That Christians are left in this world to continue the work of the Holy Spirit, not for secular pursuits, but for God's purposes. Drawing from Acts 1, it highlights that Jesus' work continues through believers, who are called to 'do' before they 'teach,' leading by example rather than just instruction. The message stresses the importance of demonstrating spiritual life through positive actions and reliance on the Holy Spirit, rather than merely attending church services or abstaining from negative behaviors. It concludes by urging believers to be active witnesses, reaching out with practical help and sharing their faith, understanding that God has a program for future events and that their role is to be faithful participants until the Lord's return.
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I've had a little exercise for a number of months, maybe even stretching into the years. I don't know about the future of the assemblies of the Lord's people that meet somewhat after the fashion that we do here. And I see, as I move around a little bit, that there are a number of young men who really are exercised about going into the Lord's work, some of them in a full-time capacity. some of them with a real exercise to build new churches to see new assemblies started so I shared my my feelings my thoughts in a letter with many many people in the assemblies all around through the Middle West and that letter Harold received this week which he forgot to bring but since it came from me he asked if I would just make a brief comment about it all we're doing at this particular time is trying to find out if there are young men in the assemblies around in the Middle West who would be interested in having a seminar which would be held perhaps at Willowbrook Camp or perhaps in Oskusa at our chapel whichever time of season, the year that we, kind of the year that we choose.
The purpose of this is to give these young men who are just new in the work or men who are exercised about going into the work a little benefit of some of our own experience. As you know, have been in the Lord's work for many, many years and have had a little bit of exposure. And I look back over my life of almost thirty years of ministry and see a lot of mistakes. It's not all mistakes, but a lot of them. And some of the things that we could direct these young men around, perhaps letting them benefit from our own ministry and encouraging them a little bit and giving them perhaps a perspective and also encouraging their wives. Because I know a number of young men who would be out in full-time work today, but their wives are are frightened excuse my expression spitless and they don't know they don't know what lies ahead of them and so we need to encourage these people we need to let them know what does lie ahead of them we need to know what the the scene is like out there and just to encourage them and perhaps give them a little direction so if there are any young men from this group and this doesn't mean that older people cannot come if the thing develops it does not mean that older people cannot come in fact it would be helpful to have elders and older men and women there but It's particularly designed for the young men of the assemblies who either
are new in the work or who are contemplating and exercised about going into the work either as full-time workers or part-time. Now we've already read our passage from the book of Acts, so it won't be necessary for me to reread that. I just want you to go back to the first verse again. The first chapter of the book of Acts is a very, very important chapter in the understanding of the New Testament because it's a connecting link between the Gospels and the rest of the book of Acts. It's a bridge. There's a transition period going on here.
That's indicated in the first verse where Luke, the writer, by inspiration, says the former treaties. What is the former treaties? Well, he's talking about the former book that he had written, which was The book named after his name, Luke. He's talking about the book of Luke in the former treaties, Have I Made? Oh, Theopolis. And if you'll remember, he mentioned Theopolis' name in Luke as well. Of all that Jesus began both to do and to teach. You notice that it says of the things that Jesus began to do. The things that Jesus began to do, he hasn't completed yet. there is the unfinished work of the Lord Jesus Christ which is still going on today now sure we do preach rightly so the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ that's the work that he accomplished upon the cross but there is an unfinished work which is still going on today and that's the reason that you and I are still here in case you ever wondered why we're still here all the time that the Lord leaves you and I here in this world is a commentary on the fact that the Lord hasn't finished his work in this world yet today through us.
Because the work that the Lord Jesus Christ began, he gave into the hands of his disciples, whom he named apostles, to continue. The work that the apostles continued as it's recorded in the book of Acts has been handed down from one generation to the other. The book of Acts is oftentimes referred to and probably has the heading in your own Bible depending on which version you use. It says the Acts of the Apostles. That could be qualified just a little bit. The book of Acts is not quite so much the Acts of the Apostles as it is the Acts of the Holy Spirit through the Apostles. That's basically what the book of Acts is all about.
It's the Lord Jesus Christ continuing his work in this world through the teaching, the ministry, the work of the Holy Spirit using apostles. And then after the apostles transmitting that responsibility and that work from one generation to another until here we find ourselves today. So let me sum that up with saying this, that you and I are left here in this world, if we are Christians, and I would assume that most of us are professing Christians, We are as Christians left in this world to continue the work of the Holy Spirit that He wants to do through us.
I don't reckon I have to say this. You probably know it. He did not leave you and me in this world to farm farms. Any shoes coming at me yet? He did not leave you in this world. to drive nails in buildings or preach sermons. I say, wait a minute. I don't understand that. What I'm saying is those are secondary, thirdly, fourthly things. The thing that the Lord Jesus Christ left you and I in this world for is first of all to continue the ministry that he wants us to continue.
And I'm going to get to that particular aspect of ministry in just a minute. You say, well, should we all be missionaries? Should we all be evangelists? Should we all give up our farms, give up our jobs, give up our factories, give up everything and go into a full-time ministry? No, I'm not saying that at all. I am saying that we need to see that our first job in this world is not those things. Those things are there to help us on with our greater ministry. As one old-timer said, he was a shoe cobbler, and he said shoe cobbling was just his way of paying his expenses. Your farm, your job, whatever it is, is a way of paying your expenses while you're doing something of a higher calling. Your highest calling in this world is not to be what you're doing.
Farmer, factory worker, housekeeper, governor of the state of Iowa, whatever else you might be. That is not top priority. The top thing is to be doing the work of the Lord. But the work of the Lord can only be done, as we will see in a minute. through the Holy Spirit using us. Now folks, this makes me really feel good. It makes me feel good to think that God could do His work in this world and He hasn't bypassed me. He could. It's a difficult lesson to learn that as Christians we are not indispensable.
Isn't that kind of difficult sometimes to find out that you're not indispensable? Well, it's true. But the amazing thing is that God hasn't been pleased to dispense with us yet. We are dispensable, but God hasn't been pleased to dispense with us. Because he says, I want to use you here in this world to further my purposes. And the things that Jesus began... He says, I want you to continue, but remember again, only through the Holy Spirit. And of course we get into yieldiness, we get into commitment, we get into all kinds of subjects when we start into this.
Another thing I want you to notice is in verse one that it says, of the things which Jesus began to do and to teach. Do you notice the order there? The order there is that we do before we teach. And many, many times we get them in the reverse order. We teach, but we don't do. And God's order is that you don't do your thing second, you do your thing first. Then you teach. Jesus spent more time doing than he did teaching. And he lived a life of example before the people that he taught.
He took his disciples into confidence with himself. The ministry of the Lord Jesus was comparatively short, wasn't it? A little over three years from the time he was baptized and made his first public showing until he was crucified and went back to heaven, a little over three years. Well, what did Jesus do most of the time in those three years? Big healing campaigns? No. Even if he would have had accessibility to television networks, I don't think he would have gone into big healing campaigns via satellite TV. I don't think he would have done that.
The Lord Jesus didn't have access to the media, the press, the radio, the TV. But I don't think that that was any hindrance to him. I think the Lord Jesus Christ would have done, had he lived in our world of sophisticated invention, he would have done exactly what he did living in the world of his time. What did he do? In his ministry of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, he took twelve disciples, and he took those disciples into confidence with himself. He left them see the other side of his life. They watched Him as He ministered.
They listened to Him as He spoke. He called those disciples to Him, Mark chapter three says, so that they might be with Him, Mark chapter three says, so that He might send them out. There's an order there that cannot be violated. No one is prepared to be sent out into the work until they have heard the call to his side to spend time with him. That is the greatest school of theology that there ever has been. Time spent with the Lord Jesus. I am not down on formal education. I'm not down on Bible schools.
I'm not coming down hard on Christian colleges. I'm not even coming down hard on seminaries. I'm not going to say anything about those things. What I am saying is that there is still nothing that will replace that time spent with the Lord Jesus Christ in private. And I can go to the best theological schools of the world today and get the highest and best of education in the things of the Bible and still not be qualified to do the work of the Lord. the Lord Jesus took those disciples into himself unto himself and he taught them by example and by verbal words the things that they needed to know so that they were prepared to continue his work now what have I said this far well I always have to keep telling you what I said this far so you'll be sure to know what I've said this far what the Lord Jesus has basically been doing is this he is preparing his disciples he's preparing his apostles to do his work.
That's the all-important thing. It's to be doing the work of the Lord in the world today. So it says that Jesus began to do and to teach. And you and I should always be careful that we get those two things in the right arrangement. Don't preach before you do it. People are tired of that today. People are really tired of being told what to do. Even in churches. Even in assemblies. People are getting kind of tired of being told what to do. People want to see this thing in action. They want to have a leader who is not telling them where to go. They want to have a leader who is leading them where to go.
The little girl was lost in the city. And so she was trying to find her way home and she asked someone how to find her house. And she gave the address and he said, oh, yeah, I know where you live. You go to this corner and you turn right and go so many blocks, turn left and go to many blocks and turn right and go again so many blocks. And he told her how to get to her home and his instructions were right. But she lost her way. So she asked the next person. And he said, oh, yeah, I know where you live. In fact, he says, I'm going that way. Come with me. I will lead you. to your home. Now there's a difference between a leader and a teacher. The teacher says, here's what you do. Follow my instructions. But most of the time our memories are too short to follow the instructions and we lose our way.
But the leader comes along and he says, I'll not just tell you how to get there. I will lead you in the way. That's what Jesus did. He didn't just give his disciples a whole book of knowledge and a whole lot of theory. He led them each step of the way and showed them not only what to do but how to do it. And that's what, of course, a good leader is. We need discipleship today. We need people who practice. There were two men who were doctors and they were brothers. The one, pardon me, one of them was a doctor. They were brothers but one of them was a medical doctor and the other one was a preacher. And a lady came to the one of the two men and said one day, which of the two men are you?
Are you the one that practices or the one that preaches? Well, you know, there's quite a bit of stuff in that. Sometimes we're the one who preach, but we're not the one who practice. And I believe, beloved, and I think you would agree with me that when it comes down to the very bottom line, it's far more important for us to practice and to show and to guide and to lead than it is just to preach sermons. Now, that doesn't mean we shouldn't preach, of course. There's a place in the scripture for preaching and certainly we can't deny that. Notice something else, and this really isn't an important issue here, but I think there's a little suggestion of God's retirement program in this passage.
God has a retirement program? He said, that sounds good. What is it? It's found in verse two. until the day he was taken up. Doesn't sound so good anymore, does it? God's retirement program goes on until the day Jesus was taken up and it's going to go on until the day that you and I are taken up too. Now it may be that you've been able to retire from your business. Government hasn't gone broke yet. Social security is still good. Won't be long, they say, but it's still good now. And so you've been able to retire. That's fine. I don't mind that you've retired on my money. I really haven't put all that much into it, so I won't complain.
But when it comes to the work of the Lord, no retirement at age sixty-five. No retirement. Some retire at age thirty-nine. Some retire at age eighty-one. But you don't retire until the day you're taken out with an exception and this isn't a desirable one at all for people who totally lose their mentality or their ability to think and even then the Lord leaves some people here and I don't know why I have no explanation to it so I don't need to try to bring one to you it was announced just a minute ago that my wife's mother lived up to these years, eighty-one years old, and then she passed away just a week ago today.
I do not know why the Lord left her here for the last approximately five years. She hadn't taken any food by way of her mouth. She was fed through a tube in her nose for five years and a half. And doctors never seen anything like that. They said when they put the tube in, she'd only last about a year because you never knew anybody would last more than that from that kind of feeding, but she was here five years. Family didn't get much out of her. My brother-in-law said at the funeral, he said, we didn't lose mom Sunday. He said, we lost mom five years ago. We just buried her Wednesday. I don't know what kind of ministry she performed. Since she wasn't able to communicate back to us, I still don't know but what she might have been able to pray a good many of those five years.
Because she could not feed stuff back to us and tell us very much of what was happening. It's very possible that she was one of our best prayer warriors in our whole community for many of those years. Now, the last few days, I feel she was totally blocked out, but we don't know how much praying she might have done, do we? I remember going with, I think it was Ray Rowley, to visit a person in Eddyville one time and a dear old lady and she was sitting there bemoaning the fact and she says, I don't know, what am I good for? As older people oftentimes get that feeling and we need to help us. older people when we get like that. And I remember Brother Ray saying to her, can you pray? She said, oh yes, I can pray.
Well, he says, then there's a tremendous ministry for you. I remember going to the nursing home in Waterloo one day. Some people asked me to go see a certain lady, and I had never met that lady before, and I had no idea who she was, but they asked me to go see her, so I went to see her. I stepped inside of her door in her little room, and I said, I'm Milo Vandic. Oh, she says, I pray for you every day. That was the best sermon I'd had that day, I'll tell you. I mean, that did me some good. Here's a little lady shut off from the world. She's closed out from society and she spends her time praying for somebody she's never met. And I know if she prays for me, she prays for a host of other people. There's a ministry in prayer. That's why I say there's something for us to do.
The scripture says, still bringing forth fruit in old age. And as long as you and I are in this world, no matter what the age may be, there is a ministry for us to perform. And the thing is, we need to get our priorities straight and be sure that we're performing God's ministry. There is something we can do. Until the day the Lord takes us away. Apart from this, having lost our mentality completely. Now we've already commented on the fact that Jesus trained his disciples. You notice one of the ways in which Jesus trained his disciples. Verse three, it says in verse two that he gave them commandments. Verse three, he showed them something. I think there's some points here that we ought to consider how Jesus equipped his disciples for the ministry, the apostles.
How did he equip them? What are some things that are essential for these men to go out into the world of their day and continue the work which Jesus began. And the work that he wants continues. What are some of the prerequisites to this? Number one, I believe that these people, these apostles, need to be thoroughly, one hundred percent convinced of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. He showed himself alive. Now I don't have to labor the point here.
I don't think I'm talking to people who deny the bodily resurrection of Christ. If there's anybody here that denies the bodily resurrection of Christ, please raise your hand. No hands. You all believe in the bodily resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ, don't you? Well, back in those days, it wasn't Just quite so sure. There were those people you know of the Jews who said that they stole his body away and they said this report is still believed to this day. Jesus is not going to allow these disciples to get involved in his work until they are one hundred percent sure of the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Now you're sure of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. But you're going to encounter people who are not sure of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. You'd be surprised how many people there are out in your communities who are not at all sure of the resurrection of Jesus Christ because some of them will tell you that he didn't rise bodily. He rose in a spirit. It was a spirit resurrection. Mormons especially will say that. I talked to them one day and they said, oh, he didn't rise physically. He rose spirit. I said, well, that's very interesting. I said, that body that went back to heaven, that the disciples saw go back to heaven, that was a spirit that they saw.
Well, well, they saw that that wasn't going to work. So they said, well, no, he assumed a body long enough to appear to his disciples. And then he went back to heaven. And when he got above the clouds, he disappeared into gases. And I said, well, that is also very interesting. The one Stephen saw when he saw Jesus, he saw a gas. And I don't think you can see gases. You can't see vapor. Stephen saw a physical body when he was in heaven. Jesus was standing there as a welcome committee to receive Stephen into his presence when Stephen was stoned. You don't see spirit. But you'll be surprised how many people there are out there who really do not believe in the bodily resurrection of Christ.
But let me say that one more time. There are lots of people out there who believe in the resurrection of Christ theoretically but not really. In fact, I hate to say this, but I'm not sure that some of the people out there who say they believe in the resurrection of Christ theoretically but not really could be kind of Christian-like. Here's the point that I'm coming down to. I don't believe that I ought to really make too much noise about the resurrection of Christ verbally until I do what Jesus did here. He showed Himself alive. Are you and I as Christians showing ourselves alive?
That's what Jesus did. He didn't just tell Him He was alive. He showed Himself alive. I already referred to my mother-in-law. Let me do it once more. It was hard sometimes to tell the difference between a sleeping person and a dead one. The only way sometimes when we went into the nursing home and looked at that form laying on the bed, having dwindled down to about eighty pounds, terrible sight, sad. The only way sometimes that we knew she was still alive was just to feel the pulse or listen to the breathing. Other than that, there was no signs of life quite a bit of the time.
kind of sad when we as Christians are that way and somebody has to lean over us to find out if we're still alive. Sometimes we as Christians can get into that same spiritual predicament where nobody would know we're alive except maybe for a pulse beat or maybe for a breath but they have to watch, they have to listen, they have to get very, very close to know if we're really alive. Let me put it like this. Do your neighbors know you're alive? Physically, yes, they do. Spiritually, do they know. Do you show to your neighbors that you are alive?
Oh, you say, you don't need to talk like that to us. We go to church every Sunday. Doesn't prove anything. Oh, you don't need to talk like that to us. We not only go to church on Sunday morning, we go to meeting on Sunday night. You still haven't proved an awful lot. That's very good, but you haven't proved anything. Oh, but we not only go to meeting twice a day, we go to meeting three times a week. We go on Wednesday night too. Good, good, good. You get a nice little halo around your head. You go to meeting three times a week. Doesn't really prove anything, though.
because there are many, many people who are dead as door nails who go to church every time the doors swing open. That doesn't prove to your neighbors that you're a Christian because you go to the Lyman Gospel Hall three times a week. That doesn't tell them anything really because to them you're just another person who goes to church and you're a religious fanatic and you go to church more often than they would wish to, but that's okay if you want to. That doesn't really prove anything to them. You know what I'm saying? I'm saying that that's all the religion that some Christians have got is that they go to meeting, they go to church, and they're there when the doors swing open, and they do their little performance on Sunday. How about showing them we're alive on Monday? Tuesday?
Thursday? Friday and Saturday? Showing people that we're alive. Now, again, I'm going to come down rather hard on us this morning. Again, we say, well, I think my neighbors know that I'm a Christian. And I say, well, how do your neighbors know that you're a Christian? Well, I don't go to shows. And I don't drink alcoholic beverages. I don't even smoke and use tobacco. And I don't do it. And you've come out with a whole lot of verbiage about things you don't do. Now, wait a minute. Your neighbors... and your relatives and your friends are supposed to know that you're alive in Christ by the things you don't do there are telephone posts out there that don't do anything either they don't do anything but they're not alive you're not proving anything really when you say I don't do this now don't misunderstand me I think it's wonderful for Christians to go to meeting Every time it's possible that there's a meeting in the local church, if you thought that I was discouraging that, you thought wrong, I'm not.
I think Christians ought to support their local church and be there when they can. Don't misunderstand me. I am not saying that now as Christians we ought to do all these things that I have just mentioned. But we can become so proud and so conceited. As one fellow says, I don't smoke, I don't drink, I don't chew, and I don't associate with folks who do. That doesn't say a lot, folks. I'll tell you what really says something. It's when you are doing some positive action on Monday through Saturday night to your neighbors showing them that you are alive.
You say, well, how do I do that now? Do I have to go down the road and visit all my neighbors and tell them I'm a Christian? No. You just live your life during the week so that they know you're a Christian by the things that you do. Now, what can you do? Well, we could go on and spend the rest of the afternoon talking about things that we as Christians can do. But I believe that Christianity, folks, is as practical and as plain as this. There's a neighbor down the road. She's sick. Bring her up high. There's a neighbor down the road who's a widow. She needs storm windows put on. Put on her storm windows.
Things that we do. We were going to put a feather in my own hat here for a little minute. We were riding in the city of Atummo and another young brother in our assembly was with my wife and I, he and his wife, and there was a gal sitting along the side of the road and her little car had stopped, a little car that she had there and she had a hood up and she was sitting along the side of the road and so we pulled up alongside her and I said, have a problem. She says, yes, my car had stopped and she was quite frustrated about that. She had just gotten the thing the day before and here it stops on her along the highway. My friend happened to be a pretty good mechanic, so we got out and we worked on her car. And then after we had given all the help that we could at that particular point, I said, here's a little gospel track I'd like for you to read.
She says, I knew it. I knew you were Christians. She says, I am one too. Isn't that nice? That's how you meet a lot of people when you start letting your Christianity, excuse me, hang out. Some of our Christianity doesn't hang out very much. You meet a lot of interesting people and you'll be surprised how many people will sit up and take notice when they see our Christianity hanging out on Monday through Saturday. That way they know we're alive. When you reach out to people, don't assume that we're reaching out to people because we have gospel meetings in our buildings.
Folks, we have a gospel meeting here. Won't you please come? The only reason that they don't say, no, I won't is because they're too polite. They have no intentions to come most of the time, do they? Do they? I mean, are you having tremendous response from your community? You have a week of gospel meetings and you go to all your people around in this area, ten mile radius and you invite them to come and they all come. Or, I mean, some of them come, probably not. If it's anything like it is in Oslo, people are not rushing into our churches, even big churches. People are not rushing to get through the door. for evangelistic meetings and that doesn't mean that evangelistic meetings aren't good it doesn't mean that God doesn't use them and we thank God for the way he uses evangelism in mass media on the radio the television we're thankful for that but I'm talking about where you and I are here in a local community we invite people to come but they don't come well then what do we do well we rather We rather Pharisaic alike shrugged our shoulders and said, well, we had gospel meetings, but they wouldn't come.
And we don't say it, but underneath it we're saying if they go to hell, it's their own fault. Because we sure did everything we could. I don't believe it. I don't believe we have done everything we could simply because we have had some meetings and invited people to come. I don't believe it. I think we have only started to do what we should when we reach out to people. And I don't mean reaching out with our tongue first. I mean reaching out with our hands first. And letting people know that we're Christians. I have done things for people and they said, thank you. That's tremendous. I said, you know, the only reason I did that is because I'm a Christian.
Now that's how simple it is to come across with a little testimony. You don't even have to preach. It may determine to them. I say, the only reason I did that for you is because I'm a Christian, I love the Lord, and that's my ministry for Christ. And sometimes that goes further than lots of sermons I have preached. Well, a lie. Another thing that they must know here is in verse four, they must know that they have to wait. I haven't time to labor this one very much, but you and I need to know as Christians that we need to learn to wait. And isn't waiting a hard thing? These disciples were told that they are going to go out and they're going to share the gospel. He got down to that in verse eight. You shall receive power and you shall be witnesses.
Now let me just, since our time is really getting away, let me say, this is one of the things that God is talking about in this chapter. He is talking about you and I as Christians being a witness. I'm sure that many of you saw the day of discovery on television this morning. Very good program. The silent majority, the Christians who are sitting around with their tongues locked behind their ivory teeth, afraid to say anything, and then finding excuses for not doing it. Boy, we're good at that. I don't want to go out and witness. I don't want to share Jesus Christ with people. So, well, I know why.
I'm not gifted for it. I don't have time for it. I know all the excuses that anybody can manufacture because I manufactured them all for myself. I have hid behind the excuses for not doing things until sometimes people have died before I got around to going out to share Christ with them. And I tell you, it's quite a blow, isn't it? There's somebody over here. I don't mean there, but I mean somebody out here. You know good and well that that person needs to hear the gospel from your lips. Well, someday I'll go. Someday I'll go. But today I've got to eat my pie. So maybe tomorrow. Tomorrow it's something else. And then you get that news that that person is gone.
Now I want to give you one little bit of comfort, folks. I do not believe, and I don't want to sing you on a guilt trip. I do not believe if that person went to hell that he went to hell because you failed. I think the grace of God is too great for that. What I do want to tell you, though, is that if that person died and went to hell, you missed an opportunity of sharing Christ. the person before he did or oftentimes god will use somebody else to reach that person for christ and they become christians and you could have been the one who had the joy and you didn't so somebody else got the joy that's what we're missing we're missing the joy of sharing christ with people it's a tremendous joy to share christ with people and most of us are missing that because if i wanted to be obnoxious enough this morning to ask how many of you people here have ever sat down and let us go to christ embarrassingly most of us would have to put our face down and say, never have.
But let me make it easier. And again, I want to be obnoxious, hopefully. How many of us have ever even sat and talked to somebody about the Lord Jesus? Maybe you didn't lead them to Christ, but you sat and talked to them. You pointed them away. After all, that's all a witness is. A witness isn't one who goes out and saves souls. That's God's work. A witness is one who points people or introduces people to Christ. Have you ever told anybody about the Lord Jesus in a verbal way? Well, again, some of our heads wouldn't come up too bright. Well, let me ask you another question. Have you ever even told somebody you were a Christian or just shared a little testimony, just a few words or given them a gospel track?
Oh, I don't think, you know, I think we're going to run out of excuses, folks. But the real thing that I think is coming out in verse four is that we need to learn to wait. We need to learn to wait on what? We need to learn to wait for the harvest. We need to wait for the Holy Spirit because we don't want to get ahead of things here and think that this work is ours. Witnessing is our job. Saving souls is God's job. The next thing that Jesus taught his disciples was that they do nothing apart from the Holy Spirit. You do nothing apart from the Holy Spirit. You can get up your greatest campaigns. You can learn how to witness. You can go to school to do that. and you can learn all the techniques you can take step one step two step three step four step five in approaching people and by the time you get to step five you ought to have a decision out of that person that may work in some cases but it really it really doesn't work that way folks it really doesn't the best thing is is just to build a bridge to a person and let Christ be seen in your life and in your radiance of your face and then share a little testimony and then then if their hearts are prepared then you'll be able to sit down now or someday and tell them the whole story of salvation and point out to them how they can become a Christian themselves.
Well, nextly, verse six and seven, I believe that the Lord is teaching his disciples that they need to understand his program, his program for future events. Can't go into this. Maybe I'll come, I don't know where I'll go tonight, but this would be a good place to go indeed. The understanding the program of events. The disciples asked that all-important question, Lord, when will you restore again the kingdom to Israel? Well, I don't think you and I are going to be real adequate in doing the work of the Lord unless we understand basically the program of God's events with the Jews, with the nations of the world, and it's all here in the Bible. And I certainly don't mean to say that you have to understand the book of Daniel, the book of Revelation, and the book of Ezekiel before you go out and talk to people about the Lord.
I'm not saying that. But I am saying that for yourselves, if you understand... that we're in the church period now basically and the next thing that'll happen is the rapture of the church and following that will be the tribulation period and following that Christ will come back and set up his kingdom if you understand those basics then then you understand God's program it's really that simple they need to be assured of divine authority because Jesus has said I'm sending you and they need to be last of all they need to be looking for the Lord's return Those are just some of the things that are essential before you and I are going to be effective witnesses for Christ. We need to show that we are alive. We need to be prepared to wait for God to work.
We need to be ready for him to use. We need to learn to be dependent on the Holy Spirit because without the Holy Spirit, all it is is a bunch of machinery and motion. We need to know that God has a program and his program is to take out of this world of people for his name. And you and I can be a part of that right now. And if you get this eschatology, that means God's program of future events. If you get this all straight, you won't worry even quite so much about who's going to be next president. Right? You won't worry quite so much. I know most of us are worried, but you won't worry quite so much because you'll say, well, whoever God puts in, even if it isn't your favorite hero, it's part of God's program. It's all going to work out in the future because the right man is going to get on the throne in a way someday.
The little girl was bothering her father. and he was getting disgusted with her questions and finally he saw a world he saw a world map and he tore the thing to pieces and he gave it to her and he says go put it back together and when you're when you put it back together then you can come and talk to me well he thought that'd take care of her for a couple of hours five minutes or so she was back and she had it all together and he says well how in the world did you ever put the world all together in that short of time she said well there was a picture of a man named Jesus on the back side.