1 Timothy 2, verse 1, we read, I
exhort, therefore, that first of all, supplications, prayers,
intercessions be made for all men.
I love that word all, and I pity
any preacher who's scared of it.
Oh, her asteroid volume is apologizing that God
saved her when he didn't mean it.
I exhort that first of all, supplications, prayers,
intercessions be made for all men.
Verse 3, for this is good and acceptable
in the sight of God our Savior.
Verse 4, who will have all men to
be saved?
Who will have all men to be saved?
And to come unto the knowledge of the
truth.
Verse 6, who gave himself a ransom?
For oh, that he by the grace of
God should taste death for every man.
Hebrews 2, verse 9.
Oh, and I could go on.
1 John 2, 2.
He is the propitiation, the mercy seat, the
way to God for mercy.
The mercy seat was sprinkled with blood.
He is the propitiation.
His blood for our sins, Christians.
Not for ours only, but also for the
sins of the whole world.
I don't know why you don't shout that,
sir.
Who will have all men to be saved?
God now commandeth all men everywhere to repent.
Do you honestly think he mocked them?
Go ye into all the world and preach
the gospel to every creature.
Don't be scared.
You might praise someone into the kingdom that
wasn't elected.
God will forgive you, Spurgeon said, if someone
got saved that wasn't elected.
Whatever that doctrine means, I don't know.
But Spurgeon said, sir, don't you touch me.
A few years ago, Roy, as a boy,
he startled me with his compassionate reasoning to
defend God's integrity toward all souls.
Daddy, he said, we dare not question or
challenge God or doubt his love for the
millions of souls across this world who have
never heard and never will hear the gospel
of Christ.
We dare not challenge God or doubt his
love for them.
Because if every Christian on earth had been
rightly related to God, Daddy, and done everything
they could and should have to share the
gospel, to spread it across this world and
our lifetime, every soul on this earth would
have beyond doubt heard the gospel.
In John 4, verse 35, Jesus said, Say
not ye, there are yet four months, and
then cometh harvest.
I say unto you, lift up your eyes
and look on the field.
They are white already to harvest.
Now, I've never heard a man ever say
this, but I'm daring to say this.
Lift up your eyes is literally, open your
eyes.
This is a fearful rebuke from God, beloved.
Open your eyes.
Don't say somewhere there'll come opportunity.
Open your eyes.
Now, souls wait everywhere for the gospel, sir.
But you walk past without a care for
their soul.
Revelation 14, verse 14, I looked and behold
a white cloud.
Upon the cloud one set like unto the
Son of Man, having on his head a
golden crown, in his hand a sharp sickle.
Another angel came out of the temple crying
with a loud voice to him that sat
on the cloud, thrust in thy sickle.
Reap, for the time has come for thee
to reap, for the harvest of the earth
is ripe.
And he that sat on the cloud thrust
in his sickle unto the earth, and the
earth was reaped.
But, brother and sister, I need to ask
you, I need to ask you this fearful
question.
What will he reap that was the result
of your life, your fruit, to bring souls
to salvation?
What do you want, sir, God?
Proverbs 11, verse 30, the fruit.
I love this word, fruit, that God has
throughout the Bible.
It is the most staggering, not confrontation, condemnation
Christians will ever face, if they just take
a concordance and read every verse in the
Bible about fruit.
That God speaks of the fruit of the
righteous.
Someone rightly related to God is a tree
of life.
You say you've got a testimony, that means
nothing today.
They say 80% of America has a
testimony, that they were born again somewhere, somehow,
of which I think most of them don't
know.
Do you know the Jehovah Witnesses are so
adaptable?
They are talking now about when they were
born again.
Be careful of that term.
But to be rightly related to God, you
are a tree of life.
Now is that your testimony?
Are you looked upon in this world by
everyone who has come near you, or comes
near you, as a tree of life?
The fruit, there has to be fruit if
you are rightly related to God.
You cannot be rightly related to God if
there isn't fruit.
That is obnoxious.
That is totally obnoxious.
It is outrageous.
There is fruit if you are righteous.
The fruit of the righteous, if you are
rightly related to God, is a tree of
life.
What is God saying?
Oh, the verse hasn't ended.
He that winneth souls, he that winneth souls,
is that you?
He's wise.
That word wise, oh, it's staggering.
It's also in the book of Daniel, chapter
12, where Daniel speaks again of soul winning.
But what does he say?
They that be wise, in Daniel 12 verse
3, shall shine as the brightness of the
firmament.
They that turn many to righteousness, they will
shine as the stars.
Oh, when you're in heaven, don't doubt this.
God's word teaches it.
You might be there by grace, incomprehensible grace.
I think we'll be astonished at the grace
of God and the incomparable, because of the
blood of Christ alone.
You might be there, but for eternity.
The soul winners will always be known, that
it wasn't just their souls that mattered.
You'll be there, brother, sister, but you will
not shine like the soul winners.
In its context, there's no verse to contradict
it in Bible.
You will know who cared for other souls
and poured out their life to reach.
They that turn many to righteousness.
Have you turned many?
How many?
Have you stopped in your track of busyness
and your goals and stopped long enough until
they got saved?
They that turn many to righteousness, they shall
shine as the stars of the firmament forever.
There's something about the soul winners, God says,
that for eternity will shine in a way
others will not shine.
Otherwise, if you disagree with me, please cut
that verse out of the Bible.
Does God look upon you, what you did
with your life, your time as wise, or
a wasted life, though you're saved?
The question is not, am I called?
The question is not, am I called to
the mission field?
The question is, where do I fit in
God's plan for the mission field?
I want to repeat that.
The question is not, am I called to
the mission field?
The question is, where do I fit in
God's plan for the mission field?
Charles Spurgeon said, What does God want of
my life in the great mission, no, the
great commission, to everyone that's saved, to take
the gospel to every creature, that means to
every single soul on this earth, or God
wouldn't have said it, if it was an
unreasonable command.
The world is my parish, John Wesley said.
He couldn't be restricted to denomination, so he
fought that the Methodist ever became a denomination,
it wasn't in his heart.
He couldn't be restricted to a denomination or
a culture or group of one language.
He couldn't restrict his heart, his throbbing heart,
as he's talked himself in the Bible, to
some group, some culture, some land, some denomination,
some persuasion, some walled building, this is mine,
this is what my responsibility is, no, the
world is my parish.
You think he was presumptuous?
Very few in the history of the world,
and some say none.
Many of our greatest historians and writers have
said and agreed none ever brought so much
of the world's population to God as John
Wesley.
That is why you hypocrites write books against
him, because it's not your doctrine.
When will you bring so many?
He was not presumptuous, for God has staggered
this world through him, probably more than any
other man in history.
I was touring through your country last year,
and I was astonished when I came to
a group that was not a one of
the fundamental, historically fundamental churches established with the
big buildings, you know, the traditional following, but
his group, I believe, was the largest gathering
in that whole community, that town, I would
say a city, near a city if not
a town.
To us in our country, that's a city,
and I stayed with him outside of the
city on a farm, but that was his
origin, and I asked him about where this
group came from, but I had the privilege
to stand and preach to of the godliest
young people, these young men, young women, shining
faces, modesty, and zeal for Christ, godly people.
Oh, I began to look at this man
in his humility, and I asked him about
the origins of this whole building that had
no special, unique name that's known in established
churches, and he said, brother, I was not
saved as a young man like you.
I was a farmer, but when I was
saved, I suddenly plunged my life into the
Bible, and a burning heart, almost from the
day I was saved, but it just began
to burn more and more for God to
use me, for God to give me the
right to be used.
I wanted to preach.
I longed to preach.
I longed to share, and I thought to
myself, I have no education.
They won't allow me in a theological seminar,
let alone in a pulpit.
I'll never be ordained.
I will never be allowed into the pulpits.
In my lifetime, I can't start now going
back to schooling at my age.
I thought to myself, I will never be
able to preach.
I will never be able to cry out
to the world because I have no theological
seminar, no degrees, no acceptance for any pulpit,
for any denomination in this country.
No one would accept me, but I had
this burning heart, and my heart just broke
as it burned, and the days were going
by, and I was walking down the streets
of the town, and then I walked down
the street with this broken heart, just looking
at all these faces.
It was like one moment, the Holy Spirit
impressed in my heart this verse, open your
eyes, open your eyes.
Look, suddenly, something came in my heart.
Every pavement can be my pulpit.
Every single soul of these hundreds that were
just streaming past that I was agonizing for
can be my congregation, and he said I
bought a little loudspeaking system, and I stood
all alone with my Bible, and the things
that were burning in my heart that I
wanted to cry out on the pulpit, and
suddenly I began to see how deep conviction
fell on them.
Oh, many turned in disgust and walked away
at some man standing there, but how many
stopped and backpedaled, and soon they started coming
to Christ.
Soon I started praying, and brother, this is
the result.
The largest evangelical church of the entire community.
Open your eyes.
Don't say somewhere along the line, before I
die, harvest will come, I can do something
for God.
Look, just open your eyes.
It's a rebuke.
It's not a command.
It's a rebuke.
Before I left your country, at the end
of the tour last year, I went to
New York, to central New York, to Manhattan.
I just can't, after nearly ten weeks of
preaching, every third, fourth day, sorry, flying to
the next state, I just can't suddenly, after
all those weeks of flying, three, four flights
early in the morning, getting up to get
to the airport, and then one airport after
the other, because you can't just fly directly
to every single place you go to, especially
today, and then pouring myself, and I can't
just get on a plane when I stop
preaching the next day, and travel over 20
hours back to the other side of the
world.
Kill me.
I'm numb.
I'm not complaining.
God, please don't ever change it while I
live.
Let me die in the pulpit, please.
I'm not wasting my time in a rocking
chair.
So, I go to New York.
It was Denny Keniston.
What was that man's name in Atlanta?
Jenny's gone.
I don't blame her.
She lived.
Well, it was different people who put us
in this missionary home, and let us thaw
out as a family when they first brought
us and me, and I walk.
I walk through Central Park.
I walk, oh, I enjoy it, but I
thaw out, but I arrived there in Central
New York the end of last year.
I had my suitcase on wheels, my other
bag, that's all I have in life, most
of my life, that's all I have, my
clothes, and my office, and I walked down
the streets of Manhattan now to get to
the missionary home, but when I dropped off.
So, I'm walking, and there are, of course,
there's thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands.
That's Manhattan in the day, but something made
me stop, because as I was walking, there
was a little lady, a lady all alone,
no groups, with their amplifiers, and their guitars,
with their long hair, and their devilish faces.
What are those faces?
Godly?
I thought you'd say, but there she was
all alone, and she was standing with a
little loudspeaker, and a little microphone, and this
modestly dressed young lady had not one other
person with her to say amen, hallelujah.
All she did was quote the Bible, the
King James.
How can you quote another version?
You get mixed up, and people don't even
know it's a Bible, but there's no one
on earth that doesn't know that's God's Word,
if it's the King James.
Trust me, there's no one that won't know
there's something here that understands that it's from
God, the moment they hear it.
Oh, she had memorized every verse that you
could imagine you will find after going through
the Bible hundreds of times, that relates to
confronting a lost man and woman on their
road to hell.
She had these in her heart burning.
She stood there and cried out every text
I had memorized over the years, that I
would stand on a street corner and cry,
or give an unsaved person to show them
their plight.
I stopped when I realized this woman is
in touch with God.
This woman's only quoting the Bible.
She isn't saying another word.
It's just God's Word.
You want to condemn her for that?
For quoting?
Oh, we don't ordain women preachers, brother, in
Africa.
When we take them into our theological seminars,
we equip them to become soul winners.
This woman was equipped with God's Word, burning
in her heart, burning from her lips.
And as I stood there conscious of what
she was doing, I was stunned, because I
was the other side of the road in
this very busy, but I could hear.
I was stunned watching the people streaming past
her.
Now nobody knew I was watching.
Most people streaming past her, like they're not
interested, stopped, turned around and started walking past
her again.
I watched them, you know, too proud to
stop and say, help me.
Here they are, looking in the windows, and
then they walk past her again.
I saw some, I saw one anyway, walking
backwards.
It was almost embarrassing, but he couldn't walk
back to here, so he's walking backwards.
You see, they gripped by the magnetic power
of the Gospel of Christ, of the Word
of God.
They couldn't get away.
That's what God's Word does.
That's what this book does.
He honors His Word above all things.
We should also.
That woman was standing there, not ordained, thank
God, but anointed with the thing God anoints
above everything, no matter who takes it up,
that opens their eyes.
It doesn't say, no one will have me.
No opportunity will come.
I haven't got money to go and be
a missionary in China.
I just stood there in this city and
quoted God's Word, and while I stood there,
hundreds couldn't walk past.
They were so staggered by the power and
the authority of God's Holy Word through a
young lady, all alone, but with God, the
powers of hell were trembling because she opened
her eyes.
In John 3, 7, Jesus said to Nicodemus,
marvel not that I said unto thee, ye
must be born again.
The wind bloweth where it listeth, where it
wishes, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but
canst not tell whence it cometh and whither
it goeth.
So is every one that is born of
the Spirit, Nicodemus.
The work of the Holy Spirit, beloved, to
save a soul is beyond human comprehension.
I want to repeat that.
The work of the Holy Spirit to save
a soul is beyond our human comprehension.
But brother, sister, you put up the sails.
You put the sails up and go where
the wind bloweth.
No, let me rephrase this.
You put the sails up and watch how
the wind bloweth, how God will honor you,
that you of all the multitudes of Christians
are attempting something, young lady.
Though no one is there to shout hallelujah
and praise you, but God waits for you
to open your eyes, farmer, who will never
be ordained.
It's too late to go through theological seminar,
but it burns in your heart.
God waits for you, young lady, to open
your eyes, to put the sails up and
watch, watch how the wind blows, how God
will honor your efforts.
I was in New Zealand.
I was in New Zealand at the beginning
of this year.
We, Jenny and I, have felt that we
could not go to between 80 and 90
percent of every country that ever asked us
to come and preach.
We will never go there.
I wouldn't have a family.
I wouldn't have a wife.
I would have killed her leaving her there
all the time.
I wouldn't have a life.
I would have been burnt out if I
wanted to be a globetrotter.
No, we came to America and we felt
it was God, so we continued to come
back as we saw these doors of the
conservative pulpits, thank God.
Never a liberal church.
The closest I boarded on one liberal church,
thank God, they never asked me back.
Not after what I see.
But this old man, this man in New
Zealand, he is going to hear this, so
I better be careful.
He, on the phone, said you need to
pray about it.
When I said, I don't think so, sir.
It just doesn't work.
He said, no, you have to pray.
I phoned again, and I believe God will
have changed your mind, sir.
Okay, so you don't just put the phone
down on such a good man.
And he began to say New Zealand is
so different from the rest of the world.
It's so hardened against the gospel.
He said there's such anger shown and resentment
if you confront a soul in the street
or if you confront people with the gospel
and truth.
It's a country that somehow has closed its
heart as a nation generally to the gospel
of Christ, the true gospel.
Apart from one or two megachurches that entertain
the crowds, of course they get the unsaved.
Of course they will.
Give them what they want.
They'll go to the nightclubs, they'll come to
you.
But the churches generally who preach the gospel
across the entire land, if you get a
hundred people, brother, that's revival.
Fifty is amazing in this town, across New
Zealand.
And the only convention we know of, he
said, that is in this entire land, on
the islands of New Zealand, that is conservative,
uncompromising, unapologetic of the standard of God.
Drawing from every one of the churches where
there's conservatism is the convention we are asking
you to come to preach to.
Please brother, don't you say no to me.
So we went.
I went.
Jenny's coming with me at the end of
the year now, at the beginning of next
year.
Now this man has a beard, but you
don't know where it comes from, or where
it's ending.
I'm rather at the beards.
Some there's no moustache, and there's a moustache.
Some there's shroom, and some there's...
I don't know.
But anyway, it's modest, I think.
I'm not too sure how to relate to
that, but anyway.
Beards.
You dare not go there, Keith.
I heard a man saying, it makes a
man look like a woman.
Save him.
Effeminate.
Anyway, who was he saying it to?
Well, there was one man there that really,
even Darwin had something to grab.
No, this man really was big, and hairy,
I suppose.
But save him.
And this man said, you telling me I
look effeminate?
Maybe not you.
Anyway, he lost his argument, having that man
close by, so thank you.
But this man has his beard, oh, and
he's very bold for God.
And I was a bit stunned when I
saw him.
But oh, what a godly man he is,
and what a godly family he has.
What a godly wife and children.
And he has been a priest for many,
many years, but they grew so disillusioned, so
discouraged, because there's just, no one wants the
gospel.
Such hardness, such animosity.
They're ostracized by generally everyone when the truth,
an uncompromising presentation of truth, is presented.
And then he, one day, read in the
newspaper that the government of New Zealand was
crying out for the farmers, because it is
a farming community that sends its produce, basically
90-something percent of the land's economy is
farming.
The rest is tourism.
But the government said, the tourists are there,
there's so many tourists, and we want to
try and accommodate it, to build up tourism,
so we're asking all the farmers who can
do this, to invite the tourists, the backpackers,
to their homes.
Let them work for a few hours, even
if it's two hours, to give them accommodation,
so they can go up the mountains, the
most beautiful mountains, Taranaki mountains, way, some, but
somehow let's try and give them accommodation to
encourage.
So, he said, my wife and I thought,
well, let's do this.
So we built a few rooms, we sewed
everything up, went and got this little farmstead
outside the town, we built extra rooms on,
we renovated things, and we advertised that we
were available, so phone calls come, and we
couldn't believe how many people wanted accommodation.
But we said this, you're welcome, you can
labor on the lands, no other cost needed
for you to stay here, but you stay
for an hour, hour and a half a
day with us, and go out, and you
climb mountains, and you see the unique beauty
of New Zealand that is like another planet,
the vegetation alone, it is just too beautiful.
But, he said, there's one condition that you
can stay in our home, the meal in
the night.
We read the Bible, and we require everyone
that comes into our home, at the end
of that meal, to sit right through our
Bible reading.
Is that okay by you?
And then we pray as a family.
Yes.
So, he said, we couldn't believe how many
came, but what astonished us, the majority were
Jews.
The majority of the Jews were Orthodox Jews,
they actually traveled, they loved it, especially the
young ones, they travel, see what they can,
and New Zealand was somehow attracting tourists in
their multitudes.
Not necessarily the wealthiest tourists in the world,
who like to go to London, of course,
and Paris, but there's a staggering, amazing amount
of people.
He said, we had so many Jews, and
we'd always have this condition.
Now, we learned faster what to read the
Bible study in the nights, the verses concerning
the Messiah from the Old Testament, and of
course, we didn't preach at him, but we
related with our prayers, but oh, they began
to get angry.
Wait!
Stop!
I need your phone.
I want to phone our rabbi back in
Israel.
Now!
Yes, there's the phone.
Please, come back and tell us what he
said about this verse, about this Messiah, who
we believe was Jesus.
No, we all wait.
He comes back.
Rabbi says he doesn't know what to say.
He has no answer.
He said, brother, we were staggering, every Jew
that came through that door, and for a
few days stayed in those rooms, but had
to sit with us.
There was not one that was not stunned
and became fearful as they listened, and then
the fruit came.
The amazing fruit, how many of those Jews
still phone them almost daily, and look upon
them as a mother and father, spiritually, as
God began to honor them, why they have
in the rooms, even the room I stayed,
just everything about the Messiah, and then it's
Jesus.
A Jew cannot survive with all this around
him.
He escapes the dining room and has to
be confronted with every plaque in the room
about Jews.
It is wonderful, and even books.
Oh, praise the Lord.
Beloved, Israel's population is 6.2 million, but
an estimated 9 million Jews are dispersed around
the rest of the world.
There are more Jews outside of Israel than
in Israel.
In our city alone, we have a few
hundred thousand Jews living, mostly in their own
areas, in the predominantly wealthy areas, but Jews.
Certain of the wealthiest areas of southern Africa,
which are estimated amongst the wealthiest valued houses
on earth, and most of them are Jews.
We have full-time workers for Jews in
our land who've never been to Israel.
Their whole full-time ministry is to reach
the Jew.
6.2 the entire population of Israel, but
9 million around the rest of the world.
You can be a full-time missionary to
the Jews with more opportunity and less restrictions
imposed on you, and less danger outside of
Israel, than if you went there full-time
missionary, and found such restrictions you probably will
leave like most have, with a broken heart.
The gospel is so cramped down in that
country when it comes to touching the Jew,
but not outside of that country.
Most Jews you can reach with no restriction
at all, but open your eyes, open your
eyes, like they did.
A verse that staggered me in this holy
book, nothing shall be impossible to you Keith,
nothing Lord, nothing shall be impossible unto you.
Beloved expect great things from God, attempt great
things for God, William Carey said.
The Almudy said, the world has yet to
see what God will do with a man
fully consecrated to him.
These words were cried to him from the
English butcher, the lay preacher Henry Varley, as
they left an all-night prayer meeting.
The world has yet to see what God
will do with a man who becomes fully
consecrated to him.
Moody couldn't sleep, a man?
Varley surely meant any man, he didn't say
yet to be educated or brilliant, any man.
By the Holy Spirit in me and the
grace of God, I will be that man,
and from that time, from that time, God
staggered this world through Moody, that he became
one of the five greatest soul winners in
the history of the church, not when he
went through a theological seminar, he never did,
he only had a stand at six, because
of poverty and hardships in those days.
It was Torrey that became the educated, eloquent,
and refined speaker behind Moody, but Moody staggered
the world, as few men have in history.
Scotland turned from Rome to John Knox, but
it didn't turn to God.
Scotland, for the first time in its history,
turned to God as a nation through D
.L. Moody, an American without, with a stand
of six, and no other ordained qualifications, but
that he wanted to be that man, and
therefore became fully consecrated to God, to the
degree that this world history changed, and from
that time forth, Scotland became known as the
most evangelical.
They need another Moody, another American to go
there, so on fire.
Oh, Moody so staggered Oxford and Cambridge universities
that never before and ever since in his
history was there such a staggering and a
great hold of the combined universities, a response
of brokenness and shattered people across the floors,
the future leaders of the Empire, from the
best homes in the world of the Empire,
on their faces sobbing after five minutes of
D.L. Moody preaching.
Spurgeon you never saw that, but Moody you
did.
He knelt beside Queen Mary, a letter to
Jesus Christ.
What can I do to serve Christ in
my prison?
Give out a tract, Moody said, safety, certainty,
and enjoyment, the tract he gave out.
Queen Mary gave 200,000 tracts on salvation
out personally in her lifetime because of Moody,
to presidents, dignitaries, politicians, royalty, and
said these words, read this for your soul,
for your soul's sake, in the light of
the devil, and because she was a queen
I believe many, many people found Jesus.
Mary's husband gave his life to Christ as
a result of her life, but Moody's knelt
beside George.
He led kings and queens, he turned nations
to God, but the turning point was when
he said I will be a man God
will I would be that man by the
grace of God.
Proverbs 10 5 states that he that sleepeth
in harvest is a son that causes shame.
He that sleepeth in harvest is a son
that causeth shame.
Of course in its context it speaks literally
of the shame of a father who farms,
whose son sleeps and will not help while
they could be making their income by harvesting
when there's time.
Of course the context must be looked at,
but I would ask you here today to
apply it to your consciences as Christians concerning
the harvest of souls.
I would ask you today to apply it.
2nd Samuel 1 verse 1, it came to
pass after the year was expired, that's the
spring, at the time when kings go forth
to battle, David didn't.
He tarried still in Jerusalem.
I don't believe anything is recorded in the
Bible as an historical record, though it is
historic history of God dealing with the people.
It is the living throbbing vital heart of
God to communicate to you or me or
it wouldn't be written in the Old Testament.
It is as vital as the new.
Don't tell me two-thirds of the Word
of God are not divinely inspired to be
illuminated and taken by God's heart to get
you ablaze and to warn you.
Those warnings were to you when he warned
those nations and those individuals.
Those promises were for you and me to
survive.
The heart of God is revealed.
This is written for you and me when
kings, the time when the kings went forth
to battle, David tarried still in Jerusalem.
I'm reminded here of Numbers 32 verse 6
where Moses said to the children of Gad,
the children of Reuben, shall your brethren go
to war and you sit here.
Tell your countrymen go to war while you
sit idle.
But you see the next verse of 2nd
Samuel 1 11 verse 1 tells me why
God let this be recorded in the Bible
that David didn't go when he should have
done what was expected of a king.
It tells of the tragic staggering result.
The next verse, the Holy Spirit puts to
us, it came to pass in an eventide
that David arose from of his bed, walked
upon the roof of the king's house.
From the roof he saw a woman washing
herself.
The woman was very beautiful to look upon,
and he became an adulterer and a murderer.
This man up to God's own heart.
When?
When he withdrew from what was expected.
When he withdrew from the battlefield, he fell
into tragic sin.
Beloved, I fear that if a Christian we
withdraw from the battlefield, we will fall into
shame.
I believe this is a warning from God,
not a recorded history for us to seek
God's heart in every verse we read, never
out of interest or knowledge, but to hear
God initially speaking by His Holy Spirit through
His Word.
Idleness was the cause of Sodom and Gomorrah's
depravity.
We harp on all sorts of things, one
thing particularly, to the degree that most of
those people don't feel they can be saved.
They're so more evil than everybody else.
So we touch on Sodom and Gomorrah.
Brother, there are 28 damnable sins in Romans
1.
For God's sake, when you point, how many
of your fingers point back to you about
the other sins that God forgave you for,
and you repent them?
Don't make anyone in this world feel they're
unreachable.
Be careful.
Idleness was the cause of the depravity of
Sodom and Gomorrah.
But be careful now, busyness with things that
don't matter in the light of eternity is
as much of a danger to you spiritually
as idleness will be.
Busyness with things that don't matter in the
light of eternity is a terrible danger.
Acts 6 verse 2, the Apostles, the disciples
cried, is it not reason that we should
leave the Word of God to serve tables?
We will give ourselves continually to prayer, to
the ministry of the Word.
Here they began agonizing at the diversions from
the things that mattered.
Don't be diverted from God's blueprint for your
life.
Don't be diverted from God's best.
Have a single heart, a single mind.
It is not compromise and conscious sin that
will divert you from God's blueprint, from God's
heart, from God's best.
It is legitimate, meaningful, noble, sensible, thrilling, exciting
things.
But they were to you a diversion from
the perfect will of God.
If you've been separated by God to preach,
don't give your attention and time to things
that other people will look upon as legitimate,
even other preachers who waste their lives and
never mean anything for God.
Things that will make you bury God's specific
calling.
Don't die without shaking this world, young man,
young lady.
Don't die without staggering this world by giving
yourself wholeheartedly with a singleness of mind, consumed
in being the sharp weapon and instrument God
requires you to be and will make you.
If you don't waste, but you redeem every
opportunity and reject what's legitimate, what people say
unnecessary to stay sane.
No!
You give yourself wholeheartedly to what you know
is the blueprint of God for your life,
and watch how this world is staggered.
The greatest honor you could ever be given
on earth is for God to separate you
to preach.
But that does not mean, if you haven't
been separated, that you cannot win more souls
to God than any preacher.
My daddy, and this was not my words,
this was the words of the most well
-known, renowned, evangelical, English-speaking preacher in southern
Africa.
My daddy brought more souls to Jesus than
most preachers in the history of southern Africa,
though he never preached a sermon once in
his life, because every soul he agonized at
the thought of passing without trying.
Oh, let's leave this, Keith.
You have one business on earth, you have
one business on earth, Christian, to save souls.
John Wesley, I am destined to proclaim
the message, unmindful of personal consequences to myself.
I am destined to proclaim the message, unmindful
of personal consequences to myself.
Zinzendorf said, I cared not where or how
I lived, or what hardships I went through,
so that I could but gain souls for
Christ.
David Brainard, I cared not where or how
I lived, or what hardships I went through,
so that I could but gain souls for
Christ.
Now, let me burn out for God, Henry
Martin cried, and he did.
Can we stand, please?