Thank you, appreciate the good song. And once again, it is good to have Brother Baker here. And I think of Sunday, Miss Baker, he had his bib on. If you eat with him, he always puts that napkin that's a bib over his shirt. And he said, don't steal my bib. And I told him, I said, brother, that's like your mantle. And I said, I'm waiting for you to pass that thing down to me like Elijah did to Elisha. And so every time he'd get up, I was wanting to take that thing, just so I could have a little bit of Roger Baker on me. Amen. You know I love you. He said the other night, he said, I was going to say something about you, and he said, and I forgot. And I thought, oh, I'm glad he forgot, because it would have been a good one, I'm sure. Preacher, would you come? Well, I'll tell you, your pastor, he's a... You know, there's so many good things I could say about him. I just can't think of one right now. But if I can think of one, I'll say it before the week's out, all right? Let me tell you this, if you won't tell all my preacher friends, if I moved to this area, this would be the church I'd want to attend. I don't tell my preacher friends that live in this area, okay? God bless you. We've enjoyed being here this week, me and Diane have, and you folks are kind and friendly, and boy, have you fed us this week. I'm about fed up. But in fact, if y'all do this every week, we'll think about moving our membership up here. Yeah, we might even do that, amen? When I get home this week, I'm gonna have to go on a garlic diet. You ever been on a garlic diet? You know what garlic smells like. You don't lose any weight, you just look thinner at a distance. Some of y'all get that a little bit later on. We have some of those little booklets. If you didn't bring a visitor tonight, bring one tomorrow night. And if you don't bring a visitor, you can take one. If you got some money, leave it on there, and I'm gonna put it in the pot here at the church and the mission meeting. But there's a good number of little books over there. I used to carry them around with me, but I just had to kind of stop that. But anyway, just be sure to make use of them. Get those. You know, I think about this little poem here. Others, Lord, yes others, let this my motto be. Help me to live for others that I might live like thee. And it's all about other people, isn't it? And praise the Lord for God's goodness. You know, the preacher was talking about growing and things like that, and I was just thinking, if you take, I saw statistics, I got my calculator out to make sure it was right. If you take 10 people, let's take this church. There's 10 people in here somewhere, and you 10 would come together, and let's cover it together. And we're going to, and this wouldn't be a great challenge, I mean, it should be greater, but, and just say, if every 18 months, these 10 could double their sales. In other words, each one of you could win one and disciple them in 18 months. That's a pretty good period of time. And then when you won those 10, you got 20. Now if that 20 would win one and disciple them, then you got 40. And you do that, and in less than nine years, you have a thousand people. And we wonder, well, how do you grow a church preacher? Well, just get you one every 18 months, find you nine other people to do it, you'll have a thousand people after about nine and a half years. And so, you know, it just works out, you know, if you just do what we need to do. But anyway, I want you to turn in your Bibles tonight, and I'm gonna kind of emphasize home missions a little bit tonight. And I did it on a good night when New York was presented And I didn't realize that's the way it was gonna turn out, but that's good. I've had preachers. In fact, I had two preachers, not but a few weeks apart. One of them said, preacher, I got an idea. Our church, I'm gonna lead our church in this. I said, what you gonna do? He said, I'll tell you what. He said, America's had its chance. We've snubbed our nose at God. He said, we're gonna take all of our mission's money, and we're not gonna support any American missionaries going to America, and we're gonna send it all overseas, because America's had its chance. He said, what do you think about that? I said, you really want to know what I think about it? He said, yeah. I said, there's a little titsy-litsy problem. He said, what's the problem? I said, it's unscriptural. It's unscriptural. It was within three weeks, I guess, or less than a month. I know a guy come to me, he said, Preacher, if we don't win America, man, what are we going to do? We're going to lose our own country. We won't even have churches to send missions around the world. So what we've decided is we're thinking seriously about just giving all of our money to America because we've got to save America. And they said, well, you think about that. And I said, well, I had a guy ask me the opposite question not long ago, but there's a little time to answer the problem. It's not scriptural. The Bible says that we go, we're witnesses of His. He tells us exactly where to do it at. He said we do it in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, to the uttermost parts of the world. And it's preceded by the word both, and the word both means simultaneously. You don't try to reach America and let the world go to hell, or we don't try to reach the world and let America go to hell. The Bible said we're to be doing it all at the same time. And so may God help us to do that. So tonight I'm gonna stress a little bit the home missions part of it. And I wanna preach a message I've entitled Antioch, The Model Church. It was one of the first churches, maybe the second church in existence. We don't know that for a fact, because the Bible doesn't tell us that. But we do know that the church at Jerusalem was the first church. And soon after that church was born and organized, one of the next churches, or pretty soon after that, was Antioch. And you say, why do you call it the model church? I'm convinced of this. In fact, let's just go ahead and read a little bit here, then we'll come back to it. Look at verse number eight. I wanna talk to you about the church at Antioch tonight. The Bible said in Saul, I wanna find out who these people are at Antioch, so we're gonna go back to their roots here. And Saul was consenting unto his death, unto Stephen's death. Stephen was being stoned to death, and Saul was present. He was a lost man at the time. And at that time, there was great persecution against the church, which was at Jerusalem. And they, the church at Jerusalem, those at Jerusalem, were all scattered abroad throughout the regions of Judea, Samaria, except the apostles. and so we know the bible makes this statement and keep it in mind uh... yeah i'm all get bring a point out on in just a little bit the possible state in jerusalem i'm sure they had good reason to do that And devout men carried Stephen to his burial, and made great lamentation over him. As for Saul, he made havoc of the church, entering into every house, and hailing men and women, committed them to prison. Father, I pray that you will speak to our hearts tonight about the local assembly there in Antioch. God, what a great church that became! But before it became a great missionary church, it became something else. And so I pray tonight that we'll learn from it, because we do believe that the New Testament is our pattern, and especially the epistles, the book of Acts, is our pattern to follow. And I pray you'll help us to do just that, in Jesus' name, amen. You see, when these people headed up north, there was a church planted as a result of the people leaving Jerusalem, headed up north, and the church at Antioch was founded. now i'm concerned i'm convinced that we got a re we got a i'm not one of these guys rethinking the rapture like well it may not be here might be there we're going to change that's not what i'm talking about but i will tell you what we need to really look at the purpose of the local church and i can't go into course all that tonight your preacher i know preaches on that but uh... is so violent that we understand what this thing is all about you got a i think what i'm a double preach to me tonight I'm gonna preach to your pastor tonight, and I'm gonna preach to the staff tonight, and I'm gonna preach to you folks tonight. So everybody's gonna be included in this sermon. You say, preacher, you believe this church was a model church? I really believe it was. But we've got to get back to understand how it functioned. And I believe it's our pattern and we need to learn this New Testament pattern and think it through and examine it because I believe there's so much more that we could be doing. Now I remember when I was just a little boy, my daddy run a Well, they had a jewelry store, had a grocery store, and had an appliance store in a little small town in eastern North Carolina. And I remember we had one of the first black and white TVs. And I can just remember it, and this was just before the caveman days, but I can just remember it, and the picture would kind of get snowy or kind of wavy or whatever, just a little screen, only had two or three channels on it. And my daddy would say, son, go over there and hit the reset button. and there was a little red button on the back of that TV, I don't know if any of y'all remember some of those things, and you push that little button, and many times it'd clear up the TV. The snow would go away, the waves would quit waving, and it would just bring it back into focus. And you know, I think to myself, you know, that's what we have to do from time to time. I used to take a ministry or two ministries every year and try to bring them back into focus and work on them and improve them. Then I'd take two different ones the next year. But I believe sometime it would be good for us to do the church that way as well. When you find the Lord Jesus Christ coming into this world, in Mark chapter 1 we have the first words. We believe they're the first words. Certainly they are in Mark, but maybe the first words. And you know what Jesus said to His followers? He said, follow me and I'll make you fishers of men. So our Lord came into this world to seek and to save that which is lost. Do you know the last words that we find Jesus speaking on this earth prior to His ascension? He said this. He said, but you shall receive power after the Holy Ghost has come upon you and you're gonna be my witnesses. So the Lord began His ministry talking about being a witness and a fisher of men. He ended His ministry talking about being a witness and a fisher of men. and you would think maybe in between all of this that we would get a hold of the fact that that's what the church is all about, His church, and that's what He did. Well, this is going to be a little different. I'm going to give you instead of points, I'm going to give you truths. Truth number one, you say, well, preacher, if we're going to reach the world, how are we going to do that? I tell you what I did, it took me a long time to ever find where these people went. I don't know why, it takes me a long time to discover stuff. But these folks left and where did they go, preacher? Well, let's turn over to chapter 11 and we'll find that same group and God's gonna tell us some things about that group of people that were scattered and left Jerusalem with no preachers. I think there's evidence there were no preachers with them, but there were certainly no apostles with them. But look at chapter 11 and verse number 19, and let's make sure it's the same group we're talking about. Now, they which were scattered abroad upon the persecution that arose about Stephen. Rick, maybe that's the same group. I mean, it's identical, the wording there. The Bible said they traveled as far as Phoenix and Cyprus and Antioch, preaching the Word to none but unto the Jews only. And some of them were men of Cyprus and Cyrene, which when they were come to Antioch, they spake unto the Grecians, or the Gentiles, preaching the Lord Jesus. And the hand of the Lord was upon them, and a great number believed and turned unto the Lord. Now, truth number one, this is our pattern, and I believe that when they called for, when that church was founded, I don't believe that it was founded by preachers. Now, I'm for preachers, and the Lord Jesus gave pastors and teachers and evangelists to the church, and so God's for that. But there are some certain circumstances, and we find one of them at the beginning of chapter eight, when a crowd of Christians left town for several reasons. Number one, they were frightened, they were afraid. The apostles didn't go with them. They stayed in Jerusalem. And so they go up north. And you know what you find? You find that the key in the early church, I'm talking about the church at Antioch and maybe others, the key was not the preachers. And the preachers are keys. I believe a preacher is maybe the key individual in the church. But when it comes to reaching to our community and reaching our world, the preacher is not the key. You know who's the key? The rank and file members of the church. And you find that. Listen, every one of y'all that's saved tonight has a spiritual, or more than one, spiritual gift. God has given you something, God has given me something, your pastor something. He's given us special abilities that we can do something better than we could naturally because God has gifted us in this area. You find those gifts listed in your New Testament. I challenge you, find out what your spiritual gift is, or gifts are, and man, start using them, and you'll find that your life will change, brother, and I'll tell you, you'll have a great time. But I believe one of Satan's greatest victories in our generation, especially our generation, and it's a tragedy, but he has convinced the average church member that they don't have the ability to reach lost people, they don't have the training to reach lost people, and some of them, God forbid, don't even believe it's your responsibility to reach lost people. In fact, you hired a preacher to do that. Now, let me tell you, this is above average church. I can just tell you of the churches I go in. This is a wonderful church. You have a lot of people involved, a lot of people serving, and praise the Lord for that. But I remember when I started pastoring, I had a man who was a charter member come to me, and he said, I'm a little bothered. I said, what's wrong with you, Carl? He said, I'm bothered. He said, there's not enough people being saved around here. And I said, man, my heart's broken too. I wish there was more people being saved. He said, well, that's why we hired you. And I said, well, I said, I've had the joy and privilege in the few months I've been here to win Brother So-and-so and Miss So-and-so and teenager over here. And I had, I said, how many of you won? He said, well, I'll tell you, that's why it's a preacher's job. I said, let me tell you something. I can't do what God's called you to do. I can't pray your prayers. I can pray for you, but God wants you to pray. I can't pray your prayers for you. I can't witness for you. And people get that idea sometimes. And so, God deliver us from a mild case of Christianity that thinks that the preacher was hired to do what God wants the church to do. Now, I'm going somewhere with that, so you hang on, okay? I believe that Antioch may have very well been the most mission-minded church in all of the New Testament. And there were some that were really mission-minded. I mean, the book of the church at Philippi. I mean, you go right on down. But I believe, what was it that led to the burden, their burden for a lost world? How did that whole church get a burden for the whole world? They got a burden for where they were at. Let me tell you something, you find churches that they lose their heart for their community, they'll lose their heart for the mission field. At least Dwayne, I'll tell you that. And so who were these people here that were scattered from Jerusalem? They were people that were frightened. And they left and they went up to Jerusalem. You say, well, preacher, how do you know they didn't have a preacher? I can't prove that, but I'm kind of convinced of it. Look down, and I want to show you something here. We're going to do a little word study, and then we'll move on to the message. Look, if you would, in chapter 8 of Acts, and you're going to find out when they scattered in verse number 4, they were scattered abroad. They went everywhere preaching the Word. Now, I believe that, I have no problem with my translation of the Bible. I'm a King James man, I'll be a King James man when I die, amen? And I just, I have a hard time with people that are not in English speaking countries like ours. But you can look up words to find the meanings of them, get you an old Strong's Concordance, and just look up words and find the definitions of them. You'll find that this word right here, preached, is a word for preaching, preaching the Word. It's a word for evangelize or witness to somebody. And that's a good translation. It's proclaiming the Word, whether it's to one person or to a congregation of people. So that word preaches used two ways in our New Testament. And one of them is to witness. Now look one verse down and you'll see the same word a little different word, look at it. Then Philip went down to the city of Samaria, he was an evangelist by the way, and he preached Christ unto them. Now if you get that same Strong's Concordance and look up the word preached there, it's a little different word. Now, it still is a good translation because it means to proclaim, but it's like the word is caruso and it's like a public crier. It's like a man representing the king. He goes to the city square, gets him a soapbox, gets up on it. Hear ye, hear ye, I've got a message from the king. And he proclaims publicly to a crowd of people the message of the king. So that's the word that's used for Philip who was an evangelist who went down and had a revival meeting and was preaching to crowds of people. But when it talks about these people going up north to Antioch, it uses the word evangelize, and when you get over to chapter 11, when it says they preached, it's the same word. And so, you would think if they had a preacher with them, I mean a man called to preach, if there was a God-called man or even an apostle, and we know there wasn't an apostle, because the Bible tells there wasn't, you would think that they would be up on the soapbox, as it were, preaching to a group of people. at least somewhere along the way, but you don't find that anywhere. So these people were frightened, and they left town, and they made their way up north. But you know what they were? They were still faithful. They may have been frightened and scattered, but they were faithful. Now go back to Acts chapter 11 here. And my truth I'm trying to get across is that the most important people in the church, as far as getting the church to grow and reaching this world, is the rank and file church members. And I'm gonna explain that to you. In fact, let's just do it a little bit right now. Let's say, and I don't know what your congregation is, so I'm gonna use a simple number, because I like simple things, amen. All right, let's say you got 100 folks here. Okay, you got 100 folks here. You got 100 folks here tonight. Okay, so we're gonna consider ourselves, you know, we are in the army of the Lord, we're soldiers of Christ. So, who's gonna have the most influence as far as winning people, seeing people in the community, trying to reach people? One man or 99? You see where I'm coming from? Okay. So if you just hired him to do the soul winning and the reaching of the world, which you did, and I understand it's a different philosophy here, and praise the Lord. But if you really thought that, then he's only 1% of the congregation. But if you believe that everybody, including the preacher, has a similar responsibility of reaching this world and reaching lost souls in your Jerusalem, then you're going to be 99 times more influential than he is, you see. What about giving? You think he's going to give more than all 99 put together? I don't think so. You see, we forget that the rank and file church member has gifts of the Spirit that they can use for the glory of God. They are also commanded to reach people, to witness to people, to see people get saved. And so 99 people in the congregation has more influence than one man can go around and witness in this community. See what I'm saying? So this church, the church at Antioch, understood that, knew that, and they were faithful. So as they went north, according to chapter 11 of the book of Acts, they witnessed, the word preaching is the same word for witness, they were witnessing, and the hand of the Lord was with them, and many people got saved. And you know what they did? They started a church in Antioch. Man, they started a church in Antioch and they were reaching their community. They were not only faithful, they were fruitful. God was blessing in that church. And you know, it was in that church of God's people, the rank and file people that were winning those Grecians to the Lord, those Gentiles and whoever else was there, winning those people to the Lord. It was those people that started what we would call modern missions. Because this same church, when you move over a chapter or two to chapter 13, they had a burden for the regions beyond. They were winning their own community, the rank and file church members were, and they had a burden for the world. And so, old Barnabas came up to the church to find out what was going on. The people at Jerusalem said, man, there's something going on up there. Go up there and find out what's happening up there. Well, when he got there, he saw the grace of God. Now, how do you see the grace of God? You take a picture of the grace of God. I mean, how do you... You have a microscope to see... How do you see the grace of God? You see the results of the grace of God. And he saw people, probably the whole city was pagan, and they get up there and they start witnessing, and these people are getting saved. Lives are being changed. Homes are being brought back together. Drunkards are being made sober. Idolaters are being made right with God Almighty. I mean, on and on it goes. Immoral people are being made pure and clean. So here was the church, and the church started, I believe, by the rank and file saved people in that area. Now they were glad when old Barnabas got up there, but they were doing what a church's supposed to do before the apostle got up there, before the preacher got up there. And so he said, man, this is great. Man, there was more, by the way, more people got saved after he got up there. Verse 24, the latter part. And much people was added unto the Lord. There was so many people getting saved, He needed some help. And those folks were evidently still winning people to the Lord, because more people got saved. And so in verse 25, he departed Barnabas to Tarsus for to seek Saul. He said, I need some help. Man, this thing is growing, this thing is mushrooming. So he went up and got Saul. When he found him, he brought him into Antioch, and it came to pass that a whole year they assembled themselves with the church and taught much people. How would you like to sit on Sunday morning under the preaching of Barnabas and the Apostle Paul? Probably would have been pretty good teaching, amen? And they taught much people, and the disciples were called Christians first in Antioch. So the first truth is, the most influential people in a church is the rank and file. I'm not saying the pastor is not a key to a church, and God has given pastors to churches, and churches ought to have pastors. But this was a unique situation, and it started out this way, and I'm convinced that this church became the pattern of all the New Testament churches. Now, here's why I believe this. Barnabas was there, and Paul was there, and this is a new church, fairly new church. And so they're developing that church. They're teaching those people. They're teaching them what to do and how to do it. And as they were formulating what a local church ought to really be like, by the way, there were five things that church did, and here's, they evangelized the lost. Every church is to evangelize the lost, amen? They were edifying believers. They were teaching the people. They were exalting the Lord Jesus Christ. How do you know that, preacher? Because it wasn't God that gave them the name. The pagans gave them the name of Christian. It's only used three times in your Bible. And so they were given that name. Why? It means belonging to Christ or Christ ones. So evidently those people so magnified Christ, so lived the life of Christ, so testified about Jesus, sang about him, praised him, and lifted him up, that those pagans said, man, they're a bunch of Christ-like ones. And man, praise the Lord. So they exalted Christ. And every church is supposed to exalt Christ. We don't exalt the preacher, we don't exalt other people, we exalt Christ. That's what we're supposed to do, evangelize the lost, edify the believers, you've got to teach those you win. Exalting Christ. And then they were a loving church, they expressed love. I believe a good New Testament church has love in it, and I've detected love at Currytown Baptist Church, and I love that, amen. I love detecting love in a church. And so, you say, how'd they express love? Well, if you go on down to verse 27, you'll find out that a prophet came up there and said, you know, they're getting ready to have a bad dearth down in Judea. In verse 29, then the disciples, every man according to his ability, determined to send relief unto the brethren which dwelt at Judea. They took an offering. You say, well now wait a minute, preacher, that's no big deal. You can take an offering, how does that have to do with love? Who were they? When they went up north, who made up the population up north in Antioch? Gentiles. So the majority of the people in this church at Antioch were probably, no doubt, Gentiles. Now what was the majority of people in the church down at Jerusalem and in Judea? Jews. Now let me say, when you look into the Gospels, you find out that during the days of Jesus, the Jews hated the Gentiles, and the Gentiles hated the Jews, and they didn't get along. Now the Jews were supposed to be a witness under the Gentiles, but man, they didn't witness to them, they hated them with a passion. So now you've got a predominantly Gentile church up north sending their hard-earned money down to a bunch of Jewish Christians in Judea. Now let me tell you something, brother. The Lord Jesus Christ can take all the prejudice right out of you. And those Gentiles had a love for those Jewish believers. And brother, what a thrill that is to see when love is expressed. And then the fifth thing this church had, it not only exalted Christ and expressed love, but it established churches all over the world. For when you and I flip over one page, if you would please, to chapter 13, Now there were in the church, that was at Antioch, certain prophets and teachers, and it goes on down, gives those, verse 2, they ministered unto the Lord and fasted. The Holy Ghost said, separate me, Barnabas and Saul, for the work were unto I have called them. And when they had fasted and prayed, they laid hands on them and they sent them away. They sent their men and they sent their money. And so they being sent forth by the Holy Ghost. Wait a minute, I thought verse three said the church sent them. Now it says in verse four, the Holy Ghost sent them. Who sent them, preacher? Yes. The Holy Spirit works through His church, amen? And so they sent them, and where did they send them? They sent them out into the regions beyond to preach the gospel and plant other churches. And the reason I think this was probably a model church, this was the only church really that Saul and Barnabas were very familiar with, and they helped develop it. They helped develop it. So don't you think they would have gone out on the mission field and planted churches like this one? I think they did. So they planted churches that were evangelistic, edified the believers, exalted Christ, expressed love for others, and established other churches, amen? So truth number one, the rank and file church member is the key growing a church. Number two truth, the primary task of a pastor. I told you I was gonna preach to me and the pastor. The primary task of a preacher and a pastor is found in Ephesians 4, 11, and 12. I want you to turn there real quick, and I'm just about through. You've said that before. I know it, but I'm gonna do my best. Look at Ephesians 4. This changed my life when I was at Calvary, second year. I was there a total of 40, but 32 as a pastor. But anyway, this verse of scripture, these two scriptures changed my life. Look if you would, if I can find it here in just a moment. Look at, yeah, verse 11 of chapter 4 of the book of Ephesians. And He, meaning Jesus, gave some apostles and some prophets, some evangelists and some pastors and teachers, what for? Well, all of them have a similar purpose, not the same, but a similar one. Here's their similarity. What do I want these people to do, evangelists and pastors and teachers? What do I want them to do? For the perfecting of the saints for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ. So he said, I want the preacher to perfect the saints. To perfect it means to equip them. It's a nautical term of ships and it means you're getting ready, you got a ship here. Where's the safest place for a ship? In the harbor. But that's not why ships are built. to sit in the harbor there to go out, amen, and fulfill its purpose. And so this word was used of ship. Make sure you got everything on this ship. Make sure everything's just what you need. Make sure when you get out there, you're not lacking something. You equip this ship with what it needs. You equip these believers with what they need to serve the Lord. And truth number two is my primary purpose as a pastor and as a preacher is to help equip the saints So you can do the work of the ministry. Now your pastor does the work of the ministry. These missionaries do the work of the ministry. I do the work of the ministry, but God wants every one of you that are saved by the grace of God to be involved in the work of the ministry. And it's your pastor's responsibility to try to help you with that, amen? That changed our ministry at Calvary Baptist Church when I'd been there two years. It changed it. I knew that instead of me going around trying to do everything, I was supposed to teach them how to do it. And so we started training for everything. I mean, if you were going to sweep the front, we'd have a training class on that. Truth number three, because I told you I was going to quit here in a minute. Truth number three, not only the rank and file are the key to reaching a community in a world, but number two, the primary task of a pastor is to equip the saints. Number three, evangelism is more caught than taught. Now, what are you talking about, preacher? Most of us sitting here, if we've been saved any time at all, we have heard scores and scores of messages, or portions of messages, that have challenged us to be a witness for Christ, challenged us to go into our community and give out gospel tracts and try to win people to the Lord. But you know what? Most people don't do that. Some do, and probably in this church, a good number do that, and praise the Lord for that. So what are you gonna do about it? Well, you say, we need to have some soul winning classes. Okay, I'm not against classes, I'm for them. But now you won't ever become a soul winner just because you take a class. Any more than you can become an airplane pilot taking a class in your living room. You just can't do it. I remember when I first got saved, my preacher taught a soul winning class. I hadn't been saved but weeks, weeks. Man, I got right in that class. I think Diane was in it as well. He taught us the Roman road, gave us some things to say when we knocked on a door. That was helpful. I'm for that. I am for that. And so he did that, and you know what? I didn't go on visitation after that. I witnessed some, but I wasn't a real good witness like ought to be probably, I'm sure of that. So what happened? Guy come along in the church. His name was Larry Harrison. Larry Harrison served as a missionary later on in Mexico for a number of years. He and his wife were a couple of years older than us, and he kind of adopted us a little bit and encouraged us and had us in his home, let us know what a Christian family acts like and looks like. And he asked me one day, I'd been saved probably two or three months at this time. He said, Roger, you want to go soul wedding? I said, What's soul winning? I didn't have a clue what it was. I'd just been saved. He said, you remember the preacher come over there to your house three Thursday nights in a row and that last Thursday night you let him in and he took the Bible and explained to you and your wife how to be saved and y'all trusted Christ. I said, yeah. He said, that's soul winning. Would you like to do it? I said, yeah, I'd like to tell somebody else. He said, okay. He said, we'll go on Monday nights. He said, church visitation is on Thursday night and we can't do something separate from the church unless we go on to churches because he loves soul winning. He said, if we're going to go on Monday night, we're going to also have to go on Thursday night. So here I've been saved 2 or 3 months and I'm on visitation 2 nights a week. So he takes me out. Now this is the key right here. He takes me out and he said, now just listen and watch me. He goes to a door, knocks on it, somebody comes to the door. Hello, my name is Larry Harrison, this is Roger Baker, we're from Grace Baptist Church over on Orchard Avenue, and we're out trying to visit some of our neighbors, get to know you, and just talk to you about the Lord, and he's going through his little spiel. He did that twice. He said, now it's your turn. I said, I believe I want you to have more turns for a while. And then, you know, I was scared to death, preacher. I mean, I was nervous. I hadn't been saved long. I never knocked on somebody's door telling about the Lord and never had anybody knock on my, well, I did too. I did. Anyway, never did that. So he said, it's your turn. Now, please forgive me. I walked up the sidewalk praying to myself, oh God, don't let anybody be home. I'm here going soul winning and I'm praying that God will not allow anybody to be home. I got to the door. He said, knock harder. Nobody came, I thought, thank God. I said, okay, it's your turn. You know what he told me? He said, it'll be your turn until somebody comes to the door. Thank God he did that. I was getting out of my comfort zone, brother. So finally, we were gonna go to one more house. The next house, nobody was home either. Walked up the sidewalk. I saw the light on in the house. I figured they were there, and I was ashamed to ask God to not let them be home again. So I knocked on the door. That old boy swung the door open, and I looked right into his living room right there, and he had a big old family Bible draped over the arm of his chair. My first thought, he's a Christian. Man, we'll fellowship a little bit here and brag on Jesus, and I'll tell him when I got saved. He'll tell me when he got saved. That'll be it. He come to the door, and I give him a little spiel. My name's Roger Baker. This is Larry Harrison. We're from Grace Baptist History. And I had just heard a message, and I've been saved three months. I just heard a message the Sunday before on John chapter three about Nicodemus. You must be born again. So he opened the door, and he came to the door. I told him who I was. I said, sir, we're just out visiting people, I said, have you ever given much thought about being born again? He stepped back from his door. He looked at me and I said, oh my soul, I have offended my first person. And he said, that's strange you would say that. I said, sir, why would that be strange? He said, me and my wife, you don't know us, but he said, our life is a mess. He said, I doubt if she'll stay with me much longer, said, but we're trying to make our marriage work and our life is a mess. And he said, my grandmama had given me an old family Bible and we knew God probably had the answer for us, but we don't know where it's at in the Bible. He said, so the last three nights, we've been reading the same portion of scripture, John chapter three, about a man that you don't believe in divine appointments. He said, about a man named Nick or somebody. I said, Nicodemus? I just heard it preached. He said, yeah, that's him, that's him. I said, and he said, he talks about being born again, and then you come to my door and ask me about being born again. I said, do you understand what it means? He said, no, sir. I said, you mind if I come in and explain it to you? He said, I'd love for you to. And that night, I had my opportunity to win my first soul to Christ, him and his wife. They got saved. And I told them about how they need to come make it public. And I won't go into how I did that, because you'll think I'm crazy. But they showed up the next Sunday and went forward and made their salvation public. That was 50 years ago. 50 years ago. And you know what? I found out from Larry, who keeps in contact with them once in a while. I hadn't seen them since I left Newport News and went off to Bible College. They're still serving Jesus. Still serving the Lord in a good fundamental church. Praise the Lord for that. Now you say it's more called than taught. Yes. I had been taught the Romans Road for which I was very thankful and grateful. I've been taught some things to say at the door. I was so thankful for that. But let me give you two little words. Teach them and take them. Teach them and then take them with you. And there's enough mature men and women and even teenagers in this church that you could take somebody with you. and you could teach them and take them. I'll give you one more illustration and we're about through, we are through. We had up at Calvary when I was pastoring there, we did, there was a man by the name of Carlo Petropaolo. Carlo Petropaolo was an evangelist, most unusual evangelist you've ever seen. He didn't just, he said, all right, I'll preach a meeting for you, but I get there three weeks ahead of time. He said, and for 2 or 3 of those weeks, all we're going to do is get all your people together and we're going to go out and we're going to go to doors after door after door and we're going to give them invitation to revival and we're going to get a survey and we're going to find out who's saved and who's not and we're going to follow back up on them and he had forms and he had folders and he had all that stuff and 2 times he did that with us and we knocked on 10,000 doors in less than 3 weeks, 2 times. I said, Brother Carlo, he was older than me. He's dead now but he was probably at that time, I was in my 50's, he was in his 80's probably. I couldn't keep up with the man. I mean, he'd give out tracts better than anybody I'd ever seen. He'd go into McDonald's and we'd get a biscuit or something and he'd reach across the counter and he'd say, young lady, he'd say, come here a minute. How many workers you got in here today? She said, well, I believe there's There's eight of us. One, two, he'd count out eight tracks. He said, would you take these and give everybody one of them? Well, yeah, I'll do that. He had workers at McDonald's passing out tracks. I mean, he would do it. I said to him one time, I said, Brother Carlo, how did you start this kind of ministry? He said, I got saved when I was 16, preacher. He said, I went forward in the church and got saved. He said, the preacher said, I want you to come up here and stand. Our people are gonna come by and shake your hand and encourage you. He said, I'm a 16 year old boy, just got saved in the service. I'm standing there shaking hands, but I noticed over to the left, there was a heavyset older guy standing over there like he was waiting on something. He said, all the people finally come through, and when the last one come through, then he got in line. He said, Carlo, he said, man, I'm thrilled about you being saved today. He said, man, it's the greatest thing in the world that could ever happen to you. He said, what are you doing Tuesday night? He said, well, nothing, I don't reckon. He said, well, you are now. He said, what am I gonna do? He said, you're gonna go soul winning with me. I'm gonna teach you how to be a soul winner. And he said, I started going with that deacon every Tuesday night. And I did that until I was grown and went off to college. He said it got in my soul. And I believe that's what God wanted me to do with the rest of my life. You see, you teach them and you take them. It's called on-the-job training. And I'm convinced if you, as a church body, you have more If there's 99 of you here, y'all can do so much more than one man. Now, he's the preacher, and on Sunday morning, he's gonna preach the Word, amen. And you can bring some folks to hear the Gospel, and some of them will get saved. But on a day-to-day basis, 99 people is a greater army than just one. If we fought our wars in America like church average church operates, we'd have a general, the pastor, and he goes to war and we all stay home. So I'm challenging you tonight to think about your Jerusalem and your part. And it's not like you can't do it because God, the Holy Spirit's in you. The Bible, the gospel has power inherited in it and he's gifted you. He's gifted you and He'll bless you and He'll use you. And this church wouldn't be able to hold the people if every one of us did like the Antioch church did. Let's pray. Thank you for being patient. Father in heaven, I thank you for that group of people that though they were frightened, They left town and they headed north up to Antioch, but they were faithful. And when people are faithful to witness, Lord, if we are faithful to witness, then your hand will be upon our life as well. And they were fruitful. And that church became the launching pad for world missions. And Paul and Barnabas went out, With John Mark they came back, rehearsed to the church the things the Lord hath done with them. Then two teams went out, Barnabas and John Mark, and Paul and Silas. Picked up Timothy along the way, and later Luke. And they kept going around the world, around their world and what they knew of, witnessing. I thank you for a group of people that helped start a church that probably became the model church of the New Testament. In Jesus' name, heads are bowed and eyes are closed. If you would say, Preacher, I'm a part of that 99, I'd like to be taught and I'd like to be taken. And may some of you tonight need to come and say, I've been saved all these years. I don't know if I've ever taken and trained somebody to be a soul winner. Maybe that's what you need to do. It's not that you know everything. It's not you're the greatest thing that's ever walked. Let me tell you something. If we go on our feelings about ourselves, none of us will do it. But if you're mature, and you're willing to take somebody, train them and help them, be a witness. Teach them how to give out a gospel tract. What to say when you put a tract in somebody's hand. Often when I hand somebody a tract, I say, ma'am, would you be so kind as to read this little pamphlet? The truth in this little pamphlet changed my life when I was 22 years old. It changed your life? It sure did. And you walk away and a lot of times they start reading it. So many ways to reach our community. And the church at Antioch had those five great purposes they fulfilled. Evangelism, edification, exalting Christ, expressing love, and then they established other churches around the world. That's what this church does, preacher. Heavenly Father, we thank you for your grace and mercy. Thank you for the truth that's been brought to us tonight. And Lord, I pray that we would listen and do what you've called us to do. Help us to see the great need and the need to get involved. Lord, I thank you for sending somebody my way. Thank you for people that have invested in me, laymen in the church, Lord, I pray that you'd raise up people here to do the same. Stay in the forefront of our mind, give us singleness of heart, vision, to glorify you and to reach people the gospel. Bless the church and use us, I pray in Jesus' name, we ask it.