When I was 16 years old, I'm telling a lot of stories
tonight.
When I was 16 years old, I became good friends
with a young man by the name of Steven Anderson.
Some of you may have heard of him.
Pastor Anderson, of course, we met before either one of us
was pastor.
And I was 16.
I was even married when we met.
He's three or four years.
My wife's not here.
I think he's three or four years older than me.
When I was 16, he was 19 or 20 years old.
And he had just gotten married, or he
hadn't been married that long.
And our families and all of us were members
at Regency Baptist Church.
And we served at Regency Baptist Church
and in different capacities.
I worked on the bus ministry, and I
served in the bus ministry.
And I was a helper with buses there.
And he served in the old folks' home ministry.
And he preached in the old folks' ministry
and things like that.
And there's a problem with soul winning
at Regency Baptist Church at that time, when a lot of people
weren't going soul winning.
At one point, it was a really thriving soul winning type
church, but people had lost it and stopped doing it.
And Pastor Nichols decided that he
wanted to put a stop to that.
So he instituted this rule.
And I agree with this, that you could not
serve at Regency Baptist Church and not be a soul winner.
So if you're going to work on a bus,
you're going to be a Sunday school teacher,
whatever you're going to do, an usher, whatever capacity
you're going to serve in, you can't
serve without going soul winning at least one hour a week.
And they had this meeting where all of the workers
would get together every Sunday before the Sunday evening
service, and they'd pass out this clipboard.
The clipboard had everybody's name on it
and in what capacity you're served.
And then it had four columns.
And it said soul winning across the top.
And it said one hour, two hours, three hours,
and then it just had the word more.
And you were supposed to check that you
went soul winning that week and how long you went soul winning
for.
So you're supposed to put, I went soul winning for an hour.
I went soul winning for two hours.
And of course, everybody went one hour, one hour, one hour,
one hour.
Well, my friend and I decided that we were going to always
be in that fourth column.
We wanted to try to make sure that we were always
out soul winning for four hours or more.
And we began to develop this friendship
because nobody else wanted to go soul winning with us.
So we would just go soul winning ourselves.
And we tried to go soul winning for four hours every week
and make sure that we were always in that fourth column.
Well, Susanna ended up going on a trip
to see her family back in Germany.
And I remember Pastor Anderson.
He wasn't pastor at the time.
He came to me and he said, hey, I have an idea.
He said, you know how we've been doing this fourth column
every week?
He said, my wife's going to be gone for a while.
And we can put in a lot of more extra soul winning time.
He said, I was thinking, wouldn't it
be crazy if we went soul winning for like eight hours in one day?
And I was like, yeah, let's try.
So we planned it all out.
I remember talking to my dad and asking permission,
like, can I go soul winning for eight hours?
And we did it.
And I was 16 years old.
Pastor Anderson was 19, maybe 20 years old at the time.
We had this little, we didn't know what to call it,
but we had this soul winning marathon, him and I.
Eight hours, 16 years old.
You know that since then, Pastor Anderson, myself,
and everyone that the Lord has allowed us to influence
have literally led soul winning marathons all over this country
and all over this world?
Something that began when we were teenagers
determined the trajectory of the rest of our lives
and has literally sprung a soul winning revival
among independent fundamental Baptists,
new independent fundamental Baptists, all over America
and all over the world.
And here's all I'm telling you, 16 year old,
don't minimize your youth.
Because the decisions you're making right now,
the choices and the friendships and the decisions,
the things that you're doing, the choices you're making right
now will set the trajectory for the rest of your life.
So please realize, so please rejoice in your youth.
You've got time and you have energy
and you've got a lot to give and you can take strong stands
and you can do great things.
But please realize that you will be judged for the opportunities
you've been given.
Please remove.
Please just stop.
Please just don't go down the road of those sins that will
become regrets in your old age.
And please remember, the creator in thy youth,
because the choices you're making right now
may impact the lives of countless people
that you've never even met or dreamt that you could influence.
So live for God, to trust the Lord.
So don't sell out for a hobby, for a girlfriend,
for a minimum wage job.
Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer.
Heavenly Father, Lord, we love you.
And Lord, we love these young people.
We've got some of the finest young people,
I believe, in the country.
And we've got teenagers that love you and go soul winning
and read their Bibles and serve God.
But Lord, I pray you'd get a hold of these young people.
Lord, I pray you'd set a fire of revival
amongst our young people, Lord.
I pray that they wouldn't waste their time with the world
and with stupid things.
Lord, I pray that they begin to serve God with their lives
right now, that they would rejoice,
they would realize, that they would remove and remember
the creator in their day.
Lord, we pray that you would bless the rest of this evening.
We thank you for these young people that have graduated
and they're moving on to the next phase in life.
Lord, we ask that you'd bless the time of fellowship to come.
In the matchless name of Christ, we pray.
Amen.