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O there's a cross for everyone, and there's a cross for me. O God, send him in, cross of heaven, till heaven shall set me free. Then, then, O Lord, I ground to Thee, O heaven, the ground for me. The Father, the Prince, all taken down, and Jesus pierced in Thee. Joyful of the past, my golden crown, thank Him, He made me near. O precious cross, O glorious crown, O rest, O mentioned King, the angels from the stars from now, and bear my soul away. We are at the center of doing the announcements, we will be following, we will be singing the song number 18. For our announcements, we have a bulletin, go ahead and raise your hand if you have any questions. At the top, we have our service line, it's Sunday at 10.30, and our evening service is Sunday at 5.30. And Thursday, 7 p.m. tonight, we have Brother Ray and Cooper coming up this afternoon. Thanks for coming brother, make sure you thank them. We've got our coordinator, Deacon, he's over there in Washington, delivering our piano as well. My first time seeing you piano, I look good, I like it. So, yes, thank you for coming. And then we have our church has so many, and salvation is out there. And then there's our stage, we have our, yeah, we still got this going on, man, I hope we get on a drive with this, but we're still confiscating the Bible, man. And I know when we're up at the Red Hot, Pastor Burgess preached a good sermon on it, just reiterating why we're taking those things out. We have some false doctors that send people to hell, so let's try to confiscate those false versions, put a KJV in there, man, and toss them in the trash, and I hope you just watch them burn and enjoy them. Right, so don't forget about that. And we have them at the end of the year, and they have those Bible, nice Bible, like how my eye is on mine is better. And below that, you would have a game night, Friday, August 12th, at 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. And I guess just make it whenever time you can. There's a good spot right there between 5 and 9. Just get here whenever you can, and we're going to have games, and provide you with light and refreshments, whatever that means. And I guess I was canceled a little, so don't worry about the Grand Canyon. I guess we just stomped in our dreams. Did I see you at all? What's the Grand Canyon? Nope, it ain't happening. And then upcoming, we're going to have our faithful Tucson 4-year anniversary, and that's going to be Sunday, September 4th. We're going to have Deacon Oliver Mendelis from Perry, and he's coming a couple times now, and he's a real good brother. So come down and check it out. We're going to cook. First of all, I think we're going to smoke some briskets again, so it's going to be good. So I'm going to just make sure that's going to be good. And still now, I think they're going to do the service, the evening service, in like three days a week. Don't quote me on that, so that way we can kind of be a little easier for him to come pre-stress to the evening, and so the day won't be so long. So come and get out. You've got three, four years of something to be proud of. We're going to have Deacon like I said, but it ain't nothing yet, so we've got four more to go, right? Okay, so that's going to be what we want to take part in that. We'll be here in contact with our Deacon, and that's something to get down to court to be part of. And then we have our donuts and everything. Also, just an update, I was up here at Champion last night, and I was talking to Pat Hamilton out there, and I don't know if you guys are familiar, but he was out there on a camping trip with us, and he's talking from like a brain camp, and it's something that's very serious. I was talking last night about it, and the reason why I'm saying that is for those that want some help, here's a page. I know if you guys need a link to play me now, I know it's going around Facebook and everything. I know Gabriel has it, Joanna has it, just to help with the medical expenses and stuff, so if you guys do want to help, you know, if I actually need to get this there, but if you can't, it's not mandatory, but obviously you can use prayer. I know Simon's going through a lot right now, and I talked to him yesterday, and he's kind of affecting him, and just obviously you can't help, but actually just help him with prayer, because it's very serious. And just a little update, my mom and I have been curious about what was going on with my mom, and I figured out that she's going through her chemo and everything going on right now, and she did have some complications in her stomach and everything, and it was not looking too good, you know, but as I got worse today, you know, she got up in emergency, she had her procedure, and she's doing better, you know, so just keep her in prayer, because there is power in prayer, so just please keep her in prayer, but that's what's going on. She's okay, she's going through her chemo, they said that the tumor hits, a little bit of reception or whatever, but that's kind of, you know, it's like day by day, you know, so just keep her in prayer, please, and I appreciate those of you who are just in prayer. Also, let's go ahead and count up our soul limit. Anybody have anything for Monday? Or Tuesday? Or Wednesday? And I know we have them out there. So keep up the pace with your soul limit and we'll get through this. Son of 18, take the name of Jesus with you. Take the name of Jesus with you. Son of 18. Take the name of Jesus with you. Shout of sorrow and of glory. Make them joy and come forgive you. Take it then where you go. Precious name, oh how sweet. Hope of earth and joy of heaven. Precious name, oh how sweet. Hope of earth and joy of heaven. Take the name of Jesus then. Pass the shield from every stand. In temptation, drown together. Breathe that holy name in prayer. Precious name, oh how sweet. Hope of earth and joy of heaven. Precious name, oh how sweet. Hope of earth and joy of heaven. Hope of precious name, oh Jesus. How it burns our souls with joy. When his lovely arms receive us, and his songs are done to come. Precious name, oh how sweet. Hope of earth and joy of heaven. Precious name, oh how sweet. Hope of earth and joy of heaven. And the name of Jesus' boundary, falling costly at his feet. God needs him and will ground him when our journey is complete. Precious name, oh how sweet. Hope of earth and joy of heaven. Precious name, oh how sweet. Hope of earth and joy of heaven. Amen. At this time, we'll pass the offering plate as the plate goes around. Let's open up our Bibles to Mark chapter 16. That's Mark chapter 16, as always. We'll read the entire chapter. Please call the Lord in silence. Mark chapter 16. Mark chapter 16. First one of the Bibles. When the Sabbath was passed, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Simone had brought sweet spices that they may come in an anointing. And very early in the morning, the first day of the week, they came unto the sentry with the rising of the sun. And they said among themselves, who shall roll us away the stones from the door in the sentry? And when they looked, they saw that the stone was rolled away, for it was very great. And entering into the sentry, they saw a young man sitting on the right side, clothed in a long white garment, and they were afraid. They said unto them, Be not afraid, and seek Jesus of Nazareth, which was crucified. He is risen, is not here. Behold, the place where they laid Him. But go your way, and tell his disciples of here that he goeth before you in his gallery. There shall you see him, as he said unto them. And they went out quickly. He fled from the sentry, but he trembled, and were amazed. Neither said they anything to any man, for they were afraid. Now when Jesus was risen, during the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene, out of whom he had cast seven devils. And she went, and told them that had been with him, as they mourned and wept. And they, when they had heard that he was alive, and had been seen unto him, believed not. After that, he appeared in another form unto two of them, as they walked and went unto the country. And they went and told him unto the resident, and had to believe they then. Afterward, he appeared unto eleven, as they sat at me, and upbraided them with their unbelief, and hardness and heart, because they believed not them, which had seen him, after he was risen. And he said unto them, And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature. He that believeth in his baptism shall be saved, but he that believeth not shall be damned. And these signs shall follow them that believe. In my name shall they cast out devils, they shall speak with new tongues, they shall take up serpents, and if they drink any deadly thing, shall not hurt them. They shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover. So then, after the Lord had spoken unto them, who was received up into heaven, and sat on the right hand of God, and they went forth, and preached everywhere, working with them, and confirming the word, with signs following. Amen. Father Martinez, would you pray for us? Amen. All right. Well, I would like to, first of all, you know, thank Deacon Russell for this opportunity to preach to you guys and thank Pastor as well and thank you guys for coming out. You know, obviously, I love coming down here and seeing you guys. I love coming down here. And, you know, the title of my sermon today is Get a Vision for the Great Commission. Get a vision for the Great Commission. You know, here in Mark chapter 16, we have one of the best verses in the Bible for, you know, the Great Commission. And we're going to talk about this tonight. Basically, just preaching the gospel to the whole world. You know, this was what Jesus told us to do. This was the last thing that Jesus told us to do before he went up into heaven. And so it's a big deal. You know, it's a big deal in the Bible. We're going to talk about it tonight. I have three points for you tonight. You know, my first point is just, you know, I want you guys to understand what the Great Commission is. And then my second point is, you know, the plan for the Great Commission. How are we going to get it done? And then my third point will be, you know, to fulfill the Great Commission. You know, how to fulfill it and how to accomplish it. You know, and basically, so I want to start with my first point tonight. Understanding the Great Commission. I want you guys to understand what this is. Now there are two, basically two parts to the Great Commission. You know, basically, you know, Jesus in Mark chapter 16 and Matthew 28, he talks about this. And basically one part of the Great Commission is basically meant for everyone. Man, woman, boy and girl, we're all supposed to go out there and preach the gospel to every creature. And then the second part of the Great Commission that we'll talk about later is dedicated towards, you know, pastors and deacons and evangelists, you know, with church planting and stuff like that. So look down, if you would, at verse 15. Mark chapter 16 and verse 15 where the Bible says, and he said unto them, it's a very familiar verse, go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. Now I want to talk about this and I want to talk about this particular verse for, you know, a good portion of my sermon here. And basically I want to break it down to you, you know, even word by word and just talk about what exactly, you know, this is entailed in this, okay? So I want to start with that word go. You know, I want to break it down just word by word, talk about go. You know, this implies action on our part. See, we're supposed to go out into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. We're supposed to go. You know, we're supposed to, you know, leave our comfort zone, leave, you know, our normal, you know, basically life and just go out there and reach those people that we wouldn't otherwise reach. You know, it says in Luke chapter 14 in verse 23, you don't have to turn there, but it says, and the Lord sent unto the servant, go out into the highways and hedges and compel them to come in that my house may be filled. See, we're supposed to go out. We're supposed to go out there and, you know, into the highways and hedges. And that's quite literally what we do. We go out into the streets and we preach to the people at their door and we're supposed to compel them to come in. You know, not necessarily compel them to come into, you know, the church, but to compel them to be saved, you know, compel them to go into, you know, the Father's house and everything. And, you know, we can't expect, you know, all of them to come to us and get saved. You know what I mean? We have to go reach them where they're at. We have to go out there and reach them. You know, we can't, you know, we can't necessarily expect, you know, 7.8 billion people to, you know, just come to church, you know, and get saved or whatever. You know what I mean? We can't expect them to come to us. We have to go and reach them where they're at in their lives. And that's how we're going to get this done. This is how we're going to reach the whole world with the gospel. You know, there are some churches out there, maybe old IV churches or whatever, where they go out and not necessarily preach in the gospel, just inviting people to church with flyers and things like that. And, you know, hoping that these people will come to church and then walk down the aisle and get saved at the altar or whatever. You know, that's good and all, but, you know, we need to go and bring the gospel to them. We need to go out there with the gospel in our mouth, with the Bible in our hand, with our feet shod, with the preparation of the gospel of peace, and we need to go bring it to them and let them save where they're at and not just, you know, expect them to come to church. I'm all for, you know, them coming to church and getting visitors saved and everything, but we don't need to rely on that for, you know, basically getting people saved and preaching the gospel to every creature. You know, it doesn't say, go ye into all the world and hand out tracts to every creature. You know, it says to go out and preach the gospel. We need to know how to preach the gospel as church members. We need to go out there and actively preach the gospel to a lost and dying world. There needs to be a go aspect to, you know, your walk with God and, you know, our soul-winning. Okay? So, turn, if you would, to Colossians chapter number one. Colossians chapter number one. Now, I want to basically be exhaustive in this idea of going out and preaching the gospel to every creature, and so that's why I want to break this down word by word. Now we're gonna talk about all. It says, go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. And, you know, I have news for you. You know, all means all. You know what I mean? And it says every creature, every means every. And so God expects us to go everywhere and preach the gospel to everyone. You know, and the Bible talks about this and it gives us an example of how, you know, back then in the first century A.D., this was actually done. Look down, if you would, to Colossians chapter one and look at verse number five. It says, for the hope which is laid up for you in heaven, where have ye heard before in the word of the truth of the gospel? And we were talking about the gospel here. Which is coming to you, look at this, as it is in all the world and bringeth forth fruit as it doth also in you, since the day ye heard of it and knew the grace of God in truth. So the Bible is recording here that during this time, whenever Paul wrote this, that the gospel had gone out in all the world during his time. And in fact, it defines it further in verse 23. Just skip down, if you would, to verse number 23. It makes it abundantly clear what happened. It says in verse 23, it says, if ye continue and the faith grounded and settled and be not moved away from the hope of the gospel, again, we're still talking about the same thing, which ye have heard and look at this, in which was preached to every creature which is under heaven. Notice, it said that, Paul says here that it was already preached. It's already been done. It's already been accomplished. He had, you know, him and the people who he's working with and the disciples during that time had preached the gospel to every creature, not just everybody. It defines even further. It says, which is under heaven. Everybody who was under heaven at that time, everybody who was on the earth during that time had heard the gospel. And, you know, that is the goal. You know, that's what God has commanded us to do. That is what we're supposed to be doing. Notice what they didn't do. They didn't just stick to their one little neighborhood. You know what I mean? They didn't just stick in their, you know, one zip code or their neighborhood or whatever. They strove to reach everybody. And, you know, and that's why, you know, I love to see that map that you guys have back there and we have it up there in Tempe as well. Uh, a map of your entire area and you're shading it in, you know, just line upon line, you know, street by street. You guys are getting it done and that's great. You know, that is what God has commanded us to do is to preach the gospel to all the world. And that starts just right here at home, just preaching to the people in our area. And so, and, you know, and along with that, too, we shouldn't just get stuck in just one little area, in our city, or of our state, or whatever. You know, our churches, you know, your church and our church up in Tempe, you know, we have the goal to basically knock every single door in the entire state of Arizona. And so that's a great big goal, you know, and it's great. But, you know, that would necessitate that we would, you know, basically reach everyone. You know, the people who are in the receptive areas, the receptive people and the unreceptive as well. We need to go to everyone. You know, if you're in the receptive, this principle is found in the Bible. And I want to read to you a few verses. You, you can actually start turning to 2 Corinthians chapter 4, please. 2 Corinthians chapter 4. I'm just going to read to you a couple of verses while you go over there. But basically, you know, I want to read to you from Ezekiel chapter 33. Again, these are all going to be very familiar verses tonight. You know, we're just going to go over the same things that we already know. You know, we need to be reminded of these things. Okay. And just think to yourself, whenever you hear that word watchman, that's us. You know, that's us as soul owners, right? It says in verse 3 in there, it says, if when he seeth the sword come upon the land, he blow the trumpet and warn the people and whosoever heareth the sound of the trumpet and taketh not warning, if the sword come and take him away, his blood shall be upon him, his blood shall be upon him, his blood shall be upon him, his blood shall be upon him, his blood shall be upon him, his blood shall be upon his head. So notice, you know, we're the watchman, we're supposed to be out there basically warning people about, you know, the coming judgment, we're supposed to be warning people about hell and telling them how to go to heaven and if we do that and they don't get saved, then guess what? The blood is on them. But then it goes on to say, he heard the sound of the trumpet and took not warning, his blood shall be upon him, but he that taketh warning shall deliver his soul. So that's what we want is for them to deliver their soul. So the watchman see the sword come, so if he knows about it, you know, it saved people, you know, we know about, you know, how if you don't believe in Jesus, you're going to hell and we know all this. But it says if the watchman see the sword come and blow not the trumpet and the people be not warned, so he's not telling anybody, he's not warning anybody. If the sword come and take any person from among them, he is taken away in his iniquity, but his blood will I require at the watchman's hand. See, if we're not out there warning people about hell, then you know what? Their blood is on us. You know, we need to go out there and warn them and try to get them saved. You know, that's what Jesus wants us to do. That's what the command is to preach the gospel to every creature. And notice, you know, if you just go to the same areas all the time and you don't reach new people and go to new places or whatever, then, you know, you can't really say, you know, that you're basically warning those people. You know what I mean? If that makes any sense. In fact, if we go back to Ezekiel chapter 33 and Acts chapter 20, I'll just read it to you. It says, this is Paul speaking here. He says, wherefore I take you to record this day that I am pure from the blood of all men. See, he's referring back to Ezekiel chapter 33. He wants to make it very clear that he has endeavored to preach the gospel to everybody, to as many people as he possibly could in his life. He worked for that goal. And it says, for I have not shunned to declare unto you all the counsel of God. And so we should have this same attitude that, hey, we're trying to reach as many people as we can personally. You know, new people, people that otherwise would not have their doors knocked. And, you know, I want to tell you guys a story about basically, you know, we're knocking out the Indian reservations here in the state of Arizona and everything. We've been working hard on that. That's been our goal for the past six years. And we're, you know, we're basically drawn to close with that. We have two Indian reservations left. We're going to the Hopi primarily right now. And then we also have the Navajo as well. Now, here's the thing about the Hopi, is that the Hopi reservation is not that receptive. You know, the people there, they don't really like people coming, like outsiders coming to their place and knocking on the door. They don't really like that. And we don't get very many people say whenever we go there. But, you know, somebody told me recently, we were on the Hopi reservation, somebody was like, hey, you know what? You know, I just want to tell you, I don't think we should be here. You know, they're super receptive. A ton of them get saved. But, you know, and that sounds good and all, but that's the really the wrong attitude to have because we've already knocked all the doors in the Apache. We need to reach the Hopi now because if we're not reaching them, then, you know, the chances are nobody's going to reach them. You know what I mean? I mean, if we don't reach the people here in Tucson or if we don't reach people in Phoenix, like there's other Baptist churches that may knock those doors, but nobody is going to go to the Hopi and reach them. That's up to us. We need to do that. We need to make sure that we don't have the blood of the Hopi upon us. You know what I mean? We need to go there and preach the gospel to them and whether they hear or whether they forbear, they shall know that they have had a prophet among them. You know, that's what we need to do. You know, we need to basically go there and preach to them the gospel as well. You know, and I'll tell you some more stories too. You know, there were a couple of guys who used to come to our church. You know, they left our church a few years ago. They turned out to be bozos later or whatever. But basically, you know, they had this goal. They wanted to knock every single door in this area of Phoenix called Maryville, which is very, very receptive, right? And before they left, you know, I noticed that on our big map at church, and it still looks like this today, where basically they knocked like 90% of that place, but there are all these little white specks everywhere, places that they had not knocked. And so I asked one of them. I said, you know, well, what's up with all the white spots? Why didn't you guys get that? And he assured me. He's like, oh, oh, yeah, yeah. Well, yeah, we didn't knock those areas because those were the unreceptive areas. You know, we drove by and we saw, yeah, this is a much nicer neighborhood. We don't want to waste our time. We don't want to waste our time going to the unreceptive areas. Let me tell you something. Soul winning is never a waste of time. You know, no matter where you go, no matter who you're reaching, it's not a waste of time. The Bible has commanded us to reach every creature in all the world. You know, it shouldn't necessarily matter whether, you know, it's receptive or unreceptive. Obviously, you know, we desire to go and get as many people saved as we possibly can in the receptive areas, but we can't just neglect the unreceptive people. You know what I mean? You know, it's never a waste of time to go soul winning. Why? Because the Bible says that the word of the Lord shall not return again void. It's not going to return again void. If we're out there and we're preaching the gospel, then we're making a difference. Period. I believe that every single time that we go out soul winning, whether we get somebody saved or not, we're making a difference. Hey, we're planting seeds and, you know, sometimes, you know, it's just about planting that seed with that guy. You know, giving them John 3 16 or giving them a verse from the Bible and explaining it to them. You know, I think that every time we go soul winning, it makes a difference. You know, it's what God has commanded us to do. You know, and I'll give you an example of just how planting a seed, you know, I saw in my own life how that actually helped somebody get saved. You know, we used to do a lot of soul winning on the ASU campus, just, you know, approaching people, talking to them and everything. And then we used to do it on a weekly basis, a group of us guys up in New York, you know, we used to do a lot of soul winning on the ASU campus, just, you know, approaching people, talking to them a group of us guys up in Tempe. And so, you know, I went there one night and then basically we were preaching and then this lady came up to me, she walked up to me and she said, hey, you know, somebody from your church came and talked to me last week and left me with a Bible verse and I haven't been able to get that Bible verse out of my head all week. Can you show me a little bit more? You know, and I thought that was awesome. That was just like them coming to me. I was just like, whoa, but you know, that's a perfect example of how planting seeds actually, you know, can make a difference, you know what I mean? And that lady ended up getting saved, you know. And I got another story, you know, just last week or not last week, but a few weeks ago, you know, we had all the different pastors come up to Tempe and preach for us and everything. And then I went soul-wanting with Pastor Berzins. He was there, he was in town and you know, if there's anybody who can appreciate like the value behind planting seeds, it's him because, you know, he was up in Prescott Valley for like four years. We were just talking and he was extremely unreceptive up there and how he would just go, you know, even weeks at a time without getting anybody saved or even getting into a good conversation. And even if, you know, he knocked on somebody's door and they weren't really that interested, you know, he would just try to talk to them for as long as he can because he just wants to talk to somebody, you know what I mean? And so that's somebody who can really appreciate, you know, the value behind planting seeds and watering seeds with people. And so yeah, that's great too. You know, I talked to him about that. And so listen, I just don't want you guys to have this bad attitude about like, oh, man, we're going to the, you know, unreceptive neighborhood, that's terrible or whatever. I don't want you guys to have that attitude because here's the thing, you know, whether people get saved or not, I do believe that we're making a difference and not only that, we're following the command of God. God has told us to preach the gospel to every creature in all the world. And so, you know, basically what I want you to do is I want you And so, you know, basically this attitude like that guy that I talked about earlier, it's like, oh, I don't want to waste my time in that neighborhood. You know what that reminds me of? That reminds me of like the attitude of like a, you know, a spoiled kid who basically doesn't want to eat his vegetables or whatever. It's like, I don't want to go to the Hopi. I want to go to the Apache. You know what I mean? It's like, I don't want to eat my Brussels sprouts. I want to eat my dessert or whatever. You know what I mean? It's that kind of mentality. No, we need to preach the gospel to everybody. We need to reach everyone And then also too, you know, I thought about this too is that if we only go to the, you know, the receptive areas, then those are the only people that we're actually going to reach. But, you know, I don't know about you, but I've been in an unreceptive neighborhood before and I've met people who were actually very ready to get saved that were very receptive and they were actually living in an unreceptive area. And, you know, that sort of thing happens, you know, quite a bit. In fact, let me tell you another story. In fact, it was me and actually brother Segura, he's here tonight, but we were in this little Phoenix that was very unreceptive. It's called Awatuki and we were not getting a lot of people saved there at all, but I'll tell you this, we knocked on this door and then this young lady came to the door and you know what? She was probably, you know, the most receptive person I think I've ever met in my life. Like she was just so ready to get saved. Like she knew the verses, you know, she was, you know, basically finishing my sentences and stuff. She just wasn't saved yet and she just got saved just so easy. And, you know, me and brother Segura were talking about it and she was the most receptive person that, you know, we've ever met. And so that was great and you know what? That was in one of the least receptive areas of all of the Phoenix area and stuff. So that just goes to show you that like if you just ignore those areas, you're not gonna reach those people, you know what I mean? And so we need to go to the receptive areas and the unreceptives and this is a principle in the Bible, you know, how about the principle of leaving the 99 and going into the wilderness and finding that one person, you know what I mean? You know, there are some unreceptive areas out there but, you know, we need to leave the 99 and go out there and get that one person saved, you know what I mean? So it makes a difference whenever we go out here. And, you know, there are some unreceptive areas out there and let me ask you guys this, you know, what's like one of the most unreceptive areas here in Tucson that you would say? Like what's one of the areas where it's just super fancy, super rich, like people don't want to hear the gospel? Like what's an area like that? What is it? Reda Ranch. Reda Ranch. Reda Ranch. Reda Ranch. Reda Ranch. Okay. Well, let me ask you this, you know, if Deacon Russell comes back on Sunday and he's like, all right, you guys, I got a great idea. We're going to start a soul winning campaign to Reda Ranch. We're going to knock every single door and we're not going to do any other soul winning but just go in there. It's a big task. It's going to take us a couple of years. We're just going to keep knocking there. Are you going to have a bad attitude about that? You know, if we don't have an attitude, we should be thankful that we're reaching everyone and that we have a church that's dedicated to reaching everyone. And so, you know, Paul and the disciples, you know, they got the gospel to all the world. They got the gospel to every single person in the first century A.D. And you know what? You know, that required them to go to some places where it was unreceptive or where they, you know, maybe the people there didn't want to hear it. And so, you know, that's what we need to do as well is in our local area here, we need to go to everyone and reach everyone and so, you know, we talked about the going aspect. We need to go out and preach the gospel and we talked about going to, you know, all over the world, you know, and basically preaching the gospel to every creature. But now I want to talk about, you know, how we specifically need to preach the gospel. You know, it doesn't say go ye unto all the world and, you know, preach, you know, the replacement theology to all creatures or, you know, get into arguments with Jehovah's Witnesses on where heaven's located or whatever. You know what I mean? Like, we're out there in 2 Corinthians 4 and look down, if you would, at verse number 1. These are some of the best verses in the Bible about, you know, the importance of souling, I think. But it says in 2 Corinthians 4, look down, if you would, at verse number 1. It says, Therefore, seeing we have this ministry, as we have received mercy, we faint not. This ministry is referring to us preaching the gospel. It says in verse 2, But it renounced the hidden things of dishonesty, not walking in craftiness, nor handling the word of God deceitfully, but by manifestation of the truth, of God. But if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost. Again, that's going back to, if we don't reach them, then, you know what, I don't know who's going to reach them. You know what I mean? We need to reach those people who are lost. You know, if our gospel is hid, it's hid to them that are lost. It says in verse number 4, It says, In whom the God of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them. For we preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus, the Lord, and ourselves, your servants, for Jesus' sake. For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. And then notice verse 7, But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us. See, we have this ministry, we have this treasure in our earthen vessels. It's up to us to go out there and preach the gospel to every creature. You know, people cannot get saved just on their own. You know what I mean? They need to hear the gospel preached by somebody who's saved, and they need that in order to be saved. They can't get saved on their own. That's why that ministry has been entrusted to us who are saved to go out there and preach to them. In fact, let me prove it to you. Turn, if you would, to Matthew chapter 28, and while you're turning there, I'm going to prove this to you from the Bible from Romans chapter 10. But you're turning to Matthew 28. It says in Romans 10, it says, For whosoever shall call on him in whom they have not believed, and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard, and how shall they hear without a preacher, and how shall they preach except they be sent. And so notice, it says, how shall they hear without a preacher? They must hear the gospel by somebody who's saved in order to get saved. You know, that's what the Bible teaches right here. And so it's up to us to get those people saved. That's up to us. And you know, I had this thought too. You know, maybe you haven't thought about it like this before, but think about, you know, the most important, you know, people in history, you know, that the world would look at and say, this guy was important. This guy was influential. Think about, you know, maybe the founding fathers like George Washington or Benjamin Franklin or Abraham Lincoln. You know, I can't think of any guys that aren't American guys. But anyway, you know, there's other guys out there. But you know, think about these very, very important people in history. Listen, if you go out and you just get, I mean, you change the destiny of somebody from going to hell to going to heaven, like that is such a big deal. You know, we should be rejoicing about that. And you know, that's very important. You know, soul winning is just, it's one of the most, yeah, it's the most important thing that you could do, you know, is just getting people saved, going out there, preaching the gospel to every creature. And so I thought that was an interesting thought. And so, you know, we need to preach the gospel to every single person, every single creature preaching the gospel to every person in the world. But you know, me personally, I'm not going to do that. You personally, you can't do that either. But what we can do is reach the people in our area. You know, and if we all work together as Christians and everything, and we're just working together, trying to get this done, you know, we have the maps, we coordinate and everything, then you know, it is a real possibility that we can reach every single person in the entire world. You know, Paul did it in his day and that's our job for us today as well. And it's a very simple, you know, thing to do. You know, it's just, it's a very simple directive. Just go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. But we just have to have the faith that it can be done. You know what I mean? Some people, they don't have the faith that it can be done today in 2022. And it's not going to happen tomorrow, it's not going to happen today, but you know what? It can happen in our generation, in our lifetime. We can do that if we work towards that. You know, if we have the faith that it can be done. You know, the Bible says that, all things are possible to him that believeth. So if we believe that it can be done and we're working towards it, then it can get done. You know, but the Bible also says on the converse side as well, it says, you know, Jesus said, according to your faith, be it unto you. So again, you know, if we don't have the faith then you know, maybe we won't get it done. You know, and so that's why it's so important to hear a sermon like this to basically, you know, get our minds focused because if we have that faith that we can get it done and if we're praying for it and we're working for it, then you know what, we can do it. We can get it done. And even in our lifetime, we can preach the gospel to every creature in the entire world. We can do that. And so, you know, in fact, our pastor preached a sermon about this a long time ago and I've referenced it before, you know, whenever I preach, probably down here even. But, you know, that sermon was called, Strategy to Evangelize the World in Our Lifetime. And you know, that sermon, you know, there were lots of reasons why I wanted to move out here to Faithful Word and everything, you know, for the great preaching, for the great fellowship of like-minded believers and stuff. But really, that one sermon was what, like, you know, was the tipping scale. Like, from, well, I'm not sure if I should move to, all right, I gotta go. Because I wanted to be a part of a church that had a great big vision, you know, a vision to reach the world with the gospel. The Bible says that where there is no vision, the people perish. And so really, you know, go home tonight and listen to that sermon. You know, because it's great. In fact, you can just walk out right now and go listen to it. That sermon's better than my sermon. So, no, I'm just joking. But anyway, just listen, you know, I do recommend you watch, you listen to that sermon, though. And even if you've heard it before, listen to it again. You know, I don't always do this, but I try to listen to that sermon even on a monthly basis just because I want to have that mindset of reaching the gospel to every creature, you know what I mean? In Matthew chapter 28, we're going to also look at another great commission passage in the Bible. In Matthew chapter 28, this is the, basically a parallel passage with what we just saw in Mark chapter 16, preach the gospel to every creature. And basically, this is the other side of the coin. You know, the other one in Mark chapter 16, that's for everyone. That's for man, boy, you know, woman, that's more geared towards people who want to start churches and everything. Look down, if you would, at verse 18. It says, And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. Go ye, therefore, again, there's that going aspect, and teach all nations. And then here's how we know that it's referring to churches in general. It's just baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. See, we as soul winners, you know, we're not supposed to be going out there and baptizing. That's for, And it says in verse 20, it says, And so this is the Great Commission. This is the other side of the coin, talking about churches, you know, planting churches, going out into the, you know, into the world and planting churches all over the place and basically, you know, baptizing them and teaching them to observe God's commandments. You know, again, that's not what we do out so many. We just teach them the gospel. Live a clean life or whatever. So turn, if you would, to Acts chapter 1. And what we'll see in Acts chapter 1 is basically the glue that brings these two together. See, Mark chapter 28, or Mark chapter 16 and Matthew 28, these two things, they go hand in hand. So you can't have, you know, a church that doesn't have their church member soul winning, a bunch of soul winners in it because then, you know, God's gonna take that candlestick away. You know, that's not good. That's not what God has commanded us to do. And then conversely, you can't have, you know, a church that he goes to or anything like that, either. It's just not gonna work. You know what I mean? That's why earlier it said, how shall they preach, lest they be sent? You need to have a church that's sending you out to preach the gospel and all that. And so basically, that's why these two verses, they coincide. They go together. You can't have one without the other. And then, in fact, in Acts chapter 1, this is like the glue that sticks these two together. Look down, if you would, at verse number 8. It says in Acts chapter 1 in verse 8, it says, This is unto me, both in Jerusalem and in all Judea and in the Samaria and unto the uttermost part of the earth. And so this leads me to my second point tonight, which is the planning of the Great Commission. We talked about understanding the Great Commission. I feel like we have a good understanding of this. But now we wanna talk about how to plan it, how to go about it. How are we gonna do this? You know, I'm with you. We need to preach to God to whatever preacher, all nations, all over the world. How are we gonna get it done? Well, this is the verse right here that tells us and basically God has given us this framework for how to reach the whole world in our lifetime. First, in Matthew 28, He told us to plant churches and that's great. But where do we do it? It says, first in Jerusalem, right? Now, it's not saying for us to go buy plane tickets to Israel today and go over there and that's where we start. But what it's saying is to start in your local city. Wherever you're at, wherever you're at, basically that church right there, it needs to reach its entire city. And I think that we know this. We've got this covered. You know, we got that map. We're trying to get that done. For you guys, it's Tucson. For us, it's Phoenix. We got that done. And then He tells us to go into all Judea, which we have in common, which is the state of Arizona. We wanna reach every single person there and then the next administration after that would be the country of the United States of America. It says Anne and Samaria and unto the uttermost parts of the earth and after that, it's the whole world. And so this is the framework. This is the method by which we're going to reach the entire world. It says, yeah, so we need to plant churches and basically repeat this process in all the world. And so we don't have to wonder, how are we gonna reach the whole world with the gospel? How are we gonna do this? Are we gonna do this through politics? Do we need to send born again, saved children of God to go take over the political scene and change all the politics? No, that's not how we do it. Do we do it through military conquest like Muslims did or whatever? No, we don't do it that way. How do we do it? We do it the old fashioned way, the way that the Bible teaches us by planting churches and then those churches go out and preach the gospel in their areas. That's how we're gonna reach the entire world with the gospel. And so basically, that's how it's gonna be done. In fact, our pastor talked about this in that sermon that I mentioned earlier. And basically, he talked about how when our church wants to plant a church somewhere else, we need to basically plant a church in a city with over one million people. And then that church would basically plant other churches in cities with over 100,000 people in their area. And I think that's a great way to do it. Just start with the biggest cities and work your way down, kind of. And basically, we need to repeat that process all over the world. Now, we basically counted, me and another guy up in Tempe, we basically counted how many cities in the world are over one million people and how many cities in the world are over 100,000. Like, really, how many churches do we need minimum to get this done? So we talked about it, we counted it, and let me tell you, there's about 500 cities in the world with over a million people and there's about 4,000 cities in the world with over 100,000 people. So that comes out to 4,500 churches that we really need minimum to reach the entire world with the gospel. If we're gonna follow this plan, if we're gonna follow what the Bible has told us and the principles that pastors laid out and everything, that's basically how we're gonna do it. And you know, that sounds really hard, right? That sounds like 4,500 churches, that's a lot. But, you know, just to bring this in perspective, I want to compare that to some other denominations out there or whatever. Like, think about the old IP, you know what I mean? Like, think about how many churches they have out there and I, just from a quick Google search, it said that the old IP has roughly 10,000 churches in the US alone. So in the US alone, they have 10,000, we just need half of that to reach the whole world. That just shows me that they're not really doing, you know, what they're supposed to be doing. They're not reaching everybody, you know what I mean? Like, if all of them were reaching every creature or whatever, we'd be having our door knocked all the time, you know what I mean? We'd be having it knocked every month or something like that and it's just like, man, yeah, I know, you came by here last month, you know what I mean? But, you know, that's basically what we need. We just need half of that and we can get the whole world the gospel if we're working towards this, if we have the map, if we have this plan in mind, then we can do it. You know, even Southern Baptists, I looked at their, but I looked at how many churches they have. They have 50,000 churches in the U.S. alone. All we need is 10% of that. If we had 10% of that, we could, you know, reach the whole world with gospel. We could turn this place upside down. Every nation, you know, every creature, we could do it. You know, and so it's actually a very attainable goal. It's something that we can do and it's something that we could even do in our lifetime even. And so I want you guys to get a vision for the Great Commission. I want you guys to be thinking about this, praying for this, basically, you know, yeah, or want us to work towards this. So turn if you would to Acts chapter 16. Acts chapter 16. Now, you may be saying to yourself, okay, I understand the Great Commission. It's preaching gospel to every creature. It's planting churches in all these cities. That's great. You know, and I understand that that's a very attainable goal, but how are we going to reach these places where, you know, Christianity is basically just not welcome? You know what I mean? How are we going to plant churches in like China or India or Indonesia or wherever? How are we going to reach these places that have all these people in it, but they're not friendly towards Christians? And, you know, my answer for that is basically another principle that our church has that our pastors put out there, which is, you know, common sense missions. I'm sure that most people here are familiar with that, but that is go to where it's receptive, safe, and legal first. You know, we need to go to places in this world. We have a large portion of the world open to us right now where it's receptive, safe, and legal to go there and preach the gospel. We need to go to those places right now, where we can open up doors and those other places later. You know, we have, you know, all of South America, all of Mexico, the Caribbean, all of Africa, the Philippines, you know, many places probably in Europe and everything. Like we have so many areas that we can go to now where it's receptive, safe, and legal and we can get many people saved and plant churches and do a great work for God. And then once, you know, we get those areas, you know, going good and everything, you know, God can open up doors in these other places. I believe that. I believe that from the bottom of my heart that God can open up doors in these other places. And I want to show you this from the Bible, maybe show you something that you haven't thought before. But look down, if you would, at Acts chapter 16 and look at verse number 6. It says in Acts chapter 16, verse number 6, it says, Now when they, referring to Paul and the people who was working with him at that time, now when they had gone throughout Phrygia and the region of Galatia and were forbidden, notice this phrase, were forbidden of the Holy Ghost to preach the word in where? In Asia. So it says that he was forbidden to preach in Asia. Let's continue. And in verse 7, it says, After they were come to Mysia, they assayed to go into Bithynia, but the Spirit suffered them not. And they passing by Mysia came down to Troas, 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. And after he had seen the vision, immediately we endeavored to go into Macedonia, assuredly gathering that the Lord had called us to preach the gospel unto them. And see, this is really the essence of the Great Commission here. Having a vision for a group of people or for an area and going out there and bringing them the gospel, preaching the gospel in that area. Paul quite literally had a vision of somebody saying, Hey, come and help us. We need to have a vision as well for our area, for whatever area that you want to go sowing in. We need to have a vision for that area and try our best to give them all the gospel and basically give them that opportunity. Because here's the thing, you're saved and they're not. So guess what? They need our help. And you don't have to actually see a literal vision like Paul did. You just need to know, Hey, they're unsaved. I'm saved. There's got to be something going on here. They need my help. I got to go and preach to them. And so we need that sort of attitude that says, Hey, I'm willing to go. I know I wanted to go to Asia, but I need to go to Macedonia instead. I've been forbidden. That door is closed right now. But here's the thing though. A closed door today is not necessarily a closed door tomorrow. And I want to prove that to you. Flip just a couple of pages over to Acts chapter 19 now. Now remember where was Paul forbidden to go to? He was forbidden of the Holy Ghost to preach the word in Asia. But look at if you would in Acts chapter 19 and verse 9. Let's see what happened later. This is probably many years later. I'm not sure how long later it was, but it says in verse 9, it says, But when divers were hardened and believed not, but spake evil of that way before the multitude, he departed from them and separated the disciples, disputing daily in the school of one Tyrannus, and looked down if you would at verse number 10, Acts chapter 19 verse 10, and it says, And this continued by the space of two years, so that, look at this, so that all they which dwelt in Asia heard the word of the Lord Jesus, both Jews and Greeks. Notice, you know, Paul, he got to do what he wanted to do. In Acts chapter 16, he wanted to go to Asia. He was forbidden to go to Asia. But guess what? In Acts chapter 19, over the course of two years, him and the people who were working with him got the gospel He eventually got to do that. You know, there was a door that was closed back then, but guess what? It opened up. And I think that God can do the exact same thing today or, you know, some countries or even just locally speaking, like there's some, you know, gated areas or gated apartment complex or whatever. You know, I think that God can open up doors in these areas and we can reach those people. But first, we need to go to that which is receptive, safe, and legal, those areas where it's easy to get people saved and whatnot. But, you know, so we need to be praying for them. And so, this verse right here, these verses prove my point that God can open up doors even in the most unlikely of places. So, turn if you would to Matthew chapter 24. Matthew chapter 24. And I'll start wrapping it up. This is my third point for you tonight. And that is the fulfillment of the Great Commission. See, we talked about understanding the Great Commission. We understand what it is. We don't have any doubts about what we need to do. And then we also talked about the plan to evangelize the world in our lifetime. You know, it can get done. It's a very attainable thing that we can do, plan in those churches, and then those churches reach their areas and everything. Like, we can get this done. But now I want to talk to you about the literal fulfillment of the Great Commission. See, the Bible actually teaches that in the end times, before the end can come, that, you know, we, that basically the Christians of that generation will preach the gospel to every creature in the entire world. And I want you to see that as well. So, so you're there and in Matthew chapter 24, look down if you would at verse number nine. So this is, this is an end times passage talking about right, the events leading up to the rapture and everything. It says in verse nine, it says, then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted and shall kill you and ye shall be hated of all nations for my name's sake. And then shall many be offended and shall betray one another and shall hate one another and many false prophets shall rise and shall deceive many and because iniquity shall abound, the love of many but he that shall endure to the end, the same shall be saved. And look at verse 14 and says, in this gospel, again, this is what we've been talking about this whole time. In this gospel, the kingdom shall be preached and all the world for a witness unto all nations. And then shall the end come. So notice this is an end times requirement. You know, this is one of those things that has to happen before, you know, we're raptured up and we go to heaven and everything is basically, you know, we got to get the gospel in all the world for a witness unto all nations. We got to preach the gospel to every creature before that can happen. In fact, in the parallel passage in Mark chapter 13, it says in the gospel must first be published among all nations. Notice that word first. So before anything else can happen, we got to get this done. You know, we got to preach the gospel to all nations, to every creature and then, you know, and then the end will come. And you know, the Bible, I think hints at this in other places. You know, it says in Daniel chapter 11 that the people shall be strong and do exploits. And that's also referring to the end times. So look, you know, we need to be strong and we can do this great exploit of preaching the gospel to every single creature in our lifetime. We can do this, you know, and if it's not us, then it's going to be some other generation down the road because the thing is that the end can't come until we get this done. In fact, you know, I think Jesus was talking about this too in John 14. He said very vividly I say unto you, he that believeth on me, the works I do with my father. Look, we can do this great work for God to reach the gospel, to reach the whole world with the gospel. You know, we have proof in the Bible that it was done in the first century AD, but we also have proof that it will be done again before the end times. And so, and so these are parallel passages, you know, and I want to make that clear. You know, I believe that, you know, what the verses that we started off talking about, like Mark 16, preach the gospel to every creature and then one of them has the literal fulfillment of that in the end times. And so, you know, basically, you know, we need to get this done. You know, personally, I want to be that generation that, you know, basically preaches the gospel to every creature. I want to be a part of that. I don't know about you guys, but I want to be a part of that and I want you guys to want to be a part of that too. That's why I preach this sermon. What's the title of the sermon? Get a vision and I'm not saying that you're personally going to do it or me personally, but us together, you know, reaching our local areas and just sending churches out and things like that. You know, we can get this done and so, and so turn, if you would, to Luke chapter 10. We'll end there. That'll be my last verse. So, and so, yeah, you know, I want to be a part of that generation basically that sees the whole world get preached the gospel and so, and you know, I want to be like, like, like Simeon in Luke chapter two. You know, what did he say? He said, whenever he saw baby Jesus, he said, you know, I can't remember exactly what he said, but he basically said that, hey, you know, the Lord allowed me to see the salvation of Israel. You know what I mean? And I want to be that guy who, even if I'm an old man, I could see the whole world get preached the gospel. You know, I'm not saying about this, you know, really, you know, I'm wanting this to happen. We need to get on board because again, you know, according to your faith, be it unto you. So if we have the faith that it can be done, it can be done. If we don't, you know, then, you know, it's not going to get done and look down. If you would, at Luke chapter 10 and verse two, I'll end it here and this is a very powerful verse, but he said, therefore said he unto them, the harvest truly is great, but the laborers are few. See right now, the laborers are few, but you know, 10 years from now, 20 years from now, it can be a lot and all we have to do is just have the faith that it can be done. We need to pray for it and you know, this vision can be accomplished and so just be praying for that and just be thinking about that and let's just go ahead and pray right now. So dear Lord, thank you for this opportunity to preach down here in Tucson. I pray that something I would have said would have edified, you know, somebody here and all of us get on board with this mission and just be, you know, we want to pray that you would send laborers into your harvest. You're doing it here in Tucson. You're doing it up in Tempe. You're doing it in Houston and all these other places, but we need laborers in all the world and I just want to pray that you would send people out there and help us get this done, laboring together with us Lord and it's in Christ's name I pray, amen. All right. Let's open up our handles and start up and bring up the 74. Close that light. Let's do it. Please, 74, send the light. Please, 74. There's your all come free before the restless rain. Send the light. Send the light. There are souls to rescue. There are souls to save. Send the light. Send the light. Send the light. The blessing must fall back. Let it shine from shore to shore. Send the light. The blessing must fall back. Let it shine forevermore. Whatever the past alone may call today, send the light. Send the light. There are all and all at the cross we lay. Send the light. Send the light. Send the light. The blessing must fall back. Let it shine from shore to shore. Send the light. The blessing must fall back. Let it shine forevermore. There's rain and grace with everywhere we go now. Send the light. Send the light. There's a price I swear with everywhere we go. Send the light. Send the light. Send the light. The blessing must fall back. Let it shine from shore to shore. Send the light. The blessing must fall back. Let it shine forevermore. There's love for everyone in the world now. Send the light. Send the light. Let us gather joys for the crown of love. Send the light. Send the light. Send the light. The blessing must fall back. Let it shine from shore to shore. Send the light. The blessing must fall back. Let it shine forevermore. And that's it. It's come to a close. We are dismissed. Thank you.