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

Yeah, I think we had 16 soul winners and 15 salvations this afternoon, so praise the Lord on that. I want to look at verse 28 where the Bible read, Hast thou not known, hast thou not heard, that the everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary, there is no searching of His understanding, He giveth power to the faint, and to them that have no might, He increases strength. Even the youth shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall. But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings as eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint. And the title of my evening sermon is, The Lord is My Strength. The Lord is My Strength. Now in this portion of scripture, we have a lot of interesting things that are said. It says that God, He's not ever weary. He doesn't faint. His power, His might, is everlasting. He says, hey, young men, they might be strong, but you know what? They're going to eventually fall at some point. And He even says here that if you rely upon the Lord as your strength, you can run and not be weary. Now, I can run for about two minutes, but then I get really weary pretty quick. I mean, I can't run that long. And even the greatest man on this earth, he can only run for a few hours or something like that. Guys that win, you know, marathons. But the Lord, if you're resting upon His strength, the Bible says you can just continually run and run and run and you'll never grow weary. So when we look at different areas of our life, we need to allow the Lord to be our strength, to be the one that allows us to continue doing the works, allowing His power and His might to continue us in doing His works. Go if you would to Ephesians chapter number six, Ephesians chapter number six. Now, when we think of probably the most important thing that we can do, that would be preaching the gospel, going out soul winning, going and knocking doors and getting people saved. But the reality is, even in this task, the way that we're going to continue doing it is by allowing the Lord to be our strength. Many people have devised their own ways to get people saved. They come up with man's inventions of getting people saved. But you know what's going to continue doing God's work without growing weary is resting upon His strength. You know, when I go out to preach the gospel, it's not my strength that matters at all. It's the power of God's word. If I were to go out and to preach in my own strength, I would often fail. I would often, you know, because of my attitude or because of me not feeling that interested in it, I could go out and be powerless in my own might and my own strength. But you know, when I read Romans chapter three verse 23, it's powerful. When you read John 3 16, it's powerful. You know, if you're going to come up with your testimony, your testimony is not always going to be so powerful. It's not always going to have all this strength. You're going to end up falling. There's not going to be the same power consistently like someone that just goes the Romans road and just has the same gospel and just keeps relying upon God to be the one to strengthen you. You know, if I were to go out and to try and convince people to become a Mormon, I would quit after a while. That's terrible. Can you imagine having to go up to somebody and be like, hey, so do you want to maybe soul sleep with me? You know, you can't be 144,000. You know, I don't even want to be that. And I'm not even promising you anything that you can know for sure. Do you want to hopefully maybe kind of soul sleep with me maybe a little bit? Like what's, what are they going out and teaching? Hey, do you want to be like me and a Mormon? Do you want to go and be a God on another planet? Maybe you got to come into the temple and worship the devil and do all these things with them. Look, when they go out, they're going out in their power and their strength and their might. Why do you think it is that Mormons, their missionaries are like 18 years old and they only do it for two years because they can't do it for a lifetime. You can't just go out and lie to people just day in and day out in your own power, your own might. You'll go insane. They have to take them when they're literally the strongest in their life to go out. You know what? Woman, boy, man, child, old, young, they can all go out and preach the Roman drone. Why? Because we need to rely upon God's strength. I remember when I first got my first job out of college and I started working for Wells Fargo. I thought I was doing banking and it's like, you don't do banking, you're a telemarketer. You're a salesperson. You have to sign people over checking accounts. Not enough people walk through the doors to get checking accounts, so what they'd have you do is they'd have you go out and you'd constantly harass people to try and sign up for checking accounts and savings accounts. It wasn't even with any power because I didn't have anything to offer them. I wasn't like, hey, if you sign up, we'll get you a $50 bonus or we'll get you a teddy bear or I'll give you a hug. It was just like, hey, do you want a checking account? We'll get you a debit card. You can make transactions. It's like nothing different than the other bank account. It's frustrating. It's hard. You grow weary very quickly. Why? Because you have to exert all this strength and it usually fails. I don't have to exert that much strength to go out and just say, hey, Romans 3.23, Romans 6.23, Revelation 21.8. I can even do it multiple times in the same day, just over and over and over and over. That's why it's so powerful because we're just relying upon God's strength, not on man's strength. The Bible says in 2 Peter 1 that we've not followed cunningly devised fables. I don't go out and preach things that are lies. I preach things that I know are true and there's power in God's word. For I'm not ashamed of the gospel of Christ for it is the power of God and the salvation to everyone that believeth. When we go out and we preach the gospel, look, I've seen people, they're stumbling. Every other thing they're saying is kind of like weird. They're kind of a weird person. They're a little bit awkward. They're not the most normal person I've ever met, but just the power of God's word, they get saved. You watch somebody, get somebody saved and you're just thinking like, I would have never bought what you're selling. From a fleshly perspective, but they're putting their strength in what God's word says and that person is going to have great strength and can continue for a lifetime. Not everybody in here is going to be the best salesman. Most people in here probably would hate doing sales. I hate doing sales. I despise it. I don't like it at all, but when I go out and I preach the gospel, I'm not relying upon my physical abilities and attributes. I'm relying upon what God already said. That's why it says in Ephesians chapter 6 verse 10, So the Bible is saying we need God's strength. We need to have the armor of God and then he's going to tell us what that armor is, how to be strong. He says in verse number 14, Now, what is truth? God's word. Jesus Christ said, I'm the way, the truth and the life. No man cometh unto the father, but by me, it's God's word. He says in having on the breastplate of righteousness. How do you have righteousness? By following God's commandments. He says in verse 15, What is shod? It's like your feet being shooed. It's wrapping your feet around with the gospel. How do you do that? Actually go out and preach the gospel. Actually go outside and start reaching people that didn't come in here. Verse 16, So when God tells us how to have strength, what personal attribute did he describe here of you? You need to just be a really physically strong person. You need to be really charismatic. You need to be dressed really nice. You need to be able to have a booming voice. He doesn't focus on anything carnal. It's all putting your strength in the Lord, saying, hey, I'm resting upon the word of God. I'm resting my faith on what he said. Hey, I'm going to be righteous according to his commandments. I'm going to gird myself with truth, which comes from what? God's word. And you know what? My mission helmet is me believing on Jesus Christ and being saved by faith. Look, it's none of that strength is coming from you. It's nothing to do with you. It's everything to do with him. That is how you're going to wrestle with, you're going to have to, you know, defeat the devil and the enemies by having strength from God's word. God is the one that's going to give us strength. When you're resting upon yourself on things in the flesh, you're not going to be strong. You're not going to have that kind of a strength. Go to 2 Samuel 23, 2 Samuel 23. The Bible says in Romans 10, and how so 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. We need to have our feet shod today with the preparation of the gospel. And when we're going out, we're going out in faith. Jesus Christ gave us promise. Hey, go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. Now, I'm not doing that of my own thought. You going out soul winning this afternoon was not my idea. It wasn't your idea. It was God's idea. He's the one that told us to go out and preach the gospel. What about Matthew 28? Go ye therefore and teach all nations, baptizing them in the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, teaching them to observe whatsoever I've commanded you. And lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. Amen. So what is he saying? He's saying, hey, when you go out soul winning, Christ is with you. Christ is there. Christ is the one that's giving you the strength. That's how I'm going to have strength is knowing that Christ is with me by looking at Matthew 28. Look, where do I get the strength to walk up to somebody and try to teach them lies from the Book of Mormon? What verse am I basing that promise on? Where am I going out in the strength of someone else? That would be my own device, my own invention, man's opinion, man's view. But I can go out with strength and I can just walk up to some stranger boldly and start preaching the gospel because Christ told me to. It'd be hard to just go and just tell some apartment manager off on my own personal whims. But you know, when I have Christ telling me to go do his will, to go and preach the gospel of every creature, I feel like I have lots of strength to just stand in that person and preach them the gospel, to go knock on a stranger's door, to go into a foreign country, go wherever Christ needs me to go and preach the gospel. Look at 2 Samuel 23 verse 9. And after him was Eleazar the son of Dodo the Ohite, one of the three mighty men with David and they defied the Philistines that were there gathered together to battle. And the men of Israel were gone away. He arose and smote the Philistines, notice this, until his hand was weary and his hand clave under the sword and the Lord won a great victory that day and the people returned after him only to the spoil. We see a great mighty man in the Old Testament. How is he great? Because his hand clave to the sword. You know you're going to do a lot of great work to the Lord over a big period of time as long as you cling to that sword. You say, hey, soul winning work? I know it works because God told me. I'm going to rest in his strength. Is it going to make a big enough difference? Well why don't you just cling onto that sword and just keep fighting and see the difference that is going to make in this world. We have to do it through faith, but here's the thing, we need us to cling onto his sword, not in our own understanding, not in our own strength, not in our own might, just keep going out, just preach the gospel, preach the gospel, preach the gospel, and you know what? He's going to strengthen us. Even when we're weary, even when we're tired, even when we're faint, even when we don't want to do it. You know you can actually get someone saved even when you didn't want to do it. I've been out soul winning plenty of times and I'm thinking like, I don't really want to be here right now. I'd rather just lay around or rest or do anything else. You know, hey I'd rather just sit and just eat more or go hang out, go play golf. Man, that golf course at the Bahamas looked nice. I was just thinking, that looks cool. Let's go try that. But you know what? Sometimes you just go out and then when you start preaching the gospel and you see the power coming off each page and it's changing men's hearts right before your eyes, you just say, I want to do that again. I just want to keep clinging to that sword. And God will give you that strength again. God will motivate you to keep going out and preaching the gospel. Whereas a Mormon just sitting here destroying lies, preaching lies, he's going to run out of strength. You can be a faithful soul winner. Just keep going out. Just get your feet ready. How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace. Just keep going out, keep clinging to that sword and God will give you that strength. He says, hey, you're faint, just cling to that sword. What's that sword? The word of God. You say, hey, I don't know if I want to do it. Just read Matthew 28 again. Read Mark 16, 15 again. Just keep reading about the gospel. Read Romans 10, memorize it, get it in your heart. The Lord will give you the strength to just keep going soul winning and soul winning and soul winning. You say, hey, Pastor Shelley, what's the one thing I need to never stop, never stop preaching the gospel. Never. You say, hey, what if I got, you know, backslidden, well, go back to church and get preaching the gospel again. You know, no matter what you do, no matter how much you screw up your life or your life gets screwed up or bad things happen, you can always preach the gospel. I would hope that even if, you know, I just destroyed my life, I would still go out and preach the gospel. I would still go out and preach, you know, Christ and him crucified no matter what happened to me, no matter how bad things had happened to me. And you know what? At the end of the day, the former things aren't going to be remembered anyways. I need to just cling to that sword and just keep battling and keep fighting and allowing the Lord to strengthen me. Go to 1 Corinthians 15, 1 Corinthians 15. And we as Christians, it's not that we don't have hope. We have lots of hope. We have a lot of things to look forward to. Some people are weakened by the fear of the end of their life. We go out and give people hope for the end of their life. I'm not looking down upon the end of my life. It's going to be a glorious thing. And some people, they're kind of terrified by death or by fear of ending their life. But according to the Bible, God gives us strength. It says in 1 Corinthians 15, verse 55, O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? The sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. You know, Christians can actually have strength and not fear death. In fact, sometimes I actually think, wow, dying might sound better. I've had that thought. I don't know about you. All right. Sometimes you look at this world and you're just thinking like, man, I don't know. You know, the apostle Paul thought that way. Go to 1 Thessalonians 4, 1 Thessalonians 4. But death is a paralyzer to a lot of people. The threat of death is a paralyzer to a lot of people. You know, the apostle were constantly threatened with death, but that did not stop them from preaching the gospel. You know why? Because the Lord is their strength. They didn't fear death. Death was not something that you could threaten them with, and it was going to stop them from doing God's will. Obviously, any normal person doesn't want to die, and I'm not saying that we get to the point where, well, I don't care if I die or not. I obviously care greatly. I don't want to die. I love my wife. I love my children. I love this church. I love you guys. I love doing the work of the Lord. I love being here, and I think that it's great. But at the end of the day, if I'm facing, well, I could die if I, you know, keep doing what the Bible says. I'm not afraid of that. I'm not afraid of continuing to do what the Bible says with the threat of death. It says in 1 Thessalonians 4, verse 15, For this we say unto you, by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain under the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep. For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God. And the dead in Christ shall rise first. And we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so shall we ever be with the Lord. Wherefore comfort one another with these words. Now 1 Thessalonians 4 is a very famous portion of scripture at a funeral. And you say, why? Because he's saying, hey, if someone's passed on, they're going to meet us in the air that are alive and remain. Meaning what? We're all going to be with the Lord someday. And if you die now, guess what? You get to be with the Lord. You know, there was some people, they didn't know what would happen, or they thought maybe they had missed the coming of the Lord. If you're saved, you can't miss the coming of the Lord. You're either coming with them or you're going to see him coming in the clouds and you'll be caught up together with him. It's a glorious thing. That's a comfort. It's a comfort to know. Hey, I'm going to see Christ coming, period, buddy. That gives me a lot of strength against the fear of death. I'm not afraid of dying. Go to 2 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians, chapter 5, you know, being an older person or at the end of my life would sometimes give me trouble or give me kind of a worry. But as we study the Bible, we learn that it's going to be a great day. It's going to be a great thing. It's something to actually even look forward to rather than theory. And you say, how could I feel that way? How could I have that type of viewpoint, letting the Bible be your strength, letting God's word strengthen and comfort you about this? Because the inevitable truth is everyone in this room is going to die, most likely. I mean, unless Christ comes, you know, in our lifetime, you're going to die physically. And that's, you know, something that we should not be afraid of. That's something we should actually look forward to. It says in verse 1, for we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, and house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed upon, with our house which is from heaven. If so be that being clothed, we shall not be found naked. For we that are in this tabernacle do groan, being burdened, not for that we would be unclothed, but clothed upon, that mortality might be swallowed up of life. Now he that hath wrought us for the selfsame thing is God, who also hath given unto us the earnest of the Spirit. Therefore we are always confident, knowing that, whilst we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord. For we walk by faith, not by sight. We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord. Wherefore we labor, that whether present or absent, we may be accepted of him. The Bible teaches that whenever we're absent from the body, as Christians, we will then be present with the Lord. And oftentimes, you know, when you're really sick, when you're really hurting, when you look at how sick and disgusting this world is, it just reminds you of how much better it would be just to be with the Lord. You know, and even the apostle Paul says, to depart and be with Christ is far better. He's saying, hey, that sounds great. I mean, when you're just laying there suffering, you're just kind of thinking like, just take me home now. Have you ever felt that? Have you ever been that sick and you're just kind of thinking like, oh, man, I wish it was just over. Just take me home now. Maybe when you're giving birth, I don't know, something, you know, some of these certain pains that we might have. But the Bible says, hey, we're clothed right now in this earthly tabernacle. But even if it gets completely destroyed, even if your physical body's wiped out, we'll still be clothed upon, we'll put on the incorruptible, and that can give us strength to not fear the physical death that we'll all inevitably have, essentially. Now, maybe if Christ comes in our lifetime, you won't experience that physical death because you'll just immediately be translated. You'll be immediately caught up together with him. That sounds great too. Go to Matthew 28, Matthew 28. But if I'm letting the Lord be my strength, you know what, I'm going to keep preaching the gospel even when I'm faint. And when the threats of death or other persecutions may come, I can still have strength through knowing that I'm going to heaven, knowing that I'm going to be with the Lord when I die physically. Not only that, it can give us the strength to go on a foreign missions trip. You know, sometimes some people might be a little bit hesitant to want to leave their comfort zone, to want to leave the area that they grew up in, to leave their state, to leave their country, to go into a foreign land and preaching the gospel. You know, the Lord can give you that strength to do this. Says in Matthew 28, look at verse 18, we already quoted this, but, and Jesus came and spake unto them saying, all power is given unto me in heaven and in earth, go ye therefore and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, teaching them to serve all things whatsoever commanded you. And lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world I'm in. So that proves to me that this commandment was not just for the apostles because they're not alive anymore. But he's with us. If you knew that the Lord Jesus Christ is sitting there right with you when you go down into Mexico, who cares about the cartel? Really you should worry about the police. Usually the police are way more dangerous than any of these drug cartels. They're the real drug cartels. They're the real ones killing people and taking their lives and taking advantage of them. You say, if you ask every single person on our trip, did you feel more harassed from the drug cartels or the police? Well, considering the fact when we got back into America, we had to sit there for three hours while they were interrogating Jesse's wife just to come back into the country. That wasn't that much fun. But you know what? The Lord was with us. And we even had people get out. They're trying to give people the gospel or sitting here in secondary or whatever. But you know what? We shouldn't be afraid to go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. Why? Because all power is given of God. Jesus Christ has all power. Hey, are you allowed to be here? Yes. Christ wants me to go there. Christ wants me to preach the gospel to every creature. Why would he give me such a commandment and then be like, are you sure we should go down to Mexico and preach the gospel? It's dangerous down there. Great. Christ is going to be with me. Are you worried about it? Nope. You know, in fact, most people in the Bible, they have an opposite problem. I'm more afraid of not going there than going there. Go if you would to Jeremiah chapter one, Jeremiah chapter one. Let's think of a guy named Jonah. Was he better off or worse off by not going to Nineveh? He was way worse off. Oh, Nineveh is that bloody city. Can you believe Jonah is going there to preach? Well, I don't want to get tossed into the sea and have a fish eat me. That sounds way worse. I want to be strengthened by God's work. Did anything bad happen to Jonah and Nineveh? He's like the greatest prophet for them. They think he's awesome. He saved the day. He's like their hero. Even though he doesn't like it, he's just like, they're like, Jonah, thank you. Get out of here. You know, what are you doing? I wish you had died already. You know, but it's more terrifying to not follow God's commandments than to fear what man can do to you. We as a church ought not look at going out and preaching the gospel as a weary thing or a faint thing or something that, oh, are you really sure we should be doing this? Yeah, we should be doing it. I'm afraid of the church that doesn't do it. You should be terrified by not going out and preaching the gospel to every creature and not trying to reach this world with the gospel. Why do you think God would want to continue blessing a church that's just sucking resources down the toilet? There's so many churches today, they're literally just throwing resources down the toilet. I get call and harassment and email virtually every day, it feels like, of these fake missionaries. There's this one particular fake missionary. I'm kind of waiting to get some more information from this guy. He calls me like every day, and this guy's not saved. I'm like 100% convinced, but I just want to get a little bit more damning evidence of this guy. But, I mean, oh, I go soul winning twice a week. How many people have you ever said? Zero in a year. It's like we went to Mexico and one day it had 78 people saved. And look, it wasn't because we're special. It wasn't because I'm so amazing at giving the gospel. In fact, I didn't even get that many people saved personally. You know how many people I got saved in Reynosa? Two of the 78. You know who did all the big work? Just Joe Church, remember? Just random guy in the church who just goes down and is just faithful and just says, hey, I'm going to rest in the power of the word of God. I'm not a pastor. I'm not even a man. You know, a lot of women went down there and they got a lot of people saved. Old, young, look, the Lord should be our strength, not your physical flesh, not your mind. I'm excited to go to the next foreign missions trip. Why? Because that's what God told us to do. Jeremiah chapter one, look at what happens if you don't. Verse 18. For behold, I have made thee this day a defense city and an iron pillar and brazen walls against the whole land, against the kings of Judah, against the prince thereof, against the priests thereof, against the people of the land. Now he tells him he's a defense city and he tells him explicitly in this chapter that if he does not preach his words, he's going to make him confounded before all of them. He's going to make them ashamed. Go to chapter 25. Chapter 25. So God already told him, hey, I'm going to strengthen you. I'm going to be with you. It sounds a lot like Matthew 28. Hey, all power is given unto me. But he warned Jeremiah. He said that if he would not preach his word, it says thou therefore gird up thy loins and arise and speak unto them all that I command thee. Be not dismayed at their faces lest I confound thee before them. He's saying you better preach everything I told you to preach them. And if you don't, I'll make you look stupid. I'll make you look like an idiot if you don't preach my word. And Jeremiah 25, it says in verse 17, then took I the cup at the Lord's hand and made all the nations to drink unto whom the Lord had sent me. Now when he says all nations, he means all nations. He literally had to go to every nation. And I'm so glad that I have Matthew 28 and I have Mark 16, 15, because you know when I go to a foreign nation, you know what I tell them? All you have to do is believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you're going to be saved. You know what Jeremiah had to tell them? You're going to be destroyed and wiped out. You need to drink this wine and spew and be drunken and you're going to get God's punishment. That's a pretty harsh message. Can you imagine going up to the face of the North Korean, you know, Kim Jong-ul or whoever, I don't know which one it is, something, be like, you're destroyed, buddy. You're wiped out. You have no chance. Just submit to God right now. China, all the nations. That's the message he had to go out and preach. You say, how could someone do that? That's a lot of boldness to go to every single leader of every single nation and tell them the words of the Lord. Why? Because he's letting God be a strength. But somebody in the chapter next to it, chapter 26, he has the same thing, but he gets scared. He doesn't let the Lord be his strength. He lets his own mind and understanding be a strength. Let's see what happens to him. Chapter 26, verse 18. Micah the morselite prophesied in the days of Hezekiah king of Judah and spake to all the people of Judah saying, thus say the Lord of hosts, Zion shall be plowed like a field and Jerusalem shall become heaps and the mountain of the house as the high places of a forest. Did Hezekiah king of Judah and all Judah put him at all to death? Did he not fear the Lord and besought the Lord and the Lord depended him of the evil which he had pronounced against them? That's why we procure great evil against our souls. Now the context of 26 is this, Jeremiah's preached really hard against them and told them how wicked they are and they're like, we're going to have to put Jeremiah to death. This one guy is kind of sticking up for him and he's trying to say, hey, well, Micah, he said that Jerusalem would be destroyed and Hezekiah did not kill him, why would we want to kill Jeremiah? Basically is the concept he's bringing up. It says in verse 20, and there was also a man that prophesied in the name of the Lord, Urijah, the son of Shemaiah of Kirjath-jearim who prophesied against this city and against this land according to all the words of Jeremiah. And when Jehoiakim the king with all his mighty men and all the princes heard his words, the king sought to put him to death. But when Urijah heard it, he was afraid. Notice what happened. He got afraid at what man was going to do to him and it says this, and fled and went into Egypt and Jehoiakim the king sent men into Egypt, namely Elnath and the son of Akbor and certain men with them in Egypt and they fetched forth Urijah out of Egypt and brought him under Jehoiakim the king who slew him with the sword and cast his dead body into the graves of the common people. Nevertheless, the hand of Ahicham, the son of Shaphan was with Jeremiah that they should not give him to the hand of the people to put him to death. So the God's giving us two different people. One person is preaching God's word with boldness and the Lord preserves him. The other one preaches it and they're like, we're going to put you to death and he's like ah! And they go and find him and they kill him. You know what? If you don't have the strength in God's promises, God will destroy you. We need to allow God to be a refuge. Look, if I go without God's shielding and God's covering, then I can just be destroyed by man. If God be for us, who can be against us? What the Bible says. If we're going out and following God's commandments like he told us to do, we can have strength in his word. I'm not afraid of going out and preaching the gospel. Now obviously, I'm not going to just go run behind enemy lines where it's illegal to soul win and just be like haha, you can't touch me. Let's go to the, let's go to the receptive first. But here's my thing. If we have reached every nation with a gospel and it's only unreceptive, scary places to go, we ought to still go in there and preach the gospel. We ought to go into all nations. Christ gave us that commandment. But we might as well start with the ones that are easy. The Bahamas is real easy, all right? Mexico's real easy. Canada's easy, but they're not that receptive, okay? I'll just be honest. It's not as receptive as other places, but we should go. The Philippines, I've never been there, but I've heard great testimonies that it's super receptive, super easy, maybe one day North Korea will be wiped out by another country and we can just go in there and preach them the gospel then. Let's just worry about getting all the countries we can now and then we'll worry about those ones later. That just makes a lot of sense. But notice the guy that got afraid and quit, he was the one that got in trouble, wasn't he? Not Jeremiah. Jeremiah has a lot more chapters in him. That's a long, that's a long book. Jeremiah had a lot more preaching. What if Jeremiah got scared and ran away? We wouldn't have had Jeremiah 27 and 28 and 29. We'd had somebody else have to come and give us the word of God. So don't get so afraid of, hey, should I go on this foreign missions trip? What would God tell you? Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. Yes, you should. We all should. And I'd be more afraid of deciding not to do it than to do it. Go into Matthew chapter 10, Matthew chapter 10. The Bible says the horse is prepared against the day of battle, but safety is of the Lord. Now, I'm not against being safe. I'm not against taking precautions, but at the end of the day, I'd rather be safely in God's commandments than outside of his commandments, saying, hey, I'd rather be down in Mexico with all the drug cartels preaching the gospel than just staying home being a lazy jerk, than doing nothing for God, than just saying, well, let's just let Mexico go to hell. Let's just let Trump build a wall and nuke Mexico and do whatever. I don't really care. Now, I feel safer being down there doing the work of the Lord than just rejecting going out and preaching the gospel to anybody. Look at Matthew 10, verse 16. Behold, I send you forth as sheep. Notice this in the midst of wolves. Be therefore wise as serpents and harmless as doves. Did Christ say, hey, I'm sending you out to the safest place on the planet? Hey, I'm sending you out as sheep amongst the wolves. I mean, he knows that there's wolves out there. He knows there's dangerous things out there, but he's still sending us out. Why? So we can be in his strength. We can rest upon his strength, his promises. Go to 2 Timothy chapter one, 2 Timothy chapter number one. I say this because why? We're going to have temptation to grow weary, grow faint in our minds, wondering if what we're doing really even matters. But at the end of the day, we need to constantly let the Bible be the one to tell us what's right and wrong. Tell us if we're succeeding. You say, hey, are we succeeding because our church is growing? Maybe. Are we succeeding because our church is getting smaller? Maybe. Are we succeeding because we started another church? Maybe. It really doesn't matter. We shouldn't look at the flesh. Our church has been growing. Our church has been starting other churches and doing all these things. We shouldn't look to those and wonder if that's successful. We should look at what God said and see if that's us being successful. Are we following his commandments? How do we measure up to his word? That's how we should measure our success, and that's how we should measure our strength. Churches today that are downsiding soul winning, but increasing attendance. You don't think that's happening? You don't think there's churches today that are doing less soul winning, but their church is growing in attendance. They're getting weaker. They're not resting upon the strength of the Lord, and eventually that church is going to be destroyed. God's going to not even consider it. He's going to remove their candlestick. They're just not even going to be a church anymore. They're just going to become a non-denominational fun center, and they're going to lose that battle. You're going to lose that race. If we try to be like Gateway, we will lose eventually, but if we do what God said, if we build ourselves upon the rock, the gates of hell shall not prevail against us. That's why we have strength through following his commandments. You think your church is going to grow after a sermon like that in the morning? I don't really care, because I know the gates of hell isn't going to prevail against our church, and I'm going to be surrounded with a bunch of men at my church. I'm not going to have like 50-50 going on. Hey, if I had 50-50, you could grow. I don't want that kind of growth. I don't want a bunch of feminine queer sissies that are afraid of everything, afraid of their own shadow, because then when we have persecution, they'll all flee, and we won't have that growth anyways. We'll have true growth when we get everything here strengthened, and it gets a little bit more manly, and we actually start doing the work of the Lord, and we have a bunch of men going out and being men. That's going to be attractive. It's going to attract other people who want to come to church like this, where they're not around a bunch of feminine queer sissies. 2 Timothy 1, verse 7, for God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind. Be not, therefore, ashamed of the testimony of the Lord, nor me as prisoner, but be thou partaker of the afflictions of the gospel according to the power of God. The Bible says we're going to suffer affliction. How do you get through that? Well, first of all, I like the fact that God already told us, so I can be prepared mentally. I can realize I'm going to suffer affliction. Look at chapter 3, verse number 8, chapter 3. Now as Jannes and Jambres visited Moses, so do these also resist the truth. Men of corrupt minds reprobate concerning the faith, but they shall proceed no further. For their following shall be manifest unto all men, as theirs also was. But thou hast fully known my doctrine of life, purpose, faith, longsuffering, charity, patience, persecutions, afflictions, which came unto me at Antioch, at Iconium, at Lystra. What persecutions I endured! But out of them all the Lord delivered me. Yea, and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution. The apostle Paul is our model here, and he's saying, hey, if you live godly, you better be ready, because you're going to suffer affliction. You're going to suffer persecution. You're going to go through hard times. But he told us this, out of them all the Lord delivered me. The Lord was a strength. The Lord is the one that helped them get through it. Look, when we read the life that the apostle Paul had, it's like, how did you do that? How do you get beaten to a pulp over and over and over? How do you just sit there and swim in the deep? Just for hours, just hours and hours and hours, just swimming, just wondering if you're going to die, and going through constant famine, you know, where you don't have food, and you're just hungry, and you're cold, and you're naked, and nobody is with you. Look, when the apostles went out, it wasn't like today where they could check on Facebook and be like, oh, all my friends back home, they're doing it too. He doesn't even know, everybody's forsaken him. He doesn't know what's going on. And in fact, the Bible tells us that his first answer, all men forsook me. The apostle Paul is constantly going through struggle and strife, and he's like wondering and questioning. I mean, you don't think he doubted it. You don't think he's like, is God really with me right now? I just got beaten again for preaching the gospel. I just got thrown in jail again. I mean, everybody's, you know, demons forsaken me. You know, everybody's turning on me. None of my brethren believe in me. None of the Jews agree with me. I'm showing them clearly from the Bible, over and over, Jesus Christ must needs first suffer. But it's just like they don't get it. He's just banging his head against the wall. He's like, I'd like to be a curse for my nation's sake, for my brethren's sake. But you know what gave him the strength? He just kept reading the Bible, and he's like, but Christ must need first suffer. But all that will live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution. But you know what? John 3 16 is still true. Romans 10 is still in my Bible. Hey, I can be strengthened by knowing, look, if everybody quit soul winning, and I'm going so many by myself, I'm not going to be like, well, is that really what I should be doing? I'll still do it because the Lord can strengthen me. You know, there's going to be times in your life where you're going to feel like is what am I doing right? Because you're suffering pain because you're suffering affliction. But then you just keep coming back to this. It'll keep you on the right path. When your whole family's like, you're in a cult. You're a moron. You're a fool. What are you doing? Why would you be at church on a Sunday night? But it says not forsaking and assembling ourselves together is the manner some is, but so much the more as you see the day approaching, that strengthens me and says I need to be in church. You know, you wonder, hey, am I in a cult? Well, they called Paul being in a sect. They said he was in a cult. They said this guy has a strange views. He's going out and starting his own little cult or whatever. But he knew he wasn't in a cult. I know I'm not in a cult. I know I have no control over you. Do I ever tell you what to wear or where to go? Look, I wish I was in a cult because I keep trying to get people to come into church and they won't. I keep trying to tell men to be manly and they won't. You know, I want everybody to go soul winning and they don't. You know, all I can do is get up here and scream and yell and try to do my best to preach what the Bible says. But even by my own power, it's not that powerful. It's really just the Bible. It's God's words that has the power, that has the might, that's going to change hearts. That's going to get you to keep doing the right thing. Psalms 18, go to Psalms 18. But you will suffer persecution. When you're sitting in jail wondering, was it worth it? You can read God's word and you can say, hey, I know it was worth it. When you get beaten and you wonder and it hurts, you can know it was worth it. When you go through all the sufferings and the pain and the turmoil, am I on the right path? Well, what does the Bible say? It can strengthen you. You can know that you're on the right path. The Lord can give you that strength to endure when you're weary, you're faint. That's not the type of a person that's just like, oh, I'm super confident. It's the person that's constantly questioning like, am I doing the right thing here? Well, what does the Bible say? Yep, I'm doing the right thing. You should know if you're trusting in his promises, you're on the right path every single time. No matter what man says, no matter what's happening to you. Look at Psalms 18, verse one, I will love thee, O Lord, my strength. The Lord is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer, my God, my strength and whom I will trust, my buckler and the horn of my salvation and my high tower. I will call upon the Lord who is worthy to be praised. So shall I be saved from my enemies. The sorrows of death compass me and the floods of ungodly men made me afraid. The sorrows of hell compass me about, the snares of death prevented me. In my distress, I cried, called upon the Lord and cried unto my God. He heard my voice out of his temple and my cry came before him, even in his ears. No matter what you're going through, you pray in God, he can hear that prayer and he can be your strength. He can be the one to help you. If you're going through a hard time, when you feel faint, when you feel weary, go to the Lord in prayer. We see the Psalmist, he's saying, hey, I know the Lord is going to be my strength. I'm going to go to him and I'm going to pray to him and ask him to give me strength. Please Lord, help me have the right attitude. Help me to have confidence. Help me to have boldness. Lord, increase our faith. Help me to know what I'm doing is the right thing even more. God will answer that prayer. The Bible says, the Lord is my light and my salvation. Whom shall I fear? The Lord is the strength of my life. Of whom shall I be afraid? The world would tell us that we're fools, that we're silly, that we're trusting in a book of a sky fairy. That's what the atheist will say. They'll say, you're so hateful, you're not loving, you're so old fashioned, you're against everything. Well the Lord is the strength of my life. He's my light. I'm going to follow his paths. I'm going to do what he said. That's going to keep me going. That's going to keep me doing the right thing. If you're trusting in what man told you or your own personal opinions, you'll eventually fall. But if you're trusting in what this said, this is never going to change. This is going to keep giving you strength day after day after day. Go to Micah 7. Micah 7. We're going to have a lot of problems in our lives, but the Lord is going to strengthen us. The Lord will strengthen us through his word. You say, hey, I'm going through the hardest time I've ever been in my life, Pastor Shelley. The Bible can give you strength. God's word can give you strength when you're doing that which is right. And look at the end of the day, hey, if I'm in church and I'm going soul winning, who cares what else is going on? I mean all the other stuff's not that important. Hey, you got your family with you? You got the ones that you love with you? You're doing great. You're doing a lot better than you think. You can have a continual feast. You can be merry and you can let the Lord continually strengthen you. And you know what? Things can get better. There's a lot of times in my life where there was a problem or a struggle and I just thought like it'll never get better. This is like I'm kind of limited in how well my life can be. And then something happens I never thought was ever going to happen in a thousand years and my life got so much better. You pray unto God and you think that'll never change and then it changes and you're just like praise the Lord. But if we let the Lord be our strength, he is faithful. He's going to continually deliver on his word. We can't trust him people though. Micah 7, 5, trust you not in a friend, put you not confidence in a guide, keep the doors of thy mouth from her that lieth in thy bosom. For the son dishonor the father, the daughter rises up against her mother, the daughter in law against her mother in law. A man's enemies are the men of his own house. Therefore I look unto the Lord, I will wait for the God of my salvation. My God will hear me. Rejoice not against me, O my enemy. When I fall, I shall arise. When I sit in darkness, the Lord shall be a light unto me. If you're ultimately trusting in a family relationship to strengthen you, you'll fall. If you're looking for your spouse to be the ultimate strength for you, you can many places and many times will fall. You're trusting your friend. If you're trusting your pastor, if you're trusting your brother, if you're trusting man, you will fall. You need to put your faith in God. God will be the one that you're supposed to trust. Build your life on what the book says, not on what person says, not on the relationships you get. Your relations will come and go. Your family will come and go. And the Bible says there are going to be family divisions even. How can you even know? Should I have this family division? What did the Bible say? Am I doing what the Bible said? Go to Judges 9, Judges 9. Proverbs 17, verse 17 says, a friend loveth at all times and a brother is born for adversity. More times in the Bible, if you actually think about it, and we're going to think about this for a second, family is not a benefit, it's the adversary. It's the problem. Let's just go to the very beginning, okay? Cain and Abel. You think Cain was Abel's best friend? How did that one work out? Oh yeah, his brother killed him, didn't he? How about Abraham and Laban? That was more of an adverse relationship when you really think about it. What about Ishmael and Isaac? Best friends, right? Ishmael's making fun of Isaac. He's cast out. They end up having two nations that are constantly at each other against one another. Jacob and Esau, best friends, right? No, we're not even out of the first book. Joseph and his brethren, best friends. I mean, they just throw them in a pit, they want to sell them. Are we seeing a pattern? The brother is not your friend. In fact, a friend stick it closer than a brother. A brother is born for adversity. How about this? Ephraim. Again, the younger usurps the older, doesn't he? Moses and Aaron. Even Aaron has strife with Moses. Even they don't always get along at all times. How about Jephthah? How did it work out for Jephthah? Yeah, his brethren cast him out. And then in the time of need, they're kind of like, come on, just, we know we called you a bastard and whatever, but you know, come on in here. Be our leader. Judges chapter nine, look at verse five. And he went into his father's house, we're talking about Abimelech, at Ophrah and slew his brethren, the sons of Drubel. What a brother. I mean, this guy is so good. My brother, he just killed all of us. Being three score and 10 persons, he killed 70 of his own brethren. Go to 2 Chronicles 21, 2 Chronicles 21. How about Athaliah? Now, we've just been poking up brothers. Athaliah, she killed all of the men in her family. More times in the Bible, if you actually study it, your brother's not your best friend. Your brother's the one trying to kill you. And even in the New Testament, the Bible warns there will be a day when brother will betray brother, when son will betray father, when father will betray son. Trust ye not in a friend. Trust in God. He's going to be the one to strengthen you. When all your brethren turn against you, God can still be there with you. When Joseph, I mean, think about it. All of his brethren want to kill him. That's a pretty dark time. He's sold into slavery into Egypt. But you know what? The Lord is with him. The Lord's going to strengthen him. He didn't do anything wrong. 2 Chronicles 21 verse 4, now when Jehoram was risen up to the kingdom of his father, he strengthened himself and slew all his brethren with the sword. How many stories do I need to show you where your brother's not your best friend? But then people would be like, oh, you know, my brother says I'm in a cult. Well, at least he didn't kill you. At least he didn't throw rocks at you or whatever. At least he didn't sell you into slavery to Egypt. That sounds terrible. Go to Proverbs 28, Proverbs 28. Jesus' own brethren didn't believe in him. Hebrews 13, the Bible says, let your conversation be without covetousness and be content with such things as you have. For he has said, I will never leave thee nor forsake thee so that we may boldly say the Lord is my helper. I will not fear what man shall do unto me. Your brethren, probably not going to respect you. You're going to have family relation problems. You're going to have times where your brethren doesn't believe in you. Proverbs chapter 18, look at verse 24, a man that hath friends must show himself friendly and there is a friend that sticketh closer than a brother. Hey, even though my family may never feel the same way as I do, I got a lot of friends that are going to stick closer than a brother. Who is my mother? Who is my brethren? They that hear the word of God and do it. And that gives me strength, going out with my friends. And frankly speaking, I would way rather hang out with people at this church and talk about the Bible than go make small talk with my family who's not really interested in me. It doesn't even make me feel that great. I don't even enjoy it. It's awkward. It's just kind of like you just sit there and you just want them to care and not be apathetic and not lie and not rail and not destroying their lives and not influencing your family and your children in a negative way. Look, we've all been there. We've all done that. But the Lord can strengthen you with good friends by coming to church, by getting around God's people. Go to 1st Samuel 30. That's my last point I'm going to have for the evening. We need to let the Lord be our strength today. I'll just recap. We need to let the Lord be our strength in the gospel. We need to let him be our strength in the fact that we don't fear death. We need to let him be the strength in our foreign mission strips. We need to let the Lord be our strength when we go through persecutions. We need to let the Lord be our strength when it comes to family divisions because they're going to come. And lastly, we need to let the Lord be our strength when we feel alone. There's times when you can feel alone. There's been times in my life where I'm looking at the Bible and I feel like I'm the only one that believes this way. I feel like I'm the only one that actually is looking at the scripture and saying, this is what it's saying here. There's been some times where I'm thinking like nobody's with me on this one. You know what? I'm like, that's what the Bible says. And I can have strength to get in everybody's face and just boldly proclaim what the Bible says. And you know what? God said it. No matter what it is. No matter what's going on. And at the end of the day, even if you're alone with God's word, he's still on your side. It doesn't matter what everybody else is doing. It only matters what the Bible said. And when you put all your faith and all your strength in this, you're not going to be ashamed. You're not going to be let down. You're not going to be cast away. God's not going to sit here and be like, oh, that guy believed what I said. What a weirdo. You know, no, he's going to show himself strong on behalf of them that have their heart perfect toward him. Is what the Bible says. First Samuel chapter 30 verse one. And it came to pass when David and his men were come to Ziklag on the third day that the Amalekites had invaded the south and Ziklag had and had smitten Ziklag and burned it with fire and had taken the women captives that were therein. They slew not any, either great or small, but carried them away and went on their way. So David and his men came to the city and behold, it was burned with fire and their wives and their sons and their daughters were taken captives. Then David and the people that were with him lifted up their voice and wept until they had no more power to weep. And David's two wives were taken captives, Ahinoim the Jezrelitess and Abigail the White of Nabal the Carmelite. And David was greatly distressed for the people spake of stoning him because the soul of all the people was greed. Every man for his sons and for his daughters. But David encouraged himself in the Lord of God. David is going through the hardest time he's ever been in his life. Everyone has turned on him. His father-in-law is trying to kill him. He doesn't have his wife. He's out with just a bunch of outcasts. He's been kicked out of his own homeland. He has no power. He's just been rejected by even the secular world. He got rejected by God's people. He got rejected by the secular world. Oh yeah, it makes me think of somebody. Jesus Christ, huh? Rejected by everybody. A man of sorrow and acquainted with grief. But even David, all the people want to stone him, his own brethren. But he strengthened himself in the Lord. Even when you're all alone, God is with you. God's word can be there with you. And you can still strengthen yourself in God's promises, in God's word. Go over to 2 Timothy 4. So the last place I'll have you turn. Samson in Judges 16. And Samson called unto the Lord and said, O Lord God, remember me I pray thee and strengthen me I pray thee. Only this once, O God, that I may be at once avenged of the Philistines from my two eyes. Samson's by himself up there being mocked, being ridiculed. But he says, God, give me strength one more time. And he brings down the house on all the enemies, doesn't he? Even David, when he encouraged himself in the Lord, the Bible says he recovered all. What a great victory. But you know what? How did he get there? When he was in that dark place, he let the Lord be his strength. He let the Lord be the one to encourage him to say, hey, it might be dark, really dark right now. But there's going to be a light at the end of that tunnel. Look at 2 Timothy chapter 4 verse 14. Alexander the coppersmith did me much evil. The Lord reward him according to his works. Verse 15, of whom be thou where also, for he hath greatly withstood our words. At my first answer, no man stood with me, but all men forsook me. I pray God that it may not be laid to their charge, notwithstanding, the Lord stood with me and strengthened me, that by me the preaching might be fully known, and that all the Gentiles might hear. And I was delivered out of the mouth of the lion, and the Lord shall deliver me from every evil word, and will preserve me unto his heavenly kingdom, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen. Paul said, hey, everybody gave up on me, but God didn't. The Lord didn't. The Bible says, seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you. Look, when you're seeking God first, it doesn't matter who's against you. It doesn't matter if you feel alone. God's with you. God's going to make sure that you're taken care of. Rest upon him. Put all your faith and promises on him, and he's going to take care of you. You're not going to be ashamed when you allow the Lord to be your strength. When you allow you to be your strength, that's when you fail. Well, I don't think I need to go to church three times a week. I'll just do this other thing. I don't think I really need to follow God's commandments. I don't think I really need ... Do I really need to marry someone that's saved? Yes, you do. But I can't find anybody, you know? Just wait. Wait on the Lord. Hey, do I really need to make sure that I arrange my life around soul winning? I don't want to be Erijah. I don't want to be Jonah. I don't want to go ... I want to arrange my life around soul winning, because at least when I know I'm going soul winning and being faithful to God's word and following his commandments, he's going to deliver me out of the mouth of the lion, is what the Bible says. When I go soul winning, I'm not going in my power and might, I'm going in his strength. The Bible says, trust in the Lord forever, and the Lord Jehovah's everlasting strength. God wants to strengthen his people today. My question is, where are you putting your strength? Is it in you, or is it in this book? Let's close in prayer. Thank you, Father, so much for your word. Thank you for giving us the option and the opportunity to trust in your strength, the one who truly is strong, the one who has everlasting strength. I pray that not only for salvation when we trust you, but in every area of our life. That when we go out preaching the gospel, you'd be with us. That we go through persecutions and troubles, when we feel alone, when we have our family problems, when we fear the things of death, whenever we fear going and getting out of our comfort zone and going somewhere, we know that you're with us when we're following your word and going according to your commandments. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.