since this morning. That is so good. My mother, of course I grew up in church and hearing church songs and so forth. I wasn't raised in a Baptist church but sometime later I got saved. But my mother had to be put in a nursing home, oh, I guess maybe five to six years before she passed. She couldn't take care of herself. She was in Texas. I just begged her to come live with us in Oklahoma. She's a Texas girl. She said, Lord knows, son. She said, if I come live in Oklahoma and the Lord comes and I can't get back across the state line, I won't get to go. You can say whatever you want to about Texans, but one thing everybody says is they do like their state, you know, whatever. Whether they have a right to like it or not, I guess, can be debated. So, anyway, about two and a half to three years before she passed, she had dementia pretty serious, and I remember the first time I went to see her. She was a little over 300 miles from me to drive, and I went down every 90 days and spent the day with her. And the first time you're there and your mother doesn't know who you are, it is not fun. And anyway, that's how it turned out for the rest of the next two and a half years. So I guess two or three visits had gone by and I was just sitting there with her, you know. And I started humming a church song, didn't even think about it. My mama was in there just like that, words and all. I thought, wow, the power of godly music. You don't even know your son or your daughter. but you got the godly music. God bless you for having godly music. Godly lyrics and godly music because you gotta have godly music to support godly lyrics. It's gonna work and go together. If you'll find Acts chapter 10, don't stand for the moment. Tonight probably not going to be or cannot be classified as maybe an expository message. I just have a couple of burdens on my heart to share with you this evening. One briefly here that I'll not take time which is not necessarily the message tonight. Brother Abels asked me to bring a few of the worship books and I did write a a book on worship called Worship in the Ear of God. And I've got a case in there that I think if we worship properly, it'll give us a chance to having a better ear from the Lord than if we don't. And I wanna suggest that most of us don't. And I only say that because I didn't after 16 years of pastoring and quite a bit of education too. I hate to admit to all that too and I still didn't. But anyway, Christmas is coming and it's the Lord's birthday. Have you ever been to a birthday party? I'm sure you've all been to one, but have you ever been to one and everybody brought gifts and gave them to each other, but the person whose birthday it was was ignored? I bet you've been to one. I'll tell you whose birthday party it was you went to like that. His name was Jesus Christ. There's something strange about that. That if we did that to any other single person, we would think it was the most rude thing that we had ever seen, and I'll never go back to that house again. Isn't it amazing how that works? So let me just tell you what we started doing at the Hardy house after I did that. It's up to you. Of course, we've always read Luke chapter 2 and Matthew 2, you know, because of the Christmas story of the shepherds. and the wise men. We still do that. And when the grandkids were real little, as soon as they were old enough, we would have them start reading the story. So we read Luke 2 and gathered on the time when we have presence, and then we read Matthew 2. And remember, that's about the wise men. Do you remember they came maybe as much as 1,000 miles? They forged rivers and mountains, and we have no idea how long their journey was. And they were men of renown. You know that because it says when they came, Herod and all Jerusalem. They were perplexed about these kind of men coming that far. And so when they find the Lord, and of course, this is later on, not right at his birth, he was in a house, and so they came in, and what did they do? They weren't distracted from everything else going on, and they found the young child, and it says, and they fell down and worshiped him. And then they gave gifts. So what we do, read Luke 2, Read Matthew 2. What you give the man for Christmas has got everything. You find out what he wants. John 4, 23-24. For he seeks such to worship Him in spirit and truth. That doesn't really cost a lot, does it? So I want to encourage you about this Christmas. Remember whose birthday it is and treat it like that. I want to give you an exercise too, if you would, and I'd assume most everybody here probably has a smart phone, not everybody. I've got one, problem is I'm not smart, and I don't get to use it for everything it would probably do. But I know one thing, any Christian with a phone that doesn't have a Strong's app on it is probably backslidden. That's a Bible app, in case you didn't know. And I wanna encourage you to, if you don't have it, get the app, cost you about $3 or five, something like that. And then search worship in the Old Testament and the New. And you'll find very difficult to biblically worship without getting on your face. I'm gonna suggest to you that most Baptists, including independent Baptists, have an aversion to kneeling. Of course, we are a proud lot. Because the only thing that keeps a man or woman from bowing, coming to the altar to bow, is P-R-I-D-E. And God resists the... I don't need that. Anybody here need that? I don't need God to resist me, so... Let me encourage you. So I just wanted to mention that to you and let's make sure at least we recognize whose birthday it is and give to him what he would like to have. And then in Acts chapter 10, if you could stand now. We'll just read a couple of verses to begin with the chapter and then we're going to just kind of move through and highlight some areas here and try to share that burden with you. But let me just read verses 1 and 2 of Acts chapter 10 and then we'll get started. There was a certain man in Caesarea called Cornelius, a centurion of the band called the Italian Band. a devout man and one that feared God with all his house, which gave much alms to the people and prayed to God always. Father, thank you for the privilege to be here again, and I do mean that. It's an honor to be able to come to Berean Baptist Church and to be with these good people. Always look forward to it. I pray now, Holy Spirit, you'd illumine our hearts and minds to understand Bible truth, and Lord, you're aware of the burden that's in my heart in particular. I trust in keeping with Scripture, and that maybe these folks could share this burden with me. Maybe some would want to respond to it. deal with them about it. And other than that, we could all pray about it. So have your perfect way in the service and whatever would be accomplished by our being together. We had never make a reputation of ourselves because you alone are worthy. And we ask it in our most gracious name. Amen. Maybe seated. I don't know how many veterans we have here tonight, anyway, and we're not having a special day for them, but I am grateful for your service, and I'm grateful and thankful and glad to be not only your brother in Christ, but your brother in that effort as well. And having been in the military, I know the great needs of the military, and I say great news because it really is great. As a matter of fact, when I was a trustee at Baptist Bible College many years ago, probably 25, I served that a couple of times, and loved Bible colleges and loved what our college was doing back in those years, but we weren't really doing anything for the military too much. You know, we have hundreds of thousands of military that are not in America. They're in other places. What is it like for a young family, maybe with a couple of little kids, to be in a foreign country? And then, if I can use some of the terminology, the husband is sent downrange for three to four months. And the little wife, Brother Daniel, Molly, is there by herself. Most military people aren't saved and they don't really live the greatest lifestyle sometimes. But that's all she's got. She didn't have one of these. And in those years, to my knowledge, Of all the churches we had, to my knowledge, and I could have missed it, we did not have one military missionary overseas out of our group. Now BIM, I saw that need a number of years ago and they responded to it. And to their credit, they've done quite well. That doesn't relieve us because somebody else is doing it. We all have a job to do. And just because someone else is getting it done doesn't mean we don't have a responsibility anymore. The Baptist Bible Fellowship didn't have it, and I literally took money from my own church and agreed with them if they would make videos, which back then was a fairly unique thing. And I would take those over because some of these young men are ready to go into the ministry. It's the time in their life that they're making a lot of decisions. And some of these preachers were trying to help them learn how to do something with the Bible and preaching and things like that. And I, so I actually took Eastland Baptist Church money and went to Europe and talked to some of these men about bringing videos over so they could show these each week. And then they could actually get a few credits. And then when I got out of the military, they could come to Bible college and help them along the way. They made those first videos and they never made any more. First, I kind of had mud on my face, I felt like, because I kind of promised, you know, we would enable this. And I probably have said quite a bit about it at Heartland as well, and to my knowledge, and I think I'm probably accurate, I know that a little bit better, there isn't one military missionary overseas out of Heartland. And so often now, I see someone in uniform. It always affects my heart. I'm not trying to set the military up above anybody else. But you just remember, they did sign a little piece of paper that basically said, if you need to take my life to get this job done, I'm giving you the permission. I will give it, which a majority of you have not done and maybe wouldn't do. I mean, I wouldn't say you wouldn't do it for the military, but you're not just going to go out there and sign a contract. I don't know how many of you have ever been through a veterans hospital. But you won't ever forget it. People that had two good legs that have none. Two good arms that have one or maybe none. And we say, thank you for your service. Really? And if a young couple was there, we wouldn't even have a church for them to go to. But thank you for your service. I hope I don't sound mean, I'm trying to state it, it's not right. Everywhere our military are, if we're able to get there, they deserve a church. I get to thinking about not only that, this may be a selfish side of it, what a great feeder line for a Bible college to send out more as well. So chapter 10 of Acts is about a military man. And the Bible really has quite a bit to say about the military. But many times we just cruise right on through there. And if you take history, for instance, standing at the forefront of almost all history will be divided many times by major wars. Those are fought by the military. And how well those men are trained and how much they're willing to sacrifice and give, it normally determines how that war goes. So here we have Cornelius the Centurion. Now, Centurion was the backbone of the Roman army. Now, if you've read the New Testament very much at all, you've read about the Centurions. And you can tell by what they were used to do that a great amount of trust was placed in them. If a centurion said it was a certain way, it was that way. It was a hard position to have. Now, there were basically over a hundred men because of the same word from which we get the word century or centurion. And so this would be one of those men and one of those men that would have quite a bit of clout. Now maybe we don't see most military men like this, but let's just know what kind of man he was. There was a certain man in Caesarea called Cornelius, a centurion of the band called the Italian Band. History says no other band was more loyal and productive, better fighters than the Italian Band. In verse two, it says that he was a devout man that feared God. Godly fear is the beginning of wisdom. And then a devout man at that. I don't know how many of us would wanna stand up and say, I am a devout man that fears God like I should. The Bible says he was. And it says, and one, not only that feared God, but did so with all his house. Now, we could camp out there for a while. I've seen some people, you know, that we think would be pretty good leaders, and they're pretty faithful to church and so forth, but to say that they really have that family in tow properly, maybe not. It's not easy, is it? It's difficult. And every time you see a family that's able to do that, learn from them. Grace and I, when our son was born, we were always asking people who had godly kids and so forth, how'd you do that? How did you do that? You need to know how people do that. Well, this man, not only a devout man that feared God, but it was his house did too. His wife and his children looked like a parallel to Abraham here in some ways. because Abraham was the man that led his house. And then it says he was a very generous person, that he gave much alms to the people. From his point of view, those being Jewish people, it might've been like an offering that we would consider maybe in church. And then all of that, it says he prayed to God always. Now, isn't that something? He didn't have a Bible like we have. He did not have the knowledge we have. Commentators called him or used the term a Gentile at the gate. In other words, there were Gentiles that became what we call Jewish proselytes. They could never really be a Jew because they didn't have the bloodline. You'd have the pedigree to be the Jew, but you could be a proselyte to the Jewish faith. You know, if you believed in Jehovah or Yahweh, you could do that. But he had not chosen to do that. Something was holding him back from accepting everything that the Jews had going for them. But he could not even get any closer. He was not allowed to go into the temple. In other words, he just kind of hit a brick wall when he got to a certain spot. He couldn't go any farther even if he wanted to as far as actually being a Jew. The most he could do would be a proselyte at that point. But somehow, someway, in his fear of the Lord, in his devoutness, in his dedication, God was able to help him understand something about him. Actually, it says in verse four of chapter 10, after the angel came, an angel came to him because he prayed to God always. And when he looked on him, he was afraid and said, what is it, Lord? Called the angel, Lord. And he said unto him, thy prayers and thy alms are come up for a memorial before God. Now think about that. You know what a memorial is? It's something that keeps us from never forgetting. We build a memorial. Passover was a memorial, and the Jews have never forgotten it. What's really saying by the angel is the prayers that you've sent up and your fear of the Lord. He's never gonna forget that. That'll be in his mind forever. Some military man who may not even have a church, and this one didn't. It's a shame that those of us that have a church. should maybe have to learn, you know, from this man. He wants to go farther. Let's say it this way, and I kind of mentioned this this morning to a degree. Cornelius is one of those men that used all the light he had. Everything that he understood about God, he was putting into practice. And God took note. I wonder what it means to be God looking down when there are those of us that can be in a church service every week, and it doesn't really mean that much to us, and here's a man out there that really doesn't understand. But my soul, he's as dedicated as he can be with what he knows and what he does. Well, then God begins to prepare someone to help him out, and that is Peter. And so in verse nine, well, let me just say it. Let's keep the story going. The angel tells him to send messengers to Peter that he's down by the seaside. He's in the house of a Simon Peter, who is a tanner. And so he takes a soldier and two of his servants and he sends them. And in verse nine, we pick it up. as they went on their journey, the two servants and the soldier, and drew nigh unto the city. Now, they're getting close to Joppa. This is 33 miles away, so it's a 33-mile walk that they made that day. And it's amazing now, as they are getting close to the city, so what are they now, maybe 30 minutes, an hour, I don't know, from Peter's place, and God's gotta bring all this together. I love God's sovereignty. Now I'm not talking Calvinism, I'm talking Bible. I'm just telling you, God is omniscient, he knows everything. And he's omnipotent, and I'm telling you, if we serve him right, he can put the pieces together to make it work right. And the only person that can stop that is us. The world doesn't have the ability to do anything with God's sovereignty. God's just looking for people that he can use it. So on tomorrow, as they went on their journey and drew nine to the city, Peter went up upon the housetop to pray about the sixth hour. So we're talking noontime. And so he's up there praying, and he's hungry. And then you know the story probably, don't you? So he's dreaming, and this sheet comes down from heaven, and it has all kinds of stuff to eat in it, but some of it wasn't kosher. Of course, we're Gentiles, we eat everything that lays still. Or if it doesn't need us first. And the Lord said, rise and eat. And what did Peter say? Not so, Lord. Now let me tell you something, I'm not a grammarian, but that's grammatically wrong when you're talking to God. You can't say Lord and the same mouth say not so. God says it, it's so. It's like the young missionary, I think, said that, you know, about going to a certain field, not so Lord, yeah. Either you go or quit calling him Lord. Or whatever he wants us to do, quit calling him Lord. Because he's not Lord. if you don't do what he asks you to do. And I promise you, some things he's gonna ask you, you're not gonna really enjoy that much, but it's good for you or he wouldn't ask you to do it. And then I just want you to know that God is preparing Peter to meet these Gentiles because you know, this happened three times and finally just got in Peter's face and he said, don't you call anything unclean that I call clean. You know, Peter didn't learn easy, nothing. And I'm probably related to him. I think Chuck Swindoll said, he hung around Dallas Seminary or something when I was there, he said, I never learned anything unless somebody got in my face. I can't speak for the ladies, but most of us men are that way. Amen, brothers? We don't learn easy. And by the way, ladies, when your husband's making a stupid decision, and he will, don't short circuit it. Leave him alone. And let him fall on his face and bust his nose. Because if you short circuit it, he may not make the mistake, but he won't learn a thing and he'll do it again. I mean, it's just, side note, just going there with this. Preparing Peter. God's timing. So here they are just coming into the city. Peter's just going up. I mean, here they're just coming together. because of the sovereignty of God. He who tracks the journeying of a hundred billion stars and a hundred million galaxies and knows the history and the path and the destiny of every speck of dust in cosmic space knows me. And he knows you. Why would he care about knowing about all that stuff? But he does. Isn't it amazing we can't get an airplane from Oklahoma to DFW on time half the time? And astronomers looking at what God made can predict an eclipse a hundred years in advance within five minutes. I wanna ask some people where their brain is, but there's no use asking people like that. And they don't even know what I said, just some of you did. But point taken. God's timing, isn't this something? I mean, when you're walking 33 miles, it's kind of hard to keep that right on schedule. They didn't have GPS or anything to help them on this track. And so you look at verse 17 of chapter 10. And while Peter doubted in himself what this vision which he had seen should mean. In other words, why is God telling me this now? Behold, the men which were sent from Cornelius had made inquiry for Solomon's house, and they stood at the gate. Is this amazing timing? From him going up to, you know, to maybe pray and so forth, sounds to me like he might have gone to sleep during that deal, I don't know. And then these men, 33 mile walk, and it all comes together just like that. God's interested in saving people. And he'll go to all kinds of extremes. And he's looking for a few good men, if I could use a military term. I'll use that generically. Men and women are young people that he can use. Well, then, you know, they talk about it and so forth. And then Peter says, well, you just stay the night with us here, and then we're gonna head off and go that way. And so verse 24, And tomorrow after they entered to Caesarea, they walked, and Peter took like about six people with him. He wanted some witnesses. And tomorrow after they entered into Caesarea, and Cornelius waited for them, and had called together his kinsmen and near friends. Wouldn't it be something today if the pastor, every time he went to visit, he says, Guy gets all of his relatives and all of his friends and everything, and they come because this man's testimony is so strong. They're thinking, if he says, I need to come, I need to come. They're all gathered, they're waiting. Little difference from just going up and down the road, banging doors all the time, that wouldn't probably be as necessary if each of us had the testimony we ought to have. Could maybe people come, you know, and be there during that time. And in verse 25, as Peter was coming in, Cornelius met him and look at this, fell down at his feet and worshiped him. Military man, this is not even God, but it was a man of God. And Peter did right, he basically had, get up, I'm just a man. And it's true, we don't worship man. We worship God. It's amazing. This man's already worshiping God with what knowledge he had. And when he saw somebody that he felt like was attached to God, he was ready to worship him. And then here we have a hard time getting on our face. Oh, how we could camp out right here. You can't do God's work without God's grace. And God resists the proud and he gives grace. to the humble. You know, we need some gas for our car, we go to the filling station. You wanna know where the gray station is? Right there. But some of us are gonna say, well, you know, Brother Hardy, I've been saved for a long time. Yeah, sometimes that's the worst Christians we have. I have been too. I used to tell the people at Eastman, isn't a baby Christian something? They don't know any better and do exactly what the Bible says. They don't know any better till 15 or 20 years later when they've been in church for a long time and know whereof they speak. I love that childlike faith. The Bible talks about that, doesn't it? Just become like one, like Him at that time. And so they get there. And then you get to verse 34, because they bonded. Peter and a Gentile bonding? Isn't that something neat about God's people? You meet them and you haven't known them very long and you feel like you've known them for years. I mean it's just, I love it. I was an only child growing up until my sister popped out and frightened everybody really I guess. My mom thought she was never going to have any more. I was 14 years old and I went in the Navy when I was three. Or she was three. When she was three, I went in the Navy, so I didn't have much time with her. But what time I had with her, I must have scared her 500,000 times, because that was the only thing I could do with a three-year-old girl, and it was fun. I literally kind of enjoyed that. But when I got saved, what a great family. And I love it so much. Go back to the Centurion for a moment. It was a Centurion. at the crucifixion that was the first one that said, truly, that was the Son of God. That was a military man. It was a centurion that saved Paul's life from the mob in Acts chapter 21, verses 31 and 32. It was a centurion that later stopped Paul from being flogged in Acts chapter 22, verses 25 through 29. Are you listening? It wasn't the church, and it wasn't the Jews, and it was a military man that had no obligation on earth to Paul. You think about how come a favorable light that God has placed the military man in, in the book. It was a centurion that looked after Paul in Acts 24-23 and gave him liberty to receive guests. It was a centurion who heeded Paul's advice in the storm at sea out in the ship in Acts chapter 27. It was a centurion that protected Paul and the prisoners on the ship from being slain by the soldiers later in Acts chapter 27. It was a centurion when the prisoners were delivered to the captain of the guard in Rome that provided Paul a separate place by himself. Like the letters of Paul, and I know God could have done it one way or the other, but humanly speaking, It was a centurion that let him be by himself and gave him the freedom to have people bring him books and manuscripts and things like that to write what we have under the inspiration of God. Again, God could push it through. I'm just telling you, God used the military. I'm pretty impressed by Cornelius. How many of these letters maybe would we not have? Now, I want us to, I know you know Acts 1.8, but just turn back there with me for a moment. This is a great missionary verse. Acts 1.8, but you shall receive power after that the Holy Ghost has come upon you and you shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem and all Judea and Samaria under the uttermost parts of the earth. I wanna just paraphrase it just a little bit to help get my point across and not do damage to the text. But I wanna read it for the military. But you shall receive power after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you. And you shall be witnesses unto me in Jerusalem in the uttermost parts of the earth. The military are our Jerusalem. They're our men. They are our women. but they're not in Jerusalem. They're in the far-flung places of the earth. That's where they die. That's where they die alone, away from family, and normally unsaved. For God's sake, they deserve a good church like this one on Germany, Okinawa. And all these countries, they deserve a pastor and someone to love them and care for them. We now have our first military GIBF, GIBM missionary, Gary and Karen Craft. Y'all know about the Craft, some of them. Brother Gary Craft and his wife, Karen, have been military missionaries for 35 years. Their time's about up. Gary's 69. They just went back to Germany and started a new church. He said, Brother Hardy, I don't know if I've got another church in me. We've got to have a young couple that we can train, that'll love our military. Some of y'all have been to Germany, Remstein Air Force Base. There's probably over 100,000 Americans there. Okinawa probably has 70,000-75,000. And yes, there are some churches in some of these places, but not near enough. And we have some places where there's no church at all, but we have a base. Sometimes young couples or young men think, I don't know if God's really calling me to be a missionary, I'm not sure, not really sure if I'm supposed to be a pastor, and I'm thinking, you know, this is kind of in between, isn't it? And the crafts have always had Nationals come to their church after they've been there for a while. And they have pastored and started churches in Germany and in Spain and Okinawa. So our military's part of Jerusalem. I wonder when Paul said, I'm a debtor, in Romans 1, 14 and 15, he says, I'm a debtor to the Greeks and the barbarians. I'm a debtor both to the wise and the unwise. But why was he a debtor to them? I don't know of anything that they did for him. If you know, you can tell me after church tonight. I think Paul was saying that because of what God did for me, that I'm a debtor to them. Well, let me ask you this. I wonder if Dave Hardy or you would be more in debt to our military than Paul was to the Greeks and the barbarians. My dad was in World War II. All my uncles in World War II. It was a pretty heavy debt. You know how many we lost? Young lives, 417,000. One time I was in France. When I go to the military areas overseas, I go to the cemeteries and I look at those white stones. Many of them are crosses. Some cemeteries are just full of one of those crosses. I was just going down through there looking at them, and then I came across about five or six in this one major row. And on that, they'll have the date they died, and they'll have the the state they're from, sometimes the city they're from. And every time I'd read the city or the state, I would picture, you know, if it said New York, I'm picturing row houses, you know, and congestion and things like that. And I pictured Christmas for some reason, because the military so love to come home when they can. But I thought I kept reading December the 8th, 1944, December the 8th, 1944, December the 8th, 1944. I started weeping. That's the day I was born. And they died. Because they died, I've had a great place to grow up. Now let me ask you, and I'm sorry if I come across a little gruff with this, but I'm tired of people with an entitlement mentality. I'm sick of it. You say, what do you mean by entitlement? Everybody owes me something. We should be givers, not takers. God help your miserable soul if you're just a taker. When I think about, you know, that price that they paid. Now, not only just because of what they paid and given their life and so forth that we could have it, what if we had lost World War II? And some of you have never thought of that, and if you're younger, but you should. Anybody read anything about the Third Reich and the Holocaust? Been to any of the death camps? You can go to some of the death camps, and one thing about it, the Germans were pretty honest about a lot of it. I've seen black and white old films as cart after cart came out with a bunch of white, stiff, dead, naked bodies, just like carcasses of animals, cart after cart after cart. How would you like your family to face the Third Reich? America probably wouldn't divide it, maybe divide it, you know, somewhere out around the mountain range, you know, Colorado, Germany gets one half, Japan would get the other. If World War II had been lost, I'm telling you, you won't know anything about what you've enjoyed. Nothing. And if we'd lost it and we're in that situation and I were to say, what would you pay to get out of this? You'd say, everything I've got. We're not asking that, but we do have a debt. A lot of those serving now, they're like me. You say, why don't you serve? Well, I'm patriotic and I love America. My dad paid a price. He didn't get killed there, he came home. My uncles paid a price and wounded. Maybe your price or debt doesn't need to be paid that way, but we do owe them a missionary and a church. Many of those in America have it, but many of those in the foreign field do not. Now, little statistics. Currently right now, supposedly there's somewhere around 400,000 Christian missionaries in the world, but that includes everyone that identifies with Christianity. That includes our Catholic friends. So just so you understand what I'm trying to give you. 400,000. But guess how many military we have out there? 1.25 million. on active duty. What if we could win the military? Now this is, you know, I realize this is probably not practical, but just for sake of illustration, what if we could win them to Christ? We would have a missionary force three times the size we have now. They'd already be in place in the country with a salary and no need to go get support. but we're not reaching them. I think about World War II, and the greatest general that probably ever lived, Douglas MacArthur, when he said, we need at least a thousand missionaries over here right now in Japan, and millions of Bibles. We didn't send it. We sent them economic advisors. Did they learn it? Mercy. Who's the world's number one car manufacturer? Electronics, name it. What if we send all the missionaries? Let's pass it up. We can't pass up but so much. God has some expectations of us. And I just want to give you one example. Brother Larry O'Barrill, some of y'all know him probably. Brother Larry O'Barrill was pastor out in San Diego, California. But Larry O'Barrill joined the Navy, US Navy as a Filipino because he wanted to be an American. and he wanted to do it the right way. Pay his price, learn English. And he did. And after he got out of the Navy in California, there was an old missionary named Fred Null, who had been a missionary in the Philippines, I think 25 to 27 years, had a major stroke, completely paralyzed, completely, his right side. I can still picture him now, I'll never forget it. You know, he could walk, but he just dragged this, you know. So he had to come home, and he had a little farm down in Chickasha, Oklahoma. He'd come to the pulpit and take this arm and put it right there, and that's where he would stay. So he came home to his farm, because they said, if you stay over here as hot as it is and humid, you'll die within six months or three months, and you'll be gone. He was there a few months. He called me. He said, I want to come up and see you. And I had visited him before he had the stroke and after, way back. And anyway, he came up to see me. And he said, God didn't call me to farm. God called me to reach Filipinos. I can't go back to the Philippines. What do you think about me going to San Diego? There's 60,000 Filipinos there. What do you say to a man who has about 30% of his heart flow? I said, well, brother, no. I think that's what you think God wants you to do. I think that's what you ought to do. He said, you think anybody will support me? I don't know about anybody else, but you got ours right now. He went to San Diego and he would drag himself up and down those sidewalks and up and down those porches and knock on that door with his left hand. He was a right-handed person. And then he found this young sailor named Larry O'Barrow who had just got out. He started training him. When Brother Noel died, they were meeting in a little tiny building next to what was Calvary Baptist Church back then, I think, probably pastored by Bob Henson. And it wasn't even big as a real big Sunday school classroom. And of course Brother Noah got it started and they organized and then he and his wife passed away. And Brother Larry took that, pastored it for 33 years. I was there for their last missions conference. They run about 500 now. Their missions conference was over $300,000. Because of one sailor that got saved. Now, I don't know about you, but I'd love to have been the one that led Larry O'Barrill to the Lord. But there's hundreds of thousands of them out there. As they would say, the woods are full of them. I hope we can have a part. My burden tonight? Well, first of all, let's honor the Lord like we should on Christmas. And then, would you get a heart for the military? And ask God. I'm gonna encourage every preacher I know, if they don't already, support at least one military missionary overseas. And if they can more, I think it'll be very productive. We had a military faith promise conference. at Bible Badges Church just a few weeks ago when Gary Craft was there, 10 families drove from other states that had gotten saved overseas to come to that conference. Hundreds and hundreds have been saved through the ministry. Please all stand. Thank you, Lord, for your goodness to us. Thank you for the faithfulness of your people. Lord, I've given the information as best I know how. And it may be a seed planted in somebody's heart and life. Someone that may eventually go to another country to reach those from Jerusalem, so to speak, our military. So Lord, have your perfect way, and any decision that needs to be made, you're an invitation tonight. We pray in Jesus' name, amen. And as we have a verse and invitation, if you need to come for any reason whatsoever, certainly this is a good time to do that. Have thine own way, Lord. I hope we'd always mean that when we sing that song. What would God's way be for me or for you tonight? Say that, Lord, have your way. Not my way, but your way. I am the clay. Mold me and make me. You know, we never get too old to do something for the Lord. We're never too young to do something for the Lord. The greatest ability you need to serve the Lord is availability. Here am I, Lord send me. Have thine own way Search me and try me Master today Whiter than snow, Lord Wash me just now ♪ As in thy presence ♪ Humbly I bow Just have your attention one more moment. We're about done here with the invitation. Just want to mention one more maybe testimony. I mentioned to you while I was on that submarine The captain asked me about holding services, and I did the best I could. I was 17 years old, only been saved three years. You say, you have any record of those notes? No, they're buried in the bottom of the sea of the rest of my sins. God have mercy. I don't know what I might have said at 17 years old trying to bring a message. But after I got out of the Navy, I worked a year at Bell Helicopter, and then I came to the Baptist Bible College in 1967. In my second year in the field house, and there was a pretty good-sized student body back then, somebody walked by me and I caught my attention, but I mean, I had friends everywhere. All of a sudden, this guy just grabbed me from the back, and I turned around. It was a man off that submarine. His name was Freddie England. Freddie England was what we call a mess cook. He's not the head cook, but he does the dishes and pots and pans. He didn't have any choice but to come to my service because it was in the galley where we eat and it was right there. So he had to be there for all of it. I said, man, what are you doing here? He said, I never had the courage to get saved in front of the other men. But I was talking to the Lord about it, and as soon as I got out of the Navy, I went straight to an independent Baptist church, settled my salvation, got baptized. Two years later, the Lord called me to preach, and I'm here in Bible college. Went to Great Falls, Montana, started a church. Afraid he died about six months ago. But I'm gonna see him one of these days. Whoever's got this thing. I don't know which one it is. Amen. Well that was a blessing for sure. Keep these things in prayer and our church is privileged to support a couple of missionaries to the military and keep them in prayer and all of our missionaries in prayer but especially as Brother Hardy mentioned those that are that are reaching many of our own brothers and cousins and friends that aren't here that are overseas and got missionaries and church planters that are there and pray the Lord of the harvest. He'd send forth laborers to his harvest for sure. It's been a blessing to be in God's house today. Brother Hardy, if you and your wife wouldn't mind making your way to the back, and I know they'd appreciate if you'd stop by and say hi to them for sure. Let's keep each other in prayer, all of the needs that we've mentioned, all those things, and let's just go with the Lord in prayer and ask him to bless us as we go our separate ways tonight. For the Ben Forrester, could you pray for us please? or you can bring Wyatt out and sit down with him later.