Brethren and sistren, we have about 30 seconds left till 10 o'clock. And I'll just go ahead and introduce him. Many of y'all were here last year when he came, but Tafik Copmanelle, he's a pastor out of Austin, Austin Grace Church, Austin. formerly of San Antonio with Tim Conway and that lot, and a good lot they are. So I'm pleased to just introduce him this morning. He'll be teaching, taking our Sunday school hour and our preaching hour. So give him your attention and let's be edified by the word of God this morning. Breath. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for your faithfulness. We thank you for your mercy. Lord, we know where we all deserve to be. Even as we enjoy the cool air to escape the rising heat outside, a small reminder of the heat we deserve to be under, and yet you've been so gracious to us. Father, we ask that you would open your word to us by the power of your spirit, through the foolishness of this man's preaching. that we might all see more of your great glory and worship you and adore you as we grow in holiness and unity. In Jesus name, amen. It really is an honor to be here and I stand literally with some trembling behind this pulpit because I know that this is a true church of the living God. And the truth comes forth week after week from this pulpit. And so in a sense, what can I say to you? But I am encouraged that Peter, in 2 Peter, in chapter one, in verse 13, he says this, I think it right, as long as I am in this body, to stir you up by way of reminder. That's what I would like to do today, to stir you up by way of reminder, not to tell you things you have never heard, but to remind you as well as myself of something that is extremely important. And that is I want to motivate us all to be more evangelistic, to take the gospel to people who have not heard it before. Now, as Christians, we are people of the gospel. We are gonna sing hymns in just a moment, and those hymns will be filled with the gospel. Some of us like to wear T-shirts that have gospel slogans. I've been in some of your homes, and I've seen the gospel written on walls. We are all about the gospel. And I would like to begin by taking us to Isaiah chapter six, because this is an often gone to passage to stir people up to go. Isaiah chapter six and verse eight. You probably know this by heart. Isaiah says, and I heard the voice of the Lord saying, whom shall I send and who will go for us? And then that all too familiar response, then I said, what? Here I am, send me. Now, the question is, why did he say that? What did he see? What did he experience? What was the motivating factor to move this man to respond with these words? Now, bear with me, Isaiah six, verse one. In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and the train of his robe filled the temple. Above him stood the seraphim, each had six wings, with two he covered his face, with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. And one called to another and said, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts, the whole earth is full of His glory, and the foundations of the threshold shook at the voice of Him who called, and the house was filled with smoke. And I said, Woe is me, for I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips, for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts. We could say immediately that the motivation for Isaiah was that he saw the Lord. He saw the Lord high and lifted up, and he also saw himself. He said of himself, this is being a prophet, a righteous man, a godly man, not a hypocrite in any way, that he was a man of unclean lips. Why? because he saw the Lord. He saw that he dwelt in the midst of a people of unclean lips. He saw these creatures that dwell in the immediate presence of Almighty God, and yet they still cover their face and their feet because he is too holy to look upon. He is the holy, holy, holy King. He was utterly impressed, utterly captured. He was moved and motivated. And when I want to motivate us as to why should we take the gospel to people, I would start where Isaiah started because of the worthiness and the holiness and the beauty of God. So let's think about this reality. Everything obeys God. Genesis 8, 1-3, we see that the weather obeys God. But God remembered Noah and all the beasts and all the livestock that were with him in the ark. And God made a wind blow over the earth and the waters subsided. The fountains of the deep and the windows of the heavens were closed. The rain from the heavens was restrained and the waters receded from the earth continually. At the end of 150 days, the waters had abated. And again, in Exodus 10, 19, and the Lord turned the wind into a very strong west wind, which lifted the locusts and drove them into the Red Sea. Not a single locust was left in all the country of Egypt. We see from these two passages, as well as more that you all can multiply, that the weather obeys God. It listens to the voice of its maker. Every gust of wind and every scorching heat, all of it obeys the Lord. Even animals. Think of the plagues of Egypt I was just referenced. Frogs and locusts and flies. Last night, Russell and I were looking up at bats circling around eating mosquitoes. Every single animal obeys the living God. The donkey of Balaam, spoke because God gave its speech, and it said what He told it to say. Jonah is a wonderful place to go. My family is reading through Jonah, and you see this continually. Jonah 117, the Lord appointed a great fish to swallow up Jonah, and Jonah was in the belly of the fish. Why? Because the fish obeyed God. Jonah 210, the Lord spoke to the fish. It vomited Jonah out upon the dry land and did what the Lord said. Jonah 4, 6. Now the Lord God appointed a plant and made it come up over Jonah that it might be a shade over his head to save him from his discomfort. So Jonah was exceedingly glad because of the plant. But when dawn came up the next day, God appointed a worm. I feel like this is speaking of myself at times. God appointed a worm, a worm. Think of how insignificant worms are. We step on them, we use them to catch fish. God appointed a worm that attacked the plant so that it withered. Even the worms do what God say. God controls nature, and we see it in the life of our Lord Jesus, Matthew 8, 26. He said to them, why are you afraid, O you of little faith? Then he rose and rebuked the winds and the sea, and there was a great calm, and the men marveled, saying, what sort of man is this that even the winds and the sea obey? Weather, animal, all of nature obeys what God says. It's Job 38, nine. Then I made clouds its garment, and thick darkness its swallowing fan, and prescribed limits for it, and set bars and doors and said, thus far you shall come and no farther, and here shall your proud waves be stayed. It's an amazing thing to really step back and see the truth that all of life is being upheld by the word of his power. As R.C. Sproul said, there is no such thing as a maverick molecule. Everything does what he says. And we look at even the angelic world. Psalm 91 11, for he will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways. On their hands, they will bear you up lest you strike your foot against a stone. He commands his angels and they do what he says. Matthew 13, 41, the son of man will send gather out of his kingdom. No argument, no disagreement. They do exactly what he says. Matthew 26, 53, do you think that I cannot appeal to my father and he will at once send me more than 12 legions of angels? Angels obey. But we see even fallen angels doing what God tells them. Revelation 12, 12, Therefore rejoice, O heavens, and you who dwell in them, but woe to you, O earth and sea, for the devil has come down to you in great wrath, because he knows that his time is short. Think of that statement. He is given a limited amount of time, and he doesn't go over it. I am making sure to keep an eye on the clock that I don't go over my time. The devil will do exactly what he is told to do in the time that he is given to do it. And we know this most clearly from the book of Job. Right, Job 1.6, now, there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord and Satan also came among them. The Lord said to Satan, from where have you come? Satan answered the Lord and said, from going to and fro on the earth and from walking up and down on it. And the Lord said to Satan, have you considered my servant, Job, that there is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man who fears God and turns away from evil? Then Satan answered the Lord and said, Does Job fear God for no reason? Have you not put a hedge around him and his house and all that he has on every side? You have blessed the work of his hands, and his possessions have increased in the land. But stretch out your hand and touch all that he has, and he will curse you to your face. And the Lord said to Satan, Behold, all that he has is in your hand only against him, Do not stretch out your hand. So Satan went out from the presence of the Lord, and the devil did not touch a hair on his body. Not because he loved Joel, but because he fears God and does what he's told. First Chronicles 21.1, then Satan stood against Israel and incited David to number Israel. And we see behind the scenes in 2 Samuel 24, 1, again, the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel and he incited David against them saying, go number Israel and Judah. No contradiction there, we're being told that the motivation for David to number came from Satan inciting. As it's been said that he is a lion, but he is a lion on a leash, the length of which is determined by the Lord. Now we can continue to multiply examples of this, even the demons who left the legion, the man who was filled, the legion who left the man, and begged to go into the pigs. And they did. All of creation obeys the Lord God, except us. Deuteronomy 11, 13, and if you will indeed obey my Commands, Deuteronomy 15, 5, if only you will strictly obey the voice of the Lord your God, being careful to do all this commandment that I command you today. But is this what men and women do? Is this how men and women respond to the God that made them? As the scripture says, all we like sheep have gone, what, astray. We have turned everyone to his own way. Rather than human beings doing what the worm and the wave and even the angels do, we go our own way. We do our own thing, and we're the only ones who are made in the image of God. Rather than us loving Him and obeying Him and adoring Him and giving all of our hearts and minds and soul and strength to Him in worship and praise, rather mankind does their own thing. Not only that, men take what God made and worship that instead of God. As Romans 1.22 says, claiming to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things. What is the number one reason why we go to people who don't know the Lord? We don't start with man and the danger of hell. We go because God is worthy to be obeyed. He's worthy to be trusted. He's worthy to be loved. And this world is filled with people who don't love him, who don't trust him, who don't obey him. Think of the insult. If someone came to you and said, I would like to trust you, but I'm having a hard time. I'd like to believe you, but I'm really struggling. That would be an insult. What are you saying about my character? What are you saying about me? I'm untrustworthy? This world is filled with people who don't trust him, who don't believe him, who don't love him. This world is filled with people who love their dogs and even their phones more than the God who made them. So we go We have beheld his glory we have been impressed by his majesty our hearts are overwhelmed with love for him and affection for him and we know that as in heaven they worship him and adore him but on earth they despise him and spit in his holy face and so we go motivated by his great name we go motivated by the fact that Jesus Christ died for his bride and the full number has not yet come in and we want him to receive because he's worthy. That's the first reason that I put before you and my own heart. The second reason is what we know. Everyone without Christ will perish. I mean, Isaiah even alluded, woe is me. Woe, a term of curse, call down curses. Woe is me. I am cursed. Why? Because he recognized his own sinfulness before the holiness of God. There is great danger in not being in Christ and dying in your sins. And we know this. Deuteronomy 8, 19, and if you forget the Lord your God and go after other gods and serve them and worship them, I solemnly warn you today that you shall surely perish. Like the nations that the Lord makes to perish before you, so shall you perish because you would not obey the voice of the Lord your God. There is a solemn warning of perishing for those who don't obey the Lord and go after other gods. And we have to look no further than down the street and outside and on the television to see this world is filled with idolaters. They're promised to perish if they do not repent and believe in Christ. Luke 13, three, no, I tell you, but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish. Psalm 21, eight, your hand will find out all your enemies. Your right hand will find out those who hate you. Romans one, haters of God. You will make them as a blazing oven. When you appear, the Lord will swallow them up in his wrath and will consume them. These are promises God cannot, does not, and will not lie. This is a guarantee for everyone who is not in Christ. Psalms 90 11, who considers the power of your anger and your wrath according to the fear of you. When was the last time that we considered the power of his anger? This is the God who made all things by talking. The God who sends forth tsunamis and tornadoes and typhoons and solar flares by words, and He doesn't even need to use words. Think of the power. That power, encapsulated in anger, toward brittle, fragile human beings. We can't even stand before a microorganism. We would be in the fetal position if we got a stomach bug. How could we possibly stand before the eternal, omnipotent, holy, holy, holy one, enduring his full wrath, Jesus, who is true God and true man in the garden, begged three times that the cup would pass, and he's God. How much more do we want to avoid such wrath? John 3.36 tells us, whoever believes in the Son has eternal life. Whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him. Try to get rid of your shadow. It's attached to you. You cannot escape your shadow. It remains with you. The wrath of God abides upon those who do not obey the Son even more than your shadow, more than your skin. Romans 2, 3, Do you suppose, O man, you who judge those who practice such things, and yet do them yourself, that you will escape the judgment of God? Or do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God's kindness is meant to lead you to repentance, but because of your hard and impenitent heart you are storing up saving up, building up, stacking up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when God's righteous judgment will be revealed. Did you know that the wrath of God is talked about in the Bible more than the love of God? Which is an amazing thing to consider how much the steadfast love of the Lord is spoken about. 2 Corinthians 5.11, therefore, knowing the fear of the Lord, what do we do? We persuade others. We know the fear of the Lord. We know that there is a wrath that is coming, and we don't want those who we love to suffer it. And that is why we go. One, because He's worthy to be loved, obeyed, and trusted, and believed in. And two, we know that there is an eternal consequence that will never end. It is a wrath that is horrifying and terrifying, and we don't want that to fall upon anyone. And so we go to everyone. Reason three, we've been given mercy. Remember what happened to Isaiah there in chapter six. Then one of the seraphim flew to thee, having in his hand a burning coal that he had taken with tongs from the altar, and he touched my mouth and said, Behold, this has touched your lips, your guilt is taken away, and your sin atoned for. This man who at one moment was calling down curses upon himself in anguish, I'm undone, I'm coming apart, had received mercy that he knew he did not deserve, thus mercy. So he was willing to go and Isaiah is filled with him crying out that they would turn back to the Lord. Well, everyone here who knows the Lord, you have received mercy. You have been given kindness and love and forgiveness. One of the most intense Examples of this in my own life comes from 2 Kings 6. And this is the horrific tale of the siege. King of Syria mustered his entire army and went up and besieged Samaria. And there was a great famine in Samaria as they besieged it until a donkey's head was sold for 80 shekels of silver. How many shekels of silver was Jesus betrayed for? So they were buying donkey heads for more than Jesus was betrayed for. And the fourth part of a cob of dove's dung for five shekels of silver. They were buying and selling this. That's how hungry they were. Now as the king of Israel was passing by in the wall, a woman cried out to him, saying, help my lord, O king. And he said, if the lord will not help you, how shall I help you? The king can't do anything. He's in the same city. He's in the same situation. From the threshing floor, from the wine press, and the king asked her, what is your trouble? She answered, This woman said to me, give me your son that we may eat him today, and we will eat my son tomorrow. So we boiled my son and ate him. And on the next day I said to her, give your son that we may eat him, but she has hidden her son." This is horrific. They're not brokenhearted about eating one another's children. She's mad that this lady's holding out. This is a dark, horrible, disgusting, and depraved setting. When we jump ahead to chapter seven, verse three, now there were four men who were lepers at the entrance of the gate. And they said to one another, why are we sitting here until we die? If we say, let us enter the city, the famine is in the city and we shall die there. And if we sit here, we die also. So now come, let us go over to the camp of the Syrians. If they spare our lives, we shall live. And if they kill us, we shall but die. So they arose at twilight to go to the camp of the Syrians. But when they came to the edge of the camp of the Syrians, behold, there was no one there. For the Lord had made the army of the Syrians hear the sound of chariots and of horses, the sound of a great army, so that they said to one another, Behold, the king of Israel has hired against us the king of the Hittites and the kings of Egypt to come against us. So they fled away in the twilight and abandoned their tents, their horses, and their donkeys, leaving the camp as it was and fled for their lives. And when these lepers came to the edge of the camp, they went into a tent and ate and drank, and they carried off silver and gold and clothing and went and hid them. Then they came back and entered another tent and carried all things from it and went and hid them." Can you imagine? I mean, they're starving. They're outside this city. Like, there is no hope. We go in there, we're going to starve. We stay here, we're going to starve. Our only hope is to go to enemies who will probably torture us and kill us, but maybe we'll find mercy there. And they go and they find Thanksgiving feast times 20. And they're eating and drinking, and there's gold and silver and clothes, and they're just like, this is great! We have found life, we have found feasting, it's a banquet of banquets. But then it hits them. Then they said to one another, we are not doing right. Now what was wrong? This day is a day of good news. It's a day of gospel. If we are silent and wait until the morning light, punishment will overtake us. Now therefore come, let us go and tell the king's household. Punishment is not gonna overtake you, Christian, if you fail to share the gospel with a friend. We are redeemed, we are forgiven, we are saved. But the question arises, are we doing right? When we have received such mercy, when we have come to the feast, when we have come to forgiveness and love and we have been adopted and there is a that we can know and will know us intimately deeply there is an eternity awaiting to have this and to not go tell those who are still in the city of destruction is wrong the motivation that we have received mercy therefore we should go reason for there is a point of no return for sinners. Hebrews 10, 26, for if we go on sinning deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a fearful expectation of judgment and a fury of fire that will consume the adversaries. Anyone who has set aside the law of Moses dies without mercy on the evidence of two or three witnesses. How much worse punishment do you think will be deserved by the one who has trampled underfoot the Son of God, and has profaned the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and has outraged the Spirit of grace? For we know him who said, Vengeance is mine, I will repay, and again the Lord will judge his people. It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of a living God. Now you all sit under sound teaching, and so you know this is not someone who was saved and lost their salvation. These are people who sit under the teaching and don't respond. They sit under the truth and don't repent. They don't believe. They hear it, they enjoy the fellowship, they enjoy all the good things that comes from being surrounded by the people of the light, but they never go to the light. They never trust in the cross. They look at it, they admire it, but they never cling to it. And there comes a point when you can listen and listen and listen and your heart becomes harder and harder and harder to the point where there is no more opportunity. 2 Peter 2.20, for after they have escaped the defilements of the world through the knowledge of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and overcome. The last state has become worse for them than the first, for it would have been better for them never to have known the way of righteousness than after knowing it to turn back from the holy commandment delivered to them. What the proverb says has happened to them, the dog returns to its own vomit, and the sow, after washing herself, returns to wallow in the mire. That is a dangerous thing. And I know that many of you, if not all of you, have read Pilgrim's Progress, and we read about the man in the iron cage. What a terrifying picture. to have heard the truth Sunday after Sunday, week after week, but never clinging to it, never bowing the knee to the Savior, who is King of kings and Lord of lords. We know that there comes a point, like Esau, when there is no more repentance found. So we must tell people that there comes a point when the Lord says, all day long I have held up my hands to a stubborn and stiff-necked people, but the Lord has another hand in which there is judgment and wrath, and it is a fearful thing to fall into the hand of the living God. Reason five, lastly. Time is short. Time is short. Scripture tells us it is appointed unto man once to what? To die, and then comes judgment. All of us have had an appointment before. All of us have maybe put it on our calendar, marked it, circled it, set a reminder. But none of us know the appointment of our death. I was sharing with my church about the Uvalde shooting and the fact that these little children didn't know that that was going to be their last day on the earth. Their parents didn't know that that was going to be the last time they were going to see them. None of us expects to die today, though we know what the scripture says that James 4.13, come now you who say today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit, yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes, a vapor. Instead, you ought to say, if the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that. Psalm 39, four, O Lord, make me know my end, and what is the measure of my days. Let me know how fleeting I am. Behold, you have made my days a few hand breaths, and my lifetime is as nothing before you. Surely all mankind stands as a mere breath. Selah. I don't know how often we think about that. Surely a man goes about as a shadow. Surely for nothing they are in turmoil. Man heaps up wealth and does not know who will gather. Psalm 89, 47. Remember how short my time is. For what vanity you have created all the children of man. What man can live and never see death? Who can deliver his soul from the power of Sheol? We've all seen an hourglass before. In fact, I was in a home yesterday, and I was looking at the hourglass, and I guess it doesn't actually go through the bottom. But the hourglass is a stark picture that you begin with a certain amount of time, and then the sands of time begin to sink, and you can't stop it. Every single one of us from the day that we were born, our clock starts ticking backwards. We only have a certain number of heartbeats, a certain number of breaths, and the time is coming when it will be the last one. And that is true of all men and all women and all children. And so time is short. We don't know when people's lives will end. More than that, we don't know when the Lord will return. At any moment, the sky can crack, the trumpet will sound, Clouds be rolled back as a scroll. At any moment, Jesus said, if the master of the house knew at what hour the thief was coming, he would not have fallen asleep. He would have stayed awake, but we don't know. He said, be ready for I am coming at a time and an hour when you do not expect. At any moment, our hearts can stop. At any moment, the Lord can return and then judgment day. Time is short. People are going to die. And so we have the message of eternal life. We have the message of Christ. We have the message that God being all holy made this world and put man and woman in a garden that they might know him and enjoy him forever. Tend this garden, gave all the goodness of this world to enjoy. But man rebelled, turned his back on God, chose to be God of their own lives rather than to worship and serve and enjoy the true and living God. And because God is holy and just, mankind deserves to be crushed and destroyed. God, as Jesus taught in the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 5, 48, you therefore must be perfect, even as your heavenly Father is perfect. That's the standard. but none of us measure up to perfection. Because we've all sinned against a holy and righteous God, the only proper response is a holy and righteous judgment and eternal wrath. God being rich in mercy because of the great love in which he loved us, he sends forth his son, born of a woman, true God, true man. And He comes to solve both of our problems. He obeys the law on our behalf, earns righteousness on our behalf so that we who believe could be perfect before the living God. And then He surrenders His life to the painful, shameful death of the cross to be an atoning sacrifice. Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. became the propitiation for all who believe. He rose again on the third day, victorious with the promise that all who believe in him will not perish, but have eternal life. And this is given freely. You don't have to earn it. You can't buy it. You don't have to work hard to keep it. is a free gift for all who see their utter wretchedness and their need for him. Jesus said, I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. The healthy have no need of a physician. I have come for the sick because he is the great physician. So we go to the sick, we go to the lost because Jesus is the way. We go to the weak because He is the strength. We go to the dead because He's the resurrection and the life, because He is worthy, because if they do not believe, they will perish, because we have received mercy ourselves, because there is a point where there is no return and time is short and judgment is coming. So brothers and sisters, By way of reminder, I know you all are evangelistic. I know you share the gospel with the people in your family and opportunities come at work and gatherings. Let us just remember that the full number has not yet come in. So let us continue to go out. Let's pray. Father, Thank you that you have been so kind to us. We know we don't deserve your mercy. We know we don't deserve your grace. We don't deserve your love. We don't deserve forgiveness. We don't deserve anything but your furious vengeance and anger. And yet, and yet you have chosen to bestow your love and affection upon us, chief of sinners, knowing what we are, knowing what we would do. Father, help us to be reminded of who you are and what you've done for us. Help us to be more faithful as we take the message of the gospel to a lost and dead world. For it is the only hope. In Jesus' name.