P. Schaller

That was a touching word, wasn’t it? Thank you, pastor. That was so good. I want to stay on that theme for a few minutes. I’ll ask P. Love. We want to complement him so we can open the word a little and share. P. Ray, how many years in our church? Nine years and Virginia is here somewhere and helps out in teaching and we just love the vision and the faith and the work. It’s amazing. These people and 78 people have come from the street in the woods with Midnight Express and with sandwiches and blankets and toiletries and the gospel and prayer and it’s really happened. Half of them may be in the church. I forget the numbers. The idea is it works. God saves people. Brings them off the street and we see that. Back in 1972, P. Stevens said we will send out teams into all the world. We had a church smaller than this crowd here tonight up in Maine and he said we’ll send out teams. In 1975, he laid hands on us and sent us to Finland.

P. Love

Someone said if you look at your birth age in the mirror, 63 looks like 36 so I’m feeling great! One thought. I’m often reminded of the – I guess was the founder and head of the president of the Salvation Army years ago, General William Booth. They were having a huge convention and he was supposed to be the guest speaker. I think it might be due to illness, he wasn’t able to make it. He sent a message. His message consisted of one word. He told that whole army one word: Souls. That’s all he said. Souls. Everyone got the message. Everyone understood the importance of it. It was beautifully illustrated tonight on the stage. What makes a difference as we look at lost people everywhere we go? Compassion. So many of us were where they were once. We were lost and blind and we were confused. We were walking aimlessly in this world. Someone like the people that sit in these seats, someone had compassion and reached out to us.

In my case, Bill Cannon and he had such compassion on all of us because he once was where we were. We were so lost. Once he came to Christ, he would make it his business all the time to come down there in that old Dodge car. He would get out of his car and remind all of us what time Billy Graham was on Channel 38 that week. Sometimes he wasn’t met with great joy and appreciation. People threw bottles and beers at him. He never stopped coming back. They kept reminding us there was a message and when Billy was on television, I know myself and my friends when he would say that we’d say get out of here. We would sneak home and turn on Billy Graham. Why would he come back so consistently and faithfully? It was the compassion God put in his heart. It made a difference.

We have that same opportunity to reach out to others. It says we should keep ourselves in the realm of God’s love. We should look for the mercy.

Jude 1:22. On some have compassion that will make a difference. I love what P. Ray said. We don’t want to see empty seats. Every seat represents a soul. When numbers are translated into souls, that’s all important. What a vision. Let’s get a thousand new people. Let’s fill out every seat. Let’s figure out a way to put more seats in the chapel. It’s compassion. The great thing is we may look into our own hearts and say I’m not sure I have that. You don’t have to have it. God will give you his love for lost souls. Thank God for his mercy that made a difference.

Gal 6:10 while we have opportunity and we still have it, it says let us do good unto all men everywhere, especially those in the household of faith. We want to bless our brothers and sisters. Let’s reach out. Let’s reach lost people while we have the opportunity. Someone said it last night. It’s the only opportunity to win souls is now. When we are in glory, no more soul winning. Those opportunities will be behind us. Now while we have opportunity, let’s ask God to fill our hearts with his compassion. We will take the opportunity to fill these seats with lost souls.

P. Schaller

We went to Israel and in Towson where I live, I went and knocked on his door and got to know him a little bit. He found out about me and googled my name. He ordered a book I had written and in it I wrote an article about how to change beer into furniture. One day in the driveway he said, I know you know how to turn beer into furniture. He said I read your book. So when we were in Israel, I bought a baseball cap with the name of the town we were in and went over his house and gave it to him. That was fun. This is what I would call and I don’t care about a program. I care about what P. Ray said. People. Even in a nice neighborhood, even professional people and people that have a home and aren’t homeless or are on the street. Sometimes, they are without a lot of friends. Sometimes, they are afraid of meeting people. Sometimes, they don’t know who we are. They are in our neighborhoods. There is a program on the computer you can find out where sexual predators live in our neighborhoods if you have an interest in finding that out. These are people. We can have cold contacts like when we go on the street and I don’t know the person and hand them a piece of paper. But we can also have this other approach. Right now in our church we have six weeks. We had Thanksgiving today and in a couple weeks we will have our school play, school concert, cookie night maybe. I’m lost in the schedule. Candlelight service. Caroling on the street. You can strategize. You can go to your neighbor tomorrow or on Tuesday or Wednesday, etc. and give them a gift. Have a conversation. Say hello. Get ready, I’m going to invite you to something. I want to invite you in the next weeks. I’ll drive you. It might take me a year but I can bring my neighbor. They will sit here and see something and hear something and know you this way. You are a believer and you have a message and you have a good manner of kindness. You are able to listen and you pray for them. Those are maybe called warm contacts. There is the cold contact where I don’t know the person and there is the three weeks, four weeks, four months, five years and they get to know us. The day will come when they need you. They need your love and prayer and faith and a message and they need to know who God is. They are afraid of their sin, death, cancer, problems, and troubles.

When Jesus met the woman at the well and they had their talk and the disciples came later and they wanted him to eat food. Here is the lunch, Lord. You need to eat something. He said something awesome. I know we know this but there is something so high and amazing and incredible and when you taste of it.

I remember my grand-daughter at a Eurocon meeting and she came to me and was so excited. Pappy, we were talking last night and this guy was from a Muslim background and he came with us. We talked with him for hours. Pappy, wow! Mika, I know what you mean. It’s what Jesus said. When the disciples said, here. Eat some food. I have something you don’t know. I have meat to eat you don’t know of.

Life of a person, a Christian who is learning how to bring people. The life of a Christian who has found the joy. You can lay in bed at night thinking about the conversation and this person. God is touching them. You look twice. You really want them – you want to know is Christ working. Is Christ real? Is Christ drawing this person?

We just saw the video from Finland and we are amazed and so privileged to be seeing God save people. Those people it’s more than 40 years ago and Risto the pastor there was 17 or 18 years old. I remember when he came into our meeting. The stories are many. It changed the lives so much that 40 years later, it’s the same thing. It’s the same thing. They are not following people. They are following Christ. This is our joy.

At the end of our lives, we don’t have much we can bring out of this world but we can bring people. Don’t stop doing it. Don’t draw a line and say something like I’m not that kind of a believer. No, it’s easy. By a hat for your neighbor. Give them a bag of cookies. Care about them. Listen to them over their backyard fence. You’ll be able to talk to them and share with them. Say you got to come to my church sometime. So many that come are deeply affected. They are. They are finding the Lord. They are drawn to the Lord and the Spirit is doing the work.

We are not talking about our past but what God wants to do. We have some time ahead of us. The only thing that matters is people. God has put us as a church in the world so we would reach them and care for them. I am thankful for what God has done.

Let us look at the next six weeks and two months as a window of opportunity for our neighbors and others we work with to come. Maybe it will happen. You’ll say this is the best. This is so good. This is so precious. This is the best. This is God’s work. This is so important. Thank you, God. Angels rejoice and we rejoice and we see this happen.