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Now we love the God of Jesus, Lord, my God, in this I see. Now we love the God of Jesus, Lord, my God, in this I see. Now we love the God of Jesus, O, precious is the King, that makes me wild and still. Now we love the God of Jesus, Lord, my God, in this I see. Now we love the God of Jesus, Lord, my God, in this I see. Now we love the God of Jesus, O, precious is the King, that makes me wild and still. Now we love the God of Jesus, Lord, my God, in this I see. Now we love the God of Jesus, O, precious is the King, that makes me wild and still. Now we love the God of Jesus, O, precious is the King, that makes me wild and still. Now we love the God of Jesus, Lord, my God, in this I see. Now we love the God of Jesus, O, precious is the King, that makes me wild and still. Now we love the God of Jesus, O, precious is the King, that makes me wild and still. Now we love the God of Jesus, O, precious is the King, that makes me wild and still. Now we love the God of Jesus, O, precious is the King, that makes me wild and still. Now we love the God of Jesus, O, precious is the King, that makes me wild and still. Now we love the God of Jesus, O, precious is the King, that makes me wild and still. Now we love the God of Jesus, O, precious is the King, that makes me wild and still. Now we love the God of Jesus, O, precious is the King, that makes me wild and still. Now we love the God of Jesus, O, precious is the King, that makes me wild and still. Now we love the God of Jesus, O, precious is the King, that makes me wild and still. Now we love the God of Jesus, O, precious is the King, that makes me wild and still. Now we love the God of Jesus, O, precious is the King, that makes me wild and still. Now we love the God of Jesus, O, precious is the King, that makes me wild and still. Now we love the God of Jesus, O, precious is the King, that makes me wild and still. Now we love the God of Jesus, O, precious is the King, that makes me wild and still. Now we love the God of Jesus, O, precious is the King, that makes me wild and still. Now we love the God of Jesus, O, precious is the King, that makes me wild and still. Now we love the God of Jesus, O, precious is the King, that makes me wild and still. Now we love the God of Jesus, O, precious is the King, that makes me wild and still. Now we love the God of Jesus, O, precious is the King, that makes me wild and still. Now we love the God of Jesus, O, precious is the King, that makes me wild and still. Now we love the God of Jesus, O, precious is the King, that makes me wild and still. Now we love the God of Jesus, O, precious is the King, that makes me wild and still. Now we love the God of Jesus, O, precious is the King, that makes me wild and still. Now we love the God of Jesus, O, precious is the King, that makes me wild and still. Now we love the God of Jesus, O, precious is the King, that makes me wild and still. Now we love the God of Jesus, O, precious is the King, that makes me wild and still. Now we love the God of Jesus, O, precious is the King, that makes me wild and still. Now we love the God of Jesus, O, precious is the King, that makes me wild and still. Now we love the God of Jesus, O, precious is the King, that makes me wild and still. Now we love the God of Jesus, O, precious is the King, that makes me wild and still. Now we love the God of Jesus, O, precious is the King, that makes me wild and still. Now we love the God of Jesus, O, precious is the King, that makes me wild and still. Now we love the God of Jesus, O, precious is the King, that makes me wild and still. Now we love the God of Jesus, O, precious is the King, that makes me wild and still. Now we love the God of Jesus, O, precious is the King, that makes me wild and still. Now we love the God of Jesus, O, precious is the King, that makes me wild and still. Now we love the God of Jesus, O, precious is the King, that makes me wild and still. Now we love the God of Jesus, O, precious is the King, that makes me wild and still. Now we love the God of Jesus, O, precious is the King, that makes me wild and still. Now we love the God of Jesus, O, precious is the King, that makes me wild and still. And there's many other things that Christ did and taught after He was resurrected. As it says there, He showed Himself alive by many infallible proofs. There's many that aren't even recorded in Scripture. And as it says in John, if all the things that Christ began to do and teach were recorded, that even the world could not contain the books. The volumes would fill the earth. There's just so much. So it's interesting what the Bible chooses to emphasize here in Mark 16. And when you're coming to the close of a book, you know, you're kind of getting the last message that that author is delivering. And of course, ultimately, the author of Mark is the Holy Spirit. So what is it that he's choosing to emphasize in this book? What is he trying to show us here at the ending? Often, you know, the last thing people hear is what they remember. And I believe there's a lesson here to be learned about fear and about hardness of heart, that these are things that can set in even on believers. I mean, imagine who this is, you know, again, who this is talking about. This is talking about the disciples, the apostles, these great men of faith that are going to go on to do great things, great works for God. But here we find them in Mark 16 and being rebuked for the hardness of heart, being rebuked because they believed not. So if it's possible for them to fall under that, you know, it's possible that that same thing could befall us. That we as believers, you know, these many thousands of years later who have not seen the risen Christ, who have not borne witness of these things firsthand, but are just rather reading them, that it seems like we would be much more susceptible to fall into this. It'd be a lot easier for us perhaps to become fearful or probably more likely have a hardened heart towards the things of God and not doing the work that Christ gives us. Of course, that's the emphasis in Mark 16. The attitude that's kind of, you know, pervasive among the disciples and then the command to go and preach the gospel, okay. So those are the two things I want to focus in on tonight as we close up in the book of Mark. Again, in verse 1, we'll just read it very quickly. No, we just read it. It says, And when the Sabbath was past, Mary Magdalene, the Mary, the mother of James, and Salome had brought sweet spices that they might come and anoint him. And very early in the morning, the first day of the week, they come into the sepulcher at the rising of the sun. And they said among themselves, Who shall roll away the stone from the door of the sepulcher? And they looked, they saw that the stone was rolled away, for it was very great. And entering into the sepulcher, they saw a young man sitting on the right side, clothed in a long white garment, and they were affrighted. And he said unto them, Be not affrighted. Ye seek Jesus of Nazareth, which was crucified. He is risen. He is not here. Behold the place where they laid him. Of course, we're reading this, and we know the full story. We rejoice. We know the resurrection. We understand everything that's about to take place. But in that moment, they're very confused, and they're hearing this, you know, from an angel, whether or not they understood this was an angel, that Christ is risen. And you would think that their natural reaction would just to be overcome with joy, to just, you know, be very ecstatic, very excited about these things. But rather, we see that they're afraid. It says, you know, He is risen, verse 7, but go your way. Tell his disciples and Peter that he goeth before you unto Galilee. There you shall see him as he said unto you. None of this should have come to as a surprise to them. This is what Christ told them was going to happen. And they went out quickly and fled the sepulcher, for they trembled and were amazed. Neither said they anything to any man, for they were sore afraid. So they're not doing what they were told to do. They're not going out and just immediately publishing this abroad to everybody and letting the whole world know that Christ has risen. Rather, they're fearful. They're amazed. And we can understand, you know, this is a very profound event. This is the greatest event of all of human history, the resurrection of Christ, that one should rise from the dead. Never has such a thing happened before. And, of course, we can understand, humanly speaking, why they might be feeling that way. But, you know, that gives us insight into our own human nature, what we're like. And, you know, today we have the same message that they have in Mark 16, that Christ is risen, that Christ is not in the grave, that Christ is alive, that Christ has ascended under the right hand of the Father. That's the same message that we bring when we preach the gospel. And yet today so many Christians don't bring that message. They might be amazed by it and yet at the same time they, like these ladies in this story, are sore afraid and they don't go and tell others. They don't go and spread it abroad immediately as they ought to. You know, and that's the case for many Christians today. Many people are so fearful to preach the gospel to somebody. And I can understand, again, humanly why I get it that sometimes some people are better at speaking to other people than others. Some people are more outgoing. Some people are more extroverted. Some people are just naturally more charismatic. They're people, people, however you want to put that, right? They have a more, just a natural innate ability to speak to total strangers, okay? But we need to overcome our fear. If that's us, if that's holding us back from preaching the gospel, we need to get over that. And I don't care how outgoing you are. I don't care how extroverted you are. It's one thing to talk about the weather. It's another thing to go out and talk to somebody about the state of their eternal soul. It's another thing to go and, you know, try to preach somebody the gospel. It's, you know, I can't speak for everybody, but I have to imagine even the most outgoing of us, when they're first trying to do that, it's probably nerve-wracking. You know, I consider myself not a kind of a people person, if you can believe it or not. You know, somebody who's a little bit more extroverted than the average person. You know, somebody who's a little bit more charismatic and can be at ease with strangers. And, you know, even I myself, I remember going and preaching the gospel. It was a nerve-wracking thing because it's just so out of the ordinary. You don't know how this person's going to react. Are they going to get offended? Are they going to make fun of me? Are they going to get upset? Are they going to violently attack me? Are they going to release the hounds? I mean, we just don't know what's going to happen sometimes when we're talking to strangers. I understand that. But, nevertheless, whatever, however we might feel about preaching to the people, the command is to go. So, if we, like them, choose to say nothing to any man, for we're afraid, you know, we need to get over that and ask ourselves, who are you more afraid of? Man or God? Are you more afraid of what some stranger might say or what the Lord might say? You know, I'm more afraid today of not preaching the gospel than I am of the reaction of those to whom I might preach it. Okay? Now, it goes on here in the story. Now, when Jesus was risen early the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene out of whom he cast seven devils. And she went and told them that had been with them as they mourned and wept. And when they heard that he was alive and had been seen of her, believed not. Okay? So, in the story, we kind of have two groups of people. Okay? We have people, first of all, that are just afraid. They're just frightened by the whole thing. They don't know what to make of it. And they're afraid to even tell other people. Okay? And they're not, maybe it's because they're not certain of those things. Maybe they haven't fully believed it. Maybe it's, you know, they're not comprehending it. The application I'm making is, today, all these thousands of years later, there's still people, Christians, who, yes, believe that Christ is risen, but are afraid to preach it. But are afraid about how other people might react. Then there's another group of people who maybe the problem isn't that they're not afraid. It's just that their hearts are hardened. Their hearts are hardened. Now, obviously, here it's saying that they believe not. They're not believing what they're being told. But the reason why they're not believing is because their heart is hardened. After that, he appeared in another form unto two of them as they walked and went into the country. Again, that's just one verse, but that's elaborated. That story is expanded in Luke 24 as they're going to Emmaus. And I'll just read to us in verse 25 when they had, when Christ came alongside those two and began to preach to them and they didn't believe, he says unto them, then said he unto them, O fools, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken. Ought not Christ to have suffered these things and to enter into his glory? And I like the fact that he calls them slow of heart. They're not getting it. They're not understanding it. The problem is today, you know, a lot of people, they do understand it. They do believe it. They do connect the dots. Obviously, we can give these folks a little bit of grace because this is all new to them. A lot of it's being explained. They have to start and connect the dots with the Old Testament and they have to be given this understanding. And that's why Christ himself is there to explain these things for 40 days and to bring these things to their memory and remind them. Yet today, you know, here we are. We have the whole Council of the Word of God. We have all these things explained to us just so thoroughly, so plainly in the Bible. We have not only the Gospels, we have also the Epistles teaching these things. We can make the connections ourselves in the Old Testament and we're not slow of heart. The problem with a lot of people today is that one, perhaps they're afraid. Or another problem that people have is that they're actually hard-hearted when it comes to preaching the Gospel. Hard-hearted when it comes to the unsaved. If you would, look at verse 13 there. It says, And they went in and told it unto the residue, and neither believed they them. Afterward he appeared unto eleven as they sat at meat. So you can see it's just a succession of events that are elaborated elsewhere. They sat at meat and Christ appears unto them, right? And what's he do? He upbraids them with their unbelief and what? Their hardness of heart. Because they believed not them which had seen him after he was risen. Look, today there's many of us, you know, we believe these things. We believe in the resurrection. We profess the resurrection. We embrace it. We rejoice of the resurrection. We understand it. And yet today there's so many that are guilty of the same thing. Hardness of heart. There's so many Christians that have hardness of heart. You'd say, no, no, no, I'm not hard-hearted. I love the Gospel. I love the Lord Jesus Christ. I love hearing about the resurrection. Yes, we love hearing about it and amen, I love hearing about it too. But what Christ wants us to do is to take it and preach it to other people. And that's where the hardness becomes evident in so many people's lives. Hardness of their own heart. And it's not that they're hardened towards the Gospel if you really want to drill down and get to the root of the problem. It's that they're hardened towards the unsaved. I mean, how else do you explain that? How else do you explain somebody who has the truth, knows the truth, could explain the truth, has been told to go and preach the truth by the Lord himself and refuses to do it? How do you explain that? It's because they don't love the lost. We could say, oh, no, I love the lost. I care about it. I understand they're probably burdened for the lost. They wish the lost weren't going to hell. But if they weren't hardened, if they had the actual care that they ought to have, they'd go preach the Gospel to them. They'd go and bring the good news of glad tidings. They'd go and bring the good news of salvation by grace or faith. They'd go and say Christ has risen. They'd go and preach it. They'd obey the command to go. But today there's so many Christians, so many that have the truth, that are just sitting on it. Why? We could chalk it up as all these different things, but I believe that if you really want to get down to it, the problem is the same problem they had here just days after Christ's resurrection is that their heart is hardened. Their problem then is they had to come to the knowledge of belief that this really has happened. We're not in that boat. We know because we have the testimony that these things have happened. We believe that these things have happened. But is our heart hardened? If we had a cure for some disease and we held out on it, what else would you call that besides being an unloving, uncompassionate, hard-hearted person? I've got the cure. I'm cured of this disease called sin. I've got the antidote in a full supply that will never be exhausted. That I can go and just freely hand out to all the others around me that also have been afflicted with that same disease. Why would I just sit on the cure? How do you explain that? We like to come up with all these reasons. I'm busy. I'm a little lazy. I'm afraid. Whatever the reason is that people come up with for not preaching the gospel, at the end of the day, it's because it's a hardness of heart. That's what I believe. If our hearts weren't hardened, we would find time. We would make it happen. If we really cared about the people that are dying and going to hell, we would make a point of going and preaching the gospel as we've been commanded to do. Think about the things that we make time for. We make time for anything that's important to us. We make time for all these other things. We make time for things that have absolutely no eternal value whatsoever. And look, I'm not saying we all have to be out there 24-7 knocking on doors. But good night, what about one hour a week? Just one hour a week to get out there and just tell somebody that Christ has died for them and yea is risen again. And that eternal life is theirs if they but believe. Just bring the simplicity that is in Christ to a lost and dying world. It's not much to ask, I don't think, for one hour at a minimum. And look, in this church, we make it easy. We make it easy here. We used to have a van, right? But even that, there's people here that are more willing to carpool and drive people around. We have scheduled times. You don't have to wonder when there's opportunity. There's people that are willing to go with you. There's people that are willing to show you the ropes. Good night, you could just go soul winning and not even talk. It's not like from day one, you know, it's like you're up. You can take all the time in the world to preach the gospel. If you just went as a silent partner for the rest of your life, we'd still get more done. Because you just freed up another person to go be a talker. I mean, we all understand this, but let's just review it again. If you have two talkers and two silent partners, you know, and the silent partners show up, well now you've got two teams instead of one. Because we go two by two as the Bible commands. Hopefully that makes sense. Hopefully I explained that. It's a pretty simple concept. So I mean, even just showing up and not even saying anything, even if you're too nervous or too afraid or just too unfamiliar, just not ready to preach the gospel, just show up. Just go. We don't under, you know, the silent partner is a valuable asset. Because we've got a big job to do. We just read it. Go ye and preach the gospel to your zip code. Go ye and preach the gospel to everyone that's within driving distance of your church. Go preach the gospel to everyone in a two mile radius from the church building. No, it's the go preach the gospel to every creature. That's a huge job. And it's not being done. It's nowhere near close to being accomplished. Why? Because there's too many people that are either one, afraid to do it, or two, and most likely, just too hard hearted. And we chalk it up as something else, we give it another name, but the fact is, we don't have a burden for the lost. If we're not willing to go. If we don't make it a priority. That's why the silent partner is such a valuable asset because the job is so big. We make it easy here. The invites are free. The Bibles to give out are free. There's people here that are seasoned that can show others how to do it. And that's what we're about here. That's the main thrust of this ministry. Yes, preaching the Bible. Yes, preaching all the things pertaining to godliness and life in Christ Jesus. The family. All of these things. Godly living. We preach standards. All that stuff. But what we're here to do is to preach the gospel. That's what we're here to do. And that's what this church has always been about. The six years it's been in existence. And as long as I'm behind this pulpit, that's what it's always going to be about. That's going to be the primary focus of this church. And if it whittles the whole church down to just a half dozen soul winners, so be it. Because they'll get more done with six people that are zealous for god than six hundred that don't want to do anything for god. This is not bump on a log Baptist church. That's elsewhere. And this isn't an entertainment center. I'm not an event coordinator. We'll do things. We'll have fun. We'll fellowship. But not at the expense of the work that we've been given to do. That's what we're about. And I don't want to browbeat or berate people into soul winning. But I think sometimes people need to examine their hearts. If soul winning is just something that's not on the radar, and people just have no intention of ever doing it, the problem might be that you have a hard heart towards the unsaved. If we can't get over our fear, if we can't get over our uncomfortableness, if we can't bring ourselves to just carve out a small sliver of time and of our schedule no matter how busy it might be we can go out and just try to preach the gospel to a lost and dying world that is on its way to hell. We're not trying to just get people in church, folks. I think sometimes people misunderstand what the soul winning program is about here. Trying to build a church? No, we go out to the highways and byways that our Father's house may be full. That's talking about heaven, God's house, not this house. Jesus will build this church. We can do other things to help build this church. When we go out there, we're trying to get people out of the fires of hell, out of the eternity of hell. That's another topic that needs to be preached on, maybe a great deal more. Maybe the reason why soul winning is just petering out in other Baptist churches, why it's not the emphasis in so many other churches, is because they've lost sight of the reality of hell. I don't know that that's the case, but sometimes you just see what's going on where soul winning is just scratched off the schedule. It's not even a thing that's being done in a Baptist church, and you have to explain to yourself why. How is it that people can just read chapters like Mark 16 where Jesus just plainly says, go and preach the gospel to every creature, and then they do everything but that. How do you explain it? Hardness of heart. Well, how do you explain a hard heart? A lack of acknowledgement of hell. The fire of hell will thaw out the coldest heart among God's people. That's what we're here to do. The hard heartedness is something that we preached about this morning, or I did rather, about how when people harden their heart they become reprobate. But hard heartedness is something that can even set in among the saved. Jesus rebukes them for the hardness of heart. And he did this elsewhere, Mark chapter 6, when he came unto them in the sea and they were amazed and they were afraid, and they didn't understand what was going on, and it says that they considered not the miracle of loaves, for their heart was hardened. We're warned to not allow our hearts to be hardened. The Bible says in Hebrews, exhort one another daily while it is called today, lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin. This is another danger of getting into sin. Sin will harden your heart, and all you'll care about is sin. All you'll care about is appeasing the flesh. I don't have a very long sermon tonight. I'm really just trying to make this about one thing, because when I read Mark 16, to me that's the emphasis. Look at verse 15 of Mark 16. And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. I mean that is the soul winning verse. That's the one that just rolls off the tongue off of many soul winning pastors. Many soul winning churches have those words just resound within their walls. Go preach the gospel. I mean that's the one we quote. That's what this chapter is about. But what we see leading up to this verse in this short chapter is just the Bible pointing out they were afraid, their heart was hardened, they were abraded because they believed not, their heart was hardened, and it just tells me that that's something that can happen even today among God's people. And that's why we're exhorted in Hebrews chapter 3. To exhort one another daily what is called today, lest our hearts be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin. We need to go out and understand that we have an incredibly important job to do. And not harden our hearts towards the preaching of God. This isn't just some spiritual pastime. This isn't just some Baptist hobby that we're involved in when it comes to soul winning. You know we just got the sign done on the door out there. Straight paths. And I don't know if brother Andrew is watching or not. He's home sick. But the sign looks great. You know everybody that's seen it looks great. I love the big straight paths. I like how it's nice and big and you can't miss it. And you know under that there's a brief description. You know just a few words describing what we're about. Independent, fundamental. I haven't got all memorized. King James only. But it says on that door, family integrated, but it also says on that door, soul winning. Soul winning. That's what this church is about because that's what God wants us to do. You know it says that on the door and not just people. We're Baptist. That's what we do. You know we haven't figured out how to just fill up our time with a bunch of other activities yet here over at Straight Path Baptist Church. The reason why we do so much soul winning is just because it's free or something. Or you know we just don't have the funds to do anything else. You know because we haven't figured out we can just have bowling night, activity night. Look I'm not against those things. But the reason why we're doing it, it's not because we haven't got anything better to do. It's because it's what we're here to do as Christians. And it's a mission, it's a commission, it's a job that has been given unto God's people that is being left woefully undone today in this world. If you would go over to 2 Corinthians 5. Again I don't have a long message tonight. And I'm not going to try and milk this just to meet a clock. Just fine with that. But I don't want to spend any less time than I should emphasizing this point. Again and I'm not saying this is a problem here. Look this is a soul winning church. That's not just words on a door in this church. Look there's plenty of Baptist churches where they're a soul winning church. And what they mean by that is that they leave an invite on a door and they might get around to preaching the gospel. And look you say you're criticizing them. I am. But I'm glad they're at least doing that. And I just describe, you say which church are you talking about? I just describe thousands my friend. I just describe thousands of Baptist churches. Oh we're a soul winning church. We leave a door hanger and we don't even knock. And I've had them left on my door. I've lived five minutes away from Baptist. Independent, fundamental, soul winning Baptist churches that have never knocked the door. And I'm within their driving distance. I'm in their area code. I'm within their radius. I'm within their version of the whole world as Christ said. That's the vast majority of churches. Baptist churches that wear soul winning like a badge. But you know they're not doing the work that needs to be done. And I'm not, and listen, I am not saying this to lift us up. I'm not saying that to make us out, well we're soul winning in this church. That makes us special. You know what that makes us? Obedient to the Great Commission. Nothing more. It makes us obedient to the word of God. That's all it makes us. Would to God that every church that advertised soul winning was actually doing the soul winning? You think I'd be jealous? Do you think I'd be envious of another soul winning church? Absolutely not. Would to God every Baptist church with the right gospel was out there knocking every door in their city, their county, their state. Because that's what we're called to do. And look, it starts, it comes down to the individual rather is what I'm trying to say. Yes it's a commission, it's the job of every Baptist church, of every valid New Testament church to go out and preach the gospel. But it's accomplished by individuals. Because that's what all churches are. And all I'm saying tonight is, yeah this is a soul winning church. That's what we do here. And I'm not saying I lift that up, lift this up, but let's not let our heart become hardened. Let's not be deceived by the deceitfulness of sin and allow our hearts to be hardened. I'm exhorting us again today to not end up like these people in Mark 16. And again, we can give them a pass, right? They've been through a lot. They just saw Christ crucified. They just saw him die. They had a whole other expectation. These things had to explain. We don't have that excuse, folks. I don't want us to become hard-hearted here at this church either. I had you go to 2 Corinthians chapter number 5. Let me read to you some other verses about soul winning. The Bible says in 2 Corinthians chapter 4 verse 13, We having the same spirit of faith according as it is written, I believed, therefore have I spoken. We also believe and therefore speak. You see, this is what I don't understand. If we believe the gospel, why wouldn't we share it? Why wouldn't we speak it? If we believe, why would we not speak? Why would we not lift up our voice? Why would we not go out and preach the gospel? I'll tell you why. Hardness of heart. Well, I'm saved. I'm going to heaven. Me and mine are saved. And everybody else can just go to hell. Look, we would never say it in so many words. We'd put a twist on that. But if you want to get down to brass tacks, for a lot of people, that's exactly what it is. The rest of the world can go to hell. And that's a literal statement. I mean, that's not just an expletive. That's not just an insult. That's what we're saying when we harden our hearts and not speak in spite of the fact that we also have belief. What we're saying is, go to hell! How do you chalk that up as anything else but hardness of heart? Romans chapter 1. For so much as in me is, I am ready to preach the gospel to you that are at Rome also. Paul went on and said a very famous verse in verse 16. For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God unto salvation unto everyone that believeth. To the Jew first and also to the Gentile. The gospel is the power of God unto salvation. It's not a hobby. It's not a pastime. Not because we just don't know what else to do with ourselves. We go out and we preach and we emphasize soul winning here because soul winning, preaching the gospel is the power of God unto salvation. To the lost, to people that are on their way to hell. That's why we do what we do. That's why it's such an emphasis here and will continue to be so, so long as I have anything to say about it. Matthew chapter 4 verse 18. I'm sure all of us would love to consider ourselves disciples. We would love to say that we're faithful to Christ and that we're following Him in our lives. And perhaps in many ways we are. But let me remind you what Jesus said when we first got in. Of course this is in Matthew but he said similar things in Mark. He's talking about the same people. When we first started out in the gospel, when we first started out with the story of Christ's ministry, when he first started calling his disciples to remind you what he said to them. He said, follow me and I will make you fishers of men. That's what he said to Peter. That's what he said to Andrew who were fishermen. They're casting their nets into the sea and Christ comes along and says, forsake these things, leave them behind and I will make you a fisher of men. And straightway they left their nets and followed him. What I'm getting at here is if you're really following Jesus, if he really is Lord to you, if we really are saying master, Lord, if we really are keeping his commandments, we'll be soul winners. We will be fishers of men. We will be out there casting a line repeatedly trying to just snag one. Just snag another sinner, snag another sinner. I know snagging is illegal. We don't snag here. We bait. No treble hooks here. We know we go out there with our lure of the gospel. We cast that line and it's like we're casting it into a river of souls that are just rushing past us in this life. That are just going by in a blur and are just headed to destruction. That are going headlong over a precipice into hell. It's just a waterfall of souls today throughout this world that are just going over and just falling into hell. And when we're out there as fishers of men, all we're doing is just trying to get one. Just trying to get another one. Trying to cast a broad net as we can and just bring them to shore. Just to try to get as many as we can out of that river. That's why Jesus said, if you follow me, you will be a fisher of men. Which means this, if you're not fishing for men, you're not following Jesus. I don't know how else to say it. And why is it? Why would we say, well, no, let those souls just go on by. Let them just go to hell. Hardness of heart. Hardness of heart. No, it's not that I don't care. It's because this, that. It's all hardness of heart, my friend. We make time for the things that are important to us. We make time for the people that are important to us. We'll drop anything we're doing and if people are important to us, we'll just stop what we're doing and we'll lend a hand. We'll help them out. We'll lift them up. We'll do whatever we have to do. All I'm saying tonight is, if you can't do that for the unsafe, for the loss, for strangers that are going to hell, your heart's hardened towards them. You've lost the compassion or maybe never had it for the unsaved. It needs to be there. This is another verse and look, I'm almost hesitant to quote this because I'm not exactly sure that I can make the correct application here in Matthew chapter 12 verse 30. Because it's in the context of blaspheming the Holy Ghost and he's dealing with the Pharisees that are accusing him of being by the power of Beelzebub, doing the miracles that he did. But Jesus, in the midst of that rebuke, when he's correcting them and reminding them that, you know, whosoever shall blaspheme the Holy Ghost hath never forgiveness, in the midst of all that dialogue, he makes this statement and he says, He that is not with me is against me. And he that gathereth not with me scattereth abroad. Take that to mean what you might think it means. But he said, He that gathereth not with me scattereth abroad. It's like if we're not doing the work, maybe we're doing the opposite. We might as well just be turning people away. I don't know if that's the correct application, but it's a very strong statement. You're there in 2 Corinthians 5? Did I have you go there? I know this isn't a new passage. I know this isn't one you haven't heard me quote, turn to in many sermons before, but it's something that we need to be reminded of. You say, Well, I go soul wedding. We were just out this afternoon. I've been consistent. We've been going. Amen. And I'm preaching the person that doesn't go soul winning. I'm preaching a person that does go soul winning. Because in either case, the hardness of heart is something that can or already has set in. You can be a soul winning person. You can go out there and preach the gospel and have no love in your heart for the unsaved. Or start to think that you're just doing this out of just routine. You're just doing this out of just duty. And look, sometimes we have to drag ourselves to do our duty. I get it. But I've learned I've had a lot more success in getting people to do what Christ has commanded us all to do in going soul winning by trying to inspire them to go. Rather than just say, You better go soul winning. The former is the better way to go. And this, my friend, is an inspiring verse to be reminded of what we are in Christ and what we've been called to. Aren't there a lot of appointments being made today in the new cabinet? Trump's new administration. He's appointing this guy and we're getting excited about that guy. This guy's getting appointed and some people are going, Yeah, but he's this creep. People get all excited about these appointments, all these different big, you know, positions of power, all these important influential positions that people are going to fill in his new cabinet. Look, as exciting as that might be, as necessary as that might be to keep the wheels of this government turning. There is no position greater than the one that is described here in Second Corinthians five. Because there's not one single person there in Washington who can snag, I keep saying that, who can bring a soul out of hell just by the position that they're in. I don't care who gets Attorney General. I don't care who gets Secretary of Defense. I don't care who the new borders are. They're not about the gospel. And all they're going to do is enact some worldly, man-made policy. But we, according to this chapter, this passage right here in 14 and onward, verse 14 and onward, we're told that we're ambassadors for Christ. And that's something, you know, and we're not going to have to go through some congressional hearing in order to have that bequeathed upon us. You got saved? You started following Jesus? Ambassador. That's a high calling. Look at Second Corinthians five, verse 14, for the love of Christ constraineth us, because we thus judge that if one died for all, then we're all dead. And that he died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them and rose again. So he's saying, look, if Christ died for all, then we're all dead, and that includes us. Every single hope in this world. No one in this room is born saved. No one in this room is just automatically saved because of who their mommy or daddy is. They have to all come to an understanding that they're sinners, that deserve to go to hell, and that need Christ. If Christ died for all, then we're all dead, and that includes us. That's why he says in verse 15, and that he died for all, which would include us, that they which live, meaning have been redeemed, have been given eternal life, should not henceforth live unto themselves. Because they are not their own. They've been bought with a price. But unto him which died for them and rose again. That's what we're reading about tonight, the resurrection. We preached it this morning, Christ's death. Now we're reading in Mark 16 the resurrection, and we're understanding that he died and buried and rose again for us. That's who he died for. You. Me. Every single one of us. And because of that, we don't get to just live unto ourselves. And just say, well it's my life, it's my time, I can do it. You know what? And you can. You can have that attitude as a Christian. But it's not right. We should not henceforth live unto ourselves. It shouldn't just be all about us, only what's important to us. We should probably, because Christ died for us, at some point step back and say, what would Christ have me to do? If I had to answer to Jesus, and we all will, what would he want my priorities to be in this life? What would he expect for me to do with some part of my life here? What is it that he's asking me to do? He said if you follow me you're going to be fishers of men. He said go and preach the gospel to every creature. It's not a mystery what God wants us to do. He wants us to go and reach the unsaved. Why? Because he loves them and died for them just like he loves you and died for you. Verse 16, wherefore henceforth know we no man after the flesh, yea though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet henceforth know we him no more, not just after the flesh, we know him in spirit and in truth. Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature, old things are passed away, behold all things are become new, and all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ. You know we've been reconciled to God through Christ. Reconciliation means that peace has been made. We all understand that word, right? Hey can we just put aside our differences? Can we no longer be at enmity with God? That's what happened when we got saved. We were at one time enemies of God, but Christ came, died, was buried again, we believed and we have been reconciled unto God through Christ. That's a powerful word right there. He has reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, but notice this last part. We like that first part. We love being reconciled to God. Amen. I love the fact that I am his and he is mine, that I have peace with God through Jesus Christ our Lord, that I'm going to go to heaven no matter what, that God has forgiven me of all my transgressions, all my trespasses, all of my iniquity has been laid upon him, that I am free from the guilt of sin, I've been reconciled to God, but notice what he says here at the end. He says, and hath given unto us the ministry of reconciliation. That's why we're not here to just live henceforth unto ourselves because we have a ministry that has been a burden, a responsibility that has been placed squarely upon us. And it's the ministry of reconciliation, of preaching the gospel. To wit, verse 19, that God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto him, and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation. This is what we just have been reading about these last two services. The death of Christ, the resurrection of Christ, that was him reconciling the world unto himself. We have believed that, we understand that, and now that same ministry that Christ was working when he was here, what we've just spent all these many months reading about in Mark, all through that gospel, that ministry has now been given unto us the ministry of reconciling a lost and dying world unto God. Tell me a higher calling there isn't one. It's not out there. Attorney General, President of the United States, Senator, I don't care what it is, you name it, this is the highest calling anyone can ever hope to fill. And if you're saved, it's yours to fill. Fisher of men, follower of Christ, winner of souls, someone who has been called to reconcile people to God. That's a powerful, powerful ministry. That's why he says in verse 20, now then we are ambassadors of Christ, as though God did beseech you by us. That's what we're doing when we're out preaching the gospel. We're beseeching people to be reconciled unto God. We pray you in Christ's name, be he reconciled to God. That's what we're doing. We're not just trying to get people to have some intellectual accent unto the gospel. We're not just trying to win some kind of argument. We're not just trying to convince ourselves. It's not that we're out there because we have a need to persuade that we're right. What we're doing when we're out there, we're acting as ambassadors that are trying to reconcile a lost and dying world unto a God who is otherwise going to punish them for their sins and would rather not do it. He says I have no debt of joy. I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked. Yes, he's angry with the wicked every day, but it's not like God gets some kind of sick kick out of it. It's because he is holy. He is right. He is just. He has to punish sin. That's why he sent his son. And that's why he's given us that same ministry that he gave to Christ to reconcile the world unto him. And don't think that your soul winning time or you go making some time out there is just something you're going to drag yourself through. I mean look how excited some people are getting about these appointments in this new cabinet. And I get it. It's kind of exciting. Whatever. If you're into politics, cool. But I mean this is the most exciting appointment that there ever could be given. And it's not exclusive. There's no limited space. It's not like only one guy can fill that. There's only so many spaces on this committee. Only so many people. No. Every single child of God can be an ambassador for Christ. It's not just some gift that's given to certain people. You can win souls and you can win souls, but not you guys. No, we can all go do it. We can all be ambassadors. We can all go out and reconcile the world unto Christ, unto God. It's amazing. That's why he says in verse 24, he hath made him to be sin for us who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. Man, it's powerful. And that's what Christ emphasized in Mark 16. And when we read those words, go ye and preach the gospel to every creature, don't just take that as some slave driver, just some taskmaster, just making you go do something you don't want to do. If that's how you feel about soul winning, there's something wrong with your heart. If it's something you just have to drag yourself to, if it's just something you just have to put up with, you just got to get that preacher off your back. You just got to appease other people. There's something wrong with your heart. I'll tell you what it is. It's called hardness of heart. And I don't say that meanly. I don't mean that to hurt people's feelings or step on toes, but it's here in the passage. Christ's own disciples at his resurrection are unbelieving and their hearts are hardened. And Christ has to show up and just show up in the room and upbraid them. I mean, he is mad. I mean, it's not in this passage, but he goes up to Thomas and says, hold my hands on my side, Thomas, and be not unbelieving. Trust your hand into my side, Thomas. Isn't that what you said you want to do? I mean, he's getting in their faces about this stuff. Why? Because he's about to tell them, go preach the gospel to every creature. We know that. And look at verse 19 if you're still there in Mark chapter 16. We know in verse 15 he gives the command. And he tells, here's the signs that we're following, and so on and so forth. Then he says in verse 19, so then after the Lord had spoken unto them, he was received up into heaven and sat on the right hand of God. That's an amazing thing. And we know that when he did that, he ascended in their sight, right, began to just float up into heaven and told them, go preach the gospel. What a great way to get someone's attention. I wish I had that ability to levitate. If I could do that, maybe we need to rig something up here with some invisible lines or something. You know, get rid of this thing and get a pulley system up there. Let's get some of the guys together after church. You know, we'll talk about it and get a harness. And look, have you seen some of these churches where they do that? Where the pastor comes like flying in out of the ceiling. They're like in an arena. He just comes zipping in. That's a good way to get, you know, it's a gimmick, but hey, if it gets people's attention, right? If I started to levitate tonight, you'd hold on to every word I had to say. If I just began to float and started to bump into the ceiling, you know, you'd probably be like, what did he say? But that's what, you know, that's what he's doing. He's literally going up into heaven and he's saying, go preach the gospel. And he's still there right now. He's sitting at the right hand of the throne of God and he's committed unto us the ministry of reconciliation. He said, I've done my work. I did all the hallowed work. I became sin who know no sin that you might be made the righteousness of God. And I was in the world reconciling the world to myself. And now that I'm going to heaven, I'm passing the ball to you. It's in your court now. Now you go out and be an ambassador for me and make, you know, put people at peace with God, save people through me, through preaching the gospel. You know, and, you know, Mark 16, you know, it doesn't cast the disciples necessarily in the best light. I mean, it's human nature, right, that we're learning about. But man, it ends well. Look at verse 20. And they went forth and preached everywhere. I love that. They preached everywhere. Not just their neighbor, not just their relatives, not just the people that they cared about, not just their zip code, not just their, you know, within the radius of their church, just what, you know, the people that potentially might show up. No, everywhere. Everywhere. Every city and every place. They went and they preached the gospel. And then there's this beautiful phrase right here, the Lord working with them. Yes, he's in heaven, sitting in the right hand of the throne of God. And yes, he's told us to go into the world and preach the gospel to every creature. But he hasn't abandoned us. He's still in spirit with us. And anybody that's spent any length of time soul winning knows what this means. To sit there and just open up the Bible and just go through a Roman's road and just go out there with the tear in your eye and with the seed, the precious seed in your hand and you start to preach the gospel to someone you've never met before in your life, you haven't seen and might never see again outside of heaven and you just start just going through these simple verses that you've learned and just doing it, you know, with a true burden and to watch God work in the heart of a sinner. It's amazing. And you walk away and you say, well, what was that about? I'm an ambassador. I just reconciled a soul to God. Why wouldn't we want to do that? Why wouldn't we want a part of that? Why wouldn't we want to see what that's like? Why wouldn't you want to experience that? Hardness of heart. That's the only thing I can explain it. Only way I can explain it. Why don't God's people do what God has commanded them to do? Maybe because that's all they see it as. Maybe it's just because, well, it's just they don't like being told what to do. And look, it's not me telling you what to do when it comes. Did I write this? And Pastor Russell said, go preach to God. That wasn't me, friend. I didn't come and suffer for you. I didn't reconcile you. That was Jesus that said that. It was Jesus that did that. But some people, they don't like being told what to do, whatever. I don't know. I don't know what it is. But somewhere, whatever it is, it can really just be summed up in this, hardness of heart. And, you know, it's not just that people are missing out on experiencing that or what it's like to see God, as it says here, working with them. It's not like Jesus came back down from heaven and was there with them at the door or whatever. It was the Spirit moving. The Spirit giving them utterance. The Spirit, you know, bringing the signs following. The Spirit ministering to the heart of the hearers. That's what it means that the Lord was working with them. Look, it's not just about that experience. That's just like a fringe benefit. That's just something that we get to experience because we're being obedient to go and preach the gospel. But what's truly amazing about it is that when we preach the gospel and someone gets saved, that person will never go to hell. That's the most amazing thing. And look, there will be, if you would just start, and as long as you continue, if you've already started soul winning, and just be faithful to doing what you can to preach the gospel to every preacher, to help. Obviously we, this church, cannot preach the gospel to everyone in the whole world. But if we get people saved and we disciple them and we can make more soul winners, we can have a bigger impact. We can do our part and maybe be an example to other churches and other places around this world to do the same. And we can see something done for God. But regardless of whatever impact we might have on this world, if you would just get over hardness of heart, not allow it to set in on your own heart, and just be faithful to the command and go and watch God work with you, you will go to heaven and there will be a throng of people that are there because of you. It matters what we're doing here. It makes an eternal difference. Because we are ambassadors for Christ. We've been given the ministry of reconciliation, the same ministry that Christ had when he was on this earth, the same ministry that we have partaken in when we got saved, is now ours. Let's fulfill it. Let's go ahead and close in a word of prayer. Lord, again, thank you for the great calling that we have in this life to serve you. The great privilege that it is, Lord, to serve you. Lord, I pray you help us to have a proper perspective of what it is that we're here to do. And Lord, you help us to get and to keep our priorities in line. And Lord, I understand, Lord, that we have many responsibilities in life, Lord, but this is one of them. If we're saved, if we're Christians, if we're children of God, we are ambassadors for Christ. Help us to not be negligent in our duty, Lord, and help us to, Lord, know the joy of soul winning and the joy of seeing a soul get saved, Lord, and the joy of the fellowship of the Spirit when we're out there doing what you've commanded us to do. We ask these things in Christ's name, amen. Alright, we'll go ahead and sing one more song before we are dismissed. Alright, if you could please grab a window and turn that window to song number 343. We'll be singing song number 343, Revive Us Again, and that is song number 343. Let's sing that one first. Let's sing it one more time. Hallelujah, hallelujah, amen. Hallelujah, hallelujah, we've got us all blessed. Revive us again, with a child we've got all. We're so deep we can't no more. We're so strong and we're one. Hallelujah, hallelujah, amen. Hallelujah, hallelujah, we've got us all blessed. Amen. Let's sing it tonight. We are dismissed. We are dismissed. Is he like 6'4"? Yeah, something as big as me and he's frickin' fricked as a lion. And he's fast. He's been saying things fast. He seems to be chasing down the safety of his good faith. That's crazy. He used to want to try to build. He's saying so many things. He's saying so many things.