In a time of cultural chaos like ours the overwhelming temptation is to turn inward and hope for the storm to pass. We may be dismayed and intimidated by the evil around us and even shocked by the speed in which society seems to be crumbling. But Scripture and Church history demonstrate that often the darkest times are the greatest times for the advancement of God's kingdom. Consider the final words of our Lord before He departed and be encouraged as families called to invade the darkness with the light of the gospel.

Well, it's wonderful to be here with you this morning and to take this time just to really honor the Lord and give him thanks and praise for his goodness, for his mercy towards us. It really is an honor to be at the conference and to just have a few minutes to speak with you. And as Robert mentioned, in about three weeks our family will be hopping on a plane and going overseas. And so it's kind of in the stream of consciousness of that that I'm going to be talking to you today to really think about how do we engage a task that is far far beyond our own strength far beyond our own capacity and it's not just me going I'm going with my wife and we as Robert mentioned we have six children that are also going in and what's really top of mind is not only how can I prepare myself To go but how can I also help my my family to go my wife and my children? That's a that's my probably my biggest priority right now forget the the foreign people that were going to My main task is how can I help my family as we try to make this adjustment?

And so to help us this morning, I wanna take a look at Matthew chapter 28, verses really 16 down to the end. These are the last words of our Savior. And just to look at the the text, it's a very familiar text isn't it? It's one that we all I think have probably read a number of times, but just to give us the sense of the context here. What had happened?

Well, 40 days earlier the Lord had spent an evening in the olive press, otherwise known as Gethsemane, a place where oil was produced. And how do you produce olive oil? Well, you have to crush the olive. You have to separate the olive from the pit and from the husk and all of that and produce the oil that flows from it. And he spent that time by himself while his disciples were sleeping.

The following day he would walk up the hill to a place called the place of the skull and be crucified and the cup of divine wrath would be poured out and concentrated down into one single man all the wrath that would be poured out for sinners, concentrated and distilled into this one individual. Nothing, nothing you could imagine. I mean, it's just unbelievable that this would all be brought into one place, onto our Lord and Savior. And it was manifested in whips. He had a crown of thorns placed on his head.

He bore the mocking and the scorn of those who he walked by as he made his way up the hill. But even when you looked at that, nothing would compare to the frown from heaven, where you remember those words that he utters, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? There he was as the one who became sin for us so that we could become the righteousness of God in him. And he dies the death of a common criminal on that cross. But three days later he rises from the grave victorious and he ascends, he presents himself before his father so far from being defeated By dying he actually put death to death.

It's one of the most amazing It's the most amazing thing that has ever happened when you consider the fact that death had been feeding upon the human race From Adam and now in Christ death has been Overthrown and so now he's gonna be leaving He's gonna be leaving his disciples not all that impressive a group of really a tax collector some fishermen some day laborers And you got to ask well, what is his parting word going to be to them? What is he going to say to these men? What form will these words take? You can remember often times the last words, just like we heard last night, Joshua's last words to the children of Israel or you could go to Deuteronomy and Moses' last words. Well a greater than Moses and a greater than Joshua is about to speak to us here in these few verses and so I want to read to you here Matthew 28 verse 16 down to 20 and Then we'll pray It says then the 11 disciples went away into Galilee to the mountain which Jesus had appointed for them.

When they saw him, they worshiped him, but some doubted. And Jesus came and spoke to them, saying, All authority has been given to me, in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations Baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you. And lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age. Amen.

Father, we come before your throne here this morning as your people. Oh Lord, we pray that you would come and meet with us and fill us with your thoughts, oh Lord. Fill us with your will. Father, we seek to be faithful in our time. Lord, we ask you to now be with us as we go through your word.

Fill us with your spirit. Oh Lord, we feel our great need for you and we ask you to please come now and bless each one of us. Keep us alert, keep us aware. And Lord, feed us from your word. We thank you for your faithfulness, Lord.

Amen. Amen. This morning I was walking just up the hill. There is a memorial garden if you just go up all the way toward the volleyball courts. I never noticed this before.

I've been to Ridgecrest a number of times and as I was walking through they've got this little bridge that you cross over, and then a kind of patio area with some benches. And I looked down, and the paving stones are actually 6 by 6 inch stones, just like patio stones, just about this size, laid on the ground, and inscribed in those stones are the names of people. The names of people with a little scripture and were they a mother, were they a father, And I'm looking at these different names, the entire floor, you could just look across and their names. And as I was looking at those names, I was thinking of the fact that the brevity of our life, I don't know one of these people. I'll never know anything, I can't even remember their names now as I'm standing before even though I was looking at them and I just got myself thinking about the brevity of life and our brother reminded us last night of that poem only one life and it will soon be past Only what's done for Christ will last.

And while we might be forgotten by men, our great hope, our great encouragement is the words of Jesus Christ where he says to his disciples, don't worry so much and rejoice that demons are subject to you, but remember and rejoice that your names are written in heaven. That's our identity, and I want to really approach that this morning, just really remind you, your identity, if you are born again, if you are in Christ, that is the greatest riches that you actually possess. And as I mentioned in a couple of weeks, we are going to be going to a pagan land as missionaries. But as you know, you also have a great challenge on your hands. That's really the theme of the conference.

We're living right now in an increasingly pagan land. In a sense the darkness is getting ever darker. And so the question is, well how is your faith in Jesus Christ gonna play out in the real world? How about as a family? How is your faith gonna actually be put in into practice?

And in Muslim majority cultures, it's a place that we're going to, there's a group of people that live within a Muslim culture. They're not the Muslims, but if you're, for example, living in Egypt or Afghanistan or Syria and you're not a Muslim, you're otherwise classified as what is called a dhimmi. It's a second tier or or second class within that culture. And you can live in that culture. You can even do some of your religious observances.

There are certain restrictions. For example, if you want to repair your church building, you can't just get a group together and begin to repair it, but you've got to seek approval from the government or from the Muslim majority. You can continue with some of your religious rituals, but you're obliged to do so in a manner that is not offensive to the surrounding Muslim culture. There's no outward display that you're allowed. It's illegal in some of these countries to actually convert someone from Islam to Christianity.

And over time what happens is over the generations the social pressures are so high they mount and it just becomes kind of not really worth it to just keep this going because it's so hard to live in that culture, to exist, to go about your daily business, to just run your life, to be a family that over time over two and three and four generations the resolve that was there to stand upon the watch to honor Christ, it just kind of fades into the background and you kind of become just part of the culture. This is exactly what happens. This is how Islamic countries grow and this is how they really kind of take over over time and and some I believe would be extremely happy if that same thing were to happen not necessarily with Islam coming into America but that same pressure that social pressure coming in and just over time say you know what? You're faithful but are your children going to be faithful and is that next generation going to be faithful because the social pressures are mounting and if you will not capitulate to our demands then what we want you to do is keep your light under a bushel.

If you won't agree that two plus two as we heard on, I think it was Thursday night equals five, then you're gonna incur the wrath. I was sitting with my son, five years old, his name's Titus, and we were sitting there, Mr. Brown said, two plus two equals five, and he looked up to me and he said, Dad, is that true? Even a five year old can recognize there's something amiss here when you consider these things. And so the the overwhelming temptation when you live in a culture that's going in this direction is to be tempted into what we could call an unholy silence.

Just to live, keep your religion in a four square between the walls of the church, and don't you dare let it out. Don't you dare go further abroad than that, and keep that light under the bushel, or you risk becoming what we could call a cultural heretic. And you know what they do to heretics. And so I wanna look at the problem head on today as we look across this moral wasteland that we're now living in. What is the great temptation for many of us?

Many of you sitting right here, the great temptation is to kind of turtle, to go kind of into your shell, to hunker down or to hole up, maybe to think that over time maybe this storm will pass over and maybe I can find some safe harbor by going into a bay and just letting the boat sit in the bay until the storm is over past. That could be a great temptation or maybe you could conclude that the times are so bad that they're just too far gone for very much to be accomplished. And yes, God has moved greatly in revivals and times past. We could look at the book of Acts and get confidence, but but in our hearts we could have this sense that those are the glory days, the golden days, and there to be no more. And we we end up over time as a church or even as a family taking this kind of defensive position.

Let's just hold to what we have and let's just batten down the hatches until there's a better day. And then on top of all of this, You know, I've spoken to a lot of just individuals just the last few days and I've heard different pastors speaking. You've got your own personal struggles, don't you? You've got things that you're struggling with whether in a marriage or maybe you've got children or other things that are coming against you or other depressions and all of these things. A lot of personal brokenness.

But the great news and the best news is this, but now Christ is risen indeed. And we can put all our hope and bank all of our future on those few words. And in the face of this, what is my hope this morning? What do I hope that you walk away with? What do I hope that I come away with as well?

It's very, very simple that in the midst of this darkness that you would be kind of taken up with an increased desire and interest in the glory and the cause of Jesus Christ in the earth. So far from being in a defensive posture, so far from turtling and holing up that we would realize some things that would thrust us out into the world and and help us to be carried forth to advance the cause of Christ in the earth to be filled more so with a sense of duty and personal responsibility as it pertains to the Great Commission. I mentioned this at the burnings of the soul that my great prayer for myself, my great prayer for you this morning is that we would leave with enlarged hearts. That's something that, it's a beautiful prayer. Do you think God would be pleased to answer that prayer?

Oh Lord, please enlarge my heart for your cause in the earth. Well this is what we want to look to today. And so here's the thing, when we look at verse 16 and 17 of this chapter here, then the 11 disciples went away into Galilee to the mountain which Jesus had appointed for them. And we have this astounding verse right here. When they saw him, they worshiped him.

But some doubted. Notice in verse 16, the disciples are obedient. They go to where Jesus asked them to go. There's worship, and of course, we know that worship is reserved only for God. Jesus is God.

But you see this one word that some doubted. Those that have been with Christ for these three years, they're now literally beholding Him with their eyes. They had put their hands into the prince. They had sat down by a beach where he prepared for them breakfast. And they're looking at all of this, and it says that they worship, but there's this element of doubt that's existing inside of their hearts.

And I look at this and I take from this, that we're much like these disciples. We're not all that impressive. I'm not all that impressive. There's a whole mixture existing within my heart. There's probably a mixture existing within your heart.

You might be sincere, but oftentimes we're so weak and we're wavering, even when we have all of these promises. And we're so slow oftentimes, like the disciples, to obey and we're often slow to believe what the Lord has said. And of course we're inhibited a lot of times by fear, aren't we? I was thinking this morning as I was just walking up at the hill, I wanna read to you just something here from the book of Numbers, chapter 13. Do you remember when they were told to go and spy out the land?

Do you remember that? And they were told to just get some sort of sense, do a reconnaissance before we go in. And now remember they were literally on the Borderline of going into the promised land they were right there They had come through the Red Sea they had experienced all of the miracles They had tasted of the manna all of the wonders of God delivering them from the house of bondage And now here they are Literally on the on the borderline And so there's these men that are selected to go and spy out the land and see what's there. And they go out obediently, they do what they were told. And Moses tells them, see what the land is like, whether the people who dwell in it are strong or weak, few or many, whether the land they dwell in is good or bad, whether the cities they inhabit are like camps or strongholds, whether the land is rich or poor and whether there be Forests or not and then he ends with that familiar phrase be of good courage And these men go out and they they come back you can imagine these two men walking back with a pole between them and they've got the fruit of the land these massive cluster of grapes as a testimony of truly God is good truly what he said he would do he is doing.

He's brought us to this land. Now, listen to the report when they got back. We went to the land where you sent us. It truly flows with milk and honey. And this is its fruit.

Praise the Lord for his goodness. God is good. But then we get this word, nevertheless. Now think about this. Jesus Christ is risen.

He's sitting at the right hand of God. But here's the temptation right here. Nevertheless, the people who dwell in the land are strong. See, you're going to come down from the mountain of this conference. You're going to go back home.

You could call it conference syndrome. By the time you pull into your driveway, life is back to normal. And the people of the land are strong. The cities are fortified and very large. The cities, moreover, we saw the descendants of Anak there, these giants.

The Amalekites dwell in the land of the south, the Hittites, the Jebusites and the Amorites dwell in the mountains and the Canaanites dwell by the sea and along the banks of the Jordan." And then it goes on to say how they were like grasshoppers in the site. In other words, they were looking up and they just couldn't see things correctly. They only saw the ability to conquer by what resided in their own strength. And this is so often how we are as believers. Yes, but...

And we come to the Lord much like this. Yes, all that He said is true, but... And we may not say it verbally, but that's oftentimes how we approach the world that we're living in. But look at verse 17, it's set off against the next verses. This is the graciousness and beauty of the Lord.

And so how do you equip your family for battle? How do we invade the encroaching darkness? Well, we lay hold of what we have now in verses 18 to 20. We want to see how the gospel, the Great Commission, it works itself out in practical ways because what I want you to leave with is that the Great Commission for you personally should be the most normal natural way of living if we can grasp these next three verses right here. You know I want to go through five reasons why the Great Commission is so great.

I talked a little bit about this the other day, but I like the word Al Mohler used on Thursday. He talked about a thick Christianity. You remember that? He said, thick Christianity. I thought that was really just a real good illustration of what's needed in order to confront the darkness.

But here's the thing, a Christianity that does not include, that does not orbit around the last words of our Lord and Savior before he ascended to heaven, it will never be a thick Christianity. And so you need to get these words, I need to get these words emblazoned in my heart so that we can be equipped not to sit on the sideline, not to hibernate while the battle is raging, but to go as it were to the front lines. And so look at this, the first reason why the Great Commission is so great is that it's great in its Lord. Look at this in verse 18, sometimes a very much overlooked verse. And Jesus came and spoke to them saying, all authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth.

And for me right now this is before we set sail as a family, I am resting all of my weight on this one little verse of Scripture, that all power has been given to me in heaven and in earth. I'm just focusing on this. I constantly am going back to this in my mind as we get ready to go into a pagan culture. But guess what? You live in a pagan culture and you need to get this.

Notice that it says this, all, all authority. This is a clear declaration of fact. And if you miss this and you jump right to the command You're going to absolutely miss everything guess what you're going to peter out very quickly when you start to see the giants in the land It's too much for you. It's too much for me to just go there for But we need to get this embedded and stamped right here into our hearts. You know this declaration that we're reading right here, all power has been given to me in heaven and in earth.

It's designed, It's so gracious of the Lord because it's designed to bear all the weight of your doubts, all the weight of your fears. What we just heard in verse 17, this is what's going to now sustain these men in their difficulties as they look at the present circumstances through human eyes. It's beautiful to think about this. This is the foundation of what you could call thick Christianity and This is going to be the great motivation for missions and evangelism for these men as they go out into this world. It's the pillar that holds up the rest.

It's what puts ballast into the boat, into the ship, when the seas are just too rough and rugged for you to stand. And if this is true, get this, if this is true that all power has been given to me in heaven and in earth, what are the implications? Just ask yourself that. If this is true, that if the one who cannot lie is telling you that all power has been given to me in heaven and in earth, what are the implications for your life? It's hard to say this and believe it and then say nevertheless like we just saw in Numbers chapter 13 this is going to be the boldness of Peter and John when they stand before the Sanhedrin not too long after that.

This is going to be the boldness of the saints all the way down through the ages. Those that overcome so-called and overthrow the tyranny of people like Bloody Mary as well as those that succumb in the sense of being martyred. It doesn't matter when they believe that all power has been given. You can't vanquish a believer that actually lays hold of this truth right here. And so, consider the greatness of the Great Commission, number one, in the greatness of our Lord.

He's altogether lovely. He's the theme of Heaven's praises. When you fast forward and you go to the book of Revelation, what do you see that all of heaven is? Rejoicing before him and Worshipping it because they have a new song placed in their heart, but he's not all together Lovely only he's got all Authority now remember this that earlier in the book of Matthew, do you remember what happened? That the devil took him and he set him up on a high mountain, didn't he?

Remember that? And he says, all these kingdoms of the world I will give you if you just bow down and worship me." See, the devil offered him some authority, but here he has all authority. The extent of his jurisdiction is unlimited. There's no place on the earth where his rightful rule does not exist. There's no place in the universe.

Every corner of it is now subject to Jesus Christ. He's the foundation. He's the one who upholds and sustains all things. Another word that could just summarize this little verse is the word sovereignty. He's sovereign over absolutely everything.

There is a king, he's the king of kings. However and whenever he will act according to his own will. He's not going to seek permission from anybody else, but do what he needs and wants to do. And so this single line right here, this is the great driver. When you go to the 1700s and the 1800s and you start reading biographies of men who decided that they were going to invade the darkness of lands that had never heard the Gospel.

This is what they were resting on. But now that's come here, hasn't it? Places and people that have never heard the gospel are all around you or they've heard some rendition of it but they don't have any true sense of it or maybe they've grown up in a church but they've never laid whole for themselves on the beauty and the power of the gospel. This is what drove the early church across pagan lands and allowed the church to continue that little mustard seed to become that greatest of the herbs in the garden where the birds of the air take their rest. This is what allowed this to happen, that all authority is resting in Him.

And sometimes it's easier, isn't it, to look and say, well, yes, I can believe that all authority is given to Him in heaven, but boy, when I look around earth, when I read the news, when I see what's going on, it's so difficult for us to actually see this being the case. But a couple days ago I was reading to my family a book by a man by the name of Ian Hamilton from Banner of Truth. Listen to what he says in this little quote. He says, Christians should never forget that it is the constant aim of Satan to persuade us to live by sight, and for that matter, by feelings, rather than in glad submission to the Word of God. It's Satan's design to just get you to live by sight, not to to go out to bars, not to just become something that's just, you know, worldly-wide, all that, but if you could just get your eyes lowered, your gaze lowered from God down to man and just look by sight and say yes, but.

Just to say like those men that spied out the land, nevertheless. There's great victory for Satan And so often the church is brought low because of that. But it's not only great in its Lord, the Great Commission is great in its scope. Look at this in verse 19. Now on the back of what we just heard, go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, Baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit and he's talking here He's speaking He says go into every nation tribe and tongue every one of these nations by the end of it all Are gonna have a seat at the table of the land.

And he's not talking about nations as we think about nations like Germany and England, but he's thinking more along the lines of Moabites and Jebusites and Cherokee and Maasai. This kind of different people groups. Go and bring the life-giving gospel to all of these. But they're locked in paganism. They've been like that for thousands of years.

What are we going to do? That's sometimes how again we're often brought low and we begin to think. But that therefore is resting entirely on all power given to me in heaven. It's the basis of the go. And there's a hardness and there's an antagonism in our day.

We go to the abortion clinic often where we live and there's not just disobedience but a Willful thumbing of the nose this flagrant hostility We're doing some open-air preaching just a few days ago in Raleigh and a lady just walked by as the preacher was preaching and said, Hail Satan! As she walked by and laughed with her friends. You know this flagrant just I could care less. Not only am I sinning, oh but I'm rejoicing in my sinning. And that could be something that brings a lot of intimidation.

What God says is abominable is being celebrated in the culture. And we can look at these people and we may not say it, but we could say in our hearts, These people are just too far gone to be converted. Maybe let's just wait for a good result for the 2020 election and maybe we can just buy ourselves some time, maybe four more years and things will be good, but After that, who knows? And we just find ourselves in this kind of tailspin of despair, hoping and trusting in princes and in chariots and in horses that cannot save, that cannot actually bring and give life. And so I want to ask you today, do you find yourself saying, yes of course, but?

And I want us to move away from that because who is too far gone, really? Who is just too debauched to be brought to faith in Christ. Remember the the paralytic in Mark chapter 2? There he was. I mean a paralytic means you can't move your legs, you can't move your arms.

But here were these four men that They couldn't get to Christ because the house was so full. And so what do they do? They get up on the roof and imagine right now as we're talking and dust begins to fall down and men are literally tearing away the tile so that they can lower this man into the presence of the Lord. I want to ask you, do you bring people before Christ that are unsaved, that are hopeless? Do you bring them before the Lord like these men brought that paralytic before Christ.

Because prayer, prayer is what sustains the Great Commission. It's an understanding that He is sovereign, that all power is His, and that we're constantly appealing and assaulting the throne of grace. Oh Lord save. Oh Lord have mercy. This person Lord I admit they seem too far gone and when I look at them they they laugh or they mock But be rekindled with a sense of the power and the goodness of Christ to save sinners.

How do we know that? Look at yourself. Look in the mirror and see God's power to save. Look at his Word. And so, what is our task?

Our task is to go, it's to proclaim. The first step of going is evangelism. It's actually speaking. Evangelism means taking the good news and then hopefully getting into a discipleship relationship with an individual. It's not just a scattergun approach, but what you're hoping for is that you'll be able to sit down over the course of time and take the Word of God and just walk people through as you're praying and hoping and you're bringing the gospel to bear.

Because what you're finding in our culture today, such large portions, they're gospel ignorant. They don't understand. There's a moralism that exists in our culture that if I do this many good things, that I'll somehow earn God's favor. It's the anti-gospel, very polite, very nice in many ways, but the opposite of what God has said to us in his words. And I remember just a few, this is maybe 15 years ago actually, it's quite a while now looking back actually, and I was in New York, my wife and I, and at the time we only had two children and I was sitting in a pastor's house and in bro I think it was Queens actually and there we were and we were just talking him and myself there was another elder there and for the first time I still remember sitting on this couch in New York and we were talking about the book of Timothy and it dawned on me when Timothy is being written to and the Apostle Paul says that the man of God must be apt to teach, patient, instructing those that oppose themselves.

Peradventure, it says in the King James, God would grant them repentance. And up until that point I had thought a lot of everything actually probably relied on my presentation and if I could just improve my presentation or somehow you know Say it better kind of tweak things a little bit that that somehow I'd be able to prevail upon men And I still remember sitting there and reading that and realizing That my job is to just present the truth Per adventure per chance that God would grant repentance I remember this feeling of being set free, that it's not on my ability, it's not on my power, it's not on my eloquence to convince men. We need to persuade. We have to have good arguments. Of course, I'm not making an argument for just ignorance on our behalf, but what I'm saying is that the power resides not in me and my force of argument, but in the power of God.

And so I want to be practical. Well, where can you go as a family, as young men perhaps, or even as a group of young men, or even young ladies? As you go, the first thing I want to ask you to do is go in prayer, and the second thing is I want you to begin to just start looking at people's faces. Look at people's faces and understand that they're made in the image of God. That helps me so much when I'm just walking down a street and I'm looking at people's faces and I'm realizing that these are never dying souls that are going to be going somewhere.

I want to say to you today, before going, please be captured by what we read in verse 18. But there's a plethora of places to go. You've got co-workers, you've got neighbors, and hospitality is a great option. There's strangers at the grocery store, at the bus stations, and state fairs, and open-air opportunities. There's abortion clinics and pregnancy crisis centers everywhere.

There's nursing homes. There's universities and colleges, prisons, farmers markets, coffee shops. You can see that there's a plethora of many, many, many, many options. Could the Lord be calling you to missions? And I want to speak plainly because the thing that hampers us is not lack of opportunity.

It's just simply a lack of grasping. We live in North America, but like I said earlier, we can exist almost like we are Dimmies, second-class citizens that dare not pop our heads out. And if we do, we risk becoming a cultural heretic. And so we very quickly slink back into our little holes and wait for the storm to be overpassed but we should not be living with that understanding whatsoever. I want to read to you just a little bit from Charles Spurgeon.

This is written in 1873. Sometimes again we think that our times are just so unique and so bad, but listen to what he says to his people. Beloved brethren and sisters, sinners are all around us and living in their sins. Tens of thousands in our great cities and our country towns and villages are abiding in the densest spiritual darkness. They do not know their right hand from their left hand as to things eternal.

And an equally numerous class who do not know, who do know something of the letter of the gospel are yet as men who see but perceive not, who hear but understand not. Some of these wandering ones are in great misery every day as a result of their own sins. And if we knew what they suffered, we would greatly pity them. It would be impossible for us to remain indifferent if we heard their secret groans. And all these sinners, whether they are suffering or not, are living to the dishonor of God, robbing God of the glory which is due to him as creator, and more or less dishonoring the Lord Jesus by which he receives no reward from them as Redeemer.

If we were in a right state of heart, we could not live where we are without feeling daily anguish on account of abounding sin. And then he ends with this. Listen to this. Meanwhile, all around us are potent agencies, spiritual forces, at work to hold these sinners in their present condition and prevent their escape into a better life. We may be idle but the powers of darkness and their agents are busy.

Busy in working mischief, leading men into one form of error or another, or casting one or another of their nets of infidelity all around them. Hell from beneath is stirred at this moment. If there is no revival in the Church of God, there is certainly a revival among her enemies. They are encompassing sea and land to make proselytes, though when they make them they will be tenfold the children of hell than they were before. The activity of the evil one should act as the sound of the alarm to awake the slumbering army of the living God.

What are you doing, O sleepers? Arise for the Philistines are at your gates." That's the words of Charles Spurgeon. And so the gospel is designed to remedy man's fallen condition. It's great in its lore, it's great in its scope, and it's great in its message. But it's not only great in those three areas, It's also great in its commitment.

Look at this, there's going to be a cost, won't there be? There's going to be a social cost to you. And this is what happens to us so often, is that we weigh things based on the fact that if I say something, what will this do to this so-called relationship that I've been so busy building or this cache of respectability that I think that I've earned and to talk to people about their souls and about hell that's gonna spoil things but here's the truth that a hundred years from now every single person that you lay eyes upon are going to be in one of two places, all based on the response to who is Jesus Christ. Can you begin, just, I beg you, as you go home, just begin to look at people through that lens, that they will stand before God to give an account to that one question, what did you do with my son, Jesus Christ? It may spoil relationships, but it will be totally worth it.

And I'm not talking about this arrogance and this idiocy that sometimes Christians can go out into the world with and then say I'm being persecuted. I'm talking about prayerfully going and pleading with people out of a heart of love and a desire to honor God and not be quick to claim the martyr and throw the martyr flag as soon as someone looks at you sideways or says a terse word. You're not a martyr. Let's just bring the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ and maybe you'll have that name in Isaiah you shall be called the repairer of the breach the restorer of streets to dwell in I want to I want to just focus us on the commitment, not just of you, but look at the commitment of the Lord Jesus Christ, the King himself going out. No expense was spared for your salvation.

And this is the math that the Apostle Paul does. He says, he basically does a reckoning. He says, we thus reckon that if one died for all, then we're all dead. That we should no longer live unto ourselves, but unto him who died for us and what we see right from the very beginning of scriptures is we've got a missionary God Who sends out a missionary son? To call men to be missionaries where they live in Jerusalem in Judea and Samaria to the uttermost parts of the world, to plant missionary outposts so that they can bring the message of the gospel to men and women who do not know that they themselves would become disciples, that they would then in turn take that same message and then make disciples.

This is the entire summary of the Scriptures until the King of Kings comes back to claim the very thing that he suffered and died for. We have a missionary God that has sent a missionary son. And how will this entire enterprise be undertaken and carried out? It says in Isaiah that the zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this, but the appointed means are you and me. And it's not only great in its its commitment, but I want to leave us with this final or the fifth reason that the Great Commission is so great it's great in its promise and Jesus ends this Great Commission he says lo, he understands the men he's talking to These men that might be looking to their left and right, I'm gonna go with him and him.

I'm a fisherman. I'm a... I'm a tax collector. What? I'm gonna invade the Roman Empire with the gospel.

He says, lo, behold, write this down inscribe this in your heart lo I am with you always even to the end of the age amen. And so I want you to just be thinking about this. Stop looking at yourself. Stop looking at the people. Stop looking at the faces.

Isn't that the command of the Lord so many times to the prophets? Don't look at their faces and then decide what you're going to do based on the looks that you're getting from the people around you. But just go about the task that you've been assigned and do it understanding and believing, Maybe for the first time that he's with me. Often times when I go to the abortion clinic and this is just me, but as I'm preaching or sometimes when I'm doing open air preaching, you know what I do? I envision the Lord himself just somewhere there in the crowd.

And it just helps me personally to know that I'm not just doing this because I want to do this, but Lord I want the things that I say please make them be pleasing in your sight primarily, but then Lord send your word home to the hearts of the people that are that are hearing really your word and it just it helps me. Lo, I am with you always. What greater promise can be made than this? And so before you this morning, for almost 200 years, the American Church has been able to function with freedom, enjoyed by no other church in any other age in the history of the world. Zero persecution, pretty much.

Not only zero persecution, but even a strong measure of protection. But now as the waters kind of mount, what I want to say to you is this, that this might be the best time for the church ever, right now. Because either you're a believer in Christ or you're not. And the darkest time is the time when the kingdom of God often advances at the greatest pace. And so please just consider, I just want to leave you with a couple of things just as we part today.

I just want to ask you to please pray for that enlarged heart. When you pull into your driveway, life's going to get back to normal pretty quick. But if you begin to pray, Lord give me an enlarged heart, I just want to take your word to those, maybe a stranger or a neighbor, just pray for that and like our Savior, look at Him. In John 4, pray for a heart like this. He says, my food is to do the will of Him who sent me and to finish His work.

Do not say there are still four months and then comes the harvest. He says, Behold, I say to you, lift up your eyes. Start looking at things differently through the lens of the fact that Christ is risen indeed. He says, lift up your eyes and look at the fields, for they are already white for harvest. I want to just say a word to you husbands.

With your wife, lead your family in a definite direction. Be about something. Something that you're doing to advance the gospel. Whatever it is, don't be content to simply sit this one out, to hibernate. But do business with those few verses.

Verse 18, 19, and 20. Let them comfort you, but also let them thrust you out and don't lead by force Don't don't be arrogant and get your family out, but let lead them in a way. That's that's shepherd-like That's Christ like you you just see the way the Lord sandwiches the Great Commission with with the fact that He's sovereign and I'm with you. It's not this just violent approach, but there's mercy and grace. And I just say a word to wives.

You're... You've got a great commission at home, often many of you, and I don't want to put undue pressure on you, but what a man needs is a good wife I'm so glad for for the wife that I have and a wife that finds her security in Jesus Christ a wife that can say hun. Let's go to battle. Let's let's let's go to the fight You don't have to be on the front lines with a microphone preaching, but boy you can be such a help. You don't know maybe how great a help you can be just by being a wife that's with your husband.

And then the last thing I would say is attempt great things for his glory. Expect great things as well and don't resist the urge to be a dimmy. Not a dummy, but a dimmy living in this culture where I'm a kind of second-class citizen looking at the Amalekites or looking at the giants. Forget that. You're an ambassador of Jesus Christ.

Load everything with prayer. Meet with your leaders, but get active. I want to just end with this one verse. At the end, no matter how things look right now, this is the guarantee that the Lord has for us. There's victory.

He says this in Revelation 7, After these things I looked, And behold a great multitude which no one could number." Could you imagine? You're gonna be in that. Put yourself in that. You're in that sea of redeemed humanity and it's a number that no one could number. It's just sprawling in every direction all the way to the horizon.

Of all nations, tribes, peoples, and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice saying, salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne and to the lamb. I don't know about you, but if anything thrusts you out of your comfort zone, It's the hope that the victory is already won. The Lamb will receive the reward of his suffering. Let's pray. Oh Lord, we come to you.

We are weak, oh Lord. We are frail. Our faith is flagging and we're gonna go home, Lord, after this conference. Life will settle. Problems will be there but oh Lord we pray that you would inspire us with a sense of the beauty and the power of our great King the one who sits on the throne, the one who reigns forever, oh Lord, and that we would be moved upon to spread this life-giving message of the gospel to those who have yet to hear.

For your great name and your great glory sake, Lord, we pray. Amen. Amen.