Evangelism Training

I know a few people are still getting checked in, but good morning. It's so great to have you here. What a beautiful day the Lord's given us. Why don't we go ahead and pray, and then we'll have some introductions. Father, we thank you so much for this day. Thank you for the blessing it is to come and hear about the good news of Jesus Christ and to be trained in how to share the good news of our King. Lord, we pray that you would use this time today to equip us, to build us up, to encourage us to be ambassadors of your gospel. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Well, welcome to Sharon R.P. Church. Real quick, I am Pastor Brian. That's all I'm going to say about myself.

If you need bathrooms or coffee, they're downstairs. You can find stairs in that corner or down through those doors there. So bathrooms are in the northeast corner of the church over here. If you need coffee or bathrooms, those are downstairs. Snacks are on the back table, also downstairs. Mark Spence is the VP over at Living Waters Ministry.

It's quite a treat to have him fly all the way out from California to the middle of nowhere. He said this morning, he called an Uber and someone came up in their John Deere tractor. So it's a real treat to have Mark. Living Waters has been a huge blessing to many of us. And so I pray that this will be used for our benefit for the king's glory. Why don't we go ahead and have Mark come up and let's give him a round of applause to welcome him. It's a joy to be with you all here today.

And I don't know if my mic is on. Are we good? Do I need to touch something? Maybe press a button one more time. Press a button. We should have a green light. There it is. In the beginning. It's neat to see you guys have running water and electricity out here. Just kidding. Kind of. So I want to take you all in. I want to just give me a moment here. It's a joy. It really is to be here. Right? I mean, just meeting you, and there's a connection more than even my immediate family that I grew up with. You know, I have blood brothers, and then I have blood brothers and sisters, and boy, what a delight. I think I have a tadpole trying to evolve into a frog. I'm going to try to drown it. Look at that. Excuse me. OK.

Open up your apps to 1 Corinthians chapter 2. Open up your Bibles to 1 Corinthians chapter 2. We will be springboarding off of the first five verses And because I don't have a lot of time with you, and I'm used to teaching at a Bible college, my messages are typically three hours long and I don't give a break. to the students. I say, if you need to take a break, go take a break. You don't need to raise your hand and say, I need to go use the restroom. Do what you need to do. I don't care if you show up. I don't care if you take notes. You do you.

I'm going to walk in the work which God has prepared beforehand. So teaching five days a week, three hours a day. And I just recently kind of came out of that. But that's what I'm used to doing. So if I go over, you're going to need to kind of, hey, all right. I really need you to slow it down or take it back. That's great. I really want to lay a foundation for biblical evangelism. That's what I want to do. And what I'm really excited for is the Q&A.

Because I think those ad hoc questions, hey, I have this question. I'm dealing with this and this situation. At this time, can you help me navigate through that? How would you answer this? Or how would you deal with that? I'm really looking forward to that time. And then we're going to have a couple of breakout sessions as well. And if all goes well, then I will see my wife and kids later on this evening back in Los Angeles. but we're on God's timetable and I'm completely flexible.

1 Corinthians 2, let's stand for the reading of God's Word if you're able. 1 Corinthians 2, the first five verses. It says, And I, when I came to you, brothers, did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom, For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and Him crucified. And I was with you in weakness, and in fear, and in much trembling. And my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, so that your faith may not rest in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God."

Prayer for Illumination

Let's pray. Father, regardless of the reasoning why we've gathered here this morning, we are here. You have our attention. We ask that you would grab a hold of our wandering thoughts. We pray that you would sift us and try us and see if there be any wandering way inside of us and that you would bring us back onto that straight and narrow path. No matter how uncomfortable today may be, we ask that you would perform the surgery that is necessary inside of each one of our lives. We ask the great physician for him to do his work. And like any good surgery, may we as the patients sit on our hands and be still. May we know that you are God. We desire to stand and see the salvation of the Lord. We desire our lives to count. We desire when we cross the finish line, and we hear those words, well done, good and faithful servant, that you mean it.

Sermon

So Father, without angst or without anxiety, we are here. We trust that you'll be faithful to your word, and I ask that I would be a conduit to where you would be able to faithfully flow through. So do whatever you need to do, no matter how much it hurts, no matter how much we kick and scream. Never let us be out of your will. In Jesus' name, amen. Amen.

You may be seated. If my voice cracks in the middle of speaking, I don't know what's going on. I've been having this thing for the last a few weeks where I'll go to actually speak and like nothing comes out of my vocal cords. So forgive me if it hits that place. A little bit about me.

I do teach evangelism and apologetics for a living. Apologetics is not where we, it comes from the Greek word apologia. right, to give a defense. It doesn't mean we go around apologizing to people for being a Christian. Usually on the college campuses, I will introduce myself and I'll say, I'm a Christian. I'm unashamed to be called a Christian. I believe that Christianity is intelligent.

It can handle your hard-hitting questions. So whether you're part of the Baha'i faith or you're Mormon, Jehovah's Witness, whatever it may be, hey, listen, we're not enemies here. We may be strangers. But every friend you have right now was once a stranger, right? So let's be friends. Let's gather together and let's talk about the items of Christianity. Does anybody have any questions? And people kind of line up and they do what they're going to do.

And it is very difficult for me to do so. It is difficult for me to be in front of people. It is hard for me to be in front of you here today. Unless you think I'm using some hyperbolic language, I'm using some justified exaggeration to tell you that it's hard for me to be in front of people, God is my witness. It really is harder for me to be up here than you to sit where you're sitting. And you're not even speaking.

But I actually wear special t-shirts. I'm wearing one right now. This is called a Thompson Tee. Where sewn into the armpits are diapers. You can look it up. It's called a Thompson Tee. I'm not lying to you. I buy them like I buy milk. I sweat so much.

I get so nervous to be in front of people. And I just think God has a sense of humor. Because my job is to speak in front of people. I have a television program that goes to almost all 200 countries. We're starting up a podcast here next week. I've written a book. I'm writing two more books. I speak in front of thousands of people, and I speak in front of 20 people. And it all feels the same. I think that God does this so that he gets the credit, he gets the pat on the back, he gets the honor.

But it is very hard for me. For several years I would be inside my room and I'd go out to do what I needed to do, and then I'd go back inside my room, and my room with the lights all dim, and I'd be in there, I'd have a little light shine on the book, and I would just read and study all day, and there would come time for food, and my kids, or my wife, they'd come up and they'd bring food into the room, and I would be, like, terrified. And it's not the fact that I have, that I don't love my kids, I love my kids, right? But it's that hard for me to be in front of people.

And I would have to... For me, it's just purely academic. I would have to go, you know, I... Mark, you get a hold of yourself. You know, you have one chance at this thing called life. And I want, when I cross the finish line, I want to collapse into my master's arms. And I don't want to hand him a bucket of excuses. And I'm tired of saying, here am I, Lord, send him. You know, here am I, Lord, send me.

And we read what the Apostle Paul went through, and of all the people that you would presume had boldness, wouldn't it be Paul? And here's the author of one-third of the New Testament. And he's talking to the church at Corinth. And he says, hey, when I was with you, when I was talking to you, I didn't have lofty speech, man-made wisdom.

I was fearful. I had knee-knocking trembling. And God was with me every step of the way. I'll move this more into the middle here. But I would just assume gargle turtle vomit than go in front of people. And God has seen fit to do this. And I say that by way of introduction, that you can do this too. That you can go knocking on your neighbor's door. You can go to the college campuses. You can send gospel tracts to your neighbors. You can drop them in cases of beer. You can do you. Whatever is your natural mood, whatever your abilities you think you are, you can do it. We just need to stop with the excuses.

Several years ago, I took my daughter, Ella, who is now 16. I can't believe it, right? Yesterday, she was like six. But when she was a little bit younger, I took her on her daddy-daughter date. And I wanted to take her to someplace a little bit nicer than where I normally take her. So I took her to Wendy's. And as we're looking up at the dollar value menu items, there were a group of college students that came in. They were dressed really nice. I asked the question, why are you dressed so nice? I don't dress this nice when I go to Wendy's. Why are you dressed so nice?

And they said that they were part of a debate team. And they just came from a mock trial. And they travel around the United States debating other potential future lawyers and such. And I said, well, that's great. I said, yeah, you know what we do is we debate people. And we'll debate people on any subject. And as if he was gazing into my soul, He said, we will debate anybody on any subject at any time and in any place.

And I went. So me being an outspoken Christian, I said, good luck with that. And I walked away. And as I'm dipping my french fries into my frosty with my daughter, somebody had blasphemed really loud. And my daughter Ella looked at me and said, Daddy, you got to go share the gospel with them. I said, Peanut, you best just shut your mouth. And then somebody blasphemed again really loud. And she said, Daddy, you have to go give them at least a gospel track if you're not going to talk to them. I said, Honey, I don't think I brought enough for everybody.

There's like 20, 25 of these students. She said, I have plenty in the car. I have a secret stash. I said, of course you do, my little homeschooled princess. OK, let's go. And we went out to the car, and she grabbed the tracks, and she was so excited. And I said, honey, we got to pray. Six years old, and she looks at me, and she says, daddy, there's a time to pray, and there's a time to move. So I just. I said, honey, you're right.

And I grabbed the tracks. And I went back inside. And I went up to where they were all at. And I said, hey, listen, group, my little girl Ella, Ella, she's, baby, what you doing under the table? And she goes, I'm scared. I said, is there room for daddy?

And then she said something to me that I say to her all the time. You can do it with God's help. And she said it back to me. Don't you hate it when your kids are saying the same thing back to you that you said to them? Unless it's good and great, right? And here, this is that case. So I said, hey, listen, my little girl Ella wanted to make sure you each got one of these. This is a million dollar bill. On the other side, there's a Christian message. It tells you how you can avoid hell, come into a relationship with your maker, and go to heaven. You don't have to take it, but there is enough for everybody if you'd like to have it. And I started to distribute them amongst them.

And then I don't know if you've ever had one of those moments where something begins to come out of here, but it did not originate up here. I handed them all the track, and then I went, would you like to have a debate? Did I just say that? I said, who's the head of your debate team? And they pointed over to this woman, Dakota. She levitated. She came down in the midst. She said, I'm the head of the debate team. Did I hear you correctly? You want to have a debate? And I said, yeah, sure. Right here inside of Wendy's. She said, great. What's the subject? I said, well, I'm a Christian. So any area, any nuanced area of Christianity, did Jesus rise from the dead? Is the Bible to be trusted? Is Christianity true?

And she said, great, pick one. It doesn't matter to me. Here is, and she was an atheist, a card-carrying atheist, an outspoken atheist, ready to talk about any nuanced area of Christianity that I was ready and willing to talk about. Are you ready to do that? There's only two times we're called to be ready to preach the gospel. In season and out of season. So I said, great, let's determine whether or not Christianity is true.

All the rest of you guys, you determine who wins the debate. And I don't care who they think wins the debate, but they get to be the jury. I said, all right, I will go first, and then you will go back and forth. I'll give you the final word, and we'll go our way. She said, great. So why don't you do your opening statement so I see what angle you're going to take, and I'll just follow suit. And so we did. So for the next 40-ish minutes or so, we went back and forth. I had my final word, and then I gave her her final word, and she said nothing. She didn't have a final word. Her mouth was shut.

And I was reminded of the words of the late, great presuppositional apologist, Greg Bonson. He said, it's not our job to open people's hearts. It's our job to close their mouths in love and allow God's gospel to set people free. When it was all done, there was a gentleman that was there in the crowd, and he said, are you kidding me?

That was great. I loved it. I watch you every single day. And then to see you do this in person, that was awesome. I said, man, where were you 40 minutes ago? He said, I hold your back. I said, yeah, like way back. It would be neat to know that you were on my side. And then he said these words, Mark, God was honored here today.

You see, nobody asked to follow me on Twitter or Facebook. Nobody asked for any social media handle that I have. Nobody asked Jesus to come into their heart. I just preached the gospel the best way I knew how. Then they all started to leave, and they left, and nobody talked to me afterwards.

And I think that we as a church, we confuse two words, and these two words are faithfulness and fruitfulness. We think that God is calling us to be fruitful, and He's not. He's calling you to be faithful. Because if you're faithful with the message, God will be faithful to bring forth the fruit, because the fruit belongs to Him. He's the Alpha and the Omega of our faith, and other people's faiths. He's going to finish the work which He started. His Word will not return void until it accomplishes what He has set out to accomplish. Are you faithful with the message that God has called you to be faithful with?

And we hide behind our excuses. Isn't it true? We've got a million and one reasons why somebody else is the person for the job. You know, 13 of the 14 judges found in the book of Judges? all had a handicap, they all had an excuse, they all had a legitimate reason why they were not the person for the job. God says, hey, whom shall I send? Who will go for us? My motto, even with my kids, you can ask them, hey, what is dad's motto?

It's, he wants to step out of the boat. And if he's gonna fail, he's gonna fail by falling forward. I'm not going to fail by not getting into the batter's box. At least I'm going to get into the game. I want to get into the fight because this is not a playground. This is a battleground.

And every time our heart beats, it's the drumbeat of our own funeral march. This is not a miniature golf course on the side of the church. This is a reminder to each and every one of us that we have an appointment with death. That death is going to come knocking at an inopportune time for every one of us. And you're going to answer that. So stop saying, here am I, send him. The best ability is availability. And you draw near to the Lord, the Lord will draw near to you. I've had some amazing conversations with theologians who are just out of tune with the reality of what Scripture actually teaches. But because of the simplicity of the gospel and the Word of God, God was honored with His Word and mouths were shut.

And there's been many times where I've tried to make something happen, it didn't happen. I remember I was in Prague and I got off the train and I went, no, this was Germany, in Munich. And I went into the train station and there were thousands and thousands of people that were there for a concert. And I looked over at Ray Comfort, a buddy of mine, and I said, hey, let's get up on that stage and preach the gospel to everybody. And he said, I'll follow your lead. So there we go, we made our way all the way to the stage, got past everybody, got past security, about ready to walk up on the stage. I was asking for a microphone.

And I got stopped. And nothing happened. But I got out of the boat, and I attempted to do what nobody else was ready and willing to do. And there's been other times where I've done things like that, and doors have opened. I remember I was in Kauai ministering. Somebody's got to do it. So I was in Kauai ministering at a church out there, and we took a little expedition, my wife and some of my friends. We were in these canoes, and we had a guide. He was taking us to these waterfalls, and we were eating this turkey sandwich.

It was just surreal. I don't know if you've ever been to Kauai. It's just amazing. I've been only one time. And my wife says, hey, Mark, you need to share the gospel with our guide. She started splashing me with the water with her little oar. And I said, okay, okay, I'll do it. And it's not because I'm ashamed of the gospel. I'm not ashamed of the gospel. It's the power of God unto salvation for the Jew first, and then the Gentile.

Romans 1.16, right?

But now, here's a stranger. So I begin to share the gospel, and I poured my heart out to this guy. And then I asked him, hey, have you ever heard this message before? And he said, well, up until last week, I would have said no. But there was a Christian singer here last week that shared the same message, a guy named Jeremy Camp. And I went, you're kidding me.

Because next week I'm doing an event with this singer Jeremy Camp. So I live in Southern California. I'm in Kauai sharing the gospel with a guy who heard the gospel from Jeremy Camp who lives in Tennessee. And then the following week I'm going to be in Ohio with Jeremy Camp.

So then I went up to Jeremy Camp. that following week, and I said, hey, Jeremy, two weeks ago, you were in Hawaii, and you were going on through this waterfall, and your guide's name was Jim, and you ate a turkey sandwich. He's all, what are you doing? I go, man, I'm just kidding. I'm just playing with you, man. But I had that same tour, and I had the same guide, and I shared the gospel with him. And he said that you shared the gospel with him.

And isn't it neat that God is not calling us to be fruitful but faithful. You were faithful to plant a seed and then God, through me, watered the seed that was planted and somebody else is going to come along. They might see the increase, but the increase belongs to the Lord. And you may never know this side of heaven, the work that God is doing.

Does God need to tell you? He's already told you. He's already told you to go into the highways, the byways and the gutterways and compel people to come. So step out of the boat, whether you're young or old. I don't know how many excuses you have. But the reason I know God's not done with you is because you're still alive. You'll know when God is done with you. You'll pass from time on into eternity and that'll be it. Jesus said of Mary after her act of love, when men murmured at her, she has done what she could.

Mark 14, 7. What had she done? Very little, we would say. She loved Jesus truly and deeply. She brought a flask of precious ointment, broke the flask, pouring the sacred nard upon the Lord's tired feet, and those feet which soon would be nailed to the cross. I don't got much."

Yeah, and what you do have is going to be required of you. You don't serve God to gain His acceptance, but because of what Christ did on that Roman gibbet. We've been accepted. We've been accepted because of what Christ did. It's not about the man in the mirror. It's about the Lord. And worthy is the Lamb to receive the reward of His suffering.

1 Corinthians 1.27, it says, but God has chosen what is foolish in the world, the shame, the wise. God has chosen what is weak in the world, the shame, the strong. Hudson Taylor, the great missionary, he said, all of God's giants. Now, these are people that we look up to, right? All of God's giants. God really used him, used her. He said, all of God's giants were Weak men, but they did great things for God because they believed that God was with them. So it doesn't matter how tumultuous the storm is when your eyes are on the Lord. It doesn't matter how crazy things get.

Now, because you guys live in Iowa, COVID hasn't hit this place yet, right? You guys know what COVID is? But I remember sharing with some friends, listen, you're allowed to worry about this whole COVID situation and you losing your job, finances. And it just carried on into other areas where we can worry about. Your wayward child, the cancer that you have, whatever it may be, you're allowed to worry in this life. as much as God is worried in this life. You're allowed to stress and pace back and forth as much as God is stressed and pacing back and forth in heaven. Is God pacing back and forth in heaven?

No. No sweat. He's not tired. He's not even blinking. He's not worried. And He has called a very simple people with a very simple message to reach the world. We need to stop hiding behind our excuses. And the Apostle Paul said, I did not have lofty speech. I wasn't trying to go over your heads. I didn't have man-made wisdom. I had weakness, I had fear, and much trembling where I think I threw up in the back of my throat type of trembling. I was so nervous. Now God has not given us a spirit of fear, but power, love, and a sound mind. So a lot of the fears and reluctancies that we have.

It's just man-made. We're infatuated with the man in the mirror. But let us always remember that you cannot impress people with Jesus when you're still trying to impress them with yourself. There's no such thing as a cool Christian, right? You need to get over yourself. This is not our house, our home. We're homesick for a home we've never been to. So pack light, move forward, march onward. And I want to give you the tools here throughout the day to be able to do that. No eloquence of speech, weakness, fear, and in much trembling.

In Ephesians chapter 6, Paul says, Yep. Paul has been in your situation and he's been in mine. An act of courage isn't necessarily done by those who feel brave when they do it. True courage is he who swallows his fear and he does it anyways. Courage is not the absence of fear, it's the conquering of it. Let us always remember that. We need to stop hiding behind our weaknesses and our handicaps and remember that God has chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise.

Why were you created? Very simple. You were created to bring God glory. And every decision that you make here today is going to echo and reverberate throughout the kingdoms of tomorrow. Everything. Life is quick. Time is fleeing. It is fast. So I believe I'm supposed to go till 930. So I think I'm supposed to be wrapping things up here. Is that correct? Because I'm looking at like 20 pages of notes, and I'm on page three. How about this? I'll finish with this thought, and then we'll move on, and then wrap up what I tried to tell you there.

If you were given $1,000 for every person that you shared the gospel with, or $1,000 for every person you gave a gospel tract to, would you be more evangelistic in your evangelism endeavors? If you were given $1,000. Here's $1,000. I just want you to hand this out. I'll tell you what, I'll give you a whole stack of them. I'll give you a whole stack of them, and for every one you hand out, you'll be given $1,000.

Do you think you could swallow your fears of evangelism? What if he asks me a question I don't have an answer for? I don't care. I got $1,000. What do I say to him? I don't have an answer for that. Guess what? That's what I say all the time anyways. I don't have an answer for that. Give me your email. I'll get back to you. No, I don't want to give you my email. Also, you're not interested in answers. It's just kind of a rabbit trail.

But if you were given $1,000 for every person that you shared the gospel with through a gospel track, or $10,000 for every person you engaged in actual dialogue with, would you be more zealous? I remember when I was faced with that question some 25 years ago from a friend of mine, and I thought, yeah, I would. I would be more zealous. Then I read a scripture like, You can't love God and money at the same time. You either love one and hate the other. I go, wow. Do I love this world, this present world, more than I love the world that is to come?

And I'm a little embarrassed by that. How about you? I'll set my alarm clock nice and early at 4 AM, call that 4 AM flashlight evangelism, where the alarm clock goes off. Ah, thank you. With the calculator in one hand and a gospel track in the other, I talk to 10 people, that's $100,000. That's a hard one.

Especially when W.E. Sangster said, how shall I fill the judgment if multitudes of missed opportunities pass before me in full review, and all my excuses prove to be disguises of my cowardice and my pride? You see, we don't get to choose what is true. We only get to choose what we do about it.

Jesus said, you shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free. It set you free. Why do we think something else is going to set somebody else free? Well, they are too happy. They don't need the gospel. We'll deal with that in a little bit in the next message. But isn't it funny that what you're not willing to do for the love of Christ, you're willing to do for the love of money. No one can serve two masters. A church that is waiting for sinners to visit the building is like a police station waiting for criminals to visit their station.

Father, we ask in Jesus' name that we would be stirred on and encouraged for good works. May you bring a heavy conviction upon us, knowing that you love us too much to keep us like that. So bring conviction. Do away with condemnation. And thank you for the sweetness of a word that is able to encourage us to go out and to do what you have called us to do and to be the ambassadors that you've called us to be.

In Jesus' name, amen. That felt like five minutes to me, but we're on a clock here. If you need coffee, downstairs, coffee, water, bathroom, snacks in the back. If you have questions for Mark, there will be Q&A time. There's a basket right underneath the court board behind. Let's try to get back here right about 9.45.

Thanks. Thank you. Okay. Okay. Sorry, I'm so rushed. No, that's great. Yeah, no. Yeah, I reached out to Cedar Rapids Area. I said, hey, I want to be in the area if you want to teach on a Sunday. OK. Yes, but not tomorrow. I'm coming back out here tomorrow. Oh, really? Oh, nice. Which church is it? I didn't want to keep it too long. Oh, fun.

And then my oldest son, I wanted to wait until he proposed to kiss, but it's, You haven't been designed to look at the doughnut, but to eat the doughnut. So, my third son, he just graduated high school, but he's taking his own learning in college. So, he's got his own college. And then he's going to get his next year done at JC and he's going to go to a master's.

Usually I travel with one of them because it's such a fun trip. Okay, I just wanted to thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. I bless you. Can you guess who he is? Thank you. All right, how we doing? Did we get a quick snack in? Let's get back up here from downstairs, sneaking sandwiches out of the fridge. It's not lunch yet. Still morning time.

God's mercies are new every morning. Isn't that a neat text? Yeah, I like to remind the Lord when I'm in need of mercy, I say, well, it's morning time somewhere in the world. So therefore, your mercy is new every moment. And so I'm in need of mercy at any given moment. God delights in being merciful, Scripture says.

I love it. All right. Wait just another moment here. And as we do so, open your Bibles to 1 Corinthians 15. 1 Corinthians 15. Verses 1 through 4. If you'd like to stand, you can stand. If you'd like to sit, you can sit. 1 Corinthians 15, I'm going to stand for it.

Moreover, brethren, I declare to you the gospel which I preached to you, which also you received, in which you stand. but which also you are saved, if you hold fast that word which I preached to you, unless you believed in vain. For I deliver to you, first of all, that which I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures."

Father, we continually, as we are on this race today, I pray that we would not grow weary while doing good. As we're going through your word, may your word go through us. May you sift us and try us. May you do what you need to do inside of us. As Protestants, we claim that we are against the tradition of the Roman Catholic Church Yet, we have so much tradition birthed inside of us. And if that really be the case, may you remove that and bring us back to sola scriptura, scripture alone, God. In Jesus' name, amen. Amen. You may be seated. J.C. Ryle, the prolific author and first Anglican bishop of London, he said, unless a man is born again, He's going to wish one day he was never born at all.

Today, what I want to do over these next two messages, this message and the next message, is I want to share with you a very familiar and erroneous teaching that is being highly circulated amongst evangelicals today. That's this first message right here. And then the next message that I'll be looking at is, well, what is the message? So I want to share with you what isn't the message. And why would I do that? Because we share this message unknowingly a lot of times. whether through some sort of form of osmosis, we've kind of caught a message that is not the biblical message.

So I have a very limited amount of time to do that. I want to put holes inside that message, and I'm going to bring you back to the biblical message. So in order to do that, we must go back in time. We're going to go back in time to September 10, 2001.

It's the day before the attack on the World Trade Center in New York. Imagine if you would that you've been commissioned to preach the gospel. To preach the gospel to a thousand people on the hundredth floor of Tower One. The gospel, the message, the gospel, that's it. Preach the gospel to these people who are gonna pass from time on into eternity tomorrow morning. If you have the ability to go back to September 10th, 2001, to share the gospel, what would your message be? Would you do it? I think you would. Could you do it? Yeah.

I want you to bear in mind that as these people that stand before you, and as you look at the vast sea of faces, that you realize within 24 hours most of these people are going to experience a horror that is so horrific that it defies human logic. Some are going to jump 100 stories to their death on the unforgiving sidewalks of New York. Others who remain within the building are going to crumble down with the building all the way to the point where their bodies will never be discovered. 2,606 people died that day on 9-11. And we had the greatest terrorist experience that our nation has ever seen on our soil.

So, what's your message? What would you share? Would you share with these people, would it start off with something like this? God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life. If you knew they're about ready to die, you couldn't tell them that God has a wonderful plan for their life, could you? You will not find one message, evangelistic message in the book of Acts that starts off with, God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life. So would you change your message? And if you would change your message, now the question is, well then what is that message that you would have shared if it's not the gospel? The word gospel, it's the Greek word euangelion, it's used 77 times in the New Testament. And nowhere inside there do we see a message that says, God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life.

But yet it's been propagated up since the turn of the last century. A man named Charles Finney was actually the voice who coined that term. God has a wonderful plan for your life. Now, does God have a plan for people's lives? Yes, He does. God is wonderful and everything He does is wonderful. But I'll allow you to determine whether or not it's wonderful. You think of the Apostle Paul, all that he had gone through in 2 Corinthians 11, verses 23 through 27. Here's the Apostle Paul. He's talking about all that he's gone through, and he says, are they ministers of Christ? I speak as a fool.

I am more. In labors more abundant, in stripes above measure, in prisons more frequently, in deaths often. From the Jews, five times I received 40 stripes, minus one. Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. Three times I was shipwrecked. A night and a day I'd been in the deep, in journeys often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils of my own countrymen, in perils of the Gentiles, in perils in the city, in perils of the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils amongst false brethren, in perils, excuse me, in weariness and toil, in sleeplessness often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, and in cold and in nakedness.

This is what the Apostle Paul went through. Now, do you think the message that was shared with him is, hey, Saul, God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life. No, what were the first words that Saul heard before his name was changed to Paul? It was, go tell Paul what great things he must suffer for my name's sake. That's a whole lot different than God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life, isn't it?

I think what's missing a lot of times from the gospel proclamation is you must count the cost. The early church counted the cost. People outside of America count the cost. Be ready, it's coming to America. Your freedom of speech is being taken away. Freedom of religion and expression, we saw this all within last year with COVID. Taken away. We know better than you. That's hate speech. Big tech will censor anything and everything you want to do if it's conservative related. They're not even hiding it anymore. The press secretary last week came out and said, we are working with Facebook to censor these sorts of talks and thinking. Facebook's not even doing it. The White House is doing it with the permission of Facebook.

If the message, God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life, is a very wrong message, then what do we do with scripture such as, I came to give you life and that life more abundantly? Because didn't Jesus say that? I came to give you life and that life more abundantly?

And He did. He did say that. But I think we misinterpret that. We need to interpret that in light of what the proper context is. I came to give you an abundant life. Well, that word abundant actually means full. F-U-L-L. It's a full life. The Apostle Paul had a full life. It's the Greek word parasos. It's a full life. It's to the rim. It's to the brim. It is an adventurous life. And as a Christian, we don't have happiness. The world can give you happiness. What we have is joy. And our joy is inexpressible and it's full of glory, but it's in spite of our situation and our circumstance.

You think of the people that were saved in the North Atlantic in the Titanic, as they're sitting in the lifeboats, looking at the Titanic going down, and their loved ones pass into this icy grave. If you were to interview them and say, hey, aren't you happy you're saved? as people all around them are dying.

Yay, I'm happy, I'm saved. No, they could have a joy inexpressible. I mean, I can't explain it. Yes, I'm joyful that I'm saved. But I can't say that I'm really happy seeing all the people die around me. And what happens is we are promising people to become a Christian, and their life will become a bed of roses. And it's not. They're sitting in the seat of the scornful. There are promises that are attached to becoming a Christian. Trials, tribulation, persecution, temptation, and suffering. Oh, and you get to go to heaven. Ready to sign up?

Imagine a pastor. You invite your friend to come to church. The pastor knows better than I do. He can preach the gospel better than I can. So you invite your friend to church. And the pastor says, oh, I see that we have some visitors here today. We're so happy that you're here. In just a moment, I'm going to share with you how God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life. But before I do so, we have some prayer requests.

Prayer for Illumination

You know, Susie lost her battle with cancer this week. Jim lost the farm. There's been multiple families that are struggling financially. Kevin's child is wayward. Hasn't heard from him in years. Let's pray for these dear saints. And then, stranger, friend who's visited here today, I want to share with you how God has such a wonderful plan for your life. See, there's a disconnect. We're not being honest. And then we hide behind our trials and tribulation and persecution, temptation and suffering, and thinking we're doing something wrong. If you desire to live godly in Christ Jesus, you will suffer persecution. Scripture says that. Is that underlined? Highlighted? Memorized? You don't even have to live godly. If you even desire to live godly, all those who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution. Why don't my neighbors like me? Well, they hated Christ first. The apostles.

They all, for the most part, died very unusual deaths. Philip was crucified. Andrew was crucified. Peter was crucified. Upside down. Matthew was beheaded. Barnabas was burned to death. Mark was dragged to death. James the Less was clubbed to death. Paul was beheaded. Thomas was speared to death. Luke was hanged. And it didn't stop there.

Stephen, the first Christian martyr, who I named my first son after. He was stoned. Other Christians have been thrown to the lions, burned at the stake, and Fox's Book of Martyrs tells us of multitudes that have been killed for the gospel's sake. And in Hebrews 11, verse 37, it tells us of those who loved God, and yet they were stoned to death. They were sawn in half. They were tempted. They were slain with a sword. They wandered about in sheepskin and goatskin, being destitute, afflicted, and tormented. God has a wonderful plan for your life.

He's better than MTV, He's better than your current toothpaste fad. And we're comparing God to something that He's not, because He's altogether different. What's wrong with just sharing the gospel? It's good news, not good views. But it's only good news if it gets there in time. Warren Wiersbe said, you're a Christian because somebody shared with you. Now it's your turn to return the favor. It's your turn to pay it forward.

Or hear Christian parents say, I don't want my child to become a missionary in Africa. It's not safe. They might get hurt. They might even die. Listen, saints, the safest place to be is the center of God's will. Whether that's in the heart of Compton, or the belly of a whale, or right in the heart of Beverly Hills. You, as a Christian, have an insurance plan that is out of this world.

That nothing can happen to you or harm you unless God says, perfect. This is perfect. You are God's workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works. You're His workmanship. It's the Greek word poema. Or we get the English word poem. You realize that? That God wrote a poem and it's His church.

That you are the expression of God's heart. The symphony of His praise. The trophy of His grace. That you are the expression of deity to all of mankind. And He created you for good works. That you worry. No, that you walk in the work which God has prepared beforehand. Walk in it. Some people beg God, others believe God. Which are you? You can pray bigger, God can handle it. Step out of the boat.

Say, yeah, they may reject, but they're not rejecting me, they're rejecting God, and if they reject me, who cares? It doesn't matter. I'm gonna share the simple message of the life, death, burial, resurrection of the King of Kings, and I'm not gonna add anything to it. And I'm gonna leave the results to God.

1 Peter 4.12, Beloved, do not think it's a strange thing concerning the fiery trial, which is to try you as though some strange thing is happening to you. What happens? We think it's a strange thing when I'm going through something. That person must be in sin.

Job heard it. And how many times have we said it? My pastor once said, you attend a local evangelistic prayer meeting, and you're going to hear the saints praying more to keep saints out of heaven than sinners out of hell. Lord, we pray that you would heal Earl. Earl's hurt. Lord, heal him. Take care of him. And there's nothing wrong with praying for the sick. We're commanded to pray for the sick, to anoint them with oil, to pray for them. But how many of these prayer meetings are just filled with, bring a healing to this person. How about a healing to the nation? How about, God, send a revival? And start with everybody that is standing right here in these shoes. Start with me, God. Do a work in me, in my heart, and in my mind. Forgive me for sugarcoating the message.

You read inside the Scriptures where the Pharisees were confronted, and the first words they heard were, You brood of vipers, who has warned you to flee from the wrath which is to come? Bear fruit worthy of repentance. And I say that oftentimes to people, not you brood of vipers, but I'll say, hey, did you repent when you became a Christian? You go into the Bible Belt areas, and this is probably one of them, right?

And somebody, everybody, I think, claims to be a Christian. The John Deere tractor claims to be a Christian. I'll say, you're a Christian? Oh, when did you become a Christian? When did you repent? Or, hey, when you became a Christian, did you repent? What did you repent of?

I was talking to a couple not too long ago. I was interviewing them, and I said, where do you go to church? And they said, you're a Christian. Oh, we're in between churches. I go, really? I go, is that because of COVID? No, just in between churches. Like how in between? Five years. But I was sharing with my girlfriend when we woke up this morning that we need to get back into church. And I said, what do you mean when you woke up this morning with your girlfriend?

The Bible says no fornicator will inherit the kingdom of God. It says do not be deceived. No idolater, no adulterer, nor thief, nor whoremonger will inherit the kingdom of God. Notice it says don't be deceived. Why does it say don't be deceived? Because a lot of us are deceived.

If you're practicing such things, and it goes on to say, and those who practice such things, if you practice such things, there's no guarantee that you're a Christian. John MacArthur, inside of his book, Saved Without a Doubt, he writes in one of the chapters, because he's faced with the question all the time, how do you know if you're a Christian?

And he said, well, let me give you a litmus test. Do you desire to be with other believers and talk about spiritual things? Do you desire the Word of God more than romance novels? Some of your Bibles are so highlighted, it looks like a coloring book. But you're a hearer, not a doer. That's so convicting, right? Do you have a desire to pray? Do you experience prayer? Do you hate the things you once loved before you became a Christian? And do you love the things you once hated?

I mean, MacArthur had a way of just nailing it, nailing these things. And it's good because when you look at these sort of things, you're able to go, whoa, I'm not sure if my life really measures up to that. I'd rather watch a football game than listen to a sermon. I'd rather read this than the Word of God. I'd rather talk to somebody about their John Deere than about the Word of God.

You know, it's like, where are you? And this is where Scripture says, hey, examine yourself to see if you're in the faith. Test yourself, it says. And you can see where you're at. I hear many people say that they don't share the gospel with their neighbors because their neighbor is already happy, and they seem self-sufficient. As if happiness had anything to do with why one should become a Christian. Right? Rich people need the gospel just as much as poor people need the gospel.

In John 4.14, Jesus said, "...whoever drinks of the water I shall give him shall never thirst."

Then in John 6.35, "...he that comes to me shall never hunger, and he that believes on me shall never thirst." So the question is now raised, what shall we be coming to Jesus hungering and thirsting for?

Matthew 5.6 Blessed are they who do hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be full. You see, it doesn't matter how happy a sinner is in this present age. Without the righteousness of Christ, they will perish on the day of wrath.

Proverbs 11.4 says, Riches profit not, but righteousness shall deliver a people. And why do we need righteousness? Because we're going to face a holy God one day. That's why. Without the righteousness of Christ, you will perish on the day of wrath. We need a right standing with God, and that's our message in a nutshell. Going to heaven has nothing to do with God simply giving people a pass on getting to heaven.

When I'm out, and every Saturday, I'm in Huntington Beach, right there on the pier. So if you're going, hey, where's Mark's Fence? If you're in Southern California, and if I'm not traveling, I am on the pier preaching the gospel from 8 a.m. till 2 p.m. every single Saturday. If you're looking for me on Friday, I'm in Huntington Beach as well.

If you're looking for me on Thursday night, I'm going bonfire to bonfire, preaching the gospel. And encouraging people, friends and family that are with me, we have a bonfire every Thursday night during the summer. Sharing the gospel to whoever will listen.

And I don't get a lot of acceptance of my message, and that's okay. I just kind of move on, and I move on to the next group of people. If somebody rejects the gospel track, I don't spit on them. I don't bite them with a harsh word. I just move on to the next person.

Kind of like a bee going from flower to flower looking for nectar or pollen. The bee doesn't sting the flower because it didn't give him what he wanted. I'm not clairvoyant. I don't know who the elect are. So I preach the gospel to who? To every creature. And I allow the results to fall where they may. But we are called to be faithful, not fruitful.

And when I'm out there in Huntington Beach and I ask people, hey, if you were to die right now and God were to ask you, why should I let you into heaven, what would you say? I'm just curious. He says, well, I think that I would say that I'm basically a good person. Really? And we're going to get into that in the next message and why that's not a good thing to do. But I'll say, do you believe in a place called hell? In Southern California, it's just a potpourri of worldviews. People believe all kinds of things. I said, well, do you think God would ever send somebody to hell?

The typical response there in California right now is no, because God is good. I go, I think the scariest thing found in the Bible is the fact that God is good. Because if God is good, he must punish sin wherever it is found. Why is that a scary thing, that God is good? Because you're not. You're not good. All right. I got four minutes.

The Christian life is full of red seas and fiery furnaces and lion's dens. And it's true that God is there in the midst of us. We know that Romans 8.28 is a great verse, that all things work together for good. But to tell a non-Christian that those things, these Red Seas, will not exist for them is just not being honest.

And Luke 9.23, he said to them, if anyone will come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross daily, and follow me. Dr. Martin Lloyd-Jones, he said, a gospel which merely says, come to Jesus. And he offers Jesus as a friend. And he offers a marvelous new life without convicting of sin.

Well, it's not New Testament evangelism. The essence of evangelism is to start by preaching the law. And it is because the law has not been preached that we have so many superficial evangelistic messages. Because true evangelism must always start by preaching the law. Martin Lloyd-Jones. Gotta love it.

Someone said Christ died to save us not from suffering but from ourselves. Not from injustice, but from being unjust. He died that we might live, but live as He lives. By dying as He died, who died to Himself that He might live unto God. If we do not die to ourselves, we cannot live to God. And he that does not live to God is dead already. You see, the world does all it can to live and not die. But Christianity says you must die in order to live. Die to yourself to become alive to Christ.

And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and its desires. If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it. But whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and he forfeits his soul? What shall a man give in return for his soul? When the will of God crosses the will of man, somebody has to die. So you have to ask yourself, the life in which you live, are you living for God or are you living for yourself?

Because you have not been created to just go about your daily life without any care of what's to come. or to go to a store and not be friendly to your neighbor. In fact, one of the things I say to friends who are caught in a rut and they're not sharing the gospel, I say, hey, go in public and just be nice to people. Just be nice to people.

Now, here in Iowa, it's crazy, because it seems, I was driving along. I said, I'm going to wave to someone. I bet somebody's going to wave back. I'm driving along, and this truck comes near me. The sun's shining right at me, because I'm coming this way. And I wave, and the guy goes. Now in California, that would be a one-finger wave. But not here. So I just started doing it to all the people. I was doing it to haystacks. I was doing it to the cornfields. But just go out in public and just to be nice.

And have gospel tracts. And just simply say, did you get one of these? And hand them a gospel tract. And if you can't afford gospel tracts, I'll provide gospel tracts for you. Tell the pastor, I want some gospel tracts and I can't afford it. And I'll send them to the church.

Free of charge. We've sold like 500 million gospel tracts. Just to one woman trying to reach her husband. No, that's not true. But God uses gospel tracts. I think that we should use them as well. I opened our time together by quoting J.C. Ryle, the one who said, unless a man is born again, he's going to wish he was never born at all.

And I'm not sure if you're familiar with his testimony on how he got saved, but he was struck down with a serious chest infection, and for the first time in 14 years, he turned to his Bible and into prayer. Then on a Sunday, he arrived late to church.

He was in time to hear the reading of Ephesians chapter 2, and as he listened, he felt as if the Lord was speaking directly to his soul. His eyes were opened when he heard verse 8, where it said, for by grace are you saved through faith. And that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God. And he was converted through the word of God without comment and without sermon. Much like Martin Luther, the just shall live by faith.

You don't know what to say? Get the word in you and God will get it out of you. And stop telling people that God has a wonderful plan for your life when in reality, trials, tribulation, persecution, temptation, and suffering await them. Allow them to decide if they think that's a wonderful plan or not. Stick to the life, death, burial, resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Prayer for Illumination

And in the next message, we're going to go through a complete gospel presentation so that you can be without excuses. And you can email me, and I'll be happy to send you all my notes. I'd be happy to equip you. Mark at livingwaters.com. That's my email. Not looking for a pen pal, but I am looking to equip. And if that explains you, I'm not going anywhere. You can't get me out of your life. Let's pray. Father, continually, just simply ask that these dear saints, these dear people, that they would fall more in love with you and be able to share that love with other people. In Jesus name. Amen.

And here's an announcement. I'm going to stay up. No break for the rest of the weary. All right. All right, so we have about a half hour or so of question and answer time. I'm going to go ahead and warm up with just a couple of questions people have put in the basket. Oh, great. The basket's going to be back in the back if you have questions. But we're also, if you want to just ask a question during this time, feel free to just raise your hand and ask as well. So we have two of these times. So here's a good question.

Mark, how did you not get arrested? And why are you afraid of people? Yeah, you know, I've attended 14 different schools in my life. I was a senior in high school and I found out there was no Santa Claus, believe it or not. Didn't have a television, didn't have friends, nothing growing up, and I was just, I was just a loner.

I, I stuck to myself and Why didn't I get arrested? It wasn't my time to be arrested. And that's just really it. I mean, I don't mind getting arrested. I have a police friend that said, getting arrested is easy. I mean, in fact, anybody could do it. But I'm not looking to get arrested. If I could pull away from that.

Every 4th of July, we have this, there's about, 20,000 people that gather at a local park right by my house. 20,000 people. So we go there, we hand out tracks, and we do open-air preaching, and we do everything. And we had, these police officers stopped me recently, and they said, you can't do this. And I said, this is a public park. They said, yeah, but it's It's for this venue, and it's set aside for this firework display and everything.

I said, listen, you cannot shut down private speech even though it is a private venue. Anytime you have a private venue and it's open to the public, public can go inside there and talk about whatever they want to talk about. In the same way, if we're just hanging out inside the mall and we're talking about your favorite cruise line, that's freedom of speech, right? So I can talk about religion.

So I challenged the police officer in just a very loving way. And I said, you know, I will stop if you're going to arrest me, but freedom of speech gives me the right to be able to speak because I will arrest you. And I said, all right, I'm done. And I just move on to the next town, right? And then went down to the police station the next day, and I got a letter from the chief of police apologizing for shutting me down. And then I went back the following year, and they went to shut me down for preaching. And I said, hey, you may want to look at this while I continue.

And then the police officer just went like, he goes like this. And he walked away, and I go, that's littering. Police. Police. So it just wasn't my time to get arrested. But I just move on to the next area, if need be. And I know, listen, I know a lot of police officers and FBI agents and Secret Service men. I know a lot of lawyers that are on my side for a lot of these things. All right. Well, two more questions that this person asked. More personal questions. One, how did you become a Christian? And two, tell us a little bit about your family. Yeah, my family. I married my first wife, a lover.

I have five kids, three boys, two girls, three thorns, two rose petals. In that order, boy, boy, boy, girl, girl, 21, 20, 18, 16, and 14. Three kids are in college. Love most of them. They're great. They all have a heart for the Lord. They're amazing. It's just not fair. It really isn't. I mean, my kids have such a heart for the Lord. I have two kids, my 21 and 20-year-old, they both own their own company. And my 18-year-old, he has his own podcast that's really popular, teaching theology at 18. And he's just amazing. So my kids are just amazing.

My wife is very supportive of the ministry. She's supportive of my travels. Sometimes she offers to take me to the airport two days early. No, but listen, we were really close. I used to share with my wife. We used to work together at Mimi's Cafe. It's a restaurant. I used to share with her when she wasn't a Christian. And she became a Christian. And then we got married and we'll be celebrating 22 years next month, August 21st. Just amazing. I love my church, kindredchurch.org. I serve as an evangelism leader there. Philip DeCourcy is my pastor. I got saved at a place called the Harvest Crusade with a man named Greg Laurie. Greg Laurie, I was going to steal a bunch of Levi jeans from a place that I worked at called Miller's Outpost.

And I put that on hold for a moment. I went down to the park, and I was working through the logistics of it. And I found a gospel track on the ground. And the gospel truck on the other side was an invitation to go to this crusade. So I just went to the crusade. Invited a friend of mine. I said, hey, let's go to this crusade. And he thought I was off my rocker. We went in there. People were raising their hands, singing. And I went by and we were giving them high fives, going down the line like this.

And he said, what would a prophet of man if he gains the whole world and yet he forfeits his soul? And that pricked my heart because I was going to steal all these Levi jeans. And God stopped me from doing that. And the following couple of days, I went back into work. And I just started working hard. And then over a couple of weeks, one of the security guards came up to me and he said, Mark, you're talking about Jesus all the time right now. Does this mean you're not going to go through with it? And he was on to me. He knew that I was going to do this.

And I was also working as a bartender at the time. I was 19 years old, which is illegal. Can't do that. But I was a 19-year-old bartender. And I would share the gospel with the regulars that came in. And I was stealing money out of the till as well. And the guys didn't care because I was giving away beer and stuff. I think I bankrupted the owner, unfortunately. But they said, hey, this isn't going to be a place for you.

You realize that. And so I finally shared one last time and I quit. But yeah, that's my testimony. So that actually leads to the next question. Someone says, I want to talk to someone at work But I don't want to get in trouble. What if I lose my job? There are rules against proselytizing. Yeah. So I'm a firm believer in when you're at work, you're the best employee. You're not getting paid to proselytize. You're getting paid to work. Be the best employee.

I had a chance to sit down with Leonard Ravenhill's son many years ago, probably 25 years ago. I said, tell me something about Jesus. He said, I'll tell you something about Jesus. Well, my dad shared with him, Tozer shared with him, A.B. Simpson shared with him, and it was a long line of the single sentence that I'm about ready to share with you. And it was, it was said of Jesus, is this not the carpenter? Not a carpenter, the go-to guy.

And that stuck with me, because if you're getting paid to work, you should leave work tired, right? Exhausted. D.L. Moody often would say when he'd go to bed, his prayers would consist of, I'm tired, goodnight. Because you left it all out, there's nothing left to give. You're not tired because you watched all of these movies, but because you were used by God. So, if you're at work, you be the best employee. Be the best employee. When you leave, there's a hole. There's a hole when you leave. That's irreplaceable.

Now, when you're on break, and when you come in early, and when you stay late, that's how I met my wife, working at Mimi's Cafe. I'd go in early, because I could talk to people. And on my break, I would share with people. And if you're allowed to post flyers for raves and parties, I would post flyers for my church. And I'd put up gospel trucks and say, you can't put that. I go, well, then they can't put that. And they would never fire me because I was the best employee. So be the best employee.

And then I was giving rides to people, and I'd be there, and I'd pray for people. And so for my wife, in this case, I went up to her. I was saying my goodbyes to all the different people at the restaurant. And I got to her, and I went, Laura, listen, I'm going to be praying for you and your boyfriend.

And I'm not convinced that this is going to be your husband. I said that to her. She was living out of her car with her boyfriend at the time. And she's into drugs and everything else. And everything kind of goes along in that fast-paced Southern California lifestyle. And that was it that I said to her.

But she remembers all the conversations that we had. And I had a girlfriend that worked there as well, who continued to share the gospel with her, and actually led her to the Lord, my girlfriend, who ended up marrying an ESPN commentator who was my best friend. So did I answer all the questions? Yeah, that's good. So this person asks, Oh, this is a good one.

How do I share the good news and not ruin my friendships? Yeah, well, Jesus was a friend of sinners, publicans, tax collectors, right? Prostitutes. So what is a friend? A friend, I think, is someone who, there's a winning definition. In January 1994, there was a contest. And the Orange County Register had posted this to where the winning definition was, a friend walks in the door when everybody else walks out. All right, it's a secular definition, but it's a pretty good illustration that a friend is going to be there through the thick and thin of it all.

Like, I have friends where they know I'm not going anywhere. Not going anywhere. I have one friend, he's my best friend, he owns two Chick-fil-A's. One of the reasons why I'm not going anywhere, right? But he knows that anything can happen, I'm not going. It's like your child. Your child can do anything. If my child gets arrested, I'll be the only one that visits him. In prison. I'm not going, you can't get me out of your life. Right? So... I'm gonna be true to the witness, and I'm gonna be true to the friendship.

The best way to win close friends and family is, the Bible says, let your light so shine among men that they may see your good works, and it brings glory to your Father in heaven. So when I go to Walmart to purchase a $70 suit like I recently did, I'm not there just to get the suit, but to share the gospel. And while I'm there, I'm going to pick up a $70 suit, but I'm also going to pick up something for my neighbor. I'm going to be rich in good works.

You know, so whenever there's like, that's a beautiful bouquet of flowers. I get flowers for my wife and I get some for my neighbor. Just put them on the doorstep. I went into my entire neighborhood. I share the gospel with every single person in my neighborhood. I live in a double cul-de-sac and there's like 20 houses. And I gave them each, each house got like a $200 gift basket with gift cards and food during COVID with toilet paper and all these white piece and stuff.

And what are they going to say? You're always thinking about me. Right? And I've earned the right to be able to share the gospel. And I share the gospel with neighbors and family a little bit different than strangers. And with friends, I'm always inviting them. Like if I have a gathering, like it's Thanksgiving, Like, I invite Brian over to my house, not because it's Thanksgiving, but because I want Brian to share the gospel with my family, who I've shared the gospel with umpteenth amount of times.

So Brian, with no dog in the fight, is able to kind of go around and pick up where he left off, you know, at Halloween. And just, hey, did you give this any thought? I don't want to talk to you. Hey, no problem. Moves on to somebody else. And now I'm free to just be the host.

And now what happens is Brian has a venue with his family, and he invites me over. So I have all my different friends coming and sharing the gospel. And I have a devotion at every gathering we have where we have people over. Now, my backyard, I've got a pool, I've got a barbecue, kind of the size of this whole thing right here. It's huge. It's so great. And I did that purposely, with a fire pit and everything else, so that my kids don't want to go to my neighbor's house, but my neighbor's kids want to come to my house, and that my neighbors want to come to my house. So when they come to my house, we get in the Word. And we have worship. We have guitar. So I have kids that play the guitar, and we sing. And I have like a 5-10 minute devotion, and I share the gospel with different people. Or I'll have Brian do it. Hey, before we get into this, let's do this. And so I am going to be the best employee, and I'm not going to lose my friendship, because I'm rich in good works towards my friend.

And I'm praying for them. Hey, if I go out to eat, before I eat my food, I'll look over at the waiter and I'll say, hey, thank you for this food. We're about ready to pray and thank God for this food. Is there anything that you need prayer for? And then the waiter will share whatever he wants to share.

And then I go, great. I've had many times where waiters, they'll go and they'll sit down, and I've had them in tears. I say, nobody's ever asked me that. That's a step out of the boat to be able to do something like that. Just knocking on every door possible and being rich in good works.

All right. Well, maybe I should ask before we keep going, does anybody have any questions that they weren't able to put in the basket? OK. So you say you share the gospel and you let the results be up to God. Do you ever have anybody want to pray right there with you? Do you ever have that happen? Yeah. Oh, boy, a lot. So because I share the gospel a lot, and just by statistics of numbers, it happens more frequently.

I don't lead somebody in a sinner's prayer. Have you heard of the sinner's prayer? Repeat this prayer after me. I don't do that. Do I have a moment to explain why? Do you guys get it? A sinner's prayer is typically known within evangelicalism, where if somebody wants to ask Jesus to come into their heart, they repeat a prayer after someone, and then once they do that, they're given the affirmation that they've now become a Christian. I don't do that.

First of all, this is one of the traditionalist things that I was talking about earlier. We don't see that in Scripture. Right? We believe in the Word of God, right? The Bible from Genesis 1-1 to Revelation 22-21, whatever that says, I adhere to that. All right, great. Well, it doesn't say that.

So, maybe this illustration will drive it home. Imagine if you would, your buddy is guilty of adultery. And your buddy goes to you and he says, hey, listen, I committed adultery on my wife. Really? Oh, man. Well, How's it going with that? I mean, well, she kicked me out of the house. What did you say to her? I didn't say anything. Well, did you ask for forgiveness? I'm not sure if I quite know how.

Okay, tell you what, I'll go with you back to the house. Let's go up to the door and just repeat this thing after me and maybe she'll forgive you. So we knock on the door. I'm off on the side as the husband is there looking at his wife, who's very upset. She opens the door. What do you want? I'm so sorry for what I've done. I'm so sorry for what I've done. Please forgive me for committing adultery. Please forgive me for committing...

She's not interested. She doesn't care about this. A broken and a contrite heart, perhaps she's not going to despise. You know, in Psalm 51, against you and you only have I sinned and done evil in your sight, O Lord. Nathan the prophet, when he confronted David, he says, behold, you're the man. Right? He didn't sugarcoat anything. And now, out of the freeness of his own heart, the words came. So, what I'll say to someone when they're on that verge, I'll say, hey, do you understand the things that I'm saying to you? Yes.

Is there any reason why you should not become a Christian right now? No. Is there anything so precious in your life that you're ready to hold on to and willing to hold on to because you love that more than Christ? No. Then it seems to me that you need to get born again. That you need to get right with God. You need to leave the old man behind. Yeah. You ready to do that? Yeah. Tell Him.

Tell Him in your own words, you pray and then I'll pray after you. I've never once had somebody say, well, what exactly am I supposed to say? I say, well, and you'll understand as I go through the law here in just a moment, you know, where this has precedence. But they just pour their heart out, and then after I just kind of settle that with a prayer of my own, if you would, and I go my way.

I think, and here this will sound maybe a little mystical, and I'm not mystical, right? I don't have this Gnostic inside information, but You have to almost think of God as if He doesn't speak English, if you would. He speaks more heart-ish, right? Let your words be few, Scripture says. That God is attentive to the cry of our hearts more than the words. We think that by our many words we are heard. And that's not the case. Peter, he would have sunk if he didn't say help. He didn't pontificate over three paragraphs of words to say. Right? So God is able to cut through to the real you. I think it was Warfield who said, pray until you've prayed.

And what he meant by that was, oftentimes we will pray, but it won't go any farther than, any higher than the ceiling because it's just words. There's no heart, there's no meaning behind what's being said. But when you pause and you think about that you are talking to Almighty God, your words tend to be a little bit more few. So I'm also against false assurance and false hope.

If you've said this prayer, you've now become a Christian. No, I'll let God say that. Romans 8 says, my spirit bears witness with his spirit that I'm a child of God. I don't need any assurance from anyone that I'm a Christian. I know that I'm a Christian because of the foundation of what God's word says.

So. Question? Yeah. How would you handle it if you're trying to share the gospel with someone? Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of responses that you have. But what I've heard a lot is people will say, well, I don't believe in it. I believe it was just put together by men. You know, that's the common answer is the Constantine Council and things like that. What's the best way to handle that? Let's do role play. All right, let's do some role play. What's your name?

Paul. Paul. All right, Paul. Paul, how old are you? I'm 51. 51 years old. All right, I'm 49. Hey, you'll always be older than me. Paul, you're 51 years old. How do you know you're 51? How do you know that? Prove to me you were born 51 years ago. Put together by? Men? I don't believe what's been written by men. Prove to me that you're 51 years old.

At some point, I've got to take your word for it, right? Well, with scripture, there's a foundation. It's called our source of authority, the Bible. So somebody comes along and says, I don't trust the Bible because it was written by men, and everybody knows that men make mistakes.

I say, well, you're a man. Am I not to believe anything that you say? We've got a problem there. I was asked this question, I was doing a program on Daystar with a gentleman named Ken Ham. One of the guys asked me the question and he said, I don't believe anything written by men. I said, wait, so you don't read anything then? Because everything is written by men.

Well, I don't believe the Bible. Is it false? Yes. Well, in order to say the Bible is false, you have to be comparing it to something that is true. C.S. Lewis said, you cannot call a line crooked. That's a crooked line. You can't say it's crooked unless you know that which is straight. There's got to be a plumb line, right? So in order to say the Bible is false, you're comparing it to something that is true. Where do you get truth within your worldview? What is true? You're saying something is false. How do you know it's false?

You're comparing it to something that is true. What is this thing that you're comparing it to? And it just becomes a little bit of a mind game, but the logic is sound. It's theologically there. So the Bibles are a source of authority. If I say, hey, how long is this? And you say, that's about 5 inches long. And I say, 5 inches? How do you know that? You say, well, if I were to pull out a ruler, I could measure it. A ruler? I don't trust rulers. Well, you don't understand. A ruler is a source of authority. So we all have a source of authority.

Mine's the Bible. So when I'm talking to people, like an atheist, I say, I'm a Christian. And as a Christian, I believe the Bible is God's Word. So when you ask me a question, in order for me to be consistent, I must extract from the Bible my answer. All my answers are going to come from the Bible when it comes to my worldview.

What are you going to pull from? And they say, my mind. Well, how do you? Yeah, you play telephone. So I'm a presuppositionalist apologist, which means I argue from a presupposition from the foundation in which they believe anything. I don't argue evidence for evidence. So I can, the natural reaction to that is, well, where has it changed?

The Dead Sea Scrolls has determined that we have the Old Testament the same as it's always been. The Bible, it's not one book. It's 66 books written over a period of 1,500 years on three different continents with 40 different authors with one central main theme. How does man avoid hell, come in a relationship with his maker, and go to heaven? We have manuscript evidence. and I can get into scribal techniques and all these things, and I've studied all those things, right? I attempted to memorize evidence that demands a verdict.

I mean, I've got these sort of things inside of me, but I don't go there because no amount of evidence can persuade someone. The gospel has to. I will tickle upon evidence, tickle upon the intellect in order to get to the conscience all the time. I demonstrate that Christianity's not foolish, because I can't answer their questions, but quickly I go back to the gospel.

Because remember, the role of the Holy Spirit is to convict the world of sin, judgment, and righteousness. This is what John 17 says. Sin, this is why I go through the commandments, to demonstrate that they have been weighed in the balances and have been found lacking. Righteousness, you don't have the righteousness required of the law to stand before a holy God. Therefore, 3C, you will be judged. So the Spirit wants to convict of sin, judgment, and righteousness. He doesn't convict concerning apologetical arguments. It doesn't bring the understandings when it comes to any sidetrack, rabbit trail, nuanced question that they're going to have.

And I demonstrate this over and over again when I'm on the college campuses. I say, listen, if I could answer all of your questions to your satisfaction, to where you say, that's a great answer to my question. I never heard it like that. Would you be willing to bow your knee to Jesus Christ, confess him as Lord, and become a Christian right here in front of everybody? And they say, no. I go, well, you just demonstrated that our argument is not intellectual. Right? You love this present world. That's what it is.

Men love darkness, and they don't come to the light unless their dark deeds are exposed. They're not just in darkness. Scripture says they are darkness. And because they're darkness, they love their sin, I shine the light of God's law upon their heart, and bring in, and it paves the way for grace, mercy, and forgiveness. So, if somebody says, prove to me God is real.

I say, I can't. See? God doesn't exist. I didn't say that. There's no evidence for God. I didn't say that either. I'm just saying I can't prove to you God is real. Because Romans 1, it says, the invisible attributes of God are clearly seen so that people are without excuse. You know that God exists. You suppress the truth of God in unrighteousness. You don't want God to exist for the same reason a bank robber doesn't want a police officer to exist. That's why you're not a Christian. You love your sin.

So you must repent, and God grants repentance that leads to the truth. So I don't get into an argument with that, but I'll tickle upon that. I don't mind using evidence, but I don't believe in evidential apologetics to persuade someone. Because only God can persuade them, and he's using the gospel, which is the power of God, unto salvation.

Good question. I think we've got time for one more question. So a few more here. Yeah, Jason. Yeah, Mark. You mentioned earlier about telling someone, is there any reason why you're not ready to accept the gospel message today? I've always been taught that you haven't fully evangelized until you've told someone you need to make a decision. Christ is requiring a decision. Yes, no, I'm not ready yet, whatever. But you need to make a decision.

And then we see places in scripture like in Acts chapter 2 Peter preaches at Pentecost, and he waits, you know, I don't know if he waited, but he didn't necessarily give Jesus the answer until they gave him the pen, until they said, what must we do to be saved? So they had some kind of a response, the Spirit was moving there. So I guess my question is, what's your balance for how you, you know, go through and say, this is what I'm gonna present, believe in God's hand, and with the other side, you're saying, I'm trying to see what the Holy Spirit's doing here, and work with what God is doing in this person's heart. So I do not need to finish my message. If I'm engaged in a conversation with someone and I have two minutes, I'm not going to try to get a complete message within that two minutes.

That's why a gospel track is good in those moments as well. I am a firm believer that one man plants, another man waters. So I have no problem leaving somebody with just the law of God. Or I go through the gospel, and as I'm going through the gospel, I never get to the resurrection or the ascension of Christ, who's sitting at the right hand of the Father. That's fine. I'm okay with that, because I'm just watering or I'm just planting.

And I can't save anybody. Only God can save people. But I get so frustrated. The reason why I try to memorize Evidence that Demands a Verdict and other apologetical books is because I came from a semi-Pelagian background where I'm thinking, I got to do the work to save someone. And if they don't save someone, it's because I didn't have a good enough answer. No, that's not the case. Right? So the weight has been taken off of my shoulders, but God is using the foolishness of the preaching of the gospel to save people. That's the methodology in which he has used. So I'm okay without finishing a message, but I'm going to speak as long as they give me able.

This last Saturday when I was in Huntington, I was talking to a new age guy, and the guy was going on and on and on, and I felt like I covered enough basis. Well, my producer went around the other side and he's, all right, we're good, wrap it up. You know, so my, I would have just, I wouldn't have went on for hours. I literally would have just, I have no other place I need to go. The most important person I need to talk to is the person in front of me. So I, I have given enough credence to my producer and my director to say, Mark, stop on this conversation. We need to move on.

I'll give you an example of why I'm like that. I spoke at a church where my parents had a chance to attend in the midst of the congregation and This young gentleman, 18 years old, came up to me and he wanted to talk. There's a line of people that wanted to talk and stuff. And he was one of them and I was talking to him. And my dad went up behind him and he's like this, let's go. Wrap it up. Wrap it up. Let's go. Let's go eat. But I was just honed in on this kid.

And usually in a time like that, I just kind of like, I stop, I slow down, I go, Lord, you know, speak to me, speak through me, you know, what do you have here in the situation? And he wasn't talking about anything of real relevance. He was just talking and I was just listening and I didn't want to move on to the next person until he was done. I wanted to make sure he was completely done with what he wanted to say.

And that was a, that was a godsend for me that I didn't just move on to the next person. Because as soon as I was done, he went right over and committed suicide. And I would have been just... I would have been eaten up by that. So I purposed in my heart that I've surrounded myself with trusted people.

And they know when I need to kind of move on, when I don't need to move on. They're able to say, hey, there's egg on your face. There's people that are speaking to my life. And it's almost like it doesn't matter what they say, they're able to just speak. You have carte blanche ability just speaking to my life. And I'm an open book. What you see here is just who I am. I'm not really polished behind the pulpit. I just kind of come behind the pulpit, and I just kind of throw up. It's just like, here you go. Now, who wants to come alongside with me? So I'm not struggling and striving, I'm just kind of walking in the work. So I don't get into a lot of arguments with people. I go, hey, I got kicked out of college, so this should be easy for you to win this debate.

You know, I spoke at the Santee Museum, Creation Museum down in Santee, California, and there was, I got a call from the curator who said, hey, Bill Nye the science guy wants to show up, he's filming an episode for his television program, and he wants to challenge you concerning the age of the earth and dinosaurs. Are you okay with that? I said, sure, I've got no problem with that. And a friend of mine who oversees the apologetic department at Talbot there in Southern California, we were a tag team in a Sunday school class at my church.

And I said, Mark, I know you don't know that much about the age of the earth and dinosaurs. I go, I know enough. I'll be fine. He said, Mark, you should cancel. I said, no, I'll be OK. And I went on my television program. And in two different episodes, I went through these six questions that I was going to ask Bill Nye. They're detrimental. They'll destroy him. It doesn't matter how he answers. It's a catch-22.

Do you believe in absolute truth? Where do you get truth within your life? I don't have time. Give me a break. I'll go through the questions with you. They're so good. Bill Nye never showed up. But it was filled with atheists. There were two overflow rooms. And I had a chance now to just answer all these atheists' questions and stuff. And some of them were upset. Some of them weren't. But I was OK either way. And I didn't need to get upset because salvation belongs to the Lord. I didn't complete some of my thoughts. I didn't get to complete my thought with him. I got you guys halfway through something I wanted to share. And when he had asked his question, I never finished. And I go, that's okay. So you guys don't even have a clue where I was even heading when I was talking to what I was talking about. I just moved on. And so, I just move on. I don't need to complete anything. God doesn't need me. Alright, so we are out of time.

If you look down on your name tag, over here, you're going to see that they're color-coded. So find people who are your color code, and this is your job right now. I'd like for you to get together in your small groups. It doesn't have to be in here. You can find a room in the church somewhere. And talk to each other about three things. You might want to write this down in your little notebook. Three things you're going to talk in your little group about.

The afternoon breakout time is going to be different, more role playing. But I want you all to talk in your little groups about, first, when is a time in your life that you've talked about the gospel with someone and it went well? Two, what are some bad ways to share the gospel with someone? Three, describe a time you've never been scared of talking about the gospel with someone.

So those are the three things you're gonna talk about in your group. Try to give each other some time to talk. So again, if you can find people with your same color code, have fun with that. Yeah, okay. What's that? Say those three again. Say those three again. Okay, we'll see if I can do this.

Alright, one of them is a time that you have shared the gospel and it's gone well. Number two, what are some bad ways to share the gospel? And number three, are there any times that you've ever been scared to tell someone about the gospel? All right, so go ahead and break out into your groups.

I'll call you back together in about 20, 25 minutes, something like that. Find people with the same color tag. Have fun. Tighten seats. you might want to raise your hand and say what color you are. How about we do this? If you are red, go over to this corner. If you are blue, go over to that corner. If you are green, go over to that corner. If you are pink, go over to that corner. Everybody else, if you'd like two more colors, you should be able to find each other. I've seen you before. Sorry about that. Yeah, sorry about that. There you go. Okay, good. Very good. Congratulations. Congratulations.

My last movie was probably 1974. It made me quit when I was 66, but I still did it. What did you call it? It was called, then it was called, I don't know if you can do it if they call it, but I call it Truman's Big River. But Harry Truman, I've heard of him, that was the team.

He couldn't finish Roseville's tournament. He could have ran it the second time and didn't do it. He put his eyes down and it would have pulled over if he didn't do it. But he still won it. Roseville's tournament, his fourth tournament three years in a row, he won 24. He could have ran it another time, but he didn't do it.

So, I'm going to be in re-extracting this gospel conversation. So, I think I'm going to do three things. And I said, so do you think you're a good person? And she said, let me tell you. And I said, I'm going to go on. And I said, this sounds so mean. And I'm from Iowa. We don't say things like that. So if you were a lying, blasphemer, I'm ready to duck because I'm thinking, yeah, I'm going to get in trouble. Her countenance changes. It doesn't. It just falls. Water heating pad.

But it wasn't just like, you know, absolutely fabulous books that I did, you know, and I felt like, you know, it was not, you know, all that. It was also like, really, you know, a lot of the different things of, you know, I'd love to put something in for you. Um, we are both, we bought a house, uh, had left the other team, and left the unit, and separated, uh, but in that time, with people, and, uh, we ended up being in the same, same shooting area at the same time, together, uh, and, uh, in the same building, and we're all here for a reason. We're all, like I said, And then I started having to do this, do this, do this, do this. I did tell them a little about you, and it was funny, too, because you've never been out there, so you went to the search, the on-post information. There you go. Thank you. I've tried to do three. I did it so much.

I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I mean, I don't know. There wasn't, like, a big, you know, moment. I mean, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know.

Second Point

And it's good to know that our members of the community are part of that. I have a second point. I have a second point, but I think we all have a good point here. It's not all that good, but I think we all have a good point. I think we all have a good point.

I agree. I agree. I agree. I agree. I agree. I agree. I don't think that's true. I don't think people don't need it. Yes, they can. It's a good word. There's a scripture about that. So I think that's what I've been doing. And I've been taught so many things. Yeah. Like all the things I was raised with, I think, are perfect in terms of the only 90 things that I've ever learned. And that was like, I don't even know what to say. I don't even know what to do. That's why I was like, can I ask a question? Because I have a question about this. I was going to say, yeah. That's explaining how you got it.

It worked. You know, so it's a good thing. We're unafraid. And you're just doing what you do best. And it's the kind of focus that we have. And we can use different things. Right. The Lord's going to be on our side. We're going to have a religion. Whatever we're going to say, we're going to be willing to do what he says to do.

Okay, so what are some ways that... I don't know what to say. You know. change the way it's written. I think humility is a part of their sin. It's a part of their sin. Wait, um, I just... I'm sorry. I can't hear. I can't hear at all. I think we have a little bit of a coincidence here. You have anything to share back there? I think a lot of times we get, we get a lot of people that say, The bishop. Yeah, I know. Yeah, I, I. I think it's a hard thing, but I like it. You really don't want to, in your flesh, you don't want to share that at all. I want to be a slave. I want to be a slave. I want to be a slave. I want to be a slave. I want to be a slave. I want to be a slave. I want to be a slave.

I want to be a slave. I want to be a slave. I want to be a slave. I want to be a slave. I want to be a slave. I want to be a slave. I want to be a slave. I want to be a slave. I want to be a slave. I want to be a slave. I want to be a slave. I want to be a slave. I want to be a slave. I want to be a slave. I want to be a slave. I want to be a slave. I want to be a slave. I want to be a slave. I want to be a slave. I want to be a slave. I want to be a slave. I want to be a slave.

Thank you. Thank you. So, I thought it would look like she's not super intimidating. Just to get brows in the frame. I don't like it. I don't like going up to people. All right, so here we go. All right. You know, it's been my life. I am so joyful. Okay, so I think that's about it. th th I'm sorry. What's going on out there? Yeah, we know. Thank you. I don't know if you're interested in that. I don't know if you're interested in that. I don't know if you're interested in that. I don't know if you're interested in that. I don't know if you're interested in that. I don't know if you're interested in that. I don't know if you're interested in that. I don't know if you're interested in that.

I don't know if you're interested in that. I don't know if you're interested in that. I don't know if you're interested in that. I don't know if you're interested in that. I don't know if you're interested in that. I don't know if you're interested in that. I don't know if you're interested in that. I don't know if you're interested in that. I don't know if you're interested in that. I don't know if you're interested in that. I don't know if you're interested in that. I don't know if you're interested in that. I don't know I'll just say, it shouldn't be that you do that. I'm not debating it, I'm just saying.

Yeah, different religion, or you can just think they're okay. I think every time. That way I can get a chance that I don't have to talk. They know that we have never been able to understand about Jack because I've known him since he was a kid. And everyone's wondering, right? And so it's fine. But I can't have this thing that I just can't live like that.

I think there's two keys that, at least in my discussion of the term, one of the keys that we have to consider is the power of description. Thank you. I was almost shocked. Are you sure? We're trying to find out in all these other ways. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. So it's like an era of interstitiality where we don't need the law. We don't need the law. We don't need the law. We don't need the law.

I don't know if you feel him that way, but he said you suck. So, yeah, type that into it. I'm gonna be honest, I think it's like, for once, it's like, what? What's the way? Just to have these questions. What do you like? Good advice. You know, or maybe you're really good at it. You know, because I don't feel like you're answering it. So, it's just like, you shouldn't be talking about it. So, you know, maybe that's not my thing. You know? Yeah, that's what I'm trying to navigate. I use this when I'm talking to people. Because I have a different voice, you know? You know? But it might really be here.

I mean, it's scary to get involved in a relationship. But I know it's scary for me when you're in a homosexual relationship. And one thing that I was like, I don't want to push it on the bride, and I'm just going with it, rather than like, period, time. It's a way for me to sort of... You know how hard it is for people if you ask them?

If you told a lie, because that's what that means. I don't know what I'm going to do to be a liar. Well, my life is a lie. My life is a lie. My life is a lie. My life is a lie. My life is a lie. My life is a lie. My life is a lie. My life is a lie. My life is a lie. My life is a lie. My life is a lie. My life is a lie. My life is a lie. My life is a lie. My life is a lie. My life is a lie. My life is a lie.

I've spoken all of them. I've gone through them. I've had to diagnose them. I wanted to be able to do that as well. And so I tell them that I just wasn't ready for it. I had to do some research. I knew that some of them were very important to me, but I just had to do it. And then I heard a message about God's love and what that really meant, and how you look to God in a way that is not your flexible line. I tell that to them. I'm like, look, if that makes sense to you, I am so happy.

Yes. Yes. Blasphemer. Yes. Blasphemer. Yes. So I do have to turn around to meet and tell my ex-wife. And so that I get to escape out of it. And tell him that we love him. Right, right. And I feel like, okay, I've shared the gospel and I've applied it to myself and I hope that they will let me know. Okay, well I hate to break up conversations, but that's exactly what I'm going to do.

Prayer for Illumination

We're going to pray for lunch. Let me pull this up. We're gonna, that's not on. Okay, well, we're gonna pray for lunch, and then all the tables downstairs are color-coded, so you get to keep your conversations going on downstairs, so find your color table. Let's pray. Father, we thank you so much for this day. We thank you for the blessing of the food that you've given us. We pray that we would eat it with thankful hearts. We pray that you would bless our conversations, that you would use it for your glory.

Strengthen us for the rest of this afternoon. In Jesus's name, amen. Alright, so go ahead and go downstairs. The ladies will give you instructions down there and find your table. Okay, yeah, so the church I go to, it's a church with a lot of stuff. Yeah, so once in a while, in the evening, in the summer time, we can get together and do it. Yeah, yeah. I said most people find it boring, but I like it. How many kids do you have? We have seven, four. Should we go outside? They're pretty easy to take care of. That little girl, she has something. Bend everything at that face. Yep. One of my mentors called me and I said, Brian, your job is to recognize the Lord God. For your job is to be able to support God through all of this stuff. Wow. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you th th Yeah.

The air conditioning works good. Yeah, because I'm cold. Do you want to sit closer so you can get a better view? I'm fine with us being back. It's you. So you can do that as well. th th Just get away from the mic a little bit. Tell me to start laughing. That's right. Hold her up here, Kurt. You know what? You do need a blanket. I think I'm going to go stand outside for a while. That'll warm you up. I hope so.

We're from Burlington. Oh, yeah. Well, I'm also. Oh. I would like to invite you to come to my church. It's down here. There's a lot to do. Oh, sure. It's my church. The second and fourth of every month. I'm trying it for three months. We'll see how things go. 670, tomorrow night? 4-3. 4-3. Thank you. Bye. Thank you. Whoa.

You got to sacrifice your body for it. I feel like I should have brought my favorite candy ever. The only thing that's better than that is all of them. Well, all of her candy does candy. They're the same thing. Actually, you're right. He got me. I knew that from there. Aw, dang it. This is going to help us eat dinner. Andy's mess room is gone. Oh, yeah, they are. I'm just going to get a coffee. My favorite noise is the cat. You know, we're talking about education. I figured there you go. What is the year called? Early English. It's also a good part. That's the part of high school where I just Okay.

OK, well, whether ready or not, we're going to respect Mark's time here and get moving on with the third session. So if you could kindly take your seats. If people are downstairs, please meander your way back. Mark, the floor is yours, brother. Thank you.

All right, how about that spread of food? Wasn't that the cat's meow? Can I use that term? Does that mean anything out here? Wasn't up to spread. OK. We doing OK? We hanging in there? This is where we lose a little bit, because that food's going to begin to circulate. All that blood's going to rush to our heads, and we're going to get all tired. If you do get tired, feel free to stand in the back. I actually said to my students, I said, listen, if you get tired, just stand in the back. I get it. I get it. Jesus said, come aside and rest a while. We all need rest.

Prayer for Illumination

OK, let's pray. Father, thank you continually for the work that is being done in our hearts and in our minds. May we continually be there on the operating table not fighting back, just allowing you to do what you do best. So perform the surgery and accomplish your will. And it's in Jesus' name we pray, amen. Amen. When we start talking about giving a proper gospel presentation, it is nearly impossible to give a complete gospel presentation. And I say that because the Bible in totality has a complete gospel message.

Where we start off with who God is, and the character of God, and the attributes of God. Then we have the creation of man, and the fall of man. Well, man was created in the image of God, Imago Dei. Latin, image of God. We are little image bearers, and we've defaced that image. We've defrauded that image by falling in love with that image. And then we start talking about man's rebellion. And with man's rebellion, we have the fall. And with the fall, we have man trying to live in exile against God, raising his fist against God. And God allowed man to do that.

And man finally said, we want a king. God says, I'm your king. You don't need no king. I'm your king. Jesus further goes on to the scene. He is the King of Kings. He's the Lord of Lords. He's had no predecessor. He'll have no successor. You can't impeach him. He's not going to resign. That's Jesus.

So we have man living in rebellion. And finally, we have God giving of the law, the Ten Commandments. We'll get into that in a little bit. And why did God do that? And it wasn't necessarily a standard to live by, but a standard to show that you can't live by it. You really want to be like the pagans. Well, I'm going to show you what it's like. Then we have the exodus. We have man living in rebellion to God, trying to do his own thing, live in his own way.

And we have a promise of a Messiah all the way back in Genesis chapter 3, verse 15, where the Messiah is going to be needing to come. And this Messiah is not plan B. It's always been plan A. It's always been God's will to send a son, Jesus Christ, who would be born of a woman, be born of a virgin in Bethlehem. to die a cruel death that he didn't deserve, because you and I deserve to die a cruel death, which we can never pay. Hell to pay. So we have the promise of a Messiah to come, because we were going to break his law. Then we have this 300 to 500 years of silence between really the Old and the New Testament after that.

Last prophet, Italian prophet, Malachi, Malachi, there in the Old Testament. We have all of the prophecies all throughout the Old Testament, these messianic prophecies, proving and pointing who Jesus Christ, who the Messiah was going to be. Now, how are people saved in the Old Testament?

Well, they're saved by looking forward to who the Messiah is going to be. The Messiah is going to remove the sins of the world. This is why when John the Baptist sees Jesus and their cousins, he says, Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.

This is a novel idea, because in the Old Testament, the sins were never removed. And we saw a glimpse of it, as far as the east is from the west. So your sins will be removed. Corrie ten Boom would say, God would grab ahold of our sins, put them in the depths of the ocean, then he would post a sign, no fishing allowed. Sins removed. But in the Old Testament, the sins were never removed. They were just merely covered.

Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, that one day out of the year when the high priest would enter into the Holy of Holies, past the outer courts, past the court of the women, into the Holy of Holies. And they would tie, tradition, church history would tell us that there would be, if you would, like a rope tied around the high priest's ankle. As he goes in to make an atonement for the people that one time a year, the bell would ring. And we know how much rope is needed in order to get into the Holy of Holies, and we dare not go, because there's no access to the Father, because He is holy. How holy? Holy, holy, holy, thrice holy. He is holy. He's perfect. He dwells in inapproachable light.

And the bell stops to ring. But the bell shouldn't stop ringing as the rope is attached to the edge of the high priest's ankle, and the high priest would die before he even makes it all the way in. So what do they do? We need to have this day of atonement. We need to have this sacrifice. And the high priest who's supposed to represent the people just died. What's the rope for? Let's pull him out. Who's next? Get Earl. He's on bat. And they tie the rope around him. And if he has sin in his life, he dies. He's not able to go inside.

We have the rich young ruler coming to Jesus and saying, good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life? He says, you know the commandments. And he goes through five different commandments, if you would, or a reflection of some of them. And what does he say? I've kept these. Really? You've kept these? Since when? Since my youth? Since my bar mitzvah.

This is really what he's saying. Not that I have always perfectly kept the law, but I've offered up the sacrifice required of the law. Because these Jewish individuals are very highly religious. Without the shedding of blood, there's no remission of sin. So Yom Kippur is very important. So the high priest finally makes it in, and he offers up a sacrifice, and there would be a covering, but never a removal, and that is very important. If I invite you over to my house for a Thanksgiving dinner, God bless you and your guest speaker.

And I spill grape juice on the really nice white linen tablecloth. My wife looks at me and says, you're busted, bucko. And I go, oh no, shall I clean it? She said, there's no time to clean it, but we can cover it. Put a table mat, a tablecloth, do something, we'll cover that, and when our guests leave, we will clean it. But it has to be dealt with. But it was only covered, it was never removed.

Jesus, when He was on the Mount of Transfiguration, He's there, and it says that his face shone brighter than that of a launderer. That's the word that is used there. Really white, if you would. Though your sin be as scarlet, it shall be as white as snow. That's nice, because that's what we're going to need.

So the Old Testament is a picture of what's happening. All the Old Testament tells us that we're in need of a Savior in the New Testament. Shows what the Savior did. How was somebody saved in the Old Testament? The same way we're saved. We look to the Messiah. They look to the Messiah.

Then Jesus, after he died, he went down and he led captivity captive. He preached the gospel, the good news. This is what happened as he declared himself, as he presented himself. He said to the thief on the cross, today you'll be with me in paradise. So we move on in the midst of the gospel, if you would, our evangelistic message, Jesus enters onto the scene.

He lives a pretty low, ho-hum life. It wasn't until the age of 12 where we see some real glimpse as he's missing from the parents and he's teaching inside the synagogue. As we saw the Apostle Paul going from synagogue to synagogue until finally he wiped the dirt off of his shoes and he left the Jews and he went to the Gentiles as Paul was an apostle, if you would, to the Gentiles. Fast forward, 30 years old or so, Jesus has his earthly ministry.

Spends all night in prayer for his disciples, as if he didn't know he was going to call, right? But there's an importance, there's a sign of how important prayer is. Notice that the apostles, they never said, teach us how to preach. Teach us how to perform miracles. They said, teach us how to pray.

And you've been designed to pray. You've been designed to have communion with God. That's really the Christian story. That you have been designed to have a relationship with the God who knows how to create sunsets, and seafood, and sex, and surfing, right? This is a God who altogether is other, different.

And he had his earthly ministry for three years, even picking someone who he knew was going to betray him. And he did. They portrayed him with a kiss, and that's not what lips are designed for, are they? And he goes before the high priest, and he's going tossed back and forth.

And he lived a perfect life. And it's very important to note that he lived a perfect life, and why is that? Because that's where your righteousness comes from. Your right standing between the God, the Father, and yourself is done through the life of Jesus, not the death. We have communion in the light of the memory of his death. We have a righteousness in light of his perfect life. If he didn't live a perfect life, that just puts us back to ground zero where Adam and Eve are at. But no, there's no true fellowship there. There has to be a deeper fellowship you've been created for more.

And he performed miracles and he was truly the Messiah. And he was unjustly condemned to die on a Roman cross. And that he did. And three days after Jesus died, he rose again from the grave. Hundreds of eyewitnesses, hundreds of prophecies that he fulfilled. And then he rose again, all the way to the Father, ascended.

And he sits evermore to be your advocate. To do what you can't do. And when he died on the cross, the veil was ripped. That nine inches of thick material where the high priest would enter in to the Holy of Holies, and he had to be perfect, and spotless, and blameless, and no defile, no decay. That's what he did when he died. He entered into the courtroom, and he spoke to the judge on your behalf. And the veil was ripped from top to bottom, signifying that God ripped the veil, as opposed to man trying to get to God. Religion is man's attempt to get to God. Christianity was God's attempt to get to man. And it worked, and it succeeded.

So that, in a nutshell, is the gospel. And listen, it is a sufficient gospel message. But it's not a complete gospel message. Now, if you want to say sufficient is complete, that's fine. I'm OK with that. But if you want a complete gospel message, it's the Bible in totality. What do you want to leave out? That's why it's important to give a sufficient. 1 Corinthians 15 that we read earlier today, the death, burial, resurrection of Christ. You get that far, you're good.

But the death? The death of who? Of the Messiah. Messiah? What does that mean? He will save his people from their sins. Sins? What is sin? That's transgression of God's law. You see, what happens is we watch these football games and they're holding these signs behind the goalposts saying, Jesus saves. From what? And the answer is simple. God saves you not from hell, but God saves you from himself. He is angry with the wicked every day, the Bible says. I'm not sure if you underline that passage. He's angry with the wicked every day.

His arm is not short that he cannot save, his ear is not dull that he cannot hear, but your sins have separated you from God. Psalm 66 18 says, if I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear. And so the Jew cannot approach God because his sins have separated him from God.

As the Christian, we have access to God and we don't need to leave. So we have moment by moment, daily, second by second, fellowship with the creator of life. And none of this is going to make sense unless we proceed it with the law. So I'm going to do that here and I'm going to show you. Now the law is not the gospel. The commandments are not the gospel. The gospel is the life, death, burial, resurrection of Jesus. But the gospel is not going to make sense unless we proceed it with the law.

If I was a doctor and I wanted to convince you that you're dying of a horrific disease, I would pull out the charts. I would go through the x-rays. I would show you the CAT scan. My son had a CAT scan a couple weeks ago. A couple x-rays. Dove into the shallow end of a pool. Came up and it was just a big bloody mess.

Gonna go through these to show you that you have a problem. On the other hand, if you just go before the doctor and there's no communication, there's no conversation. You sit before the doctor, the doctor looks at you and just goes, here, take these pills. You'd be a fool to take the pills unless you knew that you needed to take the pills. That makes sense. The law makes sense. It makes the gospel make sense. So when somebody says to you, I think I'm going to make it to heaven because I'm basically a good person. You could respond with, well, are you good enough to get to heaven in God's eyes? Would God consider you to be good?

The ninth commandment says you shall not bear false witness. You shall not lie. Have you always told the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? So help you God. And that includes white lies, exaggerations, half-truths, and fibs. Anything other than the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth is a lie.

In Revelation 21, verse 8 says all liars will have their part in the lake of fire, which is the second death. 1 Corinthians 6, verses 8 through 9, in the midst of that says, no liar makes it to heaven. Lying lips are an abomination of the Lord. Six things the Lord hates. Four of those things deal with lying. So lying is very important to God. If you've told a lie, it has separated you from God. Why is lying wrong? Because God is always honest. And they that worship God must worship Him in spirit and in truth. Integrity is a big deal.

And you don't need to tell 10 lies to be a liar. One lie, you'd be considered a liar. In the same way, if you raped 10 people, you're a rapist. But if you even raped one person, you're a rapist. But here's the thing in the heart of Romans chapter 5, and that is, a dog is not a dog because he barks. He barks because he is a dog. Luke 4 or Luke 6 tells us that from the wellspring of the heart, it's the overflow of the being. You can't help but lie. You are a liar.

I think it's Romans 5.58-ish, right around there. You are the father, your father is the father of lies. You only do what he does. You may lie a whole lot less than the next person, but no, at core, at the very core of who you are, you are a liar. That's only one commandment. And I didn't even get into it.

Eighth commandment says you shall not steal. Have you ever taken something that belongs to somebody else? Irrespective of the value, if you've taken a candy bar at a grocery store, if you've downloaded music off the internet that wasn't yours, if you took an 11 minute break when you should have taken a 10 minute break, you're a thief. Now, you're a lying thief. The seventh commandment says you should not commit adultery.

And some of us may think that we're pretty safe there. But the Sermon on the Mount, the most important, famous sermon ever preached, Jesus said, if you've ever looked with lust, you've committed adultery in your heart. And you think nobody's looking. And you cancel the cachet on your phone.

The eyes of the Lord are in every place, keeping watch of the good as well as the evil. No adulterer, no fornicator will inherit the kingdom of God. Sixth commandment says you shall not murder. But if you've had hatred in your heart, you are a murderer. Meaning God not only sees the people you hate, that you want to kill, but the people in the secret recesses of your heart where you've gathered bitterness towards. God sees thoughts and He sees actions.

Ever desired something that belongs to somebody else? Man, I wish I had that John Deere tractor. Not content with what you have been given. With godliness, with contentment is great gain. That's the 10th commandment. Always honor your parents? Me either. Same as sorcery in the Old Testament. Punishment by death. Ever used God's name in vain? Texted OMG? Just thought it was in a big deal? I don't do that, but I have no problem watching movies that do. Would you watch a movie where they're using your mom's name in vain? Well, that's ridiculous. Would you still watch it? What if they did?

I'm not here to come down on you. I'm just here to demonstrate something for you. to just show you something. The commandments, they show us that we're in need of help. This is why the Messiah came, because we've broken God's law. And I don't have a love affair with the law of God. I'm not excited to tell someone that you're a lying, thieving, adulterous, murderer, covetous individual. I mean, I take no joy and delight in that. But they will not receive and accept the cure unless they're convinced of it.

Paul, when he went before Felix, says that he reasoned with him concerning judgment, righteousness, and self-control. Remember, the primary role of the Holy Spirit in the life of a non-believer is to convict of sin, judgment, and righteousness. So what did Paul do? He reasoned with him concerning self-control, judgment, and righteousness. So the sin in Felix's life would have been self-control. The guy didn't have any. I don't know what it was. It doesn't say. But here's the Apostle Paul taking the words of John. Hey, this is what the Spirit does. The Spirit convicts.

But you've got to give Him an opportunity to do so. He cannot convict unless you open up the commandments. Hell will they hear unless a preacher is sent. Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God. That word faith is a salvific term. Salvation term. They cannot get saved unless somebody shares the gospel with them. He could make the rocks cry out, the angels could have proclaimed it, could have been inside the clouds. God says, no, I'm using the foolishness of preaching to save people.

People like you and me, everyday, ordinary people that have their own faults, their own sin, their own struggles. He gets it. He says, perfect, you're the one. So people would say, well, I get it. I'm not perfect. I've broken God's law. Yes. For all have sinned and fallen short of God's glory. But it gets actually worse. It's a whole lot worse than you think. All your good deeds, all your righteous works that you've done to try to earn favor with God. It's a bloody mess. Your good deeds are as filthy rags. And the word there is actually used as a menstrual rag. That's how good your good deeds are.

Joseph Alleyne, a man from a long time ago, he said, every unconverted man would kill God all over again if he could only get to him. I have no problem with the man upstairs, somebody would say. The man upstairs? Jonathan Edwards. He said, God sees nothing in man to turn his heart, but he sees plenty in man to turn his stomach. That your heart is deceitful and desperately wicked above all things. You cannot do anything right.

And so when I'm talking to someone, I go through the law and I will stay there as long as I need to, without getting to the gospel, to show them that they are up a creek without a paddle, that they are helpless and hopeless, and if left to themselves, they will be doomed and damned. To which now they say, well, what must I do to be saved? How do I get them to that stage and that state? Don't be so quick to get to the gospel unless they have first seen themselves in truth.

Each man will proclaim his own goodness, the Bible says. Meaning, we all think we're pretty good because we compare ourselves amongst ourselves. I'm not as bad as that guy. That guy smokes weed. Or that guy does heroin. Or that guy rapes people. Or that guy kills people after he's raped them. Or there's Osama Bin Laden. Or Pol Pot. Or Stalin. There's somebody always worse.

But what we must do is we must grab a hold of people's lives and compare themselves to the holy righteousness of God. If I were to light a match and I take fire and I put fire next to a dried out piece of paper, the fire will consume the dried out piece of paper because it must. Because the nature of the fire is different than the nature of the leaf. It must consume it. Even if I were to stop and interview the fire and say, fire, what are you doing? You shouldn't be destroying things. It would say, I have to, I gotta do this. My nature is different than the paper. And the Bible describes God as a consuming fire. dwells in unapproachable light whom no one has ever seen or can see, who alone has immortality." 1 Timothy 6.

So the bad news is, yes, you've missed the mark of perfection. That's not new news, but what must be told to the people today is that God does not grade on a curve. He grades on the cross, right? It doesn't matter if your good deeds outweigh your bad deeds, or you haven't done stuff as bad as that guy, are you guilty? Because if you've broken one sin, it's as if you've broken all of the sins, James tells us.

I think 2.10. It's like holding on to ten links of a chain. Only one of them needs to break in order for gravity, the law of gravity, to take its toll and for you to fall down and die. You break one commandment, you stand in judgment. But the Bible says that God is not willing for any to perish, but that all come to what? Repentance. Not a decision. I have decided to follow Jesus. No. Rejoicing in heaven comes from repentance. which is a gift of God by itself. God grants repentance that leads to the truth. But unless you repent, you will perish. Luke 13, verse 3. And if you didn't hear it in verse 3, he repeats himself in verse 5. Unless you repent, you'll perish. Luke 13, verse 5.

It's the Greek word metanoia. It means to change your mind. Greg Bonson would say, it's to think God's thoughts after him. He thought him first, now you get to think him. You are wrong in your behavior. You are alienated from God through your mind of wicked works. No good thing dwells within you. Repent. Turn to me and live, he would say. You can't change your spots.

God sees nothing lovely in you to save you, but because God is love, he saves. And he says, whosoever will, let him come. So you broke God's law. And God is a just judge, and he's angry with the wicked every day, Psalm 711. In Matthew 10, 28, it says, do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul, but rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell. And yet the Bible clearly teaches that there is no other name under heaven given among men whereby which man must be saved.

That's through Jesus. Because if there's another way to get to heaven, then go through Jesus Christ, who requires faith, and repentance, then Jesus didn't need to die. He died in vain. But the message is, repent! Place your trust in Christ, where the Father placed His wrath. It's not, God has a wonderful plan for your life. Give Jesus a try, come check out my church.

It's better than what you do on Sunday mornings. None of that is relevant. And it may or may not be true. It's irrelevant whether it is or isn't true. That's not the message, though. What time is this session over? I never looked. 45, I'm going to speed this along. I have a lot to say. This is my favorite subject, as you can imagine. Let's fast forward a little bit.

So Jesus dies on the cross. And the Bible says that we're saved by grace through faith. Not of works, not of yourself, lest any man should boast. So the two distinguishing markers between Christianity in every other worldview, every other cult, is grace and the person of Jesus. Those are the two. So I hone in on those two.

And what is grace? Grace is God's unmerited favor to the infinitely ill-deserving. Say it again. Grace, God's unmerited favor to the infinitely ill-deserving. You don't deserve it. What do you deserve? Hell. Grace. Getting what you don't deserve. God does not give His grace by calculated measure. You need a little bit more than her. And He measures it out differently. No. Anybody, we all, we come underneath the spout where God's grace, mercy, and forgiveness comes pouring out. Matthew Henry, the great commentator, he said, you are at the closest moment and point of receiving God's grace when you begin to realize that you can't do anything correct. You don't know what I've done. Exactly! But I know somebody who does. You're a perfect candidate. All I do is mess up. Perfect! Come! Come and taste. Come and see. Come and behold the One who knows all about you and is willing and ready to forgive you. Come and learn of Him who's able to condemn, but He's ready to forgive. You're condemned already, John 3, 17 and 18. You're condemned already.

For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him, or places his trust in, clings to, relies upon, there's the word, shall not perish. Grace, it's a beautiful word. He's not asking you to clean your life up, He's commanding you to lay your life down. But the Bible says, for by grace are you saved through faith.

And though it is true that there's none who seek after God, the good news of the Gospel is that God seeks after man. So God's wrath abides upon you if you've broken God's law. And God's eyes are in every place keeping watch of the good as well as the evil. He sees everything you've ever done in secret as if it was out in the broad daylight.

There's nowhere you can go to get away from God. There's a blood payment for your soul that's required. So the picture is God's wrath abides upon you and the only way to escape God's wrath is to run towards God in Christ. We escape God by running towards God. It makes no sense. It's a paradox, but it's true. The heaven of the heavens of heavens cannot contain Him. Grace is getting what you don't deserve. Mercy is God holding back that which you do deserve.

And in Hebrews 4.16 it says, Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need. God commands all men everywhere to repent, because He has appointed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness. God has made God our salvation, and He did it at the cross. Salvation is a free gift, but it cost the Father everything.

God does not forgive people's sins by the wave of a magic wand. So either Jesus Christ, here's the picture, so Jesus Christ is your substitute who suffered in himself the wrath of the Father, and in so doing, he satisfied the demands of the law, or you gotta do it yourself. It's your choice. Either stay by grace, or stay by your works. Which is it? And your works don't measure up, they're filthy rags. That's it.

Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us. Therefore, Jesus's righteousness, it can be imputed to anyone who places their faith in him. And the reason I know that God will forgive you of your sins, and this is the message we share, is because three days after Christ died, he rose again from the grave because it was not possible for the grave to hold back the creator of life. There is no other true story where the hero dies for the villain. Jesus said, I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me, though he die, yet he shall live.

But as many as received him, to them he gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in his name, who were born not of blood, nor the will of flesh, nor the will of man, but of God. Jesus paid a debt he did not owe, because we owe a debt we can never pay, and we tell people Come to your senses, come. The only one who can condemn you reached into the dark cavern of your heart and turns your heart towards Him if you allow Him. But you come to Him on His terms.

I don't need to sugarcoat it. This is the message we share. People will respond. Everybody? No. But the people whom God has preordained will, in His timing. Don't be ashamed of the message. Don't hide behind it, and don't sugarcoat it. James, Peter, John, Jude, and the people in the Fox's Book of Martyrs didn't. And so neither should we. For I'm not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God unto salvation. Amen? Amen. OK, so Mark, I'm going to have you move the stand over here just for a second.

I was told there'd be no physical labor. All right, if you are wearing a green tag, I need you to come up. If you're wearing a green tag, green name tag, it's your turn. Come on up. Mark, don't turn off your mic too fast. OK. All right, so you all are going to stand here. Mike, you're going to stand here. Welcome to Wendy's.

We're going to make Mike sweat. You all are the unbelievers. Mike? My brother's name is Mike. Sorry. My mom called me Mike a lot. All right. Just like in Wendy's, there's a time cap. He's going to tell the gospel to you guys quick, and you don't want to hear it or you have things against it. Go. You have three minutes. Three minutes. Wow. Did you guys get one of these? It's a gospel track.

I don't know if you guys have ever considered the things of Christianity. Do you have any sort of a spiritual background? You don't need that at all. You don't need it at all? No. Are you interested in the things of Christianity at all? No? Not interested at all? Well, enjoy your frosty. How about you? Do you ever give any thoughts towards Christianity?

No. My life's going great. Great. What's going to happen to you, though, when you die, when this life is over? Oh, I've been really good. Oh, that's great. Are you good enough to get to heaven? I think so. You seem like a good person. Do you think God would consider you to be a good person? I think so.

I mean, how would we know, right? Have you ever heard of the Ten Commandments? I've heard about them, yeah. Yeah, do you think you've kept them? For example, how many lies do you think you've told over the course of your life? I mean, just small ones. Small ones, little small lies. How about you? Have you ever stolen anything? A little. A little? Little things like diamonds? That's nice.

Have you ever used God's name in vain, like texted OMG? Yeah, well see, the Bible says that God's enemies use His name in vain. And listen, I'm right alongside you guys. I've broken God's laws just as much as the next person. That's why I'm a Christian. That's why I am literally a Christian. It's because I see myself in need of a savior, right? I, like you, have broken God's law.

And I realize that if God gave me justice, I would go to hell. And listen, I don't want to go to hell. And the Bible says that God's not willing for any to perish, but that all come to repentance. You ever heard that word, repentance? It's a crazy Greek word. It means to change your mind. See, right now we think that we're good enough to get to heaven, but God says, no, your good deeds are as filthy rags. Ever consider why Jesus came? Why did Jesus come? If we're good enough to get to heaven.

I think he's just another guy that came. Just another guy? You know, there's a man named C.S. Lewis. Got it from Francis Schaefer. He said, listen, Jesus Christ was either a liar, because he said he was the only way to the Father, or he was a lunatic. He said he was claimed to be equal with God. Or he was Lord. He was the rabbi. He was the leader. He was the only way to get to the Father. Jesus said, I'm the way, the truth, and the life. No man comes to the Father but through me.

So I understand we only got like 30 more seconds of your time. But let me just say this. And thank you, first of all, for your time. I know you didn't come to Wendy's to listen to some guy. You especially didn't come to listen to this. But I'd rather be considered your enemy and come alongside you then and say everything's okay when everything's not okay. And the only reason I share this with you is because I care. I'll never see you again. I'm from Southern California. You're from where? Iowa. Where is that on a map, right?

I mean, that's just craziness. Well, Jesus Christ, He died on the cross, taking upon Himself the wrath of the Father. Hey, thank you so much for your time and consider those tracts. So I didn't get a chance to completely finish. I would have got into a couple more things. Talking about a local church. But if I can't do it, I can't do it.

OK, pink. Pink group. If you're pink. Nope. Watch your step. Pink. This is my way of saying you have no chance to fall asleep here. So be ready, because you don't know what color is coming next. Alright, well this is a little bit different situation. Mark is surrounded by his invisible family here. He's sitting down at the bonfire on the beach in Huntington. And you crazy church people only have about three minutes to talk to him about the gospel. So you're the antagonist. Oh, so I'm the antagonist. You just don't care. You're just trying to roast some marshmallows and enjoy your family. Three minutes, have fun. So hi, how you doing? Good, thanks. Good. I see you're enjoying a night out on the beach. I was. I as well. My friends had something they wanted to say. Oh. Nice. You guys always travel in groups like this? All right.

So has anyone ever talked to you about Jesus Christ or God? Do you have any thoughts on where you're going to go when you die? And you want me to be completely apathetic? Is that what you said? Have fun. Or whatever. Well, let me tell you what normally goes, what normally happens. I give it thought from time to time. I mean, nobody really wants to die. So do you believe in heaven or hell? Do you believe you're going to go to heaven? I hope so.

I don't. I don't really know. Sure. Innumerable. A sinner. Yes. A sinner. They don't say thieves, and they don't say liars. They say sinners, by the way. That's why I said that. How do you define a sinner? How do I define somebody who lies? Why is that wrong? It just doesn't, I mean, not that it's ultimately wrong. I think because we all do it. So I'm hoping that I can get to heaven.

So when you stand before God, will you be innocent in God's eyes or guilty? Of what? Of lying and stealing? Definitely guilty. Definitely guilty. Does that concern you? Of course. trying to be somewhat good, trying to clean up a little bit. Well, if you look at what God's Word says, have you ever heard about Jesus, how Jesus came to earth? Yeah, sure. Of course. So that is why Jesus came to earth.

Yeah. Is that he knew that none of us, that we have broken his laws. You've broken what's called the Ten Commandments. You've broken that you've told a lie, you've stolen things. Sure. So he came to earth and lived a sinless life, and that's why he had to come. Yeah. Because you've all broken God's laws, and you're guilty in God's eyes. And he's the one that took punishment for your sins. Yeah, good. Sounds great. So do you want one of these gospel traps? Sure. Yeah, that's great. So what are your thoughts? Do you think you have any chance at going to heaven? I hope so. Hey Mark, we're done. Good job. All right.

I remember sharing with my dad, 1 John 5.13, these things we write unto you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have everlasting life.

You know, I think it was Romans 9.10, if you confess with your mouth and believe in your heart that God raised from the dead, you will be saved. There's just no assurance within the Catholic Church or the LDS Church. My son was in Salt Lake City all last week on a missions trip.

And I lived in an anticipatory place of hope, but never with the final exclamation of, he paid the price. Paid in full. Debt is done. I didn't have any of that. And that's what Christianity has. It has that full assurance. We can offer that. All right.

Purples, if you have a purple name tag, come on up. I hope you guys see that this isn't comfortable. Mark, you can tell me if I'm wrong. I don't think it ever gets super, super comfortable. But there are always times where it's scared. And I think we saw it in the last. How do you even start this conversation? What do you do? That's why we're practicing it here. Purple, we're going to do a little bit differently. Let's say you three. You're going to come over here. You all over with Mark. All right. Hi, Mom. Pants. All right. Kathy, it's your birthday. Y'all are having a party. How fun. You're visiting them. They're at the park.

How old am I? How old do you want to be? I asked you first. All right. It is your eighth birthday. And I've got the pinata I'm working it So whose birthday is it here? Mine. It's yours. Happy birthday. Eight years old today. Happy birthday. I'm Holly. Oh, hi. I'm Cathy. Hi, Cathy. Nice to meet you. Yeah. So how old are you again today? Eight. Eight. OK. Yeah. OK. So, is this your family? Yeah, I think so.

We're just out kind of just talking to people, just around, we see you guys, actually we're having a great time, we're having a party. I just wanted to come talk to you a little bit about, you know, we're just this group and we're just, you know, we're excited that you're having a celebration, but we know, you know, that life's kind of short and, you know, I've experienced some hard things in my life and have people Divers suddenly, and so I'm going out just to talk to people to say, hey, you know, if something were to happen to you today, or tonight, or tomorrow, where's your assurance at? Well, I don't know. You want to just join the party? Sure, yeah. And then we can just talk. Yeah, we can talk, yeah. Like, I'm only eight. I don't really know. Sure, sure, sure. I like that you're eight. That's right. That's good.

Well, one of the things I like to talk about is, you know, death is unexpected. You know, we're eight years old, we don't like to think about death, but you probably know some people that have died when they're young. And the Bible tells us that it's important to think about things above, think about heaven, you know. It's appointed for man to die once, then comes judgment, you know. And it's better for us to live in a house of mourning than in a house of rejoicing, because death is the destiny of every man. So it's good to think about death sometimes, and say, what's going to happen to me when I die? Yeah. Especially living on your own, you don't know. Yeah. Yeah, that's a good thought, Jason. So the way to be prepared for death is to recognize that we're going to go somewhere when we die.

And God created us to be in relationship with him, but we have this problem. our sins separate us from God. And sins just means we've done bad things, you know, bad things that don't match up to God's perfect standard. You know, we learned about that in Sunday school, right? That God is a big God, he's perfect, you know.

But we're not. And so- But when you're a kid, that's hard. Yeah, it is. To always be good. It is. But the good news is, even though we can't always be good, Jesus was good enough for us. And he lived a perfect life so that when he went to the cross to die, he did so for us to pay our punishment so we could have forgiveness of sins. All we have to do is believe in his sacrifice for salvation, not in what I do. Hey, why are you guys talking to my kids?

Get out of here. Get out of here. All right. Keep going. Thanks. Thoughts? Go for it. That's great. I mean, do we typically have three minutes? I'll usually start off with a gospel track. We call them icebreakers. Because a gospel track, it doesn't get old.

It gets inside of a house. It could stay there for years. It doesn't leave anything out of the message. It has the complete message inside there. You had them out in different countries. Like I was in India. They said, hey, the average track here will get inside, 80 different people will read this. If I'm not able to complete a message, a gospel track will. I can drop them in cases of beer or newspaper stands or put them in truck stops and things like that. And it's good to go.

So I always try to do that. When it has something like this with the people, I always perhaps try to give an email address or my website where they can get a hold of me, where they can watch other material. Like this has a bunch of films that I have produced and edited. That's on YouTube. And if they go to fullyfreefilms.com.

So I try to establish that during that short amount of time. If I only have two or three minutes, It could be a little bit difficult trying to be a Gatling gun and trying to go through all of the different points if you're not really ready and familiar with it. And if you're only given three minutes, you're going to want to try to really control the conversation. And I really try to be slow to speak, even in the midst of knowing that I have all the answers to their dilemma here. So I'll just try to be friendly, and I'll try to engage in some sort of a conversation.

And notice that first lady that was here, and she didn't want to have anything to do with it. I moved on to the next one. That's fine. You know, she doesn't want to have anything to do with it. So let me move on to somebody who is interested. All right, we're going to have Red come up. Oh, go ahead. I think it's also important to use humor. Yeah, that's exactly right. I try to relate. I try to relate to them. I try to create an opportunity and I try to swing to the spiritual from the natural realm. Right, absolutely.

Yeah, and I do a lot of sleight of hand, like magic if you would, not black magic. off my head. But I've escaped out of straitjackets and things of that nature. So I'll do a different sleight of hand to try to get their attention. And people like that on the pier, in Huntington, at least. OK, well, the Atheist Association of America was meeting in Huntington Beach. Here were the attenders. All right.

So throw all your skepticism at him, why you are atheist and you don't care about what he's talking about. Alright, so this is only three minutes, right? So how much am I really going to get into with them? I probably won't be able to get into the law and the gospel. I probably won't. So I might attack it in a different way. Brian, why don't you come forward and be kind of the spokesman here with the midst of this, right?

So you're an atheist? Absolutely. Interesting. Hey, I'm Mark. I'm Brian. It's good to meet you. I respect atheists. Do you respect Christians? We can have a conversation, sure. Yeah, nice. Do you believe in absolute truth? Where does truth come from within your worldview? It comes from what I deem as truth. So that's subjective truth. Do you believe in absolute objective truth? Like you're saying... Sure, like I think... I mean, I believe in my truth. Yeah, right. So can I have my truth? I guess.

Alright, so if I believe that lopping off people's heads for fun is okay, is that okay? As long as you're not lopping off my head. Alright, but if I wanted to do that, it would be okay. It wouldn't be your preference, but would it be wrong for me to do that? Well, if you lop off my head... No, is it wrong to lop off people's heads? Well, sure. Why is it wrong? According to what worldview? Well, no, no. According to your worldview... My worldview says that it is wrong.

If I lived in Iraq or Afghanistan or whatever, it wouldn't be wrong. Right, so it's not objectively wrong. No. Okay, yeah. So, rape. Is rape right or wrong? Yes. Yeah, see, exactly, that's consistent, right? That it is wrong within your worldview, but is it wrong in all people's worldviews? Right. So there's no right or wrong. Okay, so I get what you're saying. Yeah, there is no right and there is no wrong. There is no right, there is no wrong, right. All right, that's interesting. Yeah. Yeah, if anybody wants to step in, this is great.

Could you be wrong about everything you think is true? I mean, theoretically, if there's no right and there's no wrong, then I'm never wrong and I'm always right. In my own mind. Yeah, no, that's exactly right. If you could be wrong about everything, that means you don't know anything, right? If you were to say, I think the speed limit out here is 65, I think, but I could be wrong, well then I don't know what the speed limit is. I don't pay attention to speed limits anyway. Yeah, and I don't doubt that. But I'm just simply saying, there's no right and there's no wrong, there's no good, there's no bad.

We're merely molecules in motion. Right? From goo to you by way of the zoo. Right? Things are not getting better. They're not getting worse. They just are. Right. So our society went to stop Adolf Hitler's society from killing 10 million blacks, Jews, gypsies, and Christians. Right. We said his society was wrong. Was his society wrong? According to us at the time, yeah. Yeah, but do you? Do you believe that his society was wrong? Yes. Was Adolf Hitler wrong in doing those things? By what measurement? Because I didn't believe it was right. Yeah. Alright, so our society went to stop their society. Was our society right in stopping them? At that time. Is our society a perfect society?

No. How do you know it's not? Because we have done bad things. How do you know what's bad if there's no bad? Because I feel like they're bad things. Yeah, well, we go by feelings, right? Well, if they hurt somebody else. All right, so define harm, though. Right? If I could say I'm harmed by your hairstyle, would you shave your head? Because we know that, and I say that respectfully, right? And I say that respectfully because we know that physical hurting someone is wrong, but also there's emotional harming people. Right. I could have my kids taken away from me if I curse at them or if I have them watch something pornographic on the television. That's emotional scars to them. So we say, well, you can do and believe whatever you want to do and believe as long as it doesn't harm someone. But if I say, your beard harms me, would you shave your beard? Not even close. Right. So we don't really live by that style. We're hypocritical in the midst of that. So we don't really believe, well, you can believe whatever you want to believe as long as it doesn't harm someone. Right.

So the Christian worldview is a lot different, obviously, from the atheistic worldview, but the Christian worldview actually makes sense. So your position is that you can believe whatever you want to believe as long as it doesn't harm someone, or there's no good, there's no bad. No civilized society operates like that, but that's irrespective of what's happening to face value here. Do you know why Jesus Christ came?

And then I'm just going to get into it. Right? I'm going to go through the law and the gospel in the midst of that. But I actually, I love, absolutely love talking to atheists that are reasonable. But if I come across an atheist who really says, no, there's no right or wrong. I go, well, then I can slap you and you shouldn't do anything about it. Right? I can take your wallet. There's no right or wrong. Put your wallet right here and come back in 20 minutes. See if it's still there. Right?

This is part of those six questions that I was saying that I tend to go down. Could you be wrong about everything you think you know? And let's say you know an amazing 1% of the entire knowledge out there in the universe. 1% is a failure on a test, but that would be a lot to know. Is it possible in the remaining 99% of the knowledge that you've yet to come across that it can contradict that 1% that you think you do know? They would have to say yes.

Well, then we just established you don't know anything. Why are you upset at me when you don't even know your own worldview? Why are you upset at Christianity when you say you could be wrong about everything you think you know? You shouldn't be passionate about it.

You should just have an opinion. It's like we're arguing ice cream flavors. You like chocolate. I like vanilla. Why are you upset? I don't start clubs to try to ban pink unicorns. I just let the pink unicorn club do their thing. But with atheists, I have a lot of atheist friends and I see them down at the beach and stuff and they try to come up on the television and everything else, but we're not enemies. I just say your world view is absolutely ridiculous. It makes no sense whatsoever. It's not logical.

Yeah. If you have a black name tag, This is BLM right here. Steve's in the front. He wants to be the spokesman. All right. Well, flip flop now. You're the atheist, Mark. OK. Have fun. Hey, Mark, how are you? My name is Steve. With our group here, we're just walking around the park here, just trying to reach out to different people and... Oh, yeah, come over here where they can see you.

So, I guess, what are your beliefs? I should have said you're a militant atheist. I'm a militant atheist. What are my beliefs? I believe in the flying spaghetti monster. I get all my values, all my dreams come true as I look to him. Smart ones, that's for sure. So you don't believe that God even exists?

Right, I mean, I'm open to evidence, if you want to give me some evidence, but I've never seen any evidence. Well, it says, the scriptures, I don't know, if you're an atheist, maybe you're not acquainted with the Bible. Very familiar with the Bible. Okay, you are familiar with the Bible, okay. So you probably know that even the evidence of the creation, you know, you can see this in the trees, the creation, it's just evidence.

Yeah, I don't see it that way I believe in evolution micro and macro So you just think we came just from mutated just from nothing or I Yeah, from goo to you by way of the zoo. I do believe that, yeah. Well, you know, it's one thing to... I don't necessarily agree with that, but, you know, there's something more deep to man. I mean, we have a soul, a conscience. Like, I mean, if you just believe that we came from just mangled cells or goo or whatever, I mean, how do you explain the fact that we have consciousness that...

Yeah, I can't. I have no idea. Yeah. So do you believe in absolute truth that there is a right and there's a wrong? I'm not sure. Okay, yeah. Well, you know, it talks in the Bible how, I don't know, you said you know the Bible, so you probably are acquainted with the law. This is exactly where I would go if I was him. Oh, that's interesting stuff. And then I'd go through the law because I want to bring the knowledge of sin and the gospel opens atheists eyes and Mormons eyes. Yeah.

So anyway, as an atheist, you probably don't believe in absolute truth, but you know, And we talked about earlier, I said how even from the invisible things of creation are known, it's a reflection of God's glory. But also, through the Old Testament, you know, it talks about, you know, you shall not lie.

And I mean, have you ever told a lie in your life? Sure. Probably did a couple of times during our conversation here. You know, you're a man. I mean, I'll tell you what, men, we struggle with lust. Sure. Have you ever lusted after another woman? Sure. Are you married? Uh, yes. Okay, and you've basically lusted after someone other than your wife, then, huh? Sure. Okay, so you're an adulterer at heart. Whoa, that's a big leap. It says in the Bible that he who looketh on a woman with lustful intent in his heart has committed adultery. I mean, I can see that actually, given the opportunity.

So, you know, based on that standard, I mean, none of us are really None of us are worthy of God's love and none of us are perfect. But you know, that's why God sent his son Jesus. Because he took the punishment of those 10 commandments that we all broke. I mean, and I'll tell you, I broke them multiple times myself. But that's why we need God's love and his mercy and his forgiveness. And Christ actually went to the cross to pay the price for our sin. And I just hope that you can realize that and come to believe that someday. You know, I know that you obviously have some doubts. And anyway, I probably am going on. Oh, hey, listen, I respect you. You're tracked. Yeah, here's track. Thank you. Yeah, and I would probably say, if I was going through something like that, I've had tons of atheists that were militant ones that.

I just think they'd probably be a little bit more. Well, it depends. Everybody are kind of different, right? If somebody really doesn't say, you don't want to have a talk, oh, no, I'll have a talk. I don't want to cast my pearls before swine's too long, you know, before I kind of move on to somebody else. But I will engage in a conversation. I will say, hey, you know, I appreciate your time. I enjoyed this conversation. I'll give it some thought. Will you give it some thought as well? No, I'm not, whatever. No, no, I love facts. I don't argue evidence for evidence.

There's a reason for that, because evidence is more aptly seen inside of a court of law, right? When you present evidence, the judge and jury get to decide whether or not it's any good. The judge decides if it's admissible in sort of that courtroom. So when I'm out on the street and I put God on trial, they put God on trial, they put him in the docket, and they say, prove to me God is real. Any evidence I give to them, they now get to be the judge and jury to determine whether or not that evidence is any good, whether it's admissible in the courtroom of their mind.

They've already suppressed the truth of God and unrighteousness. They're not seeking after God, for there's none that seek after God. So no amount of evidence I give them is going to persuade them. So I have no problem presenting evidence, but I'm not trying to present evidence in such a way that's going to persuade them to become a Christian. Only the gospel can do that.

Right. So you would just deviate the conversation? I might tickle it, and then I might move on. Yeah, OK. That's it. Touch upon it, and then move on. Alright, this time brown and blue are going to come up. It's going to run out of time. Brown and blue. Actually, anybody who's got gray hair is going to sit in this area. You're not included though. I got gray. I know, but you're not allowed to sit. All right, well, Mark, I found out when I moved here, if you go to the gas station in the morning, you'll find the good old boys drinking coffee. That's where I'll be. Yeah.

They think they're Christians. They go to church twice a year. Made up their minds they're Christians. That's the good old boys sitting down. Everyone over here. Him, all the way over to Mark. You all get to evangelize the good old boys. We go to church twice a year. So we're together? Yes.

You guys are coming up and talking to the good old boys. You want me to do the talking? Where are you going? You got to blue today. I'm running out of time. Not a boy, Nathan. Let me guess. Your middle name's Thomas. Just came to me. So am I going to go? Do you want to go? I can do it. All right. Attaboy. Hi, guys. How are you? Hi. Hey, I was wondering, and I'm with my group of friends. We're out today. And we're Christians. And we're just wondering what your thoughts are on, do you guys believe in Jesus? Are you Christians? Yeah. Yeah. Are you Jesus? Well, I had this gospel tracked, and I just wanted to, it's an IQ test. Would any of you be willing to take it? Okay, if you can just read the words in the triangles out loud. Read it out loud so we can all hear it, please.

Paris in the spring. Okay, good. Next one. Bird in the hand. Very good. The next one. Once in a lifetime. All right, you did really good. You almost had it exactly right. But if you look really close, if you look close, when it says Paris in the spring, it's actually Paris in the, the spring. You're right. And Bird in the, the. Right.

And so just like our eyes can deceive us, right, we can see things and think they're a certain way, the message this little track gives is that our minds can be tricked too. Just like our eyes can be tricked, like when you're going down the street, you're driving down the street, and you look way into the distance and you see like a mirage, but it's not really there, so our eyes can trick us, right? And so it's the same with our minds. Sometimes we can think, well, if I'm just pretty good, or if I go to church once in a while, I'll probably go to heaven, but do you know that you really, to go to heaven, you have to repent from your sins and turn to Jesus and not just believe in him, because remember it says even the demons in hell believe and tremble, but you can't just believe, you have to take up your cross and follow him and try to live for him.

Do you guys do that? Yes. Okay, great. So, and you've repented from your sins, try to turn from it as best you can, Follow Jesus, because that's what it's all about. Right. Awesome. The only thing that I would perhaps add to that conversation would be, when I come across somebody where I go, man, they claim to be a Christian. I'm not seeing it. I don't know. Things aren't just off. I might see something like this. I would say, I go, well, listen, Bill, if I had a knife in my back, and I had three minutes to live, and I'm afraid of dying, I don't want to go to hell, what do I got to do to get to heaven? So it's called a three-minute-to-live scenario.

And now, based upon what he says, I'm able to really kind of see what he believes. You have to believe and have faith in Jesus being the Son of God, having died on the cross for your sins, and has ascended to risen again. Accept Christ as your Savior and repent of your sins. Yeah, so not exactly a casual church-going Christian.

That's pretty good lingo, right? So I don't need to drill anything. Hey, thank you so much. Where do you go to church? Where have you been reading the Bible? And I'm going to have fellowship now with my brother, you know, to some extent. So great. Good job, guys. Cool. Mark, I really appreciate that last point.

I think in our context, a lot of our context, we're talking to people who are nominally churched or say, yeah, I'm a Christian. I'll go to church. But OK, so what does it mean to be a Christian? Putting the ball back in their court, I think that's actually really helpful in giving it an illustration. We only have a few minutes before Mark's gonna give us our last talk for the day. Do we have questions for Mark real quick? Yeah. Yeah. You know what I mean? That you're not what? Yeah, I'm not worried about that.

So it's not a captive audience. A captive audience would be, well, here's a bunch of patrons. They're at an outside patio at a restaurant. They're sitting right there eating their food. And I'm right here preaching the gospel. I wouldn't do that. That's a captive audience that I don't appreciate. I do go to courthouses. And when people are lined up to go see the judge, I will go and preach the gospel as they're lined up. They have nowhere to go. They have to be there. Outside the courthouse.

I've been banned from inside, but if on the outside I Will I will do it on the outside? That's a captive audience that I have no problem with because I know that they're gonna go on through But they're trying to enjoy their meal, so I'm not trying to irritate them in that way if I'm out at a public park I'm just trying to engage in a conversation. I have no problem approaching someone interrupting them even I'm not going to come across as a jerk. I'm just trying to...

I don't know the situation. People get saved in the weirdest situations and scenarios. The best man at my wedding, he was in the Mexican mafia. And he got saved from a gospel tract. God uses gospel tract, so that's why I'm always a firm believer in that. God used the gospel tract, like I said earlier, to get a hold of my attention.

And if they're irritated, I just go, hey, this will only take another minute. Or thank you so much for your time. I see that you're getting a little frustrated. Just give us some thought. Here's some material for you to read or look at. But I don't need to apologize for trying to engage in a conversation. So if somebody had never read any Living Waters materials or books, what's the first thing that you would have them read? They're only going to read one thing.

And then do you have a favorite gospel trend? So as a Christian, the first thing? Yeah. For a Christian who wants to learn more about the method that you use. So we have a book. It's called The Way of the Master. I would recommend that book. We have another book called Hell's Best Kept Secret. And then another book called God's Wonderful Plan for Your Life. And there's a picture of Stephen, the martyr, being stoned to death on the cover. Those are three really good books to get started.

I've actually kind of done all the research on this, and I've put together a video watch list and audio and podcast and everything. I'd be happy to send it to Brian. Brian can send it all off to you guys. I'll get that from you, and I'll put it on the website that you all registered on, so you'll be able to see that. There's a good question here. Do you have any suggestions or tips for talking to family members who are Catholic? Yeah, well my family's Catholic by and large.

Concerning gospel tracts, I like this one, movie Gift Card. On the back it says fully free films. It doesn't have a gospel written all over it, but it's easy to hand out. Just watch the movies. Good getaway time. They don't even know that it's a Christian related thing. The Million Dollar Bill is a good one to be able to hand out. And then Are You Good Enough to Get to Heaven? Just straightforward. Let them read it as they see fit. I like those. And what was the question again? So how do you share the gospel to people who are Catholic? Your family members? Oh, the Catholics. Yeah.

Honestly, I think all my Catholic relatives just love my wife and my kids and myself. They just love us. Because we are rich in good works, like I said, where they don't get birthday wishes and anniversary wishes and random gifts in the mail and things like that. Dave Ramsey has taught us to budget well, and we purposely are rich and good works to all my unsaved people. So I share prayer requests, excuse me, praise reports with them. I tell them about what I'm going through, what I've experienced.

And they ask questions, and we have a common bond in that I'm pro-life. I'm producing a pro-life film. I produced a couple pro-life films in the past, and one that's coming up here in a couple months is just off the chart great in equipping that I can't wait. It's called What Is It? Once we define what it is, then we can define whether or not we can kill it. And since they're very pro-life, we talk a lot about that. And then I springboard, why are we pro-life?

Because we're creating the image of God. There's no other reason. So what? We're killing little babies. Who cares? But why is that wrong? And until we answer the question why that's wrong, which is because we're creating the image of God, then it won't make sense. It won't stand.

But yeah, I share the gospel with my Catholic family as much as I share with my Mormon family in much in the same way. And I'm a descendant of Joseph Smith, the Mormon prophet. I have an uncle who is a bishop. I share the gospel, and I allow the cards to fall where they may, and I'm rich in good works, and I love on them.

That's what I do. I don't overthink it. So the last question here that we're going to have time for is, I'm scared. How do I just start? Yeah, I mean, so am I, right? You just swallow your fear. Remember, courage is not the absence of fear. It's the conquering of it. So you can feel timid when you go into a situation And that's okay. A firefighter can feel timid going into a burning building. But he goes anyways, and he's considered a hero because he does the very thing that he doesn't feel like doing. So, how do you get over your fears? I just do it. The first time I went up here preaching with Ray Comfort back in December, November of 1994.

We arrived in this situation, and I thought he was going to walk around the whole area of the Balboa Fun Zone in Newport Beach. And he didn't. He didn't think about it. He just got up. Excuse me, can I have your attention, please? And he just started going. And I asked him, why did you just start going? And he said, because if I think about it, I'll talk myself out of it. So as soon as I get there, I just start going.

So if we're going, hey, let's go to the Iowa Hawkeyes area, and let's go share the gospel. If I never get to the location where I'm meeting everybody, that's fine. Because as soon as I see someone, I'm going to try to go and talk to the person right away. Because it's not about that destination spot. People on the way there need to get saved as much as the people there. So I've taken many crews out. Hey, let's meet in an area.

And we never make it to the area because I'm talking to people on the way to the area. So don't overthink it. You just do it. That saying I said earlier, you cannot impress people with Jesus when you're still trying to impress them with yourself. There's no such thing as a cool Christian. You need to get over yourself. God already has gotten over you. Good, good. Mark's got a flight to catch, so he's making it back home. We went right through our break with everything. So I am... No, my wife says I'm wrong. I like my wife.

It's a break. If you have questions for Mark, I'd encourage you to think about it, write it down so you don't forget. Let's take a five minute... We're going to take a five minute break. And then we'll come back. We'll spend a few more minutes in conversation with you. Great. And then we'll have our last charge before we go. Let's go ahead and take a five, 10 minute break. Write down questions, please. Think about them.

Yeah, I'm good. Is that a John Deere tractor you'd be interested in? You got a question? What you got? Mr. Spence. The price is solid. Can you see that? That's all. Did you write this? I'm intimidated. Do you go by Debbie? Deb? Deborah. Always Deborah. Love it. Do you have any siblings? Any brothers or sisters? Daniel and Kelly? And how old are you? Eight. How are you doing, Thomas? Good. Good to meet you. That's cool. I like the mohawk. That's the other thing, love it.

So passive wager is basically, if you're wrong and I'm right, then it would make sense, excuse me, if you're wrong and I'm right, then you're wrong and I'm right. I go to heaven, you go to hell. So it makes sense for you to hedge your bets and to become a Christian. If you're right and I'm wrong, then nothing happens to me, we both cease to exist, and you can't even see I told you so.

Right? Well, here's the reason why I don't say it. If I'm wrong. No, I don't even go there. There's many things I could be wrong about. The gospel's not one of them. The existence of God is not one of them. Remember, we all have a source of authority. My source of authority is the Bible. So I'm not even given the option that I could be wrong. It's like somebody saying this to me. You go, well, kind of meet me halfway. Do you have a wife? What's your wife's name?

Holly? Holly. O-L-L-E? Holly. No, wife. Wife, okay. If I were to tell you, Jason, that your wife doesn't exist, Why not? Be open-minded. Because you know she exists. You're fully convinced that she exists. So I can get into that. I can actually answer that question.

Because God has not given me yet. Spirit of fear, but power of love and a sound mind. Well, where do my sound mind come from? I'm going to demonstrate that their mind is not sound, and they hold certain things to be truth. Like our Founding Fathers said, we find these truths, and the alien of the truths is self-evident. Thomas Edison said, we do not know one millionth of one percent of anything. Wait a minute, you know that? You know that we don't know one millionth of the beauty of the self. This statement makes no sense. So, there's nothing wrong with having absolute claims. The atheist is going to make them all true. I'm going to make them all day long when it comes to the Bible. It's my source of support.

So, I'm not going to argue from a hypothetical that God may not exist or doesn't exist. I'm not going to argue from a hypothetical that my wife may not exist. In critical thinking, in philosophy, you don't argue from a hypothetical. Which means, if I were to come alongside you and say, let's suppose for a moment that the mood is made out of cheese. Time out, let me off the bus. We don't critically think at all. We don't talk like that. Your mind exercise might be interesting and stimulating at some point, but reality and truth do not work in tandem. So pass this wager. Don't be ashamed. God's real. God is not a hypothetical. We don't need to treat him as such. He doesn't need our help. We don't need to bring excuses for God.

So, I noticed you mentioned that you were casting your prayer before. So, you obviously are wanting to make sure that you're getting, like you said with Peter, you know, you're doing some kind of response. You're looking for, to see what God is doing. Of course, you're not trying to judge. If they're not open, I don't care. Well, I've rather spend time with my wife, not to be open to that. If they don't want to talk to me, I'll just go to someone else.

Okay, we're going to come back together now. Okay, okay, if everybody can kind of come take your seats. If everybody wants to come in from the vestibule and downstairs, take your seats. OK. The floor is open for questions for Mark. So we have about 20 minutes for questions for Mark. So go for it. Steve. OK.

Mark, so me and Brian here were talking earlier. And we both said, this is something we should do. So what's even the first thing? We had a local community college. Would you make contact with them? Obviously, ask permission. Yeah, whatever you're comfortable with. I definitely like the idea of going out two by two. And I like the idea of setting up goals for the time. For example, one might be a little bit more timid than the other person. So I would say...

So like in your case, I would have Brian take your car keys, for example, and say, all right, you don't get to have these keys back until you share the gospel with two people, right? Or until you hand out three gospel tracts, right? So you kind of work together. So if you're talking to the same person, while he's talking, you're praying. And you're just kind of taking it in, and he may miss something, so then you interject. Like open air? Open air preaching? Okay. Yep.

I don't interrupt the preaching though. So if the congregant in that situation is listening to the preaching, I'm going to let them listen. And I never turn my back on an open air preacher. Like if he's preaching, I'm not going to be like right here kind of talking.

That's very distracting for him. It's disrespectful too. What I do is if I'm in your situation, I'm going to be kind of on the outskirts. And if somebody's kind of beginning to wrap it up, like this, taking a step, I step in right away. And I go, hey, so what do you think about what he's saying? You know, but if they're listening to the preaching, I allow the preaching to go. A good open air preaching session can reach 10 times the amount of people than the average church can in a regular church setting. Right? I mean, it's just. So I went to Iowa State University and we always have these guys come in. Yeah.

Spurgeon said this when I came to evangelism. He said, Do something. Do something. Do something. So I think that we can overthink it. You know, is this right? Do something. Learn as you go. And honestly, I'll be honest, I live in waters with Ray Comfort, Curt Cameron. We have no idea what we're really doing. We just have a little bit more experience than somebody else. And we're just one step ahead. I've already talked to somebody in the Baha'i faith where somebody hasn't.

Step out of the boat and just go. It was Peter dissecting the idea of physics and how water works when he stepped out of the boat. He just stepped out. And that's what you just need to do. You just need to step out. You're going to learn as you go. But back to the rhythm question, as far as setting up something. When you go to a university, do you have to talk to someone?

No, I'm not. Listen, usually JCs are publicly funded from the government. Because their government funds them, I'm allowed to be on there. The Cal State system where I'm at, Cal State Fullerton and Long Beach and these areas, they want to say, well, you need to have the COVID vaccine. I don't take experimental drugs. I'm not going to take the vaccine anytime soon.

I probably will eventually take it, just for the sake of the gospel, to go into different countries. I've been to almost 50 countries. And in order to get into some of these places, like Israel's the top one. You can't get into Israel right now unless you take the vaccine. Well, I'm probably going to end up taking the vaccine eventually. And think about it like an Axe 26 thing or seven where the Apostle Paul had the asp on his arm and he shook it out into the fire.

They were waiting for him to die. He didn't die. I'm going to look at a situation like that. So I'm not going to talk to the people in charge. It's better to ask for forgiveness and permission in those situations. Plus, I can talk myself out of a lot of different scenarios and situations. I think the message I think your message of don't overthink it is the best.

That's the number one thing. Once you get the gospel from this third message that we just gave, it's really that first message that I gave. God's calling us to be faithful, not fruitful. And even when we're faithless, he's faithful. So just say something. And by virtue of the fact that you're still alive means God's not done with you. Go. Question.

So I teach at a Christian school, which means We are allowed to talk about God and evangelize to a certain extent. Is there any advice you'd give to evangelizing to children and high schoolers? I'll tell you, Christian schools are some of the hardest places because, like we were saying earlier, everybody thinks that they're a Christian. I was born in America. I thought I was a Christian because I was born in America. That was really my mindset when I was in high school. I'm not going to overthink it. If somebody claims to be a Christian, I'm going to treat them as a Christian. And so, where are you at in the Bible? Well, I haven't been reading the Bible. What do you mean you haven't been reading the Bible? I'm just confused. You know?

Yeah, I'm going to talk. I'm just going to treat them as a Christian if they claim to be a Christian. And if they're not a Christian, then I'm going to have conversations with them and give exercises and stuff like that. I feel like a broken record because you just have to say something and do something. But that's really it. I mean, I really have like 40 messages I can share here. And then it really just gets down to, you just need to go. You just need to say something.

All these what ifs. I can give you the perfect answer to some questions out there. I really can. I got some really great answers to some great questions. Not always. My wife will say, you had a really good answer to a question that wasn't asked. But remember, that answer, that great answer, isn't going to save someone.

God has to save them, and he uses the gospel. So you just need to kind of say something. And I spit on the pulpit. Another question. Grace. OK, so when you were in the canoe with your guide in Kauai, Yeah, so this is a great question because this is a great segue to what we were just saying about do something. I actually, I have one message that I teach, it's called creative ways to share your faith.

And I've gone in public with white, blank, 3x5 index cards, where I've been shut down from handing out tracts, leafletting. That's what they call it. They say, no soliciting allowed. That's not what soliciting is. But they shut me down. So I go, great. So I start handing out these blank index cards. And security comes up and they say, you can't hand those out here. I go, what's wrong with this? I go, I'm just handing this out. And they go, oh, OK, well, yeah.

And I've had people come back and say, what is this all about? And I say, well, written on there very nicely is every good thing you've ever done to earn your way to heaven. Did I leave anything out? And then I engage in a conversation, right? So what was your question? Oh, start a conversation. So I've done that. I've also, I will mumble at times. Like, my daughter just came back, and she just did this. And she had some tracks. And she'll hand them out, and she'll go, la-da-ga-da-da-ba. La-la-la-la-la-ba. Is that that? La-la-ga-la. She's not speaking in tongues, right? She's just mumbling. And people take it, because she doesn't want to engage in a conversation. She just wants to get the tracks out.

So I've done that. I approached this really colorful character about three weeks ago. This guy had a really big mohawk, and this woman, she had this satanic shirt on down at the beach. The conversation went so well. My approach, hey, you want, I have a YouTube, yeah, hey, excuse me. And I was stumbling over my words left and right. They just stopped, and they went, what? I went, um. You want to have an interview? I go, what? What does that even mean? I go, I was wondering if I could talk to you guys. They said, oh, why didn't you just say that? That's exactly how it went.

I have talked myself out of a conversation because I've tried to get the perfect intro or the perfect connection with someone. Nope. God has proven time and time again that I've used blank index cards to mumbling, to accidentally mumbling over my words, and they've turned into amazing conversations. So just be natural. Hey, I'm talking to people. I'll go up to somebody and say, hey, me and my friend, we're walking around talking to people about what happens to people after they die. Didn't know if you had a couple of minutes to talk about that. You know, my name's Mark, by the way. What's your name? Jerry. Hey, Jerry, good to meet you.

So do you give that any thought? I mean, it's kind of the million dollar question, isn't it? I mean, what happens to us when we die? I had a guy tell me he thinks we turn into penguins. Is that what you think? Or what do you think? Just ask questions. Talk to them about their favorite subject themselves. You know, get in their opinion. Do I have time? Let me, I'd like to, I want to try to steal time here to actually do this. How do I share with Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses, people that come knocking on my door, right? It's the same way. I shared this with somebody earlier. I think it, yeah, I think it was you.

Somebody knocks on the door. Usually, what do we do? We dim the lights, we get down in an army crawl, and we get out of the living room, right? Who are these people? What do they believe? And I don't have my cheat sheets to go through all the seeming contradictions that they believe in. So... As if I didn't know anything, that's okay. Because this is what I do.

We usually start with apologetics, and then we get to the gospel. We usually, like if it's a Mormon, we want to talk about strange teachings, or the Pearl of Great Price, the Doctrine and Covenants. We want to talk about their magical undergarments. We want to talk about false prophecies. You don't need to do any of that. Why?

Because the gospel is the power of God unto salvation. So if I can start with the gospel, and then if I want, I can get to apologetics, that'll be fine. But they knock on the door, I open it and I go, hey, you guys are from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Thank you for coming here today. And at that time, I have one of my kids running to get some bottled waters. I have another one going to get some gospel tracks. One person hitting the ring doorbell to record the situation, the conversation, so they can watch it later.

And then I say, so I'm a Protestant Christian. Do you ever talk to many Protestants? I don't know if you know anything about that. I actually protest the Catholic Church. Do you know what I believe? Oh, yeah, I've had some encounters with people like you. Oh, great. So I believe when I die, I'm going to go to heaven. Have you ever thought about that? Why do I believe that when I die, I'm going to go to heaven? What is your understanding of my belief system?

That's it. And what are they going to do? So they're not on the defense. And I'll even say, hey, do you have time to talk about spiritual things? That's why they're there, right? Do you have time to give me your opinion? Of course they do. So then they now share with me their understanding of Christianity. And I'm just listening. And then the person who's really in charge is just kind of listening in, watching over. And then I let them finish, and I say, wow, you actually left out a couple really important things. Let me share what those things are, and then I want to get your thoughts on it. And what do they usually leave out? Who Jesus Christ really is, and grace. And now, I just share the gospel.

Why? Because it's the power of God into salvation. Have you guys caught that yet? It's the power of God into salvation. So, I now preach the gospel to them. And then I say, so, are you ready to repent and place your trust in Christ? That's what I do. And if they say, no, we already believe, I go, great, hey, thank you so much for coming to my door. I gotta go watch the Smurfs, man.

I don't need to, I can, but I don't need to engage in a dialogue with them outside of the gospel. We hope to get to the gospel eventually, but what if you started with the gospel? So. All right, so how do we hand out tracks or share the gospel with a person without coming across as they are a project or checkoff list, a notch in our belt, particularly when handing out tracks?

Yeah, I would say don't overthink it. If a firefighter is there at a burning building, The house is on fire, and the news is there, and the firefighter runs inside the house to save your child. Are you thinking, he's only doing that to get on the news? He's only doing that to get a bonus at the end of the year. None of that's relevant. You're overthinking it. By virtue of the fact that that firefighter ran inside that house to save the person, I'm grateful.

Philippians chapter one. Some people preach Christ out of, how is it worded, Philippians one? Selfish gains, selfish needs, right? Trying to add to the chains. He's all, listen, as long as Christ is preached, that's what Paul said in Philippians one.

So I'm kind of on that same boat. Listen, if you start thinking like that, you're gonna overthink it. You're gonna talk yourself out of it. My motive is not always right on why I do something, but I'm not trying to think like that. Why did I produce that material, that video, that whatever? That's why I try not to read comments, and I try not to look at the likes on posts and stuff like that. I tell my wife the same thing.

Somebody liked it. You never need to click the likes to see who liked it. Don't even worry about that. You don't need to read the comments. I have an assistant that actually reads my comments and stuff. She says, oh, well, you need to address this. Just do it, and don't worry about your motive. Colossians 3 says, my life is hidden in Christ. So another question about tracts. Should I just hand out tracts and not invite someone to church? Whatever you want to do. What role does the church have? So I'm not a firm believer that the church should be preaching the gospel every Sunday.

The church, according to Ephesians, pastors, teachers, evangelists, They're designed to equip the body for the work of the ministry. That an evangelist is not one who has the gift of evangelizing, but rather one who has the gift of teaching people how to evangelize. Which means that I should as an evangelist be sharing my faith, but my primary gifting is teaching people how to share their faith. So the pastor should be expositing a text the best way he knows how.

And you should be reaching the lost, and he should be reaching the lost out and about, but he's not going to be given milk every Sunday morning. Eventually, a healthy church has to grow up, it has to mature. So if you're expositing a text, if you're going through the Bible, or however you're going to, if you're going to exposit topically or whatever you're going to do, you're going to get into some meaty things.

Paul chastised the church at Corinth because they were still drinking milk when they should have been eating meat. So, I have no idea what the question is. This is one of those areas where my wife would have said, you had a good answer to a question that wasn't asked.

What role does the church have? I would invite people to church, the local church. You need to be part of the local church. So I always try to tell people about my church. I'm always handing out pamphlets for my church. So if I get into a good conversation, I always try to say, hey, my church, it's located at anaheimkindredchurch.org.

You know, go and check it out. So here's another one. I'm sure you've never run into this. What do you do if you're talking with someone and you just can't even get a word in? Yeah. So in the book Tactics by Greg Kokel, he calls those people steam rollers. I might say something like this. I'll go, timeout, timeout, timeout, timeout. Stop for just a second. Stop, please, stop, stop. Okay, I'm not gonna listen. I'm gonna listen, hey. Larry, Larry, stop.

I wanted to have a dialogue. If you wanna have a monologue, I'll tell you what, I will set my phone for three minutes and I'll listen to what you need to say. and then I'll go my way. If you wanna have a dialogue like I do, well then let's have a conversation. I'm not gonna just hear you continually go.

You're just steamrolling. If you wanna have a conversation, tell you what, you ask a question, I will answer to the best of my ability, then I will ask a question, and then you can answer to the best of your ability. Make sense? One, one, one, one, one, one, one. And if we can't work that out, we will go our ways. Good? Sure. And he starts going, I go, all right, my turn.

No, stop, Larry, I'm not going to listen to anything more. No, no, stop it. Larry, Larry, my turn. And then I give what I have to say. That's how I handle steamrollers. That's exactly what I do. You'll see me on the pier going like this. I go, da, da, da. My producer goes, no, you're a grown man. You cannot do that. You're 50 years old. All right, so it's the last one. I just don't like conflict. Who does? It seems like this is filled with conflict. So what are your words for them?

First of all, there's nothing wrong with conflict. I can recommend a couple of good books that I've read on conflict. Any healthy, good relationship is going to have conflict. I know a guy that said, I've never had an argument with my wife. And I said, you don't have a healthy relationship. Because you need to work through things. I work through things on my own all the time.

How much more? You have two sinners, if you would, saints who sin. Two sinners who come together, two flesh bodies living in a fallen world trying to live cohesively together. You're going to have conflict. Nothing wrong with conflict. How do you handle it, though? So I'm going to attempt to have a soft answer that turns away wrath. I'm going to be gentle. I'm going to try to speak the truth in love. So are you saying you don't have to be a jerk to do something? Yeah, you know, you definitely don't. Nobody likes a jerk. Right?

If they're going to be offended, let them be offended because of the message, not because of the personality. Not because of the person. If I think that I'm irritating them, I think of what Greg Cockel said in that book, Tactics. He said, if they lose their cool, or if you lose your cool, you're both lost. So I can start off with somebody who I think is starting to go sideways.

I might say something like, would you consider yourself to be open-minded in that you respect other people's beliefs? Now, in California, you go, yes, we're so open-minded, right? We're so open-minded, our brains fall out. I'm open-minded. I respect other people's beliefs. Great. Let me share with you what I believe. So if they get hostile, I'll say, I thought you considered yourself to be open-minded and respect other people's beliefs. And I remind them. Or I'll say, hey, thank you so much for being open-minded like you said you were. And they'll go, oh, yeah, I'm open-minded still. So did I miss anything? No, that's good. That's good.

I'm going to make just a few announcements real quick and then we're going to get into our last session. If you need a drink or to stand up, I'm sure Mark's not going to be upset if you need to stretch your legs before this last time. This did cost us some money to put on, so there's some plates in the back if you want to donate, that's fine. That's all I'm going to say about that.

We also, in each of your booklets, you got an exit survey. I'd really appreciate the honest feedback you have, things that we could do better, things that we can improve on, how you think things went. Please just leave those back in the basket in the back where the Q&A papers were.

And lastly, I wanted to say thank you publicly to all the people here at Sharon who just poured their time and energy into this getting done. So people in logistics, people in picking up food, people in cleaning, people in organizing, people in registration, people in decorating. If you noticed, all the flowers are fresh cut by one of the ladies in church. So I mean, just the labor of love. I just wanted to say thank you to the people who put this on. It is a joy to get to serve a set of co-laborers in the gospel.

So yeah, we can give them a round of applause. With that, it's sad to say, but Mark, I'm going to turn it over to you to give us your charge. And you have to make your flight, so you determine when you'll leave. And OK. So 2.30 is when we're scheduled, but if you'd miss your flight, you just get to preach for us tomorrow. That's it. All right. OK. Well, thank you for surrendering your Saturday to kind of be with me. It really is true.

I think what separates myself and my friends from other people that maybe are not doing it or not being used or not writing or not producing film is that we just refuse to give up. We just refuse to stop. The Apostle Paul said that he considered himself to be the chief of sinners. And he probably was until I was born. And I mean that sincerely. I thought, because of my own sin, after I became a Christian, that I was not going to be useful, a useful tool in the Master Carpenter's hand. 22 years ago, I was in a shower, fully clothed, down in a fetal position, sucking my thumb in the shower, despairing of life, suicidal, as a Christian. And I began to study, though, this word called sovereignty, that God does whatever He wants, whenever He wants, to whomever He wants.

He answers to no one. He doesn't care what you think about it. God is in heaven. He does what He pleases. And I thought on that one sentence where I've said a couple times now, I know that God wants to use you because you're still alive. He's not done with you because you're still alive. And I thought of that over and over again after I'd blow it, after I failed in sin. And I went, that means God still wants to do a work.

Well, let's go. Let me get back in there. And so I read, and I listen to podcasts, and I write. And I'm not doing it as good a job as I possibly can, but I'm doing these things. I'm just convinced that this life is not about me. And I've demonstrated that over and over again. And Christ has demonstrated that through me over and over again by using me to some fashion, to some degree. Mark, it really isn't about you. Look at you. You're nothing to behold, Mark. There's nothing about you.

So what I want to do here with this last message, this last amount of time, I want to share with you a message that if this was my funeral, and this is my last charge, and I was able to preach at my own funeral, and then as soon as I'm done, I'm going to be buried over here. This is a message that I would share with my kids, and because I'm limited to 23 minutes, we're gonna have to just kinda jump right into it. And I have six points that I would wanna share with my kids, that I would plead with my kids, and my kids know these things, because I've shared it with them. But if I knew I was gonna die tomorrow, this would be my last message that I would share.

Game, is that good? So you know where I'm coming from. James 4.14. You do not know what will happen tomorrow, for what is your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little time, and then it vanishes away. Every person in the prime of their life is but a flower, and the petals will fall.

These are beautiful flowers. I was smelling them earlier, and I was tripping out on these yellow ones, how they're going down like that, right? They're so beautiful. They're not going to get better than this. You're the same way. Every man, woman, and child, at the height of their, the beauty of all they possess intellectually, everything they have, is but 15 years. That's your window. 15 years.

And then the petals fall. Things begin to droop. And we begin to die. From the moment we're born, we begin to die. You have an appointment with death. Johnny Erickson Tada, on July 30th, 1967, she dove headfirst into the Chesapeake Bay after misjudging the shallowness of the water. And as a result of the dive, she became a quadriplegic and wasn't able to move from the shoulders down.

But she said these words, we are pilgrims who are walking a tightrope between heaven and earth. We feel trapped in time, yet we have eternity beating in our hearts. Our unsatisfied sense of exile is not to be solved or fixed while we are here on earth. Our pain and our longings make sure that we will never be content.

But oh, that's good. Do you know that that is a good thing? It is to our benefit that we do not grow comfortable in a world destined for decay. Every ache, every pain, every gray hair, I get excited to receive. It reminds me that this is not my home. I'm doing all I can to preserve and to do things so I can be at my game when I'm doing the stuff that God has called me to do. But, I don't freak out when those aches and pains come my way.

You do not know what will happen tomorrow for what is your life. Living, knowing that your life is a vapor is different than just living. Do you know that your life is but a vapor? It's here today and it's gone tomorrow. Yesterday we were born, today we live, tomorrow we die.

I remember saying my ABCs for the first time. I remember where I was at. I remember my older brother looking at me saying, you got it, you did it. And it literally seems as if it was yesterday. And I'm 49 today. Time is precious, we are fragile, life is short, eternity is long, every minute counts, and you will exist forever. You will exist forever either as friends on God's terms, or as enemies on your terms. And which is it is will be decided here and now. So, I have these six things.

I don't know if I'll be able to get through all of them, but the first one I want to talk about is that number one, this life is not about you. Evangelism is not about you. God is not saying, yay, I'm glad he's on my team. Mark is so knowledgeable. If only Mark was here, he'd be able to share this message with this person. Nope, stuck with you. No, it's not about me. It's not about you. It's not about you. It simply isn't. Corrie Ten Boom said, there's no panic in heaven. There's just plans.

You do not need to be in control because God is. You don't need to know how that conversation is going to end because God does. You don't need to worry about your finances because allow God to take care of that. He's going to supply all of your needs according to his riches in Christ Jesus.

You have the ability to consider the lily of the field and the birds of the air. You can enjoy the tumultuous storm because your eyes are on the Lord. The single-handed greatest quote I've ever heard is the one I'm about ready to share with you outside of the Bible. It's by a guy named John Sale. He said, if I had the power of God, there are many things I would change. But if I had the wisdom of God, I wouldn't change a thing. Would you rather have the power of God or the wisdom of God? God knew what He was doing when He put you in your situation. When you married your spouse, when you had your child, when you have your job, He knows. He doesn't need your advice. He doesn't need your counsel. He doesn't need your what-ifs.

Yesterday, my son asked me, Dad, if you can go in time, past or present, and you can talk to two people, who would you talk to? And I said, I'd like to go into the future. Now, some people say, I'd like to go talk to Paul or Jesus or whatever it may be. I'd like to go in the future and get the lotto numbers.

I said, there's two people I'd like to talk to. It's just a fun exercise. I said, I'd like to talk to the last person who will ever become a Christian. I'd like to just talk to them. And secondly, I'd like to talk to the last descendant of a Spence who came out of my lineage. Just see who they are. Just talk to them.

Find that to be interesting? Mark, if you had the ability to go back in time for when you were in 8th grade, when you really started to dive into sin, and you could change things, Mark. Go back to when you were in 8th grade and relive 8th grade, high school, all over again. Have a fresh start. Would you do it?

I said to my son, I said, no. He who's forgiven much, loves much. I don't want to change anything. I'm ashamed of a lot of the things that I've done. I've asked God to give me amnesia so I don't remember certain things. But God doesn't want to give me amnesia so I don't remember the past. He wants me to hear those triumphant words. Well, those triumphant words, neither do I condemn you. God could give me amnesia. Some people get amnesia every day.

I've devastated a lot of lives in my past. So, if I had the power of God, there are many things I would change. But if I had the wisdom of God, I would just let God be God. And I would just move on from here. And I would tell my kids, you just need to move on from here.

I would remind my kids of Romans 8.28. We have it memorized, right? All things work together for good. I'd take it a step further with my kids. Allow this to set in. I tell my kids there's no such thing as bad news.

I understand that that's horrific, whatever that is. That cancer, that dastardly deed. I understand those are crazy, terrible things. I'm not sugarcoating those things. But as for me, I'm gonna look at it a little bit different. That I needed that thing. I needed that cancer. I needed that fill in the blank. I needed that. I need those things. Because all things are working together for good. For my good. I could have done without that though, Lord. No, you really couldn't have. You need that. Are you sure? What? You're going to say that to the Lord?

So Romans 8.28, I shared with my kids, there's no such thing as bad news.

Things are just stepping stones to get you to where you need to be. That horrific news, that losing of a job, that losing of a child, that adulterous affair that your spouse did, it's a stepping stone to get you where you need to be. You don't need to raise your fist at God. You can open up your hands and raise your hands to the Lord and trust that he's in control, that he knows what he's doing. Does he need to ask you your permission to be God?

God is in heaven. He does what he pleases. So I would remind my kids of that. Guys, there's no such thing as bad news. You don't need to be in control because God already is. Things are not falling apart. They're falling into place. It's a good word. It really is. I would remind my kids of Psalm 1.

Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stands in the path of sinners, nor sits in the seat of the scornful, but his delight. It's in the law of the Lord, and in his law he meditates day and night, and he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, brings forth fruit in its season, whose leaf also shall not wither, and whatever he does shall prosper. Did you catch that? Whatever he does prospers. What's the catch? What's the caveat?

Meditate on God's word day and night. It's not about a morning devotion. It's not about an evening devotion. It's about His devotion to me. And I want to get to know the God whose thoughts for me outnumber the sand of the sea and the stars of the heavens. And because He's devoted to me and He's devoted to His word and He came to seek and save that which is lost, I don't need to worry about life. God is on His throne. God is in control. So, everything I do will prosper. It may not look like it's prospering, but it is.

If you want to be wise, read God's Word. You want to know how to respond to something, read God's Word. You want to know what to believe, read God's Word. Meditate on God's Word. You can say, I went through God's Word this year. Yes, but did God's Word go through you? Do you have the faith to say, God, search me and try me. See if there be any wicked way in me and lead me in the way everlasting. It's not about you. If you do not meditate on God's Word, you're going to believe lies or truth.

I'm going to make time for this story. I had a chance two years ago to sit down with a commentator that I greatly respect. His name is Arkent Hughes. And asked him the question, you've written 13 commentaries. You're very well respected. Disciplines of a Godly Man is a wonderful book. If you haven't read it, you need to read the book. It's so good.

What has made you to know the Word of God or caused you to go after God's Word the way you have over all these years? Just retired. Now he's gone up to be with his son up in southern Washington at his church. And this is what he said. I'll never forget it. In a photoshopped world where I am being bombarded with lies, where nothing is to be trusted, no commercial, no billboard, no story.

I knew that I could approach God's word and put my guard down. And for me, it became my ultimate sanity in a world that has gone crazy. I would tell my kids, you can approach God's Word and put your hands down. Put your guard down. You don't need to be in control because God is. It's not about your devotion. It's about His devotion. God knows. Number two, God knows. What does God know? Yes, God knows everything. He knows it all. He knows everything.

He's not caught by surprise. You cannot teach Him anything. He has searched me. He knows me. He comprehends my path. He's acquainted with all my ways. I don't have time to develop this, but let me share one little aspect about this. God knows my thoughts from afar. Here's a twist. He knows my far off thoughts. Not because he's a far, he's a very present help in time of need. That God knows what I'm going through. He knows my anxiousness. He knows my worries. He knows my struggles. He knows my sin. And he's still not going anywhere. He knows.

He's intimately familiar that God knows me. And this word knows, that he knows my sitting down, it's the same Hebrew word that Adam knew his wife and conceived. Had a child, speaks of intimacy. That's how close and intimate God is. That God knows my thoughts from afar.

My afar off thoughts. He knows my thoughts where I go, I feel like I'm going crazy. I need to get out of this. I need a break. I need a time out. Please. He knows. He knows me. So with that, I get relief. God understands. I can talk to Him. I can approach Him. And I can pray. I can not worry. God knows me physically. Death cannot remove me from God. Distance cannot separate me from God. And darkness cannot hide me from God. As scripture said, where can I go from your spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? God knows me all the time because God has known me before He created time. What's my point? He knows what I need. And He knows when I need it.

You know, I grew up, we didn't have very much money. I'm away at college, and I'm doing involuntary fasting 3-4 days at a time, because I didn't have any money for food. And I'm reminding God how the body works. I didn't create this thing, God. You did, and I have not eaten in a couple days. I don't know if you've ever fasted, but have you ever involuntarily fasted? 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 days at a time? I didn't have anything.

And I'm reminding God how the body works. But when you know God, you don't need to rely upon man. And even though I was hungry at times, I was never desperate. And King David said, I was once young, now I'm old. I've never seen the righteous forsaken, nor his descendants begging bread. And it was during those times that God really molded me and got a hold of me.

Where am I going to go? You alone hold the words to eternal life. And I said it over and over and over and over again. I love it. Moving on. Boy, don't be surprised when you fail. The man who put in the eraser at the end of the pencil knew what he was doing. You're going to mess up. You're going to make mistakes. You're going to fail because you're frail. You've been freed up to forgive. I would tell my kids, you can forgive. They didn't ask for forgiveness. Irrelevant. You don't know what they did. Irrelevant.

You're freed up to forgive and to love and to err on the side of grace. To give somebody what they don't need or what they don't deserve and give them what they need. Love is giving somebody what they need, not what they want. You don't need to be bitter. You don't need to be bitter. Bitterness is like drinking poison and then you wait for the other person to die.

It's not going to happen. You're the one dying a slow death. Release it. Allow God to take care of them. Vengeance is mine. It doesn't matter what they've done. There's freedom in Christ. He who is the Son of God is free indeed. You are free to forgive them and move on. You will be wronged and you will do some wronging yourself.

I always share that with my kids. Corrie Ten Boom said, our outlook goes beyond this world. We are training for eternity. And getting older, one discovers something about the plan behind all these little happenings of the past. When we look back, we realize that behind many events, which didn't seem important in and of themselves, there was actually a design, an order, a continuity.

If you want your muscles to grow, you've got to stretch them. If you want your spiritual muscles to grow, same thing. In order to know what forgiveness is really like, you need to forgive someone. Which means you need to be wronged. How easy it is to love those who are lovable. Even the heathen do this, Scripture says. You're free to just love the unlovable. That's what Corrie ten Boom did.

She walks by the cell after the trial in Nuremberg and she sees the man who raped and murdered her sister. She said, I can't do this. And she was reminded of the scripture that God has shed abroad His love in our hearts. And went over and shared the gospel and led this gentleman to the Lord, who's now her brother, who raped and murdered her sister.

This is foreign thinking. Unless you're a child of God, this is normal Christianity. Of course, I will forgive you. I don't care what you're going to do. It's not an option to hold on to things that I shouldn't. Adrian Rogers said, when the Christian realizes that he is inhabited, he will stop thinking he's inhibited.

What's holding you back? Well, what if they ask me a question I don't have an answer for? Okay, well, they will ask you a question you're not ready for. What if I look foolish? Well, you are foolish. The gospel's foolish to those who are perishing. What if, yeah, what if? What if the sun explodes tonight?

Stop it. Stop being inhibited if you're inhabited. Time is not to be wasted because there's no time to waste. Number three, be faithful with the small things. I would share that with my kids, and I share it all the time. And why do I say that? Because there is no such thing as a small thing. The truth is, the biggest thing in your life is the thing that God's requiring of you at this moment.

You need to be faithful with the dishes. You need to be faithful to run a complete mile. Don't cut one step, my coach would say. You cut one step, you're cheating yourself. Be faithful to small things, because there's no such thing as a small thing. Don't despise the day of small things. We hear about pastors falling into sexual sin all the time. As a father, I would tell my kids, every public failure is the result of a thousand private failings. There's no secret sins. Every secret sin is an open scandal in heaven. I would tell my kids to crave holiness and purity and integrity and truth in the inward parts. To be honest before God, to worship Him in spirit and in truth, which means you can be honest.

God, I don't want to share the gospel right now, or I don't want to go to work. I don't want to do this thing. Be honest. I don't want to do this. But you ask any mother who is sick, who's really, really sick, and she has a six-month-old, she will feed that six-month-old. I don't care how sick she is, you better get out of her way. Get out of Mama Bear's way. Don't mess with her child. God is the same way. Don't mess with my child. And so when people come up against me, I realize they're not coming up against me, they're coming up against God.

So it's easy for me to pray for mercy. God, have mercy on this person. Oh, be gracious to this person. I got word that this woman was suing me some time back. And Ray Comfort came alongside me and he goes, hey Mark, you need to pray for her. And I said, her salvation? He goes, no, you need to pray that God will be gracious and kind to her. She's coming up against God's child. This is not going to bode well for her.

So I went and I go, God, be merciful, be gracious, be kind. And when I saw her, I only thought well of her. And then a day before we went to the actual court case, she dropped the charges. It doesn't always work like that. But is it okay for you to go through these things to get to that point? I hope so. Be faithful to small things. I'd remind my kids that their Redeemer is bigger than their past. It doesn't matter what they've done. Number four, reach out to the lost.

Carl Sagan said, when you're in love, you want to tell the world. Maybe you're not reaching out to the lost because maybe you're not in love. Carl Sagan, that great pagan of a man, those are his words. When you're in love, you want to tell the world.

Sounds poetic and beautiful, but maybe that's one of the reasons. Maybe you just don't know God as much as you think you know God. Or maybe you just don't care as much as you think you do care. I don't know. I'm just going to let that simmer with you. Allow that to have its perfect work, and you deal with it.

This isn't condemnation, but maybe it's a really good, sweet conviction. Reach out to the lost, right? Telemarketers are not an interruption. Flat tires are not a bummer. Bad service at a restaurant is a blessing and an opportunity to discuss God's grace. Number five, pick up the pace. And so I will in this message, pick up the pace.

Cemeteries are filled with young people as well as old people. I was amazed as I was looking over here at these tombstones over here, how young some of these people were. Youth is no guarantee of old age. Just like any race, there are all kinds of distractions. And just like any race, there's a lot of people rooting for you to fail. to fail.

My son Ethan, he entered himself into a race. to run a mile, a mile race. And I'm like, what? I didn't even know you ran. I mean, what are you even doing? And it was so cool. I said, yes, I'm going to be there. So I took some time off work. And I'm there. And I'm like, now, I love track.

I wanted to run in the Olympics. I was favored to win CIF and state in California for the high hurdles. And I blew my knee out. And when I became a Christian, I lost that competitive edge. And I didn't want to push that onto my kids. But I played 14 years of football as a wide receiver.

And I was fast. Now, I'm probably a lot faster now, I think, in my head, than when I actually was. But man, I was fast. And I loved it. I was MVP of the track team, but I loved track. And I loved it. So my son says that he entered into a track meet sort of thing. And I went, awesome. I'm going to be there. And here he is. He takes off.

And he collapses. like 10 meters from the finish line and he was in first place. 10 meters. You know how close 10 meters is to the finish line? So what do I do? I jump right down there and I said, you're not quitting. No. I didn't come all the way out here to see you quit 10 meters from the finish line. And he's throwing up. And I said, son, you're going to cross that finish line. So I started to crawl right in front of him backwards, and I said, son, come to me. Come to me. Follow me. Follow my voice. Come to me. Everything within you, you come to me. You're not going to give up. You're not going to quit. So he, with every little step, is throwing up, just like any good dad's advice would give, right? And he crosses the finish line and he won. Barely. But he won. But giving up was not an option. And in life, you could be at that stage in that place where you go, I'm just kind of a mess right now. Or I've thrown up all over myself. You don't even want to look at me. And I say, stop your whining. Finish the race that is set before you with endurance, looking on to Jesus Christ, the author and the finisher of your faith.

This is not a playground. Did you figure that out yet? It is a battleground. Welcome to the battle. Pick your sword. It's the Word. And Christ is right there at the finish line saying, Come to Me. Come to Me. Come to Me. There's no giving up. There's no letting up, there's no shutting up until you've preached up, prayed up, paid up for the cross of Christ. You're going to go to Jesus. You're almost home. So stop taking your foot off the accelerator. Get back into it.

Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may obtain it. Or Philippians 3, I press towards the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. We need to put into practical Christian activities what collegiate athletes put into their training. They say go hard or go home. We need to say we need to go hard because we're almost home. We're almost 100 years, we're all gone from this place. There'll be a new pastor, new people sitting here. But we're almost done.

It doesn't matter how you start, it's how you finish. You may have had a terrible start, but you can still finish well. The Olympics are much in the same way. They could have a terrible start, but it's how you finish. You must finish well. It's not an option to take your foot off the gas. Number six, and this will be the last one here. And thank you. I'm grabbing a message and I'm going whoosh. Number six, don't waste your dash. What does that mean?

It's that little line, that little hyphen between the day you're born and the day you die. And if you go out here and you look at these tombstones, you're going to see that little hyphen. We've all got them. Young or old, you all have a hyphen. And they're all the same length, if you notice.

Because a day is like a thousand years, and what you do today is going to echo forever, and you only have what you've got. Thomas Watson said, every time you take a breath, you're sucking in the mercy of God, and there's no guarantee of a next one. The only thing you're promised is this breath, not even the next one. It's all you got. So whatever you do, do all to the glory of God. Whether you eat or drink or sleep, Whether you read or watch TV, whether you run a race, whether you eat some corn, do it to the glory of God. Don't waste your dash.

If anyone will come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever will save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and he forfeits his soul? But what shall a man give in return for his soul?

Have you realized yet that it's not about you? Martin Luther said, God creates out of nothing. Until a man realizes he is nothing, God can't make anything out of him. You're nothing. God breathed into you. And God now wants to do the work through you. And if you're a Christian, you're a child of the Most High, and you are precious, and you are beautiful, regardless of what you've done, of who's made your bed. Your past scars, the enemy wants to remind you of, but God wants to define you by his scars, not yours.

Final Point

Finally, I would remind my kids that they were created by God and for God. God made you for His glory.

And if you don't see God in His glory, you will be mesmerized by fireworks. If you can't see the sun, you'll be satisfied with flashlights and streetlights. Your life will be filled with shadows and mirages and short-lived pleasures. In the beginning, God said, let there be light. And for thousands of years, the sun has risen every day to make us thirsty for the light behind the light. And in the end, God is going to satisfy that thirst with an experience of His own brilliant beauty beyond all description.

As Isaiah says, The sun shall be no more your light by day, nor for brightness shall the moon give light to you by night. But the Lord will be your everlasting light, and your God will be your glory. Your sun shall no more go down, nor your moon withdraw itself, for the Lord will be your everlasting light, and your days of crying shall end. Isaiah 60, 19 to 20.

So if I knew I was going to die tomorrow, I would tell my kids, one, listen, it's not about you. It's not about your devotion. It's not about you being in control. Secondly, I would share with my kids, God knows. God knows what you're going through. He knows everything you'll ever go through. He knows you personally. He knows you physically. He knows you prophetically. He knows the end from the beginning. He's not surprised when you fail.

I tell my kids to be faithful with the small things. I'll tell them to reach out to the lost because it's the one thing you can't do in heaven. You can worship all you want, but you can't tell people about Christ. I'll tell them to pick up the pace. I'll tell them to not waste their dash. And they may be throwing up, but you must not give up. There is a preacher who speaks bolder and louder than any I've ever met.

He's not very popular, though the world is His stage. He travels every part of the globe and He speaks every language. He knows every dialect. He visits the poor. He calls upon the rich. He preaches the people of every religion and to those of no religion, and yet the subject of His sermon is always the same. He's an eloquent and powerful preacher.

He often stirs feelings which no other preacher can. He brings tears to eyes that never weep. No one can refute his arguments. Nor is there any heart that has remained unmoved by the force of his preaching. He shatters life with his message. Most people hate him. Everyone fears him. His name? Death. Every tombstone is his pulpit, every newspaper prints his text, and someday every one of you will be his sermon.

Father, I thank you that there is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus. And as you have lit a little fire underneath us, may we not be content with the trivialities of this world. with the fleeing, passing pleasures of sin. May our heart beat with the same beat that makes yours beat. And no matter how much it hurts, no matter how much we kick and scream, never let us be out of your will. Let us step out of our comfort zone, out of the boat, onto the crashing waves, knowing that when our eyes are on you, it doesn't matter how tumultuous the storm is.

Closing Prayer

In Jesus' name, amen. Amen. Please forgive me for needing to run to go be with my wife and kids. It has been a joy to be with you all. And if you want any of the material or anything that I've had here, feel free to email me. Mark at livingwonders.com. I'll be happy to send it to you. God bless you. Well, thank you so much, Mark. Is it OK if we pray for you and your family? Yes, I would like that. Am I supposed to say no? Let's pray.

Father, we thank you so much for this day. We thank you for this opportunity you've had for us. We thank you for giving Mark safe travels and for the blessing he has been to us today. Lord, we pray that your word would affect us and work on us. We pray for Mark now as he drives up the Cedar Rapids and flies home. We pray that you would give him safe travels. We pray that you would keep the drivers around him safe. Please care for his pilots, Lord. We pray that you would be with his wife and children. We thank you for their sacrifice of love, that they would