All right, well, it's great to be here today. And I want to thank you all for letting us come. If I say the word y'all every now and then you have to forgive me. We've been based in Georgia now for most of this year. And I've lived there, served there on staff at a church for quite a few years before we even went to Columbia. So every now and then they always come out. But it's good to be here. And I'm really glad I was I was really praying it wouldn't be everything covered in snow and ice on the way here. So it's A little bit more of a mild day for December in Pennsylvania, and I'm so grateful for that. We had a long trip yesterday. We came from down south, and God blessed us to be able to get here safely. We pulled in last night a little bit after 10 o'clock, so it's an honor to be here. I'm here with one of my daughters. This is Eris, and my wife and our three other daughters are back in Georgia today, and I would invite you to grab one of our prayer cards before you leave today, if I haven't given one to you already. You can pray for us. Everyone on that card besides me is a lot prettier than me. And so you can pray for us, pray for the ministry down there. I'll be sharing more about the ministry, hopefully in the main service. But just to give you a brief summary over the nine years that we've been there in the city of Bucaramanga, it's a large city of about two million people. In those nine years, God has worked in fantastic ways. We've seen a lot of people saved. We've started four churches by the grace of God that are growing strong right now. There's a few more Bible studies that are being led by men that we're training for the ministry, and those are going on every week, and hopefully we'll get to start those as churches sometime after we return to the field, Lord willing, in January or February coming up. So we're itching to get back. God has just opened up so many doors there. The churches are growing. The people are very receptive to the gospel, and that's something that surprises us, how ripe the harvest is in Columbia. you share the gospel with somebody, it's like they've already been waiting for somebody to tell them. It's kind of like that Ethiopian eunuch that was on his way back from Jerusalem going through the desert, and God sent Philip to go talk to him. You remember the story there in Acts 8, in that God had taken Philip from a very thriving ministry in Samaria, a revival there, a large ministry, and he said, I want you to go down to that way that's desert. And he didn't really ask God why or what was gonna happen, he just went. And as he was going, he found this guy that was already reading a portion of scripture. He had a copy of Isaiah. Not many people had that. And he was trying to understand. He was coming back from Jerusalem, likely where he went to worship and to learn and to grow and to maybe find peace with God. And he was trying to understand. He was actually reading Isaiah 53, and that's a prophecy about Jesus. And so when Philip said, hey, do you understand what you're reading? I'm obviously paraphrasing. The man responded, How can I accept some man should guide me? And so as we've gone to Columbia, we found that that's been the case. A lot of people are already ready and they're already willing to hear. And there's a lot of people just waiting for somebody to guide them to faith in Christ. And we thank the Lord for that. Over the years and all these churches that have been started, there's also a Bible Institute that we started to train people from our ministry. And there's 40 people from our different churches that are training now for ministry. Out of those, there's a couple dozen men that feel God has called them into the pastorate, start churches, to be missionaries. It's an exciting thing. And to see all of this fruit after just nine years is just nothing short of incredible. God is doing something far, far greater than us. And so I'll share a little bit more about the ministry in the upcoming hour. But I say pray for us. There's a few things that as we return at the end of January, first part of February that we're looking forward to. We're hopefully going to be Jumping right back into it as soon as we get there. We also have some health concerns. My wife, we've had one thing after another. The last three years have really been very, very difficult. We lost a son that was on the way. After having four girls, that was something we were expecting. And I was run over by a truck earlier this year. I was on a motorcycle, and the truck's brakes went out behind me. Just a delivery truck. It wasn't like a semi or anything. But still, his tires went over my arm, left me with several fractures there. And so I've got metal all up in my arm, but almost dying there. That was pretty traumatic. And I almost died with an abdominal issue two years ago. And my wife had tumors in her uterus, had surgery. And it's just one thing after the next. This year, when we got back on this furlough, we found out that Aubrey, my wife, has some type of autoimmune disease. And we've been doing all sorts of testing to figure out what that is. And we're actually in the fifth level of testing. And they're still just trying to pinpoint what that is. But it's causing a lot of A lot of weakness, she's very tired, a lot of pain in her joints. She's very young, she's only 35 years old. And so we're praying that God helps us get some answers. There's good rheumatologists, good neurologists, all those things in Columbia, but we were hoping to have answers before we go back to the field. Now it looks like we'll just have to continue with that there on the field. We're all looking forward to getting back to the field, but that's one of the things that you can help pray with us about. Not just the ministry and all the things that come along with the growing ministry there, but also the family and the personal struggles that we go through sometimes. I'd ask you to take your Bibles. We're going to go to the book of 1 Timothy today. As I said in the main service, I'll share a little bit more about the ministry, some projects that we have, some things that God has done there. We're going to be today in the book of 1 Timothy, and I want to share this idea with you. from 1 Timothy 2, just with this idea of this little three-letter word that we see over and over again in this text, this word all, this word all. And I want to draw your attention to the first eight verses of this text. We're going to go ahead and read in 1 Timothy 2, verses 1 through 8. Apostle Paul writes here under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, I exhort therefore that first of all supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks be made, what does it say there? For all men, all. For kings and for all that are in authority that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty. For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man, Christ Jesus, who gave himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time, whereunto I am ordained a preacher and an apostle, and speak the truth in Christ, and lie not a teacher of the Gentiles in faith and verity. I will, therefore, that men pray everywhere, lifting up holy hands, without wrath and doubting. Let's pray. God, I thank you for the great blessing it is to gather together with your church, to worship your name, to celebrate your gospel, to learn from your word, and to even have your Holy Spirit in us, guiding us in this truth. I pray, Lord, that you would help me to be simply a vessel for your message. You would touch us, Lord, that you would help us to understand what your purpose is here on this earth, the reason that you left us here, Lord, I pray that you'd help us to get closer to you, and the closer we get, Lord, that we would sense your heartbeat, Lord, that we would have the same burden that you have, that we would be driven to action in the same way that you were, Lord. Make us more like you. Conform us to the likeness of your son. In your name we pray, amen. All this word all in the Greek here is pass. It shows up eight times and these short eight verses here. It's a interesting thing because you start to look at this word all and there's a lot of a lot of people that have dug into this text to try to explain away things to make it fit with their theology. But the word all here in the Greek in the original. Do you know what it means? All. It's pretty simple. All means all. And that's the idea of the message today, that all means all. And so the first thing that we see here is God wants us to pray for the salvation of all. To pray for all men. He says there in verses one and two, I exhort therefore that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks be made for all men. And then he even goes on to talk about who. Not just the people that we like, but to pray for everybody, even those that are kings and in authority and those that are ruling. Now, you have to understand the day in which this was written, there was a great empire across that region of the world. It was the Roman Empire. In fact, there was a man in authority there. The most powerful man in the world at that time was this man named Nero. If you've studied history at all, you know that Nero hated Christianity. He hated Christians. but it actually became a game to him, eventually, especially later on in his rule there, to torture the Christians. He had a garden there that was a famed garden, and they would find these Christians, they would gather them up from all over the place, and they would bring them in, and they would put them on stakes, they would impale the Christians and cover them in a combustible material and set them on fire to give light to his garden. And as you would walk down the gardens of Nero, there's burning Christians all along this path. Can you get that visual? I know that's a very gruesome image. This is the same Nero that encouraged what they would call the games, and where they would bring Christians into this great Roman Colosseum, and the Christians, they would just set them out there without any defenses, without anything, and they would let lions go. And thousands upon thousands of people would be in the stands cheering for the lions. as they would rip the Christians to shreds. They would have warriors go in against these and just torture the Christians for fun. And so when you read things like this, it's easy to gloss over this and say, well, it's kind of easy for them to say they don't know our president. You know, we've got it easy, folks. We really do. It doesn't matter who's in authority. The Bible says that God, God wants us to pray for all. Even those that would seek our persecution, our death, seek evil for us. That kind of reminds me of what Jesus said, isn't it? Jesus said to love our enemies, to bless those that persecute us, and to pray for those that spitefully use us. And so as we see here in 1 Timothy, we ought to pray for the salvation of all. All means all. You know, one of the only prayer requests that Jesus gave, it might be the only prayer request that Jesus gave in all of scripture, is found there in Matthew chapter 9. You know the text there. But Matthew 9, as Jesus is going about his ministry and going from town to town and village to village, and he's healing people and helping people. It says in verse number 35, and Jesus went about all the cities and villages teaching in the synagogues, preaching the gospel of the kingdom, healing every sickness and every disease among the people. But when he saw the multitudes, he was moved with compassion on them because they fainted and were scattered abroad as sheep having no shepherd. Then he said unto his disciples, the harvest truly is plenteous, but the laborers are few. Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest that he will send forth laborers into his harvest. You know, I believe we ought to pray for the salvation of all. That also drives us, as we pray for their salvation, to pray that God would send more laborers, that God would send more laborers into the harvest. Are we praying for that? Are we aware of the great need of people all around the world? You know, there's little bookmarks. I forgot to grab one to have with me here on the stage, but I've got bookmarks there on the back table. on how to pray for your missionaries. There's about nine or 10 things there on how to pray for missionaries, very practical things. There's some Bible verses you can do a study there. But on the back also, there's all of the countries of the world in this little tiny bookmark. So you might need a magnifying glass or a microscope for some of you maybe, I don't know. But to see all of these countries of the world, when's the last time we started praying that God would send laborers to places like Angora? How many of us even know where Angora is? What continent it is, we don't really know. Or what about Mongolia? Do you think God wants those people to be saved too? Do you think God wants us to pray for laborers to that harvest as well? What about countries like Cambodia or Chile or Colombia? What about places like China and India and Pakistan and Iran? And you can talk about the hundreds of countries around the world, but then you look into the people groups, and there's thousands upon thousands of people groups around the world, nations really, not just political nations, but cultural nations where they have their own language, they have their own culture, and yet many of those are yet to be reached with the gospel. Do we really take this seriously, that all means all? God said, I want you to pray for all. to be saved, that they would have the opportunity to know and believe the gospel. Jesus had said in John four to lift up our eyes because the fields are white already under harvest. It's time, folks. It's time that many of us have got into this mindset where we're just kind of holding the fort until Jesus comes. But Jesus said, hey, I want you to pray, pray that God would send laborers. Are we praying for the city? Maybe get a map of your city here. Maybe get a map of Pennsylvania. or the Northeastern, maybe the whole country here, and just start praying over this country. I believe that many of you all maybe already do that. You pray for this country. Maybe look up and pray for other countries as well. Pray that God would send people all around this world because we ought to pray for the salvation of all. That's the first idea that we see here in 1 Timothy 2, that we ought to pray for the salvation of all. But the second thing that we see is that God wants all to be saved. And that's what the Bible says. 1 Timothy 2 verses three through four, it says, for this is good and acceptable in the sight of God, our Savior, who will have all men to be saved. All humankind, all mankind, all human beings, all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. What does God want? God wants all to be saved. Why should we pray for all? Because God wants all to be saved. You know, we pray that God's will would be done. and that's a great prayer, not my will, Lord, but thine, but what is his will? He wants the salvation of everybody. There's no better way to pray than, Lord, do your will in me. As Jesus was praying in the garden, he set forth this example. Lord, if it's possible, pass this cup for me, but not my will, but thine be done. In the model prayer that Jesus set forth there in Matthew six and other places there in the gospels, he says, for his will to be done, on earth as it is in heaven. What a great thing to pray. But the Bible says over and over again what His will is. What is His will? It says right here. This is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior who will have all men to be saved. That's what God wants. You say, well, if that's what God wants, why isn't everybody saved? Isn't God all powerful? Isn't God sovereign over all? Isn't God an amazing God that he can do whatever he wants? And if he wants this, why doesn't it just happen? Well, we'll get into that in a minute. But we ought to know that that is God's heartbeat, that all should be saved. You know, why is it so hard to understand that the will of God is this? It's become the great excuse. If all haven't been saved, then God must not want all to be saved. And we end up sitting down when God wants us to be working. We end up saying, well, Lord, if you want them to be saved, they'll get saved no matter what. I've had people tell us that if God wanted the nation saved, he would already save them by now. God must love Americans a lot more than all those Chinese people. Because you go to China, and there's very, very, very few Christians. Really, most of Asia. You go to Latin America, and there's a lot of religion, but very few genuine believers. Very, very few. Even here in America. You think God loves us more than the rest of the world? I mean, so much so where he would say, I want all of these to go to hell and I want these few to be saved. What a horrible and cruel God that would be. But he says, no, my will is for all to be saved. Can we understand that today? I think of Noah and the flood in those days of Noah. You know, as God told Noah, the wickedness on this earth is just so incredible. I'm going to destroy this earth. Let's start again. I want you to build a boat. to build this ark, and I'm going to tell you exactly how to do it. And for years and years or 100 years, Noah is building this ark. The book of Hebrews says that during that time he was a preacher of righteousness. You can just imagine the people as they would come out of the woodworks just to watch this crazy Noah and his sons and their wives and Noah's wife and these. Eight people getting ready for this catastrophic flood. He's building a boat in the middle of nowhere. They say, Noah, what is this? It's a boat. What does a boat do? It floats on water. What water? It's going to rain. What is rain? Because it never rained up until then. This water is going to fall from the sky. It's going to fill the earth and it's going to flood the whole earth. And everything that you see is going to be covered in water. And only those inside this boat will be saved. And everyone just laughed him just once. They laughed and laughed and laughed. And for over a century there, Noah is building this ark. People come and they get the popcorn out and they just watch him make fun of him. And then one day God says, okay, it's time. He sends all the animals in and he says, Noah, all right, I want you to get in. And then the Bible says that God shut the door. You remember the story? God shut the door. You can imagine the crowd that was forming outside of there thinking, man, this guy has really lost it now. He is very crazy. He's just the craziest guy out here. Hey, Fred, Noah's inside the boat now. What is he doing? It's doom and gloom. And then a raindrop falls. Well, it's just a coincidence. Fred says, I didn't see any birds, but it might have just been a bird. Who knows? And another one falls. Another one, raindrops the size of jelly beans and then maybe the size of grapefruits start falling. This torrential rain starts falling and people say, well, it's just a fluke, it's a coincidence. As the rain starts to rise above their ankles, they start to think, well, this is a little concerning, but we're okay, we're okay. Water starts to rise to their knees. to their waist, picking up their children now, going to higher ground. As the rain continues to fall, the waters continue to rise. People sense now urgency to get in the boat. There's a problem. It's too late. They start to bang on the outside of the ark. Noah, we believe you now, let us in. We believe, you know, let us in, we don't, okay, we understand, there's a flood and it's raining and we want in now, but Noah couldn't open the door, why? Because he's not the one that shut it. God shut the door. And as God shut the door, all of these people who had laughed Noah to scorn for all these years, lived in sin and just gone their own way, not heeding the preaching of righteousness done by Noah, they all perished, everything. Can you get that visual in your mind? The Bible says in the book of 2 Peter that as in the days of Noah, so will that last day be. People will go about their life. They're eating and drinking and partying. It's a great time. Everything is going to be going awesome. And they kind of make fun of the Christians. Those Christians, they talk about Jesus coming back. They talk about all this. No, it's great. Life is good. Live it up. They kind of make fun of you for wasting your time. Maybe going to church and and giving your money to to support our local church and giving your money even for world missions. I want to waste. What a waste of your your hard earned resources and I mean they they make fun of you for for dressing up and and giving your best of the Lord and serving the Lord and raising your kids and all this and the world doesn't understand that. But one day. They will. I I'm impressed by what We see in 2nd Peter. Chapter 3. 2nd Peter Chapter 3. Verses 9 and 10. It says the Lord is not slack concerning his promise. What is that promise that he will come back? He's going to do what he said he's going to do. Amen, the Lord is not slack concerning his promise promises. Something counts like this, but is long suffering to us. We're not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. God doesn't want any to perish, but that all should come to repentance. Then in verse 10 it says, but the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night, in the which the heavens shall pass away with great noise and the elements shall melt with fervent heat and the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up. Now there's global warming for you. One day this earth will be destroyed. One day everybody on this earth will be judged and God doesn't want them to perish. He wants them to come to repentance, just as we see over and over again in all of Scripture. God wants all to be saved, but the day of the Lord will come. You see, God's not gonna force his will on anybody. God doesn't do that. He doesn't force his will on anybody. We ought to pray for the salvation of all because God wants all to be saved. You see in Ezekiel 18, and just as an example that he says, I do not want the death of him that dies. I don't want the death of him that dies. Turn, repent, look to me and live. In Isaiah 42, it says, look to me and be saved. God wants all to be saved. We ought to pray for all to be saved, but there's a third thing we see back in our text in 1 Timothy 2. We see in verses five through six, because we ought to pray for all to be saved, because God wants all to be saved, but then verses five and six says, for there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man, Christ Jesus. Why does it emphasize the humanity of Christ? We'll see that. Who gave himself a ransom for all. A ransom for how many? For all. To be testified in due time. So we ought to pray for the salvation of all because God wants the salvation of all, and then we see that Christ gave all. so that all could be saved. It's easy to say something, but God's desire that He wanted men to be saved, He wanted humankind to be saved, His desire moved Him to action. And that's what he did. A desire plus an availability, a disposition will bring us always to action. If we want something and then we're committed to doing that and we stand up to act, we're going to make progress. That's what it is. You know, an old man said once upon a time, he was a man that got saved when he was in his 80s down in Georgia and my ministry down there that the Lord allowed us to be a part of. He had all these little pithy sayings. Really smart guy. There's a lot of wisdom in the country people, especially they know how life works, you know. He said one time, you know, people are going to do what they want to do. We were lamenting the fact that people would say something and do something else. They said this people are going to do what people want to do. You know, we see that that's what happened with God. God said, I want all men to be saved. But he didn't just sit back and say, man, I wish they could figure out a way to get saved. I wish they could figure out a way to get to me. No, he did something about it. He sent Jesus, his own son, to take our place because there's one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ. Jesus, there's only one who could die in our place to take us back to God. There's only one who could live the life that we could not live. There's only one that had the power to rise up from the dead. There's only one that can intercede for us. And his name is Jesus. Amen. As we think of this Christmas season, especially, we think of how that savior of the world came all the way down to earth. Think of everything that Jesus left behind so that we could be saved. Have you thought about that? In Isaiah 6, Isaiah said, in the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord high and lifted up, and His train filled the temple. There's these seraphims with six wings singing, holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts. In John 12, it says that Isaiah was seeing Jesus. He saw Jesus in His glory. And Isaiah fell down as dead, and he said, woe is me, for I'm undone, I'm a man of unclean lips. But when Jesus was there in heaven, before he was incarnate here on earth, in his glory, what did he need? Nothing. Did he ever feel hungry? Not once, but he did here. Did he ever feel tired? Not once, but he did here. Was he always worshiped? Oh yes. All around him, he was surrounded by the worship and praise of these angels over and over and constantly, holy, holy, holy, and he came here and people spit in his face. People thought less of him. In John 8, it says that as he was speaking to the Pharisees, Basically, they brought out some of his past and the rumor that was going around and they say at least we not be not born of fornication We're not Born of a virgin like we've heard of you. Yeah. Yeah, right. That doesn't happen. We're not born out of wedlock What were they saying Jesus, you know, we know the story but you know, let's be honest that doesn't happen People murmured about him, people gossiped about him, people lied about him, and he was falsely accused, falsely crucified, and yet he laid down his own life. No one took it from him. He laid down his own life for us. Why did he do that? Why did he go through such humiliation and such grief and such pain, such discomfort? Have you ever thought about that? Why would Jesus leave His glory and come all the way to earth and suffer and bleed and die? Because He wanted you and I and the world to have a way to be saved. We have to pray for the salvation of all because God desires the salvation of all. And we see that Christ gave all so that all could be saved. The only way that we could be saved The only way that all could have this access to be saved would be for Jesus to come to give himself in as a ransom for all. That's what it says. A ransom as a payment for all. And he did it voluntarily, even though it cost him everything. It cost Jesus everything. Romans. You see that in Chapter 5. It's beautiful text. It goes on after saying how we have peace with God through faith, we're justified. Then he says that while we were weak, we were foolish, we were sinners, and we were enemies of God. While we were in that state, Christ died for us. He didn't love you because you're very lovable, because you're just a nice person. He didn't save you because You're better than anybody else. He loved all of us while we were sinners. 2 Corinthians 5, it says that he died for all. And that he died for all. He died for all that they which live might not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them and rose again. Hebrews 2 says that he tasted death for all. First John 2 says that he's the propitiation, not just for all our sins, but for the sins of the whole world. First Timothy 410 says he's the Savior of all men, especially those who believe this is the Savior of all who gave all that all could be saved. You see that today? He's the greatest missionary that's ever existed. And as you celebrate Christmas this year with your families, however your traditions are, May you not forget that it's about missions. Christmas is about missions and how God gave his own life to be a mediator. So we could be saved. What can we give? What a gift God has given us, amen? What can we give back to him? There's one other thing that we want to highlight today. And this idea that all means all from 1st Timothy 2. We consider firstly that we ought to pray for the salvation of all. Because number two, God wants all to be saved. And number three, Christ gave all so that all could be saved. But number four, we all should feel a burden, a weight, a responsibility to reach all. We all should feel responsibility to reach out. I like what the Apostle Paul says there as he's talking about everyone praying for everyone, and then he's talking about God wanting everyone to be saved, and Jesus giving his life for everyone. Then he turns it on himself. 1 Timothy 2, verse 7, he says, whereunto I, the Apostle Paul, I am ordained a preacher and an apostle. I speak the truth in Christ and lie not, a teacher of the Gentiles in faith and verity. I will therefore, I will, I want therefore, that men pray everywhere, lifting up holy hands without wrath and doubting. What does he say here? The Apostle Paul had a very clear idea, a clear picture of what his calling and purpose was in this world, was to reach everyone, to reach all. Now it's interesting because he says, I've been ordained a preacher. What is a preacher? Simply one that proclaims a message. Simply one that gets up and announces what the message is. You know, we've all been called to preach the gospel to every creature, all of us. Maybe not behind a pulpit. You know, most preaching doesn't actually happen behind a pulpit. Most preaching happens out there. As you're talking to somebody about the Christian faith, about their need to be saved, that's preaching the gospel to them. Most of preaching doesn't happen behind. a wooden pulpit in a building on a stage with people listening like this. Most preaching happens in your day to day life. And every one of us has been called in that sense to preach, to share your testimony, to share what God has done in your life. Every Christian has been given that message of the gospel. And then he says, I'm an apostle. I've got to be careful here. We don't believe. that the gift or the calling or the office of the apostle is still, what is the English word? Vicente, it's a Spanish word, is still for today. But in a sense, what does apostle mean? Apostle just means sent one, one that's been sent. In a sense, every one of us also has that function. That's what a missionary is, but every one of us has also been sent to the world around us. Paul had very clear this idea. I've been sent forth to preach the gospel, just like every one of us has been sent forth to preach the gospel. But then he says, a teacher. A teacher of the Gentiles in faith and verity. What does that mean? One who disciples. One who teaches. That's what the Great Commission is. We haven't fulfilled the Great Commission only when we evangelize. We haven't fulfilled the Great Commission only when they're baptized. But God has also commissioned us to teach them all things. And every one of us can be involved in that. You say, well, I'm not I'm not the pastor. That's why we pay the pastor. You know, it doesn't matter if you've been saved for any number of time. There's people that you can help. You can come alongside of and you say, hey, come alongside of me. Follow me as I follow Christ. We're all we're all going toward Christ together. The church's mission isn't just to come and sit and listen to somebody else teach about what it means to be a Christian. It's for all of us to live out that Christian life and to invite others along in that process. If we could get a vision of this, an idea, a heart for this, that's what Jesus wants. We ought to pray for the salvation of all because God wants all to be saved. And Christ gave all so that all could be saved. Now all of us should feel that we have a part in that. All of us should feel that way to reach Oh, it wasn't just for the Gentiles. Paul says here, I know I've been sent to the Gentiles, but he also has that burden for the same Jews. You see in Romans 9, the first five verses, Romans 10, the first four verses, his heart also is for the Jewish people. He says, man, I pray for them. They have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge. They have all these things. They're so close. He even comes to the point in Romans 9 where he says, if it were possible, I would wish myself accursed for them. If it were possible for me to take their place and to go to hell, to receive God's wrath in their place so that all of them could be saved, that's what I would do. Where do we see that in Jesus? That's what Jesus did for us. And the closer we get to Jesus, the more we have his heart that all could be saved. The desire of God should become our desire. Paul's basically saying, I want what God wants. Do we want that too? Here he speaks about, in verse number eight, I will therefore that men pray everywhere, lifting up holy hands without wrath and doubting. You know, for a long time I confused this verse eight with the same verse one. Basically the same thing. But it's a little different. Verse one says, pray for all men. And verse eight says, I want all men to pray. Verse one says, pray for all to be saved, basically, because that's the context. And verse eight is, that all those who are saved could also pray. Do you see that? And I might be off here. But what I see here is a sequence. As we pray for the salvation of all, because God wants all to be saved, and Christ gave his all for all to be saved, and we do everything, we all feel that weight so that all could be saved. As we do our part, those who once were lost and undone, those who once were far away from God, those who once were far removed from Him, now can pray, lifting up holy hands, without wrath and doubting. There's no wrath on them anymore, There's no more doubting anymore. Their hands are now holy. Why? Because Jesus, his blood has been shed for them and made them holy. There's no wrath. Why? Because Jesus has already taken that wrath away. There's no more doubting. Why? Because there's no doubt we can go boldly through Jesus. All around the world, we see people pray. I've had the opportunity to travel quite a bit around the different countries of the world. We've been in South America now for almost a decade. And before that, I also studied in Peru, South America, studied Spanish, studied in a Bible college there many, many years ago, about 18 years ago. And from there, I was able to travel to different countries during that time. And my Bible college preparation in the early to mid 2000s also went to North Africa, went to Morocco and Tunisia, been to different places around the world. You know, everywhere I go, I see people praying. There's all sorts of religion. Walking down the streets of Morocco, one of the most eerie feelings. Five times a day, there's a minaret there, and from that minaret, there's a loudspeaker. A guy gets up there and he goes, Allahu Akbar, and he starts calling people to pray. Maybe you've heard that, maybe you've seen that in some documentaries or something, but people stop. and they take out a little rug and they'll face that rug toward Mecca, even on the plane. When we were on the plane over there, people would stop and in the middle of the aisle would pray. They would get down on their face and pray toward Mecca. It's a memorized prayer that they have five times a day, there's a prayer. But that's not the prayer Paul is talking about. Why? Because they're not praying with holy hands. They're not praying with no wrath and no doubting why. They're praying to remove all of that stuff. They're praying, hoping they can be good enough to get in. In Latin America, most people are Catholic down there, like you are here in the Northeast. Catholics are so, so close, so close. I love the Catholics. They already have all the ingredients of salvation. They already believe there's a God and that he's in the Trinity, that Jesus was born of a virgin, that he died on a cross after living a sinless life, that he rose from the dead. They believe the Bible is his word, that there's a heaven and a hell. It's kind of like having all the ingredients of a cake and putting them out on the counter and saying, there's your cake. There's something missing. You got to put all that stuff together and believe and have faith in Christ. You see the Catholics praying a lot. There's rosaries and they help people to pray and they remember prayers with this rosary and they go through the beads and different things. And you see people go to the big cathedrals and beautiful, beautiful buildings. And they'll go and say so many Hail Marys and Our Fathers and all these other things. That's not the prayer Paul is talking about. That prayer is a prayer that only Jesus can open up access to the Father to remove the wrath, to remove the doubting, to make us holy. And Paul says, man, I long for that. I want people to know what we know. I want people to know what we know. Maybe you're one of these all that God wants to save. I don't know. I don't know your hearts. I don't even know most of your names. I've met a couple of you. But God does. Do you look, examine yourself today. Do you know without a shadow of a doubt that you've been saved? Maybe you're here just hoping that it earns you enough favor to God to outweigh the bad that you did so God lets you in. That's not the way it works. You can only be saved through faith in Christ and what He's done for you. He's already paid the price. He bought the gift with His own blood. He wrapped it up and He's offering it to you. All you have to do is receive it. Would you receive that today? If you don't know for sure that you're saved, would you look to Jesus and to see what He's already done for you? Would you believe in Him? in our repentance and faith. It's repenting is simply a change of mind. It's a change of perspective, a change of direction that leads to changed life. Would you say I'm done believing in my dead works, my religion, living for myself, living in sin. I'm going to look unto Jesus and place my faith, my trust in him. If you've never done that today, maybe today's the day you could be saved. It doesn't matter how long you've been going to church. That's the most important thing. God wants you to be saved. He doesn't want you to be like those people on the outside of the ark when Noah was inside. He wants you to come in. The door's open right now. Jesus says, come on in. Come on in. Anybody who wants to, come on in. But one day it will be closed and it will be too late. What will you do with the knowledge that Jesus already gave himself? as a ransom for you, to rescue you. We believe in Him. Christian, what are we gonna do with that? We already know what God wants. We already know what Jesus did, but will we pray for all to be saved? And will we feel that weight so that all could be saved? Will we do everything we can? We can witness more. We can grab some tracts and go talk to people and just pray, Lord, give me opportunity to share the gospel with somebody this week. Maybe as you celebrate with family, you don't wanna bring up politics and religion, You gotta talk about something. Better than talking about the Steelers, I don't know. Well, I don't know. Maybe you could talk to some of those lost family members about the gospel. Share that truth in love. As we think about missions, maybe we can do more for missions. Maybe we can pray, Lord, help me to support more missionaries. What if you want me to go? If you want my kids to go, my grandkids? Lord, I want what you want. That'd be a big commitment, wouldn't it? But we want what God wants. And he says, I want them all. Amen. Let's pray. God, thank you for your goodness and your love. Thank you for letting us be here together to study your word. Pray that you'd help us to live in that gospel. Every moment of every day, let it be real to us. Not just a tradition that we go to church on Sunday to talk about this, Lord, help it to permeate every part of our being. In your name we pray, amen.