India Update (Bolivia Update by Bob Bowman)

I'll get to my message here in a little bit. I've been busy, and I haven't really kept up with my schedule in terms of knowing where's everyone, and who's on first, and those kind of things. But we have Bob Bowman with us tonight, one of our missionaries.

And Bob's here, and I've asked him to come up. And you have to know Bob Bowman, and most of us do. I said, you know, I've got my message, and it wasn't planned, so come up and give us kind of an update on what's going on.

Thank you. So I said to Bob, I go, but five or ten minutes. You ask a pastor or a preacher to get up and speak, he's just going to keep going, and going, and going. And so, before Bob comes up, I just want to read 2 Timothy chapter 2, verses 3 and following.

Bob will give you an update, but when I was thinking about Bob earlier this evening, this is what I was thinking about. 2 Timothy 2, 3 and following. Suffer hardship with me as a good soldier of Christ Jesus.

No soldier in active service entangles himself in the affairs of everyday life, so that he may please the one who enlisted him as a soldier. If anyone competes as an athlete, he does not win the prize unless he competes according to the rules.

Then the third illustration, the hardworking farmer ought to be the first to receive his share of crops. Consider what I say, for the Lord will give you understanding in everything. And I'd like to have Bob come up now, and when I think of Bob, he has acted like a soldier, acted like a farmer, and acted like an athlete.

And it's a testimony, not to Bob and his goodness or greatness, but how the Lord can use someone far away, and even be glorified in trials. And so, let's hear from Bob, and just if you'd give us a little update on what's going on, and how.

Are you. How am I? Yes. My face is falling off the left side here. Let's talk about that a minute. I woke up one morning and said to Judy, you can't close my eye. And then I realized this whole side of my face was gone.

I said, oh my goodness, I'm having a stroke. And she didn't think I was having a stroke, because I walked out of the bedroom, you know. And so then we have a missionary nurse friend down in Santa Cruz, and we were able to call.

That's a great step forward for us, by the way. We go back to Bolivia five years after we had been there. You can call the cities, you know, on a telephone. We have email, all those kinds of things. Didn't have that before.

Anyway, we called her, and she said, let me rummage around in my books here, and I'll see what we can see. So she called back a Bell's Palsy. And I thought, and what that is for you biologists, that's the seventh cranial nerve that feeds your face, swells up in the little opening that comes through your skull, and then that cuts it off, and then your face falls off.

You know, that sort of thing. So it turns out it's not life-threatening. It certainly is a nuisance. And I'd heard people say, oh, you'll be over this in a month, or you'll be over this in, oh, we've been at it almost five months now.

And it hasn't changed much. I went to a, was up in another city, Cochabamba, and saw an ophthalmologist there, and he said, you can't leave that eye like that. And so they sutured, shut the corner of his eye so that it will remain lubricated.

And I'm kind of hoping we'll get over it while we're up here in the States. Judy and I have to go back to Bolivia July 21st, because I'm opening the field conference down there. And you know, you really say things like, Philippians 4, 4, funny.

Okay, so I've been preaching from 1 Thessalonians, which is much better. All right. So that's how that deal works. We covet your prayers, and I'm grateful for it. I know the Lord has his time about all of this, and we pray most of all to honor him.

In the midst of it all, and in the busyness of all that goes on, we have some other things we have to take care of up here this summer. So this is really kind of a whirlwind trip that we're making. We're just in California, 106 degrees on the cool days.

Come back here 52. Great. So, you didn't have spring this year, right? Okay, we at our M .K. school, our missionary kids school, of course, we've just finished graduation. And we're very encouraged with our graduates.

I've been telling folks about some of our Asian kids. We have, there's a large Asian business community near Santa Cruz, Bolivia, 140 miles from us. And those folks would like their children to have a North American education.

And so, when we have room, we accept those kids into our student body. And many of them, most of them, come from a Buddhist background or from no background at all. And most of them, when they leave Tombo, when they graduate from Tombo, they have come to Christ.

So it's kind of a little side ministry we have going on over here in addition to ministering to the missionary kids of our people that are in tribes and so on. A very touching little story about one of our 8th graders named Liliana.

Liliana comes from a Buddhist family. When Liliana came to Christ, her parents subsequently informed her they were changing her name to a Buddhist name. And we surmise that's because they weren't real pleased that she had come to Christ.

And that really upset her. But finally, here's the conclusion Liliana comes to. I will be like Daniel. They could change his name, and they can change my name, but they can't change my God. And so we're mightily encouraged as we see those kids and how the Lord deals in their lives and how He works with them.

So you continue to pray for us in our ministry with them. Some of them come to us hardly able to speak English. So not only do they learn English, but about the Lord. Little Frankie came. I think it was Frankie that came, a 6th grader, and told his teacher, I'm not a Christian.

I don't need to bother with all this Bible study and all that. And she told him gently, well, Bible is part of the curriculum here, and so you need to listen. So at the end of this year, she gave a little assignment that went something like this.

What is it that you need to change about yourself? And Frankie's answer was, I need to change my attitude, because now I'm a Christian. Now I belong to Jesus, and I need to change some of my attitudes.

So it's an interesting and fruitful ministry we have to those kids, as well as our own MKs. About Bolivia itself, you can pray the political unrest there is growing. We are all communicating down there now so that we go out at the right time and don't go out at the wrong time and that sort of thing.

And the reason is, there are several reasons. One of them is the government is almost infinite to deal with the economy, which started to go in the tank. Remember when the Argentines had their great problems with inflation and so on?

Well, that slopped over into Bolivia. And so a lot of Bolivians that have gone to get good jobs in Argentina are back in Bolivia, and there's no work. And the crime rate is rising and so on. And Bolivians, even when there is work, you know, the average Bolivian farmer makes about 800 bucks a year, and so on.

Perhaps you read in our newsletter about my experience with Mario, our good friend who is one of our, who is our mechanic, really our head mechanic at Tombo, sharp guy. And because he works for us, has one of the best jobs in our valley.

But this will give you some insight into how these folks do. I went out one day, and our house is right down by the maintenance area of Tombo, so we say we live at number 3 maintenance way, you know. And I came out, and Mario was there, and we chatted a little bit.

And I noticed he had on a shirt that said Chili's on it, right up here. And it was one of those waiter's shirts, you know, and you go to Chili's, and the guy has that thing on. I said, ah, Mario, that's great Mexican food up in the States.

A little expensive, though. Mario said, thought about it a second, and he said, oh, you mean like McDonald's in Santa Cruz. I did not have the heart to tell him that people up here go to McDonald's, and it's no big deal.

Don't feel like cooking, don't feel, you know, laid out at church, Pastor Mike has gone to, you know, that thing. So, we'd go on by McDonald's and get something to eat. And then I did the mathematics, okay.

A number, you know, a Big Mac meal at McDonald's is, I don't know what it is here, but it was about 3 bucks in Santa Cruz when McDonald's was there. McDonald's is no longer there. And this is the reason, okay.

I calculated out that 3 dollars is half a day's pay for Mario. So, when you go into McDonald's, and you think you're too poverty-stricken to have him supersize it, imagine what it would be if you were making, say, 30 ,000 dollars a year up here, and it was half a day's pay.

That would be about 60 bucks. Probably you wouldn't go to McDonald's too often, and neither did the Bolivians, many of them. That's one of the problems of the country, a very rich class and a very grindingly poor class also.

So you can pray about the economic situation in Bolivia, which gives rise to the political situation. Part of that has to do with our war on drugs. You know where the war on drugs ought to be going on, don't you?

Right here, up in the United States. How are you going to tell a Bolivian farmer that makes 800 bucks a year, if he grows potatoes, that he could double it and make 16, 15, or 1600 bucks a year if he grew coca, and then we tell him, no, you can't do that.

That has not gone over real well, and gives rise to some of the political unrest. In terms of the tribal works that are going on, we are now moving into southern Bolivia. There's a large river down there on the Paraguayan-Argentine border called the Pico Mayo River, which is hard to say with this.

But anyway, some friends went down there just a few weeks ago now, and they surveyed villages south of the Pico Mayo, which are villages of Simba Guarani people. The Simba Guarani were people so fierce that even the Incas could not subdue them, and neither could the Spaniards.

And they are living down there in southern Bolivia, northern Argentina, and Paraguay, and very, very independent. Our guys went across the river, talked to them. We're in these eight villages. Every chief of every village said, you come back.

We've heard enough of this story that you want to tell us, that we want you to come back. The problem is, we don't have anybody to go back. All right? So you can pray that the Lord would send laborers into the harvest that can be there for the long haul.

Let me tell you, Spanish is a piece of cake compared to something like Simba Guarani. It's a language which is exceedingly difficult like Quechua and some of those others there. So you pray about that work in southern Bolivia that we might be able to pursue it as we go.

We want to thank you for your support of us in prayer and in finances and in all those ways. How many of you are on Pastor Mike's email list? Yeah, I get that every day too, and it's a great encouragement.

Buddy, don't stop. In fact, I've saved a lot of that stuff. I mean, occasionally I've got to write him and say, Michael, no, no, that's not really true. That's not so. But that's a great ministry that he has and a great encouragement to us.

So anyway, we're grateful to see you again and we'll stay in touch with you. Thanks so much.

Well, thank you for that quick update. Let's just pray now for Bob and Judy and Todd while they're here. Bob, when will you be going, leaving New England? Good. Let's just bow together please, if you would.

Father in heaven, it is so wonderful and thrilling to be able to come to the throne of grace at a moment's notice and that you're willing and able to hear our petitions. And Father, they might be small in our eyes or they might be large, but Father, we know that you give grace and help in time of need and that you want us to come as your children on a day like today, Father's Day.

We worship you this evening as the great father, the father who gives every good gift, that does everything in perfect timing, that is the Lord and King over all. And so we're thankful for Bob and Judy and Todd being here for these short few days.

And Father, we want to say thank you for how you've sustained them for so long in their ministry and even in the last five months. Father, we know that you're Lord and King over Bell's Palsy and that you're Lord and King over everything and we are thankful that you have given sufficient grace, not only to Judy but also to Bob.

Father, we're thankful for the doctors there and we're thankful for the doctors here and it's our desire for our friend and our brother to have his face restored and to have this, in fact, stop. And if it's five months in a day or six months, Father, we know that the grace will be there in the future for Bob.

But we just ask that you'd be pleased, Father, to heal Bob, that you would keep him effective and strengthened for ministry there. We've heard some exciting stories about what you're doing in faraway lands, whether it's India or Bolivia or even here, and we know that your kingdom is progressing and that you'll not lose one of those that you have chosen in eternity past and that your son has died for.

We pray for Todd and his ministry in Maine, that you would bless him and give him boldness and he would be a life of living out the gospel and preaching it there and then just give Bob and Judy a traveling mercies and a sweet time together as they go to Wisconsin and see friends and enjoy the goodness that you've given them.

Father, please be merciful to Bob and to help his face and to help him for ministry in the coming days and months and years as you grant him that. We're thankful for what you will do and what you have done.

We ask these things for your son's glory. Amen. All right, well, if you have your Bibles, let's turn to Matthew chapter 13 tonight. Typically, we go through the Bible verse by verse. New Testament in the morning, Old Testament at night.

You'll need a Bible tonight. Last week, we pretty much looked at the mission trip to India. For those of you that weren't here last week, I spent 17 days in India, in Pune and Nasik and Arundhat and Bombay.

Praise the Lord, it was only three days in Bombay. I won't probably tell you as many stories tonight. Tonight will be a little more biblical, if you will, so you'll need your Bible, but I do want to continue with a theme from last week, and that will be just some random or key thoughts that I've learned or rethought about in India.

Before we go to Matthew 13, there was a very interesting story. Probably the biggest thing I would do when I was there teaching pastors is I was trying to teach them that it is the Word of God and then experience.

Sometimes there, just like here, we switch those around, that it's experience and then it's God's truth. I was trying to get the engine and the caboose in the right order. It is always God's Word and then experiences follow.

Emotions are good, experiences are good, but they do not determine truth. Truth determines truth and we live in light of that truth. I was trying to hammer that down in every session, whether it was evangelism, legalism, whatever I taught, I was trying to say the Bible has authority and the Bible is sufficient.

So exactly what I just said to you, I said to a group of pastors, and I said, we are going to be submissive to the Word of God. This particular group was a very Pentecostal group, a very charismatic group, and we had sweet fellowship.

There in this little town of Nasik, whenever you shake hands, in this particular group, they would say, praise the Lord, hallelujah, amen. So I kind of caught on to that pretty quickly. Even two-year-olds, I would shake their hand and here I am again, this big white guy, you know, and praise the Lord, hallelujah, amen.

We just, I got that figured out and it was exciting. So I am preaching in this apartment complex basement that was a parking lot. So here is this apartment complex and you drive down and there are pillars everywhere and they have changed it into a church.

It is the first church I have been in that was actually a parking lot. So I am down there preaching and behind me there are all these pastors. And of course, it is Indian, we are all barefooted and there are a variety of people sitting and I don't know if there are maybe 60 or 70 people there.

So I said, we are going to be submissive to the Word of God no matter what. What it teaches, we will do. And everybody is, praise the Lord, hallelujah, amen. We just had a group together and it was on evangelism.

So at the very end, I started talking about altar calls. And I was talking about evangelism and I said, could someone, if we are underneath the authority of God's Word, could someone show me why we do altar calls from the scripture?

And of course, they couldn't find it because it is not in the scripture. And all of a sudden, the hallelujah, praise the Lord, amen choir stopped. And the congregation was looking at their pastors because the congregation was used to having altar calls given by their pastors.

It was very, very interesting. And I was sweet about it and I was kind and my job was not to go there and say everything you are doing is wrong but I was teaching through evangelism and I wanted to challenge the people that no matter what Mark Schaeffer says, I see your hand, every head bowed, every eye closed, no one looking around.

I noticed that when you said that today for the hymns. I see your hand, that we want to be captive to God's Word and what we do or don't do should be dictated by scripture. And why is this in my message tonight?

I don't have any idea why it's in my message. It was just a story about India before we start. With the theme, we want to be submissive to God's Word in everything. Last week, we looked at fellowship with other Christians all across the world is sweet.

We also looked at the immensity of the gospel and Christ's atonement all around the globe. And tonight, I want to focus on a few other things. Firstly, the value of the gospel. I realized and you'll see in Matthew chapter 13 in just a moment how precious the gospel really is.

What can save India? What can save Bolivia? There are more people in India than every other country except one and you know that one country? China. In the census of 2001, it was 1 ,027 ,000 ,000 people in India.

And what's their hope? You walk around and you see the 18 million Sikhs, you see the Jainists, you see the Buddhists, you see the Muslims, you see all these people. What is the hope for the world? And the hope is the gospel.

Gandhi and his non-violence did some things, but that didn't give them ultimate hope, did it? Mahatma, by the way, do you know what Mahatma means? It was a name given to Gandhi. Mahatma means great soul.

He was a good man relatively, but that's not the hope of salvation. Let's take a look at what is the hope. Look at Matthew chapter 13 verse 44. This is what we really need to do. The hope in Bolivia, the hope here in New England, the large Roman Catholic population are the hope in India.

It's the gospel. And it struck me how precious the gospel really was. Jesus said in Matthew 13 verse 44, He said, The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hidden in the field, which a man found and hid, and from joy over it he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.

This is a parable. And if you're in your children's Sunday school class, what is a parable? Kids? Adults? An earthly story with a heavenly meaning. And Jesus is trying to teach a point. He was a masterful teacher, the best teacher, and here's an earthly story with a heavenly meaning.

What would you do back in those days if you had something valuable? Take it down to Wells Fargo? No, most rabbis said you'd do three things with it. You'd hide some, you'd keep some on your person, and then you would invest some of the other money.

And here, this kingdom of heaven, this glorious character of the kingdom that you're brought into by salvation is worth every sacrifice. It's like walking around trying to find this hidden treasure in the field, and actually you do.

Jesus knew what these people did. And what would they do? They would hide money, our valuable treasure, in the ground. And do you think you would hide it in the ground underneath your home or someplace else?

Most of the time, someplace else. Why? Because the marauders and the bandits and the thieves, they would know, oh, you know, it's under the guy's pillow. I'm not saying they had a pillow, but you wouldn't hide it in your house, you'd go out to a field.

That's exactly what they would do here. There's only one safe location for valuables, the rabbis would say, and that was in the ground. Robbers and wars and revolutions, so what are you going to do? And just imagine if the owner was killed.

And here, once in a lifetime, once in a thousand lifetimes, Jesus is saying, entrance into the kingdom. Salvation is like this treasure that was hidden. Can you imagine the man's digging in the field and hits something hard?

What is that? What does he do? He sells all that he has. And you say, oh, he's kind of tricky. He's ungodly. He's not going to tell anyone. Well, Jesus isn't trying to make all these points exactly line up, although rabbinic law said that if a worker found a treasure in the field and took it out, it would belong to his master.

But if you did not remove the treasure and you bought the field, you would obviously own it. D .A. Carson said, so the parable deals with neither the legality nor the morality of the situation, but with the value of the treasure, which is worth every sacrifice.

He's not talking about, is it right or wrong to sell something and be conniving? He's talking about it's worth everything. Any good teacher in those days is going to teach two things. And if you look at verse 45 and 46, he's talking about this precious treasure.

Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant seeking fine pearls. And upon finding one pearl of great value, what did he do? He went and sold all that he had and bought it. The object of my desire, no matter what, I want that.

He's not talking about buying the kingdom of heaven. He's talking about no matter what the sacrifice is, I have to have that precious, valuable commodity. Now, they didn't have oyster farms back in those days.

As a matter of fact, some people would go to the country of India to find these pearls. Cleopatra's two famous pearls were valued at $400 ,000 even in the 1800s. Some would go to the Red Sea. They didn't have very good pearls there.

The Persian Gulf had the best. They'd go to India and they wanted to find these pearls. And here this merchant, he's in the business and he finds the one, this one pearl. He's going to be unrestrained in his response to get it.

When I was looking at India, I thought the only hope of the nation, the only hope for New England, the only hope for any country is this precious commodity, the gospel. That's why it so blows my mind when people say as long as they acknowledge God as creator and they worship him, they don't really have to believe in Jesus.

Jesus' death will pay for their salvation and they'll be saved even though they didn't know it was Jesus doing that. I'm just appalled by that. Dr. Roskup said, the difference in emphasis between the two parables is this.

The man stumbles unexpectedly under the treasure without specifically having sought it. But with the pearl, the man was specifically searching and found it. It's worth every sacrifice. This is the precious gospel.

This is eternal life. There's no other hope. Let's turn our Bibles to James chapter 1 and let me give you another comment. Last week it was pretty much all stories about India. Today I want to go to a few more texts in the time we have left.

Something else that struck me about India is that I was reminded in this country, although it is so big, some people call India not a country, they call it a continent, it's a subcontinent if you will, but it's so big.

How many different states, Sunita? 29? 26? Well, we better change the photos, the forger's thing that I looked at. I think it said 29, but maybe I looked at the 9 upside down or maybe there's been civil war since you've left.

I'm not sure. 26 states, 29 states. And what I noticed about this huge continent, this subcontinent, is that there are secular Hindus and secular Christians there just like there are here. I thought there are non-lordship Hindus.

What do I mean by that? People that will just throw their God kind of a gumball once in a while, forget all the rules and regulations except a couple times per year and hope that appeases their great God, gods or goddesses.

And then when I look at someone else and say how could they do that, I always have to look at myself and if you look at James chapter 1 verse 22 and following, I kept thinking about American Christianity.

I had time and time again opportunities to tell people, the things you see on TV about America, that's not America. First of all, all the Hollywood stars and everything else, that's not really an average person, at least not in New England, at least not in West Boylston.

We don't have the Brad Pitts walking around and Jennifer Anistons or whoever she might be. Those are kind of celebrities. And I said it's the same thing with Christianity. All that stuff you see on TV with the big crusades and the healing ministries and all these things, I said that's not really mainstream Christianity either in America.

I said, do you think America is a Christian nation? And most of my friends in India that I met, not the pastors but just the other lay people said, yes it's a Christian nation. I have a question for you.

Is this a Christian nation? Maybe we have vestiges of Christianity and a world view of Christianity, but I thought just like the Hindu that will pay homage to Ganesh for 10 days and worship him. Remember Ganesh?

That's the God with the elephant head and sometimes it's a human kind of Buddha body and sometimes it's kind of a rat's body. I try to say Buddha body quite a few times, fast. And then they worship him for 10 days and then at the end of 10 days, the one I told you about last week, they drowned him.

That's just like Christians these days, paying lip service to God. I said America is not a Christian nation. Before we look at the passage, I thought this was very insightful by Chuck Swindoll. Imagine if you will that you work for a company whose president found it necessary to travel out of the country and spend an extended period of time abroad.

So he says to you and the other trusted employees, look, I'm going to leave and while I'm gone, I want you to pay close attention to the business. You manage things while I'm away. I will write to you regularly.

When I do, I will instruct you in what you should do from now until I return from this trip. During that time, he writes often communicating his desires and concerns. Finally, he returns. He walks up to the front door of the company and immediately discovers everything is in a mess.

Weeds flourishing in the flower beds, windows broken across the front of the building. The gal at the front desk is dozing, loud music roaring from several offices. Two or three people engaged in horseplay in the back of the room.

Instead of making a profit, the business has suffered a great loss. Without hesitation, he calls everyone together and with a frown asks, what happened? Didn't you get my letters? I can just see Chuck Swindoll laugh as he says it.

You say, oh yeah, sure. We got all your letters. We even bound them in a book and some of us have memorized them. In fact, we have letter study every Sunday. You know, those are really great letters. I think the president would then ask, but what did you do about my instructions?

And no doubt the employees would respond, do? Well, nothing, but we read every one. That's exactly what James talks about. Look at James 1 .22. I don't care if you're in India and say you're one of the 1 of the Christians there or you're in America and you say you're 80 of the Christians.

James challenges that very thing. It is a good thing to have your faith challenged because if you really do have faith, it'll stand the test. James 1 .22 says, but prove yourselves doers of the word and not merely hearers who delude themselves.

Prove it. Prove that you're a Christian by doing what the Bible says. This is describing a characteristic behavior, not just an occasional thing. It's one thing to fight. It's another thing to be a soldier.

And that's what I love about God's word. It has imperatives. Do you ever read a cookbook? I love looking at the cookbook pages. To me, for whatever this was worth, I don't like cookbooks without pictures.

I like cookbooks with pictures, but I've never read a cookbook that says, I command you to make these chocolate chip cookies. You ever read one like that? I mean, some of the pictures are commanding me in a sense and enticing me.

I think my favorite cookbook is the one that you have with the Toll House cookies. And there's not, there's a picture there, but I think there's some grease stains of cookies that I probably put on there throughout the years.

You read literature and is not commanding you. It is not begging you. It is not ordering you to do it, but hear God's word. It's not like a science book. It's a trumpet that you must obey. It's like the pastor who preached a great message.

And the guy said, Oh, pastor, that was an awesome message. And the pastor looked at him and said, so what are you going to do about it? People hate high pressure salespeople. That's why people buy Saturn's the car.

No, no, no salespeople. And here talk about high pressure. It's God's word. The stakes are eternal. You must obey. People call themselves Christians and they don't obey. I was called in India to preach at all the Methodist church.

And it was on East, let's see, East street in Pune. And they said, pastor, we'd like you to go and preach, but I want you to know that most people there aren't saved. I said, well, I can go preach, but what do you mean?

Most people aren't saved. Well, we've got a lot of property and, uh, there's about a hundred people that come, uh, later services. That's a different ethnic background group and about a thousand people come.

And I thought, what are these people doing? So I just preached the gospel when I went there for my message. But if you look at James one 22, it says, don't merely listen to God's word and deceive yourselves.

That word here is the word for what auditing. We don't audit God's word. Show me a, someone who says I hear it. Have you have God's word? And I obey it when I want. I disobey it when I want. I don't have to hand in the paperwork.

I don't have to do anything. I'll show you someone who should not call themselves a Christian. This is who delude themselves. This is a horrible air. It's a miscalculation. That word delude means to cheat or to deceive by false reasoning.

Can you fill in the blank from this verse? Second Corinthians chapter 13, verse five, examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Luke 11, 27, as Jesus was saying these things, a woman in the crowd called out, blessed is the mother who gave you birth and nursed you.

Jesus replied. Remember what he said? Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and obey it. And I thought in India, just like America, they're using Christianity as a crutch. It's religious make-believe.

Look at verse 23. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he's like a man who looks at his natural face in the mirror. Great illustration. You can almost see James teaching like Jesus. Just great illustrations.

He's like this man who looks at his face in the mirror. Verse 24, for once he has looked at himself and gone away. He's immediately forgotten what kind of person he was. Now it doesn't really say this, but you can imagine yourself getting up in the morning, looking at yourself in the mirror, and we'll use men instead of ladies, unshaven, hairs all in a mess.

You don't have a hairdo going on. You've got a scaredo going on. And you look at yourself, you're getting ready for church, and then you just walk right out. I guess for some, scaredos would be a positive thing because they don't have any hair at all, and so I better be careful what I'm doing.

He looks, he goes away, never returns for a second look, doesn't care, out of sight, out of mind. That's how so many people treat the gospel. Verse 25, but the one who looks intently like John stooping down to look at the tomb, the law of liberty, and abides by it, not having become a forgetful hearer, but an effectual doer.

This man should be blessed in what he does. It is easy to be deceived with Christianity. One percent of all the Indians, one percent of a billion, how many is that? Ten million. How about in America? How about our church?