Acts 16, if you look at verse 9, it says,
And a vision appeared to Paul in the night,
and there stood a man of Macedonia,
and prayed him, saying,
Come over into Macedonia, and help us.
And the title of the short challenge tonight
is someone's last call, someone's last call.
And the truth of the matter is,
somebody in the world is always gonna call for help
for the last time, inside their heart.
And the truth is that we never know when that day is,
and today, when we go out soul-winding,
it might be someone's last call,
will they actually look for the truth?
Will they seek for help, will they call out for help?
And so, today on your map, when you go out soul-winding,
there might be an unsafe soul who today,
for the last time, will call out for help,
who will seek for answer, who will seek for truth,
before they will harden their heart,
before they will give up, before they will stop seeking,
and just become a reprobate,
never have a chance to get saved,
and eventually go to hell.
You know, today on your map,
there might be somebody who will physically die
later on today for some reason,
and today might be the last chance
they will get to be rich with the gospel,
and if we don't go out soul-winding,
knock on the door, and give them the gospel,
and get them saved, they will eventually just die,
and go to hell.
You see, today, tomorrow, next week, next month, next year,
there might be a soul out there
on one of the streets, or one of the maps,
that will go out soul-winding,
who that day, or today, you gotta always remember this,
every time you go soul-winding,
they go soul-winding, it might be the last time
that they will live in that house before they move away
to an area where there is no soul-winding church,
where they will never get to hear the gospel,
and eventually they will die, and go to hell.
And so you look at verse nine again, it says,
and a vision appeared to Paul in the night,
there stood a man of Macedonia, and prayed him, saying,
come over into Macedonia, and help us.
You see, unsold saves are always crying for help
inside their hearts.
They have no rest, because the Bible says,
in 2 Timothy, it says that lost souls
are in the snare of the devil.
They have been taken captive by him at his will.
And so, what the devil has done is,
he has always had a plan, obviously,
and that plan has always been to take as many souls
as he can with them to hell.
And the way he's gonna accomplish this,
the way he has accomplished this is,
he has created courses, he has created roads in this world
that he wants the whole world to follow.
And if you remember, Jesus said,
enter ye not the stray gate, for wide is the gate,
and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction,
and many there be that go in thereat.
That's why most people will go to hell.
And so, everything that the devil has offered people
through these roads, through these ways,
has just been lies, has just been darkness,
has just been a bondage and death.
And so, the devil, through these roads that he has created,
we have to understand these roads of false religions,
false Christianities, through colleges, through schools,
teaching atheism, through Hollywood, the music industry,
all these drugs, alcohol fornication,
he promises you happiness, he promises you peace.
But all these different roads, at the end of the day,
still meet somewhere at the end,
and they all meet back to hell.
That's where they end.
And so, the Bible says,
eventually people, we have to also understand,
because I'm gonna tell you,
everybody today is calling for help.
I said, at some point, they will call for help
in their hearts, but eventually,
people will start to realize
that something's wrong with these roads.
All these false religions,
because the Bible says that the devil is the father of lies,
and they're gonna realize
that something's wrong with these roads in their hearts.
And so, when they look for an answer,
when they will call out for help,
our vision here is to go out and to reach them
and to answer that call, and to help them,
and to give them peace,
because we wanna go out there to preach them the truth.
If you remember, Jesus said,
thy word is truth, and God's word is truth.
The devil is the father of lies, but God is the truth.
And this is the only truth we have in this life,
if we believe the Bible.
And so, the Bible says the truth will set you free.
The truth will give them liberty.
Salvation will give them liberty,
because when you're unsaved, spiritually, you're in bondage.
You're in chains of bondage,
and these people that are unsaved, they're still in Egypt.
And the Bible refers back to Egypt as the world today.
And people are still in Egypt.
If you remember, God's people, when they were in Egypt,
you remember they were in bondage, they were getting whipped,
they were a servant.
And even today, Egypt represents the world in the Bible.
And if you're unsaved and you're in the world,
you're gonna be in bondage.
You're gonna just be a poor, blind, broken hearted.
You're just gonna be full of bruises.
And you don't have to turn there,
but brother, Jeff, two weeks ago,
used this passage, Luke 4.18.
It says, the spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he anointed me to preach the gospel.
This is what Jesus read when he was in the temple.
And the truth is that if you're saved,
you and me are also anointed to go preach the gospel.
Jesus said, when he ascended to heaven,
go preach the gospel to every creature, not some creatures,
not some areas, but to every creature.
It says, to the poor, he has sent me to heal
the broken hearted, to preach deliverance to the captives.
Remember, the devil has man that's unsaved,
captive at his will.
And recovering of sight to the blind,
look at this, to set at liberty them that are bruised.
And if you think about it, even Christians,
if you wanna hang out in Egypt,
if you wanna hang out in the world,
because while Israel was in the land of Egypt,
they got whipped, and guess what?
They came out with bruises.
And even if you're saved, you're gonna get bruises from sin.
And the truth is, in the end sin bringeth forth death,
whether you're saved or not,
it will still kill you physically.
If you're saved, you're gonna go to heaven, obviously.
But before it brings death,
it brings a lot of bruises and scars in our lives,
and a lot of scars that we can carry
for the rest of our lives when we mess around with sin.
They can hurt others.
And so Jesus said, the truth will set you free.
And look, God hears these people's calls.
God hears their cries.
He wants to answer their cries.
But the truth is, sadly, most of these people
will not get their answers, their cry answered,
because there's not enough soul winners in the world,
not enough people to go out there, not enough laborers.
And so most will die hard in their hearts,
becoming reprobate, just following these roads of lies,
they'll just give up.
Others will just die seeking,
but they will never get a chance to get their calls answered
because there's lack of soul winners.
But the truth is,
somebody's still gonna hear their cry in the end.
And it's either gonna be you, me, a soul winner,
or it's gonna be who the Bible says
are adversary the devil, who as a rolling lion,
walketh about, seeking whom he may devour.
He's also walking around,
listening for that cry to devour them.
And what you and I have to understand
is the devil has the upper hand.
The devil can reach them.
He can't go reach every single one of them one by one,
but he's gonna reach them through the media,
through the music, through all these different
false religions, through false Christianities,
and he will devour them.
And so that's why sowing is so important.
You know, sowing in the Christian life is a race
to run and to warn people, hey, the lion is coming,
to warn them that they're on a road
that's leading to destruction and to save them.
That's the Christian life once you get saved.
You just gotta warn people.
And if you don't show up for sowing,
then you can't answer their cry.
You can't warn them.
And so point number one was souls are crying for help.
Point number two is unsafe souls
that fear God are calling for help.
You see, turn with me to Acts 10 real quick.
Acts 10, I'll start reading and you can catch up.
Acts 10, one, it says,
"'There was a certain man in Caesarea called Cornelius,
"'a centurion of the band called the Italian band.'"
Look at verse two, Acts 10, two.
"'A devout man and one that feared God with all his house,
"'which gave much alms to the people
"'and prayed to God always.
"'He saw in a vision evidently about the ninth hour
"'of the day an angel of God coming into him
"'and saying unto him, Cornelius.'"
Look at verse four.
"'And when he looked on him, he was afraid and said,
"'What is it, Lord?'
"'And he said unto him,
"'Thy prayers and thine alms are come up
"'for a memorial before God.
"'And now send me to Joppa and call for one Simon
"'whose surname is Peter,
"'elodged with one Simon a tanner,
"'whose house is by the seaside.
"'He shall tell thee what thou oughtest to do.'"
So here we see a man named Cornelius.
The Bible says he was a devout man.
He feared God with all his house.
It says he prayed always, but yet he was unsaved.
And so this kind of reminds me of me.
You know, I grew up in the Pentecostal religion,
32 years of my life.
I was at church three times a week.
I would pray.
I was seeking God, but inside of my heart,
I knew something was wrong even with that road.
I was like, that doesn't make sense.
They're saying you gotta live a good life,
you gotta be perfect, and I knew that wasn't perfect.
That was on my way to hell.
I didn't have peace, and I was looking for an answer.
And you know, it took, I heard Pastor Anderson
give the gospel, and that's how I got saved.
I wish that somebody would have actually
gave me the gospel physically,
but obviously, by God's grace,
I still heard Pastor Anderson through the internet.
I got saved.
I needed somebody to explain it to me.
Well, same with Cornelius.
The Bible says that he called for Peter
to come give him the gospel to get him saved.
And so God sent us to people like Cornelius
in our city to do what?
To tell them what they ought to do,
and that is to believe the gospel.
Look at verse 33, Acts 10, 33.
It says, this is what Cornelius is telling Peter.
Immediately, therefore, I sent to thee,
and thou has well done that thou art come.
And look, you do well coming out sowing it.
Remember that.
You're not wasting your time.
It says, now therefore are we all here present before God.
But look at this, to hear all things
that are commanded thee of God.
You hear that?
Cornelius wanted to hear the gospel.
Look, people that are searching, they wanna hear it.
They wanna know the truth.
And you know, the Bible says,
how then shall they call him in whom they have not believed?
And how shall they believe in him in whom they have not heard?
And how shall they hear without a preacher?
That's how we send preachers out to give the gospel.
Turn me to Acts 8, we're almost done.
This is, we're gonna finish it up here.
Acts 8, verse 30, Acts 8, verse 30.
This is where Philip and the eunuch have that conversation.
And look at the last part of Acts 8, 30.
Look what Philip asks the eunuch.
Understand is thou what thou readest.
Here's another guy who was looking in scripture,
trying to figure out, but he was unsaved.
But he was interested in things of God.
Look at 31, it says, he said,
how can I except one should guide me?
And one thing I wanna remind everybody,
throughout the years, I've been out with people
where they'll ask people this question, you know, for sure.
And they give the right answers,
but they're not giving a full answer
because they don't, you know, they get out of them.
Hey, what about suicide?
I've known plenty of people,
and I still know plenty of people that will tell you that
it's by grace through faith,
but if you commit suicide, you'll go to hell.
And ask, because they wanna know, they gotta be guided.
It says, how can I except some man should guide me?
Some of them just need to be guided.
Hey, look, it's all by grace through faith.
Suicide, everything's covered on that cross.
It's the same, it was nailed on that cross.
Because I have had people that had,
they didn't ask for their old job,
and then we leave and they're like, he was saved, right?
And it's like, who are you asking?
You should, it means that you should have
take more and make sure he's right.
You just let him slip to your fingers.
So make sure, it says, you know,
all these people desire to hear the gospel.
Look at verse 35.
It says, then Philip opened his mouth
and began at the same scripture and preached unto him Jesus.
This is where he gets them saved, he gets them baptized.
Jump down to verse 39.
And when they were come up out of the water,
it says the spirit of the Lord caught away Philip
that the eunuch saw him no more, but look at this.
And he went on his way rejoicing.
You see, the eunuch was rejoicing.
He was happy.
And why is that?
Because he got saved.
He got free from bondage.
He was no longer a captive of the devil.
And so, you know, when we go to Sony,
when we see people saved, we have joy.
I have joy when I get somebody saved.
I have joy when I see my partner getting somebody saved.
The Bible says the eunuch was joyful.
The Bible says even the angels are joyful
when a sinner gets saved.
There is joy in saving people.
So what we need to understand is that we only get
to live one life in this life, one time.
And it's our choice whether we want to waste it on vanities,
just things that don't matter for the kingdom of God,
or whether we want to have compassion,
whether we want to make a difference
and save people from the fire.
And so, you know, I just want to say that spiritually,
we've seen that song, you know,
work for the night is coming last week.
The truth is the night's already here.
The night is just getting darker.
It's just darkening.
Because, you know, as long as soul winners are in the world,
there's still some light, some hope for people.
But the truth is that, and I believe that soul winners
is what's kept God's judgment,
his hand back all these years, all these decades.
But as Christians are not going soul winning,
as we're getting lazy, as churches are dying,
the darkness will just get darker, darker, darker
until we find ourselves in the great tribulation
and the state that we're in right now.
It'll just get worse.
And the Bible says that we are the light of the world.
So ask yourself this question, you know, next week,
next month, next year, am I still shining?
Am I still shining in the dark?
So point number one was souls are crying
for help in the world.
Point number two was unsafe souls
that fear God are calling for someone to guide them.
Lord, help us, Lord, to remember that there are people
out there who are calling for help, Lord,
and you just command us to go out there, Lord,
and give them the gospel and get them saved.
And as you just blessed rest this time, Lord,
in Jesus' name I pray, amen.