Now, Matthew chapter 10, this is where Jesus Christ is sending out his twelve disciples.
Just before this, at the end of chapter 9, he had said the famous words, if you look
down there in your Bible, verse 36, 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 ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he will send forth laborers into his
harvest.
So he says, the harvest is plenteous, the laborers are few, we need to pray that God
will send laborers.
Then in the next breath, what's he doing?
Sending laborers.
So then in the next breath, in Matthew 10, he sends out his twelve disciples and he sends
them out to preach and to say the kingdom of heaven is at hand.
And he gives them this big long list of elaborate instructions.
And one of the things he tells them is, he says, just for now, just go to Israel, just
go to the cities of Israel, because that's the country that they're in.
And he tells them, you know, don't go to the Gentiles or the Samaritans yet, just go to
the lost sheep of the house of Israel.
But he gives them detailed instructions about what to say, where to go, what to do.
Later, of course, in Matthew 28, he expands this and says, hey, go and teach all nations.
But he wanted to start first talking to those of Israel and his nation, that the scripture
would be fulfilled where it said, you know, he came unto his own and his own received
him not.
But even in this scripture where they're going throughout Israel preaching in all the different
towns and villages and cities, one thing that he tells them is, he says, look, if you come
into a town that's not worthy, if you come into a town that's basically not interested
in what you have to say, he says, just shake the dust off your feet of that town, go to
the next town, and it's going to be worse for Sodom and Gomorrah in the Day of Judgment.
It'll be worse for that town than it will be for Sodom and Gomorrah.
Later on, look what he says in verse number 23 of chapter 10, but when they persecute
you in this city, flee into another, for verily I say unto you, you should not have gone over
the cities of Israel till the Son of Man be come.
So earlier in the passage, in verse 14, he says, whosoever shall not receive you nor
hear your words, when you depart out of that house or city, shake off the dust of your
feet.
Then later he says, hey, if they persecute you in that city, then just go somewhere else.
What's he teaching here in regard to soul winning, in regard to evangelizing?
He's saying, go to the people that want to hear it.
That's where you should focus your efforts.
Find the house where they're worthy, and that's where you want to spend time and abide and
preach to those people, and when you get to the house that's not worthy, just leave.
When you get to the town that doesn't want to hear the gospel, just leave, move on, go
somewhere else.
Now this principle is carried throughout the New Testament in many places, but let's go
right now to Luke chapter 10 quickly.
Flip over to Luke chapter 10, and in Luke 10 we have a parallel passage where he sends
them out to and to, and I just want to quickly show you it in this place, verse 10 of chapter
10, but into whatsoever city ye enter and they receive you not, go your ways out into
the streets of the same, and say, even the very dust of your city which cleaveth on us,
we do wipe off against you, notwithstanding be ye sure of this, that the kingdom of God
is come nigh unto you.
So the unreceptive city, God says, you know, give them a warning.
Make sure that they know, look, the kingdom of God has come nigh unto you, I'm leaving
you with one verse here, I'm just letting you know that salvation is available, that
the word of God is here, but I'm going to shake off the dust and go somewhere else that's
more receptive.
Look at Luke chapter 14, just a few pages to the right in your Bible, Luke chapter number
14, it says in verse 12, then said he also to him that bade him, when thou makest a dinner
or a supper, call not thy friends nor thy brethren, neither thy kinsmen nor thy rich
neighbors, lest they also bid thee and a recompense be made thee, but when thou makest
a feast, call the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind, and thou shalt be blessed, for
they cannot recompense thee, for thou shalt be recompensed at the resurrection of the
just.
And when one of them that sat at meat with them heard these things, he said unto him,
Blessed is he that shall eat bread in the kingdom of God.
Then said he unto him, A certain man made a great supper and bade many, and sent his
servant at supper time to say to them that were bidden, Come, for all things are now
ready.
And they all with one consent began to make excuse.
The first said unto him, I bought a piece of ground, and I must needs go and see it,
I pray thee have me excused.
And another said, I bought five yoke of oxen, and I go to prove them, I pray thee have me
excused.
And another said, I have married a wife, and therefore I cannot come.
So that servant came, all right the wind blew my page here, it's a good thing I'm preaching
out of the waterproof Bible.
That servant came and showed his lord these things.
Then the master of the house being angry said to his servants, Go out quickly into the streets
and lanes of the city, and bring in either the poor and the maimed and the hauled and
the blind.
And the servant said, Lord, it is done as thou hast commanded, and yet there is room.
And the Lord said unto the servant, Go out of the highways and hedges, and compel them
to come in, that my house may be filled.
For I say unto you that none of those men which were bidden shall taste of my supper.
Now of course this is a parable, it's a story that has a spiritual application, the earthly
story with the spiritual meaning.
And what he's saying is, a guy invited a bunch of people to dinner, and they made excuses
and they wouldn't show up after he put all the work into this nice dinner.
So he gets angry about it, and he tells his servants to go out and find the poor, the
maimed, the blind, the crippled, those kind of people.
And he says, invite them in, and they go out and they invite all of them.
And then once they're done inviting all of them, then he says, okay, now go out and just
into the highways and hedges, and just compel them to come in, that my house may be filled.
Just invite everybody, get everybody in here.
And this is a picture of us inviting people to be saved, because of the fact that right
before this he says, bless are they that eat and drink in the kingdom of heaven.
And he says it's like unto this supper, okay.
So what the Bible is teaching again is that when we go out and preach the gospel to every
creature, we should focus our efforts on the poor, the maimed, the blind, the hauled.
He says after you've talked to those people, then go to everybody.
But why is he saying start with the poor, start with the maimed, the blind, the hauled?
Here's why, because of the fact that they are the most receptive to the message.
I mean if you go to a poor person or a handicapped person, they're going to be more likely to
want to come to this free meal than some of these rich people that refuse to come to the
meal because they just didn't really think it was that cool or whatever.
So it's the same way when you go out soul winning.
You and I know that people that are very rich or well-to-do type people, sometimes because
of pride and they feel like they have it all together, they don't really need salvation
in their mind.
They don't need the gospel, they don't need church, they don't want to change anything
about the way they're living their life to join a church and be a part of God's house.
So God is saying here, go to the people first that are the most receptive, which is similar
to what he taught back in Matthew.
Now go to the book of Acts, because Acts is where a lot of soul winning is going on in
the Bible.
Acts is a book where they're just constantly out, winning people to Christ, the church
is growing, things are happening, they're going out and making something happen and
working hard.
That's why it's called acts.
What does acts mean?
It's what you do, it's what you accomplish, it's action, it's the works that you perform.
And a lot of people today want to de-emphasize the works that we do.
Now hey, by all means, de-emphasize it in regard to salvation because it has nothing
to do with salvation.
It has zero emphasis on salvation because salvation is by faith alone, not of works
as any man should boast.
But after we're saved, God wants us to do some acts, some works, some action.
So look at Acts chapter 13 and see how this principle plays out in the book of Acts.
Acts chapter 13 verse 44, it says, the next Sabbath day came also the whole city together
to hear the word of God.
But when the Jews saw the multitudes, they were filled with envy and spake against those
things which were spoken by Paul, contradicting and blaspheming.
Then Paul and Barnabas waxed bold and said it was necessary that the word of God should
first have been spoken to you, but seeing you put it from you and judge yourselves unworthy
of everlasting life, lo, we turn to the Gentiles.
Why are they turning to the Gentiles?
Because the Jews aren't interested.
He says, look, you guys have judged yourselves unworthy of the kingdom of God, fine, we'll
just go to the Gentiles.
You don't want to hear what we have to say?
That's no problem.
We'll just go on to the next person, whether that be a house or a city or a nation or a
group of people, he's saying, you know, move on to the people who want to hear it.
Look what it says in verse 47, for so with the Lord commanded us saying, I've set thee
to be a light of the Gentiles that thou shouldest be for salvation unto the ends of the earth.
Watch this.
And when the Gentiles heard this, they were glad and glorified the word of the Lord.
And as many as were ordained to eternal life believed, and the word of the Lord was published
throughout all the region.
Why in the world would you want to just beat your head against the wall trying to reach
people who don't want to be reached, trying to give the gospel to people who don't want
to hear it?
Look, of course we want to just give everyone a warning.
You know, you at least just say, hey, look, the kingdom of God's come nigh unto you.
Or just say, hey, look, let me just leave you with one verse.
But I'm not going to spend hours and hours of my time preaching to people that don't
want to hear the gospel.
And you say, well, you know, you just need to keep preaching it to them anyway.
Don't give up on anybody.
Well, here's Paul giving up on people.
All throughout the New Testament, it's taught, move on, shake off the dust of your feet.
Why?
Because we're living on a planet with 7 billion people.
There are plenty of fish in the sea.
Why would you beat your head against the wall with people who aren't interested when there
are plenty of people who are interested?
There are a lot of people in this world who want to hear the gospel, who are ready for
you to knock their door, and they are interested in what the word of God has to say.
There are nations in this world that are more receptive than others.
Certain countries, certain languages, where the people are more hungry for the word of
God.
That's where the effort should be focused, biblically speaking.
And people who just don't want to hear it, time to move on.
Why?
Because we only have so much time and energy and breath, and if we want to achieve the
most that we can for the kingdom of God, it should be with those that are receptive.
You say, oh, but there's already a bunch of people saved amongst that neighborhood or
that group.
Yeah, but the Bible says unto him that hath more shall be given, and he shall have more
abundance.
But from him that hath not shall be taken away, even that which he hath.
Look what the Bible says in Acts chapter 18.
Acts chapter 18, look at verse 4.
And he reasoned in the synagogue every Sabbath, and persuaded the Jews and the Greeks.
And when Silas and Timotheus were come from Macedonia, Paul was pressed in the Spirit,
and testified to the Jews that Jesus was Christ.
And when they opposed themselves and blasphemed, he shook his raiment, and said unto them,
Your blood be upon your own heads.
I'm clean.
From henceforth I will go unto the Gentiles.
Why?
Because they weren't listening.
They weren't receptive.
They didn't want to hear it.
He said, I'm going on to somebody else.
It says in verse 7, And he parted the ends, and entered into a certain man's house,
named Justice, one that worshipped God, whose house joined hard to the synagogue.
And Crispus, the chief ruler of the synagogue, believed on the Lord with all his house.
And many of the Corinthians, hearing, believed, and were baptized.
Then spake the Lord to Paul in the night by a vision.
Be not afraid, but speak, and hold not thy peace.
For I am with thee, and no man shall set on thee to hurt thee, for I have much people
in this city.
And he continued there a year and six months, teaching the word of God among them.
So in this story, again, he tries to give the gospel to Jews.
They don't want to hear it.
So he says, okay, well, from now on, I'm just going to focus on the Gentiles in Corinth.
I'm going to preach to the Gentiles.
He preaches to them, and he's getting a lot of the Corinthians saved, but he's also getting
a lot of persecution and heat from the Jews.
So God didn't want him to move on to the next town yet, because they were so receptive there
in Corinth.
So God's given him an assurance by saying to him, look, I'm going to protect you.
I'm going to keep you safe.
Don't worry about it.
Just boldly preach, and let me protect you, because he's saying I have much people in
this city.
I have a lot of people in this city, he's saying, that I know are going to get saved
through your work.
So don't leave.
Stay here, because you're going to get a lot of Corinthians saved, and that's worth it
to live in the shadow of that persecution if a whole bunch of people are getting saved.
I mean, the implication is that if a whole bunch of people weren't getting saved, you'd
move on to somewhere where you are going to get more people saved.
I mean, that's what he's teaching here, okay?
Go to Acts 28, and notice this isn't just one isolated scripture that we're looking
at.
You know, we're going to a lot of scriptures that are all reinforcing this principle of
focusing our efforts on those who are receptive.
Now how can we apply this practically speaking?
Well first of all, when I go out soul winning, I go into it with this philosophy that we're
reading right here, where I'm looking for that house that is worthy.
You know, and when he says worthy there, what does he mean?
He just means somebody who wants to listen, somebody who's willing to listen, as opposed
to the person that is hardened and has no interest.
So when I go out soul winning, I go into it with the philosophy of finding that house
that's worthy, you know, finding that person that wants to hear the gospel.
That's why, you know, when I first started out soul winning, I never asked people, hey,
can I show you from the Bible how you can know for sure if you die today?
I'd just go right into it.
I would basically just walk up to them and say, hey, do you know for sure you're going
to heaven?
If they said no, I'd say, okay, well, here's how you can know, and I would just start showing
them.
Now, a lot of people are just too polite to where they just won't stop you, even though
they have zero interest, okay?
So my philosophy was, well, I just want to give the gospel to everybody I can.
So I'm not going to ask them whether they want to hear it because, you know, everybody
needs to hear it, right?
I mean, that makes sense, and I've known people who do that method, and that's how I used
to do it.
But you know what I realized though?
I realized I was wasting a lot of time and breath and energy on people who had zero interest
in the gospel when there are other people down the street who do want to hear it.
So I'd rather go find those people.
Now, everybody deserves a warning.
Everybody deserves to hear something.
So that's why I started asking them, hey, I find out they're saved, and then I would
say to them, can I take five minutes and just show you from the Bible how you can be saved,
how you can know for sure you're going to heaven?
And if they say, no, no, no thanks, then what I would do is just leave them with one verse
because I don't want to just leave them with nothing.
So I'd usually quote one scripture to them, something like John 3.16, 1 John 5.13, and
then I'll say this, now, are you sure you don't have a few minutes?
You know, after I've given them that verse, sometimes I'll give them another chance of
just, you know, if you've just got a few minutes, I can show you a little more in case that
first verse got their attention.
But honestly, if they say, no, no thanks, you know, I'd rather just move on anyway.
I'd rather just give them that one verse because you're still planting a seed with that one
verse and move on to the guy who wants to hear the Gospel than to just spend, because
I've spent time giving somebody the Gospel and they're just kind of like looking around,
you know what I'm talking about?
And they're zoned out and they're not even paying attention.
And then you'll ask them a question like you'll be going over it, you'll show them, hey, right
here it says, what must I do to be saved?
And they said, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved.
So what does that verse say that you have to be saved, do to be saved, what?
What's that?
I mean, we've all been there.
Or you say, you know, hey, so what do we have to do to be saved?
And then they'll just say something that's not even in that verse because they're not
even listening.
And I just realized, you know, my time is valuable.
You know, God wants to redeem the time.
It's a precious gift of God to have time and energy and breath and the word to go preach.
We don't want to squander it, beating our head against the wall, especially not just
arguing with people that are clearly hardened to the gospel.
Arguing with Mormons, arguing with Jehovah's Witnesses that have zero interest.
You know, instead of just shaking the dust off our feet and moving on to the next house,
the next town, okay?
That's one of the ways that this could be applied in our lives.
But you know, it's not just that even when I choose an area to go soul winning.
I'm going to choose the poor areas because let's face it, if we go soul winning, whether
it's in Phoenix or Prescott, if we go to the mobile home parks that are the kind of more
low income or the apartment complexes that are a little low income or older neighborhoods,
we're going to get more people saved.
So why would we go to the neighborhood where we're not going to get people saved when we
can go to the neighborhood where we will get people saved?
Now yes, it's the mission to preach the gospel to every creature.
But he said first go to the poor, didn't he?
First go to the poor, the maimed, the blind, the halt.
He said then go out and just invite everybody you can in the highways and edges.
But start with the people that are going to be receptive.
Start with the poor, for theirs is the kingdom of God, and then do the rest.
And here's the thing, where we go in Phoenix, the areas that are receptive areas, we've
knocked those doors four or five times.
The areas that are unreceptive, we'll go there pretty much once, shade that, you know,
it's like, hey, be sure to shade that in on the map, because I don't want to accidentally
do this again.
You know, and I'm sure, you know, 10 years, 20 years down the road, you know, we'll go
through and do everything a second time.
But I'd rather go five times to the area where people are being saved.
Yes, we want to go everywhere, yes, we want to give everyone a chance, but we need to
focus our efforts on the people that are more receptive.
If there's a certain nationality that's more receptive, focus on them.
You know, if there's a certain demographic, certain area, certain part of town, it just
makes sense and it's biblical.
That's what the Bible teaches.
There's no glory in just saying, well, you know what, I know that the Jews are the most
unreceptive people on the planet, but you know what, I'm just going to dedicate my life
to just only giving them the gospel and just beating my head against the wall with that.
You know what I mean?
Or, you know what, I'm just going to go to the most died in the wall, die hard Mormon
town and that's where I'm going to minister and none of them want to hear the gospel.
It's like, what are you doing, you know?
I'll tell you what, if I were pastoring in Utah, I'd probably focus more of my time on
the non-Mormons just because they're more receptive.
You know what I mean?
Just whoever is receptive, whoever wants to hear the gospel, you know, it just makes sense
to go to them.
Look at Acts chapter number 28, and in Acts chapter 28 we find something similar.
It says in verse 25, and when they agreed not among themselves, they departed after
that Paul had spoken one word.
Well spake the Holy Ghost by Esaias the prophet unto our fathers saying, go unto this people
and say hearing ye shall not hear, and he's talking about the people of the Jews.
He says, hearing ye shall hear and shall not understand and seeing ye shall see and not
perceive.
For the heart of this people is waxed gross and their ears are dull of hearing and their
eyes have they closed lest they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears and
understand with their heart and should be converted and I should heal them.
Be it known therefore unto you that the salvation of God is sent unto the Gentiles and that
they will hear it.
And when he had said these words, the Jews departed and had great reasoning among themselves.
Now I find it interesting that, you know, there are three different passages we looked
at in Acts where he says that, I'm going to the Gentiles, I'm not going to give you guys
the gospel anymore because you guys don't want to get saved.
But it's interesting because one of the times he said it earlier in the book, it says that
when he said that the Gentiles were real glad when they heard that.
When he said, well I'm going to the Gentiles because they're receptive, it says the Gentiles
were really glad when he said that to them.
They were flattered like, hey, thanks, glad you like us, you know, we're better, yeah,
great.
Okay, but here's what's interesting though.
In this case, he says pretty much the same thing, right?
And in this case, it gives the Jews reaction when they hear it.
And what does it say the reaction was?
That when they heard these words, the Jews departed and had great reasoning among themselves.
I mean, that's not a bad reaction because at least they're thinking about it.
At least they had great reasoning among themselves.
At least they didn't just blow it off and just reject it.
At least there's a faction amongst them if they're having reasoning amongst themselves.
There's a faction amongst them that's still open to it at that point.
So what I'm trying to show you there is that by Paul saying, look, I'm going to go to the
people that are receptive, the Gentiles are receptive, that's where I'm going.
If you don't want to hear it, fine, I'll move on.
It actually had a good effect on both groups where it made the Gentiles happy that they're
going to the Gentiles and respecting them and that they're not second class in the kingdom
of God because they're not, because there is no difference between the Jew and the Greek.
But also it provoked the Jews unto jealousy to where they basically said, well, maybe
we should think about this, you know, and they actually were having some interest at
the end.
So a lot of people will try to tell you that if you say stuff like this, like, oh, now
the Jews will never get saved because you said they're not receptive.
You know, you said that they blaspheme Jesus, now they'll never get saved, right?
But is that what happened here?
Did it say, and so the Jews went away and they were never going to get saved because
that's it.
No, actually it made them think.
It made them stop and think like, oh wow, we need to reason this out, we need to think
about this.
And it caused great discussion and dispute amongst the Jews when these statements were
made.
Okay.
So what does that show us?
It shows us that basically going to people that are receptive is a win-win.
You know, because basically beating your head against the wall with the people who don't
want to hear it isn't helping them get saved anyway, they don't want to hear it.
You know, you might as well go to the receptive people, you're going to get more of them saved.
And then sometimes when the unreceptive people will see the other people getting saved and
it can provoke them to jealousy where they basically want to get in on that.
Hey, you know, come talk to me too, you know, I want to hear this too.
But this is very practical in a lot of aspects of our lives.
First of all, soul winning, obviously.
When we go out door knocking, you know, what areas are we picking?
And then when we're in that area, who do we spend the time with and who do we just move
on to the next door?
Well, what is the Bible teaching?
You know, when it comes to even just nationalities, you know, of just, you know, there are missionaries
who go to places that are just the most unreceptive possible place, you know, and it's kind of
like, well, why are you going there?
You know, if or a place or they'll go to a place where they're like, it's totally illegal
to preach the gospel here, but we're going and we're going to go there.
And so we're just going to kind of hide.
And basically, you know, they'll go there and not really do real soul winning.
What they'll do is just like, we'll just have people over to dinner and stuff.
And then we'll give the gospel to like five people in the course of a year or something.
It's real slow work, but it's worth it, you know, but it's like, well, wait a minute.
There's 7 billion people on the planet.
People are going to hell.
Jesus didn't say, hey, if they persecute you in this city, go underground and start, you
know, start doing lifestyle evangelism if soul winning is illegal.
Look, it's illegal in Iran to go soul winning.
You can't go to Iran and just start, you know, going down the street soul winning.
You know, they'll, they'll kill you.
You know, I don't know if they would do that to a foreigner, but if their people do it,
they'll hang you.
They'll kill you.
I've talked to people in Iran that confirm, yes, they will kill you if you do soul winning.
You know, you're allowed to be a Christian there if you're already a Christian, but you
can't do soul winning and you can't convert to Christianity.
Okay.
So here's the thing.
I'm not going to say, well, I'm going to go be a missionary to Iran and I'm going to go
there and just hide and just secretly barely give the gospel to somebody every once in
a while hiding.
It would make way more sense when there are all these people dying and going to hell in
areas where it's legal and where it's receptive just to go there and get the, get a bunch
of people saved and you'll end up getting Iranian saved anyway, no matter where you
go.
So I've, I've won an Iranian to the Lord, you know, and it, because guess what?
There are people who come and go from Iran, you know, I mean the fields are wide into
harvest right in Phoenix, Prescott, wherever you are, you'll find people of all nations
everywhere.
You know, it just makes sense to do it where it's legal, where you can just do it freely,
where you can just give the gospel just door after door after door, just give the gospel
to 10 people in one day, give the gospel to 20 people in one day and just preach and just
do everything.
You know, there are other ministries and things where they say, oh, we're going to go into
the public schools and preach, but the only thing is we can't use the name Jesus.
We can't say the word Jesus.
We can say God, but we can't say Jesus.
You know what?
We're used to go there, you know, because, because that is the name above all names.
There is none other name given under heaven whereby we must be saved.
And you know, you would never see Peter and John abstaining from using the word Jesus.
They were told, hey, don't preach in that name of Jesus.
And they said, you know what?
We ought to obey God rather than men.
We will preach in that name.
And you say, well, but then you're going to go to prison, then go somewhere else.
But use the name Jesus and preach it boldly, loudly, proclaim the word of God, hide it
under a bushel, no.
And so the, we have a great opportunity for us in the United States because compared to
a lot of places in the world, even if we might complain about certain areas being unreceptive,
compared to the rest of the world, America is pretty receptive.
There are a lot of countries where if we were soul winning right now, we'd get a lot less
people saved than we do in America.
And we'd have a lot less people listening to us.
Even if you're in an unreceptive town or an unreceptive neighborhood here, if you look
at the big picture, it's actually pretty receptive.
You know, when you're getting people saved every week and so, you know, you're kind of,
so we have a great opportunity and look, there's no laws against what we're doing here in America.
So here we just have this wide open door, this opportunity, relatively receptive people,
especially if you go to the poor, we need to just take advantage of it.
You know, the time is short, the kingdom of God is at hand, you know, let's redeem the
time because the days are evil and let's make the most of it and get out there and just
get as many people saved as we can and just preach the gospel to people who want to hear
it.
It's, hey, it's a lot more fun to give the gospel to somebody who wants to hear it than
somebody who doesn't want to hear it.
And then if you just go to the unreceptive, you just get frustrated.
And then you want to quit soul winning because you're just like, man, what am I doing?
I'm beating my head against the wall.
You know, when you go out and get results, it actually makes you like soul winning more.
And then actually when you go out and get results, also it inspires other people to
want to do more soul winning too, you know, when you're getting people saved.
And when I say results, I'm saying getting people saved, you know, they're not necessarily
going to, you know, join the church and people say, well, if they don't join the church,
they're not really saved.
Well, you know, go join Church of Christ then because that's what they believe, that you
have to get baptized and join the church.
But we're Baptists.
We believe salvation by faith alone and that believing in Jesus is enough to be saved.
And, you know, I was just talking to, I think it was Brother Romero.
He had a visitor come to his church and it was the visitor's third time coming because
the visitor had two times driven all the way from across town, like a long distance to
get there and just chickened out and didn't come to church.
And I've had people tell me that.
I've had people say, you know, this is actually my second time coming because the first time
I showed up for church and I saw the big crowd and I just got scared and left.
Because honestly, if you're an unchurched person, it takes guts to just go to a church
that you've never been to, you don't know anybody, and just walk in and, you know, you
don't know what's going to happen, you don't know, people are just going to stare at you
or, you know, just because people don't come to church doesn't mean that they're not saved.
A lot of times you'll win people to the Lord and they'll go to church with somebody else
that they already know, friends that are Christians, and they'll go to the watered down church.
But honestly, you know, we want to go out and win people to Christ and reap a great
harvest.
You know, that's the goal.
I don't go soul losing, I want to go soul winning.
Seriously, I want to be winning.
I want to succeed, you know.
And so let's do it.
We have the opportunity.
Let's bow your heads and have a word of prayer.
Father, we thank you so much, Lord, for just blessing us by letting us live in Arizona.
It's a great place, Lord.
A lot of great soul winning that's just right there.
The door's wide open, Lord, help us to just walk through that door and help us to win
people to the Lord.
I know you said about Corinth that you had much people in that city, but I feel the same
way about all of Arizona, Lord, that it's a place that's wide into harvest.
So please just help us to do our best, Lord, and to spend time on that house that's worthy
and on that town that's worthy.
And in Jesus' name we pray.
Amen.