We're going to knock these villages and towns.
And then when it comes to the adjacent state, we want to send out young men that we can
equip and train to go start churches in those areas and go and do likewise.
That's the Great Commission.
That's what Jesus wants us to do.
That's what they did in the early church.
They multiplied greatly.
They went out everywhere preaching the gospel and then even to the other most part of the
earth.
But our church needs to be reaching our Judea.
You see, our ministry, our small town soul winning, and you say, where did the idea come
from for small town soul winning?
It came from reading the Bible.
It came from, you say, did you hear of another church that was doing it?
I've never heard of it.
But I just was reading the Bible and I just kept seeing the word village, village, village,
town, town, town.
And I travel a lot.
And so I'm constantly on really long drives.
And I'm also on flights sometimes where I'm looking out the window and I, you know, it
is when you look at a plane, you can kind of see a little town.
You can see the subdivisions and the houses.
And I looked at it and I thought to myself, wow, soul winning, you know, because I'm used
to always looking at maps because we go soul winning, you have all these little street
maps.
So I look at the plane and I think, well, I wonder how long it would take to knock all
those doors.
That was kind of the thing that was going through my mind.
And I drive over a hill and I pull into a town and sometimes I'd be very tired on my
trip.
So I'd pull into a hotel and I'd go to sleep.
And when I would go to the hotel, I have a ritual that I do every time I stay in a hotel.
Usually I sleep in the car, but when I stay in a hotel, my ritual is that I always pull
out the yellow pages and just turn to Baptist churches.
Just out of curiosity, I just like to see what's there.
And so many times I've opened it up and they did not have any, anything in the town or
they have no Baptist church or, or if they did, it was some kind of a Southern Baptist
NIV preaching, not sure if I'm going to heaven, sorry, excuse for a church.
And I would pull it out and it just, God was just burdening me.
It's who is, who's going to get the gospel to these people, who's going to preach these
people?
And many people live and die in these towns, literally.
Now some of them will eventually move to Phoenix or they've been to Phoenix in the past.
Mainly the young people grow up and go to the city where there's more opportunity.
But we run into many people in these towns, they live and die in that town.
I mean, they, they've been born in that town.
Some of them had barely even, I've been to Phoenix once, you know, they've been in that
town their whole life.
It's hard to believe.
You know, the way we travel and the way we live as city people, and I've been a city
person my whole life, it's hard to believe that there are people who live and die in
small towns and that's, that's all they know.
They've never even been out of Arizona.
And so I got the idea for this just from reading the Bible because I saw it as something that
Jesus did, the apostles did, and it's a command and we ought to be doing it.
And we ought to be participating in this as a church and getting it done.
You see, turn if you would to Matthew chapter 9, Matthew chapter number 9.
By the way, I love the four gospels, probably my favorite part of the Bible is to read the
four gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.
But in verse number 36 of chapter 9, there's a very famous scripture here.
In Matthew 9, 36, the Bible reads, but when he saw the multitudes, he was moved with compassion
on them.
Okay, actually verse 35 we already read, but you see at the beginning of verse 35 it says,
he went about all the cities and villages, okay, but look at verse 36, but when he saw
the multitudes, he was moved with compassion on them because they fainted and were scattered
abroad as sheep having no shepherd.
Then saith he unto his disciples, the harvest truly is plenteous, but the laborers are few.
Pray he therefore, the Lord of the harvest, that he will send forth laborers into his
harvest.
Let me tell you something, in these small towns, the fields are wide unto harvest.
Because the doors and medias have never been knocked, many of the people have never heard
the gospel, they don't know the truth, they don't know what salvation is, and so they
are wide unto harvest.
I mean, when you get there and preach them the gospel, we find that people are receptive,
and even if they're not receptive, at least we want to warn everybody and give everybody
a chance to be saved.
This is important.
A guy in town, an assistant pastor, criticized our small town soul-wanting marathon, and
this is what I criticized, he said, oh, so you went to this town and got all these people
saved.
He said, well now they're all like sheep having no shepherd, are you going to go down there,
are you going to train them, are you going to teach them, are you going to hold services
down there every week?
Who's going to disciple these people?
Now they're just sheep having no shepherd.
And I gave him a very simple answer.
He said, how are you going to follow up, how are you going to disciple these people, they're
so far away.
I said, you're right.
We should have just let them go to hell.
That's what I told him.
And you know what, that's the truth right there.
Well, if we can't teach them and train them and preach to them every single Sunday morning,
Sunday night and Wednesday night, I guess it'd be better that they just go to hell,
you know what I mean, than to be saved and not know what to do.
Hey, I'd rather have somebody go to heaven ignorant, I'd rather have somebody go to heaven
untrained or unbaptized than to go to hell because nobody even cared enough to go give
them the gospel.
And let me ask you something, did Jesus hold services every Sunday in every town and village
that he preached in?
Think about it.
He went through the towns and villages, every town and village in his nation, in the province
of Judea, up in Samaria, and guess what?
He did not follow up with every single person.
He did not go and have a home Bible study with these people that he talked to.
In fact, not only did he not do it for everybody, can anyone show me one place in the entire
Bible where Jesus went back and followed up with anybody?
Show me it.
Hey, I'm doing what the Bible told me to do, I'm preaching the gospel to every preacher.
How are you doing?
And they'll come up with excuses and they'll try to attack somebody who's trying to do
something.
You know, is our ministry perfect?
No.
Is our soul any perfect?
No.
But bless God, at least we're doing something for God and preaching the gospel and getting
people saved and other people want to whine about it and cry about it and say that we're
not doing it exactly right.
And I would say the same thing.
I'd say then don't tell me how to do it, show me how to do it.
If you have a better way to get the gospel to Arizona, if you have a better way to reach
these small towns, don't tell me how to do it, show me how to do it.
And that shuts them up pretty fast because they're too busy sitting around or with their
tracks or their other little hanging out.
Let me tell you something.
The Bible says, but ye shall receive power after that the Holy Ghost has come upon you
and ye shall be witnesses unto me, both in Jerusalem and all Judea and in Samaria, and
it doesn't take any power to hand out a tract.
Why would they need power if it was just tracts?
Now maybe if you were using a robot to hand out a tract, you'd need power.
You'd have to power it up with some kind of a battery source, you know, and that's what
many of these churches and Christians are, robots.
And they think that they've preached the Word.
When literally a machine, listen to me now, a machine can put a tract on every door.
A machine could hand this to someone.
A machine could do that.
I'm not a machine.
And a machine doesn't have to be filled with the Holy Spirit.
A machine doesn't need the power of God.
A machine doesn't have to memorize the Bible.
A machine doesn't have to pray and fast.
But you see, in order for you to win souls, you've got to read the Bible.
You want to memorize the Bible.
You want to fast and pray and go out and preach with the power of God, not a cheap substitute.
Show me one place in the Bible where somebody hands a piece of paper to somebody.
Jesus, here, read this.
Next village, where?
Show me the Bible where it says they all handed out a tract.
They had their printing presses going in Jerusalem, right?
Oh, they just didn't have it back then.
Wait a minute now.
Are you telling me that the Bible doesn't reveal everything I need to know and that
I'm supposed to spend a bunch of my time on something that's not even mentioned in the
Bible?
I have to have some special technology in order to get the Gospel out?
No, my friend, God's methods still work if we just go out and preach the Gospel and open
our mouth boldly to make known the mystery of the Gospel.
That's God's method.
It's always been God's method.
It worked then.
It works now.
It's not about handing out a flyer.
It's not about standing by the side of the road with a sign looking like a fool and yelling
at people that they're going to hell.
That's not going to do anything for anybody.
It's about taking the time to stop and not be in such a hurry to where you can't stop
like Jesus did.
He was on this earth preaching for three and a half years.
He was alive for 33 and a half years, but his preaching ministry lasted three and a
half years.
Why did he have so much time to stop and talk to people one on one?
Why did he care about one guy here or one lady here?
Why did he talk to the woman at the well for so long?
Why was he not in too much of a hurry to care about the individual in the small town and
the village instead of just saying, I've got an idea, let's print out a billion leaflets
and rain them from a helicopter?
You see, that's not the answer.
How many of you in this room got saved because somebody told you the Gospel?
Wow, every hand's going up.
Isn't that amazing?
How many of you read it on a piece of paper?
My two year old's hand just went up because she doesn't understand what I'm saying.
But thank God my five year old's smart enough to know that somebody opened their mouth and
preached him the Gospel.
And my two year old will know that probably by the time she turns three in a couple weeks.
And if she doesn't, she'll know by the end of this sermon.
But the point that I'm trying to make is everybody wants to criticize it, oh the follow-up.
You know what follow-up is?
Let me just explain to you follow-up.
Now some of you in our church have been saved for a shorter amount of time, some have been
saved for a longer amount of time.
Some have been in church for a short time, some have been in church for a long time.
I was saved as a six year old boy, I've been in church my entire life.
And let me explain to you, I think I can give a pretty good definition of follow-up.
In fact, I think I'd like to send this over to Webster Dictionary because I'd like them
to come out of the next 2010 dictionary with this definition for follow-up because this
is the definition of follow-up.
The definition of follow-up is everybody shows up for the church soul-wanting time.
And we all show up at the church soul-wanting time, let's say it's 10 o'clock on Saturday
morning, that's not our church song, but we do most of our soul-wanting on Sundays and
on weeknights.
But we all show up for church soul-wanting time and all the young whippersnappers, they
take their bible and go out and knock doors and preach the gospel and get people saved.
But then some of the more seasoned veterans of the church, the pastor, the deacons, some
of the more important people, they have some follow-up to do and they've got some visits
to do.
So they have a few little cards with addresses on them.
So they get in the car, they go get their Starbucks and their donut and horse around.
Then they go drive 30 minutes away.
They drive like 30 minutes to the car, they get there and nobody's home.
Then they drive another 30 minutes, nobody's home.
Then they go have another coffee and donut and then they go home and didn't get anybody
saved.
It's so true.
Maybe you're new to church and you don't know that's true, but that is true.
That's the truth.
Now, when I started this church four years ago, I said to myself, you know what, I want
to do some follow-up.
Because everybody's saying follow-up, follow-up, follow-up.
And I just found myself driving around, nobody's home.
And if they are home, you knock on their door and they're like, okay, you just talked to
me a few days ago, you just talked to me a week ago.
I know where you're at, I know what's going on.
I just found myself going to, literally, Stuckey, where's Stuckey?
When we hired Stuckey as a full-time employee, like a year ago, I gave him a big stack of
cards of addresses and people who visited the church and people that were good contacts.
I gave him a big stack and I said, follow-up with these people.
He literally drove around for hours and had nobody home for like four hours.
But you see, many people don't want to go out and preach the Gospel and win souls, so
they like driving around.
Now Stuckey and I, we tried it like once and said, I'm not going to waste my time driving
around, knocking the doors of people who aren't home.
And Stuckey and I, it didn't take long for either of us to just say, this is dumb.
Let's just go preach the Word.
And then we asked ourselves, where is this in the Bible anyway?
And so we just started just going out and preaching the Gospel.
So I have developed now the ultimate follow-up program.
Wait till you hear this.
This is going to blow you away because the Faithful Word Baptist follow-up program follows
up with everybody.
Even people who curse us out get followed up because here's our goal.
We just knock every door twice.
It's great follow-up.
You don't have to worry about people not being home, no shuffling the GPS or maps or no unnecessary
trips to Starbucks.
It's just, you just go to the street and knock every door again.
That's why we have a map out in the lobby that says the second time and it's the second
time through.
And then we knock every door twice.
That's follow-up, my friend.
Every door twice.
And then we'll knock every door a third time.
It's amazing.
Why didn't somebody think of this before because they're too lazy to go out and preach the
Gospel.
They want to give an excuse.
Oh, oh yeah.
And it's always the missionaries visiting.
It's always the missionaries who are going to the deep dark jungles of Africa to give
the Gospel.
Why don't you find some Africans down your street to give the Gospel to?
And I'm not talking about black people.
There are Africans living in Phoenix, literally.
There are African refugees that live, you know, five miles from here that are straight
from Africa.
Give them the Gospel.
But no, the missionaries who are going to Europe and Africa and Australia, they show
up for the soul-lending time and they have some visit to make an hour away.
And you have to twist their arm out so when we have missionaries call our church all the
time and they say, oh, can we come to your church and show a slide show of our mission
field?
And I say the same thing.
I say, no, but you can come out soul-lending with me for four hours in 115 degree weather
if you want.
I said that to a missionary that was going to Australia.
I said, no, but I'm going soul-lending for four hours between the services.
I said, you can come out and go soul-lending with me for four hours.
It's going to be 115 outside.
And he said, okay, let's go.
And we would have soul-lending for four hours.
Hey, that's the kind of missionary that we ought to have.
Somebody who doesn't say, well, America doesn't matter, we just have to go over to Australia.
And when they get there, if they won't do it here, they won't do it there.
Stop and think about it.
If you won't do it in Jerusalem, you won't do it in Judea.
And if you won't do it in Judea, you're not going to do it in the uttermost part of the
earth.
Especially not.
And so we need to get back to the basics, my friend, and not get into all this fancy
schmancy oh, I've got a new book on how to build the church and it's all about the follow-up
and the card catalog.
We have a more complicated card catalog than the duodecimal system for all of our contacts.
It's kind of like the security threat level at the airport.
The contacts, are they green, blue, orange, red, very good contact, a little cold on this
one.
No, I've got a book on how to build the church.
It's called the book of Luke.
I got a book on how to preach the gospel.
It's Matthew.
It's Mark.
It's how Jesus did it.
It's how the apostles did it.
Now you say, go to Acts chapter 1 if you would, you see there are always going to be critics.
You see it doesn't matter what we do, people will always criticize those who are preaching
the word and serving God, no matter what we do.
They'll find something wrong with it.
If your church is running 30 or 50 or 100 or 200 or 2,000 or 5,000, they'll find something
to criticize.
Oh, your church is too small.
No, your church is too big.
You get a bunch of people saved and they say, well, you're not following up.
You get a bunch of people baptized and they say, oh, those people didn't really get saved.
You get a bunch of people baptized and in church and then they'll find something else.
They'll always find something wrong with what you do because they're evil, because they're
trying to discourage God's people.
What kind of a person, stop and think about it, what kind of a person would discourage
a young man, a young guy, from going out and getting a bunch of people saved in a small
town?
It sounds like a bad person that would not want to, oh, are you sure that all of these
people are really getting saved?
Well, you're right, because there's no way I can be sure.
No, because I can't see in the heart.
Just like they all thought Judas Iscariot was saved, right?
All the other disciples, they said, Lord, is it I when He said that one would betray
them.
You know, Judas.
They said, like, is it I?
Am I the one?
And even when Jesus said it's Judas, He said it's the one that I'm going to dip the saw
up and give it to.
He dips the saw up and gives it to Judas and says, that thou doest too quickly, and they
still did not get it.
They said, oh, He must just be sending them to go buy something.
It can't be Judas.
I can't see inside the heart, so what I've decided is never to give the Gospel to anyone
again, because of the fact that I can't be sure that they really got saved.
And God forbid, what if I say that four people got saved, and really only three got saved?
They'd be alive.
Think about how foolish that is.
And I always say the same thing.
When these critics come to me, oh, are you sure these people are going to get saved?
I say, no.
But how about this, if one tenth of them got saved, it's ten times more than your church
got saved.
The highest people, few people, dead as a doornail, the baptistery is full of Christmas
ornaments church, it's more than they got saved that didn't even try.
I'd rather go out and preach the Gospel and do my best.
Am I preaching God's Word?
Am I giving the correct plan of salvation?
Am I telling people that it's by faith alone?
Am I showing them John 3.16?
Am I showing them John 3.18?
Am I showing them John 5.24 and John 6.47?
Am I showing them Revelation 20?
Am I showing them Romans 5 and 3 and 6?
Am I preaching them the true plan of salvation?
They can either get saved or not get saved.
I can't save them.
They have to choose to be saved.
But you know what?
I'm going to preach it and preach it and preach it and I'll guarantee you that the vast majority
of the people that I talk to are really getting saved because I do a thorough job.
And I ask them plenty of questions and I make sure, but you know, can I guarantee that they
all got saved?
No.
There's so many times that I talk to people that say they believe that I don't even count
them because I wasn't, you know, I got a vibe maybe that they weren't quite getting it.
I just wasn't really sure that they were getting it, you know, because I want the numbers to
be accurate.
But you know, the numbers, the number on the bulge is never going to be accurate.
Just deal with it.
But who cares?
So what?
Whoever believeth is going to heaven and whoever doesn't believe is not going to heaven and
you know what?
Our job is to preach it to them.
And we're getting a ton of people saved, we're getting a ton of people baptized, you know,
and the ones who don't get baptized are saved too.
And some of these Baptists need to just change their sign to Church of Christ.
I think a lot of these fundamental Baptists should join the Church of Christ's nomination
since if you really pin them down, if people don't get baptized, they say they're not saved.
You know, let me name the names.
You know, a big guy on the internet sells a lot of books and encyclopedias and garbage
that you don't need.
David Cloud, wayoflife.org.
He's got this big website and everybody's like, oh man, have you been to wayoflife.org,
this website?
And then you can download all the apostasy database, you know, and you can learn about
every weird thing.
Oh man, you've got to download all this stuff.
Have you ever listened to a guy preach?
He can't preach because we have a wet paper bag.
But if you go to David Cloud's website, wayoflife.org, he said these churches go out and preach the
gospel to people.
Listen to me now.
And if you want to read what he wrote, just don't call me a liar.
It was called Does Salvation Change a Man?
And in this article, he said if we go out and get a bunch of people and we preach them
the word and they believe on Jesus Christ and they call upon the Lord for salvation,
and then only three of them came to church and got baptized and joined the church, he
said we should really say that three got saved because those are the only ones that really
got saved.
Now, well look, David Cloud, go join the Church of Christ, you phony wolf in sheep's clothing.
And they try to confuse the gospel and say, oh, you have to turn from a sinful life.
None of us has fully turned from a sinful life.
We are sinners.
We are in the flesh.
Now when we walk in the Spirit, we're doing great, but every day we have to die to self
and crucify the old man.
We're living in the flesh.
And so these people will try to twist it and say, those people didn't really get saved.
They didn't really get, you didn't really get all those people saved.
If they didn't get baptized and come to church, they didn't really get saved.
How many of you have heard somebody say that?
They don't come to church, get baptized and grow, they didn't really get saved.
Well let's just lay that to rest right now.
Let me ask you something.
How many people do you think Jesus got saved while he was on this earth in three and a
half years of preaching every day?
Well first of all, John the Baptist, who thinks John the Baptist got a lot of people saved
and baptized?
Put up your hand.
The Bible says multitudes were baptized by John the Baptist.
Even in John chapter 4, it said that Jesus and his disciples baptized more disciples
than John.
Everybody following me?
So John the Baptist got multitudes saved and baptized because he didn't baptize people
that weren't saved.
They believed and they got baptized.
Some of them he might have baptized by accident, of course, that he thought was saved, but
the vast majority were saved according to the Bible.
They believed, were baptized.
Jesus and his apostles got it.
Thousands of people saved and baptized.
I mean, when he's feeding the five thousand, that's a pretty big crowd.
Five thousand men he's preaching to?
That was one service.
Who thinks that Jesus and his apostles and John the Baptist got tens of thousands of
people saved over the course of four years?
I would say tens of thousands, easily, if you just look at the numbers.
No one would argue that tens of thousands were saved.
I mean, we're talking about Jesus, the ultimate soul winner, the ultimate preacher who went
to every town and village.
The Bible says, here a bunch believe, here a bunch believe, here a multitude believe,
and yet turn to Acts 1.
I mean, we're talking John the Baptist, among them that are born of women, Jesus said, they're
not risen to greater than John the Baptist, not withstanding he that is least in the kingdom
of heaven is greater than he.
John the Baptist, Jesus, Peter, James, John, for years, every town, every village, winning
souls.
Look at Acts chapter 1, and look at verse 19, actually I'm sorry, not verse 19, look
at verse number 15.
Well, let's go to verse 12 while we're changing numbers around.
Then returned they unto Jerusalem from the mount called Olivet, which is from Jerusalem
a Sabbath day's journey.
And when they were come in, they went up into an upper room, where both Peter and James
and John and Andrew and Philip and Thomas and Bartholomew and Matthew, James the son
of Alphaeus and Simon Zelotes and Judas the brother of James.
These all continued with one accord in prayer and supplication with the women and Mary the
mother of Jesus and with his brother.
And in those days Peter stood up in the midst of the disciples and said, now were the women
included in this group?
Yes.
It says with the women, Mary the mother of Jesus, other women.
And in those days Peter stood up in the midst of the disciples and said, the number of names
together were about how many?
Jesus, where are all those people that you got saved, Jesus?
John the Baptist.
Did you mess up on follow-up?
Peter, James, and John, what are you doing?
Just repeating a prayer with people?
Somebody stop and explain this to me.
Why in the world are there 120 people in the church?
Because guess what?
When times get tough, guess what?
A lot of people quit the church.
It didn't mean they weren't saved, it didn't mean that multitudes didn't believe or else
the Bible lied when it said multitudes believed.
When Jesus preached in the temple at Jerusalem, tons of people believed.
They believed on him, they were saved.
But you know what?
When things got tough, when things got bad, guess what?
They scattered.
Doesn't mean that they weren't saved.
They were still saved.
And so you can't say, well just because they don't go to your church and get baptized in
my church and go to my church, they are not saved.
Well then go be a Roman Catholic because you have to be baptized and be a part of their
church to go to heaven.
Or go be a church of Christ.
Go be one of these other false denominations that says that you have to be baptized and
live a good life and go to church and doer to the end.
I mean the only so-called independent Baptist church that's in Tempe besides us, there are
a lot of good churches in the Phoenix area, but not in Tempe.
You know, Tempe is not very big.
But the other big independent fundamental Baptist in Tempe, it says in their tri-city
Baptist, it says in their statement that only those who endure to the end are truly saved.
Well I guess we'll see then, huh?
No the Bible says these things are written that you may know that you have eternal life
and that you may believe by the name of the Son of God.
I know I have eternal life.
I'm not going to wait and see if I endure to the end.
I'm not going to wait and see if Garrett endures to the end.
Because if he believes on Jesus Christ, he's saved, whether he acts like some of the Bible
people who didn't endure to the end or not.
Look at David.
Did he endure to the end?
Did Samson endure to the end?
Did Lot endure to the end?
Did Aaron endure to the end?
No.
And so we've got a lot of false doctrine out there and it's crippling us from reaching
people with the Gospel.
We're so scared of having our number be off that, you know what, then quit counting if
the number bothers you so much.
Just go out there and preach the Gospel to every creature, win souls, get people saved.
You say, how many souls have you won in the Lord in your life, Pastor?
I don't know.
I don't care.
But when I get to heaven, there's going to be a multitude.
I know that.
I don't know how many.
I don't know the exact number.
But I'll tell you what, it's going to be a multitude.
It's going to be more than Mr. I don't know if they really got saved, Baptist Church.
It's going to be more than Mr. follow-up Baptist Church.
Show me follow-up.
You see, this is what you ought to put in your vocabulary.
Show me in the Bible.
Amen.
I mean, if I preach something, if somebody else preaches something, somebody else.
I always say, well can you show me in the Bible?
Because if it's not in the Bible, folks, then why are we doing it?
Why are we so into tracts if it's not in the Bible?
Why are we so into street preaching?
When the Bible said about Jesus, his voice shall not be heard in the streets.
You know what I mean?
Jesus wasn't going down the street, standing on a soapbox, screaming at people as they
walked by.
Every time Jesus preached, somebody was listening.
Every time Peter, James, and John preached, somebody was listening.
There was a group that came to hear them preach, or they were talking to people one-on-one.
They didn't just scream at pastors by.
Turn or burn, you know, this garbage, phony, repent or perish, you know, you're going to
hell.
And then they think they're suffering shame for the cause of Christ because they look
foolish, but you know, they just look foolish because they're foolish.
That's why they look foolish.
Because they're doing something that God said daily in the temple and in every house, they
cease not to teach and preach Jesus.
Jesus said go to all the houses.
He said I'll tell you publicly from house to house, and publicly he's not screaming
in a megaphone to no one.
It's going and going from house to house, giving the gospel, and then preaching a public
service.
This is a public service right here.
Everybody's welcome.
But let me explain something to you.
Let me tell you something.
I went street preaching three times in my life because of the fact that it was a requirement
at the Bible college that I was at.
And one of the requirements was to preach in a bar.
And I refused to do it.
I took a B in the class.
I said I don't go to bars and I'm not going to start now to preach in a bar.
And so I went out and I said okay, I'll try the street preaching because we have to do
it.
And I didn't want to do it.
But I said I'm at least going to go somewhere where there's some people.
I'm not just going to stand on some corner and preach to nobody.
So I went to the bus station on 95th street and the Dan Ryan in Chicago.
It's an all black area.
There's no white person for like five miles in every direction because Chicago is a very
segregated city.
And that was where I did most of my soul with.
It was in the south side, black Chicago, and got a lot of people staying, had a great time.
So I went to this big bus station and there were a crowd of like 50 people waiting for
the, or is it a train station or a bus station?
What is that?
A train station?
I'm sorry, I said bus station.
It's a train station.
So I stood there.
I got out of my Bible and I started preaching and I preached for like 10 minutes and I was
preaching all about salvation and how salvation by faith and Jesus Christ and I'm preaching
and like 50 people are there.
And they're all just kind of like trying not to make eye contact with me.
They're just like, what is this guy doing?
They're just kind of like, I don't know.
So I preach and then I finish up like 10 minutes and it's just like silent.
So I walk up to a guy in the group.
He said, hey, did you hear what I was just preaching?
I said, yeah.
He said, did you understand what I was talking about?
No.
I said, can I explain to you real quick?
You got to go meds?
Sure.
I took my Bible and showed him point by point the gospel.
I went through so many verses and he got saved.
But then I thought to myself, boy, that would have worked without the screaming part.
You know what I mean?
That would have worked out.
I could have just walked up to him and just said, hey, can I show you something about
the Bible real quick?
Do you know for sure you're going to heaven?
And I did that three times and I checked off on my list and I said, that's three times
too many.
I'm never doing that again because it's foolish.
But see, people want to go out and scream and yell their street preaching.
And I was at some big, I talked to some big guy.
He was like the guru of street preaching.
He said he had like one person saved in the last five months or six months.
Put that same energy into actually talking to people and loving them and caring about
them and one on one with your Bible.
Talking to them door to door and you'll in six months have a lot more than one person
saved.
You'll have tons of people saved.
If you go out and put in three or four hours a week, you'll get a ton of people saved.
But everybody's looking for another way.
And the devil doesn't care what you do as long as you don't go soloing.
As long as you don't do it the way it says in the Bible, going to every town, every village,
every street, every house, up in the highways and hedges.
He doesn't care whether you're handing out tracts or screaming by the side of the road
or dropping Bibles out of a helicopter or whatever or going on some internet chat room.
I'm going to do internet soloing and you're giving the gospel on a chat room.
Whatever you do, he doesn't care as long as you don't do the thing that works, the thing
that he told you to do.
That's all I care.
And I'll close with one thing.
And I've done this before but I'd like to emphasize this again.
I like to say this.
Soloing works.
The numbers don't lie.
Let's say that I were the only saved person in the entire world.
And I'm not.
There are millions of people who are saved.
We don't know how many people are saved.
Who knows?
But wait a minute.
What if there were only one?
I was the only one who was saved.
And let's say I went out this year and had one person saved through door-to-door soloing.
Just one.
The whole year.
How many people would be saved at the end of two years?
This isn't that hard, folks.
Two people.
Okay?
Well then let's say in the course of that year I get that one guy saved.
Just one guy saved.
And then I teach him to be like me.
I bring him to my church.
I teach him the Bible.
I teach him how to go soloing with me.
I take him out and teach him.
And next year I say, listen now.
Next year we're each going to get one person saved this year.
Now is that some huge lofty goal?
Not at all.
And let's say we went out and got one person saved next year.
Well how many people do we have saved at the end of two years?
Four.
And then let's say the four of us say, you know what?
We're going to get one person saved.
And I teach them to be like me.
I teach them to go soloing like me.
To read the Bible like me.
To pray like me.
And I teach them the Bible.
And then we go out.
Well how many are there going to be at the end of the third year?
It goes from two to four to eight.
Okay?
Basically the formula for this, okay, is basically two to the x power.
Okay?
For those of you mathematicians that are with us.
Okay?
So after three years we have eight people.
After four years how many do we have?
Two to the fourth power.
Sixteen.
Well after, so we're basically just doubling every year just by getting one person saved.
And teach them to be like us.
Well then after ten years now, stop and think about this.
After ten years we are going to have one thousand and twelve people.
Right?
Is that right?
One thousand and twenty-four.
Sorry.
One thousand and twenty-four.
I'm going to ask a little of that this morning.
I was thinking like two hundred and fifty-six K modems.
I thought it was something like, I don't know.
But anyway, so okay, a thousand and twenty-four.
Now look, that's pretty amazing.
In ten years a thousand people saved.
Now after three years it wasn't that impressive, was it?
Eight?
What are you guys, who are you fooling?
What are you doing?
Who are you kidding?
Eight people?
But after ten years, like wait a minute, now we got a thousand and twenty-four.
But do you realize that after twenty years we'd be over a million?
Because a thousand and twenty-four times a thousand and twenty-four we'd be at over
a million.
Do you realize that after thirty years we'd be over a billion?
And do you realize that after thirty-four years basically every single person in the
entire world would be saved?
Which is never going to happen.
But wait a minute, the moral to the story is this.
People don't win souls that are Christians.
Christians aren't winning anybody, that's the moral of the story.
Because even if, we're probably, let's say we start with a million Christians, but there's
more than that.
But let's say we just took only one million of the people that are saved in this world.
And if those millions started to follow that formula, then there would be a billion in
only ten years if they would get one person saved per year.
So the answer is not, oh we got to get on TV.
We got to have this big, we got to put aside our differences and get together with all
churches and have a big city-wide crusade and bring in Billy Balaam and these other
preachers that are going to come and preach.
And we got to hand out five billion flyers so that every person in the world can get
a flyer and throw it away.
Oh, we got to leave a little comic book track on the back of the urinal every time we use
the men's room.
And then we'll get millions of people saying, no, if you would just focus on just stopping
and getting one person saved and talking to them.
Open the Bible and talk to them.
And then teach them something.
You say, be like me.
Come to church with me.
Go song with me.
Get baptized with me.
Come with me and see my zeal for the Lord.
Follow me as I follow Christ.
Then you know what?
We would get the multitudes saved and we wouldn't need any fancy methods.
We wouldn't need any technology.
We would just be doing it the old-fashioned way, the way that Jesus and the apostles did
it by multiplying.
And so you need to be a soul winner or you're dropping the ball.
And 99% of Christians are dropping the ball, as evidenced by the numbers.
The numbers don't lie.
Get a hold of this thing.
One-on-one soul winning.
Let's go out to the towns and villages.
You say, is everybody in Kearney, Arizona going to get saved?
Nope.
But you know what?
Everybody in Kearney, Arizona, God willing, is going to get a chance to hear the gospel.
And many will be saved.
And I'm praying that the people who are going to be receptive, that I'm the one who knocks
on their door.
I'm just kidding.
I'm praying because I don't like having the door slammed.
But I'm just joking.
I'm praying that the people that are going to be receptive are going to be home on that
day.
And that one of us would knock their door and have a chance to give them a clear presentation
of the gospel.
And you know, the people that are just going to waste our time, that don't want to hear
it, that are steeped in a false religion, that don't want to change.
You know, I hope they're not home so that we can just blow past that door.
But you know what?
Get filled with the Spirit, my friend.
Study your Bible.
And I'm not talking about rolling in the aisles, my friend.
I'm talking about memorizing the Bible, praying, following Christ, and get out there with power
and get people saved.
You say, I don't know how.
I don't know what to do.
You know, come along as a solid partner.
That's why Jesus sent them two by two, by the way.
You know, constantly I'm taking new people who've never been and they just tag along.
And literally for months, they'll just tag along.
And after a few months, they're shoving me out of the way, saying, hey, let me get this
door.
I'm tired of listening to you for the last two months, so let me do it.
I never have to force people.
When are you going to talk?
When are you going to start doing the talking?
I always tell people, when they go soloing with me, I say, you better shove me out of
the way, you know, if you want to do the talking.
Because otherwise, I'll just, hey, how you doing?
Because I want to get people saved.
And you know, that's what you find.
And so get out there.
And the hardest step is just getting out there.
You know, get out there.
Do it.
And boy, God's going to bless you and you're going to be blessed just with what you see
with your eyes, when you see people saved.
And you'll be blessed when you get to heaven.
And you don't get there empty handed.
And let me tell you something, there's going to be a lot of people who get there empty
handed.
A lot of people.
A lot of people are going to get to heaven having won no one to Christ.
But then there's going to be the few, the proud, who bring forth fruits, some 30, some
60, some 100, who get there and can rejoice with those who they've won to Christ.
Let's bow our heads in that word of prayer.
Please just help us to follow the Bible's example.
We live in a day of smooth sales techniques and seminars and conferences and books and
DVDs and CDs on the new methods and the new way to do it.
God, help us to be old fashioned.
Help us to realize that your way works.
Your methods work.
We'll just work your methods.
Help us not to get into some trendy new method, but to do the basic common sense thing of
just opening our Bible with love in our heart and just preaching the gospel and getting
somebody to say, God, help us to do it.
Help us to be doers of the work, dear God.
Not just a hearer of the word.
Not just to hear about a bunch of villages, but to say, hey, we've got some villages here
in Arizona.
Let's do it.
And we love you and in Jesus' name we pray, amen.