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. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Did I make that up? Or, like, am I reading something into the text that isn't there? Or is that what Proverbs 31 is just downright saying? And I understand that we live in a modern world. She's not necessarily going to take hold of the spindle and the distaff. And, you know, most of us don't even know what that even is. But the principles still apply. Even though it's written approximately 3,000 years ago, the principles apply. We've got to modernize it and say, okay, she's going to the grocery store. She's buying the raw ingredients. She's saving her husband money. She's cooking nutritious, healthy meals for her family. You can still bring the principle right into 2024 and it's just as relevant as it's ever been. Verse 9 of chapter 18, He also, that is slothful in his work, is brother to him that is a great waster. Right? Now, obviously, everybody's going to waste a little bit from time to time. But we don't want to be a great waster. And if you're constantly wasting money, you know, this is similar to the one who's slothful in their work. Why? Because a penny saved is a penny earned. And so the same thing applies to the husband who's not working to bring home the bacon as the wife who then takes the money that her husband brings home and wastes it and squanders it and spends it all. Right? We want the husband to work hard and we want the wife to be a good steward of the resources that she's given by her husband. Because typically it's our wives that are going to be purchasing the food or going grocery shopping. And I'm not, you know, maybe your family works differently or whatever. I'm not trying to, you know, say that this is exactly how everyone's life is. But in general, right, the husband is out paying the bills, working. The wife is running the household, guiding the house, as the Bible says. Again, not something that I invented, but literally found in the Bible. So you're eating, right? And, uh, let me say this also here. This is, uh, this is, uh, what I say, not the Lord, right? You know, you know, first Corinthians chapter seven, where the apostle Paul says like, you know, now I'm speaking, not the Lord. And then he gives his opinion. And then he says, you know, but I think I have the spirit of God, you know. Let me give you my opinion too. And this is not an official point. This is off the record, okay. You know, isn't it so much easier, because we're talking about food and stuff. Isn't it so much easier just to go to the gym and use the machines, right? They don't work. You want to build real muscle, it's free weights. It's body weight exercises. It's calisthenics. That's going to build the real muscle. But you know why people love the machines? Because they're easy. I'm bringing this up because my, you know, my son just turned 12 and I told him, you know, that he can't lift weights with me until he's 12. You know, that's when I like to start him out lifting. And so he's reached that age and so I got to start, uh, indoctrinating him even from the pulpit now. That it's all about free weights. But people love the machines because they're easy. Don't take that path of least resistance and get on that Smith machine, that pec deck. I don't even know which machine is which because I don't use them. All right. Again, that was me, not the Lord. That's not a biblical point, but I think that I do also have the Spirit of God on that point. Number four, go if you would to Romans chapter 10. Here's my final point. And look, maybe these points seem a little bit random, but literally this could be 100 point sermon. It could be a 200 point sermon. How much time you got? Because we could, I go, I could do this all day. Even if I'm jet lag, I'll just keep going. Maybe these points are a little random, but the points don't really matter as much as the principle matters. Hey, you do what's right. You do what the Bible says. You do the hard thing and you don't just take the easy way out the path of least resistance, right? Put some effort into living your life the right way. What's the right way? The biblical way. Number one, the right way is to get married and it's till death do us part. You know, and, and, and, oh, yeah, it's so easy to, to have a, a, a passionate relationship with someone new. Okay? Any loser can do that. Do the right thing and rekindle passion with your spouse. Right? Where am I getting that? How about Revelation chapter 2? You've lost the first love. Do the first works. Number two, we said not only in your marriage, but also in your social interactions. You know, put some effort into actually having meaningful relationships with your friends and with your family, spending time with loved ones where it's not about just using alcohol to have a good time, but you can actually learn to just have a good time making merry and rejoicing with your friends in that which is godly and wholesome and righteous. What if I told you you can have a great time without sinning at all? But it's going to take some creativity. It's going to take some effort. Hey, you can have a passionate relationship with a woman and be totally right with god. It's called your wife. Number three, food. You're eating. Put some effort into actually making the real stuff at home. Eating, right. Not wasting money. Now, look, if you have a bunch of extra money and money to burn, then go eat out every day. More power to you. But you know what? Most of us don't have that kind of money to just throw around and waste, and, you know, we don't want to waste, and we also don't want to waste, you know, by eating all that fast food and out to eat kind of junk food anyway. Lastly, this, your evangelism. Your evangelism. You know what's, you know what's just the easiest thing to do is just to hand out a tract. So easy. And I grew up so many times hearing this from the pulpit. Hey, come on, man. How hard is it to just hand out a tract, man? Just hand out the tract. But let me tell you something. Yeah, it is super easy to hand out a tract. It also is super ineffective. And it's also not what the Bible tells us to do. Now look, I preached, I preached a sermon a long time ago called, Why Tracts Are Worthless. I preached it in 2007. And so many people hate that sermon. And just, they keep bringing it up, and it bothers them so much. But you know, go back and listen to it, because, you know, I still stand by everything that I said. And you say, come on, man, are tracts really totally worthless? Look, it's not that tracts are totally worthless, but it's that they have so little value that it rounds down to zero. So I mean, I'm not saying they have no value, but I'm saying it rounds down to zero. I'm just rounding off. And look, when I was in my younger days, I remember when I was a teenager, handing out, and I'm not exaggerating, I'm not kidding, tens of thousands of tracts. And I know this because I would literally order them 10,000 at a time. I was ordering just thousands and thousands of tracts from the Fellowship Tract League. I was ordering thousands and thousands of tracts of Chick tracts, and all these different tracts, and I'm just handing out so many tracts. And I remember just thinking, oh, man, I bet a bunch of people are getting saved. You know, I got a little older and wiser and spent more time in Christianity and evangelism, and now looking back, I believe that a whopping zero people probably got saved from all of the tracts that I handed out combined. And you know what's funny? We are constantly handing out these little YouTube cards that are pretty cool. I mean, I think they're beautiful, I think they're nice, all the different varieties of them. You know, we've got all different YouTube cards for different occasions and different styles. Some are just the Bible Way to Heaven, big QR codes. Other ones have documentaries, different countries, different mission trips. And we hand these things out. Let me tell you something. We're not talking tens of thousands. We're talking hundreds of thousands, hundreds of thousands of invites to our church and also these beautiful YouTube cards with the QR codes and all that wonderful stuff. And what's so funny is that a lot of times we direct those QR codes to fresh uploads of the Bible Way to Heaven onto YouTube and so you can actually track and see how many people actually scan that QR code. And look, Raymond, am I lying? Hey, it is ridiculously low number of people who click on that QR. So you know, the tract pastor out of this world is like, oh, man, I'm reaching so many people. How many people say, you know, we're handing out these cards. They got the plan of salvation on the back. They got a QR code on the front. How many people are even just taking the time to just pull off their phone and go... And by the way, we don't hand these out to 90-year-old grandmas. At least you shouldn't because you should know they're not going to know how to scan the thing. We're typically handing these out to people who have smartphones, young people, middle-aged people who are actually going to have the ability to easily... And look, I've gone to so many restaurants where it's the only way to order. You go to the airport, they're like, you got to scan it with your phone. Where's the menu? Scan it with your phone. How do I pay the bill? Scan it with your phone. Everybody knows how to do it, and yet we hand out hundreds of thousands and just an insanely low number of people. Right, Raymond? Like, what kind of numbers are we talking, Raymond, clicking on these things? Two or three every couple days. Yeah, so it's like every few days, like two or three clicks, so maybe we're getting like seven clicks a week, and we're probably handing out thousands of them every week. And then you wonder, some of those seven are soul winners checking to see if the thing works. It might literally be zero. Because the soul winners are checking, because I check it every once in a while like, hey, before I hand these out, to make sure that the thing hasn't been deleted by YouTube. And so we're checking it. That's probably the seven views. But go ahead and just tell yourself that everybody who gets a track is just reading it and pouring over it and thinking about it and clicking on the links and visiting the website. It ain't happening, folks. But you want to know what works is what the Bible says, opening your mouth boldly to make known the mystery of the gospel. That's what God has called us to do, to preach the gospel to every creature, to open our mouths and do the hard thing. Of course, it's super easy. And I grew up my whole life hearing preachers say, come on, man, how hard is it to just hand out the tract? Hey, how hard is it to just go to the gym and get on the leg press machine? Yeah, you're right. That leg press machine is super easy. You just keep every week you can add another 100 pounds. You know, I think I leg pressed 390 pounds when I was like a fetus. No, I was like 12. I was like 12 and I was a skinny dweeb, leg pressing like 390 pounds because it's the most worthless exercise ever invented. It does nothing. You spend months doing the leg press, go back to the squat rack, you haven't gained anything. There's no crossover. Sorry, I'm getting off topic again. The point is, yeah, of course, it's super easy to hand out a tract. You know, oh, at the restaurant, I'll leave the tract. Folks, tracts virtually don't work. And I'm sure you could find some example of a tract that worked. And look, we have examples in this room of people who came to church because of a tract. Like I said, it's just that it rounds down to zero when we have literally, in our church's history, okay, I said hundreds of thousands. Actually, we've handed out probably at this point over a million invitations to our church on YouTube cards. I think it'd be easy to say that we've handed out a million in the last 20 years. Okay, if not, we're really close to that. And yet we could maybe bring up two examples or three examples or something. It was effective. And here's why it was effective is because God probably blessed it because he knew that we weren't out handing out tracts. He knew we were out doing real soul winning. So then when they weren't home and we left the tract, God blessed the work that way. Folks, yeah, of course it's super easy to hand out a tract. It's also super ineffective. It's also super not mentioned in the Bible, okay? We need to open our mouths and preach the gospel. And look, you wanna know what tracts are good for? Tracts are good as an icebreaker to start the conversation. Hey man, let me show you these Christian films on YouTube. Are you a Christian? Or hey, let me give you an invitation to our church. Hey, we got the Bible way to heaven right here on the back. Do you know for sure if you were to die today that you'd go to heaven? That's what they're good for. It's just as a icebreaker. And sometimes when I'm running low on tracts, I'll just flash it like a badge. You know, I don't wanna give it out because I only have a couple left. It's like, hey, we're from Faith Forward Baptist Church. Just wanna ask you a few questions. Because you know what? Whether you flash it like a badge or leave it with them, it's probably doing the same thing. But look, again, I'm all for leaving it so that one in 100,000 people can do something with it or one out of 10,000 people can do something with it. Like I said, you know, and people always wanna prove me wrong with some anecdote, but again, the anecdote doesn't prove me wrong because even if tracts are effective 0.0013% of the time, it still rounds down to zero. Anything under 0.49% and I'm calling it a zero. You know? And believe me, when you hand out 250 tracts, you're probably getting no action and so it rounds down to zero again. Romans chapter 10 verse 13, and this is the last point, we're winding down. Uh, for whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. Salvation is available to anyone who calls upon the name of the Lord by faith. There is no one who comes to Christ believing in his death, burial, and resurrection as the only way to heaven and calls out to him for salvation that will be turned away. Jesus said, him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out. And whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. Salvation is available to anyone who will call upon the Lord by faith. Right? No one in the history of man has truly believed on Christ and called out to him and had Christ say, nah, not you. It just, it just has never happened and never will happen. This is a promise of God. How then shall they call on him in whom they've not believed? Right? Because if, if they pray a prayer to the Lord but they don't actually believe in him, they're just saying words, right? In order to biblically call on the name of the Lord, you have to believe in Christ. And when we say believe in Christ, we're not just saying the facts about Christ, we're talking about trusting his finished work on the cross as your way to heaven. Trusting him as the only savior, that's what we're talking about. Not trusting in your own works. How shall they believe in him of whom they've not heard? Right? How can you believe the gospel if you don't know what the gospel is? How can you trust Christ as savior if you don't even understand or know who Jesus Christ is or what he did for you? How shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher? Right? Somebody's got to go and tell them. And when we say preacher, we're not necessarily talking about a pastor, we're talking about any man, woman, boy or girl who's preaching the gospel at any given moment. How shall they preach except they be sent as it is written? How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace and bring glad tidings of good things. This is a quote from Isaiah chapter 52 verse 7. You look at Romans 10, 15, and I'm going to read for you from Isaiah 52, 7. So you're looking at your Bible there in Romans. I'm going to read for you the source of this quote in the Old Testament. How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings and publisheth peace. What is the big colossal difference between what I just read in Isaiah and what you're looking at there in Romans? The mountains, right? So when we go back to the original context, it says how beautiful upon the mountains. Now, the Apostle Paul is not bringing up the mountains because it's not relevant to his point that he's making, right? He's just referring to the fact that the feet of those who preach the gospel are beautiful. But, you know, let's talk about those mountains for a minute. You know, when you think about the feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace, we're talking about going into all the world and preaching the gospel to every creature. Now, in the ancient world, messages were carried by people on foot, runners, right? They didn't have the pony express. They're on foot. Jesus and his disciples, you don't see them riding around on horses. They're walking. They're on foot. And usually, even in battle, in warfare, messages were sent by runners on foot. Why? Because they can run on all terrain. They can go over mountains that horses could not necessarily go over. The human being is the most versatile, effective, long-distance runner on the planet, greater than any animal. And so human beings on foot, before machines and vehicles, are the ultimate endurance runner. They can outrun horses over a long distance. Short distance, of course, a horse can win. But if we're talking 100 miles, human being beats horse. They have literal races, man versus horse. The humans win. Spoiler alert. And so when we see the mountains, how beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, we notice that sometimes preaching the gospel can be difficult. It can be difficult, right? The idea here is getting the message to the lost, there's an obstacle. There's a mountain in the way. Oh, guess we can't do it. There's a mountain. No, man. Bring the gospel over the mountain is what the Bible is saying in Isaiah 52.7. How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of them that preach the gospel. Because they're bringing the gospel, it's difficult sometimes, right? Handing a tract is easy. Preaching the gospel, sometimes there are obstacles to overcome. Sometimes there's a language barrier where you have to learn a foreign language. Sometimes there's a geographic barrier where you have to drive for five hours to go to some village on the Navajo reservation or the Hopi reservation or some small town in some distant part of Arizona. Geographic barriers, language barriers, social barriers. Look, it can sometimes be a barrier of shyness, a mountain of shyness, a mountain of lacking confidence or social skills. You know what? I've seen some shy and awkward people do an excellent job of soul winning because they went over that mountain and they preached the gospel in spite of difficulties. The Bible says in verse 17 of Romans 10, then faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the word of God. But I say, have they not heard? Yes, verily their sound went into all the earth and their words unto the ends of the world. Look, my friend, the gospel is still being preached today the same way it was 2000 years ago with people's mouths, with people's tongues. They use their feet to walk to a person and they open their mouth and they give them the gospel. It'll never go out of style. It'll never stop being relevant. And look, today many people are even preaching the gospel online through video chat. And you know what? They're still opening their mouth and preaching the gospel boldly and getting people saved. OK, instead of just, oh, here, let me leave this tract on the urinal. Wow. And then just watch the salvation's come rolling in. Right? It ain't happening, folks. Don't take that path of least resistance. Soul winning is hard. Evangelizing is hard. But you know what? It's what God has called us to do. We've got to overcome those difficulties. We've got to get out there and preach the gospel. And you know what? Also, just witnessing in your personal life, besides going out and doing an official soul winning. You know what? School, work, neighborhood, whatever opportunities you have, the co-ops and the groups that you're in, get the gospel. Get the gospel. Of course it's easier to just say, oh, here's an invitation to my church. That's going to get tucked away with all the coupons and all the business cards. It's going to go in the junk drawer and it's probably never going to see the light of day. And you know, that tract's probably just going to end up clogging the urinal, you know, at the end of the day, before it does anything else. And we got the data to prove it. We hand out this stuff and we have hyperlinks and we've got websites on there and we've got QR codes. And we see the abysmally low numbers of people who even take the effort to just push a button and click on that. And we're telling people, hey, man, check out this video. It's eight minutes long. A video that's eight minutes long is worlds better than a gospel tract because they're actually hearing the gospel preached by a saved soul winner as opposed to just reading it on a paper. But even then, you can't get people to even click on the thing. Right? Bottom line is you talk to people, you look them in the eye, you interact, you preach the gospel with love in your heart, kindly, gently, boldly preach the gospel. And you get people saved. Right? You get results. What am I saying this morning? I'm saying do what's right, even if it's hard. Do what the Bible says, even if it's hard. Do what works, even if it's hard. Do what gets results, even if it's hard. And by the way, this thing of getting results, things that work and being biblical, these go hand in hand. These are not mutually exclusive. If you are supposedly doing what the Bible says and it's just not working at all, you know, maybe you're doing it wrong. Maybe you need to look at the Bible again because God's way works. God's not telling us, hey, go put a square peg in a round hole. Go beat your head against the wall. Go fail. No, he sent us into this world to succeed. Okay? He's given us the tools we need to succeed. Right? He enables. He calls us to his work and he also enables us and gives the tools to do that work. And so do what's right. Do what works. Do what's biblical, even if it's hard. When it comes to your marriage, put in the work. When it comes to friendships, family relationships, put in the work. When it comes to eating and feeding your family, put in some work. Make the good stuff, not just phoning it in over and over and over again. And especially if you're a stay-at-home wife, right? It's your job to take care of that family and feed them and make sure that they have a nutritious, economical meal. And number four, most importantly, and I know my examples are all over the place, but they're all over the place on purpose to show you the universality of this principle. Fourth, when it comes to your evangelism, do it the hard way. Walk up to someone and give them the gospel as opposed to just, here, let me just give a slightly bigger tip than usual inside a gospel tract. And then I'm sure that the waitress is going to go, wow, five dollars instead of three? What must I do to be saved? She's probably just going to go, sweet, throw it away. And I'm for giving a big tip, by the way. But at the end of the day, if you don't give the gospel, don't expect results. Don't expect the salvation to come rolling in if you're not presenting the gospel using the Bible. But if you do present the gospel using the Bible, you will ultimately get results because he that goes forth and weepeth bearing precious seed shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him. Let's bow your heads and have a word of prayer. Father, we thank you so much for your word. We thank you so much for telling us what is right and how to live our lives, how to have a marriage, how to have a family, how to have friends, how to have a home life and how to have our food and how to have results when it comes to winning people to Christ. Lord, help us to be willing to put forth some effort and do some hard things. Help us not to be the lazy man who just takes the path of least resistance. And in Jesus name, we pray. Amen. Amen. Take your soul books together. Go to hymn 277. Hymn 277. Only trust him. Hymn number 277. We'll sing it out on that first verse and be dismissed. Come every soul by sin oppressed. Hymn number 277. Sing it out. Come every soul by sin oppressed. There's mercy with the Lord. And he will surely give you rest by trusting in his word. Only trust him. Only trust him. Only trust him now. He will save you. He will save you. He will save you now. For Jesus shed his precious blood and preached blessing to be strong. Watch now into the risen blood that washes white as snow. Only trust him. Only trust him. Only trust him now. He will save you. He will save you. He will save you now. Yes, Jesus is the truth, the way that leads you into rest. Believe in him without delay and you are fully blessed. Only trust him. Only trust him. Only trust him now. He will save you. He will save you. He will save you now. Come then and join this holy band and band on to glory come. To dwell in that celestial land where joy's immortal flow. Only trust him. Only trust him. Only trust him now. He will save you. He will save you. He will save you now. He will save you now. Thank you.