I'm thrilled to introduce our guest speaker this morning. Found out that we have a lot of connections that go way back, but the main connection that Mr. Simon Robinson and I have, we are both members of the Gideons International, and he's gonna give us a presentation this morning on whatever the Gideons are doing and what all's going on in the world today with us. Anyway, without further delay, and also, Mr. Simon is from Auckland, New Zealand. So mate, you've got it. Okay. Thank you very much. It's an absolute honour and a pleasure to be here today. I want to tell you about two Gideons that walked into a church. Sorry, they walked into a hotel. And they went up to the lady at the counter, they saw her there, and they went up specifically to ask the lady if they could place the living, breathing word of God in the hotel rooms. And the lady said to these guys, gentlemen, sorry, but I'm not interested. Don't want anything to do with your Bibles. So they left. They came back a couple of weeks later hoping to find a different lady at the reception. Same lady was there, and she said, guys, like I told you a couple of weeks ago, I'm just really not interested. So about a month later, one of the two Gideons had a son that had a soccer game at a nearby field late in the day. And he thought, you know what? I'm just going to go in there one last time and see if there's somebody different up there. Guess who was at the counter? the same lady. But you know what she says to him this time? If you can put those Bibles in the room right now, I'll let you do it. The Gideon says, how many do you need? And she says, I need 30. He goes out to his car. He actually has 30 of these in his car. He goes into the hotel rooms, puts them all in the rooms. And he leaves. So he comes back with the fellow Gideon a couple of weeks later just to check, to see how everything was going. That same lady was at the counter. She saw the two Gideons walk in and she reached under the counter and she grabbed a pistol. She put the pistol on the counter and she said, my sister came in here last night to take her life. and she chose your life instead. The harvest is plentiful, the workers are few. Thank God for those two Gideons that were persistent. Right? God had a bigger plan. We just got done talking about the Lamb's Book of Life. That lady gave her life to Christ. So it's just incredible what we do as Gideons. I actually became a Gideon about two and a half years ago. I go to a cross church in Springdale, and there's a big tall guy there like me. He's 85 years old, and we spotted each other, and he came up to me in the foyer, and he took one of these out of his pocket. And he said, I believe you can give one of these to somebody this week. And I took it. And I said, you know what? I bet I could. So Thursday starts rolling around. I know I'm going to see this guy on Sunday. And I go, I better give this to somebody. And I did. Don't really remember exactly what I said. But when I saw Brother Eddie, I said, you know, I gave that to somebody. Had a nice chat with him. And you know what? He gave me another one. And then he gave me another one. And he gave me another one. And this went on for about a year. And I thought, you know what? I think I ought to become a Gideon. I became a Gideon. Now, I used to be a traveling sales guy, and I checked into a hotel. And in the front of the Bibles that we put in the hotels is what we call the help section. A lot of people come into these hotels. They want to take their lives. They're suicidal. They've got issues, right? So in the front of this book, we have the help section. And I thought, I'm not going to take the Bible, but I'm going to take photos. of those help sections with my phone. And in the shower that morning, I remember going, God, use me, use me. And about a month later, a friend of mine called me, and he said, you need to have a meeting with this guy. It'll really help you with your business. So I go to a coffee shop up in Bentonville, and I'm sitting down with this guy that I've never met. We're five minutes into this thing, and out of the blue, he says to me, are you a Christian? Now, I don't know if you've ever had anybody ask you that question, but what happened with me was, it was like everything just went still and long. And I heard, I heard, if you confess me among men, I'll confess you to the Father. If you deny me among men, I'll deny you to the Father. Right? And then I thought, this meeting's getting ready to go one way or the other based on how I answer this question. And then I thought, you know what? Jesus wants me to say something. You see, God can't do something through you until he does something in you first, right? You've got to invite him in. You've got to accept that free gift. And then the power that is within you is a spirit of power, love, and self-control, which I have in me. And probably if you've given your life to Christ, you do too. I said to this guy, I said, well, I don't know what your definition of a Christian is, but I'm a born-again Christian. You see, John, in chapter 3, verse 3, Jesus said, truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again, you will never see the kingdom of God. So I'm a born-again Christian. I got born physically, I got born spiritually, and I'm only going to have one physical death, because my spirit will live in heaven with Jesus forever. So we sat there for four hours. We never spoke any business. I showed them the help section on my phone. And he said to me, you know more about me than anybody on planet Earth. And I followed that man to his house, got on his living room floor with him, and we prayed. And you know what? I don't know how all that happens. It's above and beyond me. I don't know how God operates, right? But the fact that a couple of Gideons showed up with some Bibles, put them in a hotel room. I happened to read it. A Gideon Bible. I say Gideon Bible. It's not a Gideon Bible. It is a Bible placed by the Gideons. That's what it is. I've got to correct myself. I do that a lot. A Bible in a hotel will last roughly six years, and about 2,300 people will cycle through that hotel room. There are 200,000 of us worldwide. There are 90,000 of us in the USA. It started in 1899. And it took 20 years for us to hand out a million Scriptures. We now as Gideons worldwide hand out a million Scriptures every four and a half days around the world. And I'll tell you what, only having done this for two and a half years, I was on the University of Arkansas campus about three Wednesdays ago. There were 38 of us. We passed out over 7,100 of these things. And I would just say, sir, I got a free gift for you. It's the living, breathing word of God. It's God's love letter to you. Would you like it? I had one guy go, no, man, I don't need that. I'm a Jew. And I said, you know what? Jesus was a Jew, and he loves you. I said, let me show you something. I took him to the back of the book. And I'm going to challenge you to do this. I have a box here, right? There are a hundred testaments in this box. Depending on where in the world we get these printed, they can cost $1.20 each or $1.80 each. Okay? So I'm going to challenge you, because you may have a lost friend. I take photos of church signs, and I saw one in Prairie Grove. I did a U-turn to come back and take a photo of it, and it said, will anybody be in heaven... and on the next line it said, because of you. In other words, are we sharing the living, breathing, saving Word of God with people? That's the bottom line. I mean, I'm asking you that question, okay? I come from a family of lost people. The only saved person in my family is my father. And he now gets it. He gets that His name is in the Lamb's Book of Life. And that everyone else in our family, their name is not in that Book of Life, but their names are in other books. And we will be judged by whether you're, if you're in the name, if you've got your name in the Lamb's Book of Life, you're covered. Jesus, you're covered by the blood. But if you're not, and we all know friends, we have friends that are not, they need to hear about Jesus. I taught last Sunday at a church over in Hinesville, I think it was. And you know what? It was the people that wanted to learn how to share their faith. That's what it was about. We know as Gideons that it takes about seven times for people to come to the saving grace and knowledge of Jesus. So when we're up there on the campus and we're passing out Bibles and we get rejected, that's fine. It's got nothing to do with us. Nothing to do with us. They're not rejecting me. I had a girl come up to me and she said, how do you do that? You just got all these people that didn't want the Bible. And I said, it's real easy, OK? It's got nothing to do with me. Take the pressure off yourself. Our job is to chuck seed, right? Where the seed falls, that's between them and God. That's between them and God. But if seven people say no, it may be touch number five for that person. And then they'll get another no. And then eventually, like me, I came kicking and screaming. I was 43 years old. I wanted nothing to do with it. And what the pastor just said touched me when you said about the book of life. My wife dragged me to church in Dallas as a 43 year old. I had an 8, 9 and a 10 year old with me. We were in a mega church. And we're in there, and my wife says to me, you know, I think we need to do life with these people. Let's do what he says. And I went out into the foyer with my wife, and I said, let me tell you something. I gave God an hour of my time today, and that's good enough for him. I'm not getting involved with any religious nutcases. I'm not painting a mobile home. I'm not working a suit line. I went through this list. Be careful what you tell God you are not going to do. Okay? Be real careful. I found myself in Bolivia, in Brazil, in Haiti. You know, God will come into your life, and He'll disturb you. There's a way that seems right to a man, but its end leads to what? Death. What did Jesus say? He said, I am full of grace and truth. You shall know the truth, and the truth shall what? Set you free. I am the way, the truth, and the life, and no one comes to the Father but by me. Is there a greater gift you could give anybody than the Word of God? This Bible contains the state of man, the mind of God, the way of salvation, the doom of the lost sinner and the hope and happiness of the believer. And we as Gideons are privileged to be able to hand this out to people. Okay, we're so blessed by it. It's a blessing when you can stand in front of the Greek theater at the University of Arkansas and give this Bible to a kid and get over him and pray with him because he wants to receive Jesus. We're just used by God in certain cases, right? But you've got to make yourself available. And that's what's just so nice. There was a lady who was suicidal. She had one son, and that son was causing this poor lady all kinds of grief. And she heard this voice saying, life's too hard. Take your life. Kill yourself. So she decided she was going to kill herself. So she went through a little place and she was trying to find a rope. She found herself under her son's bed looking for a rope and she found one of these. And she picked it up and she turned right to Matthew 11 28. You know what that says? Come to me, Jesus speaking, come to me all you who are heavy laden and I will give you rest. And she felt a peace come over her. And she kept reading. And she just felt at peace. She found herself the following Sunday in a Protestant church. She had never stepped foot in that church before. Didn't say a thing to anybody. Took her Bible in there and just sat down on her own. The preacher came up and he said, today's lesson will be out of the book of Matthew. We're gonna start in 1128. There are over 31,100 verses in the Bible, and that's the verse they started on. Do you know that that lady gave her life to Christ? She then told her son about it. A month later, the son gave his life to Christ. Do you know when that Bible ended up under the son's bed? The day before. There were some Gideons at a school passing out Bibles. The kid grabbed one, didn't want anything to do with it, just chucked it under his bed. The stories that the Gideons have and the way God uses people are incredible. I mean, I could tell you one right now that you're probably not going to believe. There was a military camp. Gideons were given out Bibles. Guy put one in his fatigues, right here in the pocket of his pants. Stayed there for four years. Four years, he's now in a helicopter over Asia, picks the Bible up, doesn't want it, throws it out, lands in a canoe where two guys are talking about Jesus. And a Bible just happens. I mean, you know, you can't make this stuff up. But it's the living, breathing word of God that transforms the human heart. We're born with a wicked and deceitful heart above all things, right? But God gives us a new heart. That's what he does. It's all written here in his word. I happen to be in Salt Lake City this week. Never been to Salt Lake City ever. And I said to my son, who I was with, because I work with him, I said, look at that beautiful temple up there on the hill. What say we go up there and find out what that's all about? We did. We went up to the Church of Jesus Christ and Latter-day Saints, and I asked if we could go in the temple, and they said, no, sorry, you don't have a letter, you can't go in. And I said, well, look, I'm a born-again Christian, And I'd really like to understand what you folks believe in, because I see Jesus Christ is in your sign. I stood there for over two and a half hours and I had some amazing conversations with these folks. And then the lady gave me the Book of Mormon, right? And I took it home. I don't think I'm going to read it. I'm not going to read it because They believe differently. You see, I said, let me ask you something. And Romans 10, 9 says, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you'll be saved. I said, do you believe that? And she gave me some rather strange answer about how people are coming into the temple to pray people. out of the spirit world that never gave their life to Christ. I said that's not what Jesus said. It's appointed for man to die once and then comes the judgment. Every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. Now I want to get back to my lost family, okay. They come from New Zealand every other year. We're sitting in my car and we've just driven back from Branson. And I thought, this year I'm going to give them a breather. I'm not going to get on them about this because I can't lead, I can't force them to know Jesus. It's between them and God. The Holy Spirit's got to draw them and they have to accept the free gift. So my dad brings it up. He brings up the name of Jesus, okay? And so I go, okay, Tiffany, my wife, I go, pull up Luke 12, 51, and I'm gonna paraphrase it. This is Jesus speaking. Jesus says, do you think I've come to bring peace? No, but rather division. From now on in one family, five will be divided, two against three, three against two, mother against daughter, daughter against mother. I go, mom, how true is that this day and age in our house? that we can't talk about Jesus 2,000 years after this was written. Doesn't that prove that it's right? You are going to bow down to Jesus, and you're going to have a one-on-one with him, and he's going to say one or two things. Well done, my good and faithful servant, or depart from me, you worker of iniquity, for I never knew you. And when we realize this as believers, how can we not share the word of God with people? Okay? And so in my particular case, this isn't about me, but what it is about is how Jesus can transform the human heart, right? That's what he does. He makes the old new, he gives you a new heart, right? And so I've gone personally from when I first got saved I didn't want anybody to know about it. Okay. And Jesus says, don't be ashamed of me. I think I was ashamed. 43 years living for the world. If you love the world and the things of the world, the love of the father's not in you. There's a lot I love about the world. I love that game last night. Okay. I love that thing. Okay. But I gave my life to Christ and I found myself in a car with three business guys driving to Tulsa and Jesus came up and Jesus never comes up with this group of folks, right? So they're talking about Jesus, my heart's just pounding, just pounding because I'm thinking, oh gee, Jesus wants me to say something. So one of the guys says, hey Simon, what do you think? And all I remember saying is, who cares what I think? There's 8 billion people. We all have opinions. The only thing that matters is, what does God say? And let me tell you what God says. And for 45 minutes, I rambled on. I don't know what I said. We get to the airport, and this guy says to me, where did you learn to articulate that? And I said, you know what, Brian? I've been studying the Word of God, man, and it's life transforming. It'll change your eternal destination. That guy, Brian, we dropped guys off at the airport. Brian had to drive back to Fayetteville with me from Tulsa. And I put my hand on him, my arm on him, and I said, Brian, if I pull over and we end up on the grill of that Mack truck, are you positive that you're going to go to heaven? He said, no. I said, I am. And where I'm going is way better than anything I'm experiencing on planet Earth right now. And he said to me, he said, I just can't let go. He actually laid into me. He said, the problem with you born again Christians is it's one way and no other way. And I go, you know what, Brian, this book that I've been studying, 27% of it is prophetic. Okay, there's over 31,000 verses. In other words, Jesus and God say, here's what's going to happen, and it happens. Here's what's going to happen, and it happened. Here's what's going to happen, and it happened. So we can count on this, that Jesus is coming back. And he's coming back for his people first, right, to meet them in the air. Okay, then we're going to go through some tough times on planet Earth, which is all in Revelation. And then he's going to come back with all his people. And I'm on his team. And Jesus wants to know who's on his team. That's what this is all about in the church age. So as Gideons, like I said earlier, handing out these Bibles to people, okay? We end up with these in hotels, motels, medical places. They just end up everywhere. And what we need most of all are your prayers. I'm blown away that this day and age we can end up down at Fayetteville High School. We can end up on the University of Arkansas handing these testaments out, okay? Now, I mentioned the help section at the front, right? In the back, We have the plan of salvation. It's literally right here, okay? You may be thinking, man, there's no way I can do that. Let me tell you, there is a way. You don't have to know any scripture. All you gotta do is just be bold enough to give this to someone and say, you know what? This is God's love letter to you. He wrote it. He knows how many hairs you have on your head. He knows everything about you. Right? I mean, we can't even explain how we're made, and yet we have people say, I don't believe in God. You can't even explain how your body works. Okay, but I will say this. I heard a preacher say it. And the lady out in Salt Lake City disagreed with me. I said, you know what? We're not all children of God. You are not his child until you come to him. You're his creation. He created you and he loves you and he wishes that none should perish. But you've got to accept the free gift. You have to come to him. So what we do is we, can I do something I've never done before? What is your name? Alexander. Come on up, I'm gonna borrow. This man here is a beautiful singer, by the way, okay? I've heard him sing. I would like to just show you something, okay? This is, do you have glasses where you can read that? I can read. Okay, what does this verse say here? This is John 3, 16. Can you read that for us? Yes. Well, that's actually in a different language. Oh, have I got the wrong language? Don't tell me I've, here's English right here. We have, guys, we have a lot of Spanish Bibles, okay? We have the Gideon Bible app in over 209 languages. You can pull up any language in the world and show people. I've done this in China. It's just spectacular. I think I'm blind, okay? So let me do this now. This is the English one, right? What does that say? It says, God loves you. For God so loved the world that he gave his only son, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life. Okay. Now I'd like you to read that again, but instead of using the word world, I'd like you to put your own name in there. Amen. For God so loved Alexander. that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believes in him, that if I believe in the Lord our God, that I will not perish and I will have eternal life. Right, now, look, we could keep going, right? But do you hear what he said? Should not perish, but have everlasting life. If you believe in him. Now, what does that mean if you don't believe in him? You don't have eternal life. You don't have eternal life, which means you'll what? Perish. You will die, you will perish. And for God so loved Alexander that he gave his only son. And then we walk them through. I'm not going to do it now because I'm running out of time. Okay. But I want to give that to you. And I want to challenge you to give that to a lost family member or a friend that you have. And you know what? Just have them read it back to you. Okay. And then if they're ready at the end, you can ask them, are they ready to do that? Are they ready to give their life to Jesus? It's really, really that simple. But we all know lost people. Thank you, Alexander, appreciate it. Jesus wishes that none should perish and that we should all have eternal life. So here we are. We've given out now as Gideons, did I say that earlier? Two and a half billion Bibles. We gave away two billion Bibles by the year 2015, and President George Bush was the recipient of our two billionth Bible that we've handed out. So, you know, what we really are for you is we're an extension of the local church. We're going to go to places that you probably can't go on your own. As Gideons, we're able to go to college campuses, we're able to go to schools, we're able to get in. In some cases, we have to sit at a table and we can't say much, okay? We don't wanna do anything to get us in trouble, but we do wanna put the word of God in people's hands. Okay, so that's what we're all about. We need prayer number one, continued prayer that God will open doors. Do you know that in America, in an average year, 7,000 churches will close? Do you know I drove by one on the way here today? Down in Gully Park, there's a sign up there, it's for sale. The church building is for sale. 7,000 churches will close, but the good news is 4,000 will be birthed. At the end of the day, there's a 3,000 net loss. But this is all prophesied. It's all prophesied that in the last days, there'll be a great falling away. So we need prayer, number one. Number two, if you're interested and you're a businessman, as Gideons, we're not teachers, we're not preachers, we're just businessmen that love and serve the Lord Jesus. We wanna point men, women, boys, and girls to the love and the saving grace of Jesus. That's what it's all about. That's why we exist, okay? The thing I wanna end with is, If you... Interested in talking to me maybe later about, you know, what are the Gideons all about? Feel free to do that. The Gideons, in my little chapter, we meet at our house once a month, and we talk about things that are going on. I mean, it's just incredible. One last little story, and I'll wrap this up here in a couple of minutes. This brother, Eddie, I wish he was here today. He's 85, he's my height, he plays the piano accordion, and he hadn't been feeling well lately. And so he prays, he lost his wife after 60 years, and he prayed to God. He said, God, don't take me out. I know I'm not well, but don't take me out. Do you know what happened that day? This guy fixes lawnmowers in his garage. And he's sitting in his garage fixing a couple of lawnmowers, and he sees these two guys going door to door. Well, they end up in his garage, and they're selling him solar panels. And he listens to this for about 15 minutes and he says, guys, he goes, look, I'm 85, but I'm not going to save any money and where I'm going, I'm going to get all the free power in the world. So I've listened to you for 15 minutes. Would you listen to me for 15 minutes? And you know what? He said, are you 100% sure that if you took your last breath today, you'd spend all of eternity in heaven? And they looked at each other and said, no. And he said, well, let me show you something. And he did what we just did right there. He walked them through that. Both those guys accepted the Lord. Do you know what he did? He went inside and he had a drink and he thanked God. He went back out in his garage and the FedEx guy showed up. And the FedEx guy showed up, big burly guy, covered in tattoos and big strong guy. And he's walking up to Eddie's door with a box like this, with all his testaments. He goes, man, where would you like these Bibles? And he says, oh, you can give them to me. And he says, can I ask you a question? Are you 100% sure that if you took your last breath right now, you'd go to heaven? He said, no. The guy gave his life to Christ. I know a Gideon that's led over 2,000 people to Christ, and the question he asks is, hey, let me ask you, what do you think it takes to get to heaven? He doesn't, you talk about dying. Hey, what do you think it takes to get to heaven? And then based on that answer, then he goes into his conversation. So look, if you're led to want to talk to me about how the Gideons work, I'd love to chat with you afterwards. Please pray for us. If you feel led to donate in any way at all, we'd love to take your money for the, Give to the church first and you give to us next. All the money that is donated goes towards the printing and the circulation of the Bibles. We're not paid as Gideons, none of that. We do this out of the love of our heart. And I wanna thank all of you and Pastor Terry here for letting us come down here today and talk about what the Gideons are doing and how God is moving in and through our ministry. Okay, the Spanish community there is on fire. I don't know any Spanish other than Dios de Bendiga. Dios de Bendiga. I say that to any Spanish guy. And he goes, oh, yeah. I forget how they respond. But you know what? It changes things. It changes things. And then you just put it in their hand. And let God do the rest. Okay? It's got nothing to do with us. It's God. But our job is to spread the Word. We've got to spread the word. So God bless you all. Terry, thank you very much for allowing me to come and speak. And I'll hand it back to you. Thank you very, very much. Oh, and one last thing. If you want a Bible, come on in.