What kind of life do you want to live? Are you looking for a life that's comfortable, where you can enjoy yourself, but then when you get to the end of your life and stand before your master, you regret that you didn't use it better? What kind of church do you want to be part of? Are you looking for a church where you can be comfortable, where you can enjoy yourself and have some good friends, but then when Jesus comes and evaluates that church, would say, what were you doing? What does Jesus want us to be doing? As we see here in Luke, he wants us to be catching men. He wants us to be leading others to him so that they can have eternal life, so that they can have life abundantly. Now, what we wanna do with our time this morning is look a little bit at the church in Antioch as we get ready for missions conference. This is, if there's ever a church that was known for catching men, this church in Antioch was, it's gotta be near the top of the list. And so we wanna learn some lessons from them. If you take your Bible and turn from Luke where we were, just over a couple of books to Acts chapter 11, we wanna learn from this church so that we might be a church that catches men, that leads people to Christ. Okay, so six characteristics of a church that catches men. First, we must be faithfully pursuing our mission locally. If we're going to be pleasing to Christ, the place it starts is being faithful to our mission that we have locally. Now here in Antioch, the history of this church, you can see Antioch up here. The first Christians came to Antioch from Jerusalem and it didn't start in a good situation. The Apostle Paul, before he was saved, was oppressing and persecuting Christians and so they fled from Jerusalem all over the world. And so the first people that came, the first Christians that came up to Antioch were Jews from Jerusalem who were afraid for their lives and fled to Antioch for safety. And what they started to do when they got to Antioch is they just shared the gospel with the people that they knew. So the other Jews there, they shared in the synagogue. This was really early in the church. And so the idea that we're supposed to take the gospel to the Gentiles was just kind of dawning on people's ideas, even though Jesus had said that was the mission. And so there were some folks in Antioch that they were sharing the gospel with the Jews that were there. They said, you know, what if we, what if we preached about Jesus to the Gentiles in our town too? There's more Gentiles here than there are Jews. And so they started to do this revolutionary thing. Look at Acts chapter 11, verse 20. Acts chapter 11 verse 20. But there were some of them, men of Cyprus and Cyrene, who on coming to Antioch spoke to the Hellenists also, so the non-Jews that spoke Greek, preaching the Lord Jesus. And the hand of the Lord was with them, and a great number who believed turned to the Lord. Faithfully pursuing our mission as a church, it starts with sharing Jesus with the people that live around us. And we all have different people around us. Neighbors that live next to us, co-workers that we work with, maybe people that we go to school with. And not all of them know the Lord. Do your neighbors and your co-workers know about Jesus? This is a convicting question for me. This week, the people that live next to me, people that I see most that are not church people, have I told them about Jesus? If you wanted to reach your friends and neighbors, what would you need to do? I have three suggestions for you as you think about this. Number one, do you know how to share the gospel with someone? So let's say that your co-worker came to you this week and they said, hey, I wanna know how to live forever. Can you help me with that? Like, do you know what to say? Do you know where you would open your Bible to and say, well, look, here's what the Bible says about how to live forever. Or would you be like, I have a pastor, let me get his number. You know, like, we ought to be able to do it ourselves. And if you're like, boy, I'm not actually sure what I would say to someone about how they can know they have eternal life, then come find a pastor or an elder today and we'll get you an outline so you can learn it and be able to share with somebody else. It's a place to start. Another suggestion to consider, have you ever had your neighbors over to your house for a meal? If we live next to somebody but I don't ever talk to them, other than waving across the street, am I helping them know Christ? Or have you ever invited them to church? A recent survey by Thomas Rainier found that 90% of unchurched people said they would be willing to attend a church if somebody invited them. It was kind of shocking to me, could it really be? 90% said if somebody invited me I'd go to church. In the same survey they were asking church members, in the last year have you invited somebody to your church? 2% said yes we had. So 90% of unchurched people say they'd come if they were invited, but only 2% invite them. In our last newcomers class that we had, we have another one coming up in October. Folks that are new to the church and one of the things we do is go around beginning the class We're getting to know each other. So I just had everybody share how it was that they Heard about Lamar's Bible Church and started coming and so there's about ten family units at this last class and one one lady says Oh, well, I've started coming to the church because of this lady that comes here invited me. Oh great We're going around we come to another one of the people and they're they're saying well I'm coming to church here because that same lady invited me and We all kind of said, hmm, maybe the rest of us need to be more like this lady, you know. So our mission is to be catching men and that starts with the people that are next to us. So like if we come to missions conference and we give money and we send people to Morocco with the gospel, that's great. But we wouldn't be pleasing Jesus if we're ignoring the people that are all around us. That's where it starts. Not only that, not only to be able to reach out effectively, do we need to be sharing Christ with the people that are around us that are unsaved, but we also need to be loving each other. That's something else we see in the example of this church. Look here at Acts chapter 11, verse 28. We'll go to verse 27. Acts 11, 27, now in these days prophets came down from Jerusalem to Antioch. And one of them, named Agabus, stood up and foretold by the Spirit that there would be a great famine all over the world. This took place in the days of Claudius. So the disciples determined, everyone according to his ability, to send relief to the brothers living in Judea. Do you love your brothers and sisters in Christ? Or maybe I could phrase it this way, do you love your church? I think a lot of people, if they get asked that question, they're gonna say, yes, I love my church. And what they're thinking is, I enjoy some of the programs that they offer. But that's really not the intention of this idea that we're to love the church, we're to love other believers. Really the idea isn't I enjoy what I get out of it, but I love the people that are in my church, and I'm sacrificially giving to them. And we see this in the church in Antioch. Even another church next to them, they said, boy, they're not gonna have enough money for the famine. Let's sacrifice and give to others. This is something that Jesus taught us, was important. If I'm gonna be reaching out with the gospel, one of the things that's gonna add power to that is if everyone else looks in and says, you know, those Christians, they love each other. They're taking care of each other. Here's Jesus' words from John chapter 13 verse 34. Jesus said, a new commandment I give to you that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this, all people will know that you are my disciples if you have love for one another. So. Six characteristics of a church that catches men. First, we have to be faithfully pursuing our mission locally, so sharing Jesus with the people that are around us and loving the believers that are next to us. Secondly, second characteristic that we notice of this church here in Antioch, of a church that catches men, we must be saturated in Bible teaching. We must be saturated in Bible teaching. Maybe this is surprising, because we think, well boy, Like, I think sometimes we think maybe we need to choose between, okay, am I going to find a church that really teaches the Bible, or am I going to find a church that's passionate about spreading the news to those that don't have it? And really, we want to be both of those things, and the two ought to flow together. Look here at Acts 11, verse 25, for this in the church in Antioch. Okay, actually verse 24, it says, a great many people were added to the Lord. Then verse 25, so Barnabas went to Tarsus to look for Saul. And when he had found him, he brought him to Antioch. For a whole year, they met with the church and taught a great many people. And in Antioch, the disciples were first called Christians. Okay, so in Antioch, you have there teaching for a year, two of the most famous Bible teachers in all history, and they just hunker down for a year. Paul's there teaching, Barnabas is there teaching. In fact, that's how Paul got there. Antioch, there were these Gentiles that were getting saved, and they didn't know anything about the Bible, and so the church in Jerusalem sent Barnabas to teach them. Barnabas got there and said, this is overwhelming, I need help. So he knew Paul was over in Tarsus, so he went and got Paul, and they're just They're teaching these people as they're getting saved. And it wasn't just the two of them, actually, that were teaching. There were others that are listed. And it actually wasn't even just a year. I made a slide with these dates on it. So Barnabas comes to Antioch in 41. Paul comes in 43. They don't leave till 48. So really you have five, seven years where these two men just say, well what we're gonna do, we're gonna teach these new believers. And they invest in them there over that period of time. Go actually to Acts chapter 13 verse one, we'll see that it wasn't just these two men that were teaching, but there were others. Five teachers are listed here in Acts 13. at the church in Antioch. Acts 13 one, now there were in the church at Antioch prophets and teachers. Barnabas, Simeon who was called Niger. The word Niger means black and so Bible scholars think that this man was probably from Africa. His skin was a different color. Lucius of Cyrene. It's said in Antioch that the first people that started sharing the gospel with the Gentiles were some men from Cyrene. So maybe Lucius is one of these first guys that started saying, hey listen, we gotta take the gospel to the rest of the city. And Menaen, a lifelong friend of Herod the Tetrarch. Some of your translations might say Menaen, a foster brother. of Herod the Tetrarch. So the king of the region was Herod. In those days, sometimes when there was a young monarch that was growing up, the royal family would adopt a companion for him as like a member of the family and raise this companion with Herod. And it could be that that's what this is saying, is that Menaen was raised in Herod's household with him. Pretty cool. But here's Manan and Saul and Simeon and Barnabas. So there's a Jewish rabbi and there's an African man and there's a man who maybe grew up in the court of the king. And they're not really concerned about all those differences. They're just listed there. But what they're concerned about is let's just all join together and let's just teach these people the Bible. They gotta know the truth about the Lord. And so you see a church here in Antioch that was saturated with sound Bible teaching over years. Okay, six characteristics of a church that catches men, just so we look at Antioch and what made them what they were. So they're pursuing their mission locally, they're saturated in Bible teaching, and third, we see from them, they're earnestly praying. If we wanna be a church that catches men, we need to be earnestly praying. Look at Acts 13, verse two. While they were ministering to the Lord and fasting, The Holy Spirit said, set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them. Then when they had fasted and prayed and lay their hands on them, they sent them away. So the church in Antioch is gathered together and first in verse two, it just says that they've gathered together and they're fasting. Fasting and praying always goes together in scripture. When someone's fasting, you know why they're doing it. It's because they're pouring out their heart to God. Fasting isn't something that's commanded in the New Testament. We're never told we must fast, but it's something that's encouraged. Essentially, if you have something that is an earnest request you wanna bring before the Lord, like it's heavy on your heart and you just wanna pour out your soul to Him, one way that you can do that is while you're praying, don't eat. And the hunger in your stomach kind of adds to the urgency of your soul so that you can cry out to God with all that you have. And that's what the church is doing here in Acts 13. And so they're fasting. In verse two, it doesn't even tell us what they're fasting about. It doesn't tell us what they're asking. It could be that they're gathered together and they're saying, Lord, what's next? Like we've taught all these people that were here in Antioch, what's next? It could be they're asking that. We don't know for sure what they're asking. We just know what the Spirit says in answer to their fasting. What happens is God comes and he says, set apart for me Barnabas and Saul, I wanna send them away to the work that I called them. Then when they get that news, they fast and pray and they lay their hands on them and they do, they send them away. That leads to the fourth characteristic of a church that catches men. We need to send our best to reach those without access to the gospel. A church that pleases Jesus, that's catching men, will send their best away to reach those without access to the gospel. Now this mission Jesus gave to us after he had risen from the dead, Matthew 28 says that Jesus said, go and make disciples of what? Every nation, right? All nations. And the last thing that Jesus ever said before he ascended to heaven. So he's talking to his disciples and they see him go up into the clouds. The last thing that he says to them before he goes is Acts 1.8. You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth. So they're praying and God says, the Spirit says, I want you to do this. I want you to go to the end of the earth. This is my passion. Send Barnabas and Saul. And so they do. Okay, question I have. If we were to fast and pray as a church, and say, oh God, you're blessing us, we're teaching the word, we've been able to do that for a long time, and there's people that are growing and coming to the Lord, and there's a lot of people in our community that need the gospel, what would be next for us? Would the spirit say the same thing to us? If you were gonna speak specifically to us, what do you say? Lamar's Bible Church? How much you send this person and this person? Or is that something that was for the early church and we've kinda got that accomplished now? I mean, then most of the world hadn't heard of Jesus. What's the status now? Is there still this burning in the heart of God for people out there that need to hear? I want you to watch this video. I think we maybe have it queued up that talks about the need of the world. 7,000 unreached people groups. Okay, I think we need to ask ourselves a question. So, unreached means there's nobody, they don't have the Bible in their language, there's not Christians there, they're not, unless something changes, they're not ever gonna hear about Jesus. Okay, question, what happens to the people in those unreached people groups if they die and they don't ever hear about Jesus? Let's look for the answer to that question in Romans. If you're in Acts, just go over one more book, over to Romans chapter 9. Or Romans 10, actually. If you're going to the right, one book from Acts. What happens if the people in those unreached people groups die and they haven't ever heard about Jesus? Which is probably what will be the case, unless something changes. Romans chapter 10 verse 9. Well we have, so many of us have this verse memorized because it's so great. It's so wonderful. Romans 10 9 it says, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. And so around the room we're like, I've believed in Jesus. I've confessed him as my Savior and I have been saved. Right? It's wonderful. Go to verse 13, it says the same thing. For everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. But our question is, what if they don't ever hear about the name of the Lord? Verse 14. How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him in whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they're sent As it is written, how beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news. But they have not all obeyed the gospel. Isaiah says, Lord who has believed what he has heard from us. So faith comes from hearing and hearing through the word of Christ. What's this verse say? If they don't ever hear, they can't ever be saved. So if someone is born and lived and they die and they don't ever hear the name of Jesus, then they're gonna stand before God as their judge and they've lived a sinful life and so they're gonna face eternal punishment. And God is just and they had the truth that they could have responded to and they rejected it, but if they didn't ever hear the name of Jesus, that's the only way of salvation. So the task that Jesus gave to his church 2,000 years ago, it still stands incomplete. And that's why our church supports 25 missionaries. That's why we have a missions conference every year. It's because like we can't lose sight of the fact that those people are still desperately in need of someone to come and tell them about the Lord. There's a lot of young people in the room. It was fun. I was walking into the church through the foyer today. And I was thinking if someone came to visit right now they would think we're a very young church. And in some way we are, we've got a good mix. So there's a lot of young people in the room, young people that are here today. What if, what if you decided, listen, I'm gonna, with my life, I'm gonna follow Jesus and what I would like to do is try to reach one of those 7,000 unreached people groups. Like it's not going to be easy because that's why they're still unreached but but I'm I'm just gonna I'm gonna prepare and I'm gonna pray and I'm gonna see if God would send me to one of those 7,000 unreached people groups and so I get over there somehow and tell them about the Lord and somehow by the time that I'm done with my life there'd be 6,999. But those people would have a chance to hear about Jesus. Like, what do you want to do with your life that's going to make an impact like that? And the rest of us, God isn't going to send every one of us. But what if they decide to go? Will we send them? Right? Because if you're going to do it, it's going to be hard. You're going to need financial support. And the people here in Antioch, when they sent Paul and Barnabas off, they laid their hands on them and they cried and they wept and they prayed. And they sent money ahead to them so that they could keep on with the work. If someone here says, I'll go, will the rest of us say, we'll send you? This is what God calls us to. Six characteristics of a church that catches men. We must be sending our best to reach those without access to the gospel. Number five, we must be ready to face opposition. If we're going to do that, we must be ready to face opposition. Like if we just say, hey guys, we got a nice church building here and it's air-conditioned and let's get good snacks and we'll do some nice things in our community. get to know each other well, and this is gonna be great. If we just do that, maybe Satan's not gonna be that opposed to stopping us, because what are we doing? But if we say, listen, we want people to be saved, so we're gonna take the message of Jesus to our neighbors, and we're gonna take it to the end of the earth, and we like dive into that with all of our heart, now we're gonna face opposition. We see that here in Acts 13. Paul and Barnabas leave from Antioch. They're sent out by the church. This is the first of Paul's missionary journeys. The first place they go is to this island of Cyprus. And as they get to the island of Cyprus, the governor of the whole island is interested in hearing the gospel. Paul and Barnabas are trying to explain it to him, but Satan raises up a deceiver. Look there with Acts 13. Keep following this story. Go back to Acts chapter 13, verse six. This is something Satan does, he raises up liars, false teachers to try to stop the truth. Acts 13, six. When they had gone through the whole island as far as Paphos, they came upon a certain magician, a Jewish false prophet named Bar-Jesus. He was with the proconsul, Sergius Paulus, a man of intelligence who summoned Barnabas and Saul and sought to hear the word of God. But Elimus, the magician, for that is the meaning of his name, opposed them, seeking to turn the proconsul away from the faith. Satan resists the good news by sending deceivers. Satan also resists the good news by bringing division. It's one of his great tactics. He tries to divide believers against one another. They saw that in their first missionary journey right away. So after they're at Cyprus, the next place they went was to Perga. Look ahead a few verses to Acts 13, 13, as Satan brings division even to this missionary team. Now Paul and his companions set sail from Paphos and came to Perga in Pamphylia. And John, this is John Mark, John left them. If we take the context of the rest of the Bible, we know he just, he left them high and dry. He abandoned them when they needed him. And went back home to Jerusalem. Why did John leave them? We don't know for sure. There's different things that we could guess. One thing that might be happening, John might not, appreciate Paul's leadership style. It kind of seems like when they leave Antioch, the idea is that Barnabas is gonna be the leader. They're saying Barnabas and Paul, Barnabas and Paul, and then it switches, and it starts saying Paul and Barnabas, and maybe John Mark doesn't like the way that Paul is leading. Could be. We do know, as we look around the mission field, maybe the number one reason why missionaries return from the field today is that they're unable to get along with their fellow missionaries. John MacArthur tells a story about a trip he took into the Andes Mountains. There he saw a beautiful missions compound with a hospital and all the finest equipment. There was a radio station and there was homes for missionaries, but it was empty. And John said, well, where are all the missionaries? Where are the doctors? The answer was, they couldn't get along with each other and they all left. Satan resists the good news every way he can. I know of missionaries that have been talking to us and saying, well, we need to raise more support because our church back home divided. And because of that division, we lost the support we used to have. So the division can be on either side of the team. Another way that Satan resists the good news, he resists the good news by making things difficult for missionaries. By making things difficult for missionaries. So, they're coming here on their trip. They come up to Perga. We don't know why John Mark leaves. It could be because of some sort of interpersonal thing, or it could be because things got hard in Perga. We do know that things got hard in Perga. This is a low-lying area. It was famous for its malaria and We know that Paul got sick here because we have Galatians 4 13 Where he writes about that time, you know, it was because of a bodily ailment that I preached the gospel to you at first So what's going on? It seems like Paul when he comes to Perga means to keep going west like he did in his later missionary journey so that to go to Philippi and Corinth and Ephesus But because he gets sick, Paul changes his plan. He says, the reason I came to you in Galatia was because I got sick. Well, it may be that he contracts malaria or something down here in Perga, and he wants to get up to the highlands, and so he takes this road. But that's not an easy path, even for somebody healthy. It's a hundred mile trip through the mountains here, the Taurus Mountains, up to Antioch, and this part of the road was famous for the rivers often being swollen as you're trying to cross it, and the Romans were good at keeping the bandits down on most roads, but not this one. And so it's a dangerous trek. Maybe Paul gets sick, says we're going to head up to Galatia instead. John Mark says this is not what I signed up for. I'm going back to Jerusalem. But Satan often opposes us by making things hard. So Every year when it comes to missions conference, I like to try to find a missionary biography that I haven't read. I just, I always am encouraged by reading missionary biographies. And so I was looking on Amazon, trying to find one that I hadn't read that people reviewed like, they liked it. And so I just kind of randomly chose this. book. It's the story of Dylene Dibler-Rose, Evidence Not Seen. I didn't really know much about her, I just, the book seemed interesting, and so I ordered it and started to read it. And as I'm reading it, she's working in, she calls it, Netherlands, New Guinea. I was thinking, well, Phyllis Masters worked in Dutch New Guinea. And this lady's about 20 years ahead of Phyllis. And so I found Phyllis Masters that goes to our church. I said, Phyllis, do you know Darlene Deibler? And she says, oh, yes. I met her on the mission fields. You tell me the story about how she. Well, anyway, long story. You can talk to Phyllis. But so I'm telling the story. And Phyllis is like, well, let me tell you what happens. Like, no, don't tell me. I got to read the book. And so I start reading. So Satan makes it hard for missionaries and it was hard for them. So her husband, they were trying to open up a new tribe and people hadn't been there. It's not like there's roads. And so they, he, he cuts his way through the jungle and treks, goes on this long trek and out and leaves her behind. She's praying. He comes back and when he gets back, his, his feet are so like destroyed and infected from this journey that he took. that he's an invalid for a while while she's nursing him back to health. It talks about how she has to care for his feet every day while he's getting better. He does get better. Eventually, she goes with him to this tribe. And I think just the things that she's eating is difficulty, personally, in the tribe. Like, ooh. But they're there, and God's blessing. And it's neat to read. So some of the people start to believe. They learn the language. They're telling them about Jesus. It's great. And then the book takes a turn that I was not. I didn't. I should have known World War II is in the title. But what happens is, World War II comes, Japan takes over the whole region. And Darlene and her husband get arrested by the shock troops that came in and thrown into prisoner of war camps. And so she's separated from him. And the man who was in charge of her Her prisoner of war camp is horrible cruel man. His name is. Mr. Yamaji and Honestly if I was gonna tell you a takeaway from this book it's that The you can be in the the worst possible situation and God can get you through because like the my worst nightmares is like what this this prison camp is horrible and this man is so cruel he has a temper and and it's women's prison camp and if somebody does something he doesn't approve of. He'll bring all the other prisoners and have him stand there while he just beats this woman with his cane in his boots. Um, there's people that die because of his beating them. He's just horrible. He's, she feels his cane. Well, he actually gets worse. She moves to a different prison camp that's worse than that one and she's trusting in the Lord, but it's a struggle. So we need to be real. Okay, so, and you're like, well, why is she there in this prison camp? It's because she went over there to tell the people about Jesus. And there's this strong opposition. So if we're gonna be a church that catches men, we should be ready to face opposition. Sixth, we should be ready to see God work. If we're taking the Lord's mission as ours and we're going out to catch men through opposition, we should also be ready to see God at work. Okay, do you remember the false teacher that came, Acts chapter 13? He's opposing Paul, he's sharing the gospel right in Cyprus. Let's go back and finish that story. Acts 13, nine. So this man is not letting the governor listen to them. Acts 13, nine. But Saul, who was also called Paul, filled with the Holy Spirit, looked intently at him and said, you son of the devil, you enemy of all righteousness, full of all deceit and villainy, will you not stop making crooked the straight paths of the Lord? And now behold, the hand of the Lord is upon you and you will be blind and unable to see the sun for a time. Immediately mist and darkness fell upon him and he went about seeking people to lead him by the hand. Then the proconsul believed when he saw what had occurred, for he was astonished at the teaching of the Lord. Do you remember John Mark, who abandoned Paul and the team when things got rough? Well, eventually, John Mark repented, and he joined a missions team, traveled with Barnabas, and then after that, he came back around and he was working with Paul. Paul mentions him later in his letters as a man that's been useful to him in the ministry, so God redeemed him. Do you remember how Paul had to go to Galatia? He got sick and so he had to go to Galatia instead of going where he wanted to go. Well, now we have the book of Galatians. Because as he got there he shared the gospel with people and they responded to the good news. And who's one of those Galatians that gets saved? It's Timothy, one of the greatest preachers of the gospel that we've known in history. All came out of the difficulty, the sickness that caused him to have to go to Galatia against his will. Do you remember Darlene Deibler in this Japanese prisoner of war camp? Did I say her husband died? The news comes that in the other prisoner of war camp her husband dies. Everybody in camp knows about it. Mr. Yamaji, the cruel leader of the camp, calls Darlene to his office. He says to her, and this is the first time that she's ever seen this side of him, He says, you are very young. Someday the war will be over and you can go back to America. You have been a great help to the other women in the camp. I ask of you, don't lose your smile. There's kindness here that she had never seen in him. She says, Mr. Yamaji, may I have permission to talk to you? He says yes, so they sit down. Mr. Yamaji, she says, Darlene says to him, I don't sorrow like those who have no hope. I want to tell you about someone of whom you may have never heard. I learned about him when I was a little girl in Sunday school in Boone, Iowa, back in America. His name is Jesus. He's the son of Almighty God, the creator of heaven and earth. And as Darlene shares the good news with her cruel captor, she observes tears starting to run down his cheeks. She said, he died for you, Mr. Yamaji, and he puts love in our hearts, even for those who are our enemies. That's why I don't hate you, Mr. Yamaji. Maybe God brought me to this place and this time to tell you he loves you. Mr. Yamaji gets up and runs out of the room. We keep reading to the end of the book. So the war ends, the Americans come and liberate her from her prison. Her husband died, so she goes back to the United States for a while, meets another man. She's determined to go back and do missions. And so they go back, and she and her new husband pioneer the work with the Donnie people, who Phil and Phyllis, masters, also worked with. Also at great cost, right? But also with great reward. She'll come to the end of the book, the end of her life. There's a, on the last page, she hears from someone who's been listening to the radio. She says, Darlene, you'd be interested in this. I heard Mr. Yamaji on the radio. He was talking to the Japanese people about the gospel of Jesus Christ. Will we be a church that catches men? Will we be Christians that catch men and women for Jesus and bring them to life in him? For Darlene Deibler, it all started as a nine-year-old. She was at church for a missionary conference. She heard a missionary presentation about the need of the nations, and she responded as a nine-year-old girl, Lord, I'd go anywhere with you no matter the cost. And then God opened up the door for her to do that with her life. May the Spirit send us. Let's pray. Father, these things are so significant And yet it's the unseen world and people's eternal souls, sometimes that's just not the thing we see and not the thing we think about. And so we pray that what is your passion would be ours. And you don't desire that any would be lost, but that all would come to repentance. Whether it be those that live next to us or those that live far away but don't have anybody that can tell them about Jesus. Will you send us to them? that you might be praised, that they might have eternal life, that we could be part of the work you're doing in the world. We pray these things in Jesus' name, amen.