Matthew chapter 11, I'm just going to give you one verse and then I'm going to go over Mark 16 and I'm going to look at the aspect and a definition really of the Christian life. Matthew 11 verse 28, Jesus says, and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." Just circle that word, come, if you would. Come, that's gonna be some of our directional thought tonight. And then over in Mark chapter 16, verse 15, and he said unto them, go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. Circle the word, go. I mean, a simple message tonight, even a two-year-old ought to be able to figure it out, I hope. But you'll be amazed at how often we forget just simple precepts when our lives are in turmoil. And I have lived over 65 years now and have seen the world at a number of different places and watched it as it moved here and there. I am glad to be an American tonight, thankful that I live where I live. But boy, are things weird. And I say that from the perspective of a 65-year-old who's supposed to be able to say, been there, done that, seen that, I remember when. I don't remember when. This is all new for senior citizens and we're trying to struggle through. I know that much of our Christian life, whether we like to admit it or not, is regulated by the conveniences that we have and the ease that we have in being Americans. And sometimes we don't realize that or maybe we haven't realized that, although I think we're coming more in touch with that reality now because it's a little more difficult to go to church on Sunday. It's a little more difficult to be a witness now. Some of the aspects of the Christian life that we took for granted are becoming a little bit more like a heavy burden to be born and it makes it difficult. Pastor was talking about how to cancel a Bible study last night. Churches have had to cancel and close up or curtail their services and you know we had chains on every other row in the church, and I know pastors all over the country that have approached this from a number of different ways, and there is no correct way. To be honest with you, if there was, we'd have all passed it around and we'd have it. But there is no correct way. There is no right way to figure this out. We find ourselves really in a place of turmoil. And I find that sometimes in those places, it's good for us to have a point of reference and know where we're supposed to be or know what we're supposed to do next. And so I want to give you just two simple thoughts tonight. Come and go. Come and go. The irony of it all is that this is missions conference and so we're supposed to lift up our eyes to the harvest. We're supposed to be looking to the regions beyond and hopefully we'll be able to do that this week. It's important that we not forget what we're all about in this process. Someone just recently estimated that of the 7 billion people now living on planet Earth, by the way, in the 60s they were predicting that the Earth could not sustain over 7 billion people. I remember taking those notes when I was just in school as a boy. We're there. You ever wonder why they're worried about getting to Mars and getting back to the moon? They're scared to death. They're too scientific to tell you because you haven't been invited. When they say we're going to the moon and then to Mars, they're not talking about you and me. They're talking about them. They're the guys that get to go. But they're panicking. They've moved into panic mode. Our world seems to be crumbling, whether it be a social aspect or economically or health-wise, it seems like we're fighting a war on so many different faces that it's hard to, at any one point in time, know what you're supposed to do just next. But two billion people in this world recently were classified by some Christian organizations as unreached. Unreached. Now, by that, we don't mean that they've never had an opportunity to hear the gospel. It means that they've never been reached at all with any type of Bible information. the fastest growing religious movement on the face of the earth today, far outshining you and I as, I guess, even using the classical term Christianity, we're being outdone almost two to one by the Muslims. We're, you say, are you trying to discourage me? No, I'm trying to get to a place where you'll grasp what I'm going to say. We get caught up in all of these things if we're not careful. And then there's COVID and then there's I don't have a job or I can't work or all of those things going on. And the tendency every once in a while is to just shut off. to just shut off and not think and not concentrate and not focus and not do anything. And I've met a lot of people that are in that scenario. I found myself being there. My wife reminds me every once in a while, you know, it's like, you know, earth to Rick. And you know, it's time for you to come back down and re-engage in life. But we've got so much going on around us. And I was reading through my scriptures the other day, just looking at this thing. And I thought, you know, I wonder how the disciples would have responded to COVID-19. And I begin to just leaf through the Gospels and look at the various things that they did. And, you know, you can spend all day looking at the various things they did. But when I was all done, I settled on this idea. They were either coming or they were going. That's what they were doing. And you know, if you can boil life down to that, it gets simple again. If you can boil it down to that, all you have to do is find the right direction and determine whether I am A, coming, or B, going, and then I can figure out where I need to be. I remember a preacher years ago, I had to be... 40, 35 years ago, I guess, somewhere in that time frame. And sometimes we can remember messages and sometimes we forget them. And I remember this the other day thinking about that. He preached an entire Sunday morning message and he started his message by talking about being somewhere and watching an ant colony. Have you ever been outside in the summertime and found where somebody dropped some morsel of food or something sweet on the pavement or whatever it is? In a matter of time, there's a line. And he said, I studied ants. And he said, I began to study ants because I knew there were so many of them. And he said, I started a book. And he said, I read two or three books on ants and the way ants live their lives. And he said, I came to the conclusion that an ant's life is about one of two things, coming or going. And he said, if you go out today, find the ants, no matter where you find them, no matter whether they're big ants, little ants, red ants, blue ants, green, whatever they are, if you find them, they're either doing one of two things, either coming or they're going. And he said, they line up, they come and they go, and they come and they go. And he talked about being in a church one afternoon and seeing the ant. Says he was coming down to set up his slide projector. He was a missionary. Set up his slide projector and he said, I got up to the front and I watched across the front of the place where people bowed to pray. And he said, there was something moving. And he said, I called my kids and I said, look at that, what's that? And there were ants. And he said, you know what they're doing? They were coming and going. And he said, they went all the way down here, they went around the corner, and they came up the step, and then they came up the step, and they came across the platform. And he said, we sat there for the better part of a day watching those ants, and never one time did they change what they were about coming and going. He said, I got a great idea. He said, I took my foot. and I put it right down in the middle of that path. And he said, you know what they did? One of two things, they either went over it or around it, but they kept coming and going and coming and going and coming and going. You know, if we could reduce our Christian life and our Christian walk, and we could reduce our approach to missions about just coming and going, just coming and going and doing what we ought to be doing. You know, there are more unsaved people in this world that have never heard the gospel today than ever before. and the Muslim community is out distancing us with their discipleship endeavors. I mean, they have the advantage of guns and weapons and bombs and all that other stuff. But let's face it, we live in America, and we have the means and the resources, and we have the dedication that we ought to be accomplishing more for the Lord Jesus Christ. Somehow, we get preoccupied if we're not careful and we forget we ought to be about coming or going. Let me ask you a question. Are you coming or going when it comes in your wall for Christ? There's two aspects of it. The disciples, he said, ''Come unto me.'' Then he said, ''Go ye into all the world.'' We got two endeavors in this life, to come unto Christ, to go into all the world. There's not much else in life that's important. I'll guarantee you there's some part of your life over this COVID experience that has changed forever. I don't know what it is, and it probably is different in a lot of people's lives, but there's probably something that you've said about, ''I'll never go back to doing it that way again.'' Or you said, I'm gonna do it that way the rest of my life if we live through this. It's coming and going, it's coming and going, it's coming and going. You know why church sometimes gets boring? Because it's resulting just in the coming and the going instead of being there. But the Lord took his disciples and he called them unto himself. He said in Matthew chapter 11 verse 28, Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I'll give you rest. And then in Mark 16, he said to those same disciples, go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. The Millers are going to Peru. You know what they're doing? They're on their way, they're going. They're going. And what we did tonight in order to help them go was to come to church. That's an odd thing. This whole process can be boiled down to coming and going. If we come to church, we hear the message, we have our hearts pricked for the things of God, we see a family with an opportunity to go and a desire to be where God wants them to be, and we're going to help them so they can go to the foreign field and people can come to Christ and go to heaven. You understand? It's all about coming and going. My mother used to say when she'd get real frazzled, she said, I don't know whether I'm coming or going. That was just it. She'd be cooking a meal and going after it. People were coming. I can remember every once in a while I'd see her get frazzled and frustrated. You'd say, Mom, what's wrong? She'd say, I don't know whether I'm coming or going. What that meant was she had lost track. Did you ever find your place in life like that? Did you ever find your place in your walk with Christ like that? Did you ever find your place in deciding where God would have you be at any one given place like that? I'm just coming and going and coming and going. You know, a lot of times people are just coming to church and they're going to do a lot of things about what they hear in church, but it's coming and going. It's amazing how many times we use that same phrase to describe thousands of aspects of our life. And so let's make our missions conference about coming and going. I think sometimes coming is a good idea, especially when we've been working and laboring for the Lord. The truth of the matter is, sometimes we need to be near the Lord, and He would call His disciples to Him. You consider the Gospels, and the Gospels are basically those two themes right there, coming and going. They were either coming back from something that had wearied them. They were either coming back as they had been away. They were coming back from having been tainted in the world. He said, come unto me, all you that labor and are heavy laden, Give you rest you need to learn to come to the place where you can get away the place where you can rest How many times the Bible talks about I'm just getting into a ship and going? I've had people say well You know it was in the divine foreknowledge of God and they were decreed to go across the lake I'm not sure about that. I think they just might have went with the tide I'm not sure they planned on going over there because not all the time did they find a mass multitude of souls to win sometimes they found opposition when they got to the other side and I think sometimes it was good not just being there, but just the coming and going. Just the ability to leave one thing behind and move on to something else. There's a lot of things in this day and time we need to learn to leave behind. I've learned not to watch as much news as I used to. You know why? Because it's all discouraging. I find myself, if I come there and don't learn to go, I get in trouble. You can watch news all day long and not know anything. And 99% is just it could be, it might be, it seems to be, it may be. You know what all those are? Those are lies. Those are liar's tools. When somebody says it seems to be this, what they're saying is I have absolutely no proof or facts. But I can say anything I want to say if I use the word seems, maybe, could be, might be, appears to be. Those are all phrases utilized for deception. I just challenge you, I just told you not to watch TV, but next time you're watching it, this will be years from now, when you're backslidden and you get away from this message. But at some time, just get you a piece of paper and just draw a line on the paper. Every time you hear, maybe, could be, might be, was thought to have been, seem to be, just mark that down and just next to it, just write down, those are all lies. If I knew something absolutely, do you think I'd say it seems to be? If I knew undeniably something to be true, you think I'd say it might be? You know why you say those phrases? So you don't get sued. And the news media have become the masters of demonology in that sense. They know how to say it so as not to say it. But the truth of the matter is if we're not careful, we tend to slip into that thought ourself. We tend to fall into that well maybe and might be and life gets real cloudy. There needs to be some definition to life. There needs to be an approach to life. Parents used to say to kids when they turn 15 or 16 get a job. You need to plan for your future. You need to plan on going to college. And now it's just the question is what's on next. You know, we've gotten away from those things. We don't take plans. We don't make arrangements. We don't set destinations and directions in life. And all at once, we find ourselves just floating in the ether of nothingness. It's amazing how many Christians, the only going they do is that they're going to be faithful someday out there in the future when this changes and that changes. And can I say to you again, you're going nowhere. The Christian life is about coming and going. The Lord said, listen, when you labor, you're going to get weary. When you're working, it's going to be tough. Living for Jesus Christ is not, never has been, and never will be easy and simple. It's not something you can fall asleep doing. It's not something you can lay down on the couch of ease and be good at. It requires effort. It requires industry. It requires direction. It requires help from above. It requires all of those things, but it requires at some point for us to be coming and going, moving about. Motion. Let me ask you about your Christian life tonight. Is it motionless? Is it motionless? I've seen several people cry at hope over the last few months because they've been away for a while. Someone in the family had been affected by this thing and they had to stay away, they had to isolate and all of those things and they couldn't come. I have a couple of families in my church, their work will not allow them to attend church services. Struggling with it. You say, what is that? It's incredible how wearying that can be. It's incredible how all at once, when life changes and you're out of control, how tedious just day-to-day existence can become. That's why our suicide rate has skyrocketed in our country. We're not people that were created to do nothing and go nowhere. We were people that created to go to dress a garden, if nothing else, to work there, to walk with the Lord. All of those aspects were part of Adam and Eve's existence. He didn't just create them and say, now, sit down, get a hammock, take it easy. No, he said, go to work, get some coming and going in your life here. Some action, some movement, some priorities, some destinations and goals in life. All of those things seem to be drying up in America's existence. And I hope it's not something that takes place in the hearts of Christians, but I fear it may. And in particular, when we look at the mission field. You know, it is not just new to COVID. But over the last several years, I've had people say, don't you think God's all finished with the harvest? I've had people say, well, you know, you see missionaries go and they come, and this one wasn't successful, and that one didn't make it, and this one doesn't seem to be accomplishing much, and do you really believe it's worth the effort? Well, I'll be honest with you, I think there's some things that could be changed in missions. I'm not saying that there isn't, but I think the idea of missions is biblical, and it's essential for a church that's growing, and for Christians that are growing, and for a gospel that needs to be preached around the world. I think if we're not careful, we can use COVID as an excuse rather than anything else in the course of our life. Two billion people, two billion people. You realize there's seven billion people. Two billion people are classified as unreached, meaning they have never once heard what the gospel is. Two billion people don't know there's a heaven and a hell. Two billion people have never heard the name Jesus. Two billion of this world's population could die and go to hell without ever knowing what you and I take so much for granted and believe that our missionaries are accomplishing around the world. The problem is there aren't enough people going. And from the mission's field's perspective, there aren't enough people coming. God needs some people that are busy coming and going and coming and going. Colossians 1.23 talks about these disciples. He said to them, ''Come unto me, all ye that labor.'' And he told them when he left them from that upper room, he said, ''Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.'' Brother Walt, I've always been amazed and I don't know, I'm not saying I'm right, I really don't know. Because he said, go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. But Paul makes an interesting statement in Colossians chapter 1 verse 23. I don't know if you've ever read it or not. The end of the verse says this, the hope of the gospel which you have heard, here's the thing that gets me, and which was preached to every creature which is under heaven. The apostle Paul said that to the Colossian church. Can I throw just a weird, crazy, stupid idea? They did it. You say, wait, I'm not going to argue with the scripture. I realize I may be reading it wrong, but I have read it over and over and over again. And every time I read it, my heart is drawn back to that. Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. What other passage could Paul possibly be speaking of? You know what that means? That means the Incas, well, could have been reached with the gospel of Jesus Christ. Well, there's, I know, if we don't know it, it couldn't have happened. Well, the Aztecs, well, you know, those Aboriginals, I know, I understand that, but Paul said, you understand? Matter of fact, let me redefine that. Paul didn't say. Yeah. Is this the word of God? He said the gospel was preached to every creature which is under heaven. That's ironic, isn't it? Here we think we've championed the cause. We're putting our thumbs in our lapel. We're saying, God had us around because we are getting the job done. And God had it done before Paul passed off the scene. You say, well, why are there so many lost people? Because Christians quit doing it. They stopped going. And they stopped coming. And all at once they just settle down, job accomplished, mission accomplished, and it doesn't take very long at all to end up in just heathenism when you come to that place. So your church, you as an individual, your pastor, you're proposing the idea of what are we going to do about missions? Well, I'll tell you what you're going to do. Hopefully you'll do something because if you just do nothing, nothing ever gets done. I don't care whether you go or whether you come, doesn't matter. Just be in movement. You don't stop the little lamb and say, wait just a minute, are you going the wrong way? He's coming and going, leave him alone. If he's going the wrong way, he'll get where he's going, he'll realize it's the wrong place, he'll go the other way. It's much easier to direct an object that's in motion than an object that's not in motion at all. Sometimes I think we want to settle in on our lease and just settle down and say, well, I'm just going to wait and see what everybody else is doing. And amazingly, we always focus on people that are doing exactly what we're doing. And we got our binoculars out, and we're looking into the binoculars of somebody who's looking at us. And I'm thinking, well, if he ever moves, I'm going to move. I'm going to do. And he's thinking the same thing. And we've got churches across America, King James Bible-believing churches, love God, we're going to serve the Lord. I would die for Christ. You first. And as long as you don't move, I don't have to move. And we can all say, well, we're doing pretty good because we're doing the same thing. But in reality, we're not doing anything. The Lord said, hey, are you tired? Are you weary? Is the battle heavy? Come unto me. I'll give you rest. You know, if you've gone as far as you can go and you just can't go anymore, the best thing you can do is head for Jesus Christ. Just head back to that place and find yourself a place of rest there near Him. Let Him comfort and console you. Let Him give you direction. Let Him give you clarity. He does all of those things and a thousand more, doesn't He? Doesn't He? How many of you have ever found a time with the Lord when things changed, where God gave you that clarity, where He gave you that opportunity, where He answered those prayers? Coming to Him is essential. when we can't find our way. Christians ought to be coming to the Lord. You know, if this is not my missions conference, I give to missions through my local church. And hopefully you do too. But I don't have to decide this week how much I'm going to give to missions. Because I already did that. But some of you this week are going to have to make a decision. Where am I going to come out on this missions thing. What is going to be the part of my life? I've lost my job. I'm laid off. Things are not looking good. The future is looking bleak. Maybe I'm going to back up. Maybe I'm going to go ahead. How do I decide that? Go to the Lord Jesus Christ when it gets hectic. Come unto me, all you that labor. Is it worrying you? Is it burdening you? Come unto me. I'll give you rest. You know what will give a troubled heart rest? Getting clarity. Getting clarity. There have been times the Lord's given me clarity when I didn't think there was anything clear that could come through, and He has that ability. Sometimes I need to realize when I don't like where I am, or I'm not where I'm supposed to be, or I'm in a place of perplexity, like sometimes we find ourselves, the best thing I can do is head for Jesus Christ. You say, what do you mean by that? I mean, open his word and say, Lord, I'm knocking on the door here, knocking on the door here in the book of Romans. Lord, I'm knocking on the door here in the book of Hebrews. I sure would like to talk with you. I sure would like to commune with you. Boy, I'll tell you what, one of the sweetest aspects of the Christian life, is opening the Word of God and having Him sit down next to you and explain it to you. And say, you know, you didn't understand that the other day. Let me show you this. And all at once, it's like that light goes off. It's a wonderful thing to get up from just a while of devotions and say, wow, what a great way to start a day. What a great way to end my day. What a way to go to have the communion that I've had with the Lord. You know, say, well, that's never happened to me. I'll tell you, the hardest step in all that is coming. The hardest part of my day when I get up is opening my Bible. I don't have any problem reading. I don't have any problem studying. I don't have any problem fellowshipping with the Lord. The hardest part is opening my Bible. It's almost as though there's a spirit that gets in there. And I see over here there's, well, there's a TV guide, and over here there's this letter somebody sent, and over here's a newspaper from four months ago. I wonder what we were worried about four months ago. Do you ever find yourself prone to be distracted and led astray from the things that we deem to be essential in the Christian life? Why is it that the forces of evil, why is it will keep you away from this book? I heard people say, well, I just don't understand it. Let me help you with that. Don't say that in public. Okay, let me help you, all right? I want to be kind, I want to be nice, and I'm not saying anything about your family or your pedigree or anything like that. But this book is written on a 7th grade level. If you don't understand it, it's not the book. Get in the book. Challenge Him. God, I need you today. Speak to me. Show me clearly. Help me to find you. Let me know today when I close this book that I've spent time with my God. It's essential in this day and time. You say, well, that never happened to me. I'll tell you probably the biggest problem you have is coming. Coming. Do you ever find you don't have trouble reading once you get started? That's just an amazing thing. If I can just clear that hurdle, if I can just, listen, if I could just get on my knees, if I could just bow my head, if I can just start praying, I don't have any trouble praying. But it's this, it's the coming that gets you. The devil wants you to stay isolated and stationary. He wants you to remain where you are, to grovel in all the things that are wrong and all the misery that's going on around you, all the woe is me that you can muster. He'd love for you to just wallow in that. And the Lord said, you had enough? Come unto me. Come unto me, all you that labor and are heavy laden, and I will, not maybe, I will give you rest. It's an amazing thing, no matter what the burden is you're bearing, no matter what the trauma and the turmoil you're dealing with in life, you can come to this place right here and you will find there's a Savior who waits and has been waiting to give you the answer, to give you the comfort, to give you the direction, and to lead you away. Why? Because you don't come to stay. You say, well, how do you know if you've spent time with the Lord? The Lord always has a way of telling you, it's time for you to go now. And he's always specific about where you need to go and what you need to do. Sometimes it's kind of hard to get rid of people. Sometimes the problem is not coming. Sometimes they want to stay. I remember a picture years ago. My father had it on his desk and it was a picture of a guy walking past a couple of kids that were courting one another. They were sitting on the couch, you know, and kind of looking. And he came walking by in his boxer shorts and a pair of swimming flippers and a snorkel on his head carrying a blown up duck. And with the caption down below that Charles had discovered a unique way of letting the young man know it was time to go home. That's bizarre. That's the way my mind works and I still enjoy bizarre comics like that. But it made a point. Sometimes God will say, hey, it's time for you to go. And when you come to Him, when you come to Him seeking refuge, when you come to Him seeking solace, when you come to Him seeking clarity, when you come to Him seeking answers, rest assured, He will not allow you to remain there one second longer than you should. He'll say, it's time to go. It's time to go. Doesn't he love me? Oh yeah, he loves you. But he loves others too. And some people need to hear. So when the disciples come, they're heavy and they're heavy laden and he gives them rest. But then he said to them, go ye into all the world and preach the gospel. There's a mission to be accomplished. Two aspects of the Christian life. And that is feasting and enjoying and gaining and growing and then ministering to the needs of this world. Boy, isn't it a delight as a Christian to hear the unsaved people say, well, all those weirdos go to church. I can tell you where the weirdo is, but probably wouldn't like it. I wouldn't want to be with those Christians. I wouldn't be anything but a Christian. If being a Christian still wouldn't get me to heaven, I'd still be a Christian. You say, why? I can't imagine anybody living any better life than I've been privileged to live for 65 years. What a joy! I don't remember more than three or four days of great sorrow in my whole life. I just thank the Lord. I just sit down and reflect and I find myself, just with sometimes tears in my eyes, thanking God. I say, God, I don't know, maybe you forgot to be mean to me. Maybe I got it coming down the road. I may hit the wall tonight. And if I do, I'll just be a greasy spot. But I want you to know, if I had it to do all over again, I'd trust Jesus Christ as my Savior. I'd take Him by the hand. I'd say, lead me, Lord. Give me that comfort. And thank you so much for the value of living life. And people say, well, I just don't believe in God. I can tell by looking at you. Just so happy you can't stand it. I'm an atheist. Can you spell it? Probably not, but that's all right. I think Christians are, you think what you want to, okay? I are one. Can I tell you something right now? I wouldn't trade it for 10 million of whatever it is you deem most valuable in your life. I'm thankful for the times that I've been able to come to the Lord. I'm thankful for the times I've put my knees to the floor and knew that he knelt beside me. I'm thankful for the things I've asked Him that were impossible from my perspective. But in a matter of a day or an hour, He sorted it all out and it all made sense again. I'm thankful for a God that said, here's where you can find joy, and I found it there every time. I'm thankful for a Savior that said, here's where you can lose all that worry, and every time it was lifted and was gone. I'm thankful for a God who's true to all of His promises. And sometimes all God's people need to do is just come. to the Lord. Maybe tonight you're heartbroken, maybe your world is in turmoil, and I couldn't even describe what you're going through. But I can tell you this, there's a time in life to come. Are you weary? Are you heavy laden? Is life dragging you down? What am I supposed to do? Well, I think I'll just kill myself. That solves it, okay? If you're gonna do that, put something up on the wall so they don't have to come and clean up after it. Or maybe you could just say, Lord, I'm just weary. Life is just heavy. I don't know where to go. I don't know what to do. Lord, you said to come, so here I am. Can you help me out? Did you ever notice lost people like to bargain with God? Hey, I'm going to talk to the big man up there. What that means is you're going to negotiate, OK? Let me help you out. You're not smart enough to negotiate with God. Well, God tell you what, I'll do this if you do that. And then I find a lot of atheists. I'm an atheist. Can't spell it, but I'm an atheist. I'm an atheist. I'll tell you why I'm an atheist, because one time I asked God to do something for me and he didn't do it. Well, boy, I'm really sorry. If he missed the most important person ever born on the face of the planet, he must not care for any of us, right? Sometimes God uses the pitfalls and the problems and the darkness and the pain to bring you to him. so that he can give you rest, not so you can go back to your shenanigans again. Somebody said, it's amazing what a young man and a young lady will do to prove they're a man or a woman. And 50 years later, they'll try to stop doing it to prove the same thing. Amen. Young people, learn to come to God. Moms and dads, learn to come to God. Seniors, learn to come to God when life gets weary, when there are questions that are unanswered, when you don't know where to turn, and you don't know what to do next. Find your way to God and blot the rest of the world out for a season. And say, God, I'm here because I need to hear from you. I need to know in my heart that you're there and that there's an answer to the problem I'm facing. Sometimes we need to learn to come. But as surely as we come, as surely as we come, he's gonna say it's time to go. Why? Because there's a world out there that's expanding. What did I say, 7 billion, 800 million people on the face of planet Earth as of the beginning of this year? That's a lot of people. That's a bunch of folks, huh? You know, of that group, most of them have never heard the gospel of Jesus Christ one time. I remember, I think it was Travis Hudson used to have a movie about soul winning and in that movie he talked about if you were to take all the lost people and line them up, one person right after another and begin to witness to them. And he had all the figures and everything put together. And I remember that because it startled me. And so I put the figures together and updated them a little bit. This world is 24,901 miles around its equator. That's its widest spot. So it's 24,000 miles. If you go west and keep going, you'll come back to the same spot. And so it's a big one going around. And there are 5,280 feet in a mile. And that means there's 131,477,280 feet in circumference. Now, if I took that footwise and I put one person a foot apart, and I let you start to witness to them. You know, maybe this is not true for everybody. I honestly think we could pretty much get through the plan of salvation in 15 minutes. I don't think it would press you for time to present the gospel to someone who's never heard it before 15 minutes. I'm not saying whether they'll receive it or reject it, but 15 minutes. So that means if I wanted to witness to everybody living on planet Earth, and I'm not assuming anybody's saved or anybody's lost, I'm just, that's the number. If I lined them up around there, they would line up around this world 59 times. That's how many people there are on the face of this earth. They would circle this globe 59 times. He said, go ye in all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. If we were to do that, you know how it would take? Well, it would take it to give them a 15-minute witness to touch everyone's life. And again, I'm assuming none of them are saved, and I know that's not true. And I'm assuming that we're the only one, and I know that's not true. But for the sake of the situation, if I were the only saved person on the face of the earth and needed to witness to everybody else on the earth that was lost, it could be done. It could be done. It would only take 222,602 years and seven months. You see how great the task is? You wonder why our world's in a mess it's in? Because it's continually expanding and more people are being born and fewer and fewer and fewer people are being brought to Christ because of Christians that are just kind of busy mingling and dipping their toes in the waters of the world. Well, preacher, I'm here to enjoy. I hope that's, I hope God lets you enjoy. Matter of fact, I hope he gives you all the enjoyment you're ever going to get right here on earth. Personally, I'm not interested. Because I've got eternity in a place called heaven, where the street is made of solid gold, where the music is all soothing and good, and all the food is just phenomenal. Listen, it's perfection. All is perfect. Nothing is out of order. All is in order. Can you imagine saying, well, I want to get mine down here. No, you can have mine too then. Doesn't work. Listen to me, Christian. Come unto Him long enough to realize you don't have to worry about tomorrow. You don't have to worry about next week or next month or next year. You don't have to worry about all of those things because the best is yet to come. I was with Brother Whitney when he died. He'd been ill and we knew he wasn't going to last. Went over to visit with him that day and Brother Mike was laying there in the bed, unconscious. Talked to the wife and his daughters for a little while. We had a word of prayer and then we sang a song about heaven. And if I'm lying, I'm dying. You go ahead and call me whatever you want to call me. He hadn't responded, he hadn't moved, his eyes were just kind of glazed over. And we finished that song, and that saint of God did that. And when his hand came back down to the bed, he was gone to be with Jesus. You want to live a cool life? Help yourself. You want to blow everybody's doors off? Go for it. You want to grab for all the gusto? Help yourself. I want to go like this. I want to go with a shout. I want to go with, thank you, Lord, for all that you've done. And thank you, Lord, for what little I did accomplish because I wasn't investing in me my whole life long. This is missions conference. You say, what are we about tonight? We're about coming. And then we're about going. He said, come unto me all you that labor and are heavy laden, and I'll give you rest. And every once in a while, we need to do that. Every once in a while we just need to crawl up next to the fireplace and warm up. Every once in a while we just need to get a good book and settle into a comfortable chair. I'm talking about the presence of God and just enjoying the fact that God's in control. He's got all the switches in the right position and everything's going smooth in heaven. But God won't let you rest there very long. I'll tell you why. Because you've got eternity to rest. So every once in a while when you come to Him He'll say, hey, go. Go ye into all the world. Preach the gospel to every creature. You know what the life experience of a Christian is? It's all about coming and going. We like to say, well, I'm going to do this, or I'm about to come to it in my mind. We're coming and going, whether we like to admit it or not. The question is, in all your coming and going, is God involved? Because if He's not involved, you may be going in the wrong direction. You may be coming to the wrong things. This is a missions conference. I know it is. You know what I learned about my money years ago? I don't like to give it away. I just, can I be honest with you? I know none of you have this problem. I'd rather spend my money on me than anybody I know. Yeah. And my wife and I have a granddaughter, you know her. Listen, anything she wants, if I got the money, she gets it. Say, you have to be careful about spoiling them. Not me. I didn't spoil my kids. I can spoil any grandkids I want. All she's got to do is look at me and say, Pawpaw, Mimi, and tell us what she wants. You got it. You got it. If I have to write a check or take out a loan, we'll fix it. We'll take care of it. It'll get done. I'm thankful. I'm thankful the truth of the matter is that we have a God in heaven that can give us the things that bring delight to our soul. Don't raise your hand tonight, but I just wonder, maybe nod your head or smile or something like that so we don't be, you know, just obvious. But hadn't God ever once in a while done something for you you weren't expecting? And you had to say, wow, wow. Do you ever find yourself praying and begging God, Lord, just give me a little, just a little bit, and he gave you a whole lot? Do you ever find yourself humbled? Do you ever find yourself have to go back and finish that prayer with, Lord, thank you. I wasn't expecting this. Thank you, God. I don't deserve this. Thank you, God. You may have put the wrong address on it, but it has been delivered to my box and I've opened the package. It belongs to me now. Christian life is about coming and going. But Missions Conference is about going. And so when we go into this week, I want to encourage you that We live in a country that has no problems with sharing its love of country. Thank God for that. Sharing its opinions, whether we like them or not. Telling us which candidate they prefer. All of those things were easy for us to talk about. They're willing to encourage other people. They can boast about their sports teams. They can boast about whatever colors their school has. They can get all excited and be as bold as a lion. And when it comes to Jesus Christ, they just wimp out every time. Young ladies, you're looking for a husband, go soul winning with him. Yeah. Don't marry a guy who can't talk to somebody on their doorstep about Jesus Christ. Well, it's not really tough. Tougher than you are. Find somebody that's willing to take a stand for the Lord Jesus Christ. Find somebody that's willing to say, it's not just, I've got a guy in my church and I love him to death. He loves to talk sports. And he wants to talk about him every Sunday night after church. And you know, you get where you see somebody coming. And I love him to death, but I'm thinking, man, I just heard from God. I don't want to hear what the Jets are doing. I really don't care how many touchdowns. I really, you know, sometimes if you're not careful, you can get caught up in this world and the things of God lose their meaning. Sometimes you just want to open the door, run outside and yell, hallelujah. That's how good God is. Willing to encourage other people with restaurants. You say, where'd you go for lunch? Well, we went here. They always got an awe coming. It don't matter where you went, they know a better place, right? Toledo at one time, I don't remember what caused this, but it was a pilot area for restaurants. I may not know that. Restaurants all figured if they opened new in a nationwide chain, they would test it in Toledo because Toledo had the greatest composite population that there was of working and laboring, wealthy and all that. And so they would open a restaurant there to see how it did. Which means we have a lot of restaurants, even today, even though most of them are closed for COVID, or you have to go into a bunker before you get there, whatever it is. But all those restaurants are there. And it's no end to where you could go to eat. So if somebody's always asking, you going to eat? Where are you going? And you tell them, I'm going to go over here. Well, what are you saying? You might as well say, well, loser. Why don't you go where winners go? That's what they're thinking. But the truth of the matter, we have no problem at all, open that dialogue. We can have that dialogue in public, we don't care who hears us. We can be in the middle of one restaurant going, I'll tell you where the food's really good, the food's really good. We don't even care if the restaurant owner of the restaurant we're in hears us. But we're scared to death to talk about Jesus Christ. Sometimes it's time to go. Sometimes it's time to get up and stand. Sometimes it's time to put on your Christian battle garments and get out into the fight. Sometimes it's time to put away the fear and just wax valiant. But the Christian life's all about coming and going. Come unto me all you that labor and are heavy laden, I'll give you rest. We're willing to encourage. We're willing to share and talk and yak. We're willing to sacrifice. I was reading today how much was spent on New Orleans, Louisiana to repair hurricane damage over the last 20 years. And I never did find it. The General Accounting Office evidently doesn't want us to know. But I did find that during Katrina and Rita they spent, just on infrastructure, $120 billion. That's your tax dollars at work. I felt good about it until I realized they're just going to have another hurricane. I think we've spent that much money building a wall over the city so that hurricane didn't hit them. We might have been better off. Sometimes when we find out where our money's going, we worry about it, all our taxpayer dollars being spent on all this good stuff. This is a charitable country. It's the most charitable country on the face of the earth. People say, well, you know, Americans don't care. Go anywhere else you want to go in the world and ask for help. Give it a shot. Give it a shot. This country every year gives freely into the billions of dollars. I'm not talking about our tax money. I'm not talking about, I'm talking about giving charitably into the billions of dollars. Why? Because Americans are thankful for what they've got or should be. Sometimes you can sit back and you can learn and you can hear, but you know, all of that stuff, it's kind of like sitting at the table and eating. If you just sit at the table and eat, and then when you feel like getting up, you just eat a little more, and then you just wait on dessert, and then, you know, it's almost sandwich time, and you know what happens? You come to a place where you can't get up. And I fear this for America and for myself personally. I don't want to get to the place where I can't go and do what God wants me to do anymore. Because the Christian life is about coming. If you're here tonight and you're lost, listen, you may think I'm crazy, you may think I'm mean, I really don't care. But I do care this, I want you to know Jesus Christ is all I said He was and a thousand times more. And He sent me to give you a personal message tonight and that is this, if you'll come to Him, He'll change your life. If you'll come to Him, He'll make you a new creature. If you'll come to Him, He'll give you confidence that your sins are forgiven, that heaven is your final abode when this life is over. That if you'll come to Him. But I just want you to know there's nothing in this world that can compare to Him. Whether you like it or not doesn't matter to me. I've met Him and I know Him. We've met together for what purpose? Well, over the next few days, we're going to talk about various aspects of missions. We're going to hear like the folks from Peru about opportunities on the mission field. But the truth of the matter is we don't have enough missionaries that are going. We don't have enough missionaries. Listen to me, two billion people. have never heard one Bible story. They have never seen one passage of scripture from the word of God. They don't know, it's not about knowing that Jesus died on the cross. They don't even know who Jesus is. They don't know who God is, other than the little wooden pole that stands in the middle of the village. Two billion people on this earth are gonna burn forever. You say, how can you say that? All have sinned and come short of the glory of God. God doesn't know anybody on this planet favors. You say, well, I don't like the fact that those people are going to... I agree with you. So why don't you get saved or you get right with God and go and win them and I'll help send you. Huh? That's what missions is all about. That's me helping these dear folks to get to Peru. Why? Because there are people in Peru that need to hear the gospel and I don't really want to go. You say, well, that's callous. Well, I don't know. There are places I like. They probably wouldn't like. They wouldn't want to go. God had to call them. They didn't just up one morning and go, hey, let's throw a dart at a dart board. God said, hey, you, I want you in Peru. I've got a job for you to do. They said, yes, Lord, we'll go. I said, thank you, God. I don't have to go. I'll help them get there. I need to be in a position this week of saying, Lord, don't let me just settle in. If my heart is heavy, if my heart is broken, I need to come. I need to fellowship with you. I need to fall on my knees and spend some time just drawing near and close again. Well, that's true for a lot of us during COVID. But then you can say, preacher, you know, everything's fine between me and the Lord. Then why don't you step out and find where the line starts that circles the grove 59 times and start with the first person you see tomorrow. and said, can I tell you about a savior that's more powerful than COVID? Can I tell you about a God that loves you more than anybody's ever loved you on the face of this earth? Can I show you the plan he sent so that you can go to heaven one day when this life is over? Why don't you go and find and be a witness? Would you bow your heads tonight just for a moment? We're dealing this week with the compassion of our savior, I have no reason to care for anybody in Bula Bula land, wherever that may be. I have no reason, I have no relatives, and yet because I came to Christ and saw what he did for me one day, saw how he rescued me, how he gave meaning to my life, how he gave me peace in the midst of the storm, how he gave me a life I never would have expected. I honestly feel like I probably owe that to somebody around this world, because I'll tell you what I found out about him. He'll do the same thing. For any poor and needy sinner that'll come to God by faith, he'll change it. We need to go, but sometimes when we get weary and we get heavy and our hearts are pulled, weighted down, It's good just to come away from all that. And to find ourself a place and just fellowship with Him. But you know what? Christians ought to be a whole lot like them little ants on that anthill. Just coming and going and coming and going and coming and going and coming and going. You may not pay much attention to them. You may not know any one of those little ants as an individual. But I know what you know. You know he's coming or going. One of the two. He's busy about whatever the business is that he has. He's going to complete it. If you put something down in his path, he'll go over it. If he can't go over it, he'll go around it. He's going to get where he needs to go. He's got direction, and it's not about all this multifaceted, do I have me time, and I need some dad time, and I need a little guy time, or a little girl time, and I just need, hey, you got to either be coming or going. That's about it. And I submit to you, if you're coming and going with God at the center of your life, every step that you tread, will be a step of value and of worth. And the joy will be unspeakable. This is a missions conference. What does that mean? It means we need to be in the right heart attitude. And so that's why I felt impressed to just share with you tonight. To pull away from the world. Can we pull away from COVID for a while? I tell you what, can we just pretend like it's not gonna kill people and realize that People around the world are still dying even without COVID. And they need a savior because they're dying in multitudes just like they have every second of every day. COVID hasn't changed anything. There were people dying before it got here. And rather than us get distracted or weighed down, Let's focus these next few days on those billions of people that have never one time heard who Jesus is, what the gospel is, have never seen a Bible. Let's realize that we can come to him and we can go into the world and accomplish something, but they need to hear what we need to send.