there myself, I can't just. Had it. Alright, has everybody got it? If I ask that a lot tonight, it's just, you know, a habit. After doing that in Spanish for so long, some things translate over and I just keep doing it. Just keep saying amen, that way I know that you're hanging on and, you know, no problems. You don't have to say amen for anything else, but let me know that you are there, though. If you do say amen for other stuff, well, the Lord will bless you for that, too, I guess. John chapter four, and we're gonna read starting with verse number 34, just to get a little bit of context here. Jesus saith unto them, my meat is to do the will of him that sent me, and to finish his work. Say not ye there are yet four months, and then cometh the harvest? Behold, I say unto you, lift up your eyes and look on the fields, for they are white already to harvest. Let's go ahead and pray and then we'll get into the message tonight which I have entitled, God's Vision of Missions. Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you for this day. Thank you for your blessings. Thank you for taking care of us. Thank you for bringing us here this evening. Thank you even for the difficult things that we have to go through that amounted to allowing us to be here this evening. Even with the cold weather and difficulties with the water and everything else, Lord, you know that all things work together for your glory and for your honor. And we do praise you tonight for allowing us to be able to be here, to be able to sing praises to your name. And I pray, Lord, that you just give wisdom to your servants to try to preach what is your word for us tonight. And, Lord, may you be glorified in all this said and done. In Jesus' name we do pray. Amen. God's vision of missions. A lot of times we try to put it down to what is the missionary's vision or just having a vision, things like that. But I just kind of want to take a look at it from God's perspective. What is it that the Lord tries to tell us about missions or about the Great Commission? I mean, we can't touch this subject without going into the Great Commission, of course. But the first thing that we come to tonight is just what our last hymn we sang was all about, and that's The Harvest. whenever we talk about the harvest, you know, we have all sorts of sayings that we use to talk about the weather, you know, red sky at night, sailors delight, red sky at morning, sailors take warning, you know, things like that. And I guess here at this time, people just had this figured out that, you know, harvest is coming in about four months. That was just, you know, part of their understanding of the times, and that we do the same thing. You know, you sow the seed at a certain time of the year, you reap the harvest at a certain time of the year, normally. And it changes, and it's different wherever you may be. I mean, we're in the Northern Hemisphere, so December, you know, January, this is our wintertime. You know, you don't do much sowing or reaping in that time frame. However, in other parts of the world, like if you go south of the equator, it's flipped around and June and July is their winter. So, things change and things are different, but the idea is that everybody has a general idea of when harvest time is. When, you know, you've seen that one person that can walk outside, look up at the sky, clear, you know, bright day, and they say, it's going to rain this evening. and then it rains this evening, you're like, what in the, how did he know that? Well, it's just years of experience and knowledge. And that's what we, you know, we see that, but Jesus is saying, don't go off of what you think you know. You know, four months and then comes the harvest. Jesus said, look around you, the harvest is white. And whenever we talk about a white harvest, we're talking about, it's about over. You know, the harvest is pretty much gone. If the fields are white, you waited too long, brother, to go out there and get into the harvest. And your field can rot out there in the field. You can waste a whole field's worth of produce if you don't go out and you don't harvest it on time. Now, some people get crafty with it. Down in Mexico, whenever the corn stands and you let it go longer than It's time, you can go out there, you're not gonna pick it and eat it, it's just not good anymore. So what they do is they go out there and they cut it down and they use it for feed for the donkeys. That's what they've done down in Mexico. I've had to cut that stuff before, so I know what that's about. I mean, so it's basically rotting out there in the field until somebody cuts it and uses it for something. And Jesus is saying, you know, we don't have any more time. You know, you don't have four months till the harvest. The harvest was yesterday. You know, that's what we're looking at here. The harvest was yesterday. The urgency is what Jesus is focusing on here, is that it is urgent to get out there into the field. You know, we talk about, you know, pray the Lord of the harvest and He'll send forth more laborers into the harvest. Brother, you and I are the laborers. You know, there's not many more options out there. I mean, who are we going to get? The ones we harvest. Those are the ones that we got to get the harvested so that they can go out there and harvest too. That's the whole point of this. We don't have time. The harvest is almost over. and we need to get out there and we need to serve the Lord. We need to be able to reach people with the gospel. And then, whenever we look at that, we know about the Great Commission, Matthew 28. We just read that a little bit ago. Matthew 28, verses 18 through 20. Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. Go ye, therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you. And lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. Amen. And whenever we look at this passage, We end up, we see, whenever we talk about the Great Commission, somebody says, you know, go and, and most people would say go and preach. You know, that's what the Great Commission is, right? Go and preach. Well, look for the word preach in this whole passage of the Great Commission here in Matthew 28. That word is not in those three verses. You can look for it all you want to, but the word preach is not in there. Now, I know some of you are like, well, I know the Bible says that somewhere. It does, we'll get there, don't worry about it. The word used here isn't go therefore and preach, it is go therefore and teach. There is a difference with using that word. The focus of the Lord in this part, in this passage, is teaching. Whenever we look at this idea for teaching, number one, you gotta know something before you can teach it. I don't know about how many people around here know algebra. I mean, I can maybe teach you a couple of things about algebra. I'm sure there's somebody that could do way a better job than I can. But you can't teach algebra if you've never seen algebra before in your life. I mean, how do you get to X? I don't know. It's right there on the paper. Just go right there. I mean, you know, that's about all that a lot of people can teach because if you've never seen it before, you can't teach it. And if you're not in the Word of God, you can't teach it. You've gotta be in God's word, you've gotta know some things. And whenever we talk about teaching, we get all the way down to verse number 20. It's talking about teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you. And lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the world. This is making disciples. What did Jesus do in his time as, in his ministry, on the earth, somebody said, well, he was doing miracles. Yeah, but more importantly than that, he was making disciples. And he didn't just go out and say, Peter, James, and John, let's go. Now I've called you to get out there and preach. He didn't just send them out there into the wolves without some kind of teaching, some kind of training. And that's what, I mean, there was a couple of times he sent them out two by two. Of course, that kind of gives you a lot of insight into that aspect. And that's a whole nother sermon. for another day. But he sent them out two by two to do some work, but he was training them and teaching them so that after his death, burial, and resurrection from the dead, they were going out and teaching others. I mean, you look and about every one of them wrote something in the Bible for us to know today, about every one of them. Judas Iscariot, it was kind of hard for him to do much writing. So, although he can tell you volumes, I'm sure. So, whenever Jesus is here in Matthew, he's saying, all power is given and all authority, I have the authority, God has given me the authority, and now I take that authority and I give it to you, go teach other people. I have passed the baton. That is what Jesus is doing. It is now your turn to go and teach. And the Bible does not say anywhere in Scripture, go and get a bunch of people to make a profession of faith. Look it up. You're not going to find that anywhere. What it does say is go and teach. And where do we get this idea? I'd say whenever we look at going and we use that phrase soul winning quite a bit, there's one passage of scripture that talks about winning souls. That's Proverbs 11, 30. Let's go take a look at that real quick because I mean, we use that phrase soul winning quite often. What does it mean? Proverbs 11, verse number 30. Now if anybody in here has ever heard Brother Andrew Tully preach on soul winning, I'm not trying to copy him, okay? So I'm just saying for those that may have ever heard him preach at some point. Proverbs 11.30, the fruit of the righteous is a tree of life, and he that winneth souls is wise. Now the law of first mention in the Bible is the first time anything is ever mentioned in the Bible, the Bible gives you enough that you need to know about that doctrine in the first time it's ever mentioned. So whenever we see here winning souls, what are we looking at? What do we do? How do we win souls? What is winning souls? You know, we talk about going soul winning and that means we're just gonna knock on a few doors, hand out a few tracts and go home, right? That's what a lot of people look at soul winning, but what is soul winning? According to the Bible here, I mean it tells you in this passage, the fruit of the righteous is a tree of life. Now whenever you have a orange tree, what is the fruit of the orange tree? An orange. Fruit of an apple tree is? Apple. How come nobody said another apple tree? Because that's not the way we look at fruit. The Bible doesn't say the fruit of the righteous is a baby righteous or a little righteous. No, the fruit of the righteous is a tree. Now, the difference between a piece of fruit and a tree is that one of them is completely and totally mature and the other one isn't yet. What this passage of Scripture is teaching us is that whenever we go out to win somebody to Christ, you don't just go out, talk to them, give them the gospel, they get saved, and you're done. That's not when you're done. Your job has just begun. As any parent that just gives birth to a child knows, you don't just give birth and drop them off in the street and say, have at it, kid. Go live your life. No. They're gonna get in a street fight within five seconds. And they're probably not gonna make it. So you don't just win somebody to Christ and just leave them. Every time you hear these people, it's like, how many souls did you win this week? I won 50 souls to Christ this week. I'm like, where's those 50 souls at? Oh, they're probably at home somewhere. You didn't bring them to church? No, that's the pastor's job. Does he even know that you have 50 souls saved? Did you give him their addresses or anything like that? Okay, it's not the pastor's job to do that part. You birthed them, you take care of them. You know, I mean, if you win somebody to Christ, teach them. Oh, I don't know anything. So what have you been doing in church all these years? I mean, that's what the Bible is all about, isn't it? You're in here listening to God's Word being preached and that's so that you can teach others. God doesn't give you anything just for free. I mean, if He gives you a lesson, it's so that you can teach somebody else. I mean, you know what a sponge does, right? It just absorbs, absorbs, absorbs until it gets to a point where it starts leaking. It's just got too much and it can't absorb anymore. Sometimes you gotta let that you know, squeeze it out into somebody else and absorb more so that you can squeeze it into somebody else. Pass it on. Pass on the knowledge that God has given you. So the fruit of the righteous is a tree of life. What that means basically is this. I go out and I win somebody to Christ. I bring them to church. I sit with them and I go over the Word of God with them. I teach them a few things that I know and what I don't know. I say, Pastor, can you teach me more? you know, and then I teach that to them and then I take them with me to win somebody else to Christ and let them win somebody to Christ and whenever they are able to win somebody to Christ and start teaching them the doctrines of the Word of God then you can say you're done because you've left a mature Christian, a tree, not a piece of fruit That's what this is all about. That's why we teach people. That's why the Great Commission, the first passage of the Great Commission is all about teaching. You don't get professions of faith, you get disciples. If everybody in here, if you think about this for just one moment, if we would each, throughout the year of 2024, make one disciple, Everybody just make one. In 2025, you've doubled your church. Just look at that. And then everybody does it again. That's the law of multiplication. You get out there, you don't win 50 people and leave them in their homes. You bring one to Jesus and you teach them and you train them and you leave them as a mature Christian and get somebody else. Does that mean you stop spreading the gospel? No, it doesn't. We'll get to that in just a second. You know, we're to teach. Then, once we've learned to teach, and remember, we are responsible for teaching others. Whatever you have learned, you are responsible for passing that knowledge on. Everybody that learns something is responsible for passing that knowledge on. That's just the way things are supposed to be. Then we get into Mark chapter 16. Mark 16. Now for the rest of you who are thinking, I'm sure the Bible says something about going and preaching somewhere. All right, now we found it. Mark 16, verse number 15, the Bible says, And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature. He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved, but he that believeth not shall be damned. Now then, the first passage, God is telling us that we need to teach. That's part of the Great Commission. Part, because we're not looking at three different commissions, we're looking at one Great Commission, different parts. Preach is the focus of this second one. What is preaching? In the simplest form, and I didn't get out the Webster's Dictionary to be able to give you this definition. The simplest form of preaching is to proclaim or to warn. That's we're going bare bones right there. To proclaim, to warn. We could also say prophesy. In the Old Testament, you have a prophet. What did he do? He received the word from God. He told the people. Sometimes it was a warning. Sometimes it was just, you need to know this. Get this in your head. is proclaiming it. This is what God has said, thus saith the Lord. You know, that's what the Old Testament does. So what does a preacher do today? He gets the Word from God and he proclaims it to the congregation. And he warns where it is necessary to warn. There are many different versions of preaching. The one that we're looking at here is talking about the gospel, proclaiming the gospel. So we have the responsibility to proclaim the truth of the gospel to everyone we can. Now there's a big difference between going and getting 50 professions of faith and sowing 50 grains of seed. Okay? You go out and you spread it wherever you can. The ground that it falls upon, the Lord gives the increase, not us. So, some of it will be good ground, some of it won't, but our job is to sow the seed. That's what this is talking about. Go ye and preach into all the world. Preach the gospel. Get it out there. We are responsible for the people who are around us. Ezekiel 33 verses 7-9, the Bible says, So thou, O son of man, I have set the watchman unto the house of Israel. Therefore thou shalt hear the word at my mouth, and warn them from me. When I say unto the wicked, O wicked man, thou shalt surely die. If thou dost not speak to warn the wicked from his way, that wicked man shall die in his iniquity, but his blood will I require at thine hand. Nevertheless, if thou warn the wicked of his way to turn from it, if he do not turn from his way, he shall die in his iniquity, but thou hast delivered thy soul." There's a lot of things that we could get into on that, and I'm not going to take the time to just dive deeply in here, but the general idea is you warn everybody you can. The watchman is up there. If he sees somebody in danger, it's his job to warn them. It doesn't matter who they are. It doesn't matter, you know, what time of the day it is. His job is to warn them, let them know. If a doctor had the cure for cancer and he kept it to himself and didn't say a word to anybody, anybody that died of cancer after his understanding and knowledge of a cure their blood would be on his hands if you think about it. Because if he has the cure and he doesn't let anybody know, he's killing people. And anybody in this world who would see that, even, I would believe, even those of the Democratic and the Republican Party would both realize that that's wrong to some extent. You don't just keep the cure to yourself. That's wicked. That's wrong. We don't keep the gospel to ourselves. We're to warn everybody that we can. Preach the gospel. Romans 10, 14. Romans 10, 14, the Bible says, oh, I skipped it. How then shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher? It's our responsibility to tell everybody we can. It can be tracks, it can be telling them in person, it can be a phone call, it can be anything. Our job is to let them know. Teach, preach, Acts 1-8. Very familiar passage of scripture, I know, we're going to go over it anyway. The Bible says, But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you, and ye shall be witnesses unto me, both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth. Witnesses. To witness simply means to say only what you have seen or what happened to you. That's basically what being a witness is. If they call you in, or the lawyers call you in on a case to be a witness in some murder or some accident or something like that, you go in, they don't want your opinion, do they? What do they want? They want the facts. What did you see? Nothing more, nothing less, or what did you do? What happened to you in this case? If you're sitting there and you go up there and you tell the people, now I was standing on the corner of 5th and 2nd Street And as I'm standing there, I hear this sound of this big engine coming through. I turn around and there is a bus driving through at that time. It passed up the light and it smacked the grandma that was trying to cross the road at that moment and she ended up dying. Those are the facts that I saw. Do I know if the bus driver, his brakes were out at that moment? I do not know. I can't tell for the bus driver. All I know is bus drives through, misses the light, hits the old lady. With all respect to anybody that is elderly here. I know that we have a lot of young women in here. We're not worried about that. But that's all I saw. That's all I can witness to. What we have seen or heard is what we speak to others. What happened to you when you got saved? When you got saved, tell me about it. I was five years old. See if you remember all this. I was five years old in the top bunk there at the Red House, Rebel Cave Road. I could probably, I don't know, is the house still standing? Okay, I can actually take you to the place then. Top bunk. And I think it was after church that night. And I got up there and I just knelt over. There's a two-by-six that was running across there to keep me from falling out of it. I bent over that board and I just kept praying, Lord, come into my heart and save me. Lord, come into my heart and save me. Lord, come into my heart and save me. I didn't know what else to say. I was five years old. And I remember Dad looked up at me and said, son, do you want to get saved? I said, yes. He went, well, come with me into the living room. We went into the living room. He said, do you want me to pray with you or do you want your mom to pray with you? And just like a great hillbilly, I said, I want my mama there. We knelt down on the couch in the living room. You know what? I don't remember a word I said in that prayer because I don't think I was saved at that moment. I was saved whenever I was in the bed and I was saying, Lord, come into my heart and save me because that's when I believed. That's whenever I was saved. All I know is, was I a big bad sinner? I don't know. I might have stolen a cookie or two out of a cookie jar one time. I might have told a lie to my mama or something like that. But I was just as much of a sinner as anybody in here. And I know that at that moment whenever I asked Jesus to come into my heart and save me, He came into my heart and saved me. Have I ever had doubts? Of course I have. But you know something, I don't remember any other thing about my five-year-old life, but that night is pretty clear in my mind. I'm pretty sure. You know, I don't have to worry about it. I know that I asked Jesus into my heart and He saved me that night. There is no doubt in my mind that since then I have been saved. and I am going to go to heaven. If you pull out a gun tonight and shot me right between the eyes, I will see my Lord and Savior in the next few seconds." And that's just the Bible. We should be sure of our salvation to where we can tell other people about what happened to us. Remember Paul? You remember how Paul got saved? Everybody remember how Paul got saved? Do you know that There are three accounts of Paul's salvation in the book of Acts. Did you know that? The first one was when it happened. The other two is whenever he told somebody about it. And you know who one of those people were? King Agrippa. And what did he say after Paul gave his testimony? Almost. That persuades me to be a Christian. With his testimony, he almost persuaded a king to be saved. With a testimony. And that testimony being how he was saved. You may ask, well what do I say? Just tell them what happened to you. I don't know how to witness. I don't have all these verses memorized. I can't tell you what the Romans wrote is. Don't have to. Just tell them how you got saved. And if you can't tell somebody how you got saved, then maybe we need to work on that tonight and get saved. Because if you don't know, it's probably because it never happened. Every chance you get, tell others. You know Brother Norm Hassel? How many times have we heard Brother Norm's testimony? I can almost tell you how Brother Norm Hassel got saved because I've heard at least 20 times in my life how he was driving that big greyhound bus over the bridge Bay Bridge down in San Francisco and as he was driving the Lord got a hold of his heart and he stopped in rush hour traffic. He stopped and everybody on that bus thought he was crazy but he knelt down and he got saved. I can tell you, how do I know? Because he told that story so many times. You know? Tell somebody. How did you get saved? Be a witness. That's the Great Commission. That's what God has told us to do. Everything tonight is what God has told us that we should do in regards to missions, which is basically just telling others about Jesus. This is the great commission that was given to the church. It wasn't given just to pastors and missionaries and evangelists. It was given to the church. And we all know that the church is Ecclesia, a called out assembly of born again believers. That's our job, is to go out and tell others. How can you worry about missions in other countries if you're not winning those of your own people, of your own town? How can we worry about missions elsewhere if we're not worried about those who are around us now? And what are you doing to warn them and help them find Christ? All you got to do, start with your own family. I guarantee everybody in here has somebody that's close to them that does not know Jesus as their Savior. You can start there. and let the Lord do the work. Sow the seed. Preach. Give Him your testimony. The Lord can do the rest. Let's pray. Dear Heavenly Father, we thank You for this day. Thank You for Your Word. Thank You for this time. I pray, Father, that You would bless the remainder of this evening. Lord, that You would protect each and every one of us as we travel, as we go home. But, Lord, that you would protect your word in our hearts, that we would hide it there and we would be able to use it, Lord, in a way that would give you glory and honor. Teach us that we might teach others. Thank you, Lord, for your word. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.