(Disclaimer: This transcript is auto-generated and may contain mistakes.) you you you you you you you you And the green hymnal glory to his name Welcome to sure foundation Baptist Church if you could find your seat and grab your song book and turn to page number two in the green Glory to his name Song number two glory to his name glory to his name. Let's sing it out on the first Down at the cross where my Savior died down we're from cleansing from sin There to my heart was the blood of wine Glory to his name Glory to his name There to my heart was the blood applied glory to his name I am so wondrously saved from sin Jesus so sweetly abides with him There at the cross where he took me in Glory to his name Glory to his name Glory to his name There to my heart was the blood of wine Glory to his name Oh precious fountain that saves from sin I am so glad I have entered him There Jesus saves me and keeps me clean Glory to his name Glory to his name Glory to his name There to my heart was the blood applied Glory to his name Come to this fountain so rich and sweet Cast thy poor soul at the Savior's feet Plunge in today and be made complete Glory to his name Glory to his name Glory to his name There to my heart was the blood applied Glory to his name Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Far away the noise of strife Upon my ear is falling Then I know the sins of earth Be set on every hand Doubt and fear and things of earth In vain to me are calling None of these shall move me From Beulah land I'm living on a mountain Underneath the cloudless sky Praise God I'm drinking At the fountain that never shall run dry Oh yes I'm feasting on the manna From a bountiful supply For I am dwelling In Beulah land I gotta be honest with you guys that praise God was a little weak I think we could do a little bit better than that We're baptists right? Let's sing it out and let's praise God on the second Far below the storm of doubt Upon the world is beating Sons of men in battle long The enemy will stand Safe am I within the castle Of God's word retreating Nothing then can reach me This Beulah land I'm living on a mountain Underneath the cloudless sky Praise God I'm drinking At the fountain that never shall run dry Oh yes I'm feasting on the manna From a bountiful supply For I am dwelling In Beulah land Much better keep singing it out on the third Let the stormy breezes blow Their cry cannot alarm me I am safely sheltered here Protected by God's hand Here the sun is always shining Here there's not can harm me I am safe forever In Beulah land I'm living on a mountain Underneath the cloudless sky Praise God I'm drinking At the fountain that never shall run dry Oh yes I'm feasting on the manna From a bountiful supply For I am dwelling In Beulah land Viewing here the works of God I sink in contemplation Hearing now his blessed voice I see the way he planned Dwelling in the Spirit Here I learn of full salvation Gladly will I tarry In Beulah land I'm living on a mountain Underneath the cloudless sky Praise God I'm drinking At the fountain that never shall run dry Oh yes I'm feasting on the manna From a bountiful supply For I am dwelling In Beulah land Amen. Good singing this morning. Good morning. Welcome to Sure Foundation Baptist Church. Let's take our bulletins and go through them. If you need a bulletin would you raise your hand up high and Brother Ramon will bring you a bulletin. If you need a bulletin raise your hand please. All right on our front cover we have our verse of the week and it looks like a beautiful picture of I think that's Yakima Valley isn't it? It says, Dote man when he hath lighted a candle covereth it with a vessel or putteth it under a bed but seteth it on a candlestick that they which enter in may see the light. Luke chapter 8 verse 16 on our left hand side page we have our service times. Sunday morning service is 10 30 a.m. Sunday evening service is 3 30 p.m. and our Thursday Bible studies at 6 30 p.m. will be in 1 Corinthians chapter 5 this coming Thursday. Our soul winning times are listed below and we have soul winning today at 1 o'clock if you're interested in going out soul winning please let Brother Brandon know that you're going so we can make up the teams and he's going to have maps and everything in the WhatsApp group. If you go to the church and you're not in the WhatsApp group yet please see me after the service and I'd be happy to put you in there it's a lot easier to communicate on mass communication than for me to tell people individually every single thing so if you want to get in there just please let me know and our regional soul winning times are listed below and let's see we have our praise report wow is that a miss print right there Rylan? No we have 164 salvations for this month because we had 155 salvations in Yakima for our soul winning missions trip and so it was a great time I think everybody had a good time I saw a lot of kids having a good time and parents chasing their kids while they were having a good time actually it's a perfect setup up there it's kind of like Goshen there everything you need is right there Panera bread Dutch Brothers isn't too far away but the hotel we stayed at has a courtyard where kids could play and I think almost everybody here was there but it was a great trip and we ate like kings and queens and princes and princesses it was a great time and Yakima is very very receptive it's probably the most receptive place in Washington state that I've been to so far so I mean obviously we haven't stolen everywhere but all the main places I've gone I mean Yakima you're knocking doors and you're talking the whole time so it can take a long time to get through one map because even on our way out how many salvations did we have on the way out does anybody know the number it was like 6 salvations on the way out but one day we had I think 43 salvations I don't know it's hard to keep track because a lot of people were getting saved so we had also a new couple come and join us and they went soloing with us a few times and they ended up getting baptized so we had a service there with 108 people in the service in the tiny upper room so a great time was had by all we're going to try to go back in October but I'm not 100% sure that we will and we'll try to knock Yakima proper so we started getting into the maps in Yakima and Yakima is receptive too the actual city of Yakima is very receptive so anyway it was a great time and hopefully we can go back there in October and do it again so on May 26th we have the men's leadership class that's this Wednesday at 6pm and May 31st through the 7th is the Hawaiian missions trip I know we have a couple people coming from our church there but me and Ms. Sherry, my wife, my beautiful wife will be there we're actually going to be there until the 11th because it's our 20 year anniversary and so we're going to spend a couple extra days there and then we're going to fly back home on the 11th which is a Friday so I'll miss one Sunday service but I am going to miss two Thursday services so if I asked you to preach during one of those please let me know because I just want to make sure all the spots are filled up I know that we have a men's preaching night on the 6th did I ask somebody to preach on the 6th in the morning yet? okay yeah, Remy's going to preach on the 6th in the morning and did I ask anybody to preach on Thursday? Blake did I ask you to preach? the 3rd, okay so I need a man to preach on the next Thursday after that oh okay I already asked Sean, alright I'm sorry okay I just want to make sure everything's covered my worst nightmare is where I'm out of town and then like who's supposed to preach? I don't know Brother Timo, I haven't got a chance to watch his sermon from last Thursday but he preached at 8 because almost everybody else was on the business trip but he preached like there was 108 I mean I just saw this, I saw the clock and I was like oh man he's pissed at that clock again, he's tearing it up no I'm just teasing but I appreciate him filling in while we were gone it was a great time alright so then let's see yeah and if you're going to that Hawaiian missions trip there's two documents that you have to fill out did you already get all your stuff filled out? okay and we have to take a COVID test 3 days before we leave so I don't think they stick it in your brain this time so if they do just let me know I'm just kidding no I think they just swirl it around and then you just have to have it done 3 days before you leave we'll talk about it after the service anyway let's see the men's preaching night is June 6 so is there going to be people here that are going to preach on that? I need to know now men's preaching night on the 6th okay Remi you're preaching in the morning so don't look confused you're good so okay we just need guys to preach on the 6th on Sunday evening alright and so let's see Father's Day shooting trip is in Stevenson Washington time to be determined Brother Sean do you have an idea what time okay noon or 1 o'clock we'll probably have lunch and then we'll shoot some guns amen yeah so ammo is a little more expensive than it was the last time I think that we did that so we might have to be conservationist but anyway we're still going to do it we're going to have a good time we're going to have we're going to have you know fun and shoot guns so anyway and the 20th is Father's Day and so that didn't get in the bulletin for some reason but Ryland did a pretty good job on the bulletin I just told him he did and then I forgot that he took Father's Day out of there so and I forgot to put it in so anyway Father's Day every dad in here will get a gift on that day and obviously we'll have a dad centered message or Father's Day centered message June 15th through the 18th is the Red Hot Preaching Conference at Verity Baptist Church you should probably start booking your stuff now because I think Pastor Anderson is sending a whole bunch of people over there from Faithful Word so when all the hotels run out then it's more expensive so who's planning on going to the Red Hot Preaching Conference yeah it's going to be a good time and there's information on Pastor Menes' YouTube page about that so hook that up if you want to know anything about it July 30th through August 1st is our three year anniversary and grand reopening at our new building and we'll have a soul winning marathon on Saturday but Friday night we're going to have Pastor Bruce Mejia preaching for us and so it's going to be a great weekend I'm going to preach the morning service and then we'll have a men's preaching night on the evening service and it'll be a great weekend lunch will be provided of course for the soul winning marathon that we're going to do and so we're supposed to get the keys for the building on June 1st which is next Tuesday so I know that Brother Joe is planning on doing some demo up there if you have any ideas or anything that you want to do or any times that you want to help I'm not going to be here until the 11th so I'm going to have to entrust the keys with somebody but I know there's one wall that has to go so that's for sure and then some carpet that needs to be matched where the vestibules are we're going to need to paint it and all that good stuff and then we're going to add mother baby rooms and maybe some pony walls or something so that we can have a kids corral or the kids can just run in circles and do this and I don't know we'll try to get a good layout of what we want to do I just want it to be an open area so no nooks and crannies to hide in but there's a lot of different rooms in that place and so we just need to figure out which ones are going to be the mom baby rooms and maybe have it open so people can see the preaching without having to watch it on a monitor the whole time but anyway we'll get all that figured out but we definitely need to demo that wall and so if you guys if anybody wants to help on the building for the next couple months I definitely could use your help so anyway we're a family integrated church that means the children and infants are welcome during the church services and the dad baby rooms those are downstairs and if you need those please utilize them and no men are allowed in the mother baby rooms no moms in the dad baby room and please make sure you latch the gates as you walk down the stairs on either end no food is allowed in the assembly area please silence your cell phones or put them on airplane mode before the preaching starts and then escorts to vehicles are allowed or I mean are available by the ushers and online donations are available at shurefoundationbaptist.com so just in case you didn't know our website has changed to shurefoundationbaptist.com so if you're going and trying to do your giving you can do that or you could text to the giving number which is at the bottom of the page there also we have some birthdays to celebrate so I didn't get a chance to sing happy birthday to Mandy so I'm gonna embarrass her again one more time did she get sang to last Sunday okay well I highlighted it I want to make sure that I get to sing to her and then Eli Woods birthday is today right today is the 23rd yeah and then also my son-in-law Dylan is his birthday and then my granddaughter Leah is it's her birthday and then Stephen is the 29th so I don't see him but anyway lots of birthdays huh is there anybody else anybody trying to hide anybody trying to hide okay good all right so let's sing happy birthday to all those birthday people ready happy birthday to you happy birthday to you happy birthday god bless you happy birthday to you happy birthday god bless you Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. All right. And I think that's it for announcements. Let's sing another song. We'll receive the opportunity. We'll write our next song. It's on number 441, The Great Is Thy Faithfulness. The great is thy faithfulness. Song 441, let's sing it out on the first. Great is thy faithfulness, O God my Father. There is no shadow of turning with thee. Thou changest not thy compassions, They fail not. As thou hast been, Thou forever will be. Great is thy faithfulness, Great is thy faithfulness. Morning by morning, New mercies I see. All I have needed thy hand hath provided. Great is thy faithfulness, Lord unto me. Summer and winter, And springtime and harvest. Sun, moon, and stars In their courses above. Join with all nature In manifold witness To thy great faithfulness, Mercy and love. Great is thy faithfulness, Great is thy faithfulness. Morning by morning, New mercies I see. All I have needed thy hand hath provided. Great is thy faithfulness, Lord unto me. Hardened for sin, And a peace that endureth, Thy own dear presence to cheer and to guide. Strength for today, And bright hope for tomorrow. Blessings all mine, With ten beside. Great is thy faithfulness, Great is thy faithfulness. Morning by morning, New mercies I see. All I have needed thy hand hath provided. Great is thy faithfulness, Lord unto me. Great is thy faithfulness, Great is thy faithfulness, Great is thy faithfulness. . . . . . . . . . . . If I could go ahead and open your Bibles to Acts chapter 2. Acts chapter number 2, if you don't have a Bible raise your hand and one of the esters will bring you one. Acts chapter 2. Acts 2 the Bible reads, and when the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one accord in one place. And suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting. And there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance. And there were dwelling at Jerusalem Jews, devout men, out of every nation under heaven. Now when this was noised abroad, the multitude came together and were confounded, because that every man heard them speak in his own language. And they were all amazed and marveled, saying one to another, Behold, are not all these which speak Galileans? And how here we, every man in our own tongue, wherein we were born, Parthenians, and Medes, and the Lammites, and the dwellers of Mesopotamia, and Endugaea, and Cappadocia, and Pontus, and Asia, Phyrgia, and Pamphylia, and Egypt, and in the parts of Libya about Cyrene, and strangers of Rome, Jews, and proselytes, and Crete, and Arabians, we do hear them speak in our tongues the wonderful works of God. And they were all amazed, and were in doubt, saying one to another, What meanest this? Others mocking said, These men are full of new wine. But Peter, standing up with the eleven, lifted up his voice, and said unto them, Ye men of Judea, and all ye that dwell in Jerusalem, be this known unto you, and hearken to my words. For these are not drunken, as ye suppose, seeing it but the third hour of the day. But this is that which was spoken by the prophet Joel. And it shall come to pass in the last days, saith God, I will pour out of my spirit upon all flesh. And your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams. And on my servants, and on my handmaidens, I will pour out in those days of my spirit, and they shall prophesy. And I will show wonders in heaven above, and signs in the earth beneath, blood and fire and vapor of smoke. The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before that great and notable day of the Lord come. And it shall come to pass that whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. Ye men of Israel, hear these words. Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved of God among you by miracles and wonders and signs, which God did by him in the midst of you, as ye yourselves also know, him being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain, whom God hath raised up, having loosed the pains of death, because it was not possible that he should be holding of it. For David speaketh concerning him, I foresaw the Lord always before my face, for he is on my right hand that I should not be moved. Therefore did my heart rejoice, and my tongue was glad. Moreover, also my flesh shall rest in hope. Because thou wilt not leave my soul in hell, neither wilt thou suffer thine holy one to see corruption. Thou hast made known to me the ways of life, thou shalt make me full of joy with thy countenance. Men and brethren, let me freely speak unto you of the patriarch David, that he is both dead and buried, and his sepulcher is with us unto this day. Therefore, being a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him, that of the fruit of his loins, according to the flesh, he would raise up Christ to sit on his throne. He seen this before, spake of the resurrection of Christ, that his soul was not left in hell, neither his flesh did see corruption. This Jesus hath God raised up, whereof we are all witnesses. Therefore, being by the right hand of God exalted, and having received at the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost, he hath shed forth this which ye now see and hear. For David is not ascended into the heavens, but he saith himself, The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thou on my right hand, until I make thy foes thy footstool. Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly, that God hath made the same Jesus, whom ye have crucified both Lord and Christ. Now when they heard this, they were pricked in their heart, and said unto Peter and the rest of the apostles, Men and brethren, what shall we do? Then Peter said unto them, Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ, for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. For the promise is unto you, and to your children, and to all that are far off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call. And with many other words did he testify and exhort, saying, Save yourselves from this untoward generation. Then they that gladly received his word were baptized, and the same day there were added unto them about three thousand souls, and they continued steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine and fellowship, and in breaking of bread, and in prayers. And fear came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were done by the apostles. And all that believed were together, and had all things in common, and sold their possessions and goods, and parted them to all men, as every man had need. And they continually daily, with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, did eat their meat with gladness and singleness of heart, praising God, and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to the church daily, such as should be saved. Brother Ramon, will you pray for us? Amen. Tyler, the sermon this morning is the blessings of soul winning, the blessings of soul winning. Let's look at verse number 36. I'm going to focus on verse 36 through 47 this morning. And verse 36 says, Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly that God hath made the same Jesus whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ. Now when they heard this, they were pricked in their heart, and said unto Peter and to the rest of the apostles, Men and brethren, what shall we do? Then Peter said unto them, Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ, for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. For the promise is unto you, and to your children, and to all that are far off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call. And with many other words did he testify and exhort, saying, Save yourselves from this untoward generation. Then they that gladly received his word were baptized, and the same day they were added unto them about three thousand souls. Let's pray. Lord, we thank you so much, Lord, for our great trip to Yakima and all the fruit that we were able to bring forth. And Lord, we can only do that through you and through your power. And we thank you for the two souls that were baptized, Lord. And Lord, I just pray that you would fill me with your spirit now as I begin to preach about this important topic. In Jesus' name I pray, Amen. All right, well, so obviously a little bit of context to this, and we just read through, Brother CJ just read through that. But, you know, this is where the Holy Ghost gives the disciples the power of the Holy Spirit. So Jesus promised them that when he left, the Holy Spirit would come to them. And so they already had, they were already filled with the Holy Ghost. They already had the Holy Ghost, but the Holy Ghost came with power on the day of Pentecost. And so as they, you know, we read the part where the power came upon them and they started to speak in other tongues. Now, that doesn't mean that they were flopping on the ground and having a charismatic party, okay? That means that they were speaking a known common language. We don't believe in speaking in tongues as far as, you know, like that it's some kind of gibberish that people say or anything like that. But anyway, so they go out and they start getting people saved. And Peter preaches this sermon and he tells them, you know, hey, if you repent and get baptized, which when it says repent, it's not talking about repenting of your sins, of course, we know that. But it just means to change your mind. Be baptized. Believe on Christ. And it says that you'll be saved, you'll be filled, and you'll receive the gift of the Holy Ghost, which is the earnest of our salvation. And God was never going to leave us. God is never going to forsake us. So obviously we believe in once saved, always saved at this church. And so but what happens here, you know, a lot of people focus on these last verses and they talk about how the people were added to the church. But what you've got to think about, where I was thinking about it when I started to write this sermon is that not only were people getting saved, but they were replicating what they were replicating other people into becoming soul winning trees just like they were. And so the blessings of soul winning is the title of the sermon. And I have four points today. And the first point is when we go forth, people will get saved. When we go forth, people will get saved. And we went forth, didn't we, this last week? And people got saved in droves. So look at verse number 41. It says, they that gladly received his word were baptized. They that gladly received his word were baptized. So what is that talking about? Well, when you gladly receive the word of God, you know, in John 1 12 says, but as many as received as many as received him to them gave me power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name. So God gives us that power to be saved because we believed on his name, because we've received him as our savior. And so when people gladly received the word of God, that means they got saved. And then it says they were baptized and the same day were added unto them about 3000 souls. So how does this get done? How do people get saved? Well, we do it house to house. Why do we do it house to house? Well, look at verse number 46. It says, and they continuing daily with one accord in the temple and breaking bread from house to house. They did eat their meat with gladness and signals of heart. So obviously they went house to house and they hung out with each other, but they also went house to house winning souls. And how did Paul reach this whole world for Christ in one generation? House to house. That's how he did it. And it says in verse 47, praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to the church daily such as should be saved. See, daily people were getting saved. And that's the great thing about this church is that people care about people getting saved. And we only had eight in service here on Thursday. Those were the people that couldn't come. But most of our church was there and we were getting people saved. Because when we go forth, people are going to get saved. And I'm so sick of this attitude by other churches and old IFB churches and just churches that they don't believe in soul winning. They don't believe it's right. They think that some other gimmick is going to get people saved and it's not true. You know, you can leave an invitation on someone's door and run away. That's what a lot of Baptists do now. But we're supposed to have great boldness to preach the Word of God. So we believe in confrontational soul winning here. Not where we're trying to get in a fight with them. But that does happen sometimes. But we're not trying to get in a fight with them. We're trying to win them to Christ. Look at Acts 20-20. Just keep your finger in our text here. Look at Acts 20-20. How does it get done? How do we get these people saved? If we're trying to reach the whole world, wouldn't that mean we have to knock every door? Wouldn't that mean we have to stop every person on the street that walks past us? And a lot of people were saved this week just from people walking past one of our soul winners. You've got your silent partner on the sidewalk there. And people are walking by and people just stop them and get them saved. There's a prepared place for a prepared person. And when you're prepared to preach the gospel and people cross your path, just know that that is a divine appointment for you. It could be a divine appointment for them which is going to change all their whole eternity. Look at Acts 20-20. It says, And how I kept back nothing that was profitable unto you, but have showed you and have taught you publicly and from house to house. How did the Apostle Paul get it done? He went house to house. Like I said, I'm sick of this attitude that people aren't going to get saved if you go door to door. Or say, Oh, you mean like the Jehovah's Witnesses? Oh, you mean like the Mormons? No, like the Apostle Paul! And the Apostle Paul reached his whole generation. Why? Because he worked hard and he cared about people and he went door to door. House to house. Isn't it true that if you go to someone's house, you're going house to house, you have to knock on their door? And people are saying, Oh, that doesn't work anymore in 2021. It sure worked this last week, didn't it? Because that's exactly what we did. And it's a shame that there's churches out there that won't go forth and they won't preach the gospel. And you know what? People are not going to get saved because of that. Because of their stupid little country club that they want to be a part of. Churches isn't supposed to be a country club. It's supposed to be a place where God's people can learn the Bible and then be sent forth to preach the gospel so people will get saved. That says, testifying both to the Jews and also the Greeks, repentance toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ. What are we supposed to do? Go house to house. What are we supposed to do? Testify to people. Jews, Greeks, whoever it is, it doesn't matter who it is. Whoever is at that door. That's who you preach the gospel to. Look at Romans chapter 10 verse 18. Romans chapter 10 verse 18. And how do I know that Paul reached the whole world through door to door? Knocking on door, soul winning. Well look what it says in Romans 10, 18. It says, But I say, Have they not heard? Yes, verily their sound went into all the earth and their words unto the ends of the world. So the gospel has gone through the world several times for 2,000 years. And obviously countries will get saved but then they'll fall away from God. And we'll think, nobody's ever been to this place before. Nobody's ever reached this place with the gospel before. But that's not necessarily true. If you look through history, there's times where you can see that people were receiving the gospel in different places. But now you've got places like North Korea shut off to the gospel. I'm sure that the gospel went through there at some point in time. But see, when you reject God, He rejects you. And the nations are like a drop in the bucket to God. But people will get saved. But if a whole nation just turns their back on Christ, then guess what, He's going to turn His back on them. But that shouldn't stop us from going out and trying to reach the whole world as best as we can. We're just a little church here in Vancouver, Washington, but we had a great effect in the area of Yakima, in the Indian nation, the Yakima nation. There's a lot of natives that did get saved. We spent one whole day just in this Native American housing complex and all the people that were native, because I think you pretty much have to be a native to be in the Native American housing complex. But anyway, it started off a little bit rough. But then people just started getting saved, multiple people getting saved. And we can get any nationality saved. Didn't it say all these people in Acts chapter 2, there was people from all nations of the world? So we're supposed to be... All the stuff that's going on in Israel right now, Baptists would rather fight about whether Israel is right instead of getting out and knocking on doors and going soul-winding. Why don't you just worry about the place that you're in and quit worrying about Israel, because those people over there are not God's chosen people. The people that believe on the Lord Jesus Christ are God's chosen people. Look at Romans chapter 1 verse 16. Romans chapter 1 verse 16, what's the first point? The first point is when we go forth, people will get saved. It's a guarantee, because the Gospel is the power of God. Look at verse 16. For I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. See, the Gospel is something we shouldn't be ashamed of either. But there's a lot of people that are ashamed to go door to door soul-winding. They're scared or they don't want to. It's embarrassing. You know what's more embarrassing? It's not sharing your faith in Christ. You know what's more embarrassing? Being a Baptist church that doesn't go soul-winding. That's what you should be ashamed of. You know what? Because Paul was not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ. You know why? Because it's the power of God unto salvation. There's no other way to get people saved. It's through the Gospel. And if we're not preaching the Gospel, then people aren't going to get saved. If we're not going forth, people aren't going to get saved. It says to everyone that believeth. So look at Psalm chapter 126 verse 5. How does it get done? It gets done by knocking every single door in your area. Your Jerusalem. And then you go out to Samaria. Then you go out to the uttermost parts of the earth. And obviously our church isn't in Yakima. But we still went forth to that place because there was a great need. And there's a great need everywhere. I want to knock all the cities in Washington. And maybe someday we will. It might take 20 years. But look at Psalm chapter 126 verse 5. When we go forth, people are going to get saved. But you know what? You have to care. And sometimes our hearts grow cold to the things of God. Sometimes our hearts grow cold to soul-winding. And you know what? That's when you need to just gird up your loins and get out there. Care a man to gird up your loins. But for a lady, you know, just get you ready. Get your hair pulled back or whatever. But look, it matters. Each and every single person matters in this church. Look at verse 6 in Psalm chapter 126. It says, they that sow in tears shall reap in joy. We shall. Isn't that what the Bible says? Is the Bible right or not? They that sow in tears shall reap in joy. He that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing precious seed, that precious seed is the word of God, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him. It says, shall doubtless come again. So when you think about this principle of sowing, reaping and sowing, if you sow the word of God, people are going to get saved. We will reap in joy. We are going to come back rejoicing. Just like we did last week, rejoicing at how many people are getting saved. This area that we've been knocking lately here in Vancouver is definitely not that receptive. But we're still, like Brother Corbin said in his sermon, we're still getting people saved every week. Even if it's one, two, three, four people, we're still getting people saved. But the Bible teaches that if you go, people will get saved. And so point number one is when we go forth, people will get saved. You can count on it because the gospel is the power of God unto salvation. So if you go forth, you knock on doors, you ask people, are you 100% sure? If you die today, you go to heaven. And then you get to preach to God. Ask them, can I preach the gospel to you? And if they say yes, crack that Bible open and start showing them the verses. But maybe you haven't been sowing it before and you don't know all this stuff. But look, our church is a church that teaches people how to go sowing. We'll teach you. And we'll teach you what to do and what to say. But you've got to get your Bible. You've got to get it marked out. What verses to turn to. And our church can teach you how to do that. But hey, you've got to be willing to go forth. Is it uncomfortable sometimes to go sowing? Yeah. I mean, there's jerks out there that slam the door in our face. But if the worst thing that happens to you is that someone cusses you out or slams the door in your face, big deal. Just go to the next door. Just get over it. So point number two is the blessings of sowing is fellowship, friendship, food. I put three and one, okay? Because I don't want to have like an 18-point sermon. But fellowship, friendship, and food are one of the things that are blessings of sowing. So one of the blessings is, you know, the first blessing is that people get saved. And it changes their eternity. It changes their eternal destiny. And we'll rejoice forever with them in heaven. But number two, while we're on this earth, you know, because you can't go sowing in heaven. This is the time now that you get to do that. But you get fellowship, friendship, and food. We get closer to our brothers and sisters in Christ as we labor with them in the gospel. There's conversations that take place. We fellowship together. And then even afterwards, we fellowship together. This last week, we got to fellowship a lot, didn't we? We were doing some hard work, but we also got a lot of good fellowship. We're all eating in the same place, enjoying great meals. And, you know, people are getting chicken strips while other people are getting steak and lobster. I mean, I just don't understand that, but... I couldn't understand that, but... I'll just have like French fries. Okay, well, we're at Sea Galley, okay? Let's get some good food. All right, so... But, you know, the other thing we get to do when we do big trips like that also is that we make new friends. And, hey, when we have new people that start going sowing in our church, you know, you're going to make new friends with people. And we had a lot of new people that came on this trip. And did you get to meet new friends? Yeah. And make new friends? I got to get to know some people from Brother Corbin's church, and then there were some other people that visited. And it was great to make new friends. And that's one of the blessings of going sowing, is that you make new friends through that process. And then we get to get close to other people and fellowship with other people as a benefit of going sowing. That's a benefit. That's a blessing. Because some people have a hard time making friends. Well, you know how you can make friends when you have all things in common? Then, you know, hey, you might not have things in common that you're interested in outside of church, but you know what? We should be all in one accord out there. We should all be in fellowship together. And, you know, the other blessing is we get to eat great food. You know, because the thing about Baptists is that, you know, we're not eating, we're not meeting, right? So we definitely, there's, you know, food is a focus in the Bible with fellowship. It really is. Look at verse 42 in our text. It says, And they continued steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine and fellowship. See, fellowship is an important thing in the Bible. The Bible talks about it a lot. And so we don't just come together, meet, and go, and just leave without talking to people. That doesn't happen in our church. Our church is a fellowshipping church. And sometimes, you know, to a fault. It's like, okay, we like to go. Let's turn out the lights now. You know, the people that are closing are like, I don't know. But usually the people that are closing like to fellowship too. I was waiting. And then your husband's wife's getting in a fight. Well, I was waiting for you. No, I was waiting for you. Well, didn't you see when I tried to signal you that one time? But it's good to have a church that fellowships. It's great. And it says, And in breaking of bread and in prayer. So one of the things that the early disciples did is that they fellowshiped together and they broke bread together. They ate together. And so it is a biblical thing. It's wrong to share meals together, obviously. And it says it in prayers. And one of those things that we fellowship and do, what do we do before we go out to go soul-willing? We pray together, don't we? And so all these things are good things. Skip down to verse 44. It says, And all that believed were together. See that? And had all things in common. And so as we begin to fellowship and make friends through soul-willing, we should have all things in common. We should be together a lot. Our church meets three times a week. It's three to thrive, two to survive, and one to stay alive, right? And sometimes not everybody gets to do the three to thrive, but it's important for us to meet together on a regular basis so we can stay close-knit as a church. And there's nothing in the world wrong with that. It's right. I think it's weird when churches just meet and then everybody just leaves right afterwards. Nobody talks to each other. And the reason why I think a lot of churches are like that is because they don't have all things in common. And they don't have the sweet fellowship that they get from soul-willing. When you're in the military, when people are in a group together, a battalion or something, you know what? Those people get close, don't they? They consider themselves brothers. They band together. They become brothers. They fight in the trenches together. They got each other's back. And so we are out doing spiritual warfare. We're fighting against the world, against the devil, against false prophets and all these things, and we're together while we do that. And so you're going to get close when you go out and fellowship in soul-willing. So having friendships, having fellowship and having food are a benefit of soul-willing because when we have big food things with our church, isn't it usually over something that we've done from soul-willing? You know, hey, we'll provide the meals or whatever. This whole week, the meals were provided for the whole week. I mean, what other place, what other hotel is doing a breakfast like we got this week? I mean, sausage every day, gravy and potatoes. Yeah, it was good, right? And then Panera Bread for lunch every single day. And you got to try all the different kinds, hopefully, and that big cookie at lunchtime after you've been working real hard. You know, some people were, like, putting a couple boxes together and combining them together. So you got two cookies at lunch? But we all got to, you know, it's part of the Christian life. This is part of the Christian life, is to get the blessings of soul-willing and you get the blessings of fellowship and friendship and food. Look at verse number 46. And they continuing daily with one accord in the temple, I mean, you consider that, I guess, the church, and breaking bread from house to house, did eat their meat with gladness. You know, it's a good time when you're sitting down and having a meal with gladness, isn't it? You know, when we get a bunch of people saved and we get to see Galilee, it's great. Did you guys eat your food with gladness? Because I sure did. I had a great time. That was one of the greatest weeks that I've had in this church. And it was a real blessing. It says, they did eat their meat with gladness and singleness of heart. You know why we all ate with gladness and had singleness of heart? Because we were all on the same team. We're all in one accord. We're all one army of the Lord. And you know what, we had all things in common. Hey, did you get someone to say, oh yeah, we have all these stories. We have all these stories to tell. You know, I love to sit down and hear the 155 stories of different people, except for I just don't have time for that. But you know, I heard a lot of great blessings. I heard Miss Bobbie, she had a, what was it, a Messianic Jew get saved. I mean, that's a first. I haven't heard any testimonies about that before. But I mean, I'm sure I could go through the room and just get great stories from everybody about certain salvations that they have. Look at Luke chapter 14, verse 14. Luke chapter 14, verse 14. This point is fellowship, friendship, and food is a blessing of soul winning. You know, in one day, the people, we might not be able to sit down and have a meal with the people we got saved now. We might not ever see them again on this earth. But you know what I always say to people when they get saved, I say, if I never see you again, where am I going to see you one day? And they always say heaven. Or sometimes they say a church, but then they never come. But no, I'm just kidding. But look at Luke 14, 14. It says, and thou shalt be blessed, for they cannot recompense thee. These people that we get saved, they can't recompense thee, for thou shalt be recompensed at the resurrection of the just. See, we're going to get rewards for the things that we do and for getting people saved. And it says, and when one of them that sat at meat with him, see, he's talking while they're eating, right? He said at me with him, heard these things, he said unto him, blessed is he that shall eat bread in the kingdom of God. So one day we're going to eat bread together in the kingdom of God. And we're going to eat bread with the people that we got saved. And we're going to rejoice with those people in heaven, the people that got saved. And we don't know what's going to happen with their life now. But one thing we do know is that they're going to heaven. If they believed on Christ, they're going to heaven. And we will see them someday and we'll eat bread with them in the kingdom of heaven. What a blessing of soul winning. So number one, when we go forth, people are going to get saved. Number two, fellowship, friendship and food are part of the blessings of going soul winning. And number three, soul winning helps you to fear and obey God's commandments. Soul winning helps you to fear and obey God's commands. Look at verse 42. It says, and they continued steadfastly. See, these early disciples, they continued steadfastly. They didn't walk it back, they walked it forward. They were daily in the temple and house to house. It says in the apostles' doctrine and fellowship. So doctrine is teachings, right? And obviously in the teachings of the Bible, there's things that God commands us to do. And going soul winning isn't just something we do for fun. It's not just so we can plan a trip and all eat together and have a good time. We're doing something. We're doing what God told us to do. He said for us to go forth, right? So He's commanded us to do that. So when you obey that command, the Bible says that love covers a multitude of sins. Maybe you are a worse sinner than other people in this room, but you know what, I'll tell you what, the Bible says love covers a multitude of sins. God might go easier on you when you go soul winning. Think about that because you're showing other people love. And that's what He wants us to do. He wants us to go forth and show love. People call this a hate church. I think it's just so funny that people call us a hate church when everybody went out and there were over 90 people there at certain points in time. And what were we trying to do? Are we trying to bring hate? No, we're trying to bring love. We're trying to love people. And so what more loving thing can you do than to try to get them into the kingdom of God? What more loving thing can you do in this life than get somebody saved? That's the most loving thing you can do. The Bible says we're supposed to love our neighbor as ourselves, right? And the first commandment is that we love God and keep His commandments, right? We love God with all of our heart, with all of our mind, with all of our soul, with all of our strength. And the second is like unto it, thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. So we're supposed to love other people. Someone loved you. If you're saved in this room, somebody loved you enough to get you saved. Whether that was on a documentary you watched and there was a presentation at the end that you got saved from or whether someone just got you saved out or someone knocked your door or whatever it is, someone kept God's commandment to go and love you. Now we should in return go and keep God's commandments and love other people. That's the ultimate thing that He left us here for. Jesus came to seek and save that which was lost. You know what? That's what He left us here to do, to be ambassadors for Christ. Every time you knock on a door, you're an ambassador for Christ. You're saying, hey, this is what God says. This is what God proclaims. This is what God wants of you. He wants you to be saved. Can I show you? And so we're supposed to keep God's commandments and it says that they continued steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine. So the teachings of the apostles and fellowship and breaking bread and prayers. And fear came upon every soul. See, one of the blessings of soul winning is that once you keep that commandment, once you bring forth fruit to God, you're going to get a fear that comes upon you also. And you should fear God. When we see people living in the worst squalor, I mean garbage. I mean there's places that there was like little turds on the dog turds or whatever on their porch. Garbage sacks just filled with garbage and cigarette butts, needle caps, all kinds of stuff. And so when we see that, we should fear God because we don't want to be like that. But also we're there to try to change that in them. We're trying to change their destiny, change their life. Who in here hasn't changed their life after they got saved? I mean everybody in here has had their life changed by the gospel. And you know what, we should have a fear of God to say, hey you know what, someone cared about me. God sent someone to care about me. You know what, we should fear God and keep His commandment to go soul winning. Because it's not a suggestion. So skip down to verse 47, it says praising God. And that's part of the other thing that we should do. Hey when we get someone saved, you know what, you should thank the Lord for that. You should praise God that someone got saved. You should praise God that He allowed you to be used so that you could get somebody saved. And here's another thing that people say, well you know, you don't get anybody saved. It's God that does it. Well you know what, God doesn't just fly down to people's houses and knock on their doors, does He? He uses us as His vessel. Christ in you, the hope of glory. Christ is in us. The Holy Spirit is in us and He wants us to go forth and knock those doors. And because they're not going to get saved by just picking up a Bible and reading it. That's garbage. I know that that's taught, but it's not true. And that's why people just have excuses and not go soul winning because they're like, oh if we just leave this invitation on someone's door and run away, then they'll read that and get saved. Praise God. Oh you're so bold. You're so Spirit filled. You ran away from the door after you put the invitation on there. Oh you threw a bunch of invitations out the car window in the Philippines. Oh all those people just got saved. Let's count 250. You're in the Philippines. I mean this actually happened. Where these pastors, they did this big multi-church trip to the Philippines and I think Remy went to that. But they were literally throwing invitations out. And this got preached to the pulpit. We threw invitations out and we just counted 250. We counted this. And so they just estimated how many people got saved by how many invitations they threw out the window. You're in the Philippines. It's one of the most receptive places in the world. Why not just go talk to them? Why not just go tell them? And be bold and preach the gospel. Brother Stuckey, the last update I saw, oh we had 210 salvations this week. I mean we had 155 last week and we were like woo! 210 salvations last week. That's how receptive the Philippines are. And you're going to send people over there to what? Build some concrete huts or some concrete buildings or school buildings that they're just going to break down and do something else with it? Or you're going to go and just throw invitations out of a window? It's called littering. It's not preaching the gospel. Clean up your mess. They're like, oh yeah, they picked them up and they're like, oh! The other picked them up and they're like, why are they throwing these out the window? They're like, oh this is going to be a good fire starter. I don't know. Nobody's going to get saved that way. That's not how it works. It takes a soul winner. It takes a spirit-filled man or woman of God to preach the gospel to people and God commands us to do it. So it says, praising God and having favor, verse 47, with all the people. And the Lord added to the church daily such as should be saved. So when we keep God's commandments to go soul winning and give Him the praise, He is well pleased with us. Think about how sweet our church service was. I mean that church service, I know the babies probably weren't liking it too much, but it had been a long day. We were out soul winning three to five hours a day or whatever. And the babies got a little restless, but you know our song service there was super spirit-filled. Anybody that was there, I mean I don't know if you could pick it up on the audio, but like the ladies were chiming in with their parts and it just sounded like, it sounded like we were in heaven. It was awesome. And it was very spirit-filled and it rocked the house there because we got to be in the upper room there. And like, I mean I'm sure the hallways had to hear our singing. It was great. But you know what, I know that God was well pleased with that. Because we were all just on cloud 10 with all the salvations that we were getting. Look at Romans chapter 10 verse 14. Romans chapter 10 verse 14. The Bible says in Romans 10, 14, How then shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in Him whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher? They're not going to hear without a preacher. And so what does it say? And how shall they preach except they be sent? See, my job as the pastor is to send out soul winners. My job as the pastor is to go out soul winning myself. Our job as soul winners should be to go out and preach the gospel. Thank you. And so how's that going to happen if people don't get sent out? And how's that going to happen unless we preach? It says, As it is written, how beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace and bring glad tidings of good things. You know what God thinks when you say, You know what, God told me to go out and be a preacher. You know, ladies, your opportunity to preach is at the door. All of us have the duty to be a preacher when it comes to preaching the gospel. But look what it says. You know, God is well pleased with that. Look what it says. How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace. You know, my feet are pretty ugly in reality. And I know some people never wear sandals even in flip flop season because they just don't want people to see their feet. But you know what, God, when He sees those gnarly, grunion feet that you have, He thinks they're beautiful when you go sewing them. And you know, that's not one of the commonly parts of us, is it? I mean, especially when you get older, like your toenails get all discolored and stuff. It's bad. But some of you, you know, you could snatch an eagle or a bird. You could snatch a fish out of a lake with them claws you got. But you know what, even those gnarly toes that you got, God loves that. He thinks you're beautiful. He thinks your feet are beautiful when you go and preach the gospel of peace like He told you to. And so it's a blessing to be able to go sewing and to keep God's commandments because God's going to be well pleased and you'll have favor with all men. You'll have favor with God and favor with all men. When we were sewing, my wife, she's kind of been going through a little bit of dry spell. Is it okay if I tell this story, honey? It's too late now. But anyway, but my wife has been faithfully going sewing and knocking tons of doors. And so we're halfway through the week and she's just like, man, I'm trying. You know, I'm trying to get people saved. And then somebody posted a picture of her praying with somebody in the WhatsApp group and it just made me start to weep because, you know, I just know how much and how important it was for her to get somebody saved there. And it really touched me. Whoever took that picture, it was great. But she's bowing her head with the lady and that lady had problems, you know. But a lot of the people we go to, they have a lot of problems, don't they? There was a Native American lady that I got saved and, you know, she had just lost a child. And so it's just really hard. You know, my heart breaks for people when I'm out sewing. But God's heart is broken for them too. And He commands us to go forth and to preach the gospel to people to heal the brokenhearted, to set those that are captive out of their prisons because they are in a prison. They're in a prison of their own doing. They're in a prison that the devil's put them in. The devil's blinded their minds. And, you know, we need to go out there with a tear in our eye and the Bible in our hand and the Holy Spirit filled with the Holy Spirit and go and reach those people that nobody else loves. Reach those people that are having struggles in life. And we can, even if they don't change their life, because it doesn't require a life change to be saved, it just requires belief. But a lot of those people, we might not ever see how they go through their life and how they change their life. And, you know, I'd like to see that, but, you know, in heaven we will see that. We'll see the great impact that we actually had in this life. Romans chapter 1 verse 14 says, I'm a debtor. You can go ahead and turn there. I'll let you turn there real quick. Now in the Bible it talks about Greeks and barbarians. Barbarians is like just anybody that didn't speak Greek or speak Roman. So like people that didn't speak the common language of that day or whatever, they're called barbarians. But look what it says, I am debtor both to the Greeks and to the barbarians, both to the wise and to the unwise. There was actually some people that I saw saved that had never heard of Jesus before. Like Pastor Enrique Reyes got this guy saved. The lady who lost her child, her boyfriend came out and he was just a long-haired Indian guy and he'd never heard the story of Jesus before, never. I mean that's the world we're living in where there's people that haven't even heard of Jesus. But you know what, we are debtors also to the Greeks and the barbarians. And I'm not saying that he was a barbarian, okay, I'm just saying that anybody that's out there, it doesn't matter whether they're wise or unwise, there was a guy that he got saved that like he was having a hard time like just grasping simple concepts and things. He just wasn't a very smart guy. Like you could just tell, you know, not everybody's smart. You know, we're supposed to go to the simple too though. People that are simple. You know, a lot of times those people that are simple will get saved. And so there's just so many different types of people out there. But you know what, God, He wants us to reach everybody. He wants us to reach the simple. He wants us to reach the wise and the unwise. The Greeks, you know, they think they're wise. And so they want to, there's just those people that think that they're intellectual and they're smart, but we got to reach those people too. You know, some people are, you know, so smart that they can't get saved, but you know, there's people that are smart that will get saved. God commands us to go to everybody. 2 Corinthians chapter 4 verse 2. 2 Corinthians chapter 4 verse number 2. The problem is that there's a lot of people that aren't keeping this command. That's why it's so important for churches like ours to have 100% participation. Look at 2 Corinthians 4, 2, it says, But have renounced the hidden things of dishonesty, nor handling the word of God deceitfully, but by manifestation of the truth, commending ourselves to every man's conscience in the sight of God. But if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost. You want to hide the gospel? You want to not go preach? You want to not do what God said to do and go out and reach the lost? Well, guess what? You know who you're hiding it from? You're hiding it from the lost. If your gospel be hid, if you're trying to hide the fact that you're a Christian, and you don't want to go sowing it, you don't care about people, you know who you're hiding it from? You're hiding it from the lost. It says, In whom the God of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them. See, the devil has people's minds blinded. He's blind to their minds which believe not. And you know what? We need to shine the light on them. So you know that song, This Little Light of Mine, I'm going to let it shine? Hey, it's not talking about just going to church. It's talking about shining the light of the gospel on people that are in darkness so that they could be saved, whose minds are blinded, who believe something else. And when we say, hey, you've got to repent, hey, change your mind about ancient aliens. Change your mind about whatever stupid religion you're in, that's going to send you to hell and believe the gospel. But if we hide it under a bushel, then we're hiding it to the lost. And so that's what churches need to get into doing, is going out and reaching the lost. They have all these other programs. They have all these about us. This is what we do. This is our ministries. And you know what? You go through their ministries on their church website, and it never says soul winning on it. Unless it's one of our friends. And if it does say soul winning, it's like tab bus ministry. I'm not saying people don't get saved on the bus ministry, but that is not soul winning. Soul winning is going door to door and preaching the gospel. So look at Matthew chapter 28. Matthew chapter 28. See, going out and preaching the gospel is a commandment of God. It's not an option. I mean, it is an option. You cannot keep God's commandments. But these pastors that get up and say, oh yeah, soul winning doesn't work. There was a guy that's up in Vancouver, BC, that told me that soul winning door to door doesn't work in Canada. Well, I beg to differ because we have a church that goes up there and goes soul winning multiple times a week, and you know what? They're always bringing their sheaves with them too. Oh, soul winning doesn't work. It's just not the culture up there. It's the culture everywhere. It's the plan that God put forth to reach the lost. You're saying God's plan doesn't work? No, your plan doesn't work, dummy. Go ye therefore and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Go ye therefore. You're like, well, that's just talking about the apostles. They're the only ones that were supposed to do it. Oh yeah, so it was just soul winning just died out. It was supposed to just die out after the apostles. It was only up to them. No. It says teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you. So what were they supposed to do? Go out and teach all nations. They're supposed to preach the gospel, baptize them, and then also teach them to observe whatsoever things I commanded you. Like, you mean go ye therefore and preach the gospel? Yeah. And lo, I'm with you always. Just think about that for a second. Let's slow this down real quick. I am with you always. God is always with us. When we're preaching the gospel and there's two soul winners and someone else, you know what? Christ is there in the midst of us. Christ is listening to the conversation. Christ is there with us. And it says I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. You mean even unto the tribulation? Yeah, the end of the world. Even unto the end of the world. He's going to be with us. So we're going to shine like the stars someday. We're going to shine and you know the great things that we do in soul winning and the great exploits that we have and all these missions trips that we go on and all these multiple people that get saved through our lifetimes as we go through church for years and years and years, they do make a difference. You know what? God is happy with the fact that we've kept His commandments. Turn to Matthew 5.19. I've really incorporated when I get someone saved where I say, hey, there's a person on this side. They got saved. They want to read the Bible. They want to go to church. They pray. They want to go and win other people to Christ. This person here is saved because they believed on Jesus and they're doing great things for God. This person over here is saved also and they believed on Christ because it doesn't take works to get saved. This person believes also, but they never go to church. They never go soul winning. They never do any things. And so which Christian do you think God wants you to be? It's the one over here, right? They always point right here. And so we want to be like that. We want to be the Christian that we observe and do all the things that God asks us to do. And soul winning is one of those things. Look at Matthew 5.19. It says, whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven. There's people out there, there's pastors out there that say that soul winning doesn't work. And they're stopping people from keeping their commandment to go out and preach the gospel. It says, but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. So which one do you want to be? The one that's teaching people to break the commandments? They're going to be least. But you know, I want to be great in the kingdom of heaven. And I'm not saying that I just want to be the top dog or something, but I'm just saying I want God to look at me and be pleased with my work and pleased with what I did in my Christian life. So the blessings of soul winning, number one, when we go forth, people will get saved. Number two, fellowship, friendship, and food. Number three, soul winning helps you to fear and obey God's commandments. And number four, so the last point, adding new fruit trees. Adding new fruit trees. Look at verse 41 back in our text, it says, Then they that gladly received his word were baptized, and the same day there were added unto them about 3,000 souls. Added unto them. That means that things were, there was more people, right? So more people got saved. It says they continued steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine. What isn't part of the apostles' doctrine that they were supposed to teach others is to go ye therefore? Yeah. And so when we go and we teach God's commandments, we get people saved, we teach them the Bible, then soul winning is one of those things that we're supposed to teach them, and then they can become new fruit trees. See, we're supposed to have replication happen. We're supposed to plant seeds so that another tree, like a soul winning tree, so God looks at us like we're a tree that's supposed to bring forth fruit, right? That means adding unto things. When you bring forth fruit, then you're a complete Christian, but you're also supposed to plant and have other trees come up that do the same thing you do. And so we're supposed to multiply and exponentially grow the kingdom of God by teaching them to continue steadfastly, to believe in the apostles' doctrine, and fellowship of breaking of bread and in prayer. So look at verse 47. Praising God and having favor with all the people and the Lord added to the church daily such as should be saved. So people were out there soul winning, people were out there getting people saved, and then they were adding people like them. That's how the church grew. That's how the church, you know, people were like, oh, I want to be with the church like the church in Acts. Well, you know what the church in Acts did? They went forth, preached the gospel, got people saved, taught them to be replicating trees like they were. Turn to Proverbs 11, 30. Proverbs 11, verse 30. The Bible says in Proverbs 11, 30, it's a very famous verse that we all know, the fruit of the righteous is a tree of life. So the righteous are the people that are saved, right? So the fruit of the righteous is a tree of life, and he that win his souls is wise. So when we go out and win souls, we're wise because we're helping other people get wise because when it says you're wise, that's a person that's saved, right? If you're wise, then you're a saved person, wise in God's eyes at least. So we're supposed to replicate and make new trees. How do trees get made? Well, you plant a seed, right? And then you grow it in the ground, you dung it and all that stuff, and it grows into another tree. And at the end of a certain amount of time, you expect fruit to come from that fruit tree if you're planting a fruit tree, right? So whatever that tree is, God calls it fruit, whatever the increase is of that tree. Now, turn to Matthew chapter 13, verse 23. Matthew chapter 13, verse 23. See, God considers, when he's talking about planting seeds, he's talking about the Word of God. When we plant the Word of God, good things are going to come from it. Look at verse 23 in Matthew 13, it says, But he that received seed into the good ground is he that heareth the word, and understandeth it, which also beareth fruit, and bringeth forth fruit, some a hundredfold, some sixty, and some thirty. So if you're going to be one of God's fruit trees, what does God say? You receive that seed, you hear that word, you understand it, and then you also bear fruit. If you want to be a complete package Christian, one of those things that you do is you're supposed to bring forth fruit. Some a hundredfold. You're talking about for your whole lifetime? Well, there's people that have had probably more than a hundred people saved in this room in the last few years. How often does a tree bring forth fruit? It brings it forth every season, doesn't it? I believe that this is talking about every year you're going to get a certain amount of people saved. Because if you're a fruit tree and you're always going out there and producing, you're going to bring forth fruit, some a hundredfold, some sixty, and some thirty. And not everybody's going to bring a hundredfold every year. It depends on where you live and where you're at. You go on missions trips a lot, you're going to bring forth more. But the point is that you should be bringing forth something. And so the other point is that if you're a saved Christian, you should be bringing forth fruit. So if you're not doing that, then you should get on God's program. Because there's many blessings from being a soul winner. Turn to 2 Timothy chapter 2, verse 2. See, God wants us to make more fruit trees. Why? So He can exponentially grow the kingdom of God. Because if some of the people that you get saved, they end up being fruit trees themselves, then you're just helping add more. If you bring forth thirty, out of those thirty, even five of those people or one of those people end up being a soul winner, then you're doing a great work for the kingdom of God. Now look at 2 Timothy chapter 2, verse 2, it says, And these things that thou hast heard of me among many witnesses, the same commit thou to faithful men, who should be able to teach others also. So God wants us to commit to faithful men. I'm supposed to commit to faithful men who shall be able to teach others also. See, that's replication. You're replicating what God... That's why we're all here right now, because of replication. Because someone cared about you, and someone brought forth fruit. Now you are God's fruit trees also, if you're an outgoing soul winner and you're getting people saved, you're God's fruit trees. You've replicated, now it's our job to do that with other people. And one of the blessings of soul winning is that new fruit trees get added. So we had first time soul winners come up to the trip that we were on, and they got to see people get saved firsthand. We had a guy named Ted that came down from Lacey, and he called me, I hope it's okay that I tell the story, but he went out soul winning with his pastor, and this was last Thursday, he called me right before church. And he said, yeah, I'm just a little frustrated, because I went out soul winning, and they had already shut down our soul winning for this whole pandemic thing the whole time. And then when he finally went out soul winning, he went out soul winning with his pastor, and he got somebody saved at the door with his pastor. And so he was really excited about that. And then they got back to church, and then the pastor said, yeah, we had some good talks while we were out there. Talk about throwing a wet blanket on him. Talk about throwing a wet blanket on your congregation. If you as a pastor see someone get saved by one of your church members, and it should be an exciting thing for your church, but you know what, that pastor probably doesn't believe that people actually get saved at the door. I mean, obviously he's going out, or maybe he just doesn't think Ted got that person saved, but if that person believed on Christ, then they're saved. You know what you should do? You should go back to your congregation and rejoice that someone got saved at the door. Oh, we had a couple good talks. Don't you think the congregation would have been happy to hear that someone got saved at the door? And maybe that could have helped inspire some spirit into the life of that church and say, hey, maybe soul winning does work. But instead he put a wet blanket on it. And that's the attitude of a lot of Baptist pastors, and they should be ashamed of themselves. Because when we go forth, we're going to get people saved. And you know what, God wants us to replicate that and teach other people how to do the same thing. And when a pastor just throws a wet blanket on soul winning like that, it just makes me sick. And you know what, he came to our soul winning event and got six salvations on the first day that he went out. And that's a rare thing to happen. I've had times in the past where I've had a lot of people saved in one day, but it doesn't happen all the time. So six, that's like video game numbers. Well, hey, it was video game number area. So if you go out and you're faithful and you preach the gospel, people are going to get saved. You know what, I'm sure it probably felt good that people were excited about the fact that he got people saved. Because I was excited about it. So a couple blessings that I'm out of time, but a couple honorable mentions I want to say is that one of the things we do, one of the blessings we get is we get to minister to the saved. I'm sure some of you found saved people out there and maybe they were hurting or needed some direction in their life, but I think that one of the blessings of going soul winning is the fact that we get to minister to people that are saved. And we encourage them to be like us. Because if they see another Christian doing what they should be doing, it should inspire hope in them that, hey, if other people are like this, then some people are like, I've always wanted to get people saved, and they're just, no, I didn't have anybody to send me, I didn't have anybody to train me. And then a soul winner shows up at their door and asks them the questions, and that will inspire people to be like you. It will inspire people to want to be like you. And also you get to just minister to people that might be going through a hard time that are saved. And we also get to plant and water while we're out there. You know, hey, maybe that person didn't get saved, but you got to give them some good seed. You know, that seed will germinate and bring forth fruit. You might not be the person that got them saved, but maybe next year or two years from now, someone will come up and preach the gospel to them again, or somebody else in their life will just reach out to them. Because salvation is not a process, but a lot of times getting to the point of salvation is. So most people don't hear the word of God for the first time in their life and get saved at that moment. But most of the time, with most people's testimonies, there's always a buildup to that. God reaching out to them in one way, shape, or form. So the other thing, another honorable mention is rewards. You know, you get rewards for the work that you do. Not necessarily for the people you get saved. You do get rewards for that, but I'm just saying you get rewards for going out and doing what God told you to do. So whether zero gets saved, whether one gets saved, or whether 155 gets saved, God's going to reward you according to your works. And if you're standing there while someone's giving a 45-minute presentation and your back is aching and you just want to sit down and your feet hurt and they're throbbing, God looks down on that labor and that pain you're going through. You know what? He's going to reward you for it. The sun's beating down on you. The soul winner goes back to Genesis chapter 1. I mean, it can be tough. But you know what? You get to be a partaker of the reward of that person that you're going with. You stood there and kicked the dogs away. You stood there and kept their kid away or whatever. You know, played with their kid or whatever, not kicked the kid away. Get out of here, kid. You're bothering me. Or you put your zapper for a dog that's barking or whatever. I mean, we had to do that a little bit. But you know what? God is going to bless the fact that you labored. So I just want to lay out a little challenge before I'm done here. What about you? What about you? I've talked a lot about soul winning. What about you? Has your heart grown cold to soul winning? You know, the fact that we're not in the most receptive area in the world, has that stopped you from wanting to go soul winning? Well, you know, I would just say keep going out of duty because a good soldier is going to do things out of duty. Do you think they like digging trenches in the military? Do you think that they like packing hundreds of pounds of gear around all the time? They don't. But you know what they do? They do it out of duty. And as a soldier of the Lord, you should be willing to do things out of duty. And hey, you know, hopefully your heart can get right with God and you start caring about people again. Stop caring about your own life so much and start caring about others. The acronym for joy, Jesus, others, you. You should keep that in the forefront of your mind because, you know, if we put God first and other people first, and then you put yourself last, then that's the right order. So, and you know, are you going on a regular basis? Maybe you've just started skipping out on soul winning and not going on a regular basis. You should be going at least once a week. You know, and look, I'm not going to call you up and say, why haven't you been soul winning? You know, unless you're in ministry here, if you're doing something as a ministry here and you're not going on a regular basis, I probably will ask you. But you know, our church used to have 100% soul winning participation. Used to have 100% soul winning participation. And now I'm afraid that's not always the case. So I would like us to, I want to be 100% in. I want our church to be all in. So if that's something you've been lacking in, hey, pick up that torch and start going soul winning again and get your heart right with God because it's a commandment. It's something we're supposed to do, but it's also a loving thing to do. Because you know what, someone cared about you enough to get you saved. Why shouldn't you care about others? You should care about others. And is it too much to ask for you to go for a couple hours a week? It shouldn't be too much, that shouldn't be too much to ask. You know, we're supposed to give our bodies a living sacrifice. And so if you're not sacrificing anything from your body, you know, soul winning can be tough. You know, you should be willing to be a living sacrifice for the Lord. And so I just want to encourage you if you're not going soul winning to get back into going soul winning and get the joy of bringing someone to Christ again. And so maybe you haven't been coming here for a long time and you haven't ever gone out, I just want to encourage you to go out and start getting involved. So why not do that today? Why not just start and say, you know what, today I'm going to do it. I'm going to bite the bullet, I'm going to go have lunch, I'm going to go out and see what it's all about. And so I pray that you would do that. So the blessings of soul winning are this, and obviously there's a lot more than what I mentioned, but when we go forth, people are going to get saved, number one. Number two, fellowship, friendship, and food are a blessing of soul winning. And soul winning helps you to fear and obey God's commands, number three. And number four, we need to be adding new fruit trees. All right, let's have a word of prayer. Heavenly Father, we thank you, Lord, so much for the great week we had in soul winning. I pray, Lord, that our spirits would never die down or get dampered down or that we would just, someone would throw a wet blanket on soul winning at this church. I pray you'd help us to be a zealous church that's zealous under good works and maintaining good works, Lord, and that we would all be just thinking about others, thinking about you, Lord, thinking about others and ourselves last. And Lord, we only have so much time on this earth to do your work because the night's coming or no man can work. We pray that you bless our soul winning today as we go out. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. All right, our last one is song number 191, In My Heart There Rings a Melody. Song 191, In My Heart There Rings a Melody. Song 191, let's sing it out on the first. I have a song that Jesus gave me It was sent from heaven above There never was a sweeter melody Tis a melody of love In my heart there rings a melody With heaven's harmony In my heart there rings a melody There rings a melody of love I love the Christ who died on Calvary For He washed my sins away He put within my heart a melody And I know it's there to stay In my heart there rings a melody In my heart there rings a melody There rings a melody with heaven's harmony In my heart there rings a melody There rings a melody of love Twill be my endless theme and glory Twill be my endless theme and glory With the angels I will sing Twill be a song with glorious harmony When the courts of heaven ring In my heart there rings a melody There rings a melody with heaven's harmony In my heart there rings a melody There rings a melody of love