to pursue lost souls more than you do right now. And I'm not saying that nobody here does. I'm just saying that I'm made of the same stuff you are. And I know, I can tell when I'm around all of God's people. I know that there are some of you that are more outgoing. Your personalities are different. You know this if you've been around me any amount of time. I tend to be socially awkward by nature. I am not a public speaker. I'm not comfortable with that. I'm not comfortable violating people's personal space with the gospel. I can tell you that Ruby and I We had Brother Sam Patron come over there to Manchester, and he left me a couple 25-amp speakers to go out. And there have been times standing out there in the middle of Manchester city center where I just feel paralyzed inside. But then I start speaking to the people, and there's great liberty. Whether it's speaking to somebody in a restaurant, speaking to family members, If God would help me to do anything today, it's that you might pursue one more soul. You might be more evangelistic. I want you to turn in your Bibles to Luke 14. Sometimes we can get going in this Christian life, and we can get to the place, oh, what can be done for an old heart like mine? Soften it up with oil and wine. Last night, our brother had tears as he was speaking about the tears. But you know, my eyes are dry. Isn't that what Keith Green sang? My eyes are dry. My faith is old. You get to the place where a heart is hard. My prayers are cold. We can see lost people like this, and we don't weep. We can be pretty distant. We can be separated. We live in our place. It's fairly comfortable here. Luke 14. I want us to look at what is probably very well known to many of you. Verse 16, a man who once gave a great banquet and invited many. Now, the thing that I want you to capture as I read this, is there are two imperatives in the verse. You know what I mean. There are two commandments. There are two verbs that are telling people to do something. Just keep your eyes open for those. A man once gave a great banquet and invited many. And at the time for the banquet, he sent his servant to say to those who had been invited, Come. There's an imperative. People are commanded. They're invited. They're beseeched, even pleaded with. Come, let us reason together. This is an imperative. Everything is ready. Come. But they, all alike, began to make excuses. The first said to him, I've bought a field. I must go out and see it. Please have me excused. Another said, I have bought five yoke of oxen and I go to examine them. Please have me excused. Another said, I've married a wife and therefore I cannot come. So the servant came and reported these things to his master. Then the master of the house became angry and said to his servant, Go. And you'll see it again, but that that is the next imperative here. Go out quickly to the streets and lanes of the city and bring in the poor and crippled and blind and lame. And the servant said. Sir, what you commanded has been done. And still there is room. And the master said to the servant, go out to the highways and hedges, and compel people to come in, that my house may be filled, for I tell you, none of those men who are invited shall taste my banquet." Allow me to do something here. We recognize, it's very clear if you study the passage, we recognize that in verse 18, They is speaking to the people who've been invited. But allow me to do something. Allow me to put a twist on the passage. They is the servants. Not those invited. It's the servants. Read it that way. A man once gave a great banquet, invited many. At the time for the banquet, he sent his servant to say to those who had been invited, come for everything is now ready. But they, the servants, all alike began to make excuses. The first said, I've bought a field. I must go out and see it. Please have me excused. Not from the feast. but from going out and compelling the people to come in. Have me excused. I have this field." The other said, I have bought five oxen. I go to examine them. Please have me excused. You know, when Spurgeon preached on this passage, 1858, Royal Surrey Gardens, He specifically said this, I feel in such a haste to go out and obey the commandment this morning. And I ask myself, huh, he saw a commandment in here for himself. Not the commandment for the people that he was going to press to the feast. He saw a commandment for himself. I wonder, do we feel that? You see what's said here? The servant said in verse 22, Sir, what you have commanded, has been done. But I want to ask honestly, go out into the hedges and highways. What you commanded has been done. And you know, we can read this oftentimes, and you can just read right over that. You can read right over that and not feel personal responsibility with regards to that, unlike what Spurgeon felt. Spurgeon felt this need, this necessity for Himself to do something. Let's pray. Father, I pray that as I seek to speak on this, Lord, I want to be able to just reach out and grab hold of hearts, my own included. Lord, help. I pray in Christ's name, Amen. I just wonder. Listen, here's my question. Sir, what you have commanded has been done. That's what the servant here says. And I just want us to self-reflect. Ask yourself. Christian, this is messages to the Christians in this place. I want you to ask yourself this. With all you have going on in your life, the trials, the difficulties, the busyness of life, the need to support your family, to raise your children, to live out your singleness, whatever it is, wherever you find yourself in life, if you self-reflect, if you ask yourself, can you say to the Lord what the servant here said? That everything that He's commanded, what He's commanded has been done based on your own involvement in this. My question to you, Christian, is do you recognize what this message has to do with? It has to do with the evangelistic responsibility of the church, and just us self-reflecting. How involved are we actually in this? That's the question. Can we honestly say that we have been quickly, quickly going out to the highways and hedges, whether they're a faraway place like that, or they're up and down your own neighborhood, within the context of your own family, your own workplace, your own college, your own high school, wherever it is that you find yourself, are you seeking to win souls? That's the question that I have on the table right now. Actually, Spurgeon's message was called, compel them to come in. And I want to compel you to compel them to come in. My task is different. I'm aiming at the servant right now. I'm wanting to compel the ones that are supposed to be in the highways and hedges. So, if I'm going to compel you, I have to find you out. Because I know what can happen. You know, we heard our brother last night, and he mentioned Whitefield. And we say, well, we're not Whitefield. We're not called to do what Whitefield does. You know, David gets up here and tells us all about it. You know, we can dodge this. We can imagine that we are not actually the people who are the servants who have a responsibility here. And that's one of the ways that we can excuse ourselves. We can make the excuse. We can excuse it. Please have me excused. Why? Well, because I'm not a pastor. I'm not a missionary. I'm not a church planter. I'm not one of those people that are expected to go out and do this kind of thing. And I can see you out there. You dodge this because this is somebody else's response. You're not an evangelist. You're not a deacon. You're not an elder. And so, what if I told you that evangelizing and proclaiming the gospel, proclaiming the cross, proclaiming Christ. What if I told you that this is for everyone who desires to save his own life? You know one of the things that happens? We often can't hear Jesus. Because we kind of have our Pauline doctrine of justification by faith so perfectly worked out in our mind that when Jesus comes along and He talks the way He talks, sometimes it just goes right over us. Listen to this. You've read this before. You've heard this. Mark 8, verse 35. Whoever would save his life will lose it. Whoever loses his life for My sake and the Gospel's sake will save it." Have you thought about that verse before? You see, we don't like to think that way. Hmm, if I want to save my life, my spiritual life, if I want to save my spiritual life, then I'm going to lose my life for the Gospel's sake? And I just ask you this, Christian, have you lost your life for the Gospel's sake? Has that happened? Have you found something in this message? There's a glory, there's a beauty, there's a motivation in the Gospel that makes you view Everything. It makes you view life, and comfort, and security, and safety, and retirement, and money, and your plans, and your dreams, and your vacations, and all of that. Have you found something in the Gospel that makes you consider this life altogether differently? Has some glory jumped out at you and grabbed hold of you? to where it constrains you now. There is a glory in this message. There is something marvelous. There is something in this Christ revealed in this message. And what He's done by the shedding of His blood, has something happened where now you look at the rest of your life and you say, you know what? I'm going to die to that. I'm going to live for this. Because Jesus says that if you live for those things, for the money and the retirement and the vacations, then you lose your soul. So, that's the question. Has the Gospel given you reason to lose your life? Can't you say, absolutely? This is the most glorious thing I've ever come across in type of delusion. Absolutely changes everything. Or there's this. and took us to Revelation 12 yesterday. You know this verse. They, the Christians, have conquered Him. You remember the Him there He was talking about in Revelation 12 yesterday? Who's the Him? Who have we conquered? The dragon? Satan? The devil? We. Who are we? Those who keep the commandments of God. Right? What else? We keep the commandments of God. The testimony of Jesus. Is that what it says? Listen to this. We conquer Him. They have conquered Him by the blood of the Lamb. And you know what? We get that. And we often think of that. And that blood is precious. But you know what goes on to say this? It says, "...and by the word of their testimony, for they love not their lives even unto death." Isn't that what Jesus just got done telling us in Mark's Gospel? That if you lose your life for the Gospel's sake, and you see, it's the word of their testimony. You know what? We fight fallen angels. That's who we're doing battle with. And how do we conquer? The Word. That's got to do with speech. That's got to do with a message. Testimony. That means that we testify. And you know, it's right there in the context of the blood. Do you not have something to say to the world about what the blood of Christ has done for you? And that's how they're victorious. That's how they win this battle. There is definitely a conquering aspect to our evangelism. I mean, there's something about the blood of Christ that constrains us. It hems us in. It leaves us with no choice but to speak. And then you get this. We also heard about this. This was brought up. Ephesians 6, verse 12, where it says, We wrestle not against flesh and blood. We wrestle against rulers, authorities, cosmic powers, spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. Therefore take up the whole armor of God. Do all to stand firm. Put on your feet." Put on his shoes for your feet. The readiness given by the gospel of peace. Now feet, what does that denote? That denotes mobility. That denotes motion. That's the idea that there is some kind of advancement. There is movement here. And there's a readiness. You notice what it says, the gospel of peace. I mean, the good news of the life and the death and the resurrection of Jesus Christ and the fact that it brings peace between God and man. Brethren, you know what this is saying? You need to be so convicted about the truth of this message. This message of salvation. that you're ready, there's a readiness. As you go through life, you come across the waitress, you come across the family member, you come across these things, you're passing by somebody on the street, you can stop, because why? You have a message that they don't know, that they don't have, that lead them to life, lead them to Christ. And you know the thing about this? You think about the very context in which this is found. It's found in Ephesians 6. No! Think! This chapter starts by talking about children, and parents, and servants, and masters. And you go right before that, and it's husbands and wives. You say, okay, the significance is this. This is ordinary people, folks. This isn't the super saints. Just ordinary Christians. We stand, we conquer. Oh, and what happens? Well, the devil will tell you, you're not gifted like that. I mean, this isn't for you. Somebody else is more qualified. What's the use? Who are you? But think with me. Think with me. You know this. The man who had the demoniac. You remember him. Well, he did what any of us would have wanted to do. He wanted to go with Jesus. Wouldn't you have wanted that? You would have wanted him to get in the boat and go with the rest of the disciples. And Jesus, what did Jesus tell him? You remember what Jesus told him? What do you tell him? Yeah, go back. I heard that. Go. Go. Wait, wait, wait! The guy hasn't been to seminary yet! I mean, you don't take a guy that was just full of demons in the morning and send him to go... Well, Jesus did. And folks, You see what Jesus' expectation is? This is a common guy. This is a newly saved guy. Doesn't he need training first? I mean, Lord, he's not ready. Or how about this? How about a woman? The woman at the well. I mean, you know what happened. She is lost in the morning. Gets saved at the well in the middle of the day. heads back to her countrymen, and they said..." It was by the testimony. Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in Christ because of the woman's testimony. Now do you remember what we read out of Revelation? The word of their testimony. That's how they conquered. The word of their testimony. This woman, she's a woman. So this isn't even specific to gender here. Ladies, you can't dodge this. What do you have here? You have a woman, who if you go compare her testimony to what's happening in Revelation 12, this woman's a dragon slayer. Do you realize what she just did by her testimony? Is a bunch of her countrymen were set free from the bondage of the devil. I mean, there was conquering there. The blood of Christ. Conquering cosmic powers. This woman by her testimony. In the morning, she's lost. In the afternoon, that's what she's doing. And Jesus didn't say, well, you should not have been doing that. Too newly saved. Don't you know women aren't supposed to preach? None of that. Brethren, the question we have to ask is, what has the Lord done for you? Has He given you something to say? I mean, we need to remember, who are we? Who are we? Well, Christian, what we're told is that we're a chosen race. We're told that we're a royal priesthood. And if you know the passage, you know exactly where I'm going. Why has Jesus chosen us? What has He done for us? We're to be a people of His own possession. We're Christ's private property. And Peter specifically tells us that we may proclaim the excellencies. of Him who called us out of darkness. The excellencies. I just ask you all. Excellencies. Proclaim the excellencies. Are there none to proclaim? When you start thinking about the Song of Solomon, as we heard, you start thinking about, brethren, all you have to do is begin to just see Christ. See Him. I mean, really see Him. Wail over Jerusalem. See His heart. If you will, you can make me clean. I mean, see Him. Really? The first miracle, He turned water into wine? What's that saying to us? What's He doing? Why is He at a wedding? God isn't just about putting us down. Water into wine! Good wine! What does that say to us? What does that say to us when He wails over Jerusalem? And then He tells us, I want you to follow Me. I want you to put your footsteps in My footsteps. I want you to go where I go. I want you to say what I say. Folks, we can get to the place where we get going in our Christian life and we get in our Christian subculture. You know what? We can become too withdrawn from the world. Like I say, I'm made of the same stuff you are. I'm confronted by the same kinds of things. But this is what we've been called to, the excellencies, the excellencies. You think of Christ. There's no average person. The Spirit of God comes upon Mary. Here this virgin gives birth. You have this Christ come forth. A baby. Can you imagine if you saw this baby who is the mighty God and the governments are going to be placed upon His shoulder? He's come to bear the sins and drink the wrath of God. Is there nothing? Is there no excellency to be found? Emmanuel, He's God with us. He laid aside that eternal glory that He had with His Father. He left it behind. He came from the halls of heaven. Think about it. He came down here, the fragrance of heaven upon Him. And He stood among us and His own didn't receive Him. And you know what Scripture says, the Gentiles, all the Gentiles, they're just flowing into this mountain. They're being grafted in. We live in such a blessed time to be a Gentile. But isn't there excellency, pure, blameless, Lamb of God? Always about His Father's business. Folks, Do we have nothing to say? Listen. Listen to something. Often times we just kind of go over this. Acts chapter 8. Just consider this. A great persecution against the church in Jerusalem. Right? You remember that. Acts 8. This great persecution. Saul wasn't saved yet. Persecution. What happens? And they were all scattered. Men, women, they were all scattered. Throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria except the apostles. Now I like that. They were all scattered except the apostles. Now you know you could look at that and you could think, well, why didn't the apostles get scattered? Hey, but just don't let that Those who were scattered went about preaching the Word. That doesn't mean they stood in the pulpit. They went out heralding, proclaiming. This is not a pulpit ministry. But you know what I like about it? Specifically, not the apostles. The ordinaries. The ordinaries got scattered. Now see, it's been a trial to us just to uproot and go to another country. But I mean, we weren't driven out. We didn't lose our possessions. You see, sometimes what happens, we go on in the Christian life and the trials come in. And we can get to where we're licking the wounds, and we forget on our worst day, we're heaven-bound. And those people out there, where are they headed? I mean, right out there in those neighborhoods. Jeff spoke the other night, are there going to be many or are there going to be few? Well, however it looks in the end, what we know right now is this. If you went around and you went looking for the true Christians in Denton, Texas, there aren't a whole lot. Not the true ones. And they sit out there in the darkness, and we can come, and we can have all of our glorious time of feeding in the Word, and we edify one another and build up one another, which we should be doing. But you know, we can get so going with our lives, and we just drive right down back that road, and you know what happens? The people that drive by us on the highway, they're just kind of these ambiguous things. And we can get right back out there and oh, praise God, we had this time of feeding and we were together and it's a fellowship conference and we had good fellowship and we were talking to all the brethren and what an encouragement it is. And it is! There's no question about it. It is. But what I want you to see is these people were scattered. And it specifically says, not the apostles. It's the ordinary believers who are not apostles. You see, we often get to the place, well, of course the apostles are supposed to be doing it. Of course these other people are supposed to be doing that. No, no, no. That's not what happened. The early church gets scattered, and then what happens? It seems that the expansion of Christianity in those very early days in the church was not primarily carried about who made it their profession to be in the ministry. You see that? And despite the trials that they were enduring, it's interesting that the Scripture doesn't come right out and tell us, well, you know, they went in search of food, and they went in search of jobs, and they went in search of housing. Oftentimes we hear about the Ukrainian refugees, and they're coming out, and that's what we hear. Well, they went looking for this, and we went... Have you heard that the Ukrainian Christians were coming out, and the primary thing that's being said about them is they went about everywhere, and they're proclaiming the gospel? Well, that's how the Bible talks. Just the ordinary people that get scattered, there they are. Now listen. Listen to this. Church historian, you know this name, Eusebius of Caesarea. Now he wrote about the early church. Now he was alive 300 A.D. But he wrote about the church in the early 2nd century. So it was right after John died. Listen to what he says. Many Christians felt their souls inspired by the Holy Word with a passionate desire for perfection. Imagine that. Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount, we ought to strive for that. Imagine people that actually take that serious and strive after that. And their first action in obedience to the instructions of the Savior was to sell their goods and distribute them to the poor. It seems like Jesus said something about that as well. I mean, you see what's happening. The people were actually, they were getting saved, and they were actually being compelled by this love of Christ. They were being constrained to actually do the things that Jesus said. Strive for perfection, be perfect as your Father is perfect. Jesus said in Luke 12 that we should indeed sell and distribute to the poor. And then leaving their home, they set out to fulfill the work of the evangelists, making it their ambition to preach the word of the faith to those who as yet had heard nothing of it." That's what they did in the early church. And all I'm asking, I have to stand in front of the mirror of the Word of God and ask myself, Though there's trials, though we advance in age, though there's health issues, what is it that Christ wants us to do? I'll tell you this, He wants us to live all out. He wants us to live while we have life. Whoever believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water." Now you know you can look at that and you say, well, we know that that says that that's speaking about the Spirit of God. But have you ever recognized what it's saying happens? The Spirit of God had not yet been given because Christ had not yet gone to the Father, but now He has gone to the Father. Now the Spirit has been given. This is interesting. It doesn't say that something will flow into us. You might almost think that. If we were going to portray, well, God is going to give the Spirit, and something will come into us. There will be an effusion that will be directed towards us. But isn't it interesting that what Jesus actually describes is for everyone who believes. Rivers of living water flow out. Do you believe that? Do you believe what Henry said? Do you believe that? That's a reality. I believe that. I believe that when the Spirit of God was given to the early church, the first thing they did was bust it out on the streets and they began telling everybody in their own language what was happening and the gospel went out from there. Something flows out of us. You just think of the imagery here. When you come to Jesus Christ to drink, that's what He says. Come to Me and drink. When we actually go to Him, we tap into a spring. We tap into a fountain. You get the Spirit of Christ. Rivers of living water flow out. Why does that happen? Folks, we've come to the river maker. And you just behold the imagery here. Whoever loves his life, for my sake and the Gospel's sake, whoever loses his life, for my sake and the Gospel's sake, will save it. Now, you know what can happen? And like I was saying, I've stood out on the streets before, before I'm going to preach, and I think it's a spiritual thing, where I've just felt everything in me saying, go home. And that's what I'm up here trying to convince everybody to do, is get out on the streets and preach open air. We're to be salt and light. And to be salt and light, salt only impacts anything if it touches it. We've got to be in contact with the world. You see, the excuses can be land, it can be oxen, it can be a wife. But you know what sometimes the excuse is? You know why we don't talk to people about Christ? Fearful insecurity. That type of thing of the unknown. We fear men. The truth is, we don't like to be disliked. God has made us social creatures. We like to be loved. We like to be liked. We don't like rejection. And one of the things you find out about Luke 14 is you've got a lot of people making excuses that don't want to come. So when you go out, there's a lot of resistance to the message. And we know it any time you try. You know, when I first got saved, I thought, This was so new. This was marvelous. Like I was this nominal Catholic, and this broke in on me. And I thought, this is unbelievable. I can't even believe I walked for 25 years of my life, and there were actually people around me that were born again. And how did I not know that? This is fantastic! I thought, all my friends, all my family, they're going to want this. They're going to all line up for this. The only reason that they don't have this is because they were just like me. They were in the darkness. And I began to tell them all, and you know what happened. I'm hoping my dad was saved. Three of my children have come to know the Lord. But it's amazing. It's amazing. I think I can see the faces of people in my mind right now standing on the streets of Manchester. And Sam gave me these speakers so I'm mobile and I can walk along and I can track the people and I'm looking at their face. And I began to talk to them about Christ. And you know, they smirk at each other. They roll their eyes. And I say, this is an amazing thing that we would come down here and offer you paradise. We offer you eternal life. And you roll your eyes and you mock this. There will come a day when this will be the most important thing you could imagine. What happens? People laugh, they sneer, they swear, they shout, they spit. Brethren, hear me. Right now, I'm not policing any blame or pointing any fingers, but if I'm honest, I mean, I can fall, pray, to just selfishly grasping and not wanting to be in uncomfortable situations. Grasping for security. Grasping for comfort. Brethren, you know what can happen? We can just become soft and we can become fearful. You know what happened in the early church? Listen, that desire for boldness. What happened? You know what happened. Lord, look upon their threats. This world can be a threatening place. There's no question about it. Look upon their threats and grant to your servants to continue to speak the Word with all boldness. And when they had prayed, two verses later, The place in which they were gathered together was shaken and they were all filled. All. All the ordinary Christians with the Holy Spirit. And they all continued to speak the Word of God with boldness. Brethren, we live in a threatening world. But listen, you have been called out of the darkness to be the proclaimers of the excellencies of Christ. And so we need to make this a priority. This can't be secondary. Ordinary Christians. Listen to this. I came across this some years ago when I was doing a series on hyper-Calvinism. But Ian Murray said, in many churches there has been a real increase in knowledge and a resurgence of Calvinistic belief has occurred across the world. But revival of doctrine has scarcely been matched by a revival of evangelism. All the books on Calvinism are selling. But people are not more aggressively pursuing souls as they come to the greater light. That's Ian Murray's perspective. I grabbed a copy, old used copy, of John Stott's book on evangelism called Our Guilty Silence. Listen to what he says. In a day when the church's evangelistic mission was never more urgent it would seem that the church's evangelistic enterprise was never more lacking or ineffective. One might almost say that the contemporary church is better equipped for every other task than for its primary responsibility. What can happen is One of the reasons that we can ask to be excused is because we actually convince ourselves that it's not the primary task of the church to carry out the Great Commission. The primary responsibility of making known the Gospel of Christ and winning others to Him. The church, when it is true to its calling, cannot be a silent church. Now, you know when it gets scary? It's when you start quoting Jim Elliot or C.T. Studd. Now, you've probably all looked at that. That's tame. That's the refined element of C.T. Studd. Studd and Elliot, and others, had very little use for a contented, sleepy, apathetic church. And if you read anything of them, you know. Our ears are almost too delicate to hear stud. But I'll give you a dose. We shout, onward Christian soldiers, marching on to war. And then, and then, we whisper, I pray thee have me excused. And you know when I came across that I thought, ah, he's put the same bent on Luke 14 that I have. It's the servants asking to be excused. This is back to stud. Christ's call is to feed the hungry, save the lost, call sinners to repentance, not to build and furnish comfortable chapels, churches, cathedrals at home, in which to rock Christian professors to sleep. But we are to capture men from the devil's clutches and snatch them from the very jaws of hell and make them into an almighty army of God. Too long have we been waiting for one another to begin. And sometimes that's the excuse. Well, I'm waiting for them to start. I'm waiting for our pastors to lead us. I'm waiting for this. The time for waiting is past. The hour of God is struck. In God's holy name, let us arise and build. We will dare to trust our God. We will venture our all for Him. We will live and we will die for Him. And we will do it with His joy unspeakable, singing aloud in our hearts. Some of you know the story of Hudson Taylor. You remember when he visited Brighton, England? Down on the south coast. And he sat. in a church gathering that was basically the size of this. It says that there were maybe a thousand Christians there. Here's Taylor with a burden for souls just pulsing through his veins. He looked around at the Christians. What did he see in that day? They seemed to him self-satisfied. It was intolerable to him. Pew upon pew of prosperous merchant, shopkeeper, bonneted wife, neatly dressed children, content, smug. He seized his hat. And you know what he did? He went out and walked the beach. He left unable to bear the sight of a congregation of a thousand or more Christian people rejoicing in their own security while millions were perishing for lack of knowledge. Brethren, we don't want to be the smug ones. We want to be able to come together, but brethren, there's a reason to come together. There's a reason to sit under preachers, to be equipped for the work of ministry. Brethren, these times should be times of refueling. When we go out, we draw lines in the sand, and it's just like it was at the Alamo. Whether that really happened or not, I know not, but it was supposed. Travis drew a line in the sand. Brethren, what we want to do is we want to live while we have life. He seized His hat. Out He went. We don't want to be the smug ones. They were all filled with the Holy Spirit and continued to speak the Word of God with boldness. That's what happened in the New Testament. It stood right. I just ask this. It stood right. Listen, I can tell you this. I mean, I know. I feel it. You can feel the awkward situation. You can feel at times the conflict. But have we asked to be excused? Is it not often the servants that are the ones saying that I have an ox, I have land, I have a wife, please have me excused? Or even worse, brethren, I'm just afraid. That's worse than the ox and land and wife. Brethren, you know what? The Old Testament. We get all these things in the Old Testament. We're specifically told that these things, these stories, the narratives were preserved for our instruction. So let me give you one. You remember what it was like on the battlefields of ancient Israel? You remember what happened. When you go and you look in Deuteronomy 20, there's this process. And you see first off, as the soldiers were there ready to go to war. We're Christian soldiers. The weapons of our warfare are different. But we know that we conquer Him through the word of our testimony. But here we are, we're going out on the battlefield as Christians. Well, we can go back to the book of Deuteronomy, and we can look at it, and we can learn from it. And here's what happened. The soldiers are standing there. They're ready to go out. And then here would come the priest. And the priest said this. He says, Hero Israel, today you are drawing near for battle against your enemies. Let not your heart faint. Don't fear or panic or be in dread of them. For the Lord your God is He who goes with you." And then it says that one of the officers would say this. Can you imagine it? You're on the battlefield. The priest said this. Trust your God. We have the God of Scripture, brethren. We have the God of David. when He went out against Goliath. We have the God of the early church, where the place shook, and where 3,000 souls came. That's our God. We have the God of Scripture. And so, you've got the priest. He's trying to encourage everybody. Like Aragorn looking in their eyes. Men may fail, but it's not going to be this day. Not when we have a God like this. Not for whatever reason He gave. We have a God. And He bids us onward, and the Son of God says, I'll be with you to the end. That's a good thing. But then God says, okay, now have the commander go out there and say this, is there any man who is fearful and faint hearted? Let him go back to his house, lest he make the heart of his fellows melt like his own. And you know, we actually have an example in Judges, you know the account where basically Gideon It says 22,000 people after this was said to them. 22,000 people returned. 10,000 remained. Okay, Christian, think about this. Think about the 22,000 guys as they're walking home. What do you think they talked about? You think they felt good? I don't know what they felt. We're going home to our places of safety, to our beds, to our wives, to a hot meal, while 10,000 of our brethren are back there. And you see, we can be like that. Well, David's back there. Whitefield was back there. And we go home. Oh, the real life scene of cowardice in ancient Israel. And sometimes, if I'm honest, sometimes I want to be excused from proclaiming the excellencies of Christ. Not because of oxen. Not because of wife. But I lack boldness. Don't you feel it? Wretched, wretched, wretched cowardice. Oh, that when we don't trust the Lord our God. You just think about it. Our brethren in days past, what did they have to fear? The stake in England? Bloody Mary get a hold of them? The Colosseum if you go back further? The lions? I mean, these are the things that our brethren had to fear. What do we have to fear? I mean, yeah, it's true. Things may be getting worse in this country. But honestly, what do you have to fear? Men whose hearts melt have a tendency to melt others. You think about it. There's two examples of the extreme opposites here. On the one hand, you just think, cowardice. Cowardice is contagious. When I melt, what happens? I have a tendency to melt others. You know, my doubtful questions, my fears, my hesitations, what do they do? They cause other people to hesitate. Christ calls us to lose our lives for the gospel's sake. And we have to ask ourselves this, or do we count our lives more valuable than our King's purposes? You know, we can talk about, we can sing the songs. And brethren, again, I'm saying this just, I made it the same stuff. I want to finish well. I want to be a soul winner. I want Christ to make me a fisher of men. I want that. And I don't want my hesitations to ever be responsible for causing somebody else to hesitate because you know we have a tendency. It tends to be contagious. You be reluctant. You be scared. You be fearful. What happened? There's ten spies that came back out of the promised land and they caused the whole nation to melt. There was a couple Lionhearts among them. But remember what happened when Paul stood up for the gospel and they threw him in prison? You remember how he wrote in chapter 1 to the Philippians? He got thrown in prison and he said, that very fact has now made the brethren bold. Isn't that amazing how that works? You say, well, that should have made them all afraid. But that's not how it works. When there's boldness in the church, when there's Lionhearted men in the church, you know what? It tends to be contagious. When there's cowardice in the ranks, that tends to be contagious. Brethren, that's just biblical. We know that. The wicked, we expect that they should flee when nobody pursues, but oh, we want to be like David and his mighty men, do we not, in a spiritual sense? Brethren, let's just think about this, being hated. Jesus says, if the world hates you, know that it's hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own. But because you're not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. And brethren, that's how the Lord accomplishes His evangelistic cause. Do we not need the church of Jesus Christ to arise and embrace this call to be hated for the sake of His glory and for the sake of loving each other? Listen, if your driving motive in life is to be liked, then you're going to find this impossible. But brethren, what we want to do is not... this isn't about being liked. This is about the fact that we have a message that can save people from wreck and ruin and perdition, from being utterly destroyed. Brethren, have we forgot God's method of salvation? The master said to his servant, go out quickly to the streets and the lanes of the city. Go out to the highways and hedges and compel the people to come in. Go. Go. Go out. Go quickly. Go. What? What's that all about? Go to where the red-blooded sinners are. Go to where they live. Go to where they breathe. God doesn't expect that they're going to come in here. You know that doesn't happen. Oh yes, I know you may have invited a lost neighbor and they came. Maybe you've invited somebody to church and they've come before. But you know that the vast majority of people, they don't come into our meeting places. They don't come to our churches. That isn't what happens. God knows they won't. Man in his depravity doesn't go looking. Man in his depravity doesn't go seeking for God. What did God do? God sent His Son here. And then God sent His Spirit here. And then God sends His church full of the Spirit out there. Isn't that what He did? God comes to us. And God would send us to them just in the same way. The church is us. How are we going to influence the world? The only way we're going to influence the world communicating to them. It's by getting this message where they are. It's by doing the same thing that Jesus did. And you and I know what He did. He did not stay up there having made purification. Well, no, before that. The fact is, before He was seated there after having made purification for sin, there He was eternally. The Word with God. There, the glory that He had with His Father before the world began. And He didn't just stay there. He didn't just sit there. You know, He didn't send us an email. He came. He came bodily. He came the man of sorrows. He came to suffer. He emptied Himself. That's what He did. As Brother B has said, he didn't just loft down a bunch of tracts from heaven. He actually came. You know what he did? He got into the holes in the dark place. He scandalized the whole religious world. Why? Because he was a friend of tax collectors and sinners. Brethren, we can become overly isolated. Prostitutes, lepers, the tax collectors. We can get to the place where we forget the most basic truth. That you're not going to have people calling upon a Christ in whom they don't believe and they're not going to believe in this Christ unless somebody is telling them exactly about this Christ. If there's anything that we We have come to somewhat recognize, and I think we can say this in humility, but God has shown us things about Christ. He's shown us things about the gospel. He's shown us things about the truth. I mean, you think about the collective knowledge of what we have in this room, and then the collective knowledge increasingly. Right? This country is pagan. You more and more come to places where you can talk to people about simply the doctrine of justification. They have no idea about it. You talk to them about the very core things of the Gospel. I remember a guy and a girl in San Antonio. Have you ever heard anything like it? No, we never heard anything like this. I might expect that over in Manchester, but we're basically kind of hanging off the bottom of the Bible belt here. And to have that happening. We have a knowledge of the way to life. We have that. We possess that. We know the reality here. That the Word became flesh. That's what He did. He handed the baton off to us. Now I send you. My Father sent Me." And the Word came into this world, and what did He do? He went out from glory quickly. He emptied Himself. He came into the womb of the Virgin, and He came here. That's what He did. He laid aside the glory. And you know that's exactly... He says, follow Me. And He's basically saying the same thing. Lay aside the glory. Brethren, don't live for the houses. Don't live for the retirement. Don't live for the softness. Don't live for all that. Jesus came down and He got right out amidst sinners. He was in there with the tax collectors. He was in there with the dirty and the filthy and the lepers and the demonized. And He got right out into the filth and the stench of men. And that's what He calls us to do. And our time is short. It's short. What is the Gospel? Well, we know it's this good news from God. It's about Christ. It's a message to men to be reconciled. And how is anybody going to hear it? And see, C.T. is right. We often are waiting for somebody else to do it. Well, somebody else will do it. Or we fall into this pitiful hyper-Calvinism. Well, God's God is elect, and so basically it's going to happen. Brethren, do you realize what Paul is saying? He says, how beautiful are the feet of them who proclaim glad tidings. Why didn't he say lips? Why didn't he say tongue? Why would it be the feet? Because it's the feet that takes the message where it needs to be spoken from the lip. That's the issue. Why? Why? You know what it says in Luke 14. Why? Because our master's table has vacancies. There's empty places. That's what it says. Brethren, I want you to think here at the end of this conference. Have we disengaged from the world too much? Brethren, it is important to have strong families. It is important to figure out how we're going to educate our children. It's important to have strong churches deal with sin within our walls. But I'll tell you this, I remember my pastor, Pat Horner, I asked him one time, Brother, what's the hardest thing about pastoring? He said, keeping vision outward while dealing with what's inward. And I believe, brethren, that that is spot on. Brethren, listen to this. In the hand of the Lord there is a cup with foaming wine well mixed, and He pours out from it, and all the wicked of the earth shall drain it down to the dregs. Do you think often about the fate of the damned? Do you look at people in the supermarket that way? I'm on the plane, I'm in different places. You look at the people. Do you see people through that lens? And brethren, we can't soften this. We cannot soften damnation. This is a bitter, bitter end. They must drink from the dregs of damnation for on and on and on. And yes, weep for your children and preach the truth to them. But don't forget the guy down the street. Look at him. He has a soul. See yourself. You were there before. And God came to you. He came where you are. Somebody came to you. Somehow. But to think of this. Separate the chaff from the wheat. The angel binds them. Hand and foot ties them. They hang over that hell pit for just a moment. All the screeches and screams come up from there. Like Ravenhill said, there's no exits. My cousin, a year older than I am, we ran in the same sin. I think about her all the time. It's over. You die without Christ and it's over. There's only one way of escape. And the fact is we know it. Can we live as though we have no responsibility? You know how Spurgeon said it. If they're going to be damned, let them leap over our dead bodies. If they're going to perish, let it be with our arms wrapped around their knees. If hell must be filled, let it be in the face of our exertions. Are we just going to let them go? Unmourned. Brethren, we know. We know what it is they lack. Amy Carmichael. Oh, for a passionate passion for souls. Oh, for a pity that yearns. Oh, for love that loves unto death. For the fire that burns. Oh, for the pure prayer power that prevails. That pours itself out for the lost. Jim Elliott said, Oh, generation that hears, but feels not. listens, but aches not. Damned be this tupidity. Show me the one burning heart." And brethren, we want to remember there's a feast here. Remember the feast The mountain of the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wine, a rich food full of marrow, of aged wine, well refined." I mean, you think about the paradise of God, what's being offered. This is like a multiple course feast. You think Christ, Christ is, He's the feast. But you pick up one platter and the promises of God, and you've got the Spirit of God, and you've got just, I mean, through all the coming ages. He's going to show this lavish upon us. His grace, exceeding grace, kindness of God poured upon us. We'll be the bride of Christ. This is the most rich food, the most soul-satisfying food. This is pardon for sin and clearness of conscience and the power of God. Loving what God loves and being in the sweet accord. Feasting with God. This is the feast of paradise. This day you will be with me in paradise. And so what? We should go out quickly. Why? There's vacancies there. Brethren, perhaps we hesitate for no other reason than this. and possibly it's the Ephesian thing. We lose our first love. We get to the place where we've gotten to the place where the Christian life has become tedious, difficult, long, a subtle chill embraces us. And we lose our first love. Jim Elliot. Oh, the fullness, pleasure, sheer excitement of knowing God on earth. It's like Dan was talking yesterday. Wouldn't you rather be overwhelmed by that sense and be among the Quechua's or the Lebanese than to be here and be all apathetic and dry and safe? No? Brethren, you know how it was with our first love. What happened? What happened with our first love? Oh, this was so sweet. It was so new. Christ was so precious. We wanted to tell everybody. Didn't we want to? Didn't you want to? This is amazing. And then what can happen? Just a wretched apathy. And we've got this guy. Keith. You see his message to us. But he felt it too. My eyes are dry. My faith is old. My heart is hard. My prayers are cold. I know what I ought to be. Alive to God and dead to me. Dying to me. God, kill me. Kill the part that's too alive. Oh, what can be done for an old heart like mine? Father, if there's anybody here that that resonates with, soften it up with oil and wine. We lose our first love. And you know what Jesus told that church at Ephesus? He didn't say wait for revival. He said repent. And go back and do the first works. That's what He said. Jim Elliot. Surely those who know the great passionate heart of Jehovah must deny their own loves to share in the expression of His love. Consider the call from the throne above. Go ye. and the call from round about, come over and help us. And even the call from the damned souls below, send Lazarus to my brothers that they may come not to this place. Impelled then by those voices, I dare not stay home while Ketue is perished. So what if the well-fed church in the homeland needs stirring? They have their scriptures, Moses, the prophets, the whole lot more. Brethren, I would just leave you with this. Your goal in living should be to have the greatest possible impact that you can. Live to have the greatest possible impact upon this world. That's what it means to be salt and light. Shine as bright as possible. Be as salty as possible. Oh God, help us. Send Your mighty Spirit of God upon us. Make us a people collectively. that will turn the world upside down, that will have the greatest possible impact. Brethren, if all we do is come to conferences like this to gain knowledge, get blessed, it's no good. We need God to do something. Stir us, change us. We need permanent change. Let us not be like Lot's wife. We look back, we want the comforts, we want the stuff. Let us go on to glory and risk everything. Is He not worth it, brethren? Ah, Jim Elliot said, wherever you are, be all there. Live to the hilt every situation you believe to be the will of God. Brethren, has He brought you to His house of wine? If He has, bid others come. Bid others be with you. Let your arms be wrapped around their knees. God, help us that it be filled in the face of our exertions. Brethren, our time is short. I don't know if I'll stand here again. We don't have many more rolling suns at most before we land on Canaan's coast. Oh, brethren, when we stand there with the redeemed from the ages, God, help us to have a testimony we can share with those others that have gone before us and behind us and all around us. have testimonies of triumphant life that we lived while we had time to live. Basically, you come face-to-face with Jim Elliot and it resonates, yes, we were there at that time and we tried to be all there just like you said and lived to the hilt in every situation. It's our responsibility. Father, I pray Lord, help the brethren here. Lord, you've been so kind to us. You've showered with so many blessings. Lord, it would be our honor and our privilege if before the end of our days here, you would allow us to be more fruitful, to win more souls. Lord, we desire that you would make us collectively into a body of soul winners, fishers of men, Lord, help us to be bright light, pungent salt, especially as we see the world around us decay. Help us to be bold as lions. Give us the boldness of the early church where the Spirit of God fell upon them and they were bold and they continued to speak the Word. Help us to be the people that turn the world upside down in our generation. We pray in Christ's name, Amen.