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["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] Let's go ahead and find our seats this evening. Find a seat, find a hymn real close to you. Turn to page number 405. Song number 405. And we will open the service with the banner of the cross. Song number 405. Find a seat, find a hymn real close to you. Turn to page number 405. Now let's go ahead and sing it out. Join me on that first now. Sing it out on the first. There's a royal banner gave in full display To the soldiers of the King President and Secretary There's an empty name While his ransom comes This is the end Marching on, marching on Ford, price, gown, everything fell off There's an empty name Join and sing Beneath the banner of the cross Song number 405. I know you guys are tired. You guys lost an hour of sleep, but it's singing time, all right? Song number 405. Sing it out on the second. Though the fall may rage yet And the rest of what Let the standard be displayed And beneath it's full The soldiers of the Lord For the truth be the best made Marching on, marching on Ford, price, gown, everything fell off There's an empty name Join and sing Beneath the banner of the cross Sing it out on the third. You have to sing it on that King part, all right? When I say King, you guys have to sing out that one out, all right? Song number 405. Sing it out on that third now. Overlap and see Where ever man bays well Make the glorious night his come But the crimson banner Now the storm will tell By the words of King his love Here we go Marching on, marching on Ford, price, gown, everything fell off Here we go Round him we Toil and sing Beneath the banner of the cross That was better, but I'm going to ask you guys to sing out like you mean it this time, all right? Give it all you've got. We're going to sing it out. 405, sing it out. Finish strong. I'm the last now. When the glory comes It's growing fairly new It is his thing day by day And before our kingdom Will she disappear Because the world shall sway Marching on, marching on Ford, price, gown, everything fell off Here we go Round him we Toil and sing Beneath the banner of the cross Amen, great singing. We want to welcome everyone here to Verity Baptist Church here on our Sunday evening service. We call it the most exciting service of the week. Of course, we have a special service tonight and we are so glad that you are here with us. Let's go ahead and open the service with a word of prayer. Heavenly Father, we love you and we thank you, Lord, for a great day you've given us and we thank you for these dear people who would come, Lord, and sing praises to your name and listen to your words preached tonight, Lord, and pray that you bless the service. We pray for the singing, the preaching, and, of course, the fellowship, and we hope, Lord, that everything that we said and done this evening would only bring glory and honor to your name. We love you and Jesus, and I pray. Amen. All right, it's now time for favorites where, if you're selected, we will sing a stanza from the song that you picked. Go ahead, Riley. Song number two. Glory to his name, song number two. Down at the cross where my Savior died. It's a great song, so we have to sing this one out like you mean it. Our song number two. Glory to his name, sing it out. It's on the first. Down at the cross where my Savior died. Down at the cross where my Savior died. I cried, and to my heart was the blood of God. Glory to his name, sing it out. Glory to his name. Glory to his name. And to my heart was the blood of God. Glory to his name. Uh, Miss Ava Guy. 246. Song number 246. Redeemed how I love to proclaim it. Amen. Song number 246. We're going to sing it out on that verse now. Redeemed how I love to proclaim it. Sing it out on the first. Redeemed how I love to proclaim it. Redeemed by the blood of the Lamb. Redeemed through his infinite mercy. His shadow forever I am. Redeemed. Redeemed by the blood of the Lamb. Redeemed. Redeemed. His shadow forever I am. Uh, Miss Kimmy Guy. 188 on the last. The Love of God. It's a song about the love of God. We're about to sing this one out with some passion. If you can, song number 188, Couldn't We With Ink. Sing it out on that last now. Could we with ink the ocean fail And through the skies a parchment paint Wherein the song of earth will kill And every hand must climb a tree To write love of God above The plain blue shine dry Look as though not in a hole A stretch from sky to sky Oh love of God I want you real I want you nice and strong It shall forevermore renew The sweet angel's song Um, Avery Guy. 415. Song number 405. 405. 415. It's victory through grace Conquering now and still to conquer. Another big one. So let's sing this one out. Sing it out on the first. Conquering now and still to conquer Writing nothing in his mind Leaving the full sun All the faithful Into the hands of the high See them with perfect Have fancy Grab the brilliant The red Shout in the name of Their leader Couldn't what we receive Now to the strong is the battle Now to the strong is the race Yet to the true and the faithful It's his promise through grace Uh, Matthew, go ahead. 116. On the third. What was it? 216. One of the verity favorites. Song number 216. A pilgrim was I And a wandering He sings. 216. Let's sing that last tag as well. Song number 216. We're gonna sing it out on that second. He tore at my soul And now we bleed He made that mistake Read my name Who leads me beside The simple truth He brought me Instead of others Sing it out Surely goodness And mercy Shall follow me All the days All the days of my life Surely goodness And mercy Shall follow me All the days All the days of my life Sing it out And I shall dwell In the house of love Your forever Legend feeds At the table I shall be Surely goodness And mercy Shall follow me All the days All the days of my life All the days All the days of my life Amen. Amen. We want to welcome you to the Sunday evening service here at Ready Baptist Church. We're so glad that you're with us. Let's take our bulletins and we'll look at some announcements real quickly. If you do not have a bulletin, you can raise your hand and one of our ushers will get one for you. In the verse this week, Psalm 103 8, the Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and plenteous in mercy. And that's a good verse there. We like that. If you open up your bulletin, you'll see our service time Sunday morning service 10 30 a.m. We had a wonderful service this morning. We're glad you're back out tonight for the evening service. We've got some special things going on tonight. And we'll talk about that here in a minute. We have our Wednesday evening Bible study at 7 p.m. Of course, we'd love for you to join us for that. Our soul winning time, Saturday morning, 10 a.m. is our main soul winning time. And we have additional soul winning times on Thursdays and Sundays at 2 p.m. And if you're a soul winner, don't forget to add your salvations on the communication cards so we can get those put in the bulletin. And if you have a map that you didn't finish, please make sure you mark what was done, what was not done. You can put it in the bin in the foyer. We'll get that recycled through and make sure it gets done. And then, of course, if you're running late, you can call us or text us at the number there, 916-868-9080. If you look at the announcements and upcoming events, of course, we have the vision offering. And we hope that you'll just be thinking about the vision offering. And you should have one of these flyers there and be considering how the Lord might have you participate with that. Make sure you read through this if you haven't done so already. And then, of course, tonight we're going to have some special testimonies about the Philippines admissions trip. So after the offering, I'll come up and we've got three men that will be giving testimonies tonight. So I'll call them up and they'll come up and just talk to us about their experience in the Philippines. And then for my sermon, I'll give a testimony as well. So we're glad that you're here, of course, for that. There's choir practice today that went well. Biblical Leadership Institute, just make a note, guys, that this starts on Tuesday, not this Tuesday, but next Tuesday, March 18th. And then there's other things there for you to look at. If you look at the back of the bulletin, birthdays and anniversaries for the month of March. Tomorrow's brother Scott Sweeten's birthday, March 10th. And my mom has a birthday this week. Grannis Jimenez on March 12th. And Montel Johnson Jr. has a birthday on March 15th. Praise Report, Money Matters, all of those things are there for you to look at. And I think that's it for all of the announcements. So we're going to go ahead and sing the chorus of the week as we prepare to receive the offering this evening. And after the offering, we're going to have some men come and give us some testimony. So let's go ahead and take the chorus of the week. It's a short one. We'll sing it through twice. That all the earth may know. And let's go ahead and sing it out. That all the earth may know. That all the earth may know. That all the earth may know. That all the earth may know. With the gospel and cries we must know. That all the earth may know. That all the earth may know. That all the earth may know. With the gospel and cries we must know. That all the earth may know. Amen. Just want to remind you to please make sure you turn your cell phones off or place them on silent during the service. We'll have the guys come up and help us with the offering at this time. Let's go ahead and bow our heads and have a word of prayer. Heavenly Father, Lord, we do love you. We thank you for allowing us to gather together tonight. Lord, we pray that you'd bless the offering, the gift, and the giver. We pray that you continue to meet our financial needs. Lord, we pray for these testimonies we're going to hear, Lord, and help us to learn from them and be encouraged by them and also for the preaching to come. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. All right. Well, at this time we're going to have some testimonies from the Philippines Mission Strip. I've asked three men to come and give us testimonies tonight. And the first up is Brother Christian Groenberg. He's going to come and speak for us at this time. All right. Well, thank you, Pastor, for allowing me to give a testimony tonight. So I went to Manila in the Philippines last month in February. And this was actually the second time that I went there. I went also in 2024 and I liked it so much I decided I would go again. And the reason why is because the Philippines is a very receptive place. All the stories you've heard are very true. They speak English there. They're Catholic. They're very humble. And it's very easy to win people to Christ. I personally was able to win 65 people to the Lord this one trip. And it was a combination of both school soul winning and also in person at the parks. And I find that they're very humble people. They're very joyful. It's also a very poor place, but despite their poverty they're very joyful and also very willing to listen to you. So every day of the mission trip, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, we got to preach in schools. And the way this worked is that Brother Franklin, who's one of the main soul winning leaders, he got together with the principals of each school and then he allowed, he made an agreement with them where we were allowed to preach during the class periods. So we were allowed 30 to 45 minutes to preach the gospel to the kids. And we just went two and two and preached the gospel with these big cards. And each of the cards had a Bible verse on them. And we were able to go through all the soul winning verses like Romans 3.23, Romans 6.23. And then, so we had 30 or 40 minutes to do that. And then at the end of the class we would have questionnaires. And these questionnaires had basic questions just about the soul winning presentation, asking them certain things like on a scale of 1 to 100, how sure are you that you're on your way to heaven? Or what does a person have to do to go to heaven? Just make sure they were listening to the presentation and make sure they actually got saved. One of the questions was if someone believes in God but they don't believe that Jesus paid for their sins, would they be going to heaven? So kind of a complex question but it really nails down if they understood the presentation. And then the last question was if a person believes in Jesus but they commit murder or suicide, would they still be going to heaven? And that would really nail down if someone believes in eternal security. Because in the Philippines, they're a Catholic country and they really have ingrained in them this idea that if they commit suicide, they're going to go to hell even if they're a believer. So from the soul winning, we got some pretty great results. And then also the park soul winning, we got to go to this one college campus called UP Diliman and there was a big open field. There's a constant stream of students coming in, just sitting on their picnic blankets studying or the benches studying, hanging out, not doing really anything. And it's really easy to find a group that's willing to listen to you. Actually, probably most of the kids there are willing to listen to you. And almost always they get saved once they start listening to you. So it's really not like America at all. It makes you realize in America, people are very prideful. Like no one wants to talk about religion. They're very private, they're agnostic, they're atheist or they just want to figure out things themselves. But in the Philippines, I think because of their humble spirit and their poverty and their openness about religion, they're very receptive. So that's a great thing. I definitely recommend that anyone with the ability to go to the Philippines should go there because you're definitely going to get a lot of people saved, even if you're an average homeowner. So yeah, I'm really glad I had the opportunity to go and I probably will go again next time as well. Thank you. Thank you, Brother Christian, and I appreciate that. One thing I probably should have explained about this missions trip this year was a little unique and maybe in some ways we should call it like a mega missions trip because there's actually three missions trips that were back to back three weeks in a row. And Brother Christian went to the one in Manila, which was the first week. The second week, there was one in Bicol, which is where Brother Sean, Ms. Ava, went. And then the third week, the last week, there was one in Pampanga, and that's where I was and our family. So there was really three different locations. And so I'm sure Pastor Secchi is very tired this week after all of that. And one thing to piggyback on what Brother Christian said, and please don't take this the wrong way. I hope you understand my heart. It's almost hard to explain unless you go there, but the humility and the joy of these people, it's quite a thing. It makes you look in the mirror and really want to ask about the pride in your own heart because I don't want to sound like, you know, come back and say all Americans are prideful or whatever, but it's quite a thing. You talk to these people and just the genuine humility there. And then you're talking to them and you're thinking, man, this person is just so humble and content and just joyful. And I'm not talking about, you know, we talk about poor people. I'm talking about architects, engineers, I mean, educated people that will talk to you and smile and be kind. You know, it just makes me think that if we don't have a culture like that in our country, that we should at least have that culture as Christians. So anyway, thank you, Brother Christian. I appreciate that. The second person I've asked to speak tonight is actually my dad, Felix Jimenez. And he is 75 years old and he goes to all these mission strips and he's out there soul winning. And they love having him out there. He's a fun guy to be around, but it just encourages everybody with his age. He's going to come and speak to us at this time. Thank you, everybody. Thank you. I can I can talk into my own in my house. Say my wife out here. OK, I want to thank you, the Lord, for the opportunity. There will be me for go to the Philippines and thank you for the part of my son for invite me. I got to spend time with me and my grandkid. And really like. I want to give it. Thank you, brother. Stocking for hospitality. I know. And I want to give and thank you for very much. The church for pray for us, for support, for us, for take for put your money. Or save the people and the work you participate. Maybe you go over there. So it's a lot of work to go there. Some place, some place you are driving a lot of motorcycle, a lot of people in the street like that. You know, and for you over there. Every dollar you got, you're given for mission free is for safe people and for people happy. You know, when I go Philippine or someplace like that, people say that they are in attendance and open the heart of God. And receive Jesus. You participate. OK, for you at this. Thank you. God bless you. Amen. Well, I appreciate that testimony. And last up tonight is Brother Shaw. I asked for the Shaw if you would speak. I'm not sure. Here he is. Come on up and speak for us. Well, before I begin, I wanted to thank Pastor again for allowing my wife and I to go there. We had such a great time and I appreciate the time that we had their pastors. Thank you for that. So as I believe Brother Christian mentioned, there was like several trips going on and my wife and I went to the Bicol trip. So I didn't really know much about Bicol, but I kind of just to give you some context about it. So, you know, compared to like Metro Manila. So just to give you some like population numbers, Metro Manila has almost 13 and a half million people. And so Bicol is actually about an hour flight from Manila. And or or you could actually take a you could drive there and it would take you about 12 to 14 hours. And I think Brother Christian mentioned as well, Brother Franklin, he actually rode his motorcycle from Manila to Bicol. And, you know, I don't know how he did it, but that guy is one tough Filipino. You know, he is he he rode his motor and they don't have nice motorcycles. They have like these kind of like, you know, dirt bike, you know, Honda's that they ride. And he rode that treacherous trip, you know, 14 hours to Bicol. So, you know, he's a tough he's a tough guy. I don't know if he does security or something for Pastor Stuckey out there, but I just want to give him a shout out because he helped organize the Bicol trip as well. So but but just to give you a comparison for population and Bicol, it's about six million. So it's still that region still got a lot of people. And it was very receptive. You know, I think that's the theme of the soul winning there. And we spent a lot of time in the parks. You know, we did the schools as well. But what's funny about soul winning out there is that when they describe, you know, going soul winning, they're like, let's go in a round of soul winning. Like you'll go we'll do one round of soul winning. And it's funny because, you know, that's kind of like a boxing analogy or like a fighting analogy. But but that's kind of how it is, honestly, like you'll do a round of soul. We get a bunch of people saved and then you'll do another round, round two. And then, you know, you'll start feeling pretty tired, you know, like you'll feel like you need to take a break, you know, have something to drink or something to eat. So, you know, and one funny story is that, you know, you can get in a round of soul winning, you know, in a very short amount of time. We had we went to a restaurant and they told us that our food would be ready in about 30 to 40 minutes. So we we took the time and we said, you know, let's do let's do one round of soul winning. So we did one round of soul winning. We got some people saved, came back, had our meal and, you know, it was awesome. And then as the Christian mentioned as well, there's school preaching. So we did some of that as well and be cool. And that was that was really cool. It was a really great experience because it was older kids. You know, we did a high school class and I don't know how the grade systems work there, but I was in an eighth grade class. And and these eighth graders were really sharp. Like some of the boys, you know, you had to kind of call them out and have them move up front. But the girls were really attentive. And as Christian mentioned, too, they have a really thorough questionnaire that they hand out. And it's got five questions. It's really thorough. And, you know, for me, actually, I in one of my classrooms, I was able to get eight people who filled that out correctly, 100 percent. And and those are I feel like there's some hard questions, you know, like, you know, as far as and I covered it all. But sometimes you wonder, like in a class of 25 to 30 people, how many people are paying attention there? So that was cool. We did that. And that was a great experience. And honestly, the schools there are nothing like America. You know, we really have a good out here, as Pastor was saying, too. And then the other part of soul winning, too, obviously, is we did a little bit of door to door. We had the chance to see Pastor preach. And that day in Manila, we went door to door. My group did door to door soul winning in the district and they call the district. And that was really cool, too, because you just kind of see the living conditions, too, which again, it's a very poor country. But but people are very content. You know, they seem very content. They seem very humble. And we were able to one thing about the Philippines is that they have basketball courts, you know, in just random places with kind of a covering. And there was a bunch of young people there and we were able to get them saved. So, you know, as far as the salvation's go, the totals for my wife and I, you know, and I got to give credit to my wife, you know, because she was carrying the team out there. But between the two of us, we were able to get eighty seven people saved. Thank you. And that's and that's really a conservative number, folks, because honestly, the way someone works out there is like you're at a park and you're preaching to somebody. And it's like a it's like a domino effect where, you know, somebody will notice that you're talking you're a foreigner, right? Somebody will notice you're talking to, you know, a native there and then they'll tell their friend and then everybody will start coming. And pretty soon you're you're giving the gospel to a group of five, 10, 15 people. And you and it's really hard to tell, you know, who's really paying attention. So often what we would do is sort of, you know, focus on, you know, one, two, three people and kind of gauge our salvation's there. So so we wouldn't say like, oh, you know, all 15 believe maybe they did. There was one instance where, you know, a bunch of kids, I feel like really got it. But, you know, we we conservatively say eighty seven. And just real quick to I know I've been talking we've been talking about the spiritual aspects of it. But I do want to give a plug for it being a really great country to visit. You know, it's a it's a beautiful country and there's a lot of fun stuff to do. The food is amazing. We spent some time in Bicol and they have actually. More spicy food. So, you know, we love that, you know, and they had this like really spicy ice cream you can try. And they have this they call it the Bicol Express. And and again, everyone is very hospitable. And I will also say that it's extremely affordable folks to like if maybe you having on a missions trip and, you know, you're on a budget. And this is the trip for you. You know, I don't know what the exchange rate now. But at the time it was like for every dollar, it's fifty seven pesos, you know, and that's pretty impressive. So, you know, people like us who are poor, you know, you can live like kings and really enjoy it out there, you know, and you can do a bunch of really fun things. You can go visit. They have like islands you can visit private beaches. You can they have a volcano you can go out to. And then lastly, I just want to encourage you to that. I know I'm kind of preaching to the choir tonight. I know a lot of you have been on missions trips before. But if you haven't, I really encourage you to go see the Philippines, because, as Pastor mentioned this morning, you know, some of these numbers are they may sound kind of crazy, you know, like a thousand salvations a month. And I know I was maybe one of those people who was doubting of that. But I believe it now, folks. And sometimes you you have to go out there and just see what the great work that's being done. And honestly, we have a great missionary out there, Pastor Stuckey. He's doing a great work. And honestly, I don't really know any other missionaries that are doing the kind of work he's doing there that are getting the kind of numbers that he's producing. You know, and I brought a bulletin from one of the services. And I'm not going to go into the numbers, but these numbers are really impressive. And I don't know if any other missionaries are really posting their numbers. I know traditionally missionaries have sort of done charity work, you know, like building things and, you know, creating, you know, systems and stuff. And that's fine. But but as far as like impacting eternal, I feel like Pastor Stuckey is doing the best job. And I don't really know any other missionaries that are doing the kind of work he's doing. So definitely go see the Philippines and it will be an encouragement. And for those who haven't seen, I really hope that you do, because like Pastor was saying, it really it really ignites a fire under you. And maybe, you know, maybe developing develops a little bit of a hunger to, you know, maybe here in America, we're just I feel like we're so satisfied sometimes with the things that we're doing. But maybe when you go there, you'll see that what a great work that's being done and it's being done because of you folks. And and, you know, sometimes like Pastor was preaching this morning that, you know, we're not really producing as much results, you know, and and that can be discouraging. We shouldn't do it for the results. Right. We're not doing it for the salvation. But when you go there to the Philippines and you say, wow, you know, Pastor Stuckey and all the churches out there getting all these people saved, they're getting thousands of people saved. Well, how did that happen, folks? It happened because of our labor. You know, it happened because of Pastor and Miss Joanne starting the church, the blood, sweat and tears they put into this. And again, you know, maybe we don't have the big numbers, but, you know, Pastor Stuckey preached a great sermon about entering into the labor of others. And and I truly believe that this is an example of Pastor Stuckey entering into our labor. You know, it wouldn't be possible without your labor, folks. It wouldn't be possible without your giving. So I hope this encourages you to consider the missions and to consider visiting the Philippines. I don't really don't. I mean, honestly, this is the first missions trip my wife and I ever went on. But I don't know if we'd ever go anywhere else because I feel like, you know, we could maybe go to Africa or something. But the Philippines sounds like the best place to go. And we have a great church. We got a great missionary. So I do appreciate the opportunity to go. And thank you for listening. And thank you, Pastor. Appreciate it. Please open up to Acts nine, Acts chapter nine. If you do not have a Bible, please raise your hand and I'm not sure you're reading your Bible. Acts nine. Just keep your hand up and show combine. Acts nine. We're going to read verses one through eighteen. Acts nine versus one through eighteen. Acts nine, beginning in verse number one, and Saul, yet breathing out threatenings and slaughter against the disciples of the Lord, went into the high priest and desired of him letters to Damascus to the synagogues that if he found any of this way, whether they were men or women, he may bring them bound into Jerusalem. And as he journeyed, he came near Damascus and suddenly there shined round about him a light from heaven. And he fell to the earth and heard a voice saying unto him, Saul, Saul, why persecute is thou me? And he said, Who art thou, Lord? And Lord said, I am Jesus whom thou persecutest. It is hard for thee to kick against the pricks. And he, trembling and astonished, said, Lord, what will they have me to do? And the Lord said unto him, Arise and go into the city. It shall be totally what thou must do. And the man which journeyed with him stood speechless, hearing a voice, but seeing no man. And Saul arose from the earth. When his eyes were open, he saw no man. But he led him by the hand and brought him into Damascus. And he was there three days without sight. He neither did eat nor drink. And there was a certain disciple of Damascus named Ananias. And to him said the Lord in the vision, Ananias. And he said, Behold, I am here, Lord. And Lord said unto him, Arise and go to the street which is called Straight and inquire in the house of Judas for one called Saul of Tarsus. For behold, he prayed and had seen in a vision a man named Ananias coming in and putting his hand on him that he might receive his sight. Then Ananias answered, Lord, I've heard by many of this man how much evil he hath done to thy saints at Jerusalem. And here he hath authority from the chief priest to bind all that call on thy name. But the Lord said unto him, Go thy way, for he is a chosen vessel unto me to bear my name before the Gentiles and kings and the children of Israel. For I will show him how great things he must suffer for my name's sake. And Ananias went his way and entered into the house. And putting his hands on him said, Brother Saul, the Lord, even Jesus, that appeared unto me in the way as thou camest, had sent me, that thou mightest perceive thy sight and be filled with the Holy Ghost. And immediately there fell from his eyes as it had been scales. And he received sight forthwith and arose and was baptized. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, thank you for this evening. God, I thank you for your word and for our church. I ask that you please meet with us tonight. Give us all the tender hearts of the message. And I ask that you be the pastor. Please strengthen him and fill him with your spirit. We love you. In Jesus' name, I pray. Amen. Amen. All right. Well, let me go ahead and say thank you again to the men that gave testimonies tonight. And I hope that was encouraging to you and maybe give you a little bit of insight into the missions trip. And tonight I'm going to be preaching a sermon and also giving a testimony, kind of slash testimony, slash sermon. We're there in Acts chapter number nine. And we'll get to Acts nine here in a minute. But let me just give you just some stats from our trip and how things went there. Of course, I announced this morning that we had seven of our soul winners that went out there from our church. There was many more soul winners that were there. But from our church here in Sacramento, seven went out for one of those three weeks. And Brother Christian, of course, had sixty five salvations for the strongest. Ava had eighty seven. And then our group, which was me, my dad and my two sons, we had a total of sixty four salvations. So that's seven soul winners in our two hundred sixteen salvations that were our church people that went out there. So praise the Lord for that. I'm sure the number for the three weeks of missions trip is very, very high. I don't know what the number is. We'll have to get that from Pastor Stuckey. But we had a great time. So like the men have talked about, there's kind of two ways that we emphasize soul winning there in the Philippines. One is the one on one approach or going to someone. And primarily that's done at parks or kind of local areas where you just walk around and find people that are fellowshipping. And it's just again, it's just kind of a little bit of a different culture. We don't really have that in the US where you just, you know, go to parks and you've got groups of people playing a board game together. You know, just just hanging out, just families hanging out, friends hanging out. So you walk up to them, start talking to them and present the gospel to them. And then the other approach is preaching at the schools. So we were in Pampanga and we got to preach in the schools. And that's the first time I'd ever preached in a school. These are public schools, by the way, government schools that are allowing us to come in and preach the gospel to the young people. And the schools, sometimes it ranges from I want to say we were in like five or six different schools while we were there. Sometimes you're preaching in a classroom and a classroom could have anywhere between 15 students and up to 35, 40 students. And then there were times when they just gathered a big assembly together, kind of in a multipurpose type area, where you'd have 100 students that, you know, are all just gathered there and I was able to preach the gospel to them. So and then, of course, when we're talking about the schools preaching to crowds like that, like they've already mentioned, we're not just, you know, counting everyone as a salvation or asking for a raise of hands or anything like that. But there's a survey we hand out and based off how they answer the questions, it helps us understand that they really grasp the gospel and understand the gospel. So it was a great, great time. When it came to the one-on-one salvations, my son Joshua had five salvations while we were out there. We were there for seven days, eight days I think, seven or eight days, and my son Joel had eight salvations. This was just one-on-one talking to individuals. My dad had seven salvations. I had 11 salvations. And then preaching in schools, my son Joel preached at one of the schools and he had six salvations. And then I preached at multiple schools. In fact, there was one day when we, all we did was preach in schools. We had three different schools that we preached in. But one of the schools we had multiple sessions, like three different sessions. And that's the most they'd ever had, that they had three different schools in one day. And we had 27 salvations from those, all of those different assemblies and things like that. So it was a great trip. It was a great time to go out there and see people saved, of course. And then the church. The churches are doing great, you know. It's just, there's a good atmosphere, there's a good spirit. When we were in Manila on Sunday, kind of the main Sunday service, when we were there, there was a record-breaking attendance in the church there in Manila. And I mean, it was just, the building was packed. They had people, there's steps that go up to the second level and there's people sitting on the chairs. And it was just a great time. It was an exciting time. There being in Manila, I preached in Manila on Sunday. I preached for Bicol for their weekend service. I preached in Bicol, excuse me, not Bicol, Pampanga for their weekend service. And also for their midweek service. So we were there for three different days of church. And it was a great time. We had a great time. And what I want to do tonight, as far as kind of the sermon, is I want to preach a sermon on the subject of lessons from the Philippines missions trip. And what I want to do is I want to go through the individuals that I got saved and just kind of give you some lessons that I learned from these people or things that just were highlighted in my mind in regards to these people. And hopefully you'll find it edifying to you in regards to your evangelism and your soul winning. I'm not, don't worry, there's not 11 points. I had 11 salvations, but there's not 11 points. Some of these people you talk in groups, you know. But let me give you just some thoughts, six lessons about these individuals. Now you're there in Acts chapter 9. And if you look down at verse number 1, of course, there's a very well-known passage, Acts chapter 9 and verse 1. The Bible says, And Saul, yet breathing out threatenings and slaughter against the disciples of the Lord, went unto the high priest and desired of him letters of Damascus to the synagogues, that if he found any of this way, whether they were men or women, he might bring them bound unto Jerusalem. And as he journeyed, he came near Damascus, and suddenly there shined round about him a light from heaven, and he fell to the earth and heard a voice saying unto him, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? And he said, Who art thou, Lord? And the Lord said, I am Jesus, whom thou persecutest. It is hard for thee to kick against the pricks. And he trembling and astonished said, Lord, what wilt thou have me to do? And the Lord said unto him, Arise, and go into a city, and it shall be told thee what thou must do. And of course, this is the story famously known as the Damascus Road experience for the Apostle Paul. And the reason that I go here is to say that a lesson we learn from the Apostle Paul is that he seemed to be probably the most unlikely person to get saved. Yet, of course, once he gets saved, and I won't keep reading, we already read the portion, the Lord sends Ananias to preach the gospel to him. And I'm not preaching about this necessarily, but let me just say this. Paul did not get saved on the Damascus Road. He did not get saved with the experience, the supernatural experience of seeing the Lord Jesus Christ. That was a miracle, but Paul got saved just like everybody else gets saved when a soul winner named Ananias went and preached the gospel to him and got him saved. That's what Jesus told him on the road to Damascus. He said, Arise, and go into the city, and it shall be told thee what thou must do. But Paul, of course, gets saved, and he becomes a great missionary himself, an evangelist, an apostle, a great preacher of the Word of God. He writes most of the New Testament, and he just seems like an unlikely person that would get saved. And that's kind of the first takeaway that I had from the very first salvation interaction I had there in the Philippines for this trip. We got there on Thursday at 11 a.m., and Pastor Stuckey picked us up. We went out to lunch, and then we went soul winning. And when we were out soul winning, the first three people that I got saved, I was able to talk to them in a group, and it was three young people. We went to a park, and they were just hanging out, just not doing anything really. And I walked up to them. There's three young men, one by the name of Ian, one by the name of Luciano, and one by the name of Art. And when I walked up to them, actually at first I thought there was two guys. The way that I was walking up, it looked like there was two guys. But once I got to them, I saw that there was a third guy, and he was laying down. And the one that was laying down, his name was Luciano. He's actually asleep. And so I started talking to the other guys, just making small talk, and I began to explain the gospel to them, or ask them about their salvation. And when I started asking them about, do you know for sure that today, if you're on your way to heaven, in my mind I'm thinking, I'm going to talk to these two guys, and then their buddy here is just asleep. He was just taking a nap. But in that process, early in the conversation, he kind of woke up a little startled, and he sat up, and he just started listening. And in my mind, I'm like, well, this guy's not, he's asleep. I'm not going to wake him up or get him saved. I'm going to talk to these two guys. The interesting thing is that the guy that was asleep, that woke up, ended, I mean, they all three got saved, but he ended up being the most interested. Like, he was just engaged, and he's asking questions, and you can tell that it's just connecting in his brain. And that's the first lesson, or the takeaway, that I want to highlight for you. The other thing is this, that sometimes the one who seems the least likely to get saved is the one who ends up being the most interested. And this is something as soul owners that we need to, don't write people off, and don't get this idea. You walk up to some guy, and he's got tattoos on his face or something, and you're like, oh, this guy's never going to listen. Nobody would have thought that Saul, yet breathing out threatenings and slaughter, would have been the best Christian who ever lived. I don't think that this Luciano guy was going to be someone that was interested. This is when I approached, he's asleep, but yet he wakes up, and he just sits up, and he's just focused, and he starts interacting. So sometimes as soul owners, we need to remember that oftentimes it is the ones who seem least likely that end up being the most interested. So don't ever judge this thing. When you're out soul winning, somebody walks by you, or somebody opens the door, don't get this mindset that says, oh, this person's not going to want to listen. It is not our job to determine who will or will not listen. Our job is to give everybody the opportunity to get saved. Our job is to warn everyone. And I would say to you, when you're out soul winning, and of course we do door knocking, that make it a goal to, as much as possible, when possible, to ask the question at every door. Obviously sometimes it's not possible. Sometimes people open the door, and you say hi, and they slam the door. But if it's possible for you to ask the question, do you know for sure that today you should ask the question. Don't ever censor someone and think this person doesn't seem like they're interested. It is often the case that the one who seems least likely ends up being the most interested. And that's the first experience that I had there in the Philippines. The guy that was asleep when I walked up ended up being the most interested. All three got saved, but he was definitely the most engaged. And you could tell that he was paying attention, asking questions about the church, and things like that. You're there in Acts 9. Go with me, if you would, to Acts chapter number 10. I'm going to only be in the book of Acts tonight. We're going to go to John for one reference, but other than that, we're going to be in Acts. So I'd like you to find Acts chapter number 10. Let me give you the second takeaway that I had from my experience in the Philippines. You're there in Acts chapter 10. If you look at verse number 1, the Bible says this. There was a certain man in Caesarea called Cornelius, a centurion of the band called the Italian band, devout man, and one that feared God with all his house, which gave much alms to the people and prayed to God always. He saw in a vision evidently about the ninth hour of the day an angel of God coming into him and saying unto him, Cornelius, and when he looked on him he was afraid and said, What is it, Lord? And he said unto him, Thy prayers and thine alms are come up for a memorial before God, and now send men to Joppa and call for a man for one Simon whose surname is Peter. He lodgeth with one Simon a tanner whose house is by the seaside. He shall tell thee what thou oughtest to do. Now that might sound familiar because that's what Jesus told Saul on the road to Damascus. He said, Arise and go into the city and it shall be told thee what thou must do. Here you have an angel telling Cornelius, Go find this man, Simon, and he will tell thee what thou oughtest to do. And again, I'm not necessarily preaching on this, but I just want you to notice that in the Bible you never see these angels. When an angel appears or when the Lord Jesus Christ himself appears, you never see anybody delivering the gospel in a supernatural way. In fact, when an angel shows up or when Jesus stops Saul on the road to Damascus, they always point them to a soul winner. Here, you know, you ask the question, Why did the angel of God, why did he not preach the gospel to Cornelius? Why did he tell Cornelius to send men to Joppa to call for one Simon whose surname is Peter and he shall tell thee what thou oughtest to do? And the answer to the question is this, because God has given to us the ministry of reconciliation. He's not going to send angels to preach the gospel, he's already sent you and he's already sent me. So again, I'm not preaching on that, but I just think it's something that's interesting to highlight. That whenever you see in the Bible these supernatural appearances, these angels or the Lord Jesus Christ or whatever it might be, they're not preaching the gospel, but they're always directing these unsaved people to a soul winner that will preach the gospel to them. Notice in verse 34, I'm not going to take the time to go through this whole story, but of course, Cornelius is from the Italian band. He's an Italian and he is a Gentile and Peter's got some hangups about that and there's this whole dream that he has and God has sent him a vision and tell him don't call that, which is clean, unclean. And in verse 34, I want you to notice when Peter finally gets there, the Bible says that Peter opened his mouth. And by the way, that's always how we preach the gospels, by opening our mouth. We've got to communicate the gospel, the message, the word of reconciliation. Then Peter opened his mouth and said of a truth, I perceive that God is no respecter of persons, but in every nation that feareth him and worketh righteousness is accepted with him. And what we learn in this story, what we see here is that Cornelius is someone that Peter could have just, again, thought to himself, I'm not going to give this guy the gospel. He's an Italian, he's a Gentile, he doesn't even understand about Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and the old covenant. I'm not going to talk to this guy. But we learn in the story that we ought to give people the benefit of the doubt. That's what Peter learns. He says, I perceive that God is no respecter of persons. And that's the second lesson that I learned when we were out in the Philippines. The second person that I got saved was a man by the name of Rio. And actually my dad is the one that started the conversation with him. But then I got involved and ended up giving the gospel to him. And honestly, Rio seemed a little odd at first. And I don't mean odd in any sort of weird way. He just seemed like a different type of guy. Obviously, you're in a foreign country and sometimes the cultures are different and young people tend to be a little different. And he just seemed a little odd. And honestly, I think it would have been easy to just kind of be like, yeah, this guy, let's just go talk to somebody else or something. But he was curious and he was engaged. And he ended up just being really receptive and asking questions. He wanted to hear. One of the things that we're sitting there talking, and I notice that as I'm giving him the gospel, he's getting closer to me. And at first I'm just kind of like, what's this guy doing? So I'm like, I'm going to have to incorporate Romans 1 into my gospel presentation here. It's part of Romans, right? But he's getting closer to me. Then I see that he takes his phone out and he's doing something with his phone. I'm trying to see what he's doing with his phone. I can't really tell he's doing something with his phone. Then he's asking me to repeat what I just said. So I said something and he's really interested and he's like, can you say that again? But then he asked me, can you say word for word what you just said? And I'm just like, what are you doing? And it turns out that he wanted to record the conversation on his phone so that he could go and share it with his friends. So what I'm perceiving as being kind of odd things, why is this guy getting closer to me and he's got his phone, he's doing something with it. It's actually just him being receptive and he's just really shocked at what he's hearing. He's never heard the gospel explained that way. He's not even saved yet. He's like, I've got to record this so I can share it with my friends. So that's the second takeaway. The first one is this, that sometimes the people who seem the least likely to get saved are the ones that end up being the most interested. And the second lesson is this, that we should give people the benefit of the doubt. And don't be this person who just walks around thinking everyone's a reprobate, just because a guy drives a Miati or something. Don't just like, oh, I'm not going to give the gospel to him. Just because they have different colored hair or whatever it might be. We live in a weird world with weird cultures. Obviously, if they're just a complete sodomite and it's clear, I'm not talking about that. But I'm just saying we should approach people, give people the benefit of the doubt. Sometimes they might seem a little different than us or odd, but there's reasons why they act a certain way or do certain things that maybe we don't understand. And if you understand that, this guy who grew up Catholic and has never heard that salvation is not a works and you don't have to earn it, it's a gift, it's free, and he's just wanting to document this so he could share it with his friends. So that's the second lesson that I got from the missions trip, is that we should always give people the benefit of the doubt, especially with the gospel, especially with the gospel. Go to Acts chapter number 18, if you would, just real quickly there in Acts chapter 10. Flip over to Acts chapter number 18. Let me give you the third lesson from these gospel presentations. So the third group that I talked to was a couple of young guys. Their names were Wendell and Mau. Well, let me just read the verses here. Acts chapter 18 and verse 4. Here, of course, we have the apostle Paul. The Bible says, and he, referring to Paul, reasoned in the synagogue every Sabbath and persuaded the Jews and the Greeks. And when Silas and Timotheus come from Macedonia, Paul was pressed in the Spirit and testified to the Jews that Jesus was Christ. And when they opposed themselves, these people were not receptive, they opposed themselves and blasphemed, he shook his raiment and said unto them, Your blood be upon your own heads, I am clean. And he says, From henceforth I will go unto the Gentiles. So here we have Paul who's preaching the gospel to Jews, and they're not listening, they're not receptive, they oppose themselves. He kind of gives up on them. He shook his raiment and he said, I'm going to go to people that are receptive. He said, From henceforth I will go unto the Gentiles. And this is my takeaway from this third group that I gave the gospel to. And the takeaway is this, that we need to be persistent in finding receptive people. We need to be persistent in finding receptive people. And on this day of the Philippines missions trip, I actually thought that I wasn't going to get anybody saved because we had been out for several hours and we were at this park and I had been trying to talk to everyone and not one person wanted me to give them the gospel. And again, I mentioned this this morning and I kind of mentioned it joking, but it's not really a joke. I was at a little bit of a disadvantage because American people, and when I say American people, I'm talking about white people going to the Philippines, they just stand out and Filipinos just want to talk to Americans. I don't know, they're open, they like America, they like Americans. So you can go and talk, you can approach pretty much any group and they'll talk to you or whatever. With me, I just look like a Filipino to them. So there's not really anything special, but then in some ways I'm worse than a Filipino because I approach them and they start speaking to me in Tagalog and I'm like, I don't speak Tagalog, I'm not a Filipino. And then it's just kind of like, okay. So I was out and I was trying to give the gospel to people. Nobody was wanting to talk to me. We had a certain time that we had to be back. We're meeting back at the vehicle at a certain time. And I'm just like, man, I'm not going to go back with no salvations. I'm going to get someone to stay. And so I was just trying to talk to people. And at some point it was probably just kind of like this whole, in some ways I'm probably messing myself up because as time was running out I was getting more and more desperate just trying to talk to people. I probably was scaring them off. But just at the end, we have to be back at, I forget what the time, it was like 6.30 p.m. we were going to meet back at the vehicle. It's like 6.20. And I just spot these two guys and I'm just like, I'm just going to try. I want to get somebody saved today. And I walk up to these guys and they're playing music on their phone and they're just hanging out the park just sitting on the grass and they've got music blasting on their phone. And I walk up to them and I say, hi. And the first thing the guy does is he grabs his phone and he turns the music off. And I thought to myself, that's a good sign. That's already a good sign. I start talking to them, strike up a conversation, give them the gospel, they get saved. I was late to our meeting back. Pastor Stuckey was like, I thought that you'd been kidnapped. And I'm like, well, if I get kidnapped, you pay the ransom, all right? But anyway, the lesson is that we need to be persistent sometimes in finding receptive people. And that's a lesson for soul winning in the United States is that people do get saved here. And let me say this about the Philippines as well because you hear these numbers. 2,000 people saved in the month of February. And there was one day when we preached in a school and I preached in three different classrooms. My son preached and we had like eight or nine other soul winners that were preaching in classrooms. And on that one day, I think we had 121 salvations on that one day. And you might think like, oh, well, you know, the Philippines, these are just inflated numbers. You know, you're just going to school and getting 121 people saved. Let me tell you something. It's a lot of work to stand up in front of 35 people and give a gospel. You know, you've got these handouts with the verses and you're pointing at them, you're like teaching this lesson, and you're just doing one after another after another. It's a lot of work. It's not, it's humid. We're not really used to the weather. You're just walking up to people and there are people still saying not interested, not wanting to talk to you. It's just that the number is less. It seems to me like in the Philippines, if you look like a Filipino at least, you might have to talk to 10 people before one wants to hear the gospel. I don't know what the number is, but it seems like in the United States, you might have to talk to 100 people before one wants to give the gospel, which is why probably most of our soul winners aren't getting somebody saved every week because if you're really consistent and dedicated with it, you're probably getting somebody saved once every three or four weeks, two or three weeks depending on how much you go. It's probably once every hundred, I'm sure there's numbers associated to this. What I'm saying to you is whatever that number is, we need to be persistent in finding receptive people because there are people out there that want to hear and there are people that want to get saved. Jesus said, follow me and I will make you fishers of men. I often tell people that our job is to just go out there and find the right catch. We need to just go out there. There's some fish that don't want to get caught. They don't want to hear. Whether it's here or the Philippines, we need to do that. What I want to say to you is when you hear these numbers, 2,000 salvistas in February, keep in mind that there's an army of soul winners doing work. It's not just one guy preaching to a thousand people and they count 2,000 salvations or 500 salvations. There's a whole army of soul winners going to multiple parks and multiple schools. We were doing schools in Pampanga at the same time that they were doing schools in Manila. It's a whole big organization that Pastor Stuckey has. As far as soul winning is concerned, he's got a big organization going on, especially of course during these weeks of the missions conference. So a lot of work and effort is getting done to get these numbers. You say, oh, it's all about numbers. Every one of these numbers represents a soul that's going to spend eternity somewhere in heaven or hell. They're motivated of course because people are receptive. No one would let us step foot in a classroom and preach the gospel. I mean not in a million years. Would a principal say, sure, let me gather a hundred students and put them in this assembly area. And I'll give you a mic and you can speak to them for an hour. That would never happen here, but it happened there. So we should be persistent in finding receptive people to preach the gospel to. Now you're there in Acts. Keep your place there in Acts. And go with me if you would to the book of John. John chapter number 4, if you go backwards. This is the only time I'm going to have you leave Acts. The rest of the time will be in Acts. But I'm just giving you these takeaways, lessons from the missions trip. The first one is that sometimes the one that seems least likely ends up being the most interested. The second one is that we should give people the benefit of the doubt. The third one is that we must be persistent in finding receptive people. Whatever that number is, whether it's a hundred for us or ten or fifteen for them. We should just be persistent and stay at it. Here's number 4. You're there in John chapter 4. This is actually an example of the Lord Jesus Christ's soul winning. John chapter 4 and verse 5. The Bible says, Then cometh he, this is Jesus, to a city of Samaria, which is called Sychar, near to the parcel of ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph. Now Jacob's well was there. Jesus therefore being weird with his journey, sat thus on the well, and it was about the sixth hour. There cometh a woman of Samaria to draw water. Jesus saith unto her, Give me a drink. For his disciples were gone away unto the city to buy meat. Then saith the woman of Samaria unto him, How is it that thou, being a Jew, askest drink of me, which am a woman of Samaria? For the Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans. Jesus answered and said unto her, If thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that saith to thee, Give me to drink, thou wouldest have asked of him, and he would have given thee living water. And of course if we continue the story there, you see that Jesus engages with this woman and he gives the gospel and she gets saved. And he's not even really soul winning at this time. He's traveling, he's tired, the disciples are off to get food, to get lunch, he's just resting by the well waiting for them to get back. And this lady shows up, she's just there alone by herself and he just strikes up a conversation to get her saved. And that's one of the lessons that I learned in the Philippines. One of the days that we were there, we were doing soul winning outside of the mall. And again, most of the soul winning that's done there is done in parks, but the mall there, I think all of the malls have this, but the one we were at, there's like this park that's like part of the mall. It's like connected to the mall, but it's outside and it's a park area. And I don't think they want your soul winning inside the mall, but you can be in that park area and everyone in that park area is pretty much coming in and out of the mall. And there's just people hanging out, lots of young people just hanging out in groups of friends. And this again, I had the Filipino dilemma of just, I'm walking up to people and no one's wanting to talk to me on this day. But one thing I noticed is that everybody's hanging out with their friends and they're at the mall and they're just having a good time. So everyone's just kind of, everybody's being nice, friendly, but no one really wanted to hear. And I thought to myself, I need to just find someone that's alone, that has no friends. I need to find the loner. I just started looking around and just in the corner of the facility there, because this park area is actually elevated, it's on a second level. So when you walk up to the edge, you can actually look down into the parking lot and there's a little bench there and I just see this lone guy just sitting there by himself. And I walk up to him and I say, how are you doing? And I start talking to him and he ended up getting saved. His name was Tag and he was just there sitting, just alone, just waiting for someone I guess to come talk to him and that someone was me. So sometimes when we talk to people, when we're looking for people to give the gospel to, we should look for people who are alone. And I mean that in a physical sense, but I also think there's a spiritual application there, that there are people in this world that are very alone, very isolated. And we should identify them and we should find them. This woman was by herself coming up to this well to drink water, but in life she was just kind of isolated as well. And Jesus speaks to her about even her husbands and how many divorces she'd had and all these things. And I think sometimes we need to become sensitive to know and maybe perceive when people are isolated or feeling alone or feeling lonely. And oftentimes those people are people that are going to be receptive to the gospel. So this guy, this young man was just sitting there by himself, just at the mall, just literally staring off into the parking lot. I don't know if he just got dumped by his girlfriend. I'm not sure what was going on with him, but he was the one. You know, I was trying to talk to all these other people and they're having a good time or whatever. I saw him and I said, that's the guy, you know, walk up to him. So lesson number four, takeaway number four, talk to people who are alone. And I mean that in a physical sense, but I mean that also in a spiritual sense. We should find people that are alone and lonely and we should be their friend and we should introduce them to the best friend they'll ever have, the Lord Jesus Christ. Go back to Acts chapter eight, if you would. You're there in John. Just flip over to Acts chapter eight. Let me give you the fifth one tonight. I'm just giving you these takeaways. Sometimes the one that seems least likely ends up being the most interested. We should give people the benefit of the doubt. We should be persistent in finding receptive people. We should talk to people who are alone or isolated. In Acts chapter eight, we have a famous story and I think this highlights the next lesson or takeaway that I want to give you. In Acts eight and verse twenty six, the Bible says this, And the angel of the Lord spake unto Philip. You remember Philip saying, Arise and go toward the south unto the way that goeth down from Jerusalem unto Gaza, which is desert. And he arose and went and behold, a man of Ethiopia and eunuch of great authority under Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, who had the charge of all her treasure and had come to Jerusalem for to worship. Of course, this is a famous story of the Ethiopian eunuch. Verse twenty eight, was returning and sitting in his chariot, read Isaiah the prophet and the spirit said. I want you to notice that in verse twenty six, the Bible says, The angel of the Lord spake unto Philip and told him, Arise and go toward the south unto the way that goeth down from Jerusalem unto Gaza. And he arose and went. And then in verse twenty nine, the Bible says, And the spirit said unto Philip, Go near and join thyself to this chariot. And Philip ran hither to him and heard him read the prophet Isaiah and said, Understandest thou what thou readest? And he said, How can I? Except some man should guide me. And he desired Philip that he would come up and sit with him. Skip down to verse thirty five, just for the sake of time. But I want you to notice the consistency in scripture. The Bible says, Then Philip opened his mouth. It's the only way we preach the gospel. It's opening our mouths. We must speak boldly and communicate the word of reconciliation. Then Philip opened his mouth and began at the same scripture and preached unto him Jesus. And I like this story because it kind of highlights, I think, the next lesson that I got from the Philippines. And the next person that I got saved that were in the Philippines was actually a man. His name was Donald, and he was actually our driver. He was driving us in the Philippines. Oftentimes you you can hire drivers to to drive you for a day. There's some where you need to go or whatever. And of course, we were in Pampanga and we were staying in Pampanga. Their services are on Saturday. So I preached there on Saturday. They had their midweek service on Tuesday. I preached there on Tuesday. But in the services on Sunday are in Manila. And I was preaching at both churches. So on Saturday, I preached in Pampanga. But then on Sunday, we need to be in Manila, which was a two hour drive away. Of course, we don't have vehicles. And I wasn't going to drive in the Philippines because that's a different thing. You know, in the Philippines, they tell you, the Filipinos tell you, you know, the lines, those are just suggestions. They're not. You don't have to follow that here, you know, so. But anyway, Pastor Succy worked it out and got us a driver that would drive us to Manila and then drive us back. So there was a two hour drive there, two hour drive back. And so, you know, we're sitting in the vehicle, we're driving. It's early because we've got to be at the church at 10. There's lots of traffic. So we're we're early. And, you know, in my mind, I'm thinking like, OK, I've got this two hour drive to Manila. I'm going to be preaching there. So I'm just going to take this time to, you know, just review my sermon notes and just kind of out of a pen. I'm just going to, you know, just button things up, make sure I'm ready for the sermon. So that was my plan, you know, and I get in there. And the first thing the guy says, of course, Pastor Succy hired him and he told him who we were and everything. And the guy says, you're a pastor. And I said, yeah, he said from America. And I said, yeah. And he starts talking to me, starts asking me Bible questions, you know, and I answered one question. He asked me another question. And there comes to a point where I just think to myself, like, OK, I'm just gonna have to get this guy saved, you know. So I just, you know, start out. I said, let me ask you a question, you know, for sure. I mean, we're two hours driving and we're driving on the road. I preached the gospel to him and we get to the end. I asked him, you know, would you like to pray and ask Christ to save you and confess and call upon him for salvation? You know, would you like to do that? He said, yeah. And I said, well, let's just pray right now. I said, now don't close your eyes. You're driving. You know, don't close your eyes. Well, let's just pray. And as we're driving, you know, I say just repeat after me and I say the words. He repeats after me, calls upon Christ for salvation. They're on the road to Manila. We weren't even soul winning. We're just driving to church that day. And that's the fifth lesson. And the fifth lesson is this, that you and I need to pay attention to divine appointments. And that's really what Phillip was being set up by the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit told him, go here. And he gets there. He says, talk to that guy. And of course, Phillip has the Holy Spirit speaking to him at this time. And we don't have that audible voice of the Holy Spirit. But, you know, I believe that God prompts us at times. And we might have different plans and we might think I'm going to use this time to work and do other things or whatever. But, you know, God wanted us to speak to this man, Donald, and to speak to him about his salvation. And in life, you might find that the Holy Spirit prompts you at times. And people are going to come across your path and across your way. And I believe that God sets up these divine appointments. I mean, we see it there in Acts where Jesus appears to Saul and he says, go to the city. And he tells Ananias, go and give the gospel to Saul. And you know, if you read the story, Ananias says, I don't want to go. I've heard about this man, Saul. I don't want to go. But he's being directed. And of course, we saw Cornelius and how he told him, go find Peter. And Peter will preach the gospel. You know, Peter had the same response. I don't want to go. I don't want to go to the house of a Gentile. And God had to show him a vision and tell him, don't call that which is clean, unclean. And you know, I believe that God, you know, the Bible says that God has given to every man a witness. And I believe that God has it planned out that every person in this world has someone that can get the gospel to them. There are people that you know that I will never know. There are people that I know that you will never know. But I don't think God, I do, I actually believe based off that scripture where Paul says that he was a minister. He says, Apollos and I are ministers. He said, in the same way as God has given to every man. I believe that God has someone that he has ordained for you to give the gospel to. And this is why the Bible says that if we refrain to do it, if our gospel is hit, it is hit to them that are lost. And the Bible says that we will give an answer. Their blood will be upon our hands. And so be careful about that. Pay attention to those divine appointments when God brings somebody across your path. And it's just the opportunity is right. And they seem like they're interested. Be sensitive to the Holy Spirit and give them the gospel. So that's lesson number five. Pay attention to divine appointments. And then let me give you lesson number six. If you don't mind going to Acts chapter 17, Acts chapter 17 and look at verse number 22. Acts chapter 17 and verse 22. The Bible says, Then Paul stood in the midst of Mars Hill and said, You men of Athens, I perceive that in all things you are too superstitious. For as I passed by and behold your devotions, I found an altar with this inscription to the unknown God, whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you. Skip down to verse number 30 just for sake of time. Of course, this is Paul on Mars Hill. In verse 30, he's preaching to them and he says, The times of this ignorance God winked at, but now commandeth all men everywhere to repent, because he hath appointed a day in which he will judge the world in righteousness by the man whom he hath ordained. Wherefore he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead. And when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked and others said, We will hear thee again of this matter. So Paul departed from among them. And of course, this is a famous story where Paul is preaching the gospel to a group here. And this last lesson has to do with the idea of preaching the gospel to a group or to a crowd. And on Sunday when we were there in Manila, we went soul winning to a park. And again, we're walking around trying to find people that are interested. And I walked up to this young guy. There's this young guy and this young lady sitting next to each other on a bench in the park. I walk up to them and I greet them. I say, Hey, how are you guys doing? You know, we're from Verity Baptist Church here in Manila. Want to give you an invitation? I start talking to them and I asked them, you know, do you know for sure if you died today, if you're on your way to heaven? They both said no. And I said, Do you mind if I show you from the Bible how you can know for sure? And they both said yes. And I begin to give the gospel to them and a little bit into it. I mean, I wasn't that far into the presentation. Maybe, I don't know, 10 percent into this thing. I started to think to myself, I don't think these two even know each other, you know? So then I asked them, like, Do you guys know each other? And they look at each other like, No. I just assumed because they were sitting next to each other that they were together. You know, I just strike up this conversation with like two strangers and I start talking to them and they don't know each other at all. But I'm like, Okay, well, you both let me give you the gospel. You know, so in the Philippines, it's very common to give the gospel to crowds and it's less common here in the United States. But it happens. I mean, there's definitely been times when I've given the gospel to three or four people at a time. And I know many of you have as well in the Philippines is very common. And so one thing that I want to say is if you ever find yourself in a situation where you're giving the gospel to multiple people, whether here or if you go on a missions trip, you know, this is something that you should do anyway, but you have to do it less when you're talking to, usually when you're talking to a group of friends, they're all friends. You know, they're all family. They're all a crowd. But just this was very, it kind of just clicked in my head because these two didn't know each other. You know, I assume that they knew each other. They were sitting kind of close, I guess, to each other. I just thought that they were friends or whatever. But it's just funny because they kind of looked at each other like, no. So but they're both like me. And then and then I've been in the gospel. A third young lady just walks up somebody that actually knows this girl and she's just listening, you know, and that's something that's also common in the Philippines that doesn't happen a lot here. People usually trying to run away from you when you're giving the gospel. But, you know, one thing because I realize these two don't know each other. So I was really working hard at making eye contact with one and then making eye contact with the other. And I was interacting with both of them. And I like to ask questions when I give the soloing presentations. I'm asking this person questions and I'm asking this. I'm trying to kind of keep them both engaged. And I was kind of working a little harder at it because of the fact that they didn't even know each other. I just thought they did. I just started talking to them. They didn't know each other. But whether people know each other or not, you know, when it comes to preaching to crowds, and I'm talking about giving the gospel to two, three, four people at a time, something you should do is to try to make eye contact, try to interact, try to engage. Sometimes when you are giving the gospel to crowds, you'll find that one person's not interested and they're just kind of like looking at the time or on their phone. You know, engage with the people that are interested. But in this case, I kind of felt a little bit of an extra burden to make sure that I was looking at both, talking to both, engaging with both because they weren't even together. They just were random people that were sitting on a bench. And I walked up and gave the gospel to them. So that's more maybe of a practical lesson, but the practical lesson is this. If you ever find yourself in a situation where you're giving the gospel to multiple people, multiple crowd, make sure that you're engaging with them, making eye contact. And if you're giving the gospel to one person, make sure that you're making eye contact, engaging, talking to them, interacting with them. We like to ask questions. We like to make sure that they're understanding. Obviously in a classroom with like 50 kids or I preached in a school where there was like 100 plus kids, you know, we're not able to just make eye contact with all of them and things of that nature. That's why we give out the surveys that they can fill out. But we don't do that when we're one on one or just two or three. So we're kind of doing the survey in our conversation. You know, we're asking them questions and making sure they understand these things. And the idea is that we should take every opportunity, every opportunity to preach the gospel to anyone, anytime, anywhere. It's the Great Commission. It's why God left us here. It's what we're supposed to be doing with our lives. And as a Christian, the greatest honor that you'll have in your role as Christianity, I'm not talking about a father, mother, husband or wife, but in your role as a Christian, the greatest honor you will ever have is to lead another person to Christ. And aren't you thankful somebody did that for you? And we should return the favor and do it for others. Well, let's go ahead and bow our heads in that word of prayer. Heavenly Father, Lord, we do love you. We thank you for the great missions trip that you allowed us to have there in the Philippines. Thank you, Lord, for the work that's being done in the Philippines. And, Lord, I pray that you just continue to bless it and continue to help us and bless us, Lord. Help us to both go and give, to go in our local area and preach the gospel and to give so that this work, so that missions work can continue to be done around the world. We love you. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Well, thank you for being here tonight. We appreciate you coming. And, of course, if there's anything that we can do for you, please let us know. If you wouldn't mind looking around your area and if your kids made a mess or something like that, if you could pick it up or clean it up, we'd appreciate your help with that. We're going to have Brother RJ come up and lead us in a final song. Hey, man, let's grab our songbooks and turn to page number 401. I don't know about you, but I'm on fire for that sermon and that those testimonies were great. So we're going to end up singing Set My Soul on Fire. And like Brother Andrew mentioned on Wednesday, did you know that singing is spiritual? So I just want to challenge you with this song that Bring It With You. Think about the words that you guys are going to be singing. And, yeah, Bring It With You. Speak these words in your heart. And that's song number 401. Sing it out on that first now. Set my soul on fire, Lord, Lord, I'm holding on. One in three people with me, let your voice be heard. Millions hope in darkness in this Vienna. Worry, old witness, fail me when I can't see out. Set my soul on fire, Lord, set my soul on fire. Wake, my love, the witness of thy saving power. Millions hope in darkness, waiting for the Lord. Set my soul on fire, Lord, set my soul on fire. Set my soul on fire, Lord, the lost can see. Into me a passion that I seek to find. Help me not to flatter, then who let me win? Move me with thy spirit, let thy will begin. Set my soul on fire, Lord, set my soul on fire. Wake, my love, the witness of thy saving power. Millions hope in darkness, waiting for the Lord. Set my soul on fire, Lord, set my soul on fire. Set my soul on fire, in my daily life. Far to love and wonder, in this day of strife. Nothing else will matter, what to make of me. I will be upon us, as you live in me. Set my soul on fire, Lord, set my soul on fire. Wake, my love, the witness of thy saving power. Millions hope in darkness, waiting for the Lord. Set my soul on fire, Lord, set my soul on fire. God bless you, you're dismissed. Thank you.