It's good to be here with you today and The subject I'll be sharing is one that's close to my heart a biblical concept of missions and This subject is a very wide subject and I for sure will not be able to cover it all I'd like to look at some things with you and This is true in Latin America and Costa Rica or Peru or in Pennsylvania the Praise the Lord the Lord gave us instructions in the Bible. We have examples And the most wonderful thing about the work of Jesus is that Jesus said I will build my church Who builds the church Jesus himself Jesus himself is the Lord the head and the director I'm sure I know brother Dale. I'm sure he did and Brother Ernest, I met you for the first time. I'm sure everyone that's here today has prayed has spent time in prayer I've laid awake and bed at night Thinking and I have received inspiration from Jesus to the Holy Spirit Because Jesus still leads and builds his church He's the most important person in this project. So we need to follow his instructions we need to know how he wants to work and We have a problem We tend to sometimes imitate and learn from others and I want you to know we can learn a lot from others We all do we all have learned so much from others, but sometimes it is easier for us to To copy some of the Protestant methods And the difference when I talk about Protestant messes. I'm not being critical of Protestant missionaries. There have been some admirable Wonderful examples men committed to the word of the Lord and to the work But there is a difference and I'm not criticizing that I'm simply saying there's a difference in the Protestant method and The biblical method and that's what I'd like to help us with I think I have seen some missions who Basically adapt the Protestant method But along with that they want to teach the veiling non-resistance and a few things like this But the basic the method is Protestant and I'm not being critical of that. I just want today. I want to talk about this different comes all the way back to the Reformation if you study history, I love history you study the difference of the two the two Philosophies the two way of looking at things the Protestants and the biblical we can call them Anabaptists or however You like to call them. There's a difference and that is still affecting our mission approach today and I do not feel like I have the answers To all this I'm still learning. I made a lot of mistakes The church sent me and turned us to a new work six months after we were married I've given my 36 37 years of life to that and But I've made a lot of mistakes and I'm still learning and I've got a lot to learn But I do want and I want to encourage us today is that we Should look at Jesus and his methods and not just read books Follow follow other men's methods. I want to start off looking at some basic things some foundational things That help us that give us direction in how we do the Lord's work First of all, I want to ask you a question Why did Jesus come to the world? I'm not asking you to answer me. I just want to think about it. Why did Jesus come to the world? Imagine a large percentage of us and if I would have been sitting there Maybe I would have too is that he came to die for our sins That's true Another question. What is salvation? If you could say that in just one little phrase, what is salvation? Many of us would say quick forgiveness of sins Forgiveness of sins is very precious. I hope I never lose the wonder the marvel That God forgave me my sins. I'm not putting that down But forgiveness of sins is simply a means to a purpose I like to use this example. I've used it before At home my boys like to grill meat And sometimes we get together and have a little grilling of meat and I enjoy that But let's say someone I don't have any of you here. I've worked in a hog barn Before I was married I worked at a sale barn and I I hauled hogs and I I got so dirty sometimes one time I I took my clothes off at the door of the house the back door there wasn't anyone around I left my doors on my clothes on the outside because it was so I was so stinky even in my hair and everything smell like hogs Okay, let's say there's someone like this working with hogs and we want to grill meat What do we do first of all?  Well put on new clothes Clean your fingers get yourself clean your nails get out here and then we grill meat Forgiveness of sins This is a poor example is like the the bath and cleaning up But the reason for forgiveness of sins is we have something to do Now let's stop and think it a bit about Jesus Have you ever stopped and thought about and a few years ago? I was asking some teaching on Jesus as king and and um And I read the gospels over and over and over again to find the real Jesus We often don't realize it. We have certain pitches of Jesus that we like and we use But I would encourage you to all of you take time and read the gospels over and over and over again And find the real all of what Jesus said But you know we have some of those some of those beautiful stories of the parable of the uh Of the prodigal son that that's title. I should say should actually be the waiting father Rather than the prodigal son We have the parable of the lost sheep And I would say the better title would be the seeking shepherd We have so many things like this, but do you know Who which writer in the bible spoke most about hell you ever do that? I don't have the numbers with me. I would have him home somewhere. I did that.    I I'm not going to take the time to do this, but how much of jesus teaching was about forgiveness of sin It's there the prodigal son That The story of the the daltress lady I used to cry when I was really I was going to stress the inconvertible. I'm sorry. I'd rather preach in spanish. Would it be okay if I'd switch but the um The daltress lady when jesus said neither do I condemn the go and sin no more when I was newly converted I would cry singing that song the song neither do I condemn the wonderful word divine jesus talked about forgiveness. Yes But what was the emphasis of his of his message? Let's stop and think about the sermon on the mount Does the sermon on the mount talk about forgiveness? Yeah, it mentions it The lord's prayer it says, uh, if we don't forgive others he will not forgive us The beatitudes the beginning Give the conditions of a heart that's repentant and that god can forgive But what I'm sure I wanted to help us to see is that The emphasis of god's teaching was not I mean jesus teaching was not forgiveness of sins. That's an important part I please don't Quote me as saying that I'm saying it's not important without forgiveness of sins without the new birth and the finding a new life We cannot serve him We cannot You've been memorizing some of you. I think well, that's tomorrow. I guess the romans ate You know without the spirit of god, we cannot be his But um and jesus said what was jesus what was the first thing he'd say you did say first what what did he say? repent For the kingdom of god is ahead repent why We need to repent to have forgiveness of sins, but you know what? We need to repent to be able to work as a brotherhood The per repentance is not only to be forgiven repentance is a Um, what's the word I want is something we need in our hearts to be able to function in the kingdom of god That's so much of such a problem when we have people trying to serve god and don't have a repentant heart pride and Anger and so many things we so repentance. Yes, we need repentance for forgiveness of sins But we need a deep repentance like brother dale said here at the end a broken heart to be able that god can use us To grill meat, you know what i'm saying? To build the kingdom of god What is the emphasis of Sermon on the mount You don't have to look it up chapter 5 verse 13 ye are the salt of the earth But if the salt salt have lost his savor Wherewith shall it be salted? It is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out and to be trodden under foot of men Ye are the light of the world A city that has sit on a hill cannot be hid Needed to remain light of candle And put it under a bushel But on a candlestick And it gives light to all that are in the house Let your light So shine before men That they may see your good works And what's the rest? And glorify your father which is in heaven That's why we were saved. That's why jesus came to this world was to take people out of the kingdom of darkness Rescue people out of the kingdom of darkness and transfer them to the kingdom of light And the purpose is you know if not, he'd just take us home right away Wouldn't have been nice as soon as we can convert it to take us home to heaven each one as soon as we get converted Go back to heaven. I mean go to heaven But that's not why we're saved. We were saved to be a light And the u.s. Needs it goes to rica needs it the whole world needs it Is that we are a light That people see god It says that let your light so shine before men. Don't put it under a bushel and hide it Let it shine That they may see see what Your good works And glorify your father which is in heaven jesus spoke a lot about the kingdom on the earth of the kingdom of god here on earth And that's what it's all about and i i am so i feel so privileged I want to encourage you such an honor To have been called to the kingdom of god Who am i Who is mark the odor That he can be a part of the kingdom of god I mean this is the biggest thing That ever happened on the earth you know that Kingdoms come kingdoms fall at poem that the brother read earlier kingdoms come kingdoms fall kingdoms The most important thing that happens on the earth is what god is doing in his people And you and me are called to that isn't that wonderful to live by his teaching Why are we so different from the world i people that that are saying to be different of the world Well, that's what it's all about If you're not different from the world you have nothing to offer We're different from the world because we are following a different king a different we have different values We think different We're not different just because i'm part of a men and i church. I hope not But we are different because we think different our values are different And that god wants that to be evident seen You want excitement think about that is your life boring Think about that you were called you you were called The show the glory of the king On the earth that's what jesus is talking about now i want to step back another step backward Brother urnis pretty well touched the three points that i want to touch you to start with now. Let's step back a little farther Um, let's look at the whole picture. We were talking about jesus now to look at the whole story What's the whole story of the book? Some of you say jesus christ amen ever since god took adam out of Took eve out of adam's side The husband the wife the bride and christ i think everything that and all the way through revelations the last chapter the theme is jesus christ yes But what is the the whole purpose of this what is the story all about? What's god doing some years ago when i was young appreciate a brother he was an older man He took me aside and he sat down an afternoon with me He had some charts he showed me and he told me and he showed to me how the whole story through the whole book Is god's wants to have a people of his own? here on the earth adam and eve Failed and then we have the story of cain and sef and their descendants Then we have noah and noah's descendants and then we have abraham and abraham In your descendants will all the kingdoms of the world be blessed Because all through the book The purpose is god wants a special people to show his glory. I love nature flowers birds trees Clouds all of this shows the glory of god But the most beautiful representation of the glory of god and the best image is in our lives When we follow his directions in the old testament Deuteronomy 4 i'm just going to read it If you want to look for it, you can do nor army 4 verse 5 to 8 This is what the purpose was in the old testament behold I have taught you statues and judgments even as the lord my god commanded me. This is moses talking Behold I have taught you statues and judgments even as the lord my god commanded me That you should do so in the land where the you go you go to possess it Keep therefore and do them for this is your wisdom And your understanding in the sight of the nations which shall hear all these statues and say I notice these are the pagan cultures around them They were going to look at them and see the way they live and they could say surely This great nation is a wise and understanding people For what nation is so great who hath god so Nigh to them as the lord your our god is in all things that we call up in on him for And what nation is there so great that have statues and judgments so righteous As all this law which I said before you this day you remember the story of the queen of Savah and spanish sheba the crown of sheba that went to See jit see Solomon sort this is Old Testament, of course, and he says wow When daniel was in um I'm gonna confuse them the story and let's just to say it this way and he said there's some men in the kingdom Of babbling they have a different god and they have different laws They're different Because they have different laws they follow and then deuteronomy 7 says like this for thou are to And holy people unto the lord thy god the lord thy god hath chosen thee To be a special people unto himself above all people that are upon the face of the earth The lord did set his love upon you No, sorry Let's start there the lord did not set his love upon you nor choose you because you were more in number than any people For you were the fewest of all people But because the lord loved you and because he would keep the oath which he had sworn unto his fathers There were people that were different as a different god and different laws Now let's jump to the new testament That's the story all through the book The new testament wanted to say it so it's the same thing first peter Two but you are a chosen Generation a royal priesthood a holy nation a peculiar people That you should show forth the praises of him Who hath called you out of darkness into his marvelous light Which in time past were not a people but now are the people of god Which have not obtained mercy but now have obtained mercy. There's forgiveness. There's the calling into the kingdom But the purpose of the kingdom is to show forth the praises of him You're an excitement mother with the children fathers Young men at the work and jobs young people young ladies You are called to show the glory of jesus in your character the way you live Now here's another exciting point. I'm just going to throw this out about you because I don't have time We looked at jesus We looked at the total story of the book very briefly And now the next one the mission the whole concept of this is built on god's character This is a deep deep. Yes, you can dig on this one We need to do missions according to a god's character Any any teaching any teaching that you ever do that's worth teaching is based upon who god is I'm not going to go take my time with that But you think about that a seeking the the best method for missions is to see gods and in the word and then in jesus To see jesus god's heart and follow his heart But god wants us Wants to call out a special people That's the job we have you know you compare this to um Have you ever seen these tracks? Maybe you've given them out too and on the back of the track that says Well, I can't say exactly something about you know, da da da if you want to become saved Read to say this little prayer da da da da da da da And then now you're a christian and now Find yourself a church or some read your biblism, blah blah blah blah Well, I'm not saying that no one can become saved reading that track and reading that prayer But in my experience It's not that easy Brother earnest was talking about this lady Just hearing about it. It's exciting because you know what in that lady's life the holy spirit was working It was the spirit of god And you can't just lead people to christ by repeat this little prayer Or come up to the front and raise your hand or uh, you know do this and do that and now you're now you're a believer It's not quite like that Now i'm not saying that in those campaigns for some you know How many people were saved there and there's one man He was I was riding the bus and I heard him telling the distance I was in close to this country and I had so many campaigns and there were and he had a number I forget the number it doesn't matter a few hundred. I think of people that were saved and there were more people that were healed In these campaigns so many people were saved so many people were healed. Well, I um Praise the lord. I hope so But so many times in a situation like this people respond they come they they're sincere seekers and they do do call out But if there's no backup no kind of working with these people a lot of those people drop back out and fizzle out again Because it's not that easy um And the purpose again in in in in acts and in a Ephesians 2 A beautiful thing For by grace are you saved through faith and that not of yourselves. It is a gift of god not of works as any mentioned boast Do you know what the verse says before that? The verse before that says that in the ages to come The age is here on the earth to 2021 2022 2023 and until the lord comes and then in the ages to come he He might show forth the exceeding riches of his grace In his kindness toward us The purpose of salvation is that we show him And then the verse after this one says for we are his workmanship That means we are recreated the work of regeneration within us is his work The work that I exciting to hear about that lady. I know what it's like. It's excited to see the holy spirit is doing that work It's not something I have done. I've just been a vessel But the holy spirit is doing it where we are his workmanship It's a work of his spirit in our lives And if we don't have people being changed and transformed by the spirit of god, we're losing our time But when that happens it says Further we are the his workmanship created in christ jesus why unto good works And listen to this Which god hath ordained Excuse me, which god hath before ordained that we should walk in them god has before we were converted way back already He decided What were the good works and we should live you want to make this interesting? This is all related back to his name and his glory He decides the character of god decides How we should live You can think about that. I'll just throw that when you think about it So our work Now let's look at Matthew 28 I think Ernest talked about that one too quickly here we I started at 11, right? Yes, okay I'm going to try to Matthew 28 18 The great commission we all know so well and we all love this This commission and a few months ago. My father is very old and weak He can hardly walk He's a different man what he used to be he's But not too long ago. We were there at the family And I forget did I ask him something but anyway, he leaned forward In his recliner and he got that shine in his eyes And he quoted the scripture because this has been I've heard him preach hundreds of times about this passage And he was telling us and my children this Is the message we need to follow Okay, let's look at let's read it. We all know it you probably know it by memory I could say it easier in Spanish than in English, but anyway, all power is given to me in heaven and in earth Wow All power is given to me in heaven and in earth Excuse me Sorry, all power is given unto me in heaven and in earth go ye therefore Therefore because of this I mean we go with The backing of all the power of god All power is given to us So then go ye therefore and teach all nations Baptizing them in the name of the father and of the son and the holy ghost Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever. I've commanded you and lo I am with you always even into the end of the world Amen Let's just look at that just cut break it up a little bit number one all power the work is done The work over the the defeat of the powers of satan Satan is defeated satan is his lost his power Under the power of jesus christ if we have we're with jesus Satan is defeated god is with us Let's move forward Then he tells us go ye therefore and teach all nations go ye therefore because of this Satan has been defeated the kingdom of darkness has been defeated We have a message Be at the mountains in peru and costa rica pennsylvania wherever you're from We have a message the lord jesus christ has overcome the powers of darkness And every human being that repents and has faith in jesus can be saved can be translated from the kingdom of darkness Taken out into the kingdom of light Jesus said I will build my church and the gates of hell shall not prevail We've got that promise behind us But then he says go And teach all nations now I I'm not going to argue here with your king james version That the word hear about teach is a good word. It's true the spanish said make disciples And I checked it again just this morning to make sure that um That I was not going to say something wrong I checked them a laptop again the word the greek word there is more than just teaching is teaching is part of it but the the the purpose of teaching and And Have you ever seen someone speak when I taught school? and we'd have Brothers in the church come in and give devotions And we have men that would communicate with the children, you know they communicate in the children sit there like this We have some older men and god bless them.  I appreciate so much. They come to school, you know But they didn't communicate with the children. They just read the scripture and they preached like a little message to And the children didn't didn't catch on you ever seen that So teaching is more that You have not taught much Until the people you're teaching have learned something So the teaching yes, but making disciple the call here is we should take these people And I should first be a disciple Just reading that the other day and paul says that again and again follow me Look at my example. Can you say that paul said that repeatedly follow me as I follow christ learn from him if you What older brother here's brother earnest if you're living close to earnest you see he's following christ learn from him Not to follow earnest, but to follow christ I have not accomplished much till I have taken someone and then he is following christ I can lead him i can help him you can take that lady You can show scripture to her, but the goal is that she now is a disciple of jesus christ Each one of us personally that's a Wow, we get a church and everyone is excited and each one is being led by jesus christ something is going Because all power is behind it So make disciples lead them to jesus Then it says baptizing them in the name of the father and the son the holy ghost and I won't go into this But you know, so the bible says baptized into his body Jesus is the head But jesus is not a headless being Jesus in least here on the earth the way he wants to function. He is the head and it's so exciting I'm sure I'm not going to ask you to raise your hands. How many of you prayed this morning? How many of you sought the lord this morning? How many of you in the last week have received a word from the lord a word of encouragement? Just the other day again, I went to visit it the last day before I was home I went to visit two people I wanted to visit before I and I said lord, what do I share with him? I got a whole bible in front of me When I pray something like that god usually gives me something do this I prayed a lot about this meeting This message today is for me the most exciting one. I'm going to be sharing this weekend. Don't take that Don't tell the next people But in my I was I spent some time in the hospital with covid In my bed in the hospital in covid. I was not sure if I'd be able to get here and I was praying And I received some inspiration for this Jesus leads us does Jesus lead you? Making disciples is to lead people to having Jesus lead them and we're all following Jesus together and worshiping him We're just servants ministers are just servants But Jesus leads the church We're all baptized. It's so much easier to have an individual faith just me and myself, but Jesus leads us into a body Study your new testament again read it over Sometimes it's sort of like they say you can't demand you can't see the forest because there's too many trees in the way You know, so if you read your bible carefully the bible is full Of a thing of a body working together relationships forgiveness He even says Bearing with one another and that implies that we're gonna have weaknesses You know working together Have you ever done a study of the phrase if not do do something don't preach some next sunday or whenever you're gonna preach Or do you preach ever? um Let's make a study of one of the words one another in the bible And it's the new testament across the main one is love one another But then it's exhort one another daily Um encourage one another and there's a whole list of those and what how do you fill those? The only way to do this when you're working with a body And when jesus said in matthew 16, I will build my church and the gates of hell should not prevail against it That's 16 17 and 18 You know what it says in 18 he says if in the body there is sin Implying that will happen and he tells us how to take care of it one person go alone Then two or three and if he keeps resisting the help then the church And if not what the jesus this is jesus talking Did you realize it's not it's not the men and knights. It's not the army. It's jesus talking And then so in the context of i will build my church He is right away showing us that we are accountable to each other We're responsible for each other If i'd be working with brother earnest Ernest you'd soon seen some of my mistakes And some of my weaknesses and I need you my brethren at home need me my children have corrected me Darkest my daughter that's here the youngest one. She's told me dad Are you sure dad? I need that We need each other. We need a count of bill or we need a body to work together with It's all through the new testament study. So when we bring people to the lord We're bringing them To his body to his That is the fulfilling of of the purpose and I know there's some exceptions I heard what Ernest was saying about this lady. She went somewhere else and you know, there's cases like this We pray but our goal is to lead people to the church of jesus christ and to function as a brotherhood And then teaching them to observe all things. What's her? I've commanded you What what did he say now remember who is saying this? Jesus says Teaching them to observe all things Have you ever heard people say well I I had people tell me this uh, I I focus on the most important things I had one man tell me He was a pastor not an abaptist pastor, but he told me I I I teach the most important things I never have time to get to those other things that that you an abaptist teach um Your bible students does the bible anywhere imply That some of the teachings of jesus or the teaching of the new testament are more important than others Hebrews it talks about The foundation we build on the foundation and paul says let's move on to the others But does he tell us Now do you hear that here at home? We say bueno esa doctrina noide salvacion Or this doctrine or this teaching is not something for salvation. I mean it's optional But you can be saved without following this one and I'm not saying I'm so glad that I don't have the ability and it's not my responsibility to decide who's saved and who's not God takes care of that But the teaching is that jesus himself says teach all the things that I have taught you We don't have the right and there's an I don't think there's any Scripture that we can say well, this is more important. This is when I went on we get time to it Well, but this is not as important. He simply says we should teach the whole package And all of it like I say again is so powerful is so beautiful Especially when you think about how his teaching is an expression the heart of god And what god wants here on this earth Another one right along with this one. It's what is doctrine Oh Soon after I was in chachag was years ago and I've heard it lots often Very often since too one evangelical preacher told me penecostal when I say evangelical penecostal protestant We say evangelical, but maybe you're the only a protestant preacher. He said, you know the catholics are criticizing We're criticizing the protestants because there was divided up in so many groups. That's a problem. It's true and an abaptist too And he said um, and we're going to have a march in san josei. That's a capital city of coaster We're going to have a march in san josei and we're going to forget our doctrines. We're going to all forget about We're going to go into san josei and we're going to march down central street a large group of of uh protestants of Of uh, we were going to march down the street and show the catholic world that we are united Do you think I should have adjoined him on that one? I tried very kindly to explain him that I have some serious problems with some of their teachings I was trying to be careful. I didn't emphasize it But he did find out that i'm not going to go and say that i'm united with some of these things And then there's this thing and the thing there's a doctrine divides and love unites So we get this idea that doctrine is negative Well doctrine can be negative Doctrine like the doctrine of the Pharisees The doctrine of the wrong type of doctrine. That's true. But what is doctrine? What is doctrine doctrine is simply the teaching You have a doctrine you teach another have a doctrine and every doctrine We need to make sure it's a doctrine out of the word of god you know We think about certain Doctrines for the anabaptists are different than the others, but the doctrine you know the doctrine of salvation. How do you become saved? That's a doctrine What is sin? That's a doctrine What what did jesus work? I don't just usually I don't just lead a person to christ enough to hold his spirit soon to work I will pray with him right away But I usually ask people we'd like to hear some bible studies If I can get them and let them come to their living room and I sit in their living room We have some bible studies and I first one is about the holiness of god and then about the condition of the sinful man and then about What the work of christ and I we lead them to understanding But all that is doctrine whatever you know about god is a doctrine the teaching of who god is Doctrine is not negative We have a wrong concept sometimes And where what what is where do we get doctrine? The next thing goes right with it. They start pushing this book aside We need the holy spirit. We don't need the book Well, what do you know about god that didn't come out of here? If you know something about god didn't come out of here. It's it's it's in doubt What do we know about god? What do we know about jesus? What do we know about sin? What do we know about the church? What do we know about anything about the christian life? It's here And it's doctrine Now there's a misuse of doctrine. There's a misuse of this book obviously and that happens a lot but Take heed into thyself and to the doctrine What he's saying there is not you know, keep the doctrine of That's in that black book upon the shelf He's saying keep the doctrine of who jesus is Jesus message that how we can become saved How we can be forgiven and how we live how we work together as a brotherhood. That's all teaching. It's all doctrine And it's all we get it here If you take heed into the self and to the doctrine under your teaching Continue in them for in doing this. Why does he say do you remember? For in doing this thou Shall both save thyself and those that hear thee he's implying by that that if we have a wrong teaching and a wrong doctrine A wrong teaching we might not be saved and we might be leading people to the That are not saved either And that's a serious problem In our world today years ago. I'm not sure was this in the 1980s John Wimber. I'm not sure the date now. John Wimber He's the founder one of the founders of the venerated churches and his his thing was we need another paradigm The old paradigm we've been using of just teaching the bible and teaching the We need another paradigm and his basis was because the oriental churches And he has some I'm not saying he doesn't have some reason that they're more sensitive to the spirit world and what happens in our experiences And so he said we need to change the paradigm And it was a way of just saying let's put this aside and let's use praise and worship and move forward And that gave birth to the toronto blessing if you've read that or not about that the toronto blessing the The browns will revival in florida Where there was Things that happened where we're way out of the book Because we were following experience And we do not want to go that way We do not want to go that way this is if you don't have this you have nothing to go by And I as the older I get The more I love this book I have an office full of books And I I like books and I but the older I get the less I read my books I could burn most of them And I just get excited about this book This is the book we need to look at and read and study and from this Learn god's heart of what he wants to do. There's good books. I don't know. There's good books. It's not wrong I'm not saying it's against writing books But but sound doctrine is In the word of god and this is precious Of course, there's a misuse of this of course the bible itself tells us that we can there's dead law And the life of the spirit the bible tells you that and that's a doctrine. Do you know that that's a doctrine It's a teaching that tells you that the misuse of the word of god can become just a dead law And doesn't change any hearts people just become hardened hypocrites By misusing the word of god Or you lead them to the spirit of god and the spirit of god works in their life That's a doctrine That's it's a teaching and we need that and it's here And lo I am with you always even to the end of the world Isn't that wonderful? Where's god going to call you? Where are you going to be involved when you're doing his work? His way under his direction Did you know all heaven is behind you?  What am I going to tell this person? They want to talk to me or I want to go witness to him. What am I going to tell him? Yesterday coming on on the plane There was this young lady from said from spain She lives north of madrid And I was in spain a few years ago doing research on a book and so we got on a good subject And of course my book about spain was about The time the reformation of man to translate the spanish bible But anyway and but she caught on soon and she said yes The young people in spain are ashamed Of the of how spain something's in her past I was a wonderful history of the I had two weeks Of a course of history and I love spain. I love their big Well, I love them My love of history and she told me she lives close close to les cordiales But anyway, that's off the subject and we started talking Then later and as I said, you know the thing is there's a real personal faith When we have a no one can force faith on you The catholic church did the protest did the same thing John John kelvin and martin luther they tried to force people to be to have a faith You can't do that and she understood that very quick faith is something that is personal And then after we laid back and took a nap and slept a while and I was and when I woke up I said, you know, I wish I could tell you a little more to her And just as we were coming into pittsburgh Let's get rid of the land. I said lord if she and she was really intent looking out the window looking at Outside just like I do sometimes and then I said lord if she turns her face and looks this way I'm going to say something I waited a little bit and she turned her face And I talked to her about the sad story of faith the of of religion Power religion and all this and I told her but there is a real faith There's a personal living faith in jesus christ. That's real I had a man from india we met him on the bus Some years ago and I the same thing all he knew about christianity was the stories about the catholicism in europe and all these big stories and The holy wars and all this and I told him mister. There is a different faith. He says really You know what I ended up doing I ended up inviting him to my house he spent Three nights in our house And he interviewed not darkest was my oldest daughter. This has been a few years ago. He interviewed you. I said, are you happy? And he and I don't know what all he asked him he asked I need to and he said what what about your faith? What about this? He says really? Because he caught on I don't know where he is Right now I forget his name even I prayed for him for a while. I haven't for a while I should probably but anyway that there is a real faith and I told this girl that yesterday too There is a real faith And we can share that with them Um But jesus is with us and jesus leads us jesus directs us Hey, do you want to have an exciting life? Bring every thought Everything you do under jesus christ That's exciting Your children might notice a great difference. Maybe not. Maybe you're already doing it The people that work The people you go to school with all at once. Wow I had one time the honor. I was visiting a home. We were going from house to house and and the lady looked at me And she said there's something in your eyes There's something in your face. You have something you have. I sense a peace in you I was a blessing to hear that This man from india Oh, I'm so stuck This man for I'll say this yet He was going to leave one day and we had a chorus at that time a chorus among the congregations Dwight's brother dwayne was leading the chorus and we'd get together and I was an old man with white hair But I like to sing and I went with the family was to do this the family went together and we sang with this chorus So I told him we're having the chorus to practice tomorrow. You want to go along? Oh, yeah. Yeah, may I may I? Yeah, okay So he went along. He sat back there and whoa, he was really watching And he was impressed and when he got back he told me listen those young people have something I can see they're singing from their hearts But you know what else he said? He said but there was a man here on the right on the left side There's a man here that he was not with it There were some young girls in the group. They were not with it And he was right on The young man left the church Not long after he sensed it because you know a real part of your testimony. Do you know this? Is your face? A clean conscience the joy of the lord your way of relating to people That's exciting.  I'm sorry I had some more practical things I wanted to go talk into but talk about but uh, I'll just say this one to end There's other things that I left. I this afternoon I don't know brother earnest. I'm just going to be telling stories about some practicing of this very thing but Another thing about them is the god's method is you study the scriptures what it says about prayer about jesus himself How much time did jesus spend in prayer? And paul says pray for me the apostle paul pray for me That the lord would open doors You know, I could sit at that late. I met on the airport yesterday and opened door I was glad for the opportunity. I have no idea where she's going to study and here in a in a university in pittsburgh I don't know where she is but that was an opportunity but um God has called us and into the battlefield Oh paul prayed. I'm sorry. I guess I tried paul prayed for open doors and then he says pray that I would know what to say You know, you ever see that? I admire brother dale brother dale I've seen it again and again and again that at the right moment. He has the right words There's so oftentimes that I sit there and what should I say? What should I say and the opportunity goes by and I didn't say anything you ever happened to you? It happens to me But that but that prayer I'll just say this prayer Is not only praying for the battle Prayer is the battle prayer is part of the battle.  Some people do it later in the day. That's fine You decide when but a time when I read the word when I pray and I listen to him That is very important and it's part of the battle.


The group Celtic Thunder had a tour stop in Bemidji tonight to help raise money for Lakeland PBS. A crowd of more than 600 people was on hand to see the show at the Bemidji High School Auditorium. The group performed a variety of fan favors including Sons of Light, Only Time and The Pro on the Cradle. Fans say they were most excited to see the energy the group brings to the stage. I can't really pick a favorite song but we like the happy if your hands don't aren't sore when you come out of it then you're not clapping enough you know because we just love the upbeatness and how nice the guys are. Celtic Thunder will be continuing their tour in Minneapolis next week and you can keep track of other benefit concerts for Lakeland PBS on our website lptv.org. If you enjoyed this segment of Lakeland news please consider making a tax-deductible contribution to Lakeland PBS.