All right, let's stand together, please. Acts chapter number 8. If I can get my mechanics working here. Ah, got it, yeah. Chapter 8, verse 1. And Saul was consenting unto Stephen's death. And at that time, there was a great persecution against the church, which was at Jerusalem. And they were all scattered abroad throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria, except the apostles. And devout men carried Stephen to his burial and made great lamentation over him. As for Saul, he made havoc of the church, entering into every house and hailing men and women, committed them to prison. Therefore, they that were scattered abroad went everywhere preaching the word. Father, we ask your blessings on the reading of thy holy word. We pray, God, that you would help us, help me preach the unsearchable riches of Christ. In Jesus' name, amen. Thank you. On top of those verses, we see that Didn't take long for the devil to show his face after the gospel was preached. Doesn't take long for persecution to set in, tribulations to set in, circumstances to change, when you decide to trust the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior. And it's no doubt that it's just before, during, and after the establishment of this work those movements all the way in the darkness trying to keep it from happening. And there's much, much affliction to the gospel because Satan hates anything that has to do with the Lord Jesus Christ and His glory and honor. He's out to Satan cannot take God down Satan cannot pull God off his throne Even though he wants to be he said I'll be like the most high I will ascend to the sides of the north I will I will do this and I will do that and God snapped his fingers and Lucifer is exiled to the planet. I mean he He rebelled against God and there's nothing he can do about it. He tried to take on the Lord God Almighty and was banished. And he tried to take on the Lord Jesus Christ, not just God, now God as a man. And Satan came, and Jesus had his weakest point after 40 days of fasting and wandering in the wilderness with the wild beasts, and the angels of the Lord were held back, but they tried to minister to him. And Satan came and tempted him in all three ways, the world, the flesh, the devil, and Jesus Christ conquered him, and Satan tucked his tail and had to go for a short season. But Satan's ministry today is not just to do that. He can't defeat God. He can't defeat God as a man. But today his ministry is trying to defeat God in a man, God in us. Does he win? For greater is He that is in you than he that is in the world. He's the Prince of the power of the air. He's the ruler of the darkness of this world. He's the God of this world. And God left us here to continue the very work that God sent His Son to do and that Jesus sent the Spirit to do. He could have saved you at an old-fashioned altar or wherever you were when you got saved. and just killed you. You'd be in heaven on the street of gold, basking in eternity. And the ushers would come and take your body and take it out back or take it to the graveyard and bury your body waiting for the resurrection, and you would be in bliss. But God didn't do that when He saved you and me. He said, He said, I've left you in this world to continue the very work that my father started. For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life. And there's NOTHING the devil can do about it. God sent Jesus to this world and He walked among men for 33 years. healed the sick, raised the dead, healed the blind and the deaf, gave speech to the dumb, fed the multitudes, cared for those that were injured. I mean, he was just made himself available to multitudes and to every individual that came into his presence. Jesus did faithfully what God the Father sent him to do. When God the Son left this world, after He conquered death, He conquered hell, He conquered the grave. And He rose up of His own omnipotent power. He said, no man takes my life. I have power to lay it down. I have power to take it up again. This commandment have I received from my Father. But before He left, He said, I'm going to send you somebody else. And the world can't see Him. They can't get a hold of Him because He's the Spirit. They can't put Him on a cross. They can't corner Him like they did me. I'm going to send you another comforter whom the world cannot receive. You see, God, when He told this world of sinners like you and me, He could have come out on the precipice of heaven looked off upon the creation of the world and said, I love you. Shook the foundations of the earth. And we'd all know he loves us. That's all God chose to do. God sent a person. The Lord Jesus Christ. God has a plan and it's not plan B and C. It's always been through a personal instrument. God the Father sent the Son. The Son sent the Holy Spirit. Where does the Holy Spirit reside? In us. Individually and in manifestation Know ye not that your body, know ye, plural, not that your body, singular, is the temple, singular, of the Holy Ghost? Ye, plural, are not your own. Ye are bought with a price. Therefore glorify God in your body, singular. Yes, God dwells in the individual. But we, as living stones, are built together into a holy habitation of God called the Local Church. So God lives in each one of us as individual stones, and we bring our little stones together in the Local Church, and He builds Himself a habitation of God. Now, sure, what know ye not your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? Ye are bought with the price. Therefore glorify God in your body, which are God's. Yes, you can make application in that context to the individual, but it's talking about how God has put a BODY together in this world, moved and empowered and anointed and indwelt by the Holy Ghost. God does not bypass, if the body of Christ is wanting to do something that the Holy Spirit wants it to do, When the Holy Spirit has come, He will REPROVE the world of sin and of righteousness and of judgment to come, and any church or any individual that's under the control of the Holy Spirit is going to be doing what the Holy Spirit was sent to do. Amen? REPROVE, REBUKE, and EXHORT the world. When He has come, He will REPROVE the world of sin and of righteousness and of judgment to come. That's what the Holy Ghost does, and we say we have the Holy Ghost. And how we do it? Well, that's somebody else's job. No, God gave each one of us to be part of the body called the Church, to do the work of God in any location, and He gave us individuals And if the Holy Ghost wants to do something, He uses the church. And if the church wants to do something, it uses a person under the control of the Holy Spirit, gifted by the Holy Spirit, exercising those gifts by the fruit of the Holy Spirit. So God hasn't changed His plan. God still uses the personal instrument. Whether it's God, the Father, God, the Son, God, the Holy Spirit, God, the Body of Christ, God, the local church, God, the Body, or the individuals in the local church. My question to us today is WHO DO YOU HOLD MORE RESPONSIBLE TO DO THE WORK OF GOD THAN YOU? Well, that's the preacher's job. No, it's everybody that has the Holy Spirit, because the Holy Spirit is going to do His work. I had a preacher follow me one time. He just aggravated me. He said, well, there's just not much Holy Ghost conviction anymore. And I got to thinking about that. How could that be, unless Somebody's not preaching the words which the Holy Ghost teacheth. Because the Holy Ghost follows His Word. Holy men of God speak as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. These are the words which the Holy Ghost teacheth, comparing spiritual things with spiritual. These words were put down by the Holy Spirit Himself. You cannot separate the Word of God from the author of the Word of God, which is the Holy Spirit of God. And so the Holy Spirit will never tell you something CONTRARY to the words that the Holy Ghost preaches. So if we're preaching and standing and teaching the Word of God, you're going to have conviction of sin, you're going to have reproof, you're going to have instruction, you're going to have correction, and you're going to find people falling under the condemnation of God. He that is spiritual judges all things. But we're living in a day when the only verse in the Bible the world knows is, Judge not that ye be not judged. They never finish the verse. For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged, and with what measure ye meet, it shall be meted unto you again. In other words, never judge anybody with a standard you're not willing to apply to yourself. Before I was saved, I was worthy of death, I was without excuse, and I had no one to blame but myself, and I was going to hell, and I was guilty before a thrice holy God. And so is everyone that's not saved. And there is nothing you or I can tell a lost person that will make them more condemned than they already are. Jesus came not in the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved. Why? The world was already condemned. That's why Jesus came. Every person born in this world, when they reach an age of accountability, when they consciously rebel against the Word of God, whatever age that is, it's different for everybody. God holds them accountable because they have sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression. Adam and Eve were full grown, full knowledge, and they rebelled against God. Whatever age that is. That's why we try to get children saved as soon as we can. Get them that simple gospel. They can be saved at a young age. But God has no other plan than to use you and to use me. The Church has no other means of doing it but you and me. The Body of Christ, that one day will come to Heaven. The Body of Christ IS in Heaven AND in Earth right now, so I can't do anything about that future Bible or Body, because if we can't even keep our own local churches straight, how much am I going to keep the whole body of Christ that is not formed yet. It's going to be formed at the Rapture to the First Assembly of God and Church of the Firstborn to the Spirits of just men made perfect. That's when there's one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one location in Heaven with one Master and the Lord, that's Jesus Christ. Now, I'm saying all that to say this, we all have a tendency to say that's somebody else's responsibility. But if God loved the world enough to send a person, and Jesus loved the world enough to send a person of the Holy Ghost, and the Holy Ghost loves the world enough to indwell, oh man, God the Father loved us enough to send Jesus, Jesus loved us enough to send the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit, the Bible said in Romans 15, who for the love of the Spirit, the Holy Ghost loved you enough to move into your dirty house after He saved you. He said, I'm going to go to work! And that's pretty nerdy! And you don't get saved, sanctified, petrified, glorified all in one whack. It takes a while. And the Holy Ghost is the only one that can do that work, but He works IN the individual. And He only goes as far as you submit. God is an absolute gentleman. He never goes until He's invited. But when He's invited, He doesn't come to take sides, He comes to take over. Well, God so loved the world that He sent Jesus to love us. Jesus loved us enough to send the Holy Spirit to comfort us. Who are you loving that God loves, that needs God's love? Who do you hold more responsible to love sinners than you? I have to ask myself that question all the time. Am I satisfied with the fact that I preach the gospel, I preach the Word of God? It's been said there was some famous southern gospel singers that were on a ship or something, they were playing, it was sinking or something. And they said, well, give us a song. He said, we don't sing here. We sing in church, and we sing, you know. No. God loves. He wants you and I to love Him. Because why? The love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost. It's in this 5.5. The only way God can love sinners is through us. We're His hands. We're His feet. We're His lips. Where does the Holy Ghost, God the Holy Ghost live? He lives in us. So God is not a big green cloud that floats around the universe and floats around the countries of the world, goes to the Philippines and India and Japan and Haiti and swoops down on people like the Calvinists say. Oh, excuse me. But who you're saying? No. God sends a person. That's right. And how shall they hear without a preacher? And the early Christians, when they were persecuted, they went everywhere, they were scattered abroad, and they went everywhere preaching the word. And we just sit behind our four walls. We just sit behind our walls. I worship down at the church house. I go to church. I read my Bible at the church. I do my praying at the church. I do all that. Well, wait a minute. What about the world? Well, God's got to call a missionary. He's got to call a preacher, an evangelist, a pastor, somebody. That's their responsibility. No, His responsibility is to God's people. It is our responsibility for the sinners. As I said in the morning service, the Sunday school, I want more people in the construction sites that would sit down and talk with me and ask me Bible questions and I'd give them witness to them. I want more people to the Lord before they found out I was a preacher. When I was just a common guy, I'm just another construction worker. And I don't go around telling them, Hey, I'm a preacher. Give me a discount. They'll charge me twice now. I'm a preacher. I can tell you how to get saved. I'm a sinner saved by grace. I understand you. I understand sinners. I'm one of you. Just because I'm a saint, that doesn't mean I've stopped sinning. I understand sin. So who do you hold more responsible to love sinners than you? Secondly, God doesn't only just use people to love people. I'm afraid we've come to the day when God gave. God gave His Son. The Son gave the Spirit. The Spirit gave the Church. The Church gives gifted people who can meet needs. Who do you hold more responsible to give? Well, the rich people, well, they ought to give. But they shouldn't give more than you, proportionately. Because God doesn't measure how much a person gives by how much they give. He measures it by how much they have left. The widow gave two pennies, two mites. And Jesus said she gave more than all those people. They gave big money. Why? Because they had plenty of money left over. She had nothing left over. Who do you hold more responsible to give to missions than you? Who do you hold more responsible to give to support a local church than you? Well, I don't have anything. Give what you do have. That's all God requires. Give what you have. As your purpose in your heart, so let Him give. Some gave it all. But before they gave, they gave their self first. You know, if you surrender yourself to God, you know, you don't dedicate your body to the Lord, you know, He automatically gets this. If you give yourself to the Lord, step yourself into the offering plate, so to speak, He gets everything. Nothing you have belongs to you anyway. It's all His. And we're just stewards. We're just responsible to God for what He's given us and how we use it. And He doesn't mind us using it on ourselves. I mean, man, buy you a toothbrush. You don't care. And I never have figured out why they invented the toothbrush. I need a teeth brush. Well, that went over good. That's the best I can do, though. God gives. God loves. But God sins. Now, how does He sin? God the Father sent the Son. The Son sent the Spirit. The Spirit sends the Church. And the church sends God called gifted people to the fields. I just hear we're all in the fishing business. But everybody's got their part. And if you don't do your part, that puts the backpack on somebody else to do their to do your part. Even President Kennedy said this right, he said, ask not what your country can do for you, but ask what you can do for your country. We're living in a generation that they think the government's responsible for us. This is not responsible for you, you are. Well, you're welcome. God sends, who are you helping to send? We just took up an offer. We're trying to send some missionaries. We're trying to start some churches. We're trying to help our brother to do the work that God has separated him into the gospel in a location. I never have figured out how God's going to build a church in the Red Sea. But I'm for watching the miracle happen. I mean, let's pass on through that. But it will be a miracle, amen? And the world will wonder, and they'll know it wasn't Him and they'll know it wasn't us. They'll know it was God. God sends. Now, that means when you're sent, somebody's got to support you. We don't send people to the mission field without a rope attached to them called prayer. called support. It's not enough to hang themselves. And we don't put clamps on their toes. So, never mind. I got these visions of torture here. It's a great life! Serving the Lord in any capacity is a great life. God sends. See, the Holy Spirit sent forth. Paul and Silas were sent forth by the Holy Ghost. But who sent them forth? Acts 13. The church. When the church sends a man forth, they're being sent forth by the Holy Ghost. Why? Because it's the habitation of the Holy Spirit. So, I mean, that thing just like dominoes. I mean, the doctrines of the Bible all fit together, and if you have one of them out, you mess up the whole system. God sins. But, you know, God worked. He created the heavens and the earth. And how did He do it? Hey, Son, create it. So in the beginning was the Word. The Word was with God. The Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by Him, Jesus. And without Him was not anything made that was made. In Him was life. Life was the light of man. And by Him, Jesus, all things consist. He's holding this thing together. Now, how is He doing it? he spoke his word. And until Jesus takes that word back, this world will continue to go on, but one day it will melt with fervent heat. And he'll recreate a new heaven and a new earth, not the throne of God, but new heavens around this earth and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness, and the curse will be gone. But God is a worker. God's Son was a worker. The Holy Spirit worketh now, even in the children of disobedience. He's working through our labors, and we're working in the field, but who gives the increase? The Holy Spirit. God works. I'm trying to cut this down 14 pages down, okay? You don't know how much I've already skipped over. So, smile. I've already said that God convicts. You ever step in the presence of a thrice holy God, you'll humble yourself. There's no pride in the presence of God. The only boasting that you'll ever hear in heaven is, He's good. God is good. Who do you hold more responsible than you? to try to help sinners see their need of a Savior. Well, I had a man tell me one time when I was pastoring, he said, Pastor, I wish you'd stop trying to be the Holy Ghost. I said, well, it just so happened I'd led this man to the Lord. I said, well, how did the Holy Ghost get you saved? He used an instrument, didn't he? A person. Now, how's the Holy Ghost going to clean you? By a person. That fish ain't going to clean itself. Well, I'm saved. I read my Bible. I don't need the church. I don't need anybody. I can be my own church. Blah, blah, blah. Then we don't need the gift of teaching. We don't need the gift of prophecy. We don't need the gift of pastoring. We don't need the offices of deacon. We don't need any of that because, well, I'm an old man. That's how God does it. God sends a person. We're sanctified by the witness of a person. We're justified by the witness of a person. And we are called by the witness of a person. See, he didn't just call Paul and Silas, or Paul and Barnabas. He told the church. He told the church. Lay hands on them. Send them forth. He used people. God doesn't bypass the personal instrument. Well, that's God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Ghost, and the Holy Ghost uses the church and uses individuals in the church for his great plan. So God calls. Who do you hold more responsible to hear the call than you? Well, God hadn't called me. Well, maybe He knows you're not listening. Maybe He knows you're not going to do it anyway. I had a lot of young men into college when I taught 17 years. They'd come to me as the dean of management, oh, Dr. Thornton, I don't know, I know I'm called to preach, I know God wants me on the mission field, but I don't know where. I surrendered to Mexico, I surrendered to Argentina, I surrendered to here, I surrendered to there. I said, that's not what God's looking for. He's not asking you to look under every rock to find out what the will of God is. He wants you to be willing to do whatever it is. That's right. John 7, 17, Him that is willing to do my will shall know. And God knows if you're willing to do it or not. Why would He tell you His will if He knows you're not going to do it? He's not going to waste His time. That's a lot of people don't know what the Bible says because they wouldn't do it anyway. I've had pastors call me and say, Well, Dr. Thurman, do you think it's wrong to do this, this, or that? I said, Now, if I show you in the Bible Chapter and verse, that it would be wrong for you to do it. What would you do? Well, I'd look it up, look the script, pray about it. I said that you'll never know. You'll never know the will of God in that area. Because He gives His will to those that are willing to do it. You know why? There's twice as many sinners in this world today as there was 50 years ago. That's how vast the population is. We're talking about almost eight and a half billion people. Explosion of population in the last 50 years. It was only four. God's calling a whole lot more preachers than are surrendering. He would use you. He would use me if I was willing to do it. See, He gives the Holy Ghost to them that obey Him. Some of us say, I want the power of God on me. God, give me the power and I'll go. God said, you go, I'll give you the power. I said, I just don't know what to do when I'm witnessing to somebody. I don't know. I said, you do the witnessing. God will give you the wisdom. Yes, sir. Amen. That's right. But you've got to be willing to do it. Then God will answer the need. Amen. Who do you hold more responsible to witness to people than you? Well, that's Mama's job. That's daddy's job. That's uncle so-and-so's job. That's aunt anybody's son. That's their job. That's not mine. That's pastor's job. He's required as a man to take care of his family and his relatives and everybody he knows. And if he's not fulfilling that, he can't qualify to be here. So he's got all the responsibilities that every individual already has. And but if he fulfills those things to the best of his ability, then God will give him more responsibility. And once he started fulfilling that, he said, do more. I'll give you more responsibility because he was willing to do it. What are you willing to do? What are you willing to say? What are you willing to give? Where are you willing to go? My wife and I joke about it when I first surrendered. And I said, well, where are we going to serve the Lord at? You know, once I finished my apprenticeship and went to Bible college and Tennessee Temple University and got on, we got it at, what are we going to do? Well, we're not going to go to Africa, and we're not going to go to Morgan County, Indiana. We're both from Hendricks County, Avon, Plainfield. Mooresville was our rivals in high school. We didn't want anything to do with Mooresville. So where did Don send us? I mean, he does have a sense of humor, OK? And we've been a long time willing to go to Africa. Because he sent us to Mooresville. Any place is better than this. We had two great churches in that great county. And it's just so. Ye are our epistle, known and read of all men. If it don't work for you, why should anybody think it'll work for them? If God can't use you or won't use you, who can he use? I'm saying we're living in days when the philosophy of a lot of Christians and a lot of local churches is it's somebody else's job. That's somebody else's responsibility. And I say, if God so loved the world that He gave, and Jesus loved the world so much that He gave Himself a ransom for many, and if God loved so much, God's Son loved so much that He set the Comforter to live in us, work in us, to us, and through us, and He placed us in a body of other believers, that we could gain the gifts that other people have that I don't have. And together, we could help and support one another and send forth people as laborers into the fields. Make sure their needs are cared for. Make sure we've got a hold of the rope. praying, supporting, caring. I visit a lot of old preachers that have spent their whole ministries loving on people, caring for people, praying over people, visiting people in their sickness, and they die alone in hospitals and nursing homes all across this country with no one when all they needed was somebody to say, I'll go visit the fatherless. I'll go visit the dying. I'll go care for them. I'll go sit down at his feet and pray for him. He was so good to pray for us. It really didn't take that much to be an instrument in the hand of a great and mighty and loving God. And there's people that God can use you to reach. that I could never do it. So you are in God's plan to be a gift to somebody in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. But we're not even looking because most of us think that's somebody else's job. Heavenly Father, I love you and ask your blessings upon the message. I pray, God, that you'll hold each of us in your hand and guide and direct us, but help us to be what you need us to be that you might send us for into all the world. And give the Word of God to everyone we can, anyone that would listen. In Jesus' name, save souls. There's someone here not saved. You love them enough for Jesus to die. Jesus loved you enough to send the Spirit to convict and reprove and to help you and to save your soul. And He loved you enough to place you among brothers and sisters that care for you. I have maybe three gifts of the Holy Ghost. That's why I'm a member of a good independent Baptist church where people that have gifts I don't have can complete my ministry and help me be the man I need to be. And you're blessed to be here today with a pastor that loves and cares for you and ministers that are ready to help in time of need. You bless, Father, in this invitation. Amen.