you you you Hey man, good to see each and every one of you tonight at Currytown Baptist Church, and we're excited about what the Lord's gonna do this evening. We're gonna start off with our theme song for this year, Send a Great Revival in My Soul. Let's stand all over the house. Let's sing it together tonight on our screens. Send a great, send a great revival in my soul. Send a great revival in my soul. Let the Holy Spirit come and take control. And send a great revival in my soul. One more time. Send a great revival in my soul. Send a great revival in my soul. Let the Holy Spirit come and take control. And send a great revival in my soul. Wonderful singing from Mason. Amen. Thank you, Brother Brandon. Good evening. Good evening. Man, that's good choir. I'm so proud of you tonight. Praise the Lord. Isn't that good? Isn't it still good to be saved on a Sunday night? And I tell you, I kept thinking about something Brother Godfrey said this morning, that we pray more to keep grandma out of heaven than we do to keep souls out of hell. And that's what missions is all about, keeping people out of hell. And I'm so thankful for the message this morning. And so thankful all of you are here back tonight and excited about what the Lord's gonna do. So we're gonna pray together, turn it right over to the choir. I know they'll bless your heart in song tonight. So let's pray together. and then you be seated father we come to you and we're so thankful that we can have a great revival in our soul tonight I pray that our hearts would be prepared for that and father we prayed for your man and he's prepared and I pray that you'd lay on his heart the words that need to be heard tonight Pray for the choir that you'd anoint them and use them tonight. I want to thank you for these missionaries and their families, God, that are willing to go where you've called them to go. And Father, we don't understand all that they go through, but we want to lift them up to you in prayer tonight and ask you to meet every need they have, financial needs and physical needs and spiritual needs. And pray, God, that you'd help them raise that needed support to go where you've called them to go and share the gospel. Then I pray there'd be other churches just like ours. And I know we're not the only one that would partner with them to get them where they need to go, but help us to see our responsibility, not only to support financially missionaries, but also to get the gospel out to a lost and dying world. So we're thankful for what you've already done here, but we need fresh oil tonight and pray that you'd send it. Pray the Holy Spirit would have freedom to do what's most needed in this hour. And if there would be one soul here that does not know Christ as their personal savior, I pray that they'd repent and come to Jesus before it's eternally too late. And for what you accomplish, what you do tonight, we'll be very careful not to try to take any glory or any accolades for it, but we'll praise you and thank you for who you are and all you do tonight. In Jesus' name we ask it. Amen. so The sound, the horn, strike up the choir, a sinner is saved. Saved from the fire, no more in darkness. You see, my son, all heaven rejoices as to how you have won. Could it be that up in heaven God is sitting on His throne, anticipating another sinner will soon become His own? Years of wasted living and years of toil and strife are just about to be over as He receives the gift of life. Let's sound the horn! Strike up the choir, a sinner is saved. Saved from the fire, no more in darkness. You see, my son, all heaven rejoices. That's the value of one. All he needs is a willing servant to simply do his part Can you imagine up in heaven the joy there is that day? As a sinner bows his head to pray. Can you hear the father say? Strike up the power of serious things. Save from the fire, no more in darkness. It's the same, my son. All heaven rejoices. That's the value of one. Start construction on his mansion. They're a valuable spring. It doesn't matter what is waiting, when the Savior He will be. The Savior, indeed, rose down the Holy, Striked up the choir of sinners saved, Saved from the fire, the poor in darkness, He received my Son. All heaven rejoices! All heaven rejoices! All heaven rejoices! Where's the value of one, the value of one? I will meet you in the morning by the bright riverside, When all sorrow has drifted away. I'll be standing at the portals when the gates open wide, At the close of life's long dreary day. you in the morning, you in the morning, you in the morning, with a how do you do, how do you do, how do you do, we will sit down by the river, by the river, sit down by the river, at the rapture of the great and swinging, great and swinging, you'll know me in the morning, in the morning, you'll know me in the morning, by the smiling, When I meet you in the morning, in the morning, in the morning, in the city, in the city, you'll bless me with your smile. I will meet you in the morning, in the street by and by, and exchange the old cross for a crown. There will be no disappointments When your body shall die In the land where life's unknown and bound I'll meet you in the morning With a hallelujah And we'll sit down by the river ♪ The rapture of the fire at twilight ♪ ♪ We'll meet you in the morning, in the morning, in the morning ♪ ♪ By the smile that I wear, by the smile that I wear ♪ ♪ And I'll meet you in the morning, in the morning, in the morning ♪ ♪ In the city where the city of God's written in ♪ I will meet you in the morning at the end of the way. On the streets of that city of gold. Where we all can be together and be happy for it. While the deers and the angels shall roll. I'll meet you in the morning. I'll meet you in the morning with a paladin. And we'll sit down by the river, by the river, and we'll capture all the rain that's raining. You'll find me in the morning, in the morning, in the morning, by the smile of your eyes. Good singing. Where'd he go? There is coming a day when no heartache shall come, no more smiles in the sky, no more tears in the eye. All is peace forevermore on that happy golden shore. What a day, glorious day that will be. What a day that will be When my Jesus I shall see And I look upon His face The one who set me by His grace When He takes me by the hand And leads me through the promised land What a day for his day that will be. No more sorrow there, no more burdens to bear, no more sickness, no pain, no more parting over there. And forever I will be with the one who died for me, what a laborious day that will be. What a day I will feel when my Jesus I shall see And I look upon His face, the one who saved me by His grace When He takes me by the hand and leads me through the promised land What a day, glorious day that will be What a day that will be When my Jesus I shall see And I look upon His face The one who saved me by His grace When He takes me by the hand ♪ And leads me through the promised land ♪ For a day, for His name shall be free ♪ There'll be no sorrow there ♪ No more burdens to bear ♪ No more sickness, no pain ♪ And no more parting over there And forever I will be with the one who died for me. What a day for his name that will be. What a day that will be when my Jesus I shall see. When I look upon his face, the one who saved me by his grace. And when He takes me by the hand And leads me through the promised land What a day, what a day that will be What a day that will be When my Jesus I shall see And I look upon His face The One who saved me by His grace ♪ When He takes me by the hand ♪ And leads me through the promised land ♪ What a day glorious day that will be Can we do one more? Can we do the song, There's Something About That Name? Let's do that. Jesus, there's something about that name. Jesus. Jesus, Jesus. Jesus, there's just something about that name. Master, Savior, Jesus, like the fragrance after the rain. Jesus. Let all heaven and earth proclaim. Kings and kingdoms will all pass away, but there's something about that day. Hallelujah. The greatest name I know. Brother Mark said something several years ago and it has always stuck with me. There's not enough words in the English language to ever describe him. There's not enough praise to ever thank him enough. He's worthy of our praise. Just the fact that he would even consider us. In the book of Ruth, Naomi said, Blessed is he that did take knowledge of thee. Well, I tell you what, we have nothing to offer, but He still loves us. Let's sing that one more time, Brother Brandon. Then after we sing it, you can fellowship a minute. Amen. That's right. That's right. Jesus Christ. hallelujah he's worthy you know people think we're crazy for coming in on a saturday night saturday night and having church and i saw on the uh... the news that the coach for clemson had uh... just uh... thank the lord for for that game and they edited that out and uh... some of the comments were were you know why does it matter y'all are all fanatical you're all crazy and I tell you what we may be a little bit nuts but I'm glad we're screwed on the right bolt amen and I sure am glad amen hey when it's all said and done and we're raptured out of here we won't be the ones that are looking that crazy will we and it's not because we're Baptist I'm glad boy I'm glad to be Baptist It's not because we're Baptists, it's because we're Christians. Because we've called on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. And I sure am glad, amen, that when I called, He answered. When we weren't looking for Him, He was looking for us. Passed by our way. Let's sing that again, Brother Brandon. Amen. Jesus. Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, there's just something about that name. Master, He's Savior, Jesus, like the fragrance after Him. Jesus, Jesus, Jesus Let all heaven and earth proclaim Kings and kingdoms, well, they'll all pass away But there's something about Y'all fellowship together this evening as the choir comes down tonight. so so so In the hills, home of Calvary, I believe that I've earned the cause. And in time I surrender, and earth is no more. I'll still cling to the old covenant, ♪ And I know it's not the right thing to do ♪ ♪ And I know it's not the right thing to do ♪ All right, as we get back to our seats, let's turn to page number 66 in your hymnal if you need it tonight. Also on our monitors, I believe in a hill called Mount Calvary. Nussers, you will come on this song tonight. There are things as we travel this earth shifting sands that transcend all the reason of man. But the things that matter the most in this world they can never be I believe in a hill called Mount Calvary. I'll believe whatever the cost. And when time has surrendered and earth is no more, I'll still cling to that old rugged cross. On that second verse now. I believe that the Christ who was slain on that cross has the power to change lives today. For he changed me completely. A new life is mine. That is why by the cross I will stay. I believe in a hill called Mount Calvary. I'll believe whatever the cost. When time has surrendered and earth is no more, I'll still cling to that old rugged crop. On that third usher's you come now. I believe that this life with its great mysteries surely someday will come to an end. I like this though. But faith will conquer the darkness and death and will lead me at last to my friend. I believe in a hill called Mount Calvary. ♪ I'll believe whatever the cost ♪ And when time has surrendered ♪ And earth is no more ♪ I'll still cling to that old rugged cross ♪ Wonderful singing, remain standing. Thank you, Brother Brandon, amen. Well, I told you we weren't going to have Missions Conference, we want to have Missions Revival. Amen. And I believe the goal of any meeting is to see Jesus. Amen. And it will change everything about us if we just see Jesus. And so I appreciate the good singing tonight. We're going to receive the offering and I sure appreciate you giving. I want to thank you in advance and I'm excited about not only what the Lord's doing here, but what he's doing through missions. And I was telling our missionaries what God's done over 13 years with our missions. And it's exciting, not just how many missionaries we support, but what our church is doing. You know, we're going out Saturday the 24th and handing out 10,000 invitations. Basically, we had to kind of cover it, Brother Godfrey, because they don't want us at the barbecue festival. That's what I don't understand. You know, they want you to hand out tracts. We're handing out bags so they can put all their junk in. But inside the bag is the good news of the gospel. And so, you know, we'll get it out one way or another. So I appreciate everybody that can go and be a part of that. And that's missions. That's not just putting money in off the plate. That's missions. And I appreciate all the hard work this year. So let's pray together. And then right after that, I believe Brother Jose's got something he wants to say and then we're gonna have one of our missionaries uh... uh... present their work and have a song and then brother godfrey's gonna preach tonight and uh... looking forward to hearing the preaching of the word of god brother joseph you wanna come on up right after the offering uh... i'll give you some time so let's pray brother matt black you pray for us and after he prays uh... you be seated father what a blessing to be in your house this evening lord be able to come worship you in spirit and truth god just feel your presence in your goodness and just uh... just to see you as you are, as the holy God, a righteous God, is above all, just sitting on the throne at the right hand of the Father. Lord, we thank you for your precious blood, God, that you shed for me and all those, Lord, who want to be saved. Lord, I thank you, God, for that, and I pray for these missionary families, God, that you'd empower them, that you'd encourage them, God, that you'd use them to spread the gospel to those who are seeking something, God, but don't know what it is, but know there's something out there. Lord, I pray the gospel would get in their hands, Lord, they would accept you as their Savior, Lord, I pray here, Lord, as our church, Lord, we continue to be missions-minded. God, you revive our hearts for missions. Help us to give liberally for your work, Father, that may be done and souls saved and churches built and, Lord, lives changed because of you and what you've done. Lord, I ask you to bless this offering and use it to the furtherance of your kingdom. In Jesus' name, I pray. Amen. the the I speak with the pastor and give me a few minutes. And first of all, say thank you, church, for your support for the Spanish church. And for me, my wife and my boys, it's a privilege to stay with you and working with you. And we saw a lot of souls saved these past months. And God started moving, especially in our church and the people. But... I take time today to say thank you, Brother Cuesta, for staying with us. Sorry, I say this in Spanish, only you speak Spanish. I understand you don't know. Brother, thank you for being here. It's a blessing for us that you are here with us. It's a blessing. It's a blessing for us that you stay here with us, Brother. are privileged you stay with us. I have one present for you and your kids. It's a little thing to say I love you. I love you for your kids. I know your little boy is a little disappointed this morning. He's a little bit sad. But we have a special thing for tonight. And thank you, brother. Thank you for taking your time. And can you come in? Thank you congregation, thank you church. I feel here like in my own church. You are a blessing. Thank you for inviting me. Thank you for having our family in that precious hotel. Thank you, everyone, Pastor, Brother Pineda, Miss Ellen. Thank you, everyone. And to everyone, thank you very, very much for being so kind. And Abigail. It's my pleasure to know you. I don't know where you are. Everybody knows Abigail all around the world. Everybody knows Abigail. Amen. Amen. Amen. I tell you, if you missed Saturday night service, what a great message. And I was telling Brother Godfrey, I said, I don't think I've ever laughed as much. I mean, he did such a great job preaching and just brought some humor into it. And he may not have even been trying to, but I laughed, brother. I thought it was good. And just a great message stirred my heart. and thank you all for being with us. We've enjoyed having you. So, Brother Sparks, I want you to come. And Brother Sparks actually presented in the Spanish service last night, so I'm excited to hear it in English where I understand it. I was just saying, yep, sounds good to me. And so glad to have he and his family with us. Amen. Yeah, I'm looking more forward to presenting in English as well. I did a little better, a lot better than in Spanish. I want to thank Pastor for allowing us this opportunity to come and present our ministry with y'all tonight as well as y'all being here. And I just thank you so much for a church that loves missionaries. And just for the good food and fellowship and a great place to stay. It's just been first class and we've It's definitely an encouragement to us, which I don't want you all to mislead me. Deputation's great. I enjoy it, and it's just extra sweet when we get to come to a church that just loves missionaries and has the heart that Jesus has to reach the world with the gospel. And I'll introduce my family real quick. My wife and I, we've been, her name is Anna. We've been married for 11 years and definitely my better half, a man before a little bit about that before we got married and then we'll show our video after I introduce them. And, uh, I, I went to Mexico. I was saved when I was seven years old, uh, grew up in an independent Baptist pastor's home. I heard the gospel every, every week of my life and thank the Lord for that. And I surrendered to preach when I was 15 and went to Mexico on a missions trip when I was 18 years old, just graduated high school. And I saw the great need for the gospel, for churches, for me, in the country of Mexico. And I just surrendered my life then as a young man, said, wherever it is, Lord. And I just fell in love with the Spanish-speaking people. They were so sweet, and they were so receptive to the gospel. I came home and learned some Spanish and was able to lead people, Lord, in Spanish. And I had been praying for a wife that had the same desires as me. I didn't want to just marry any lady that came along. I wanted her to be a Baptist, to be saved, and to have a desire to reach the Spanish-speaking people. So I waited on the Lord. I was 18 then. I had a girlfriend for a few years and she dumped me she was on that missions trip with me in Mexico three months later dumped me and I said what God your plans for my life but he knew better and it took me a while about a year to get over that and just say I'm gonna focus on you God so about a couple years later I was 21 years old met my wife and and and here we are today finally finally going and thank the Lord for that And we have three daughters, Penelope's eight, Scarlett is seven. Actually, she'll be eight tomorrow. It seems like our kids are always in church on their birthdays. What a beautiful thing. Oh, yeah, I'm sorry. She's turning seven. I'm forgetting. And then we also have Zida, who's three, and she provides most of our entertainment in the minivan as we travel, and at churches a lot of times, too. So I thank the Lord for my family, and we'll have our video, and I'll come back up here after that. Thank you. Imagine living in a country where hardly any of the churches have ever given a clear presentation of the gospel. Where you could go to church your whole life and never hear the true way to heaven. Where people have a lot of religion but a lack of relationship with Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. 70% of the population is Catholic. However, Chileans are leaving the Catholic Church every day in large amounts. Chileans are hungry for the truth. The problem is there is a small amount of evangelical churches in the whole country for these people to turn to the truth. Instead, these people are turning to other false religions. Our desire is to plant gospel preaching in teaching churches and to train men to reach the lost in their generation. Chile's capital and largest city is Santiago. Santiago's metropolitan area is home to nearly 7 million people. Its steady economic growth over the past few decades has transformed it into a modern metropolis. This city is now home to growing theater and restaurant scenes, extensive suburban development, dozens of shopping centers, and a rising skyline, including the largest building in Latin America, the Grand Torre Santiago. It includes several major universities and has developed a modern transportation infrastructure including partly underground urban freeway system and the Metro de Santiago, South America's most extensive subway system. Santiago is the culture, political and financial center of Chile and is home to the regional headquarters of many multinational corporations. God has called the Sparks family to be goers in the Great Commission, to go to the uttermost parts of the earth. Daniel has answered the call to be God's man for Chile. Please pray for the Sparks family as they travel the U.S. on deputation to raise the needed financial support to take the gospel to the beautiful country and people of Chile. All right. My wife and I had the privilege to go visit Chile for a week on a survey trip back in July of last year. And while we were down there, we noticed a country of 18 million people. 7.2 million people now live in the capital city. of Santiago. And we were with another veteran missionary down there from our board who we'll be learning from the first year or so while we're down there. And we went with him all over the city looking for churches. And we, in a city with a population bigger than the whole state of Tennessee combined, We saw only about a dozen gospel preaching churches. They weren't even all Baptist churches. We just heard that they preached the gospel there. And more than every day in the country of Chile, 280 people die and go to an awful place called hell. The vast majority, almost all of them, never hearing a clear presentation of the gospel. 70% Roman Catholic. They learn about Jesus as a little baby in Mary's arms and him hanging on a cross. But they do not teach and preach that Jesus is the only way to heaven and only through his shed blood on the cross is there forgiveness for sins. It's more of a works-based salvation. So they have a head knowledge of Christ and some religion, but they don't have a heart knowledge of Christ. They don't even know who Jesus is other than those things I just said. My wife and I were down there. We met a man named Vladimir. He's about 40 years old, and he spent most of the 1990s in jail for a couple for drugs and a couple other things, but praise the Lord, God saved him. By the way, we're all gloriously saved. I was a seven-year-old boy. I've lied. I disobeyed my parents. I'd stole. I did some other things, but I'd never been in jail before, but I was gloriously saved, too, just like Vladimir. So God saved him and put a call on his life to preach the gospel, and he's actually one of the preachers now in one of those few churches in the city of in the city of Santiago. What else is great is the other missionary, Brother Jason Holt, that's been there 10 years, has planted seven churches down there, and it's growing like crazy. And the Bible College, there's usually 20 to 25 students in the Bible College all year round, and Vladimir's son is one of those kids. in the Bible College. So Vladimir, I'm sure, sitting in jail years ago, just thought, maybe, what's up? What's going on with my life? And maybe I should end my life. Who knows what he was thinking. And somebody brought him the gospel. He got saved. And now he's in church, and he sees his family getting saved. And now his family wanting to serve Jesus too and minister. What a blessing and encouragement it was to us while we were down there. That big tall statue you saw was a Mary the mother of Jesus. She's it's 73 feet tall. And it's on a hill right there in downtown Santiago. She's overlooking her city. That's what a lot of we see Latin America, like Central and South America, they have tons of statues of Jesus everywhere. And you would think it's a Christian place, but they they know about Jesus. And that's about the extent of they don't know what he did for their sins. And they have this huge statue, 73 foot tall concrete statue. And we watched up there on a cold day for about an hour as we watch people after people come and pray. to this statue for a long time. I watched a mom and dad, and they had three children like I have, for about 15 minutes and knelt down on cold concrete steps that day. And the kids weren't moving. Everybody knew how serious it was to pray and try to get through to this statue that can't do anything for them. And I stood back there with my wife and the other missionaries and just thought of how blessed I've been in my life to be born Tennessee and raised in Georgia since I was three in a Baptist pastor's home and heard the gospel all the time to where now I see it and say thank the Lord for that how did that ever that story ever get old to me and there's people I could have been born in a country of Chile or in any other country in the world or some other part of this country and never heard the gospel before and and I just said why in the world would I want to hide my light and what Jesus has given us. We sung these beautiful songs about getting to heaven and glorifying God, but what if you didn't know about that? And down there, I watched his family and so many other people that they're looking for something. They're looking for eternal life. They're looking for happiness in their life, and they've never heard the gospel before, and that's I mean, I just thank the Lord that he's called us to go and that we're willing to go. And a lot of people want to feel sorry for missionaries and even our family for leaving the comforts of Georgia and America and going to another country, a third world country, and hopefully spend the rest of our lives. I don't have any other plans. I try to make myself a success long enough. I want to make Jesus a success for the rest of my life. So don't feel sorry for us. We're in the center of God's will, doing exactly what God wants us to do. And by the way, I had a job for 14 years, and I'm not saying you've got to quit your job to serve God, but I did that 14 years, had a good job, and God was great, and we didn't even have any debt besides the house that we were living in, and I was pretty comfortable, I'll be honest with you, until another missionary in my church surrendered to go to Argentina last year. Just couldn't take it anymore. And that night, I said, we're starting deputation this year. I'm going to quit my job and be full time and to get to Chile as quick as I can. I didn't know it was Chile then. And praise the Lord. And as y'all can tell, I haven't missed any meals since I quit my job. God has taken care of me. And I'll be honest with you, he blesses us now more than we've ever been blessed before. And he blessed me before because he loves me. He loves us. He's a great guy. But he takes care of us. And I thank the Lord for that. And I thank the Lord. So don't feel sorry for us. And I desire what God desires for everybody to be in the center of their will doing exactly what God wants you to do. And a lot of times that's not what we want to do. It's usually not what we want to do. And you don't have to go to Chile to serve God. There's a church here and a pastor, I'm sure, and he has plenty of vision for this church and plenty of things he'd like to do. And I just hope and pray there's enough people that want to back that and want to do and be busy. I'd say everybody at church needs something to do. All right? Whether you're young or old, there's something to do. It was a joy to see that young man come up here and hold the mic for the man while he was praying at the offering. I mean, praise the Lord. That's awesome. Just do something. And no one's despising his youth, obviously. And praise the Lord. God can use anybody to do anything. That's like he's using Vladimir down in the country of Chile. So pray for our families. We travel to raise support. We've been 14 months. On deputation, last month was an awesome month. We did travel. We were in 15 different churches in seven different states, traveled over 7,600 miles, which I usually don't do that too much, but it's missions conference time, all right? So we get to go to these extra services, and God, we received support from five new supporting churches last month, and another six that have taken us on for support in the last 30 days. He's a great mighty God. Ephesians 3 verse 20 says that Paul says that God's able to exceeding abundantly above all that we ask with their mouth or even think. That's a pretty good God. He knows what's best for us, but do we want what he wants for our lives? And I think of, in closing here, Paul said in Philippians 1 verse 21 that he's from a Roman jail cell, by the way. He said, you know what? For me to live is Christ. He said, to breathe is Christ, to live is Christ, everything, nothing about myself. He put Jesus first, others second, and a self dead last, even writing a letter to the Church of Philippi from a Roman jail cell. And he said, you know what guys, I want to get out here and I want to come minister to you, I want to do other things for Christ outside, but you know what, if I died in this Roman jail cell, he said, you know what, for For me to live was Christ and to die is gain why because those songs we just sung about he got to go meet Jesus And it's exciting, but he knew that while he was alive and living he would be serving God in any capacity And that's what I want for my life. I wish it was I hope it's desire for every Christian to want more of Jesus to live as Christ and to Quit the stinking thinking of everything else and get your mind in the Bible on God's Word and just just following God in your life And you'll be happy and blessed when you when you get to that point in your life. Thank you so much pastor When I think of the water, when I'm thirsty and dry, and bread when I'm hungry and poor. When the battle is raging, it's my faithful sword, a shelter from life's troubled storm. It's a light to my pathway and a lamp to my feet When the world gets so dark you can't see And I've not made one change in a word that it says But it sure made a change in me This blessed old book that I hold in my hand It's true from beginning to end It's a solid foundation where I firmly stand Sin kept me from it, now it keeps me from sin When I think what it costs just to hold in my hand, it reminds me I owe a great debt to all of the martyrs who've gone to the stand and quoted with their dying breath. Now its critics are many and believers are few, but there's one thing I've found to be true. If you find when you read it that there's something wrong, there's something wrong with you. This blessed old book that I hold in my hand is true from beginning to end. It's a solid foundation where I firmly stand. Sin kept me from it, now it keeps me from sin. This blessed little book that I hold in my hand, it's true from beginning to end. It's a solid foundation where I firmly stand. Sin kept me from it, now it keeps me from sin. Sin kept me from it, now it keeps me from sin. Amen. Well, I tell you what, it has been good today. And, you know, it doesn't bother me at all. I hope it doesn't bother you to see missionaries shedding a few tears. And it doesn't hurt my feelings to see Christians shed a few tears. And if we can't be burdened about the place we're to serve at, we're in trouble. And I remember He was in a missions conference, Brother Godfrey, and had two missionaries. I was preaching it, and these two missionaries were up, and one got up, and I mean, man, he was yelling and screaming, and the church was shouting, and here's what he said. He said, I'm gonna go there. I don't know how I'm gonna do it, but praise God, I'm gonna do it. And everybody thought that was the greatest thing in the world, and then had another young man come up, didn't shout, didn't say all the right things, you know, for the Baptist brethren. And with a broken heart, he wept and he said, I'm going to trust God. And he said, here's what God's laid on my heart to do. And I said, I want him, but I don't know if I want him. I want the guy that has a burden that has a plan. I'm not saying this guy can't do something, but I don't need to be pumped up. I need to know that if I don't have a burden for this church and this community, and if we don't as a church, we're never gonna reach it. They go to Chile, they're never gonna reach it if they don't have a burden. And so, Brother Sparks, thank you for that. Well, Matt, thank you for the song tonight. I love that song, don't you? And it can't go wrong. Sing about the blood, the book, and the blessed hope. You sing about those three, praise God, I believe it works every time. Good to have Brother Godfrey back with us tonight, and boy, I appreciate him preaching this morning, and appreciate the stories. It's always good to have some illustrations sometimes, especially in a missions conference, and have a man and his dear wife that's done all that they have, and I appreciate him. So give me your attention tonight, and boy, it's been exciting already. Hope you're gonna be here Monday and Tuesday night. Now, if you say, well, I've got something to do, you need to cancel it. Amen. Let me say it again. If you got something to do, I'd cancel it. Well, the kids have got a ball game. Guess what? It won't hurt them to miss it. You might just miss God's will for their life by not having them where they should be on church night. And so be here Monday and Tuesday night. Thank God you're here tonight. So I thank you for that. But be here every night you can. I promise you it's going to be wonderful as it was already so far today. so brother god for you come preach to us give me your attention and i know he'll bless your heart thank you well my sermon tonight is going to be for the young people now you older folk can listen too but it's going to be mostly for the young people but before i preach i want to tell you two stories and i guess if i'm famous for anything it's more like infamous is telling stories, but I do that on purpose. Is it worth sending these young missionaries to Chile and Botswana and South Africa and Arizona and down to South Carolina? Is it worth doing that? I think my sermon this morning illustrated that it is, but let me tell you a couple of stories. Back in the early teens, 1917 precisely, a young couple graduated from Moody Bible Institute, and God gave them a burden to go down into the southern part of Africa and take the gospel. Well, it was a hard thing getting there. Number one, they had tickets on a ship to leave New York Harbor and go there. and they missed it. They couldn't get there on time. This was before. They were not 747s, and they missed connections, couldn't get there. That ship left New York, was sunk by the Germans. A couple of weeks later, they got another ship that had 30,000 gallons of gasoline in it. They got on it, started down the Atlantic, it caught on fire, and had to go into port in Brazil and get it taken care of. But they finally made it to Africa. And that was in 1917, but in 1920, they ended up in a little village named Chanae, way out hundreds of miles, right in the middle of the Congo, the old Belgian Congo. In fact, I was there last year. Again, I'll tell you about that story one of the nights. But they ended in this village out there in the middle of nowhere. And I asked the Christians last year when I was there, how in the world did they ever find this place? It wasn't 8 million people. I mean, it was just a little village out in the middle of jungle and wild country. And you know what the Africans said? Only God. And that's the answer. But they got there, and they had to learn the language and, of course, the culture. And it was quite different. I keep holding back because I've got so many stories about I don't want to keep us here all night. But anyway, they got there and they learned the language and they started preaching the gospel and they prayed a big prayer. They said, Dear Lord, would you please help us see 10,000 people come to know Christ before we go to heaven or Jesus comes back. That's a big prayer. Well, that missionary family, they worked there all the 20s and the 30s and the 40s. In 1956, the missionary died there in that village. I was, again, just back there. I stood beside four grays last year. That missionary and three of their little kids died there. They're buried down, you could walk down the mountain. There's a pond down there where the elephants came in and wallowed out a water hole and the Africans dammed it up and we fished in it and bathed in it and baptized in it and washed clothes in it and all that. But there are four graves down there and now, just up past those four, there are nine graves in a row, nine African pastors who are buried down there in that same area. Well, that missionary died in 1956. They had gone way over the 10,000 people who come to know Christ. I'm saying, is it worth it? God sends a couple out to someplace they've never been before and they're not good in the language and they've got all that to go through and learn the way to think. But they can change their world with the power of God. Well, that man, Anton Anderson, Anton and Viola Anderson were their names. Their son, Fred Anderson and his wife and a few other families and a lady, single lady named Martha Kuhnberger, they were there. They had an orphanage and a leprosarium. They worked with lepers. They won thousands of people to Christ. Well, in 1960, there was a rebellion. All the missionaries got kicked out of there. Some missionaries were killed. They had to send the Marines in to rescue missionaries and other nationals. Those missionaries came back to America. They couldn't go back to the Congo. They didn't know what they were going to do. Well, they met in Chattanooga, Tennessee at Highland Park Baptist Church with Dr. Lee Roberson and a group of independent Baptist preachers. And they're saying, we don't know. We can't go back to the Congo. What are we going to do? And Dr. Roberson said, it's time for us to embrace the world. And that's how BIMI got started. Now, we're not the only mission agency. By the way, let me just say this right here. We missionaries are not in competition. I mean, we're buddies. We're doing the same thing. If they go down there and win thousands of people to Christ, I'll be the happiest guy anywhere. We're not competitors. We're friends. And the only problem we see is there's not enough of us going to do the job. But anyway, Linda and I, we've been working up in the desert with Muslims for 16 years, and we were asked, would you pray about going back down to the old Congo? It was called Zaire in those days. And we said, we'll pray about it, not interested. But I went on a trip with a bunch of young people. And I can't describe that trip except to say five nights of it, we slept on a sandbar out in the middle of this huge river. We'd go to bed at night on the sand, and the hippopotamus come up out of the river and walk around us, and there were crocodiles in the river, and barracuda. Anyway, God used that trip to change our hearts, and we ended up there. But that's why I'm telling you the story. I want you to listen. 30 years, there'd been no missionaries there. You know what we found when we got back out there? In a 50-mile area out in the middle of nowhere, jungle, no electricity, wild country, There were 12 churches that would run 1,000 people every Sunday. Every one of them had 10, 12, 15 village churches all out around them. I'm just saying, it goes back to one man and his wife who obeyed God. Is it worth it? 10,000 times over, it's worth it. I gotta tell you one other story. I picked a short sermon tonight so I could tell stories, all right? So y'all relax. How many of you know God is good? I mean, a couple of years ago, we had a group of missionaries meeting for a field conference out in the Pacific Islands in the islands of Fiji. And they're eating in a little restaurant in this little hotel with nothing fancy. And while they were eating, this man walked in, had on a pullover shirt and blue jeans. And one of the missionaries said to the director, that's the prime minister. He said, that's not the prime minister, that's the gardener. And he just jumped up and went over there and held out his hand, stuck it out, and about that time bodyguards started. It was the prime minister. He told the missionary his name. It was about that long, he couldn't even say it. He messed his name up. But he witnessed to the man, shared the gospel with him, talked with him, and had his picture taken with him. When he came back to America, put that picture in his Bible, and every day when he opened his Bible, he would pray for that prime minister and for the country of Egypt. After a time, has the Lord ever done this to you? He became convicted that he needed to share the gospel again. So he wrote a letter to the Prime Minister of Fiji. The Prime Minister called the United States, and they're talking on the phone, and Brother Brooks, Alan Brooks, said, Sir, we've given out Bibles all over the world. One of the things we do, we believe there is power in the gospel of Christ And we'd given out Bibles, and the Prime Minister said, well, would you be interested in coming to Fiji and giving out Bibles to all of our students in our schools? Brother Brooks immediately said, sir, we would love to do that. Then it hit him. Sir, how many Bibles are you talking about? Well, he takes out his pen, he's working, he says, well, elementary schools, 75,000. Middle school, so and so. 220,000. We didn't have a penny. Not a penny. I mean, money comes to missionaries, they get it, all right? It doesn't stay behind my... He said, sir, would you give us a year? We're gonna do it. Would you give us a year to get everything ready? And we never said a lot about it. We did a little DVD, sent it out to some churches and Christian schools. One church up in Woodbridge, Virginia, they gave every Wednesday night offering that whole summer. Listen, I said, God is good. A group in Texas helped us do this. We printed, they did, 220,000 King James Bibles with maps in the back, cross references, three pages, plan of salvation in the front, two pages on Christian growth with covers that won't mold and mildew out in that dampness. And they were printed on former communist printing presses in Belarus. Now, how many of you are mathematicians? Any of you good mathematicians? 220,000 Bibles, you know what that would cost? But we actually got them printed for about $2.30 for a whole Bible. But $2.30 times 220,000, that's still way on the other side of $500,000, half a million dollars, and we didn't have a penny. Can I tell you tonight, God brought it in. And then, not only did we get to go and give them out, that was last year. Two things I wanted to do so bad that I could just taste it. one we were having our military european military conference on the beaches of normandy and i'm a marine i wanted to go so bad i could just all i i wanted to go but i wanted to go to feed you worse than i want to go there i had a hernia i should tell this personal stuff but anybody is not as stubborn as i am I was supposed to have that thing taken care of, but I wanted to go to Fiji. Look, I got to go. That's why I'm telling you. So I got to go with the first group. It took us a whole year to give them out. Because here's what the beauty of it. We didn't go just give them out. We got to go to every school. We got to have an opening assembly. They give us 45 minutes an hour. We went to Hindu schools, Muslim schools, Catholic schools, military schools. And we would have them all, they'd come in thousands of them, sometimes 1,200, 1,500, sometimes 800 or 900. They would all come in, gather them together. We would sing them a song. They would sing us a song. You know what the national anthem of Fiji is? The title is God Bless Fiji. It's sung to the tune of Beulah Land. Every time I heard them, I cried. We'd seen to them, they'd seen to us, and we'd tell them how this story came about and how we met the Prime Minister and how he invited us out. And they would get the gospel two times every time. Brother Brooks would give it, and then he would say, whoever, we had teams go out, he'd say, Brother Godfrey, would you come up and tell them how that book changed your life? So they got the gospel twice every time. Now here's the beauty of it. The preacher close by, the national pastor or the missionary in that area, they went with us. And there was a blank page in front of that Bible, and they could put their church tracker information right there in the Bible. And while we were there, we'd say, now this is pastor so-and-so, and the address to his church is right there. If you have any questions about this, you can see him. Listen, we went to a Hindu school in the very first days of doing this. There were about 1,200 Hindu high schools. Well, they all gathered out. There wasn't a room big enough, so they brought them out in the baking sun. It's hot, tropical in the Fiji. Well, the rain clouds started to come in. It started to rain. The headmaster said, oh, we got to get them back to their classrooms. It's going to rain. And here's what Brother Brooks did. He said, dear God, please stop the rain so we can give out these Bibles today. It didn't taper off. It stopped raining. We had the whole service. We had Bibles stacked up. Every student, every teacher, every staff member came forward and we gave them out. And after it was all over, the Hindu students came running. They said, sir, sir, would you sign our Bibles? Would you sign our Bibles? We've never seen anything like that. The Christian God has big ears. I gave one. I gave a Bible to a teacher. She's 60 years old. I wouldn't know that, but she told me. I gave her that Bible. And she took that Bible, and here's what she did. She just held it up this way. She said, Sir, today is my birthday, and this is the best gift I've ever had in all my life. Before we went to school, I want you to think about it. You cannot do that in the United States of America. You could not do it in Winston-Salem. But over in the Fiji Islands, we went from island to island, and school to school, and every student, all 220,000 Bibles have been given out. Toward the end of it, I wasn't there for this one, they were in an elementary school, and they were giving out Bibles, and at the end of it, this little girl came up, and she said, sir, would you come to our island and give out Bibles? Brother Brooks said, honey, we've given them out now in every island in Fiji. She said, well, I'm not from Fiji. She said, I'm from Nauru. That's another island out there. He said, honey, we would love to come give out Bibles, but we don't have permission to come to your island and give them out. And she said, I don't think it would be a problem. My dad was just elected president. I'm just here to tell you tonight, don't you sit around all day long and watch Fox News and get depressed. Read your missionary's prayer letters. See what God's doing around the world. All right, John chapter six, I'm gonna do something tonight. I told you I'm gonna preach to the young people, I am. I'm gonna do something though that I know is a challenge. John chapter six, in a moment I'm gonna start reading in verse four. How many of you have heard a sermon already on the feeding of the 5,000? How many of you have heard five sermons? How many of you have heard fifth sermon? All right, I know the challenge that's before me tonight. I've heard, by the way, some of the great men of God preach on it. I've heard Dr. Seidler. I was a young, I was just a kid preacher, but I got to kind of hang out around Dr. John R. Rice and Bill Rice and some of those men that I mentioned this morning, and those men were my heroes and my mentors, and I learned much of what I know about the Bible through them. So I've heard some great men preach on this passage, but I'm gonna tell you tonight, I'm not preaching somebody else's sermon, but I am, I'll just be honest, I stole the outline, all right? From a young Japanese preacher. Back in my early days, I knew pretty good with Japanese. I read two chapters this morning in Japanese. Japanese, by the way, they said, Brother Godfrey, when we read our Bibles, we agree with God. They said, you Americans, when you read yours. But anyway, back in some time ago, I was in Japan and I didn't really speak any Japanese, just a little bit. And I was really working on it. And we have a Bible college in Japan. We have had over 150 Japanese graduate from our Bible college in Japan. They're preachers and missionaries all over the world. And I was sitting there, graduation, we have a Bible conference on Friday night's graduation, and this young Japanese man was graduating from the Bible college, and he preached on this passage. Now I've heard great men preach on it. I heard this young man preach. I didn't understand most of his sermon, but I got his three main points and I just jotted them down. And so it's not, he couldn't preach like me and I couldn't preach like him. So it's not his sermon, but I wanted you to know it's his outline because you remember what I said this morning? Simple can be sublime. It's a simple sermon. Look at verse number 4. John chapter 6, verse number 4. And the Passover, a feast of the Jews, was nigh, when Jesus then lifted up His eyes and saw a great company coming to Him. I've got to stop a moment. Have you ever noticed when you see Jesus in the Gospels, He sees people? That's what missions is. It's loving those Chileans. It's going down there, winning them Christ, discipling them, forming a church, teaching them to have the same burden. Jesus loves people. That means, friend, he loves you. And he said unto Philip, When shall we buy bread that these may eat? And this he said to prove him, for he himself knew what he would do. Philip answered him, Two hundred penny worth of bread is not sufficient for them, that every one of them may take a little. One of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter's brother, saith unto him, There's a lad here which hath five barley loaves, two small fish, but what are they among so many? And Jesus said, Make the men sit down. Now there was much grass in the place, so the men sat down and numbered about 5,000. And Jesus took the loaves. When he had given thanks, he distributed to the disciples, and the disciples to them that were set down, and likewise of the fish, as much as they would. When they were filled, he said unto his disciples, Gather up the fragments that remain, that nothing be lost. Therefore they gathered them together, and filled twelve baskets with the fragments of the five barley loaves, which remained over and above, unto them that had eaten." That's a great story. If it's in the Bible, it's God's Word. If it's in the Bible, it's important. But, folk, if it's in the Bible four times, you better mark it down. God had a reason for doing that. And this is one of the few stories that's in every one of the four Gospels. And I think God's putting some emphasis on it. But I heard this young Japanese preach his sermon, and I got his outline, and here's what he said. He said it was not the little boy's gift that was important. It was to whom he gave his gift. I want you to think about it. Little boy's lunch. It wasn't sliced loaf bread. It wasn't bigmouth bass. It wasn't rainbow trout. It wasn't mahi-mahi. It was little boy's lunch. Today we'd put it in a sack. His mother probably put it in a basket. He had gone out that day to hear Jesus. Think about it. Wouldn't it be wonderful just to stand there and watch Jesus Christ? Can you imagine if you go back and read the chapter before, Jesus had been busy like he always was, taking care of people, healing people. Can you imagine a little boy standing watching Jesus go up and touch a blind man's eyes and he can see? Watching Jesus do something they weren't really supposed to do, walk up and touch a leper and he's whole now. Listening to Jesus preaching, you know, his heart was stirred, but his gift it wasn't any big thing It wasn't some costly gift. It was just a little boy's lunch You said brother God for what does that have to do with missions? Let me tell you what it has to do with missions Some of you are sitting right here here at currytown Baptist Church thinking God could never use me Because I don't have a lot of talent I I couldn't sing like the madness. I couldn't preach like pastor. I couldn't teach the Sunday school class. I couldn't speak in the Spanish. I could never do those things. May I say to you that you're probably the very person that God is looking for. It's not how much talent you have. It's not how smart you are. It's not how much money you have. It's not how good looking you are. If you're good looking, just wait, it'll change. When I went to the Missionville, I had a head full of wavy hair. I just didn't realize it was waving goodbye. Some of you think, well, that's for the preacher, that's for the missionary. It's all right for these guys to go to the Missionville, but God could never use me. I don't have that ability. Forget about your abilities. It's not the value of your gift and your talents. It's will you give it to the one that can do something with it. Nobody would believe this now, but Linda's here. She'll testify to it. We grew up in the same church. Now, we didn't know a lot about the Lord. It was His grace that I got saved. It's His grace if anybody gets saved. We grew up in the same church, but she was so bashful. She was so painfully timid. She wouldn't even talk to you unless you just looked her right in the eye. Then she would hide behind her mother and peek around her mother's skirt. She was so bashful. My dad, I mentioned this morning, my dad was a crook, left my mother, ended up in penitentiary. I never knew him. That's how I ended up J.B. Because the name you have for my grandfathers and the J is Jonas. That's the God preside. They were not going to call me that. I was a runt. Anybody know what it means to be the runt in your class at school? I was the little guy everybody picked on me. I had to fight, take care of myself. I was bashful as I could be. God saved me even though I didn't even go to church for the right reason. When I went to church, I went because after church we played football. And I used to think it's not a bad place to find a girlfriend. I didn't even go for the right reason, but I heard the gospel preached. I don't know how many times. It wasn't the first time, but many times I heard it, and God got a hold of my heart, and I got saved. Sixteen years old, sitting in a funeral one day. Had nothing to do with the funeral, but at that funeral, God started working in my heart about preaching the gospel. Scared me out of my wits. There were no preachers in my family. None of my family swung by their tails, but several of them swung by their necks, I think. Anyway. God called me to preach. On a Tuesday, on Sunday, I went to church, and the only time I ever sat in the balcony in that church, I got as far away as I could get. I was not gonna go forward. I sat up there, and the preacher preached, and the song leaders stood up at the end, and the invitation was being given, and they sang and they sang and they sang. Have you ever been under conviction? And finally, the song leader said, one more stanza, unless somebody comes, that's all. And I couldn't stand it, and I left my seat, came down to the altar and told those people God called me to be a preacher. Now, I didn't know what they thought about it. Didn't matter what they thought about it, really. But years later, after I married Linda, I found out what they thought. Because her daddy went home that day and told her mother, Honey, that little fella never will make a preacher. Some of you think God couldn't use me. Yes, he can. It's not talent. Most of it, you know what it really is? Sweat and faithfulness. Winning people to Christ, building churches. It's not the flash in the pan. It's not always the missionary that comes across the smoothest that will make the best missionary. It's the man that's a family with a passion to get where they're going and see people saved. And here was a little boy, didn't have much, his gift. Look, we missionaries come home, we like to tell the stories of what we eat and all that stuff. I won't even tell you all our stories. All I can tell you is Linda looks quiet and innocent, She'll eat anything, try anything she has. We've eaten scorpions in China and balut in the Philippines. But we ate these big white grub worms out in the jungle. They brought us a bowl full of them one day, and I told Lenisa, honey, give half of those grub worms to Pastor Mukilku, the African pastor. She started dividing them out. And our youngest son, Robert, heard me say that. He cried for 20 minutes. He didn't want me giving those grub worms away. So we like to come home and tell that kind of stuff. But what we don't tell is the real truth of it. Everywhere we go, we get the best they have. I was out on the island of Samar in the Philippines preaching. The missionary's wife was a Filipina. She called her sister who was cooking supper that evening. She said, tell Brother Godfrey we couldn't find any shrimp today. Would lobster be all right? I said, I think I can handle that. Going over there and they had four lobster. I mean, just fresh caught right out of the ocean. Anyway, it's not the value of, it's not your talent. It's not what you think you can do or you think you think you can't do. It's where you give what you have to Jesus. Hey, let me give you something for those of you who are in ministry. I want you to watch this carefully. That little boy did not give his gift to the multitude. He didn't give his gift to the ministry. He gave his gift to Jesus. You give your gift to the ministry, you'll burn yourself out. Because you're out there trying to do it, work it up, get it done, and you're not going to do it. Give your gift to Jesus. Let me give you my second point. Point one, finish. You like that? Second point. The little boy gave all of his lunch to Jesus. Now, you all understand, I know this row will help me right here. You girls understand that boys and girls are different? How many of you have some of both? We have five, our two, oldest and youngest are boys who are almost 18 years apart, never lived together. We left one in the States for college, took a three month old baby back to Africa with us. And the boys and girls are different. Now we have our three girls in the middle. If you came to me and said, Brother Godfrey, your daughter Hannah, she lives down in South Carolina. Her husband's on staff in church down there. You said, Brother Godfrey, Hannah heard that one of their neighbors lost their job and they didn't have anything. And Hannah went into her kitchen and took food out of her cupboard and went over and gave to those people. I would say, I believe you, my Hannah would do that. My daughter, Bonita, we stayed with her just before we came down here. They're up in Herndon, Virginia, west side of Washington, D.C. Her husband started the Spanish ministry up there, and it grew and grew and grew and went out on its own, and he's the missions pastor, song leader now. But if you said, Brother Godfrey, Bonita, Bonita was born in Africa. She has natural curly red hair. She got it from me. Anyway, Bonita. If you said, Brother Godfrey, Benita heard that one of those Hispanic families had a need and Benita took all the money out of her purse and gave it to them, I would say, I believe you, Benita would do that. If you came to me and said, Brother Godfrey, your daughter Lydia, they're missionaries in Kathmandu, Nepal. She married a missionary kid who grew up there. And if you said, Brother Godfrey, Lydia heard that one of her neighbors had a baby who was sick. Now look, we've been to Nepal, Lynn and I have, for the birth of her grandchild. It's different there. It's not Chile. Chile's very modern in San Diego. But in Nepal, if you go to the hospital there, before you go to the hospital, you go to the pharmacy. And you buy the IV and the syringes and the needles and the gauze and anything else you're gonna need. Because there's nothing in that hospital but a cot. They're not sheets on the cot. Nobody's gonna give you food unless somebody comes and fixes it for you. You said, Brother Godfrey, Lydia heard a little child needed to go to the hospital and she took all she could find and all their money she could find and she gave to them. I would say, I believe you, my Lydia would do that. But if you said to me, Brother Godfrey, your son, Lane, or your son, Robert, gave all of their food to feed somebody, I would say, you're lying. Girls, maybe? Boys? Uh-uh. No, no, no. Have you ever thought about this before? What if you were that little boy? What if it was Brother Godfrey? What if that had been me and I was sitting there that day, listening and watching Jesus, and my heart was stirred, and I knew there's something different about him. He's the Savior of the world. He's the friend of sinners. My heart is so touched. I think I would have had some thoughts though. Number one, why didn't everybody else's mama fix them a lunch? Now, how many pieces of bread, you help me young people, how many pieces of bread did he have? Five. How many fish did he have? All right, here's the Godfrey version of this story. I'm standing there listening to Jesus. Boy, my heart is touched. I love him. I don't want Jesus to go hungry. And here's what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna sacrifice today. I'm gonna give Jesus three pieces of bread and a fish. That's more than half. That way Jesus have lunch and I'd have some lunch and we'd be happy. Have you ever, watch it, that's not what the little boy did. The little boy gave all of his lunch to Jesus. Now you said, well, Brother Godfrey, again, what's the point? There's a point, and here's what it is. How many of you know that it's a great day in your life when you get saved? It's a great day. One of our grandkids called one day, we were having to be home, answered the phone, little boy, I answered, he said, Grandpa, I just got saved. He said, I got to go to heaven. My sins have been forgiven. And he's telling me all about it. Then he said, Grandpa, can I talk to Grandma? And I passed the phone to Linda. He said, Grandma, I just got saved. Then he said, Grandma, are you saved? It's a great day when you get saved. But can I tell you another great day in the life of a Christian? I want you to listen to me tonight. I'm having fun. How many of you know you can have fun and be serious? I'm having fun, but I'm serious. It's a great day when you get saved, but let me tell you another great day that I found in my life. In fact, I've done this more than once. We've done it more than once as a family. It's the day when I said to my Lord, Lord, it's yours. Everything I have, all of it, who I'm going to marry, where I'm going to go, what I'm going to eat. You know why I don't sell an awful lot about money in Faith Promise Missions conferences? Because when you surrender it all, he has no problem getting a hold of this. So missions is hard. People say to me, I've had more than one. They say, Brother God, why in the world would you take your wife and your kids out in the middle of the jungle? There's no doctor for a hundred miles. There's no medical care other than what we did. How could you do that? You know what my answer is? We turned our safety and we turned our family over to the Lord. We gave it all to him. So how can you missionaries do that? They do it because it belongs to Jesus. Have you ever heard someone say, I regret that I gave my heart to Jesus? Have you ever heard someone say, I regret that I gave my life and my plans and my future and all of that to Jesus? I've never heard it. I tell you what, we hear a preacher all the time. At the altar, we hear people weep and cry, I wish I had. Missions conferences, people come and tell me, Brother Godfrey, I know God called me to be a missionary when I was a teenager, but I didn't do it. And I'm squandering my life, and now I'm 30 or 40 or 50 or however, and I see them weep and I see them cry. Please, friend, don't do that. I don't hear people saying I regret that I did, but I hear them saying all over the world, I wish that I'd given it all to Him. I was preaching over in the Philippines another time, way down in the South. I like the South. even in the Philippines. People tell you, don't go down there. That's Mindanao. That's where all the Muslims are at. My thinking is if our missionaries can work down there, I can go see them. And I was preaching a revival way down in the south of the Philippines in a place called General Santos. And we were out door knocking, except that's not true. We don't knock on doors there. They don't have doors. I'm serious. Over in Senegal, you don't knock on a door. You go to the outside to the door and you say, I guess that means knock, knock, knock. Over in the Philippines, we'd say, we'd go up to the outside of the house. We'd say, ayo, ayo, ayo. That means I'm out here, I guess. I was in Mongolia and it was 20 below zero. And I can't remember that word, but we stopped and said something and I found out later it meant, hold the dog. because they got mean dogs in Mongolia. But anyway, we were so winning. We weren't door-knocking. We were going house to house, telling people about Jesus, passing out tracts, sharing. Well, I'm standing there with a group of the Christians from the church. Little girl walked up behind me. She's eating a ripe guava. You poor folk, y'all never had a real tree-ripe mango or papaya. Oh, a guava. I smelled it. I said, honey, would you eat that guava in front of me like that? She said, yes, sir. And she did. But then while I'm sitting there playing with her, this Christian came up to me and said, Brother Godfrey, there's a backslider, lives over there in the coconut plantation. I said, really? Would you take me to see him? That was a mistake. Because in Africa and the Philippines, if you ask for directions, the man holds your hand and takes you there. I don't know if y'all get this picture or not, but you know how hard it is for a Marine to go walking down the path holding hands with some man? They led me down this slope and across a stream and up into this coconut and banana plantation. And I met a young man up there about 25 years old maybe. And I walked up to him and I introduced myself and started talking with him. And Filipinos like us because we eat balut. Anyone here know what balut is? It's a duck egg that's about ready to hatch. And the duck's been sitting on it about 18, 20, anyway. I went up to him, I told him I like balut, oh, and so we're having, and then I looked at him, right in the eye, and I said, young man, are you saved? He said, yes, brother Godfrey, I know that I'm saved. Then I asked him a second question. I said, young man, are you living for God? And the moment I said that, He started to cry. I'd almost say like a baby, but it was worse than that. I mean, here's this young man, primal life, sobbing, tears coming down both sides of his face. And here's what he said to me. He said, Brother Godfrey, I was a Bible college student in Missionary Rick Martin's Bible college, and I got discouraged and I quit. And I'm living out here in the coconut plantation in a lean-to making palm wine for a living. And he wept and he wept and he wept. Okay, I hope tonight none of you are weeping. But I hope you can say, Lord, it's yours, everything I have. You just let me know what you want me to do. You take care of my needs. You take care of my health. You know, you do understand you can trust God. We hadn't been down there in the jungle but a night or two. We lived in a mud block house on the side of the mountain. Nobody lived there in 30 years. And the back wall in the bedroom had a crack in the corner about this big and it got bigger as it went up. I stuffed it full of plastic. We went to bed that night. I stuffed the mosquito net under the little mattress. And about that time we heard a noise. Something was coming through the plastic. And I got up and got my flashlight and my machete, and I went around the bed on Linda's side. And she said, honey, what is it? I said, you really don't want to know. Because this big black mamba was going up the wall on her side of the bed. One of the most poisonous snakes in the world. And I whacked his head off. And I killed a snake down there every day. We ate them, too. Well, how do you... Look, folk, you can trust God. All right, let me... That's my second point. The little boy... Think about it. The little boy gave all of his lunch. I said I'm finished, but I lied. You're never going to be happy until you do that. As a Christian, I'm talking about, until you just give it up, Lord, it's yours. I'm not gonna worry about where I'm gonna live, what I'm gonna do, what my occupation's gonna be. If you want me to stay here, I'll stay. If you want me to go there, I'll go. Lord, it's yours. Let me give you my third point. Stolen from the young Japanese preacher. He said when the young boy gave all of his lunch to Jesus, he received the greatest blessing he'd ever had in all of his life. Now think about it. Do you visualize, sort of, when you read the Bible, these... Hey, folks, this is not Bull Finch's mythology. This is God's Word. These are real people. Can you picture that little boy standing there? And he gave his lunch, all of it. I don't think he understood at all what Jesus was gonna do, but he gave his whole lunch, five pieces of bread, both fish. He gave it to Jesus. He's standing there thinking, it won't hurt if I skip a meal, but Jesus will have something to eat. And he watches Jesus take his lunch. And you know what Jesus did with his lunch? Jesus lifted up his eyes and said, dear Father, thank you for this little boy's lunch. Think about that. Jesus doesn't need us. He doesn't need what we have. But he took our little boy's lunch and he thanked God for it. Folk, when you give your life to Him, He thanks the Father for it. And then the little boy's standing there watching Jesus, and he hears Jesus say, hey, Peter, bring me a basket over here. And Jesus starts, he takes his little pieces of bread out of there and the little fish out of there, and Jesus starts breaking it apart. And now that basket's full. Hey, John, bring another basket over here. And Jesus is still breaking bread and breaking fish. And hey, Nathaniel, gotta have another basket. All the time that little boy, have you ever thought about this? That little boy standing there looking to death, that was my lunch. That's my lunch. Look at what, look what Jesus, and now there's four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10, 11, 12 baskets full of it. And the little boy hears Jesus tell all those people to sit down, and the disciples take those baskets. Said there were 5,000 men plus their wives and their kids. I read that and I thought, man, think about it. What if they were Africans? How many wives they would have had? 5,000 men and their wives and the kids, and all the time that little boy's standing there watching his lunch. When I read it, I don't know if you all caught this, I did when I read it, I thought, they're not Baptists. Because it said they all ate till they were filled. And I have never seen Baptists you can fill up. My story's almost finished, it's set. I would have loved to have been a little bird on the front porch when he went home that night. Hey, mama, come out here on the front porch. You're never gonna believe this. Do you know that lunch you gave me this... Do you know that lunch you gave me this morning? There's 12 baskets of it left over. You said, brother God, you have too much fun. Leave me alone. What are you trying to say? Here's what I'm trying to say. That's been my experience with Jesus. When I turn it all over to Him, I just stand back, watch that person get saved, watch that church get started, watch that Christian get discipled. I'm not preaching, please understand me, I am not preaching health, wealth, prosperity gospel. This crowd on TV and radio, they'll tell you, you know, send them an offer and put you in on the TV and you'll... I don't watch that. I can't stand it really. But one day I was home and I was flipping through the TV channels and I came across one of these guys. who preaches and teaches that. You know, if you get to say you're never gonna be sick and you drive a Cadillac and live in a mansion, you ever heard him say that? I'm watching him and looking at him, I'm thinking, this is strange. This is a faith healer, and he's got on a toupee. I am not preaching that, but let me tell you what I am preaching tonight. Here's what I found when I gave my heart and my life to Jesus. I just stand back in amazement at how good He is to me. You ever get up in the morning, you men, I go, first thing I do is go put the coffee on, and then I go shave. And sometimes I'm there in the quiet, and I start to shave, and already the tears are starting to come out. I'm not sad at all. I'm so happy I don't know what to do. When I think about what He's done for me, He's saved my soul, He's given me a good wife, He's given me good kids, He's given me good grandkids, He's given me good churches, and He's given me the privilege to be His servant, and on and on and on. He takes care of our needs. Folk, when I think about that, my heart is just filled to overflowing. And I want you to, I'm almost finished. You all are wonderful folk to preach to. Maybe you're too wonderful, that's why we go so long. I don't know whether he does or not, but I'm assuming that. Let me give you an illustration and then I'm finished, or two. First time I ever went to Japan, That was about 14 years ago, early 2002. I went on a working mission trip. I didn't know whether God wanted me to become Far East director. I fought that thing. I couldn't understand. Why would you ask in Africa to go to Japan and China? That doesn't make sense. My fear was I'm going to get off the train in Japan. Nobody will ever find me again. I don't read kanji, I don't know. Anyway, I went over to Japan with a working trip down on the island of Okinawa at Maranatha Baptist Church, the great military church there. And we worked all week, a team of us, and Sunday night came and I preached there. And they had like 600 military families and people there, some Japanese people. I gave the gospel and when I preached, invitation time, I saw this young man stand up, I could tell when he stood up he was a Marine. I mean look sharp, tie on, good haircut, hat on his uniform. Started out. Started out. I saw him coming. I went down here and I held out my hand and I said, young man, why have you come? He said, Brother God, I need to get saved. And I'm on my knees in the front of Maranatha Baptist Church leading them to Christ. Well, one of those families traveling with that team I was on, they were sitting right over here, an older couple from Pensacola. They're retired. They go out and help us build a building or just whatever missionaries need. They're watching me. Have you ever felt somebody staring at you? I'm down on my knees, went in that young Marine to Jesus. They're over there just staring at me. Soon as I finished and we looked up, they came over and they said, Brother Godfrey, That young man was a Sunday school student. In our Sunday school class in Pensacola. We're on the other side of the world. Watch it and get saved. Now you can say, what a coincidence. You believe that if you want to. I'll tell you what I believe. That's what happens when you give it all to Jesus. You just stand back in amazement. Back in the early 70s, we were on deputation. That was a long time ago. Early 70s, we were on deputation. Another young couple was on deputation. They were from California. He was a Green Beret. She was a very talented lady. She played musically. She played a cello in an orchestra. Well, they were in a missions conference. in the South, and they heard my good friend, missionary Ron White, missionary for many years to Japan. He said in the conference, we need some money to help buy an organ for our church and Bible college in Kobe, Japan. Well, this young lady, God immediately spoke to her heart and said, sell your cello and give the money to buy that organ. You can't take that cello to Africa. Can you see her riding a camel across the Sahara playing a cello? God said, sell your cello. She took it to a friend, she bought it when she was in college, she bought it used, she paid $100 for it. She took it to a friend, said, would you help me sell my cello? He looked at it and did a little research, found out it was an older and a rare cello. And he helped her sell it for $4,000. Now this was 70s, in a missions conference, she comes bringing $4,000 to buy that organ. Brother White, He looked at that and he said, oh no, you can't do that. You give me half of it and you take half because you're a missionary, you're going to Africa. And she said this, God told me to sell my cello and give the money to buy that organ. Well, the pastor heard that and said, what would it take to buy a new organ? And they took up some more money. They bought an organ. That was in the 70s, 73 or 74. An organ was purchased. It's still there in our church in Bible College in Colbay. I see it all the time. I'll be back out there next year, see it again. All the Bible College students learn to play on that organ. It's a wonderful story. I'm almost finished, hang on, just a little bit. It's a wonderful story how a young missionary lady sold her cello to help buy that organ for over there, but my story's not quite finished. On the other side of the world, a young Japanese Buddhist girl got saved. And God called her into ministry. And she enrolled in our Bible college. And they all studied music. And she didn't have any musical talent, but she persevered. She drove the missionaries crazy trying to learn to play that organ. She'd have to silent note the same one every time. But anyway, she learned to play that organ. God called her to be a missionary. And God called her to go to Africa. She knew nothing about us. She knew nothing about the lady who sold her cello. You know how big Africa is? It is vast. Do you know where God sent that young Japanese lady missionary? To the one little city up in the Sahara where the lady lived that sold her cello 20 years earlier so she could learn to play it, the organ over in Japan, so she could come out to Senegal and she still plays it. By the way, she's in her 70s now, still on the mission field. You say, Brother God, that is quite a coincidence. Again, you believe that if you want to. Here's what I believe. When you give it all to Jesus. How much should I give the missions this year? Just give what Jesus gave, you'll be all right. I can't tell you, that's not my job to tell you how much. I just know this. When you give your everything to Him, You stem back in amazement, not at what you can do with it, but at what Jesus can do with your lunch. Dear Lord, help us tonight. These people have been so kind. They've listened so well. And I just pray tonight that you'd work in our hearts. And sometimes there are little parts of our lives that we're hanging onto, holding onto, grasping. And I pray tonight, if there's some Christian here holding on to something, they would just give it to you tonight. Or maybe again, there's somebody here and they're not saved. What a wonderful night to trust you as their Savior. Work in our hearts now as Pastor comes. Thank you, Brother Godfrey. Let's all stand tonight. Bow our head, close our eyes. I asked you this morning to To pray, ask God what He wants to give through you. But before you can ever do that, you've got to give your whole self to Him. As preaching that message, I just got curious. I was reading that scripture. The Bible said they were all filled. Doesn't say it but I don't know how big the boy was but you think two little fishes and some bread probably wasn't gonna fill him up But when he gave it all to Jesus Maybe he was part of that day. They were all field. I I don't want to be the Holy Spirit in your life. I'm not the Holy Spirit in your life. I just know this, when you surrender it all to God, He may not ever call you to the mission field, but He may. He may not call you to pastor, but He may. Just got to be willing to give it all to Him. Will you do that tonight? Father, whatever it is you want, When we sing in the choir, I'll sing in the choir. When we work a bus route, I'll work a bus route. I'll give what you want me to give to missions. I'll go where you want me to go. I'm convinced, brother Godfrey, the reason so many Christians are miserable is because they will not, will not surrender. You know the difference between being arrested and surrender? We talk all the time about being arrested by the Holy Spirit. Surrender means you willingly give up. To be arrested means you're taken by force. Well, God can do a lot with someone who surrendered. Young person, will you surrender? Not just where God would have you to go, who he'd have you to marry, what he'd have you to do. I wonder what would have happened if he would have just surrendered one fish. God could have used that. What a greater miracle that he surrendered it all. Father, we love you so much. Thank you for the message tonight.