It was a great honor and privilege to be here with you this evening and to preach to this
church and to be at this conference, what an amazing conference that we have here.
I really enjoyed the sermon this morning and as Pastor Thompson was talking about going
to that reservation, I was saying, there's something familiar about this.
And then I was like, oh yeah, I was on that trip because we did win in football
by a lot.
I did remember that portion of the trip very well.
Also, it's incredible to see all these decorations here, and especially having been here yesterday
because it was like completely different decorations.
And I was getting a little nervous though.
There's so many birds up here.
I kind of thought it was like the marriage supper, the lamb or something.
So I'm kind of, you know, just pray for me while I'm up here.
No, I'm just kidding.
Now, the decorations look amazing.
What a great privilege to have a church that throws together a conference like this.
And I know many of you have been very sacrificial and donating your time and
effort and energy for this conference to go forward.
And we greatly appreciate it.
Thank you so much for Pastor Anderson for not just hosting this conference, but
really living up to its name.
You know, we don't just have a missions conference and talk about how wonderful
missions would be.
We actually do a lot of missions trips and especially this church.
This church is really trying to go across the entire world to preach the gospel.
And I believe that they are going to do it.
And the question is just whether or not you're going to help them because if you
don't do it, they're going to do it.
And so, you know, this is the time to get into the game and to get a part of
the giant soul winning movement that is happening.
And really, I think there's a lot of misconceptions about soul winning and
about missions, but really soul winning can be very easy.
And the title of my sermon this evening is Soul Winning Made Easy.
Soul winning made easy.
And of course, I'm focusing on the Bahamas as kind of a location where we
went on a soul winning trip this beginning of the year.
But you kind of see in the Bible, God making soul winning very easy at times.
And we look at a story here in Luke chapter five.
Look at verse one again.
It says, And it came to pass as the people pressed upon him to hear the word
of God.
He stood by the lake of Ganesaret and saw two ships standing by the lake,
but the fishermen were gone out of them and were washing their nets.
And he entered into one of the ships, which was Simons, and prayed him
that he would thrust out a little from the land.
And he sat down and taught the people out of the ship.
Now, when he had left speaking, he said in the Simon, launch out into the deep
and let down your nets for a draft.
And Simon answering said on him, Master, we have twilled all the night
and have taken nothing.
Nevertheless, at thy word, I will let down the net.
And when they had this done, they enclosed a great multitude of fishes
and their net break.
And they beckoned to their partners, which were in the other ship,
that they should come and help them.
And they came and filled both the ships so that they began to sink.
When Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus' knees, saying,
depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord, for he was astonished.
And all that were with them at the draft of the fishes, which they had taken.
And so was also James and John, the sons of Zebedee,
which were partners with Simon.
And Jesus said unto Simon, Fear not, from henceforth thou shalt catch men.
And so Jesus in his ministry would often use earthly examples
or, as I say, carnal truths to illustrate spiritual truths.
And here they had a great carnal example given to them
that when you follow Jesus Christ's advice, you can have great success.
They tried fishing all night and caught literally nothing.
And then in just a few moments, just following Jesus Christ's example,
they catched more than they could even handle.
And he's using these fish as an example of what he wants to do for soul winning.
Because he says, hey, I showed you this illustration so that you'd believe me, you'd trust in me.
But you know, it's not about just catching fishes.
It's not about just having a great business and making lots of money.
But rather what's important is collecting souls for the Lord Jesus Christ.
And when you follow Lord Jesus Christ, you're going to catch more than you can even handle.
You can get more than you can handle.
And it could be very easy.
I mean, imagine how hard it would be if they said, hey, all you have to do in fishing
is just drive out there, just let down your net and pick it up
and you got more fish and you can handle.
Everybody would fish for a minute at that point, right?
But any of us that have ever gone fishing, you realize it's really hard.
I remember the first time I ever went fishing, my grandpa, he took me out
and we'd always go to Jack in the Box for breakfast.
And it was good back then, okay?
So maybe because I was young, but we had Jack in the Box
and he likes to go out fishing very early, you know, get down there on the water,
maybe 5 a.m. or something like that.
So we get out on the water, I cast out my line and in about 60 seconds,
it's just, it's just tugging.
And I mean, this thing is tugging hard and I start reeling in
and I catch like a seven and a half, eight pound fish just in like 60 seconds.
And I mean, you know, six pounds doesn't seem like a lot
but we're talking about fish.
For some reason, they're just a lot bigger.
So I mean, this is a pretty big fish that I caught in like 60 seconds.
Like, this is easy, you know, and they're thinking like,
this isn't how it normally works, okay?
And then we probably were out on the boat fishing for, I don't know,
six, seven hours and we never caught anything ever again.
And I didn't know what to expect having gone into fishing.
But in reality, as many times you go out there and you just cast your line,
nothing happens, sometimes your hook gets snagged, it's just kind of boring.
A lot of people think of fishing as being very boring
because it takes a lot of time, a lot of effort, a lot of energy,
just to even catch anything.
And unfortunately, it seems like in the world that we live today,
a lot of people are fishing for souls the way that Peter did at first,
where they're laboring really hard, but they're accomplishing nothing.
And it seems like there is just a giant movement of missions and evangelism
today in this world that's toiling hard, but they're not really catching a lot.
And you say, what's the difference between Peter catching a lot and catching nothing?
Well, in one clear example, he's doing what Christ told him to do.
And when you do what Christ tells you to do, you're going to catch more
than you can even handle.
And so when it can be very easy, getting people saved can be very easy.
Missions can be made very easy.
But it seems like there's so many people in the world today that are trying to make missions hard.
And we need to make them easy again.
And let me tell you something, there is nothing easier than soul winning in the Bahamas.
And we're talking about mission strips.
I mean, this is mission strip as easy as you're ever going to get it.
It's so easy, I'm wearing flip flops tonight, just to illustrate.
I mean, you can go out there and flip flops and get a multitude saved.
You know what I mean?
And it's so relaxed, it's so easy, it's so safe, it's so fun.
I mean, really, it's like a glorified vacation, folks.
And it's almost as easy as if Christ said, hey, I know where all the fish are.
Just go right over there, just drop your net, and you'll have more than you can even bring into the boat.
And you'll ask other people to bring their boat, and it's more than their boat can handle.
You know what?
There are places in this world where you want to catch souls,
as long as you go where Jesus tells you to go, hey, you can have so many,
and you can't even get them all on the boat.
You know, a lot of people, they're taking a big boat and they're toiling really hard in the nation of Israel.
I mean, think about how many missionaries are being sent to Israel today,
and they're toiling hard, they're laboring hard,
and they're not really accomplishing much, they're not catching very many.
And think about how much harder it would be to travel all the way to the Middle East,
much more conflict, much more danger,
whereas the Caribbean, it's kind of like the destination spot for a vacation,
and then on top of that, talk about soul-winning being made easy.
And I think some people, they're just not trying to get the low-hanging fruit in this world,
but you know what?
We need to try and get the low-hanging fruit,
because who knows how long it's going to stay there on the ground without rotting.
You know, fruit that's on the ground, it's great,
but if you don't ever pick it up, a bug could come get it,
animals could come get it, it could rot, it could perish.
Someone needs to go and gather that easy fruit,
and you know what?
God bless people who go to hard places, I'm not down on you,
but let's go to the easy places too, okay?
And there's so many missionaries going out and kind of just doing nothing,
going trying to learn a language for six, seven years.
It's like how much souls could you have won
if you had spent six or seven years in the Bahamas?
If you were going to a place that was actually receptive,
a place that you already speak the language.
And I don't know why people just don't want to use this method,
but we need to really challenge, you know,
a lot of people's minds and hearts on the right type of soul-winning,
the right type of mission today,
and trying to seek out the people who are the easiest
because there is a lot of fish that can be gathered right now,
they're not being gathered.
Go to John chapter number four, go to John chapter four,
and I believe this, I believe that God consistently
wants to make soul-winning easy,
and he has made it easy, and it can be easy.
That does not mean every time there's going to be hard cases,
there's going to be places that are not very receptive,
there's going to be difficulties in soul-winning,
but many stories in the Bible, it's very easy.
And so many people, they're intimidated like,
well, but I've never been soul-winning.
I've never even gone out and shared the gospel.
And what I find so inspiring is that when you go on trips like this,
you'll have people that come out with you,
and they say, this is my first time to give the gospel to someone.
That's, to me, a lot of faith to go to a foreign country
having never successfully gotten someone saved by yourself,
but just to show up and just say, here am I, Lord,
you can use me.
And then they end up getting a lot of people saved.
And when we were in the Bahamas, we had some younger people too,
some young teenagers and young children
that had gone out soul-winning plenty,
but they hadn't really had the confidence
to preach to a lot of people.
In the Bahamas, they ended up preaching to a lot of people
and actually got a lot of people saved, even the young people.
And I think that God wants to use stories like John chapter 4
to inspire us.
Look what it says in verse 39.
And many of the Samaritans of that city believed on him
for the saying of the woman which testified,
he told me all that ever I did.
So in John chapter 4, we have a story of a woman at the well
who ends up encountering Jesus,
not really knowing who he is, being confronted with him.
They have a pretty interesting exchange,
but through the exchange Jesus Christ convinces her
that he is that Messiah, that he is the one that is the Christ.
She believes in him, leaves her water pot immediately,
runs back into the city,
and according to the Bible, notice what it says in verse 39.
And many of the Samaritans of that city believed on him
for the saying of the woman.
This is a woman that's very sinful according to the Bible.
She had five husbands according to the Bible.
She was constantly getting married and divorced,
married and divorced, and in fact the last guy that she was with,
not even married, not even in a good lifestyle.
She's a Samaritan, so she's not really trying to live a godly life.
She's not even in the right religion.
Yet the same day that she gets saved, what happens?
She gets many other people saved.
You know what that tells me?
You have no excuse.
If you're saved, you have no excuse to not be able to get someone else saved.
I mean, if this woman can get someone saved, you say,
well, I'm sinful, so is she.
Well, I'm sinful.
So is Peter.
What did Peter say?
Depart from me, Lord, from a sinful man.
But did Jesus say, oh, you're right.
Get away.
You stink too.
No, no, no.
He said, hey, come and follow me, right?
And he said, hey, you're going to catch a lot of men.
You, the sinful Peter, you're going to be really influential in the kingdom of God.
And let me tell you something, there's never a bad time to start soul-winning.
And if this woman, after just having a short, brief encounter with Jesus Christ,
can get many saved, it sounds like it's easy.
You know why?
Because soul-winning is easy.
Soul-winning can be very easy.
And you say, well, I don't know what to say.
Well, here's the question.
Then you know how to get someone saved?
If you don't know how to get someone saved, you're not saved.
Okay.
Because you should be able to tell someone what you did.
Hey, I believed in Jesus.
That's what the Bible says, right?
Yeah, maybe you might not be the most eloquent.
Maybe you might not know every verse.
But I'm sure you've heard of John 3.16 before.
I'm sure you could probably point to some verses.
I'm sure you got the basics.
If you're a sinner, you were on your way to hell.
But you believed in Christ as death, fear, and resurrection.
And you're only trusting in Him.
I believe every saved person's got that down.
I think that people are so intimidated, they think,
well, there's more to it.
In many cases, there's not.
And in many cases, there's not.
Of course, I'm not trying to say,
don't become an expert soul-winner.
I'm not trying to say, don't study the Bible.
I'm not saying, don't memorize all the verses.
I'm not saying, don't improve your soul-winning.
What I'm saying is even the most basic beginning soul-winner
can get many saved.
And you say, how?
Did they just try?
They just go to the right group?
They just go to the right people?
They just try something easy?
And let me tell you something.
If you're intimidated on missions,
you hear about these places in India
where they're eating rat.
And you hear about the weird things going on in Africa.
I mean, in Africa, it's kind of scary.
I'll just be honest with you.
Middle East, that's kind of terrifying.
China, it's like illegal.
You're like, I don't want to go this way.
Bahamas, okay?
It's soul-winning, made easy.
This is like, you just walk into the town
and you can just get people saved.
And you say, well, what kind of skill level
do I have to have?
That you're saved.
That's it.
If you're saved, you're already qualified.
You're ready to go.
It's soul-winning, made easy in the Bahamas.
And look, it's not just the Bahamas.
There's other places like this.
I'm just telling you this place is one of those places.
And it's an incredible opportunity for a lot of people
to do a lot of soul-winning, learn soul-winning,
maybe get some confidence,
and then go into some harder areas
or some more difficult situations in the future.
And of course, not all soul-winning is going to be easy.
There's going to be obstacles, difficulties.
There's going to be challenges.
But this one, for us, if you speak English,
if you're saved, I mean, this is one of the easiest opportunities
you'll ever get.
And think about how many people are going on a long deputation,
accomplishing what?
About nothing.
This woman, her deputation was about five seconds.
She just went straight into the town.
And you know what?
She didn't ask for anybody's money.
She didn't need any money.
You say, like, how much money do I need to raise
to preach the gospel? Zero.
Now, obviously, to get to the Bahamas,
you might have to get like a thousand bucks
to get a ticket or something, right?
But, you know, it wouldn't take that long.
You don't need hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars
to learn some foreign language
to then hope that some guy might show up at church one day
and walk the aisle.
You can literally just open your mouth boldly
and make known the mystery of gospel
and get people saved the second after getting saved.
You know, this is near and dear to my heart
the way that I got saved
because, you know, I believe
that you should start sharing the gospel right away
and that we should even encourage people
that get saved to start sharing the gospel right away.
Go to Mark 6.
I was about five years old
and I was going to a church.
It was just an evangelical church.
It wasn't Baptist.
But every week they would give the kids
in the Sunday school class the gospel
and offer them to come down and get saved.
And I remember, you know, hearing it several weeks
in a row and kind of every week kind of
getting closer and closer to wanting to get saved.
And I remember just one week
I just finally, you know, I said like,
look, if I don't go down that aisle
and get saved
if I don't trust Christ today
and for some reason I die
I'm going to hell.
I'm like, I don't want to go to hell
and I believed on Jesus Christ.
That same day
I lived where
we didn't have an alley
and we shared the same fence line.
And across the way
was two kids that lived there
and was my same age.
They were Casey and Stacey.
And they were twins and we were friends.
So I went over there same day
and I just started trying to give them the gospel
to get them saved.
Now you say, what verses did you quote?
None because I probably didn't know
any verses yet.
You know, at least I was just trying.
And I remember one was interested
so I ended up praying with one of them
to get saved.
And he said, do you know he got saved?
I have no idea, but I know that I tried.
Now after he prayed
the other one didn't, so we just made fun
of him that he was going to hell.
And then
I remember after that
you know what?
He ended up wanting to pray.
So you know what? Others save with fear
pulling them out of the fire.
So some are really easy
to talk into getting saved.
This is not necessarily
the right way to go about it.
It's telling what happened.
You know, we should encourage
our children.
We should encourage the youth.
We should encourage new believers
to go soul-winning right away.
To not wait.
I mean, if they're all headed to hell
you can't send them there again.
And if you are in here and you say
soul-winning, but I don't want to do talking
you know what? Just start talking.
Just start doing it.
You say, well, it's intimidating here.
Okay, well, go to the Bahamas.
It's way less intimidating.
I'm telling you, you can wear flip-flops, folks, okay?
Sandals.
And hey, you know what the children of Israel were wearing sandals
when they were watching through the wilderness, okay?
And that was called church.
Alright, church of the wilderness, so.
Don't get mad at me.
Now, I'll just be honest with you.
I was pastoring at steadfast.
Someone came to me and they approached me and they said
hey, Pastor Shelly, you got to take a
mission trip with us to the Bahamas.
And I was like, yeah, the Bahamas.
I'm sure everybody will love that.
Pastor Shelly is taking a mission trip to the Bahamas.
Yeah.
It's a lot of mission work, right?
And I was just thinking like, this is what I told him.
I said, I'm probably never going to take
a mission trip to the Bahamas.
Because I said there's like a stigma
that's like a vacation spot.
And he's like, oh, we got to understand.
The people there are really receptive.
And I said, well,
the only way I'd believe it is if I went there
and did a scouting trip just because, frankly speaking,
you know,
I would be embarrassed if I take like
40 people from my church
to this really expensive place
and no one wants to get saved.
That would be kind of embarrassing
or just be like wasting money or something like that.
And that was kind of what I was afraid of.
So I didn't really believe it.
I was kind of skeptical, but he said,
why don't we just go? You and me just do a scouting trip.
So in 2019, I decided to just take
a quick little like two or three day trip down there
just to kind of test the waters
and to see what it was like.
Plus I did a little bit of research into the continent,
or I'm sorry, not the continent, the country
just to see what it was like.
And the Bahamas is actually a group of
700 islands,
which is crazy.
But only about 30 or 40 of those
islands are inhabited.
So there's just a lot of just little
tiny islands no one lives on.
But there's about 30 or 40 that are inhabited.
It's mostly just a couple
that have the vast majority
of the population.
And the main island there
is called Nassau.
Nassau is kind of the capital city
and it's the largest island.
It's where the vast majority of the people live.
It's very small.
It's only 80 square miles.
And just to give you an idea of how big that is,
I looked at the city of Phoenix
and we're not talking
about the Phoenix metro.
We're talking about only the city of Phoenix
is 518 square miles.
So just the city of Phoenix
is over six times larger
than the entire island of Nassau.
Which is like this main
population of the Bahamas.
Surprise, surprise city
here at Arizona.
Some of y'all know where that's at.
That is 110.5 square miles.
So the city of Surprise
is larger than the island of Nassau.
So just to give you an idea
of what kind of
size dimensions we're talking about.
So it's actually a very small island.
On this island
it's about 250,000 people.
That's quite a few people
to be concentrated
into this area.
And that's just like the locals that live there.
At any given time there's probably
anywhere from 300,000 to 400,000
people on the island.
Just because there's a ton of tourism.
There's tons and tons of people
who are on the island visiting at all times.
And so there's a lot of people
that are on this little tiny
space.
So it can be kind of difficult to travel
from one side to the other considering
it's like oh it's only two miles.
That's like 35 minutes.
It's like New York City packed at times or whatever.
So it can be a little bit densely populated
in certain areas.
If you look at the
ethnic aspect of the demographics
it's 90% black.
So of course
most of the people there
that you're going to run into are black.
There's about 4% white
2% mixed and then just like 1%
other.
So it's very predominantly black.
It's funny to me that in America
it seems like there's just so much hatred
increasing for black
people.
And it's like there's this idea
out there that just black people are just bad
or something.
Or like black people are cursed or like
there's something wrong with black people.
But you know what's wrong with black people?
America.
Because when you visit black people
that are not from America
they're way different.
Like completely different people.
And you know what?
You can really appreciate
when you go to some of these Caribbean islands
and you run into these individuals
they're much different.
And let me tell you something.
Racism is the dumbest thing on the planet.
It's not real.
Red, yellow, black and white
they're all precious in sight.
And the reason why black people in America
often are bad is because no one loves them.
It's because they don't have a father
there to love them.
It's because they don't have a church
with a pastor that loves them that's teaching them the Bible.
It's because they're living in a system
where no one's feeding into these people
and loving these people.
And let me tell you something.
If you love black people, you know what you'd do?
You'd give them the gospel.
You wouldn't give them handouts.
You wouldn't just give them money.
You wouldn't just give them privilege.
You wouldn't just tell them how enslaved they are.
No, you know what you'd do
is you'd give them the gospel
and you'd love on them and teach them the Bible.
And let me tell you something.
We're normal Americans.
Oh, I just like to be around people like me.
Well, you know what, people like you
sometimes aren't that great.
But you know,
the people in the Bahamas are great.
I love them.
And in fact, their nation
is considered 93% Christian.
You know,
visiting the Bahamas is kind of like
if you could get into a
time traveling device
and go back to like the 1950s of America
and just like get to experience what culture
would have been like in the 1950s.
Albeit, everyone's black.
But, you know, so there's a little difference there, right?
The water fountains don't have a label on them or anything, okay?
But,
like, you know, it's like normal
and nice.
And people always are worried about like
traveling to foreign countries how dangerous it is.
But I'll tell you what,
downtown Houston is way scarier than
Bahamas.
Downtown Detroit, downtown
Fort Worth. Hey, there's a lot of scary places
in America, okay?
And there I felt
way safer, way more
at home. I enjoyed it.
I love being there. It's great.
Now, of those 93%,
75% are classified as
quote, Protestant.
They kind of break that down even further.
And Brother Reiter
rightly said that it's about 35%
Baptist. So,
that's kind of the predominant
denominational distinction.
But here's the thing that's crazy
is, you know, having visited
there, I like, I personally
never ran into anybody that was already
saved. Like, it's
93% Christian, but virtually
no one's saved. And I'm not saying that
no one is, but, you know,
when you run into people, it's almost
no chance that they're going to be saved.
Which is just kind of sad considering
how much they love the Bible, they're
very Christian, their schools
very Christian, they're reading the Bible
daily, in schools, Christianity
is talked about, everybody
talking about Christianity, thinks they're
Christian, wants to be a Christian,
likes Christianity, and they're just
not saved. They're very familiar with
the Bible. They know a lot of Bible.
But, unfortunately,
they just, they don't
have that connection
of what it means to be saved.
Another thing that's interesting is
the original origin
of the Bahamas, is that it was originally
discovered by Christopher
Columbus in 1492.
So, you know that old saying
where he crossed the ocean blue?
Well, he actually found
the island of Bahamas
and it was the Leucanian
people that were originally there.
It ended up becoming kind of a prison colony
at one point. Later it
became a prison colony for
American loyalists during the
American Revolution. And so it kind of
has an interesting history. It was
a British colony for a long time.
Eventually got its own independence.
But, again, it's predominantly
Christian. It's 35%
Baptist, 15% Anglican,
8% Pentecostal, 5%
Church of God, 5%
Seventh-day Adventist, 4% Methodist,
14%
Catholic. And I think it said they had 300 Jews.
So, I don't know how that works, okay?
Have fun with that, alright?
It's about 300 too many.
Um.
So, so
Brother Nick convinces me
we go on this trip
and, you know,
give a lot of credit to Brother Nick because I would have never gone here.
You know, it wasn't for him or
someone else just saying like how great this is.
So, him taking us out there
and
he was right. Super receptive.
It was just us there for like maybe
two, two and a half days and we didn't go
sewing the whole time, just like maybe a few hours a day
because a lot of it I was just scouting.
I was going and I wanted to go to different areas
because I didn't want to just go to one area and it was good
and then like have kind of a
poor idea about the island.
So, we went to all kinds of different areas, talking to a lot of different people,
went to schools, tried to talk to them,
see what that would be like and
in just like a few days we got like 33 people saved.
So, that's
pretty good receptivity
for just a couple people.
During that time we had some really cool experiences.
I talked to a guy
who's name was Deacon
John.
Deacon John was the deacon of his Baptist church
who was just sitting outside
and I tried to ask him about the gospel
and it was clear he didn't believe in salvation
by faith alone. He believed in repent of your sins.
He believed that you could lose your salvation.
And
so I kind of gave him the gospel and it was
you know, it was probably one of the
harder people I had talked to because almost everybody
else has got it like this. I mean just
super easy, super fast. This guy wasn't really getting it
but my Sony partner was like
talking to somebody else so I was like I don't know,
just give him another chance or just keep explaining things
and it was just like not going
anywhere and just over and over
I just kept explaining it, explaining internal security,
not getting it and
then I was about to just give up
and just kind of move on and
then he just
kind of like looks at me and he's just like
wait a minute
I felt you came from America today
because God sent you here
to tell me
that salvation is actually free
and you can't lose it because
I'm not even saved and you need to get me
saved and I was just like
right
that's what I was trying to tell you
this whole time
and he's like
well thank you, yeah you're right
and then he ended up getting saved
and it was just like so incredible because
I wasn't that blunt but then
finally he just kind of was like wait a minute
you're telling me
I'm not even saved and you're here
to get me saved and I was just like
yeah
and he ended up getting saved
and it was just a really cool story to see someone
that's been plugged into church
and kind of have to throw away the fact that
look, he's been in church his whole life
he's a deacon, he's in a respected position
but then he has to admit humbly like
I'm not even saved
I haven't even gotten it yet
and God must want you to come here
this great
I was talking to another lady at a door
and my soul winning partner
brother Nick he got really zealous so he just
goes to the next door
so I'm just still talking to her and kind of
I'm not even finished but he like comes back
and he looks like he just saw a ghost or something
he's just kind of like
oh man that lady over there is
whack or something and I'm like
he's interrupting me while I'm preaching in the gospel
and he's thinking like calm down bro
so I finished with her
I like, I kind of look at her and he's like
dude that lady is like
being possessed or something and I'm like
I don't know
but before we can even like really move
very forward a kid's walking down the street
he's like hey let me grab him so he just
kind of starts talking to this kid
well then I notice there's this woman
and she's just kind of like
she just kind of like
pops up over this giant fence
and she's just like mad dogging us
and then she's like
she's coming out
and so like I try to just like meet her halfway
so he can like keep giving the gospel to this kid
and I walk up to her
and I'm like hey
we're just talking to people
what's your name she's like Pandora
I was like
oh man
like Pandora's box
I was like what
now there's a story about Pandora's box
and Pandora's box is basically this
Greek myth where a woman
opens and it's like a jar
a box depending on how you read it
but she basically had a husband's jar
she wasn't supposed to open it
she opened it and when she opened it
she unleashed curses on all mankind
and so it's basically like a bastardized version
of Eve but
it's not good
and she lived up to the name
so I start talking to this lady
and
you know I'm just like
just I'm agreeable to anything
that she says I'm just saying yes
because I'm just like just trying to keep the conversation
I'm just like showing her verses
and she's just like
doesn't even blink
she's just like staring me down
just saying nonsensical things
getting really mad at us
you can lose your salvation yes you can
you don't tell me anything different
and I'm just trying to be calm
but she kind of figured out what I was doing
at some point and I'm just like yeah
sure yeah whatever
there and she interrupts
brother Nick she starts screaming at the kid
like get away go away they're false prophets run away
from them and unfortunately
the kid got nervous and so he walked away
and he didn't get saved
and then brother Nick just looks at her
and he's just like you wicked
curses her in the name of the Lord
and I was just like whoa okay
then she just walks back in
so we just kind of finish the street
and then we're walking back
and this is the weirdest part we're like walking back
it's mad dog yes but then as
right as we kind of like walk away she goes
these two guys are the servants of the most high god
I was just like what the
let's get out of here
I don't know what's happening
this is the weirdest story okay
so okay there is
some weirdos there alright
but that was the only lady that we ran into
that was kind of weird
also brother Kitten Knowles
he's from there and I think
the Philippines at the time are somewhere abroad
but he had messaged us to go and talk to his brother
and so
I ended up meeting up with his brother
at one point on the island
and we were able to give him the gospel
and you know it seemed like he got saved
so praise the Lord
that we were able to talk to somebody
that we really cared about
and give him the gospel
and you know you would think it's kind of weird
like oh someone that's a really good soul winner
why would one of their family members
give him the gospel
but think about this Jesus said this
for Jesus himself testified that a prophet
had no honor in his own country
and look at what it says in Mark chapter 6 verse 4
but Jesus said
that a prophet is not without honor
but in his own country
and among his own kin
and in his own house
you know the bible says that even Jesus
own brethren didn't believe in him
and you know sometimes I think the hardest person
to ever give the gospel to is a family member
and then everybody who don't know it's easy
right I mean it's a lot easier
foreign people really easy
so it's definitely
true now
because of the success we actually
scheduled a trip to go right back
this was at the end of 2019 so I was like
alright May 2020 we're going
but then of course COVID
came and just kind of put our plans
on hold and I just because I felt like
it was going to be such a successful trip I canceled it
I didn't know what was going to happen
I just wanted to make sure that the max people could come
when we went there
so we decided to postpone it I didn't know how long it would take
obviously that was kind of unprecedented
but it took us a few years
but we decided to go back in 2023
so the beginning of this year we went
and praise God when we waited
you know we ended up having 60 people
come out soul-winning with us
which is a large group
try organizing 60 people it's fun
but we ended up
having 653
salvations like one-on-one
and then with the schools
we ended up counting
close to almost a thousand it was about 980
total salvations for the trip
but what was cool and I've never heard of this before
but brother Kenton told me
he said hey there's this really
cool thing you need to do at the school
when you go there after you preach the gospel
tell every student
to get out a piece of paper
and then on the piece of paper
you're going to have them write out
and they believe now
and so you know basically
questions ask hey what do you have to do to be saved
can you lose your salvation
did you change your mind
and then some people would even ask
a few other questions like that
and so we would go and we got an opportunity
to preach in some of the schools
and we actually had like
thousands and thousands and thousands
of students that we got to preach
on this trip
and you know credit to brother Kenton
and he said the reason why
they were so willing
is because he told them we have 60 evangelists
coming from America
so the fact that
people came made a big deal
if they said hey there's two or three
they may not want to give us the time
but when they said they had 60
they were thinking like yeah
and you know say well how do 60 people preach to kids
well they would put us all in their different classrooms
so we'd show up early in the morning
and they would just shuffle us out
and in fact many times they wanted 40 or 50
so we didn't even do just the two
we didn't even pair them out
some would just you're just going with this class
you're going with this class some people we paired up to
but like we had opportunities where
if we had even more soul winners
we could have talked to more classrooms
we like ran out of people
even some of the days
but think about can you imagine
today going to like the junior high school
here in Tempe or in Phoenix
and just preaching to a bunch of students
but you know what it's what the Bible says
that a prophet doesn't have the same
honor in his own country
as he does when you go to a foreign country
go to a foreign country now all of a sudden
you can talk to a bunch of students
and I mean what an incredible opportunity
I think we went to about five or six different schools
while we were there
we preached to probably close to a thousand students
every time
so in total probably like five, six thousand
kids heard the gospel
very clearly
and I even have
in fact with me a lot of those papers today
and I'm going to read some of them here in a minute
but
really cool stuff so
of the salvations that we just confirmed one on one
like normal traditional soul winning we had like over
six hundred and then the ones where the papers
were really clear
you know it gave us another three hundred or so
so we had like almost a thousand salvations
total for the trip
plus a lot of times what we did is we would preach
in the morning come back at lunch
and then talk to the students one on one
but it was hard to get anybody saved
because everybody was saved after that
like you would show up at lunch
and a lot of them were already saved you could tell
a lot of them already had all the right answers
were talking to their friends and in fact encouraging
their friends or they'd bring you somebody like
here's a kid that didn't get it you know like we
preach it to him he's kind of slow
you know what I mean
he needs it again right
but I mean the smart ones the quick ones
they got it
there's a lot of people who preached in those schools
that are here today
oh yeah we have several people
here they got to preach in the schools
you know you need to ask these people about it
one of the coolest experiences
all of them were nervous and all
most every one of them was kind of like the woman
of the well like I don't even know what I'm doing
like what do I say
it's like say
God loves you okay
you're a sinner say it with me
you're a sinner you know it's like
they're from the gospel
they're not even they're not even prepared
in a sense but in the same way because
they're saved and you have the Holy Ghost
it's easy it's so many made easy
and these people just
love this opportunity I mean many of the
teachers were very thankful many of the students
were thankful not all many of them
okay
it was also cool that when we were there
we had a lot of people from faithful word
come out we had people from first works
come out we had people from Verity Baptist church
and you know to bring
this verse to light a little bit in Mark 6
it's always funny to me when I go to on mission
ships like this and it's mixed it's like
my people and then a bunch of
people from other churches because I've
noticed that all the people from other churches
they treat me so much better
they're always like thank you
so much Pastor Shelley this is
so awesome Pastor Shelley might be
like where's the soda you know
like
why do I have to bunk with him you know it's like
like yeah
okay cool the people in other churches
like this is so amazing you know thank you
so much you know they're just like all excited
right
that's what you get okay so
so you know what
if you go to this church
thank Pastor Anderson
don't be one of these people
that's ungrateful
for this church I mean you have an
incredible church and an incredible
opportunity I mean they're taking you and
spoiling you every week on all these
mission strips
that sometimes you would think like a person from
Faith Ward coming to yours is like where's all the
mission trip you know
Brother Segergo is still winning every day
you know where are you at
you know
it's like okay calm down
right
we're just trying to do you know some
work here right
but you know thank Pastor Anderson
thank Faith Ward Baptist Church
thank your pastor
encourage your pastor
you know just because this verse exists doesn't give
you an excuse
it's just saying hey it's a reminder like
you know don't get your hopes up
when your people don't like you that much
you know but at the same time
you don't be that person you'd be the exception
that still is very thankful very appreciative
so we got a great
opportunity to go to these schools not only that
we went soloing at the university
the neighborhoods the mall the stores
and honestly all of us good
really the only problem
is just if you don't run into people
so sometimes when you go to neighborhoods and stuff
maybe there's not a lot of people home or answering
that'd be only a really obstacle because
virtually almost everybody
wants to hear the gospel
and then a high percentage of those that
hear end up even getting saved
so really it's just you're just trying to
find people but like when you find people
it's just like so easy
also the university
during the timing
if it's when schools in session
boy this is like
so when he made easy times a thousand
we went there it wasn't even like
in session and we still had a lot of people save
but I remember the first time we went
there's like six seven hundred students
just walking just out in the middle of
nowhere and I mean you could just walk up
to groups of three four five and just
give the gospel until you couldn't talk anymore
I mean talk about a net
that you can't even drag in
and you know my my goal
is the next time we get an opportunity to go
to the Bahamas or take a mission trip
I want to go at the peak college
time and and and try
to go at that time and that would be my
recommendation to anybody if you can go
there that would be one of the greatest
opportunities that you could possibly have
schools are amazing SC McPherson
junior high school loved us and
awesome the teachers were giving us water
they wanted to take pictures with us
the students were getting saved
and droves it was awesome
we got to eat
at some places and you know
we didn't have to have rat or
any bugs or anything like that
I saw dogs out
in the neighborhoods
and no one was like trying to tackle it
or anything like that
but you know
the thing is because the Bahamas is like
a tourist place
then they have like
American food you know what I mean
like if you want McDonald's
it's in the Bahamas
you want Wendy's they got Wendy's
but then they also have great food
they have good food
especially because they have two giant
resorts they have like Baja Mar
and they have Atlantis
and Atlantis is like its own island
of a denture it's just amazing
and you basically
you go from like all black people to
only white people again
so you kind of cross this bridge
and you have to pay to cross the bridge
that's where I said
the 1950's you kind of go back
because they kind of have the white side
but
some people just got that
but you know we went to
one restaurant Poseidon's table
it was like a buffet amazing
amazing food
then we even went on the beach
and we got to ride on Cedus
this was awesome
go if you went to Acts chapter 16
some of the greatest beaches you'll ever see
some of the greatest
water you'll ever see
so clear
we got to go to one of the beaches that was near the Baja Mar
resort
and we rented some Cedus
and we were having fun
and honestly
I enjoyed it a ton
but I got to the point where
I didn't even need to ride anymore
we were there for hours but it was like
we could have had more people riding it
four times and whatever
and it was a lot of fun
and we were just having fun
you were like how many people were preaching the gospel
zero while I was on the Cedus
I was just trying to hang on for dear life
but
it was fast and it was fun
and you could fly out there
the water is so clean
and so pristine
and the beaches are the most amazing beaches you've ever seen
cool sight, a lot of fun
you could go fast
well, I kind of got done
so I'm just kind of standing there
and one of the
gentlemen that was just kind of manning the station
he just like walks up to me
and he's just like
so
tell me about baptism
I'm like what do you mean
he's like I want to know about baptism
tell me about baptism
and I'm like okay
so I just kind of like told him
and then I'm like do you want to hear more
and he's like yeah
so now I just like grab my Bible
and I just started like
preaching him the gospel
and you know
he got saved
and it was like
I wasn't trying at all
honestly I didn't even want to give the gospel
like I had been giving the gospel all day
I'm like I'm trying to have some fun
and this guy's coming out of nowhere like
give me, tell me about the Bible
okay
you know you're not done preaching
okay
you say how long are you going to preach tonight
well you know
I have like 10 hours of content probably
I'll try to just preach half of it
just kidding
now look at Acts chapter 16 verse 25
the Bible says that at midnight Paul and Silas prayed
and sang praises to God
and the prisoners heard them
and there was a great earthquake
so that the foundations of the prisoners shaken
and immediately all the doors were open
and everyone's bands were loosed
and the keeper of the prison waking out of his sleep
and seeing the prison doors open
he drew out a sword
and would have killed himself
supposing that the prisoners had been fled
think about this
you're a preacher of the gospel
you've done nothing wrong
you get wrongfully imprisoned
and then God by a miracle
and then this liberal wants to kill himself
you know a lot of people would be like
bye
right?
I mean don't you think a lot of people would just be like
well I'm out of here
have fun with that
but what does the Bible say
but Paul cried a loud voice saying
do thyself no harm
for we are all here
like you blew it
what are you doing
then he called for light and spring in
and came trembling and fell down before Paul and Silas
and brought them out and said sirs
what must they do to be saved
don't you think they were kind of nervous
they're like oh no what's going to happen
I mean the guy could kill him he has a sword
couldn't he have walked in and just killed Paul and Silas
for fear that they would escape
to preserve his own life
I mean Paul was literally risking
his life by calling for this man to come in
because any prisoner that escapes
his life for life at this point
that's why he was going to kill himself
because he felt like well the inevitable is going to happen
but if he went in there
and he slew the prisoners perhaps
he may have gotten out of the predicament
but he falls down and you ask them
hey what must they do to be saved
what did they say
believe on the Lord Jesus Christ
and thou shalt be saved in thy house
you say this is really easy
if soul winning was like this where people just walk up to me
and just said hey what do you have to do to be saved
I get a lot of people saved
that soul winning made easy
when you're not even trying
but let me tell you something
when you take a step of faith
out and you have a heart for souls
God will take people
that want to be saved
and bring them right to you
you don't even have to try
but you know when you're not taking any steps of faith
when you don't even have an interest of souls
when you're not even going to be able to be
giving the gospel to someone
well here's a track
when you come to my church you can walk the aisle
what do you have to do to be saved
I don't know
does anybody know
he asked the right guy didn't he
and God brought him the right person
and you know what sometimes God just wants to make soul winning so easy
and let me tell you something
you in America may not find
a lot of people that are just going to walk up to you
and be like tell me about baptism
but you know you go to foreign countries
and you will have experiences like this
you will have people just walk up to you
hey I saw you talking to those people
tell me what you're telling them about
you know you'll have way more
people that are just wanting to get saved
than anywhere else
why because a prophet is not without honor saving his own country
and you know they recognize
look if you're white you're going to stick out
okay
you got a great opportunity
to get a lot of people saved
now you won't entirely stick out
because the island still has hundreds of thousands of white people
they're just usually in the tourist area
but you being out kind of where they are
you stick out a little bit
and most of them are still very nice
very kind because
they realize that you're kind of paying their bills
in a sense
but you know the thing I do like about it too
is they're not necessarily money hungry
nobody asked me for money a single time
so you know if they gave you attention
it wasn't to get something from you
they genuinely wanted to hear what you had to say
and so there wasn't a lot of obstacles
when you would talk to people
and
after I gave this guy the gospel and he got saved
I said
there's a lot of water right here
you
asked me about baptism
well you know
you just fulfilled the one requirement
for baptism you got saved
let's get in that water and get baptized
no
I'll do it another time
I'm like
so close
I was like
I said how many times has someone come here
and tried to give you the gospel and try to get you baptized
he's like never
this is your time
he's like let's do it
so we walked right into that water
and he got baptized right there
in front of all of us having fun with the sea dudes
I went to have fun
and I got a baptism
but then Marcel
I got that kid saved yesterday
he saw another kid just randomly there
he's like do you want to get baptized
and he's like I'm getting baptized
so then he brought him over
we had another baptism
you know it was great
just right there
and the cleanest water you've ever seen
and it was great to have
a couple guys baptized there
and we ended up having a church service
we only had a few locals show up
we didn't have very many of our locals
that we had preached to show up that time
but we were
since brother
there he has a church that he's friends with
and we even went to a church service there
and we had a great time
we went on their Wednesday night service
to Liberty Baptist Church
and it was a great service
Kennedy goes there's a very small church
I don't know
the guy that necessarily
probably likes the new IV necessarily
I don't really care
and you know we had a good time
we enjoyed the service
I'm sure that he's got all his bills paid
by a bunch of pre-tribbers
so he probably wants to be careful
being our buddy
but at the same time
he's there and he was very prosoaning
we told him about the fact
we went to all these schools
and we were talking to the kids
and he was very encouraged
very excited about that
very pleased
you know I think that sometimes
we get a little bit jaded
from
some bad church experiences we've had
where we feel like
only the new IV loves God or something like that
you know that's not true
there's still other Christians out there
and there's other churches out there
and you know maybe
they're not doing a lot
but by you having a good attitude
you might encourage them
if you have a bad attitude
you can't accomplish that much
and let's be honest most of us probably
are never going to start a church in the Bahamas
anytime soon
so it's probably better to use some people there
that can actually do something about it
than us doing nothing and pretending
like we're so much better
well I don't want to start a church
over there unless it's perfect
you know
unless it's basically Pastor Anderson cloned
okay
well you're probably not going to figure out
and you know there's still great men of God
out there there's still churches out there
there's still saved people
and we can come alongside of them
and you know what I love about this church is
they have a like-minded spirit
and I think that
you know God likes to bless people
that take some good stands
even if they're not perfect
and this guy has taken
some pretty cool stands
he was telling us that in 2004
there were some celebrities
that wanted to come to the Bahamas
and there was a lot of pressure because
you know there's all these sodomites
that want to have weddings in these cool destinations
but let me tell you something that's nice
about the Bahamas they don't like faggots
okay
and you say why do you use that word
because they don't like faggots
it's not
you know queer
you know they don't like fags
okay and neither do I
and I just already feel like they're my
brother you know
just
talk about normal people
you know you go back in the 1950s
men didn't like faggots
and you weren't like afraid to call someone a faggot
in the 1950s
or 60s or 70s or 80s
or 90s or not even that long ago
it's just like recently
somehow people cringe at that
and it just it blows my mind
you know how our cultures change so fast
but there's still a lot of people out there
that aren't brainwashed
and they still recognize that it's disgusting
and gross the vast majority
of the people here think it's gross
including this bastard
now I don't know that he necessarily agrees with the rep rate doctrine
but at least just finding fags
repulsive I like you
okay
I like you even if you don't like me
okay
but Rosie O'Donnell
and her lesbian partner
wanted to come to the Bahamas in 2004
and
there was over a hundred protesters
at the like
basically docking area or at the shore
trying to get them to not be able to land
or to like scream in their face
and tell them how disgusting they were at least
and he was one of them
this pastor was there
he's telling us about it
you know we're like hey here's a movie you can watch
and he's like let me tell you something you know
we're not as deceived
as you guys in America
can you imagine these people that hate fags
thinking like America's like soft
they're like a bunch of fags
or something you know
but I printed out
there's actually an article about this
you can look it up online
it says gay and lesbian cruise ships passengers
were met by more than 100 protesters
as they stepped off their chartered ship Friday in the Bahamas
the protesters led by Christian pastors
gathered in a square
in front of the cruise terminal enchanted
the ways are not God ways
as a trickle passenger stepped out
protesters held signs reading
if you're openly gay
stay away
and we will not bow to the gay agenda
cruise organizers said
former talk show host Rosie O'Donnell
who promoted the voyage was aboard the ship
but she wasn't seen among those
who disembarked so she was hiding
she was too nervous to come out
but you know this is great
can you imagine
pastors like
a whole group of American pastors doing this
these days
they're so afraid
they wouldn't even dare
say something they can't even say something
in their sermon let alone go out in public
at the shore
protesting openly
but you know what these pastors were
talk about some real boldness
talk about some real men standing up
and fighting this disgusting thing
why is it that homosexuality creeps into nation
because the pastors stop standing
at the shores screaming for them to get away
go away
faggot
disgusting freak
how do you get fags away
that will help
okay
but it made me think
of a story in the bible
you know in Acts chapter 17 the bible says
in verse 5 but the jews
which believe not
moved with envy
took under them certain lewd fellows of the basersort
and gathered a company and set all the city
on an uproar and assaulted the house
of jason and sought to bring them out to the people
now this sounds like steadfast
Baptist church
where basically you go to church and you have
all these fags causing
an uproar in the city and trying
to just attack God's people
this sounds like verity Baptist church
this sounds like sure foundation Baptist church
this sounds like faith word Baptist church
this sounds like any church that actually
stands up for the truth these days
where there's a bunch of lewd fellows
of the basersort you say what does that mean
faggots
going around harassing people
and I think that God
you know because he's
given me you know a little bit
of a ruckus in Texas was like
I'm gonna give you the easiest mission trip ever
okay
where you can go and they don't like them either
they're gonna stand
they're gonna have protestors on your side
standing on the shore telling them to get away from you
when you're on the island
okay it was not it was refreshing
and
you kind of read this story
they end up fleeing on Dabria
look at verse 7 in the brethren immediately
set away Paul and Silas by night in Dabria
who coming to their win in the synagogue of the Jews
these were more noble than those in Thessalonica
and then they received the word with all readiness of mind
and searched the scriptures daily whether those things are so
therefore many of them believed
they were the people of honorable women
which were Greeks and of men not a few
you know I think just because
these people stand for righteousness
and contend with the wicked
and say stay away gays
God's like well let's send some evangelists there then
because you know what these people are more noble
than a lot of people in America
who embrace the fags
and embrace sodomites
and embrace the lootfellows of the baser sort
whereas a country that says hey get away
then you can actually bring in the good people
you can bring in people that actually love the word of God
and love the Bible
and give them the gospel
and you know what in my opinion
the people of Bahamas are much more noble
than many other people
and they actually care about the Bible
and they actually like the Bible
and you know what I believe that's why God
has given them an opportunity
to get saved different than other areas
now again it's not that the Bahamas
is the only Caribbean I like this
I mean I think that most of them probably
are very receptive
I went to Jamaica
in 2018 with Faith Lord Baptist Church
this was several years ago
who went on that Jamaica trip in 2018
yeah there's people that went
Brother Raymond that was one of your first times to go
on a mission trip wasn't it
and look where he is now
I mean this guy showed up
and I was kind of like
okay you know
first time you know
and like water bottle
but you know what I liked about
Brother Raymond he was determined
to get someone saved
and just to be honest
I don't think he was that experienced or very skilled yet
he was kind of like that woman at the well
but you know what God saw
he saw a heart that wanted to get people saved
and he was able to get people saved
and then look at him now
I mean this guy is championing
all kinds of soul winning trips
doing great works for the Lord
Brother Raymond Cooper
praise God for people that said
you know what I've never been on a mission trip
I don't even know a soul
I don't even know any of these people
I'm like one of the whitest people ever
I'm going to go to one of the blackest nations ever
hey man what are you doing man
well
well I'm just going to tell you the gospel
you know it's like
it's like
what does that even make sense
do you know what
God saw that God saw
and he just blessed Brother Raymond Cooper
to give the gospel and you know what I'm telling you
if Brother Raymond is getting multiple saved
you can get multiple saved too
if I can get lots of people saved
you can get lots of people saved
you know what God is not looking
for some great person to give the gospel
he's looking for someone that wants to give the gospel
it's not always the great men
sometimes you take simple men
turns them into the wisest men
who are going out and preaching the gospel
and getting a lot of people saved
now again this trip was
just success in every
check mark you could think of
just everything
it's like fun, yes
greatest beaches, yes
amazing food, yes
great fellowship, yes
there was like almost nothing I could say negative
I can't even think of anything
and I'm not trying to hold back
I'm just saying like it was amazing
and if I compare it to Jamaica
Jamaica was super receptive
but sometimes you know
what's going on
I don't know
what's going on
and I'm like why didn't you just say that
you know
so you know you go to some of these other places
and they're like I don't even know what that guy just said
you know in the Bahamas
they speak great English
I never had anybody say anything like that
it was also
in the Jamaica we had to drive around the guy
that just got shot a few minutes
in the middle of the street
in Jamaica
when I rented a car
I said hey I'll use our insurance
it's on the card
and they're like oh that doesn't work
so I called and they said yeah there's only
two countries in the world that we don't offer
car insurance
it's like somewhere in Africa
and Jamaica
so you know
I love Jamaica I'll go back
but I'll tell you this
it's a little dangerous alright
especially the driving
like there's zero street signs
zero street lights
and the big buses
they don't stop alright
pretty much the only sign you'll see is wear a helmet
don't die
but you know
it's way different because in Jamaica
you have a huge tourist area
called Montego Bay
which is kind of like one end of the island
and then on the opposite end is Kingston
and that's where like all the people live
well Kingston's is kind of poor
and more dangerous because
you know it doesn't have that influx of tons of money from tourists
you know all that's over in Montego
but the cool thing about the Bahamas
is it's just the one island
so all the tourism and all the people
they all just are on the same spot
so you kind of get the benefit
from all the wealth and the safety
and just the prosperity
of the tourism that's been coming in there
white people it's not like
you're sticking out like a sore thumb
because there's white people everywhere
in certain areas and they're not like
what's this guy doing
you know in the jungles or whatever
and so
but I mean if you are going to go
if you say I want to leave America
and I want to preach the gospel somewhere
it's not going to get easier than the Bahamas folks
and ask anybody that
went on that trip please talk to them
please ask them how it went
most of the people
they told me that this was the greatest trip
that they've ever been on
and again it may not be
the best in every category
I've had some people tell me like
this spot might have been a little more receptive
it felt like this area
we got more people saved
or maybe they liked eating the rat
I don't know I mean
but just like an overall experience
it was pretty hard to beat
and honestly
there's still a lot of work to be done
250,000 people is a lot
now one person is still there
brother Kitten knows he lives there
and he's still there
and I asked him for some updates about it
some people from the trip that we got saved
ended up coming to his church
and so he got to
have them come to his church at least one time
and then he said
since then he's had about 30 people
come to the church
and I think that through a lot of just his personal soul winning
and this church was very small
I mean
I don't know how big the church normally is
but when we were there there was probably like 10
15 people that are local
for the church
for the local staff
and so to have 30 visitors
is big
for a church like this
not only that
he told me
he said that he was preaching the gospel a few weeks ago at the university
and he ran into someone
who said that
they had gotten saved
talking to me
so apparently he ran into somebody that I had preached to
previously
that had gotten saved
he's been really searching the truth since then
and reading his bible
and the young man told him
he said the week before I prayed to God
that he would send someone to teach him the bible
and that
he would also find a church
and that he could get baptized
so this young man
Bryant was praying like someone
I want someone to come to me to teach me the bible
and get a church and get saved
he ran into Kitten
and literally Kitten was able to help get him into church
and he got baptized
and he joined the church
and he said he's been discipling him
brother Kitten also said
that he's been trying to take
a lot of these converts out soul-winning with him
but it's hard
because he has so many silent partners
he's taken like 3-4 silent
partners with him at the same time
and he's like please pray
that another new IFB
person would be willing to come out here
and start discipling
a lot of these people
because he's like I have more people
that I can even handle
as far as trying to reach people
and I encouraged him
I said hey if you have 3-4 silent partners
take them all the door with you
sometimes you feel like
let's leave them behind or something
hey just bring them all the way
I remember when we went to
Minneapolis Minnesota
for a soul-winning trip in January
it was Pastor Anderson's idea
he was like what's the worst time
and then we
swam in this pool that was like 40 degrees
no I'm just kidding that's an inside joke
but when we were
out soul-winning we had this
trip but there were so many silent partners
and I remember we were kind of organizing
and we were kind of new at it
I ended up getting like 6 silent partners
and I was like I don't know
what to do with this you know
but you know hey
you show up at a door with 7 people
and
it sounds weird
to us
but it's not honestly any more weird
to that person than 2 people
because they haven't experienced anything
they were like well there was only 2 people here
you know
I mean think about when we go Christmas caroling
it's like 20 people
it's even weirder
then they all start singing at you
some even just run away for a sheer terror
but
you know
if someone was going to listen to 2 people
they're going to listen to 6 or 7
it doesn't really change anything
obviously you want them to still be silent
you want them to have good etiquette
and good manners and not be distracting
and everything like that
but at the same time
you know if that's what you have
more the merrier right
you know a lot of times
I mean if I go sewing with my family
we're 7
people don't seem to be shying away
in fact I honestly think
people often will listen to me more
when I have my whole family
than when I just have a random ugly dude
with me
you know Jacob scares way more people away than my kids
okay
so you know it's not like
you can't take your family
or take lots of people out there with you
in fact I feel like people are nicer
when you have your kids
they think like this person must be more sincere
and if you have a lot of people coming
you're just like wow this is a lot of people that care about me
all of you want to come here
to give me the gospel that's a big deal
so you know what I would encourage him and encourage anybody
if you find yourself in this situation
take them out so I wouldn't
take all those people out there with you
and he also
asked that if we would pray that
more people would
help out in his church
I think their church is trying to get a bus
because he says he's already filling up his car
he doesn't have a week bringing people
but he can't
he doesn't have a big enough car to get all the people he could
so you know if they could even have
more church transportation
they would love it
and he said that their numbers are growing fast
church is going well
and you know what praise the Lord
praise the Lord that the church is doing good
you say like what if this church doesn't new IFB
I don't care
you know when we get into heaven
there's not going to be a new IFB section
now there might be a street
where there's a lot of mansions
where a lot of new IFB people live
ok
and we might call it the new IFB neighborhood
but there could be other people there
alright
and you know what
it's not like other people that aren't new IFB
can't do great works for God
and can't get people saved
and can't you know complete the rest
of the great commission
that we've been given
some more people over
I am as new IFB as you're going to get
but you know what I would love to encourage
other churches to get excited about soul winning
and if I heard
a non-denominational church
was going to send a bunch of people to the Bahamas
and preach them the gospel with the King James Bible
I would say praise the Lord
you know what
would to God all the Lord's people are prophets
and the established for my sake
I mean who cares
I hope that the Bahamas church runs 10,000
people
I mean we should stop getting
this competition spirit
of like we're better than other people
and then just trying to get as many people on the team
as possible because you know what
soul winning is easy
so there's nothing to brag about
ok
like it wasn't like
I've been training my whole life
you know
in many cases
we just step out there
do a work and the Lord does the work
the Lord should get the credit here folks
you know we're entering into other men's labors
the harvest truly is plenty
but the labors be few
and you know it's really easy
but we're supposed to do something we're supposed to pray
go to Matthew 9 I hope you turn there
Matthew 9 is the last person I want to look at
I hope that I encourage you
to do some soul winning
because you know
frankly
one of the most heart touching things
that I remember from this experience
was going to these schools
talking to these students
and then getting to
read their papers afterwards
and so I just wanted to kind of
read some of the responses
there's not all of them there's just a handful
because we literally got thousands of these
but
one of the students Shane Johnson
and the question of how do I get to heaven
he answered believe
question can I lose my salvation no
did you change your mind today
yes what did you learn today
I learned that we're all sinners
that was a great response
another one this was
a 15 year old
young lady how do you go to heaven
believe in God and Jesus
can you lose your salvation
no because it's an eternal
gift that Jesus gave us
number three what you used
to believe did that change today
she says as a pastor's
daughter I've always believed
in God but what change
was today is that God
can't take away my salvation
if I didn't do what was right
I mean here's a young lady that was
a pastor's daughter not saved
and just to make it clear
when we went into this classrooms and we asked
the students they're all saying
repent of your sins be a good person
you can lose your salvation I'm a
okay what do you have to do to be saved follow
the commandments be a good person
do right go to church
stop sinning
that's what all of them were saying
so for them to say this
in just 15-20 minutes later
you can tell they had a real heart change
and I have plenty of papers that still
say that they still say like
you can lose your salvation
you know you have to stop sinning
to be saved so not everybody got saved
but many of them did
here's another one from Gary it says
I don't know sorry
from Gary it says you have
my sermon too long sorry
this is the second sermon okay
you have a question of what do you have to be saved
I don't know what sorry
this is the devil
alright
maybe he doesn't like my phone or something
that's what it is
okay thank you sorry
I'll keep the phone as far away as I can
can you hear me now
does it work
well I'll just try to bear it through
sorry
yeah yeah yeah
it just really hates this phone now
yeah that's weird
I know yeah I killed the battery
alright
okay
no one's falling out of the window yet have they
okay
alright Gary said
what do you have to be saved you have to believe
in Jesus Christ and that he died for us
can you lose your salvation no you can't lose your salvation
number three what did you learn today
today I learned that salvation is the only way
to go to heaven and to believe in Jesus Christ
your good doings doesn't take you to heaven
Jesus does
thank you for telling me that prayer
and saving me from hell
now I have my spot in heaven
I want to share that prayer to everybody
to be saved
God said there is a few people
that are going to go to heaven please tell me
that prayer again so that we can
save souls
there's another student
he said
how do you go to heaven believe in God
can you lose your salvation no
what did you used to believe did it change
today yes
I learned that Jesus went to hell
also another one
said how do you go to heaven believe in Jesus
can you lose your salvation no
because it's an eternal gift that Jesus gave us
what you used to believe did it change today
yes
they learned how to be saved
another one
what do you have to be saved believe and trust in the Lord Jesus Christ
can you lose your salvation no we cannot lose
our salvation and we are saved forever
did you change what you believe
I believe what I heard today
we do not have to repent to be saved
that was a big step
another student
what do you believe you have to do to be heaven
believe did you have to do to go to heaven
believe and trust in the Lord
how long are you saved forever
did you change your mind today yes I did
do you have to repent of your sins to be saved no
because I believe and trust in the Lord
and
I have a lot of ones that are pretty much the same thing
just
just believe
no yes believe no yes because we are just asking
kind of the same questions just over and over
and over
not every school is the same some schools
there are a lot more receptive than others
there was one school
where we kind of
caused that uproar that the Bible says
in Acts
where they turned the world upside down
Kenton ended up messaging me
while he was at a different school because we split up and went to different schools
and I get this
message Kenton shared with me
because one of the principals
message him and said good afternoon Mr. Knowles
just a little feedback
from the students and teachers
your visitation caused an uproar
on our school campus today
some of the students indicated
sorry
some of the students indicated
that the speakers
were spreading false doctrine
Crab get you man
some of the students indicated
the speakers were spreading false doctrine
for example they said
they were told they didn't have to repent to be saved
and that they can go to heaven without repenting
well at least they understood
the message
another indicated
that if they commit suicide
they'll go to heaven
I'm pretty sure that wasn't like hey kill yourself
you're in heaven
okay
some got lost in that translation
then she's like another was talking about
and then something perverted
of course they throw in false accusations too right
a number of our students were
very upset
and they were left feeling angry and confused
as to why the school officials allowed this to happen
it was really just the teachers that got bad
okay
our SEM advisor
was also perplexed by some of the teachers
your guests brought to us
some of these teachers are like
hardcore repent of your sins
work salvationists
and they would just start rebuking our soul winners
right in the middle of their presentation
because they started figuring out
what's going on
so sometimes it was hostile territory
but you know what
praise god that we had brave people going in there
into the snare of the devil
and preaching the gospel because
there was tons of students that did get it
and they did get saved
and think about it
14 years of their life
and in 15 minutes
many of them get saved
you know why
not because of how great we are
but because of how powerful the gospel of jesus christ is
why
soul winning is easy
you know what made soul winning easy
the gospel of jesus christ
oh i gotta give my testimony
of how i changed my life
and i turned from sin
no no no that's your story
we're to tell his story
and you know what
think about how easy
we can give someone saved in 15 minutes
when they've learned false doctrine
their whole life
why because the gospel
is so good it's so powerful
if you would just share the gospel
you could get many saved
and you know if you go to the right place
it'll just be
i mean a net that you
can't even drag in
look at verse 38 the bible says this
pray there for the lord of the harvest
that he will sin for the laborers
and do his harvest
you know what we need to do
we need to get on our knees tonight
and we need to pray
that there's gonna be more people to go on these mission trips
and not just the Bahamas
everywhere
but for those that are saying
i'm nervous about soul winning
Bahamas
you say i want it to be easy
but for the Bahamas
i want it to be fun
Bahamas
i don't want to eat rat
Bahamas
i want to understand their language
Bahamas
you know i mean it's really
it's awesome
i can't say enough good things
and don't just take my word
ask the dozens of people that are here
this evening that went with me
and they know and they can testify
it's the greatest soul winning trip i've ever been on my life
i don't know that
it could ever get topped honestly
but you know
that doesn't mean there can't be really cool experiences
other places
but you know what i want to sell you on this
because i want a lot of people to go
i want to give everyone on the Bahamas the gospel
it doesn't have to be me
i just want everyone to get it
because so many of them want to get saved
and will get saved
and maybe eventually they'll have to come here
okay
and i've also been thinking like
if this tribulation thing kicks up
i need a place to go
just saying
why not build ourselves a nest egg somewhere
you know what i mean
okay
but thank you so much for all of you
that prayed for us while we were there
and so many of you that came with us
and
plan on coming again in the future
when we go back
we would love to have you
please do this though
just pray
that God would send more laborers there
pray that someone could come alongside
brother Kenton and help them in their church
pray that that church would continue to grow
and get more people saved
pray for some of these converts, pray for Bryant
pray for some of these kids because
they've been going to school teaching
and repented their sins for 14 years
and they're gonna have to go to that school again
and they're gonna have to deal with
a lot of people that don't want them to do something for God
and there's a lot of people out there
that need someone to love them
and give them the gospel
and come alongside them and pray for them
and i pray that we'd raise a generation
of people that care about
real missions work
and they'd realize how easy it truly is
let's close in prayer
thank you heavenly father so much for this church
and thank you so much for giving us opportunities
to go out and preach the gospel
thank you for making the gospel so easy
thank you for doing all the hard part
thank you for making it
so that we can just go out
and have no real skill or power of our own
but rather through just
faith in the gospel we could see
multitude saved and we could gather
in more than we can even catch
i pray that you would raise up
an army of soul winners
and missionaries that want to go
and spread the gospel the whole world
not just to build a well
not just to build a hut
but rather build a church
of people that love God
to fulfill the great commission
and i pray that we would never lose sight
of the reason why we're here
it's to save souls and to catch men
in Jesus name we pray amen