Well, good morning. Buenos dias a todos. It's a good day to be in the house of the Lord. And as we were singing about seeking the lost this morning, I was thinking of the chorus there, going afar upon the mountains. And y'all are familiar with Mount Mitchell here, right? Six thousand, six hundred and something feet. We're 1,500 feet higher than that, between 1,500 and 2,500 feet higher than that. So, we do get snow in the wintertime. So, we appreciate your prayers. Going afar upon the mountains, and God raised me here in the mountains and sent me south to the mountains of Mexico. So, we're just thankful and praise Him for His goodness. The Lord is good. and righteous and holy in all that he does. So, we just, for those of you who may not know Debbie and I, I grew up in this church as a young fellow from the time I was pretty much born. My mother brought me here to church when I was two weeks old, I was told. i had a lot of sickness and uh you know as a child it's a miracle so it's a miracle i'm here really i went through a lot of sickness as a child and uh so the lord had mercy upon me and and spared my life uh so i really wasn't supposed to be here this morning okay uh there was a different schedule of speaker And God moved the circumstances for me to speak this morning, which is very unusual. That's never happened to me this late in the game. But I would say this, for me speaking this morning, the Lord had to be in it because somebody's here that needs to hear what I was sharing. Anyway, you pray for me and pray that God will use me this morning. I have a burden for young people that we've seen many slaughtered in Mexico in the recent years with the drug wars. And it's a shame to see youth and just graveyards full of young people who've had to give up their life because of a lack of wisdom. a lack of wisdom, having no knowledge. And so I was given a tremendous heritage by being raised here in Grace Baptist and Friendship Baptist and as God has moved us on to serve him. But we just need Let's pray this one. Let's pray. Our Father, we come to you and thank you for the gospel is the power of God and the salvation to everyone who believes, to you first and also to the Greek. And so, Lord, we come to you humbly, recognizing that apart from you we are nothing. We need you totally as we surrender our wills and our lives to your service. We worship you and thank you that you are the only true God, the everlasting from everlasting, the author and finisher of our faith. We thank you, Lord, that you are all-powerful, all-knowing and omnipresent God who desires us to walk with him. that we could lead lives that would bring honor and glory to you and also receive at the end of this road in eternal life honor from God the Father. For he tells us plainly and simply, he that seeks the honor that comes from man will not receive the honor that comes from God only. So help us to live with that in mind that we might see that our lives could see beyond this life through faith, through the means of faith that we can lay hold on those valuables that God wants to give us by living as sons of Abraham through faith. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Okay, if you have your Bibles, turn with us there to Romans 15, please. And let's stand, and you all need to stand up a little bit so we can get the blood flowing a little bit so we don't sleep. It's really warm in here. So anyway, I'll read there in Romans 15, verse 18. For I will not dare to speak of any of those things which Christ hath not wrought by me, to make the Gentiles obedient by word and deed, through mighty signs and wonders, by the power of the Spirit of God, so that from Jerusalem around Abaddon to Erechtheum I have fully preached the gospel of Christ. Yea, so have I strived to preach the gospel not where Christ was named, lest I should build upon another man's foundation. But that it is written to whom he was not spoken of, thou shalt see. And that it have not heard shall understand. You may be seated. Life is full of trials and joys. All of us have been there. Full of valleys and mountains. But it's so good, isn't it, when the Lord is with you through it all. Whether it's sickness or health or whatever. God has put in me a love for the body of Christ. I've had the opportunity in my short life to have served in two international interdenominational mission boards and to serve with other people who didn't grow up in a Baptist background. And I love God's people, no matter where you find them. I was in Afghanistan in 1971. and Kabul, and I was spending the night there in the only evangelical church in Afghanistan. And the pastor there I was speaking with, and I said, you know, it's funny. I looked around the church to see what the denomination of this church was, and there was no sign. And, you know, he looked at me kind of funny. And I said, I just wanted to know, you know, who founded this church? Who started this work? It's the only Christian church here. We're spending the night. We're sleeping on the floor here tonight. I said, well, over here, you don't ask those questions. And I thought, man, I've really got out of line, haven't I? You know, and I've said something that's offensive, which I wasn't planning on saying. And he said, over here, if you claim to be a Christian, That means you're willing to die for Christ. He said, over here we don't ask where you're coming from. He says, if you're willing to die for Jesus, you've got to be my brother. You've got to be my brother. So, I learned an unusual lesson that I've never forgotten and never got over. God put it within my heart growing up here in a tremendous place of churches. churches, just block after block of churches. And I praise God for them all, whether Baptist or whatever, they're truly preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ. Mainly, but in the conflict of churches and being so close together, we do have rubs and we do have areas where we rub each other the wrong way many times. And so at a young age, God put within my heart a desire to go somewhere with a gospel where there was no church. No church at all. And I knew it wouldn't be easy to take my family, small kids, and go to a foreign country. And I spent a year of my life in Mexico surveying areas that we saw works started and established. And we were looking for an area where there was no church and where there was very little effort of missionary activity. And so that led us to the most difficult area to reach. I found out that the cities where it was easy. There were already churches, there were already missionaries doing ministry. And so the only areas left were the hard, hard to reach places. And in our weakness and frailty, we just submitted to God, we're going to We're going to go and open an area where no one has been. You know what this is about, seeking the lost? This was Paul's heart. Paul says in Corinthians 15, 34, Awake to righteousness and sin not, for some have not the knowledge of God. I speak this to your shame. And Paul, I'm convinced, if you and I had an opportunity to travel with him on his missionary travels, most of us wouldn't make it. We would not make it. He was stoned and he was thrown in prison and shipwrecked. And for most of us, it would be too dangerous. We're asked the question, as missionaries in Mexico, people who watch the news, you know, about going to Mexico, well, is it safe? I don't know how many times I've been asked that. Is it safe? And so I just plain and simple tell them, no, it's not safe. It's not safe. And, you know, do you want me to lie? You know, we cross the border, you know, we're in God's hands. And the question is, are you in the will of God? It's not whether it's safe. Are we in God's will? So, if we're ministering the Word of God and being Christ's servant, you know, there could be fire all around us. There could be killing all around us, and it would not come nigh us. And I have no explanation why I'm here today alive other than the fact that God has preserved us in the midst of a living hell in Mexico. And I would invite you to come visit. Seriously. We've had groups come every year through all this violence and have not had anyone harmed. No accidents. And no flat tires. Yeah, really. Now, I want to share a few statistics about missions with you. And these are generally, they're not exact figures, okay? So, it's just generally speaking, a thousand missionaries return home each year. Each year from the field. Seventy-five percent of missionaries return home within the first three years and never go back. Forty-three percent of missionaries never complete deputation. I'll be sharing this evening in Rutherston with a brother who did deputation and never was able to raise funds to go to the field, and he ended up in the pastorate here in the States. Less than one percent of students attending a Bible college ever consider the mission field. We're talking about a small, small percentage of people who go to Bible college. Nine percent of the world's population speaks English. Nine percent of us. Ninety-four percent of the world's Christian workers minister to the nine percent. You hear that? Ninety-four percent of the world's Christian workers minister to the nine percent. About 90% of the church's income is spent amongst the 9% of the world's population. So a very small percentage of the funds are actually going overseas to a country that does not speak English. We spend more money in America on dog food than we do on missions. I'm not against having a dog. I'm just saying it doesn't sound right. It don't sound right, does it? So, Paul's desire was to preach the gospel. And I'd like to go back to verse 19. Through mighty signs and wonders by the power of the Spirit of God, By mighty signs and wonders, we moved into the Tatamata Indians of Mexico, and I began to realize I needed more than just a graduation certificate saying I'd completed a certain amount of study. I began to realize how feeble I was in the midst of a primitive tribal people who could care less about my education. In fact, the Bible I was carrying in my hand, they had no use for. They've asked me, what in the world, how is that book going to give me something to eat? And that was their limited understanding, where none of them could read and write. What in the world do I need to learn to read for? Was their thinking. You know, they thought we were crazy. They thought we were ludicrous. We were out of our minds. I'll never forget. Their cattle was coming into our camp. We'd been living in tents already for four months, and we set up tents there to build our cabin out there with them. And the property that we had didn't have a good fencer on it, so their cattle were getting in and out of our tents. They'd come through there at night. and run over us or graze right beside the tent and, you know, wake us up. And we just weren't getting good night's sleep. And we were working sometimes 16-, 18-hour days. And we needed our sleep and our rest. And so, you know, just some of those things you have to live with. And so I decided I'm going to the States. And when I come back, I'm going to set me up electric fence. I figured I could do that. It was probably the least cost-effective fence. And I'd just put one wire around our tents, you know, and keep these cows out and the burros out and stuff. And so we set up this fence and the Indians laughed me to scorn. They said, that will never keep a cow out or a horse out. Said it doesn't even have any barbs on it. They laughed and they laughed. They made fun of me. And I just, I thought, well, Lord, we need some mighty signs and wonders here. We need some signs and wonders to convince these people who know nothing of electricity. And so, the Lord allowed me to put up a fence. And I'll tell you, those Indians, when they come down through there, they saw that wire, they just laughed. They just laughed at me. I remember seeing them coming up to it and just looking at it. And they said, this will never keep anybody out. And then they reached down and grabbed it. I mean, they grabbed it with no fear, OK? No fear, absolutely. They weren't afraid to grab it, because they had no knowledge of what electricity was in a wire. And then when they grabbed it, they couldn't let go. And I just see them out there dangling on that wire, shaking, you know. And they couldn't believe it, you know. And finally, they became believers. You know, the Lord worked on them. So, I was thanking God for the wonder and mighty signs of electricity. And the benefit it was to me to get a good night's sleep, you know, out there where there are cows. We saw the cows bounce off of that and the goats bounce off of that. Boy, it was wonderful. I was now laughing, you know. I was laughing now. So they went to school with us and learned about electric fence. But, you know, we felt we needed something that would impact these people for Christ. I had made trips out to Weedeecheekee Mountain many times and rubbed shoulders with these Tatamatas and gone back to Gwachechi, where we were living at the time. In fact, I knew about these Tatamatas for 10 years. And while we were trying to establish a church in Wachochee there, we knew about these unreached people. And so, they were a burden on my heart. We took some other missionaries out there who had come and they just about had an emotional wreck just driving the road out there. Forty-two miles, five hours. He said, I have no idea on earth what I would do if I broke down out here. And this young man left the field because he was so fearful of what would happen to his nice truck. And if something happened and he broke down, he didn't know how to fix it. And so, the people are still there dying without Christ. I began to find out, I really didn't know the fama or the fame of these people, but in Guachochi these people were called the uncivilized. They were named the violent, they were known for their violence. And yet, we moved in there really not understanding any of this. We didn't see them as violent, necessarily. We saw them as souls for whom Christ died. And so anyway, I knew I needed more than what I had. I needed the power of the Spirit of God on my life. to reach these people. To me, it was impossible. It was totally impossible to reach a people like this. And I was so many times, I just come up shorthanded, Lord, what do we do now? What do we do next? How can we reach into the heart of these people? And so over a period of time, we were building the cable system, and I really didn't understand how this cable system would affect these people. They would come along up there on top of the mountain when we were digging this hole 10 feet deep for the anchor of the cable system and unearthing boulders that were so big it took two four-wheel drive trucks to pull them out of the hole with chains. And we did all this by hand, unearthing these huge boulders to make a hole big enough for an anchor system. And we pulled rocks out of there that took two trucks to pull them out, pull them at the same time. And sometimes these rocks would roll back in the hole. Oh, no, we got to start all over. And you talk about work. It was work. I'm so glad for parents that taught me to work. I grew up here in the polling fields working. Bought my own clothes at 10 years old, working in the fields for 25 cents an hour, 50 cents an hour. Hard work. So we didn't shy back because it was hard or because it was tough or because it looked impossible. I didn't know if we'd ever have a cable system. We stepped out and just believed God. Somehow, Lord, you've got to do this. We don't have the knowledge. We don't have the understanding to do this. I'd never built anything. In fact, I just worked out here picking apples and raising beans and picking beans and stuff like that. I really didn't have any knowledge of building. And all I've done is build in Mexico. Why? The Bible says in Corinthians, it says Jesus Christ is made unto us wisdom, knowledge. He is our sanctification. He is our understanding. All you need is Him, and He can open your understanding. We don't have to spend years studying this to obtain the knowledge if we're willing to exercise faith and believe that God can give us what we don't have. And if I don't understand it, God can bring into my life somebody who knows more than I do, who can give me that understanding with his experience and knowledge. And I've seen that happen hundreds of times in our ministry, where God's brought people alongside of me, where I had a weakness and a lack, and God allowed them to come alongside me and be the strength to give me that understanding. And so, this cable system became a reality after four months of hard work. And if you think it's easy, I went down over that cliff And I got about halfway down. This cable weighed 1,100 pounds. I had it across my shoulder. I'm going down a 1,600-foot cliff to it. And got halfway down. I hear the boys hollering. And they're hollering at me. And I turn around and look up. And I see the whole cable coming off the mountain and rocks falling down the side of this cliff. with this cable that weighed 1,100 pounds dragging rocks as it come off that mountain, the spool got going so fast they couldn't stop it. You know, and I was just carrying, but the weight, the 1,100 pounds of weight started pulling so heavy on that spool that it got faster and faster, and now the boys couldn't stop it. They had to let it go. And off the mountain it went. I climbed that mountain four times that day. because we pulled it back up to the top of the mountain with a three-eighths cable, put it on the winch and tried to tighten it. And we got three or four clamps on it and thought we had it made. And we sat there watching as it pulled right through the clamps and down it went off the mountain again. And there I go back off the mountain. And I knew this cable system was my lifeline. Without the cable system, I would be reduced to a burrow. And as a pilot, I was just too slow. I was too slow for me. Lord, we need something to get our stuff up and down this cliff where we're going to live so we can do things a little faster here. We've got to move on. We've got to reach these people for Christ. We don't have forever to do it. So the power of the Spirit of God can come to your life and allow you to live beyond your natural ability. Do you believe that? We've seen it and we've lived it. And it's all the Christ's glory. I'd like to read Judges 6. If you'll go back with me to Judges 6, I want to see a little bit here about Gideon. And Judges 6 and 12. And the angel of the Lord appeared unto him and said unto him, The Lord is with thee, thou mighty man of valor. And Gideon said unto him, O my Lord, if the Lord be with us, why then is all this befalling us? And where be all his miracles? Where is all the miracles? If we're serving the living God, where's the miracles that we've heard about, that our fathers have told us about, that Jehovah God has done for our country? And here we are, oppressed by the Midianites, living in bondage because of our sin. And Gideon wanted some miracles. And I got down there amongst these people, and that's exactly what I felt. I felt, God, you brought us here to reach these people. We need a miracle. Did not the Lord bring us up out of Egypt? And now the Lord has forsaken us and delivered us into the hands of the Midianites. And the Lord looked upon him and said, Go in this thy might, and thou shalt save Israel from the hand of the Midianites. Have not I sent thee? This morning, young people, as you sat here, God has given you a command. Go into all the world and preach the gospel. That's not an option. At age of 17, I was preached and confronted with the possibility again of my life to serve Christ on the mission field. And I sat there where you're sitting, and I studied that. And God was speaking to my heart. And I made a commitment when I was seventeen at Ben Lippin High School in Asheville, as Dr. Stephen Olford presented to me the challenge of serving Christ and the value on the side of eternity of serving him as opposed to living for myself. And I chose to go forward and surrender my life to serve Christ. I was a Christian already, but I needed to take a step of commitment where I said, Lord, here I am. I'm going to the mission field unless you close the door. And from the time I was 17 right on, my goal was to go to the mission field unless God closed that door. He never closed it. time I was 19, I ended up in Europe with Operation Mobilization. God just kept opening the doors for me. So, the Lord says to Gideon, Have not I sent thee? It makes me think of the verse in John there where the Lord is telling the disciples, As the Father hath sent me, so send I you. Do you see yourself this morning as someone God is sending? As someone God is sending? I was in a missions conference here at Grace Bibles years ago. A young girl came up to us who was about 16 or 17 years old. She was so elated about missions. She wanted to serve Christ. I remember speaking with her at length here at Grace Baptist. I won't mention her name. That young girl, a year or so later, was killed running up the yard to her house. And some of you probably know the story. But, you know, we need to get serious with Christ. It's with Him that we're dealing with. We're dealing with the Creator who can speak worlds into existence. We're dealing with God who wants to touch our lives that we would impact our generation for Christ. And Gideon desired that. And he says, Lord, where's the miracles? Where are the miracles? I want to tell you, we have lived and seen miracles. I was here last year, out here in the parking lot before I spoke here in this church, and a brother walked up to me. He knew about our project in Mexico, building this school. We have nothing but faith. He walked up to me and gave me a check. When we got home, it was for $10,000, right here at Grace Baptist Parking Lot. He said, Ed, he said, my grandson is dead now, and my daughter suffered for years with his sickness. And these monies are coming from an account we had for this boy who died at 24. of hospital bills constantly in and out of the hospital with his help. And when my daughter saw your videos, she said, I want to give the remaining money to that school in Mexico. That's God. Those funds came from a lady who suffered severely for years. And what topped it off is what really got me When this child was born to her, their first child, the husband divorced his wife and left her to raise this child by herself. You talk about finances that have come through the suffering of many years. Boy, I tell you, to me it's just a holiness. They come over and see that this will be spent properly and in a right way. And so, John Piper said, Go, send or disobey. Go, send or disobey. We talk about the LDS folks and how they go out on their missions for two years. It's not a bad deal. I think all young people. One of the things that changed my life was to go to Spain and some of these countries and India and see firsthand the mission field. It impacted me so much, I thought, after going to some of these countries and what I saw, a Muslim world. And I thought, how can I ever go back to the United States knowing the rest of the world lives like this? and where we live in the riches of church after church after church. And you go out of our country or out of this area of the United States and you find town after town after town with no gospel witness. Oh, what a joy to be the light in the darkness. I saw this verse in the pastor's office that I wanted to touch on this morning in 2 Corinthians 5 and 6, For we preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord, and ourselves your servants for Jesus' sake. For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, has shined in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. Now, do we believe the Bible or not? The Bible, the Word of God, tells us plain and simple that God has commanded the light to shine where? out of the darkness. In other words, if you're a believer and you have Christ who is the light and the glory of God, you are a light. And as a result, God wants us to be out there where the darkness is. in the jail, on the street. I was in Hickory the other day holding up a sign against abortion on the street. And a lady come by and she hollered out the one that says, well, abortion is legal in America. I don't make it right. And so, you know, God wants us to be a light and to shine forth. And I always felt as I traveled the world and saw other countries, I felt like if what I believed, if what I've been taught as a child is the truth, I should be able to stand anywhere without props with just Christ. with just the Holy Spirit. I should be able to stand. And yet, how we fear being alone. One of the things missionaries face on the field is loneliness and being alone. Of course, we miss the fellowship of a body like this. Of course, we miss the activities of the local church and our meals together and fellowship together. We miss that. We went for years without that. My wife and I lived out there with the Tatamanos. God raised up the church in Wachusha, and out of the church, God raised up a family we're able to ordain to go out and take over the ministry with the Tatamata. And we go out there now and back them, but they're doing the work of the ministry. So, this morning, God's given us the command to go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. But Gideon gave his excuses. He said, I'm poor. And my parents, you know, I'm the youngest son. And I don't have time to read it because time's getting away. How many of us would say, I'm not going to Michigan because I'm poor. I'm just too poor. I can't do it. I remember going to Ben Lippin. Fifty percent of the student body over there were MKs from all over the world. I thought, well, You know, why would God touch me to go to the mission field? These guys, they grew up on a mission field. It's a lot easier for them to just go back to the field. Yeah. You guys just go, and I grew up on the farm. I'm just a little farm boy. I can't do what you guys did. You know more. I mean, you know, you speak two languages. When we went to Mexico, I couldn't even communicate in Spanish. You know, and I just... So anyway, the Lord... Reduce us to 2 Corinthians 4, 7. For we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God and not of us. Do you realize it's not what you can do? It's not what you and I can do. The excellency of the power. We have this treasure that the power is of who? It's of God. And Gideon found that out. The Apostle Paul found out. It was not all his training. He needed the power of a holy God that could infill him and bring miracles. Hey, we don't serve a dead God. We serve a God who does miracles. I remember the Indians coming up there as we were building the cable system. And they're looking at this system and they're saying, hey, what are you doing? what are you doing some of these people living in caves they've never been to school what are you doing and we worked for four months so they didn't see it all happen one day but you know i'll never forget uh we had a tractor we took it out there and just disassembled it and sent it down in the dark to the property and the next day we put it back together and when we started that tractor it didn't have a muffler so it was loud And that tractor, when we started that engine up down there, these engines just come running from everywhere. They wanted to know where the road was we brought that down on. Yeah. This was a miracle to them. To them it was a miracle. The electric fence was a miracle. The cable system was a miracle. And you know what? It earned their respect. It earned their respect. And I never knew that would happen. And we had some kids come from Wyoming. They brought their ropes, and they started rappelling off these rocks that are 100 foot. And they'd rappel, and just have a good time. And I walked over to the witch doctor. I says, y'all want to do that? You want to do that? Oh, no. He said, we don't do that. And so we were doing things that they had never imagined doing, couldn't do. And to them, it was a miracle. And they didn't want to do it. Now, they run races, you know, long races, but foot runners. And so, where do you stand tonight, or this afternoon, with God's command? The gospel of the kingdom, Matthew 24, shall be preached as a witness to all nations. Then the end shall come. Good and evil will run side by side right down to the end. Going to be on Christ's side? Going to be on his side where we can either, like Piper says, go sin or disobey. I don't want to be on the side of those who disobey, because there's going to be shame. Matthew 4.16, the people who sat in darkness saw great light. And to them which sat in the region of the shadow of death, light is sprung up." The first two people that died that I saw die in Mexico were the Indians. It was a little girl that was like 13 when she started. She was one of the first persons to come around our campsite because the Indians would walk. When we first moved out, they'd walk at a distance and see us and observe us. But they wouldn't come over to us. And this little girl and her brother came over. Both of these kids, before we could ever communicate the gospel to them, died. Little girl hung herself with her scarf around a limb, following goats when she was probably 13, 14 years old. Little boy Juanito worked for us for a period of time. Then he married a girl who didn't like the message we were preaching. So she got him to go across the canyon. And after a year, they came back. They were just married. He was 16 and she was about 14. And, you know, we found him dead after they came back, hung from a rope around his neck. And I'll tell you, that's heartbreaking. kids who take their own lives. And Jesus said, Unless a corn of wheat fall on the ground and die, it bides alone, but if it die, it brings forth much fruit. We've got to consider these things. He that loves his life shall lose it. He that hates his life in this world shall keep it till life eternal. Proverbs 23, 4, labor not to be rich. Labor not to be rich. Cease from thine own wisdom. Do you get that? That's a hard thing to handle. And in our country, you all know, we're about to lose it. We're just about to lose it with our economy. And God says, labor not to be rich. Hey, serve me. Just serve me with your life. and with what I am able to increase you with. So, I see the Lord speaking to the church today. Why call you me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things that I say? Luke 6.46. So, Paul tells us in Ephesians 6.10, Be strong in the Lord and in the power of his might. His might. It's not what we can do, it's what he can do. Do you believe in God's grace? This is Grace Baptist, right? Do you believe in His grace? I mean, you've got the name, Grace Baptist. Paul writes in Timothy, Be strong in the grace. That's in Christ Jesus. Grace is divine power and the desire to do the will of God. Do you know you need grace to surrender to serve Christ? It has to come from Him. He has to bring that conviction on our hearts that it's Him calling us to obey. It takes grace to give of the hard-earned money that you all make and work, to give that by faith to missionaries and to God's people as we see the day approaching. It takes God's grace to release that and to see that go to work for the kingdom. So Isaiah says to us, Also, I heard the voice of the Lord saying, Whom shall I send and who will go for us? God's still asking that today. Is he not? Who's going to go for us? Who can I send? God's asking you, Who can I send? Young person, you're 15, 16, 18, 20. You think you have a life ahead of you. You may not. Little ten-year-old girl before I left Guachoche. She was on her way to Guachoche down the road. It was raining hard. The parents pulled a truck over on the side of the road. In the hard rain, they couldn't see. A truck come around the bend, hit them, killing this ten-year-old girl right before we left town. She was a believer. She lost her life at ten years old. Another man, he worked his whole life. Right before we left Kochiuchi, he had worked in the hospital and he retired. And so he was celebrating retirement, having a good time. And he was drinking and driving and lost his life, celebrating retirement. How about that? We had two girls in our church that came. They weren't actually members, but they visited and had opportunity to have counsel in their lives. They both married narcos. After knowing the truth, we had tried to advise them, don't marry into men that are making their living in the drug industry. They married and they had children. Both of these girls are dead. Their children are dead and their husbands are dead. They were in their 20s. 150 people die every day. 150,000 people die every day around the world in 24 hours. And they all have plans for the future and for tomorrow. And so, where do we stand before the Lord? What are we going to do when the Lord asks us, what did you do with what I gave you? Pray for us as we go back. I don't speak to offend. I just speak to that we might get serious with the Holy God. And that as we live in a day and an age of where the Bible declares of our day, men shall be lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God. I was listening to a pastor from Syria speaking. He came to the United States in 2005. He said, I came expecting to find a Christian country, but he said, I did not find it. He said, what I found was Americans were in love with sports. that they love sports more than they love God. He said, that's what I found. This is a prayer of a godly man that surrendered to serve Christ. He says, Lord, send me anywhere. Only go with me. Lay any burden on me. Only sustain me. Sever any tie but the tie that binds me to thy service and thy heart. My Jesus, my King, my life. My all, I again consecrate my life to thee. He died in Africa, David Livingston. I stood over his grave in London. Africans cut his heart out and said, your heart belongs here, because your heart was here. When you die and pass from this earth, what will people say about you? Will they say he loved Christ? He served Christ? Or will they say, you know, or will they value your life that you had an impact on others? And so, Christ desires all of us to surrender, fall into the ground like a seed, and die. and die. That is the hardest lesson to learn. And graduating from university as great as that is, that will not teach you to do that. Death comes at the foot of the cross where we mean business with God and where we make decisions and say, Lord, I'm willing to die to my plans, to my life, to my kingdom. You produce your power in me. and you produce your kingdom through me. I'm a willing servant. And God will do it. Let's pray. Lord, we thank you for your goodness and love. We're just unprofitable servants. Lord, somehow you've taken the mess of my life and used it to bring through your power and glory miracles that these Mexican and Indian people south of the border have seen with their own eyes and observed and realized that we have a superior God We have a God who created the universe, and Lord, they're beginning to understand, and their frail understanding of the rainbow is not something to be feared, and it doesn't bring sickness to their lives. Lord, just things like this that are so simple to us, but to them, hold them in bondage and severe fear. of the unknown. We thank you for your word. It is so powerful. Lord, speak to our hearts, and may we make a commitment. If anyone's here this morning, God's speaking to them, may they stand to surrender their lives to Christ in service. Lord, it's the only worthy thing we can do as sinners, saved by your grace. In your name we pray. Amen.