2021 Nov 21- Sunday Morning Service

Do re mi. You got the rest of the service. Alright. Well, I'm going to try to keep it down to an hour hour and a half. Maybe.

And this looks like a comfortable spot you had down here.

Well, it's been over a year-and-a-half since we've been her. And actually, I think this is the second time. I have spoken a year-and-a-half. So, you know, when you get my age, you forget all kinds of stuff. So, I have to go back to notes. Let's see. I'm a Gideon. That's what I am. One of a hundred and seventy thousand men around the world. Volunteers. And what we want to do is we want to get money anyway that we can legally buy coming to the church. I come into the church and asking you to partner with us. We're basically an international missionary arm of all the Christian churches. And when we get money from the church by passing a hat, that's one of our ways. We take that money 40% of it. Stays here in the states. The other 60%, hands out, Bibles all around the world. So if you're in, if you're in a Saudi Arabia, we've got people over there covertly handing out, Bibles to people that want them. We couldn't do it. You and I, and if those people get caught, they get their head cut off right now. That's why it works. And many Muslim countries around the world, but we have people wanting Bibles to call us that are asking tens of millions of Bibles, china-india all over the world. It's amazing. That's why I went something like covid that stops us from going in and partnering with the church's for year-and-a-half. Wow, that hurts. That hurts a lot. And you know what, this such a beautiful church and there's so many empty dues for The Gideons, aren't any different. When I started to be a get in 18 years ago. There was 260,000. Gideon, men around the world. Today. There's a hundred and seventy thousand. So you can see how our membership just like the membership. And many of the churches have been dwindling Gwendolyn Gwendolyn. That's the bad news. The good news. Is anyone could be a Gideon if you have a little extra time and you'd like to start handing out some Bibles once in awhile, it schools, or whatever. It doesn't take a lot of time. Maybe you'll do it once a year. Maybe you do it five times a year, but it's something to do and it gives you a lot of Joy when your hand a Bible to somebody that's 60 years old and she says, well, thank you. I've never had a Bible. And then when you hear the stories about what happens when people give their heart to Christ, it's amazing, truly amazing. These little Testaments. We hand out schools. We hand them out in the military. I don't care if you're in the military and Russia or wherever you get a Bible over, 200 different countries were passing out Bibles in over a hundred different languages and dialects. And over the last hundred years. It's worked pretty well partnering with the church's because we've been able to hand out all over two and a half billion Bibles. That's one for every three people on the planet. And it's your money. That makes it happen. There are so many different testimonies that I hear. And what I'm supposed to do is tell you about some of them. But some of them are so good. I repeated over and over again.

And I'm just going to touch on a few of them here. There was this guy. Now, if I've already told this here, I want you to raise your hand and tell me that I've already done it, but there was this bunch of Gideon's. It got together down in Brazil and they're by a school and they're handing out Bibles. And it was somebody that came by and took it, they want to see what it was. Took it inside and they threw it up into the air. I don't want any of that crap. Let me walk. Well, if we get some people like that. De la plot to take them home and read them give their heart to Christ. And there was a guy on the roof, doing the roof smell, like tar and everything had been up there. Half a day. He'd been thinking about committing suicide. His life was all gone crazy and he said, if there is a God, send me a sign. We know that Bible, hit him in the head.

Only God could do things that way. Well, he came down and talk to The Gideons. Well, after talking with him for a while. You spend a lot of time with him. Gave his heart to Christ. It's just little things like that. That's just one. Okay, then it was this guy.

Well, he was down on his luck. And you know anybody rob the bank, when the First Bank getting robbed? He'd been pretty bad boy. So they put him in prison. Well in prison, guess what day it was a couple of Gideon's. It went into the prison and handed out Bibles and would have a Bible study and he came. And after smoking half of the pages and Reading part of the pages, he gave his heart to Christ. You know what? I'm talking about it. So he gave his heart to Christ. Now it changed him cuz when he was in prison, he was also kind of the drug lord, you know, he made sure that he had all of the Contraband is he wanted and would pass it out and sell it to others. So after after he gave his heart to Christ, he really got in there for Christ. And the warden came and he gave all of his drugs to the warden. And he said, you know, I've been bad guy my whole life and I've been doing drugs in here and passed them out to others, selling them and everything. You said, I'm done with that life. Like I got saved by Jesus Christ, is my Lord and Savior. And the word noticed that this guy really did change all of the guards noticed. It's in a pretty soon, the president of the country and there's election going on and he's going to be out. So he gets to release a few people. That he wants to release and forgive them. So the warden goes to the governor and says, you know, I got this guy here that he's a bad guy, but you couldn't believe how he's changed. And now I've witnessed it for a couple years is in there for life. But I think you should let him out. Will you know the governor? Let him out? I got a job as a security guard. And they gave him the keys to the bank that it robbed.

You know.

It's unbelievable. How God works? I know he's certainly worked in my life.

Those are a couple of good ones.

Everybody's my mentor is Gideon's. Tell me. You got to tell him about his testimony about what happens, but I don't know. It's a dollar 25 for one of these Bible. And it makes a big difference. I may have told this one, but it's so good. I'm going to tell it again here. There was a, I went to a Gideon convention and I was just rushing there and he was like a Russian sergeant. Remember this one? No good. Anyway, his Russian Sergeant made. Give him $30 and he's supposed to take him from kids and turn them into men into fighting men for the Russian military. So he slaps someone knocks of down and all concrete some horrible. Damn, that was his Mo. There was one that just do it.

and when he got done, when they got done, He said, you'll answer to my God.

Well, I left out part of the story. The Gideons have been there a week or so before. And I gave all of these 30 guys Bibles. Of course, they were in Russian and all that. Well that Sergeant saw that and he said, what's this crap? Everybody put those Bibles in on my desk? I don't want you to have nothing to do with this stuff comes out of America. They all put them in on the desk, but I remember that guy that said the Lancer to my God. That was just God's fart. And that sergeant. So he was amazed if that guy would take it then that that's would be his response. So he went in one afternoon and opened up on those Bibles and sit there and read it and read it for a longer. Of time and a longer. Of time and pretty soon. It changed him. He gave his heart to Christ. Gables Bibles back to those 30 min He went home with the Bible and they give it to his wife. Then changed her. She accepted Christ, gave it to his kids. David to his parents. Alyssa guy that's on fire now for Christ. And you know what? It was somebody just like you that put up a dollar 25 to make that happen. So here he is now flying around. And he was hit a Gideon Convention as a speaker. And he said I don't I'll never know who it was that? Put that dollar 25 out for me, but you can see what it did and you was a Gideon. When you're out talking to the congregations. I want you to thank Him in Advance cuz that's what it did to me. Anyway. And we have Bibles as you know, we have the big ones that we put in the in the motels and hotels and the little ones that we hand out just on the street. We also have about 20% of our revenues come in from cards. And there's like, a in memory card. There's one here thinking of you. You could give that to a spouse on a anniversary. You could give it to somebody on a On a birthday or anything like that inside. It says, thinking of you and praying that the Lord would bless you with a piece of his presents this day.

How are you? I'm going to give you a Bible.

Thank you.

Anyway, these cards, you have a card rack back there. They're free and what it says in there, if you want to buy a Bible in somebody's name to say this young lady here. Just just graduated from college. She's a doctor now, don't you wish? Anyway, instead of getting her some flowers that will die and next week, get her a card and buy five Bibles in her name. Skybox. Cost the same as a monkey flower.

Well, that's a better flower. Believe me.

Anyway, about 20% of the revenues that we get in order to print in the hand out Bibles. I'm coming from the guards. Fortunately. They use them all over the world. Just like we going to churches all over the world if they'll let us in a lot of churches won't let us in because their Cults and there's so many of those coming up. Anyway, let's see.

And it's amazing. Cuz I remember back when these cards, my wife put these cards together when I was saying, handed out 2 billion Bibles. Now, it's two and a half billion. So you see that the first hundred years, it grew real slow. But now it's growing it at quite a rate. Thank God. So thank you for having us here. We need Gideon's. If anybody wants to be a Gideon, talk to me after the service. We brought some applications. It doesn't it's it's not a big job. And what we find out is the more Gideons that are in a church, the more of that church grows because those are people that are reaching out into the community and other ways and they end up dragging people into church. So it works out pretty good. Anyway.

It was kind of embarrassing cuz the last time I talked just a week or two ago. I four came up here and told you all about The Gideons but then I forgot about the testimonies. Can you believe that? And I don't want to stop without saying. We also have about that eighty thousand of our wives that make up the Gideon. Exhilarate show, couples work out, great. We like to maybe do a dinner all of the ones do a dinner once a month or something, get together and And would like to go places, like maybe we'll go to Portland and we'll hand out 5000 Bibles of Portland with a bunch of The Gideons. Anyway, thank you for having us and be praying for The Gideons. We're praying regularly for all the Christian churches in the county. I'm from the Polk County camp, but the Polk County camper. So, tiny, that you're just about looking at them. So I end up going to the Salem cap. And whenever we do the fair. The Salem Camp has to come over and do it because I can't do it by myself. We just need more Gideon's in the neighborhood. Anyway, be praying for us cuz we're going to be praying for you. And be praying for a country. All right. God bless.