(Disclaimer: This transcript is auto-generated and may contain mistakes.)

you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you will you find us watching there oh can you say we are ready brother ready for the songs right on we will sing you and me still watching waiting waiting when the lord shall come man good start to our singing this morning we want to go and ask lord's blessing on the service your heavenly father we come before you this morning and we thank you for the privilege that we have to be in church this morning we thank you for the safety you've allowed us to have this week so that we're able to be here we just ask lord your blessing upon us now as we sing out these songs and praise sent to you help us to be filled with your spirit and be edified and lord that you'd also please just uh prepare our hearts for the preaching fill the preacher with your holy spirit and uh give him the words to speak and that all of us will be edified and that we have our hearts and ears be open to receive the message this morning and we'll thank you for all that takes place in jesus name amen him 396 396 so little time him number 396 we'll sing it out together on that verse so little time the harvest will be over really focus on these words now as we sing them 396 so little time the harvest will be over are we being done we reaper sing and all report our word to jesus lord of harvest and hope he'll smile and that he'll stay well done today we reform this our golden harvest today it's given us our souls to win all them to save some dear ones from the burning today will go on to bring some sinner in how many times i should have strongly pleaded how often did i feel too strengthfully worn the spirit moved oh had i planned for jesus the greatest law when lost ones not reborn today we reform this our golden harvest today it's given us our souls to win all them to save some dear ones from the burning today we'll go to bring some sinner in despite the heat the ceaseless full of hardship the broken hearts or those we cannot win it's understood because we're on the gale still no regrets will have us for our sin today we reform this our golden harvest today it's given us our souls to win all them to save some dear ones from the burning today we'll go to bring some sinner in a day of pleasure or a feast of friendship a house or car or garment spare or fame we'll all be trashed when souls are brought to heaven and then how sad to face the slapper flame today we reform this our golden harvest today it's given us lost souls to win all them to save some dear ones from the burning today we'll go to bring some sinner in the harvest winds when the first few is wasting and many souls will die and never know the love of Christ the joy of sins forgiven oh let us weep and love and pray and go today we reform this our golden harvest today it's given us lost souls to win all them to save some dear ones from the burning today we'll go to bring some sinner in alright at this time we'll quickly just go through a couple of announcements if you don't have a bulletin with the schedule on the back go ahead and raise your hand we'll get one of these to you so that you can get it we got a hand up over here whoever's got these to hand out anyone? so we'll get you in a second sorry on the back we've got the detailed schedule for the conference maybe take a picture of it with your phone as well just so that you'll always have it with you this supersedes any of the soul winning times inside the bulletin so don't think about any of these soul winning times those are not happening it's just going to be the schedule on the back that's all that we're doing for the next few days so of course we got the morning service this morning you're there you figured that out and then you're on your own for lunch but then at two o'clock we're going to have the roller skating put up your hand if you need one sorry now we've got them being handed out so keep your hand up nice and high and we'll get those out to you but we're going to have the roller skating at two o'clock of course free of charge everything's always free of charge here so you just show up you're from the church you're good to go and make sure that you go to the right location for roller skating though are we in mesa or are we in chandler okay so there are two of these skate land usa locations there's one in mesa and one in chandler make sure that you go to the one in mesa i don't remember the address off the top of my head but it is in mesa so make sure that you go to that one uh it's just like straight east from here pretty much and if you have any questions come see one of us we'll make sure you get to the right place and then that's going to go for we have it reserved from two to five so you could go for up to three hours then we also have a soul winning opportunity tonight at five if you show up late for the soul winning that's fine if you show up early for the soul winning that's fine too so we got leeway on that if you end up getting here early and you're just ready to go soul winning then we'll send you out so uh five o'clock is just kind of a rough time on that and then we'll be back for another service tonight at seven also i think that we probably should tally up the soul winning each day just because i think that some people might be kind of coming and going from the conference and they might not be here on sunday to report so let's go ahead and just tally up any soul winning from yesterday okay was there was there any soul winning to report from yesterday okay let me write these down okay gotcha got it got it got it got it is that what number is that is that okay got it what's that to who oh gotcha it was you doubled up got it perfect okay i won't do that again then all right anybody else that i missed from yesterday okay and then we'll we'll we can uh tally it up again tonight we'll just tally it up each day just that way we don't lose track when people go out of town also don't forget to get your passport stamped at each service uh there are the little passports that you can pick up back there to get your stamps if you get the whole thing filled in we'll have a prize for you on sunday night and then um the option also is to do it in the back of your bible now you know the passport idea versus the bible idea here's the thing about the bible idea is that you're less likely to lose your bible than you are to lose your passport we've had a few passports already get lost in my family so we we've got that resolved but anyway you can either use the passport or you can just open the back of your bible and collect them there and either way on sunday night if you've got your passport all dialed in then you will get a prize all right i think that that is it for announcements what do you got okay so if you do need a ride to the roller skating rink we will run the church van at 130 so most people will just drive there on their own but if you need a ride we've got a church van ready to run at 130 to get you to roller skating what time is that van going to come back then is it going to go all the way till five or is it going to go until four thirty or what's what's that van going to do Ramon okay so yeah so there if you if you choose to take the ride then you'll leave here at one thirty and then you'll get back here at five you'll be leaving the the roller rink at four thirty so that's an option most people will drive themselves but we definitely are ready to give rides if you don't have a vehicle we want to help you out and that should be it for announcements let's sing our next song alright we'll sing one more song before the reading of the scripture you should find the insert in front of your hymnal with the song entitled we've a story to tell to the nations let's go ahead and sing it out together on that first we have a story to tell to the nations thou shalt turn their hearts to the right let's sing it out together we've a story to tell to the nations that shall turn their hearts to the right a story of truth and sweetness a story of peace and light a story of peace and light for the darkness shall turn to dawning and the dawning to noonday bright and Christ's great kingdom shall come on earth the kingdom of love and light we've a song to be sung to the nations that shall lift their hearts to the Lord a song that shall conquer evil and shatter the spear and sword and shatter the spear and sword for the darkness shall turn to dawning and the dawning to noonday bright and Christ's great kingdom shall come on earth the kingdom of love and light we've a message to give to the nations that the Lord who reigneth above has sent us the one to save us and show us that God is love and show us that God is love for the darkness shall turn to dawning and the dawning to noonday bright and Christ's great kingdom shall come on earth the kingdom of love and light we've a savior to show to the nations who the path of sorrow had drawn that all of the world's great peoples might come to the truth of God might come to the truth of God for the darkness shall turn to dawning and the dawning to noonday bright and Christ's great kingdom shall come on earth the kingdom of love and light that's a good thing of this morning all right at this time we will read our scripture and we'll have brother nick come what is the passage acts chapter 6 and follow along silently with brother nick as he reads acts chapter 6 beginning in verse number 1 we'll read the whole chapter acts chapter number 6 follow along silently with brother nick as he reads acts chapter 6 the bible reads and in those days when the number of the disciples was multiplied there arose a murmuring of the grations against the hebrews because their widows were neglected in the daily ministration then the 12 called the multitude of the disciples unto them and said it is not reason that we should leave the word of God and serve tables wherefore brethren look ye out among you seven men of honest report full of the holy ghost and wisdom whom we may appoint over this business but we will give ourselves continually to prayer and to the ministry of the word and the saying pleased the whole multitude and they chose Stephen a man full of faith and of the holy ghost and Philip and Prochorus and Nicanor and Timon and Parmenas and Nicholas a proselyte of Antioch whom they set before the apostles and when they had prayed they laid their hands on them and the word of God increased and the number of the disciples multiplied in Jerusalem greatly and a great company of the priests were obedient to the faith and Stephen full of faith and power did great wonders and miracles among the people then there arose certain of the synagogue which is called the synagogue of the Libertines and Cyrenians and Alexandrians and of them of Cilicia and of Asia disputing with Stephen and they were not able to resist the wisdom and the spirit by which he spake then they suborned men which said we have heard him speak blasphemous words against Moses and against God and then they stirred up the people and the elders and the tribes and came upon him and called him and brought him to the council and set up false witnesses which said this man ceaseth not to speak blasphemous words against this holy place and the law for we have heard him say that this Jesus of Nazareth shall destroy this place and shall change the customs which Moses delivered us and all that sat in the council looking steadfastly on him saw his face as it had been the face of an angel Dear Lord Heavenly Father we just thank you for this day and we thank you for all the blessings you've given us and we just pray that the rest of the conference would be successful Lord we ask that you fill brother Segura with your Holy Spirit that we would be edified we thank you and pray this all in Jesus name Amen Amen So really quickly I just want to say thank you to everyone once again for taking the time to come here I know it's a sacrifice especially when you travel so we're hoping to be the biggest blessing we can for you this week and also thank you once again everyone that helped to decorate I believe they're doing a great job Amen and it's a tough job my family came home at 2 a.m okay 1 53 a.m. but it's still pretty much 2 a.m. you know so they're working hard setting things up so I just want to take a moment to say that we appreciate you Jenny we appreciate you great job and everybody else that clean and has decorated and also the preachers because I know it's hard to preach as well so thank you once again and also thank you pastor for your vision you know to send us all over the place so we can fulfill the great commission Amen Alright so if you have your Bibles go ahead and go to verse number 8 in Acts chapter number 6 Quick little funny story I was actually going to have brother Nick read Acts 8 but I realized that brother Kinosho had asked 8 last night so officially changed it this morning right before the service not right before but an hour or so just because I wanted to take it easy on him I told him to read Acts chapter number 6 it fits and it's short 15 verses nice and sweet so I don't have to kill him this week because he's going to be reading for everybody else Amen Alright so the title of my sermon is this Stay Humble Stay Humble Sowing in Santo Domingo Sowing in Santo Domingo So if you're right there in Acts 6 I want you to look at verse number 8 and it says in Stephen full of faith and power did great wonders and miracles among the people and this of course where they picked men to help the apostles you know with the work of the Lord and so they chose Stephen you know why because he was a man full of faith and here's the thing it says he was full of faith and power verse number 9 then there are roles starting at the synagogue which is called the synagogue of the Libertines and Cyrenians and Alexandrians and of Demas, Alesia and Asia disputing with Stephen. Listen sometimes it's great when missions trips go well but listen if you're doing some work for the Lord if you're full of faith and power you can take it to the bank the devil knows it and he's going to do everything he can to send his minions just like we see in this story. Amen Amen So one thing you'll see that you have to be able to have in order to deal with these minions we'll get there soon enough but let's just keep reading It says then they suborn men they suborn men in simple words suborn means to trick or persuade someone to do something dishonest or illegal don't make that the truth that's what the devil would love to do is get you, you, you that are here right now he would love to suborn you and trick you into doing something dumb like hating us for no reason leaving the church for no real reason and guess what the devil has been doing this since the days of Stephen. Amen and how does he do it? By getting wicked men getting wicked men to suborn good people like yourself and myself and guess what the devil's always looking to see who's the person I can trick and deceive to get him to do my dirty work and especially when we're talking about worldwide missions you can just expect it that he knows that we have a trip to Jamaica and he's already plotting and planning and getting ready to trip you all up and to make you not want to go out there and do it again later on but one thing that's going to help you to continue the Christian life is to stay humble Amen and it says that the suborn men which said we have heard him speak blaspheming words against Moses and against God and they stirred up the people. Isn't this how they always work when they try to destroy churches? They suborn good people and they stir up people to try to destroy us and the elders as well these are the people that are in charge and should know better so I need to take heed. Now it's hard for me to call myself an elder because I don't consider myself to be that old or that wise with that experience but at the end of the day the elders is the leadership and of course everything crumbles if you can go after the leadership and get them to crumble. It's just how life is. So it says and the scribes came up and caught him and brought him to the council and set up false witnesses isn't that how they work which said this man seeks enough to speak blaspheming words against this holy place and the law and these wicked people that are setting up false witnesses they're acting all holy. Look what he's doing setting up blasphemous words against this holy place. They want to talk all holy but on the inside they're horrible people and they want to talk great about the law but they don't even follow the law Why? Because they're hypocrites that's why. Except for we have heard him say that this Jesus of Nazareth shall destroy this place and shall change the customs which Moses delivered us and all that sat in the council looking steadfastly on him saw his face as he had been the face of an angel and I wish I could have seen that face but if you stop and look at what's going on Stephen is full of power he's full of faith he's doing great works for God and the devil knows it and he sends wicked people to try to get people to turn on Stephen but if you look at what he does hey I don't know if you noticed what was going on but when I read this it says they saw his face that he had been the face of an angry person no the face of a what? angel so it looks to me like what's happening he's getting attacked out doing God's work and it looks to me like Stephen is staying humble he's staying humble maybe he's smiling back hearing all the accusations seeing all the false witnesses but yet they looked at him and it says he had the face of an angel why? Because he's standing there humble it's almost like he's enjoying the show because he knows this is persecution amen go to Acts 8 go to Acts 8 as best you can obviously you got to Acts 6 skip a chapter go to Acts 8 and see one of the things that are going to help you to have the most success that I've noticed when you do these mission trips if you're thinking of doing one is to work on your humility it's to be humble it'll increase your chances of having the highest results but let's face it if you're paying your own way it can be expensive it can go past the thousands of dollars it'll probably average the average mission trip if you're going to buy your flight if you're going to pay for whatever food you name it or even hotels it can get between $15 to $2 at the bare minimum even to go someplace that's affordable like Santo Domingo where the average flight round trip is about $650 not too expensive but then you got to count if you're going to pay for your own hotel room and your food maybe a little bit of transportation a little fun money and if you count the cost it can get to about $1600 easy so you want to go there and come back with the best results as possible and it's going to take humility and let's look at Acts 8 when I think of humility I think of Philip and here's why go to Acts 8 and then in verse 29 it says this Then the Spirit said unto Philip go near and join yourself to this chariot and Philip ran Philip ran thither to him when was the last time you ran to get somebody saved I can't remember the last time I ran I can tell you maybe the last time I walked fast but I don't remember the last time I saw somebody I was like wait I got to sprint to that guy and give him the gospel the reason I'm not sprinting is because I don't want to freak him out but in reality think about what's going on here Philip is running to this guy you know he doesn't know if this guy is going to yell at him he doesn't know if this guy is going to look at him weird you know but he's taking a gamble why because he knows that it's worth it he knows what he's doing he's going to try to get this individual saved and the Holy Spirit is telling him to go so when I see somebody running when I see Philip running I think man this guy must be a humble individual not to care what people think he is running to go do what the Holy Spirit told him to do he says then he heard him read prophet Isaiah and said understand this thou wilt thou read this and he said how can I except some man should guide me and he desired Philip that he will come up and sit with him now this is just three verses but you can learn a lot just from these three verses one thing you'll see it says that the Spirit said unto Philip go go near and join thyself to this chariot so here's here's what's going on he's telling Philip go and I'm sure he's using Philip because Philip is being obedient so one thing that you want to do when you go out on these missions trips is to ready to be obedient to ready to obey and to obey right away and to obey all day every day let me just give you some verses proverbs 23 17 says this let thy heart envy or let not thy heart envy sinners but be down in the fear of the Lord all the day long seems like God wants us to have obedience all the day long not half the day but he wants to have that mentality that God at least wants you to understand that God wants you to be obedient all the day long proverbs 28 14 says this happy is the man that feareth all way all way so God wants you to fear all way what does that mean God wants you to obey the person that fears God is obeying God that's what happens is that the fear of the Lord caused us to depart from evil but just a couple of verses to show you that God wants you to be ready all day to obey him he wants you to obey him all day nobody has a license to sin and we know that's impossible but that's the expectation that God wants you to at least try not to get yourself in sin and to be trying all day long not to envy all day long amen but what you see next it says to him Philip ran theater to him and to hear him read the prophet says to him understand it's what I read it so I'm sorry it says that he he ran to him and the thing is this if you want to have the most success the most funnest missions trip you kind of have to get yourself in a little bit of shape amen and I'll bring that up I'll explain why later you know one of the lessons that I learned in Santo Domingo is that I need to get in a little better shape because it was wearing me out walking everywhere talking so much and I was like man I am getting out of shape I need to help get myself in better shape you know but also the other thing that we see that we can learn it says that you know he said how can I set some mental guide me he desired Philip he desired Philip that he will come up and sit with him and that's a good so many tip you know if I were to talk to my kids and give him so many tips I would say look what's going on here you know Philip is wasting his time with somebody that desires to hear him that desires to hear him and we need to be open to that we need to pay attention to that because you don't want to waste your time on someone that doesn't have ears to hear amen so not just that it says yeah come sit with me so just in these three verses which you can see some things is that the spirit is telling Philip go Philip is automatically doing it which shows you that Philip is ready to obey not just ready to obey but ready to obey right away and that's the kind of people we need to be when we go on these missions trips you know you need to be somebody that's ready to obey and ready to obey right away sometimes for your safety I mean when I go to South Africa Pastor always reminds me make sure you listen to Pastor Bogart make sure you do what he tells you right away because he's there for your safety and I hope I'm doing a good job Pastor Bogart I hope I don't give you a hard time when you're like hey get in the car get in the car we got to go he says get in the car I'm like where's it at whoosh I don't need to ask him why he's trying to keep us safe amen and it's the same with our children children listen up no I'm just kidding but it's a fact imagine if I were to say hey this trash can needs to be taken out you know it's like we need to and then all the kids jump up they're fighting over it it's like whoa this floor needs to be mopped and they're all like rushing to get the mop wouldn't that be an awesome thing to see every time right but wouldn't you as a parent but wouldn't you as a parent be like whoa man I love telling these kids what to do because I know they're going to do it right away all day and yeah that's the you know fantasy world I want to live in amen but that's the goal kids right away it'll go better for you and not only that but go ahead and go to Luke 10 go to Luke 10 so what's the title of my sermon stay humble obviously the sermon is about and I'll talk about Dominican Republic in a minute or probably towards the end but I want to just lay the foundation as to what I think if somebody were to say hey what's a good when I go on missions I would just tell you to stay humble what does that look like I'll explain it in a second the thing about Phillip as well is that when he was desired you know by the eunuch to sit with him you know it's probably he was probably used the Holy Ghost in his story because Phillip knew what he was doing you know he knew how to give the gospel and that's another thing if you want the Holy Spirit to use you like Phillip aim for that aim to be the person that's ready to go hand always raised tell the Lord hey send me I'll go well that's great that's one step also hey listen if you're out of shape you might want to get into better shape because it's going to help you win more souls because then you can go longer you won't gas out as much you know and I'm not saying you need to be on steroids or anything like that which is stupid it's harmful to the body and it doesn't help you in the long run you know but I am saying hey you know if you get in decent shape you can do a little bit more go a little bit extra you know it's just facts you know because I went to Santo Domingo and I wasn't in the best shape possible and I was gassing out a little too much and I'm like man this is embarrassing I need to start running again I'm just being honest as to what I learned during my time in Santo Domingo and of course when it comes to giving the gospel hey this opportunity to go to Santo Domingo was not something that I planned that was of the Holy Ghost is the way I see it I wasn't planning to travel the whole year but then comes the phone call hey what you doing around this time I don't know what's up what about Santo Domingo what do you think I'm like hey my hands always raised tell me when and where this time at this time I'm like well let me check with pastor he's like hey sounds good to me you know that's just all that happened the Holy Spirit said hey you're not in the best shape possible but you're good enough but one thing that I did figure out right away when I got saved is that I need to get good at soul winning not because I want to travel the world because I saw that that's something important to know how to do I mean I'm literally like able to save people from hell for all eternity and that's what I focused on a lot it was just like any little thing I can get my hands on to talk about soul winning I would do it a book by Jack Hiles a video here a CD there anything and everything but at the time 25 years ago there wasn't really anything but praise the Lord for the work that pastor Anderson has done and the other pastors as well there's a massive amount of stuff on the internet that can help you be a good soul winner you know so I look forward to the future cause now we got stuff out there that man it's easy to find and the people on internet land don't know where to look email me I'll send you a link of all of pastor Anderson's videos when he did a soul winning seminar in Detroit it'll be yours free of charge you'll have it tonight so here's the thing get good at soul winning that's gonna help you out hey practice makes perfect and if I can give somebody one tip as far as like how to get good at soul winning you just gotta practice practice practice the best salesman out there guess what they do they practice practice practice practice practice they practice 30 minutes before they even get to work they're practicing their pitch they're practicing whatever they can the rejections you know whatever thing they go over it so they can do the best job possible when it comes to settling why cause they want the most results you know the best results is possible and as God's people we should do that as well you know going out soul winning it will help you but not if you're in an unreceptive area like Awatukee amen everybody knows about Awatukee that goes to this church it's virtually impossible to give the gospel out there I went out there for 90 days and nobody I was able to drop a seed here and there but nobody let me give them the gospel but I wanted to get rid of it so y'all don't have to do it amen self sacrifice but then God blessed me after that cause guess where he sent me back to South Africa easy salvation 20 a day 10 a day 15 a day you know so of course I was blessed for all that hard time I put in but it takes humility to keep going it takes humility not to quit amen you're right there in Luke 10 I've been getting ideas from Brother Raymond and also from at Kenosha as to what to talk about and Luke 10 kind of gives me an idea that I don't really think a lot of us think about when it comes to missions but Luke 10 says this now here's the thing this wasn't an official soul winning I guess you could say trip that we announced or anything cause it was just one guy having an idea and by the way this individual didn't even speak Spanish but we'll get to that in a second but it was just like hey I'm interested in going there but I don't just want to go there to vacation I want to go there and get some people saved but I don't speak the lingo but I want to go there cause that place looks cool I've been wanting to go there for a while you know what I want you to come with me so you can at least help me with some souls and we can have a little bit of fun while we're there I'm like sure why not you know so when it comes to missions trips you don't always have to wait for a big group to get something going you know you can start thinking well what about me and this guy cause honestly the best lonely trips that I've had is when it's two but four and no more cause we can all fit in one car and we can all be together the entire time and that's how we were aiming at it was like okay well me and you maybe a couple more ask church members here and there nobody could do it so I was like well I guess it's just me and you then he's like well bring a couple of your boys I'm like well they don't speak Spanish it's like it doesn't matter they can help us maybe talk to some kids and I'm thinking now you're thinking so they got lucky that it was him suggesting it to bring your boys with you and we're like hey we'll keep it in four no more so that way we don't have to worry about getting two cabs we can freely move and if we split up I go with one of your kids you go with the other one and we get more people saved and we'll come up with a game plan when we get there cause it wasn't something that I really studied out I didn't study Santo Domingo I didn't study the Dominican Republic I'm just in my office answering emails trying to just do my work and then I get a phone call next thing you know it's like hey I want to go to Santo Domingo I'm like yeah man if you're ready I'm ready whenever you want to go unless there's something going on and then we picked the date we ended up going there but then I thought of this verse it's like man you know what it is kind of cool to go two and two or at least four and no more cause you got a small team it's easy to move around with and maybe you guys can start thinking about doing more places and maybe who knows before I die I would like to at least have faith for word visit every country on this planet amen so we need volunteers you know we need people to step up and be like yo help out me and Eric help out me and this guy help out me and that guy you know so I guarantee you one thing whatever comes in financially it always goes to those things you know it always goes to saving souls you know I pity the people that send money to individuals that don't do any soul winning whatsoever you know they're going to regret that for all eternity I could have used that to send this brother that brother to their country so they can get some people saved you know but let's not make those mistakes that other people have made amen alright so now that you're there go to second chronicle 714 second chronicle 714 don't worry I'll get into some of the mingle stories and don't worry I'm keeping an eye on the clock I got a big clock this time just because I want to make sure that we keep things on schedule amen 60 minutes or less guys alright don't worry I'm keeping an eye on the clock I know you guys were having nightmares from the last couple of days amen I got your back I think of you guys alright before I do anything I'm looking at the big fat clock right there so I don't lose time because you're preaching you can get in the zone but what is the title of my sermon stay humble stay humble humility is an important thing and then I'm going to get into more specifics in a second but let me just remind you guys you guys are going to second chronicle 714 I'm just going to read a few verses on humility James 4.10 humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord and He shall lift you up Proverbs 22.4 by humility and the fear of the Lord are riches and honor in life 1 Peter 5.6 humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God that He may bless you in due time Colossians 3.12 put on therefore as the elect of God holy and beloved bowels of mercy kindness humbleness of mind meekness longsuffering Matthew 23.12 and whosoever shall exalt themselves shall be abased and he that shall humble himself shall be exalted Proverbs 18.12 before destruction the heart of men is haughty and before honor is humility so the thing about humility is that I'm going to read Zephaniah I told you guys to go to second chronicles so let me just make sure that I have it in here because I think I might have left it out but I got second chronicles semi memorized that says no I do have it here but let me just read from Zephaniah 2.3 and this is an important thing about humility you know and I'll explain why in a second Zephaniah 2.3 says this seek ye the Lord oh ye meek of the earth meekness is another way of saying you know it's not an arrogant individual it's not a prideful person but in Zephaniah something super important something I want you guys to remember when you do do missions in the future it says seek ye the Lord oh ye meek of the earth which shall rot his judgment seek righteousness obviously that's a big duh seek meekness and why it may be ye shall be hid in the day of the Lord's anger ye may be hid in the day of the Lord's anger what are we seeing here it's saying listen stay humble obey me and God says when I get angry and I pour out my punishment you're going to be hidden in other words you're going to be protected protected that's a very important thing when you're out there in the mission field don't allow yourself to get arrogant to get prideful because then you'll get comfortable and you can become a victim hey what we're sending people but you just never know i.e. Jamaica wasn't there a church that just went down there that kind of likes to copy us do what we do but you know it is what it is and they ended up having their people get robbed at gunpoint Bahamas my bad not Jamaica Bahamas thank you for the correction but guess what it can happen anywhere hey it could even happen I don't know here but I believe that God will protect you unless you are obviously getting a little cocky then he has to give you a slice of humble pie it will happen and I don't know how many times God has protected us out there in the mission field but I'm sure one day we'll find out when we're in heaven but just remember hey your cockiness your arrogance that hey I know what I'm doing I can leave my group I can be on my own don't worry about me, worry about yourself we need to be careful doing that because God doesn't like it he absolutely doesn't if you want to have a successful trip you want to increase your chance of having a super successful trip you have to be humble and not get too cocky, too comfortable that will be the individual that almost gets robbed or does get robbed as we saw in the case of the Bahamas 2nd chronicle 714 714 says this if my people which are called by my name shall humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land go to Proverbs 25 Proverbs 25 the reason I wanted to go over this verse because it clearly says shall humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways then will I hear from heaven so one of the things that we see is obviously besides turning from your sin is humility again and if you want to ask God to protect you to help you, to guide you, to lead you because sometimes these are recon trips sometimes these are like first time missions trips and you don't really know where to go well if you want God to be with you one of the ways to ruin that is to go in there with a cocky attitude it says humble themselves pray, then he's going to hear from heaven and he will guide you and he will help you God is telling you that being humble will bring God's protection upon you being humble will also have God answer your prayers God we want to bring a lot of people to the Lord we want to have a super successful trip hundreds, three hundred, four hundred, five hundred people two thousand, whatever the case may be you know what, God wants that as well so go in there with a humble attitude a clean heart and God will be with you and his will will be done Amen? It would be horrible to find out that you could want more souls you know, had you been a little bit more humble God would have allowed you to go to certain places you know, but because of your cockiness or whatever the case may be you know, he didn't do that because you would have just got yourself in a little bit of trouble, going in the wrong areas more dangerous areas or whatever the case but we see that God says humble yourselves pray, seek his face, and he will hear from heaven and don't you guys pray when you're out there in the missions fields when it looks a little ugly, like Lord protect us they don't look too safe oh Lord look at these roads we don't want to go off this cliff we don't want to go off these roads you know, but hey, humility will keep you protected and God will answer you but also what it will do is it will guide you being humble will help God guide you Psalms 25 says this the meek will he guide in judgment Amen? and also, I'm going to speed it up a little bit it also will, I guess you could say, enlighten you in other words, when you're humble and you're out there in the mission field hey, he'll hear your prayers he'll help you out, he'll guide you and he'll enlighten you Psalms 25, 9, the second part says this and the meek will he teach his way, he'll teach you where to go he'll teach you how to deal with certain situations and it clearly says the meek the first part says the meek will he guide, and the second part says the meek will he teach and when I'm in the mission field, I'm like Lord teach me how to deal with these people a little bit more I don't know their culture, how may I be the best ambassador that I can you know, besides protecting me Lord besides guiding me, hey, I want you to help me I want you to give me the smarts to deal with whoever I'm dealing with so I can get them saved, so I can do everything I can to have the highest results possible but the other thing, and this is I believe an important one, another thing that staying humble will help you do is it'll help you get along with people it'll help you get along with people and listen if humility just got me protected I'll be happy with that, because I don't want to get killed in the foreign field, amen I just don't, I don't want to get robbed I don't want to get stabbed, I don't want to die so if me, I'm like Lord, I just want you to protect me you know, that would be awesome enough but also it does benefit you in other ways to be humble, and one of the key ways is it'll help you get along with people I don't know if I told you to go to Proverbs 13 but go ahead and go to Proverbs 13 if you can Proverbs 13 is one of the verses that keeps popping up recently you know, at least for me, every time I think about this every time something happens, I think of this verse you know, but if you're going there I'll just start reading it, but Proverbs 13 says this only by pride cometh contention only by pride cometh contention, but with the well advised is wisdom and what's the opposite of pride? humility so what is the issue when we have issues with other people? pride hopefully it's not on your side, hopefully it's on their end but as much as we can, we need to be at peace with one another but we need to also be careful that we're not the prideful ones that are making things harder in the group amen? and when it comes to pride here's the thing, we know the opposite of pride is humility another thing for humility, I guess you can say, is harmony let me give you a simple definition of harmony harmony is when people or things work well together without conflict it's a feeling of peace agreement, and getting along easily getting along easily so pray God, help me with humility Lord, help me to be a humble person because I want to be a big blessing when I go on these missions trips I want you to be on our side the entire time I want you to protect us, guide us teach us how to deal with the locals and I also want to get along with everyone on the trip help me with humility and if anything, you're like oh, I see what you're saying brother girl but hey, let me think about it well at the bare minimum, being humble is something that's commandment or it's a commandment, it's commanded so if you don't do it, you're in sin and I would be careful if I were you going to another nation when you've got sin in your heart I would be very careful if I were you but Micah 6 says this He has showed thee, O man, what is good and what does the Lord require of thee but to do justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with thy God so go ahead and go to Isaiah 66 and I'm just going to quickly give some tips on how to become more humble something that you can easily see in the word of God if you can get Isaiah 66 2, that's great if not, you can meet me at Joshua 1 Isaiah 66 2 says this for all those things have my hand made all those things have been saved the Lord but to this man will I look even to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit and trembleth at my word so a person who's poor is a person who's needy a person who realizes, hey, they can't do it on their own a person of a contrite spirit is not somebody who just feels sad it's somebody who's sad for their own sins somebody who feels bad for the bad stuff that they've done so it's a good thing to have a contrite heart it's a good thing to not just look at people but look at yourself and realize, man, I've done wrong and I truly feel bad for the stuff I've done wrong so I just need to realize that I need to confess it, forsake it, and move on but not to get too arrogant and start looking at others and start saying I'm glad I'm not like this person you know, because that's not what God likes but it's clear that it says that, hey, trembleth at my word, and reading God's word will help you to get humility Joshua 1 says this this book of the law shall not depart out of my mouth but that shall meditate therein day and night that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein for then thou shall make that way prosperous and then thou shall have good success I'm sure when you plan a missions trip I'm sure when you want to go somewhere you want to have good success, do you not? but one way to do it is to do what? please God He's the one that's going to give you that success and how's He going to do it? you already saw the many verses out there where God is saying, stay humble, fear Me do what's right, and I'll give you good success meditate on my word and that's one thing that's going to help you but Deuteronomy 17.14 I love preaching on this I love saying it as much as I can why? because I think we all need to hear it as much as possible and if you can, go to Deuteronomy 17 go ahead and meet me in verse number 18 I'm just going to read in verse number 14 that says this when thou art coming to the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee and shall possess it and shall dwell therein and shall say I will set a king over me like as all the nations that are about me then I'm just going to skip to verse 18 just to let you know what's going on here Moses is teaching the children of Israel when you decide you're going to have a king that's what I want, verse 18 and it shall be when he sitteth upon the throne that he shall write him not read him, write him a copy of this law in a book out of that which is before the priest, the Levites and it shall be with him and he shall read therein all the days of his life so what do we see? a guy is becoming king what does Moses say he should do? write himself a copy of the law and what should he do with that? read it all the days of his life to feel the Lord to keep all the words of this law and these statutes to do them that his heart this is the part I want you to see that his heart be not lifted up above his brethren so what's the results of reading the Bible all the days of your life? yes it's great to feel the Lord yes you're going to keep all the words of this law because the more you read the Bible the more you remember his commandments the higher chance you'll obey him but also above everything keep it from being a prideful individual and that's not what you want when you go on these trips you want to be as humble as possible because when things go bad you'll be easily able to adapt to them when things go wrong like getting attacked by whoever to get you to stop just do what Stephen did, just stand there and smile like the face of an angel and just take it and then figure out what to do next amen? so if you have your Bibles go ahead and go to Acts 2 16 so what does it look like when there's somebody that I would consider hey this guy is a humble individual here's what I'd say it looks like similar to Stephen it's somebody that's willing to preach to everyone somebody that's willing to preach to everyone somebody that's willing to go up to anybody anybody, everybody I think that person is practicing humility or has humility what does that look like? somebody that's across the street and they're too embarrassed to cross the street to go talk to that individual it's called pride that's what it's called you don't want to cross the street to go talk to that individual, why? because you're afraid that he may reject you what is that called? pride what else? I would say being afraid to talk to a group just walking up to a group just standing there why are you afraid? because of pride and in these mission trips if you want to come back with the best results you have to go up to groups you have to be willing to go up to people that may not look very friendly sometimes a little scary amen the big dude with the tattoos they're like, I don't know about this guy the kid with the t-shirt that says something bad about cries or whatever you're like, oh this guy ain't gonna want to hear it I have so many experiences where I'm like, I don't know about this person and it turned out to be good and I have some experiences where I'm like, oh for sure he's gonna listen, and he doesn't so a person that's humble hey, they're willing to go to anyone right? I have this thing, anyone, anytime, anyplace anywhere unless they're in their underwear that's kind of my policy and those that are laughing I don't want to ask but I'm sure if you go out so long enough you answer that door and you're like, bro, really? whitey tighties? what are you, watching the Simpsons, bro? what is this? or excuse me, they're not in their underwear they're in their two-piece swimsuit teenagers partying in the back they open the door and they're like, are you serious? and they just want to provoke you to react in a certain way I'm not gonna get too much into that but they weren't trying to do anything horrible but come on, it's like, we got Bibles in our hands what do you guys want? what do you think we want? you know, it's like really? it's like, you guys are swimming bikinis, why even open the door? you know? I don't know, if it hasn't happened, it will happen or in a guy in a dress or something because apparently some pastors don't get that I'll talk about that if I want to but here's the thing when it comes to Santo Domingo what really happened? like I told you guys one phone call says it all, hey, yeah, you wanna go? I'm free, no problem Lord, allow me to go we ended up going and so it was what it was, we get there you know, get in the car, take off, go to the hotel from the hotel, hey, let's go swimming sure enough, we get in the cab and in Santo Domingo, the thing about Santo Domingo is that they don't really care about traffic loss over there as much I don't know how we didn't get into so many accidents, it was insane I'm talking about you think people have cut you off in America? No get ready for a wild ride when you go over there Santo Domingo, those guys are like going in front of people, making the other vehicles like press on the brakes super hard but I guess they're used to that but here's another thing you know, that can keep you from doing this if you're a prideful individual is talking to your taxi driver talking to your taxi driver I mean, when you go places especially on missions field I've taken taxis just about everywhere because I don't want to rent a vehicle but a lot of people won't even try to win this to their taxi driver and I'm thinking, man, you already spent dollars there's a dollar, there's a place and I'm not saying you have to do this every time but that's one thing that has helped me on missions trips to get more people safe is talking to the drivers even when I'm thinking with this guy I'm sure he wants to make money this guy's going to talk to me but that was the first salvation we get in the cab, we take off trying to start up a conversation it was easy, where are you guys from we're from America, oh cool, what are you doing here in Santo Domingo, well let me tell you we're missionaries from America do you go to church anywhere? oh yeah, I do, great, where do you go? I go to whatever Catholic church sweet, you ever been to a Baptist church before? Baptist? No, never well listen, the most important thing in the Baptist is make sure people go to heaven if you die today Armando, are you 100% sure you're going to heaven? not 100% well listen can I just show you a few verses from the Bible do you believe the Bible is the word of God? I love asking that question it pains people in the corner, especially at the door do you believe the Bible is the word of God? yes I do, now just about everything you show them, they have to say yes, I believe that even if they don't that's what I like to ask, ever been to a Baptist church? nope, well most important thing to us make sure people go to heaven hey, you believe the Bible is the word of God? yes I do, and then this is my favorite line well you know the Bible says there's only one thing you have to do to go to heaven just one thing, can I quickly share it with you? I know you're driving, yeah go ahead ok, try not to crash, but I'll talk loud and I was just amazed after giving the gospel because it was a short ride from my hotel to where we were going, 5 minutes, 7 minutes tops so I had to kind of speed it up but we got there before I was able to finish and I just thought no way he's going to want to hear the rest so I'm just like hey listen, if you've got a little bit of time can I finish up? and the guy's like yeah, I do so what was I looking for? what you saw over here in the book of Acts with Stephen somebody that desires to hear it somebody that's willing to sit with me and hear it so he just parked the vehicle to the side turned on the emergency lights and I continued to finish it and the guy prayed in his vehicle and I'm thinking man, I've got to make sure that I do this as much as I can but I'm going to tell you one thing if I don't do it, it's probably because of my pride this guy ain't going to want to hear it the other guy, yeah, this guy, no way but trust me, I was thinking there's no way this guy's going to want to listen and praise the Lord, at least didn't have too much pride because a little bit kicked in then I'm thinking no, I've got to do it hey, you ever go to church anywhere? and that's one thing that will hurt you and maybe you won't be taking a cab everywhere maybe you'll rent a vehicle but hey, listen, that's one thing that you can even do here if you take a cab somewhere it's something that's easy to start up hey, where are you from? hey, we're out here, you know, missionaries from America that's one thing when you guys go anywhere that's a good line for you guys to use you may not be missionaries on paper but you're missionaries, amen we're out here from America so what ended up happening in Santo Domingo well here's the thing like I mentioned, the guy who wanted to go he doesn't speak that much Spanish he can't get anybody saved in Spanish so that's why he wanted me to go with him so I ended up doing all the talking and we were not there for two weeks we were there just for five days I think it was Monday to Saturday we flew back Saturday and we weren't there for that long but in the amount of time we were there we were able to witness and I'm talking about witness, I give the gospel give the gospel just by myself to over 120 people I wasn't counting the numbers but my partner was and he's like bro, it's over a hundred and something by now I don't remember the exact number and out of those, we prayed with about 90 of them about 90 of those individuals and out of those 90 individuals I felt comfortable with counting 77 of them as saved the reason why, because I have this thing where if you're not confident, I'm not really too confident and what I mean by that is after we pray, after I ask did you mean that? Yeah, so if you die right now where do you think you'll go? I'll go to heaven well, are you a hundred percent sure? if they kind of like take a few seconds to answer I kind of lose confidence in that and if they say yes I'm like okay, you know, and why is that? oh, because I believe well, depending on how they say that I'll count them, but they're kind of slow to answer I'm not going to necessarily count them because obviously we need to be confident that's believing, and when that happens to me maybe I'll just put them to the side but if they got saved, it's not going to change if I don't believe they did so I just want to be conservative so I just ended up counting 77 and man, it was some long days but we ended up getting to 120 because we went up to as many people as we could we went up to people that were sitting down just by themselves we went up to people that were just, you know, sitting together you know, with someone else we would see just a few people standing around we would go up to them, introduce ourselves not that I was trying to hide it but Dustin just wanted to try the intros every single time he's like, why not? let me just try my intros and I hope by the end of this trip, it's better than ever and I'm like, yeah, go ahead, you start them all and I'll just jump in whenever it's time for me to jump in so we're just going back and forth and so that's what he would do he would just go up to as many people so we did that on Monday, we did that on Tuesday we did that on Wednesday, we did that on Thursday you know, and I believe Friday, he wanted to check out some areas I'm like, sure, it wasn't going to take that long but in the amount of time that we were there you know, the people that we got saved sometimes it was in a group and we were going after everybody like when we saw people just walking around we were obviously looking for young people and there was like some school nearby and that's kind of the thing that we always try to focus on try to see if there's an area of the schools but that's what we do, we just wait for the students we figured out they all get out around 3 so there's a certain path that they all took so we're witnessing all over this area so we realized, yo, it's almost 3 o'clock hey, let's get back there and see if we can talk to people and that's kind of how it was so we talked to just about everybody you know, from adults to kids and in regards to the importance of kids I'll tell you to go to Acts 2.16 hopefully you're still there, if not I'm just going to read really quickly you know, Acts 2.16 says this but this is that which was spoken by the prophet Joel and it shall come to pass in the last days sayeth God, I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy and your young men shall see visions and your old men shall dream dreams and on my sermons and on my haymanes I will pour out in those days of my Spirit and they shall prophesy the important part I want to focus on is young men so of course we should be training each other and we should be training our children you know, to become good soul winners and even though my kids didn't speak Spanish whatsoever you know, they did help to get a small group of people about I would say 10, I'm just being conservative about 10 people because of them we were able to get them safe and let me tell you how it went down so obviously we're just walking on this little area in Santo Domingo and I'm just trying to look for groups and Dustin and my kids were in front of me so I was behind them because my foot was all messed up for some reason my foot just had a lot of pain on the bottom you know, so I was just a little slower than them and they're just walking, I'm just looking and there's like a group of teenagers just kind of to the side, sitting around the bench you know, it's like maybe half and half half boys, half girls and I'm just walking and then sure enough, they're just like staring in front of me and I look over and I thought they were staring at my kids I wasn't sure until one of them says hey Mira, you know don't Mexicanos that's what they say, don't Mexicanos and for you guys that don't know what they're saying they're like look, they're saying hey, they're Mexican I'm like how in the world do they know they're Mexican but as soon as they said that I'm like go for it, so I'm like yeah so I'm speaking in Spanish, I'm like yeah how do you know that, you know I'm like oh no, we just guessed, you know so I'm yelling at my boys, I'm yelling at Dustin hey, yo, yo, hey, turn around, turn around I wanted to talk to them really quickly and they just came back and I just kind of got in front of them introduced myself, what we were doing there and I just asked them if they went to church and they were like well, we go to this church, we go to that church asked them if they go to a Baptist church, they're like no, I've never been to one, and I told them that it was one of the things to us, make sure people go to heaven, and then I told them if they were to die, where are they going to go, they didn't know so I said hey, do you believe the Bible is the word of God, they said yes and the first was history, you know but what was funny is that the reason why they looked and they said hey, look at that, look at them it's because one of the girls liked one of my kids so talk about having your kids help you with some souls, amen and if my kids ever wondered why am I not ugly, why am I good looking you know, it was just for that individual right there amen, that's it alright, now you can go back to being arrogant but that's why God made you who you were I always say my kids don't talk like that I always say my kids don't talk like that but we kind of sometimes joke around with them you guys are good looking kids, you should look to keep people safe, amen got to do it you know, but in conclusion I'm at 45 minutes folks 45 minutes, y'all can hang with me for 15 more, right now let's talk a little bit more about Santo Domingo because like I said, I don't have a whole lot to say about Santo Domingo you know why? because I was only there for five days so I really did a whole lot we spent a lot of time just going soul winning from 11am till we'd be back probably by 8pm you know, just out and about walking around, talking to as many people as we could then we stopped obviously to get lunch and by the time we got back to the hotel, it was about 8 o'clock but in regards to you know, do I recommend it? absolutely, 100% I do recommend this place 100% I recommend it if you're in shape, I recommend it because you're going to be doing a lot of walking to find a lot of people just standing around and one of the salvations that happened was a police officer just standing there doing security and that's one of the reasons why I recommend it because it is safe it is a very safe area Santo Domingo, I'll explain exactly where we were but that area was filled with a lot of police officers it's a high tourist area but obviously it's surrounded by a lot of locals so you'll be running into a lot of them just walking around, people just walking on the street there's parks, people just sitting around the kids obviously get out at 3 you just hang around, there'll be a lot of them and they're willing to talk and they do listen and just walking around, you'll see people and there'll be plenty of people to talk to all day long I mean, 77 salvations in 5 days man, that's more than I've probably done probably in any missions trip and just as an example I'm not saying that South Africa was not a successful trip, it was but because of safety reasons, we can't go out as long as we did in Santo Domingo but it was like 4 soul winners when I first went to South Africa, we were there for about 15 days and we had a total of 70 something salvations but this was a one man soul winning experience I was the only one actually giving the entire gospel and in the 5 days, I was able to get 77 people and I don't even think I was trying super hard because my foot was all messed up but I think in a way, God allowed it to happen when my foot was hurting so I wouldn't come back all prideful and arrogant, because who knows, I probably would've got 100 salvations and I would've came back with a big head and that would've messed me up, but God made me humble, because everywhere I'm walking I'm in pain, like what is going on with my foot but I'm glad it worked out that way because even if you walk slow you can still get 77 salvations out there, because trust me, I was not walking fast but I was gassing out, because my gas tank when I was giving the gospel so much it was just disappearing on me but I definitely recommend it if you speak Spanish if you're in shape, you're going to love it if you speak Spanish, you're going to love it, obviously it's a great safe place, there's plenty of restaurants to eat lots of restaurants, super safe very receptive, that's the main thing that we love, amen and also I recommend it if you love to dance, I recommend it because there's a lot of people just dancing around some music you like, some music you won't I'm literally walking with my kids we're done with sewing, all of a sudden we hear this crazy music and we're like what the heck is going on, we look over and it's like some kind of courtyard and next thing you know, there's people basically doing this that last move, all I can describe it is that's what my dog does when I open the door and it goes to a bush like what is that like what was we're just like enjoying the show like what is it, they take dancing series over there they're like, I mean all kinds of stuff and we're like woah I was tempted to jump the fence, I got 20 who wants some they be like this gringo who are these, your friends I don't have friends, I got family some of you may know what movie that is but the other reason I loved it because the weather was awesome I went there around February, end of January it was better than Hawaii it was nice and cool loved it, loved the weather and obviously the food and the hotel, now here's the thing I want to do because I don't just want to talk about Santo Domingo if you speak Spanish and you ever get some money in your pocket you know what, I want to encourage you to go there because it's super easy I mean it's easy to get the flight Google, Phoenix, Santo Domingo boom it comes up so many options, pick your option, pick your day pick your hour, whatever get to the airport, plenty of taxis hey, take me to the Plaza Crown that's where we stayed at, the Plaza Crown awesome hotel I don't think it was super expensive for us it was free so I would say it cost about $90 maybe $130 but if you do the math for 5 days you have the $675, maybe expensive but it's safe, safe and it has awesome breakfast breakfast is included I mean when you're eating breakfast you can see the ocean it's super relaxing, super safe I don't know, I can't speak enough about that hotel it was really nice it was the Crown Plaza and also recreation, there's a lot of places to go for recreation we went to what they call the Fortress of Columbus that's primarily where we did the sun-winning they say that it's Christopher Columbus's son's house, which is kind of cool I've been hearing about Christopher Columbus my whole life never thought I'd be at his son's house, amen but they do have some house that they claim is Christopher Columbus they treat it very well, they protect it but that's where pretty much everybody's walking around and it's cool to see the house, like wow man, I'm getting people saved next to Christopher Columbus's son, huh, what have you done with your life? let me tell you what I've done I've done it's super easy to go there you know it's super easy to go there we went to this place called the Three Eyes Lake and that's where they filmed Anaconda with J-Lo yeah I know what it's like to be J-Lo oh that didn't sound right but supposedly they filmed parts of Jurassic Park cause it's like a nice cool little lake place it's like underground caves it's pretty cool you know my kids thought it was awesome and we went to like the Columbus lighthouse a big gigantic lighthouse it's pretty cool, I mean there's a lot of recreation we couldn't have done it all but it's a great place cause it's safe plenty of restaurants, pretty affordable I just loved it and so Santo Domingo if you really want to know a lot about Santo Domingo that's why I got that poster right over there to make my life easier, you can read it whenever you want but I'm just going to give you an idea of what Santo Domingo is it's in Florida if you want to know it's between Cuba and what's the other place it's near? Puerto Rico that's right, my man knows and you were there last time right but you're a different area my man over here was in Vega that's why the hat is up here to remind me to talk about Vega but Santo Domingo is about 2 million in population as of 2024 and here's the thing about it it's 25 or 52% Catholic that's why the Salvations were not very difficult cause they at least are halfway there to some degree and so everybody there has I would say an idea that Christ died and resurrected so you're not going to have a hard time starting from scratch the biggest thing is maybe convincing them that hell is forever, they cannot get out of it because you know what the Catholic Church teaches? Purgatory but once you show them that it's not hard to get them to change like I said, the temperature was great here's what it averages it averages 77 degrees and that's in the summertime you know it's about 86 it is rainy down there but we were not there during the rainy season but humidity is about 70% but I thought the weather was great, it was fun just walking around just checking out the area, talking to as many people as we could and I don't know, I just kind of want to give you guys a heads up, the cost of the flight on average is like $675 that's worst case scenario the hotel, very nice hotel, breakfast included very safe, 5 minutes from the soul winning as far as drive, or you can just walk to the soul winning, it's about 15 minutes but we just wanted to get cab drivers saved, so we took a cab every single chance we could just more chances to talk to the cab drivers you know, and it wasn't that expensive maybe $5, $10 bucks, they take a cab every single day so the hotel was about $675 you know, it's like maybe $135 five days, that's how much that costs you know, obviously eating out, this is worst case scenario maybe $30 a day for each individual, it's about $150 worst case scenario, if you want to obviously get cabs, maybe about $75 for the week, and if you want to get souvenirs, it's $100 bucks to get you some cool souvenirs, and my son wanted to show him his cool souvenir, alright, so I don't know how much we paid for this, but it wasn't me, it was Dustin but there's plenty of stuff to buy, it's a really cool experience, lots of salvations that you can have, if you speak Spanish I highly recommend it, you just want a week to relax get out of there, you don't have to worry about getting robbed you don't have to worry about doing something difficult it's very fun, very easy, and let me just quickly, I got 5 minutes 6 minutes to talk about the bad side, not too much bad, you know, not too much bad, I guess the top two bad things was simply just walking on the strip, you know there's like a small little area where there's a lot of little shops, and so we're just walking there, looking for opportunities to get somebody saved, and I'm literally just standing there, all of a sudden I feel somebody grabbed my arm I didn't know somebody was going for my wallet or whatever, somebody grabs my arm and it's this woman that's like yay tall 110 pounds, and she just grabs my arm, and she's like, hey, you need a massage? I'm like, what? I need a massage? I know I got baggy eyes and I look stressed out, but trust me I'm not that stressed out so she just grabs my arm and starts like walking me you know, so that put him like a massage so of course you know what I did, I would do whatever god fearing man would do, even if he's in pain, amen I just went with it, alright let's go where do you want to go? takes me to the massage, alright get out of here starts tapping away alright, how's that feel? Oh, it feels like pain how about now? Oh, that's painful what, y'all never had a massage before? and the kids are wondering is he lying? yes I'm lying, I'm just joking of course I didn't do that you really thought I was going to get a massage by some woman? I'm married, yo what's wrong with y'all? but what I did do, I did tell her, hey, I don't think my wife would like if you gave me a massage, plus I'm also a missionary from America, oh I didn't know she's like, yeah, I don't think God would be happy if a woman starts touching me that isn't married to me but, hey, I want to give you something you know, it's like, hey, you ever been to a Baptist church? no, never, well the most important thing to us is make sure people go to heaven you know, we're all going to be gone one day so if you die right now, where would you go, Rahab? cause I'm pretty sure it was a special massage she was trying to sell me either that, or for some reason they only hired young, good looking ladies, you know mama-san was not walking around Santo Domingo trying to give you a massage so she didn't know where she was going to go, and they said, well do you believe the Bible's the word of God? she said, yes I do well listen, if you've got about five minutes the Bible says only one thing, one thing you have to do to go to heaven and like to share it with you, if that's cool and she's like, yeah, sure twenty minutes later, she's praying in the street even though everybody's staring and I told her, hey, now that you're 100% sure you're going to heaven, you know what you need to read the Bible unfortunately, I don't know, I don't remember if we had one or if we ran out, but hey you just got to take advantage of every opportunity you can, amen and for you guys that are thinking, well I'll just go to Santo Domingo, sounds cool and obviously I told that story, so that way ladies, if your husband's like, well I want to go to Santo Domingo I know about those massage ladies you know I told him, you better stay away from them you better do what he did you know, so young guys you better not be going to Santo Domingo by yourself I'm not saying it's the Vegas Strip, I'm not saying that at all, you know, but hey, you better take a part in it because Jesus sent him two by two for more than one reason amen La Vega, right and so besides that just be careful with the teenagers out there giving them the gospel, you know because it was what it was, that's why Dustin said, hey, take your kids so that way it's easier for us to talk to kids and boy was he right you know, because I guess they've had people pretending to be godly, turn out to be pedophiles and so yeah, we're giving the gospel and in one case, you know, Dustin he's just going up to as many people as he can goes up to these two teenagers, starts giving the gospel the dad comes right over and you can tell he is fuming, like he's just like fuming, like he's like ready to punch him and I just stepped in, like hey, how you doing you know, just want to give you I forgot what we had, and he's like, he's with you I'm like, yeah, he's with me, he's like, where you guys from this is where Michigan is from America you know, these are my boys right here, and as soon as I said that the guy kind of chilled you know, he's like, this is my boy, this is Sagan this is Chris, remember that Sagan? I don't know where he's at remember that? If these guys weren't there we wouldn't have got that kid safe, because once he saw these guys, he'd chill the heck out you know, so he's like, okay cool, yeah we're just Michiganers from America, you know, he's just showing your son, you know, the Bible way to heaven how to go to heaven, he asks your son if he knows for sure he's going to heaven, you know, he says, you go to church anywhere? yeah, I'm Catholic, oh listen, you've been to a Baptist church so it calmed him down, he wasn't interested in hearing it I said, can we just finish telling your son how to go to heaven? yeah, yeah, you can, I'm just working over here because he was, he was working in some store because they have to make money, you know, it's a tourist area but he walked out of his store and he's going straight for Dustin and I'm thinking, oh man, this guy looks like he's going to do something to him but it was his son, which is waiting for his dad you know, but because we had our kids he was able to chill and kind of say, hey listen a lot of people come around here talking all religious but they end up messing with the children, you know just want to make sure that you guys weren't trying to do that you know, that's not what's going on, you know, that's a little you can stand and listen if you want, say no, no, I trust you because you saw my boys you know, so hey, listen, it is what it is God can use anybody for something you know, so even though I wasn't trying to take my kids originally you know, I'm glad I did, you know so if God ever, you know, gives you opportunity take your family if you can, as many as you can you know, so besides that, that's the only two things I would tell you to be careful of you know, because it's not the worst place in the world but it's awesome, but then let me just wrap it up I've got 30 seconds because tonight I'm preaching on Columbia I'm preaching on Columbia so how did that come about? almost the same way, but here's what happened we finished with Santo Domingo we're at the airport, we're going through the border security this lady walks up to me asking us where I'm from telling us, or asking us where I'm from so of course, what did we say? we're missionaries from Phoenix, you know we're just out here telling people about the Bible do you go to church anywhere? oh yeah, I'm Christian oh good, you ever been to a Baptist church? yeah, I actually have gone to a Baptist church the only thing in the world is going to heaven, right? yeah, so if you die right now, where are you going to go? oh I'm going to heaven, why is that? because of Jesus you know, what do you mean? what does it do to go to heaven? just believe in Jesus it's like, well can you lose your salvation? no, it's a gift she's like spitting the gospel to me she's like, oh listen, you need to go to Columbia I'm like, really? oh yeah, where should I go? you need to go to Medellin I was like, well let me go ask my pastor so I did and guess what he said? he said, go for it and that's what we'll talk about tonight, amen, let's pray dear God, thank you for everything that you've done, Lord obviously Father, I was trying to do double duty this morning I was trying to tell people about a great place to go so when in an awesome place for many reasons but also to remind people if they're going to do it do it with a humble spirit because things can go bad really easy but Father, we just ask you to help us all to be humble all day every day like you want there, Father and to be able to do your will according to your way in Jesus' precious name, amen Amen Amen Take your psalm books together, go to Hymn 310 Hymn 310 Footprints of Jesus Hymn number 310 Hymn 310 Hymn 310 Hymn 310 Hymn 310 Hymn 310 Hymn 310 Hymn 310 Sing it out together now Lord, have we heard thee calling, come follow me. And we see where the good friends falling lead us to be. Lord, friends of Jesus that think of Catholic love, we will follow the steps of Jesus, where'er they go. Though they lead o'er the cold dark mountains seeking his sheep, or along by Siloam's fountains helping the weak, the good friends of Jesus that make the pathway glow, we will follow the steps of Jesus, where'er they go. If they lead through the temple, holy screeching the word, foreign homes of the poor and lowly serving the Lord. Lord, friends of Jesus that think of Catholic love, we will follow the steps of Jesus, where'er they go. Then at last, when on high, he sees us, our journey done, we will rest where the steps of Jesus stand at his throne. Lord, friends of Jesus that make the pathway glow, we will follow the steps of Jesus, where'er they go. Amen. Good singing this morning. We are dismissed. ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"]