Gideon International

letter. It’s not my teacher fee, showing the things of Christ to me. We’re going to kick things off by doing our call to worship. We will glorify and I love You, Lord. So words will be up on your screen. If you’ll stand, we’ll sing.

Taking a perspective of more children, we’ve got more adults. One reason might be that we’re feeding folks now, and that always helps. But with our children, Kristen wanted me to just announce that they’re going to start developing a little more concise, good way of dropping off and picking children up. You can never be too safe with that. Just get with her at the end of the service, and she has, I guess she’ll talk to you about that, maybe give you some information. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Kristen. So just get with her, and we’ll have that taken care of.

There’s just something about seeing a bunch of kids on Wednesday nights that just thrill shows, you know, where there’s children’s life. And so we’re just excited about that. And on that, not, you know, Vacation Bible School’s just around the corner. And one thing about this church, we get kids coming from everywhere. So we’re always looking for volunteers. If you want to teach, you want to be an assistant teacher, or you’re good with crafts or whatever, Caroline, just get with Caroline Newton. She’ll have something for you. So let me encourage you to be part of those things, and that’s pretty awesome.

Also, if you notice, there’s a, your prayer list is now being inserted into the bulletin, and we’ve added what to pray for. So we just want things to be a little more specific. And Angela is happy to do that, so just call her or email her. And we like nothing more than to pray for your needs and folks that you love, their needs. So just take this home, and just during the day, you got a free time, just go to the Lord with these needs, and it’ll change you. And I’ll change these, because I believe it changes these too, but it’ll change you. So that’s what we wanted to do.

Now we’re going to welcome everybody. If you’re one of our guests this morning, as you know, on the inside of your bulletin is a little tear-off seat. If you wouldn’t mind filling that out, and you can leave it on your seat, you can put it in the offering plate later. We would love to get with you, tell you about Salt Am. We’ve got a sweet family here, and you may be looking for a church to kind of be a part of and become part of the family. We would love to talk with you about that. Also, it’s not just for visitors, it’s also for members. You got a prayer request? Put it on here. We’ll make sure Angela gets it. We want folks praying for you. So just take advantage of that.

Also, we’re going to have a time of welcome. So we’re just going to kind of quietly just get up. I don’t know how quietly you can be, but just look around. See an unfamiliar face. Just make your way to them, and just welcome them in the name of Jesus. And just maybe look at them and say, man, you just make, if it’s bright outside, you make it bright in here. So let’s just stand now and welcome each other in the name of Christ.

Good to see you. Kingston. Glad to be here. Glad to see you, Mr. Pai. I’m glad to be here. I know. Glad to be here. I’m glad to be here. He needs to have a friend. Give us a friend. I don’t know. I want to see you. I know. All right. You want to make your way back to your seat? We’ll keep on singing. Our next hymn is Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing. It’s actually number 15, not 18. That’s my bad. So, words are on your screen. We’ll continue to sing. Here we go. Come back. Focus back up. Look good. Amazing.

Now, one thing preachers have, what would you think preachers would have a lot of? Anybody? Bibles. Yeah. Paper. Yeah. My favorite Bible. Tell why. I mean, I ride in it. I’ve got even how I do weddings in it. I’ve got just all kinds of stuff. I underline and highlight. And I always think of this. Your Bible is kind of like a workbook. Okay? And so, yeah, make it personal. Get into it. Just do those kind of things. We’re going to learn a lot. Especially the adults are going to learn a lot about the Bible.

Today. But I’ve got all kinds of other Bibles. I’ve got this one’s called The Story. It’s almost written like a letter. You know, it’s a little different. It doesn’t really have like the chapters and all that kind of stuff. This one is a paperback one. Actually, from my seminary. And it’s called the – and it’s in a different translation. Translation called the English. It’s a little bit easier to read. This one’s kind of interesting. It’s called the Cotton Patch version of Luke and Acts of like the Bible written kind of in Southern, you know, it’s kind of fun thing, but it’s kind of, I got big Bibles like this. I got little Bibles. I got kind of red Bibles. I got brown Bibles. I got black Bibles, Bibles with my name on it, all kind of Bible.

Now, why would we have all kind of Bibles? Why, Cody? Yeah. One for every place, we’d want a bunch. That’s right. What else? You know, there are Bibles in foreign languages. So if you only speak Spanish, there’s Spanish Bibles. There’s China. I gave a guy one time a Chinese Bible. And so there’s all kinds of neat Bibles. This one’s kind of interesting. This Bible probably goes back to the 1800s and it’s a big old Bible. I mean, it’s almost kind of hard to read. It’s the old English and it’s got big old pictures in it and all kinds of neat stuff. And it’s kind of pretty fragile. So there’s all kinds of neat Bibles. So, and one thing about this country, we got Bibles everywhere, don’t we? Yeah. So there’s kind of no, why would you want to read the Bible? Do you know that it’s the number one selling book of all time? More people have read the Bible than any other book in all of history. But why the Bible? Yeah. So they can learn about the gospel. Absolutely right.

Listen to what the Bible says about us. This is actually found in the Bible. It talks about when we go out there, we’re to put like spiritual armor on, like to protect ourselves. We know how the Bible is referred to? Listen to this. It’s like the sword of the Spirit. So it’s like a sword. It protects you. And the Bible, if you get to know this book, will protect you. Then it says it’s quick and it’s powerful and it’s sharper than any sword. And it knows what’s in your hearts. So if you read the Bible, sometimes what God does is He says, oh, maybe he did something wrong and he needed to get that right. Another thing the Bible says, it’s good for what we believe and it’s good for making us right and think right and all those things. And it gets ready for doing good stuff. Okay. Does that make sense?

Now, there are places that we’re going to hear from a gentleman in just a little bit. There are places in the world that doesn’t have any Bibles. I mean, I’ve got a book at home that you can order Bibles and the pages of Bibles you can order about that thick. And, but there are places in the world that doesn’t have any Bibles. Can you believe that? That’s hard to believe, isn’t it? And there are people who have never, ever heard of this. And that’s why we need to tell people about the Bible, don’t we? And that’s why if you’ve got a Bible, think you might want to read it sometimes? Have your mom and daddy read it to you? Okay. This book is the most important book you’ll ever know. You get to know this, it’ll help you with everything in life. Okay? Okay. Thanks for listening.

Okay. Let’s go to well-ordered prayer. Father, thank you for the Bible. Thank you. It’s kind of like Your love letters to us. And I thank You for these children. And thanks for making it, making Bibles that they understand and making Bibles that, that people that don’t speak our language understand and making Bible that even we understand. And thanks for loving us and always giving us Your word. Thank You for loving and just being who You are. In Your Son’s name, we pray. Amen. Thanks guys.

The story of Him this morning is going to be, Lord, I Want to Be a Christian, number 489. So Dan will sing. I worship in my heart. Surgery folks. Andrew is still working with that appendectomy that he had. And we’ve got others. So we’re just going to go to the Lord in prayer. You know, just in the silence of the moment, we’re going to bow our heads. We’re just going to just spend some time with Him. Everybody comes in with something that they’re kind of concerned about, worried about. We need to take it to the Lord. And you can never take it to Him too many times. We’re going to do it this morning. Just something about coming into His presence with our needs. Possibly also just remember this. Thank Him before He even answers it. Because we’ve got a God that hears us clearly.

So I want you to bow your heads. I want you to close your eyes. And just in, like I said, in the quiet of the moment, just have a conversation with the Lord. Father, worship really isn’t worship if we don’t spend a few moments just alone with You. Lord, You know our hearts. You know our minds. Nothing is hid from You. Just help us come to grips with the fact that we need You. It’s not just when we’re in trouble or we struggle or we’re having some pain over some issue, whether it’s relational or financial or whatever. In the good times, You want to be with us in all aspects of our life. Help us just to realize that You are always there. How much You love us. You have nothing but best intentions for us. And You have a direction and plan for our lives. So Lord, just take what we’ve offered up to You today. Take our needs, our desires, mold them into Your will. Bring us closer to You. Make us different. Just ask this in a name that’s above every name, the awesome name of Jesus, and all God’s people said.

There’s probably not an organization that I have greater respect for than the Gideons. My brother-in-law is a Gideon. He’s a chapter down in Jacksonville, Florida. And he got involved in witnessing in prisons. So that’s where the Gideons there go. And he just kind of goes from cell to cell. And sometimes they’re receptive and sometimes they’re not. And then sometimes he just watches God do what only God can do.

Our speaker this morning, I have gotten to, been honored to listen to before. Wayne, I want to thank you for setting this up. Wayne’s also a Gideon. And Jim is. And Jim’s kind of a homegrown boy. He went to St. Andrews High School here. Went to the Citadel. Captain of the ’73 team, which had some pretty good coaches. Bobby Ross, who went on to Georgia Tech and had a national, I think, national championship team there, was one of the coaches there. Frank Beamer, whose son is now the head coach at South Carolina. Frank had an incredible career at Virginia Tech. He was on that team, you know, one of the coaches. And then a guy named Ralph Friedgen, who went on to Maryland and then coached in the pros, was one of the assistant coaches. And Jim was one of the captains there.

I’m thinking, I went online to find out, a defensive tackle at 6’2”, 205. I’m thinking, man, you don’t see high school defensive tackles hardly at 205 anymore. But so I’m thinking he was one tough guy. He was also captain of the wrestling team. But then the military got a hold of him. And for 33 years, he was with the reserves and just doing some, when the C-17s came into town, he was group commander. He’s probably flown just about everywhere. But I want to tell you this. Even with all of that, he loves Jesus. And he loves handing out Bibles and going to places. And he’s going to share with you not only his testimony, but also some other testimonies and what the Gideons are doing.

I want to tell you, we live in a culture and a world today. If they need anything, they need scripture. And they need scripture from us. And sometimes it’s amazing what just God can do. It’s like I’ll tell the kids, you know, you can get a Bible any way you want it now. Whatever translation, whatever color, whatever size, whatever. We have no excuse with scripture. But there are places in the world that just want a page. Just want a page. And so Jim’s going to share with us this morning. Jim, if you’ll just kind of come on up. Tired as a colonel. So this is actually Colonel Jim Roberts. This is welcoming to Sauldam.

Thank you. Day in April in 1952 was born to his mother. I’m sure she thought he was the greatest thing that ever was. Her only son. And if she had read her Bible, she would say he was fearfully and wonderfully made. He was everything she dreamed about. Her little Jimmy. If somebody had Told her that little Jimmy was conceived in sin and condemned to die and condemned to hell, she would have never, ever believed it. I don’t believe. Not her little Jimmy. Not her only son. But little Jimmy would grow up. There wasn’t really anything too distinguishing about him that the world would see. But his mother always saw the best in him.

When I was in the Philippines, I was seven years old. And we had these crows that lived in the trees. We lived on a lane. It was a shady lane. And these huge, like today’s oak trees. But they weren’t oak trees. And the crows, and when you walked underneath them, the crows would come down and dive bomb at you and grab you by the top of the head. I hated those crows. I hated them with a passion.

And one day we were walking down the street, just a couple of friends of mine. We were all seven years old, seven and eight and nine. And those crows came after us and got us in the back of the head. And I saw one of them about from here to pastor. And I picked up a Coke can. And those are the days, not aluminum Coke cans, but real Coke cans. More like a can of peas. And I threw it at that crow and I killed it.

And the boy with me said, “Oh, you’re going straight to hell.” I said, “What?” “You killed that crow.” I said, “I know. I meant to. I’m glad he’s dead.” He said, “It’s Good Friday. And you killed something on Good Friday. And you’re going straight to hell.”

Well, we didn’t go to church much. So I didn’t really know what that meant. Somebody today in Sunday school said, “We went on Christmas and Easter. We call ourselves the seasonals. Only Christmas and Easter.” But I didn’t really know what that meant. But I did not want to go there. I did kind of know what hell was. And I ran home. They were Catholic. And I begged my mom to let me go to church with them that day. And I don’t know what they said, because it was probably all in Latin. But I know that the next day I wasn’t dead. So He must have heard my prayers and forgave me.

And then I went right back to being little Jimmy Jr., doing whatever I felt like, whenever I felt like. But He saved me that day. I knew it, because I deserved it.

Well, the next time I would meet Him was the fifth grade. And by this time, we were living in Southern California, the most foreign place I ever lived. Not the Philippines, not Germany, but Southern California. And we were going to a little Presbyterian church there. My sisters and I would walk down to the church. And we went to Sunday school there. I loved it there. The reason why I know so many hymns to this day is because of that little church. I haven’t sung them in 50 years. But I know the words to two, three verses. Just God planted them in my head. And they’re still there to this day.

But one day, a college kid came. And he preached a little bit of message in Sunday school. He was not the regular teacher. He put a big circle up and put a chair in the middle of the circle. And then went through it with us fifth graders and said, “Who sits on the throne of your life?” First, he asked us what was important in our lives. And we said sports and girls and baseball and girls and sports and girls. Never education or anything. But a lot of important things. He said, “Where does Jesus sit in your life?” And we had to soberly think. At least I did. I don’t know what my friends were thinking. And I said, “I think He’s just kind of one of the things I do sometimes.”

And he asked us, “Who wants to put Jesus on the throne of your life?” And in the fifth grade, I bowed my head and asked Jesus to become Lord of my life. I wanted Him on the throne of my life. And Monday, I went back to being little Jimmy Jr., doing whatever I felt like, whenever I felt like Him.

We moved from there and went to Germany. I would not really have an encounter with Jesus till the 10th grade. We used to steal Cokes on Friday night. We’d go to the sock hop. And on the way home, we had to walk through the German village to get to where the American soldiers lived.

And we would go to this one man’s house. They have their stores downstairs and upstairs they have where they live. And we would jump his fence. It was like a little 7-Eleven. And we would jump the fence. Tiptoe across his rock yard. Steal two Cokes. Hand them through the fence. Jump the fence. And then laugh all the way home while we drank those Cokes.

And one Friday afternoon, we always had sock hops on Friday evening. God spoke to me. And I’m not going to say it was like Moses and parting of the Red Sea. Moses. It was more like, I see you. And I heard God tell me, I see what you’re doing. I see you. It was a clear blue day. Clear blue sky day. And I heard Him.

So that evening when it was time, after the sock hop, everybody said, hey, come on, let’s go get some Cokes. And I said, I can’t go. I can’t go. And they said, well, I didn’t know what to tell them. Listen, God talked to me today. And earlier this afternoon, I had this conversation with Him. He sees what we’re doing. We’re sinners. We got to stop. How was I going to tell them that? I was just little Jimmy Jr. Who was probably leading the band down there to go steal those Cokes. I could not tell them. But I was not going to go with them. And I didn’t. I rode the bus home that night.

And the next morning, I called my friend up, Wayne Kelly. I said, hey, Wayne, let’s go play ball. And in whispered tones, he said, what’s the matter? We play ball every Saturday morning. He said, we’re in big trouble. So what happened? He goes, we got caught. The German police were waiting for us. And our dads are in big trouble. They’re going to be sent home. I don’t know what’s going on. I got to go. And little Jimmy hung up the phone and looked up and went, you saved me despite myself. You saved me despite my sin. Today, I would describe it as while I was yet a sinner, God came for me. God saved me.

Unfortunately, we left Germany. That was actually late ninth grade and came here in the 11th grade to sunny South Carolina. The day I showed up, it was August, 98 degrees and 96% humidity. I hadn’t seen a day over 83 in the last three years in Germany. And it was hot. And the day I showed up, my dad left about a week later to go to Vietnam. My sister said at his funeral, he averaged 260 days away from home for 10 years. So I basically grew up with an absentee dad. I love my father. I loved him to death. I loved him what he taught me, but he wasn’t there. And little Jimmy was doing whatever little Jimmy felt like doing.

He went off and I began to wrestle here. Got some renown as a wrestler and a football player and ended up at the Citadel. God didn’t really have any part of my life. The day of seven-year-old Jimmy seeing God could be vengeful and wrathful was gone. The day of Jesus that I wanted Him on the throne of my life, those days were gone. I let the theologians argue about whether I got saved that day or not saved. I’m not worried about what the theologians think. All I knew was little Jimmy seemed like he was pretty much in charge. The day of God saving me from my own sins were gone.

And now I was at the Citadel and little Jimmy’s mom probably would not be proud if I told her everything that I was doing down there. Things I was saying, the things I was doing, the way I was acting would not have made my mom proud. But I was not as much concerned about that as the years went by. I became a little more involved in what did God think. And it was really my first encounter with the Gideons, to be honest. I’ll come back to that as I close out.

But we used to do our football games at the Dorchester Motor Lodge on Dorchester Road. It’s not even there anymore. Citadel spared no expense for us. They put us in the Dorchester Motor Lodge. And we would spend the night there. And in that room was a little Gideon Bible. I remember it in the nightstand. And every now and then I’d turn that thing and open it up and go, where are you going and what are you doing? I was the captain of the team. I was captain of the wrestling team. And I was leading nobody anywhere because I didn’t know where I was going. And I fought a spiritual battle for about two years with God where I knew Him. I just wasn’t ready to die. And I knew that if I accepted Him, that’s what would happen. I’d have to die. I’d have to give up everything. And I had way too much to do that. And so I didn’t.

And one day at the Citadel, just the same way I’d heard Him before, I heard God say, I was a senior by this time. I was on top of the world. I was going to go in the Air Force. I was going to graduate civil engineering. I was going to marry my high school sweetheart. There couldn’t have been anything better for me. And I heard God tell me directly, I will not strive with you forever. And that scared me to my bones because I knew I’d been talking to Him. And I knew I’d been telling Him, no, not yet. No, not yet. Not me. Not now. Maybe down the road. But He said, I will not strive with you forever.

And about a week later, when I got in my little cell room there at the Citadel and closed that door, it was about midnight. I think God opened up the door and He let the devil come in and said, you’ve been wrestling with me for a long time, but I think I’ll let you wrestle with him for a while. And about one o’clock in the morning, I woke up and I was choking to death. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t say anything. My roommate was in the bunk above me. I wanted to scream out and say, help me, help me, help me. But I couldn’t say anything. And somewhere around 1:30, I said, save me, Jesus. Save me, Jesus.

Five and a half hours later, the sun started peeking up through my window and I got out of that bed. And I got on my knees and I said, this fight’s over. I’m done. I will not fight anymore. You will not only be my Lord, but my Savior.

I had to call up my fiancée and take her out to dinner and tell her we couldn’t get married anymore because I was now a Christian and Jesus was going to probably send me to Africa or China because that’s where you went, I thought, when you were a Christian, and I knew she wouldn’t go to Africa with me or China and we probably shouldn’t get married. And of course, she began to cry and say, what in the world are you talking about?

Even little Jimmy’s mom became a little nervous when this lasted for a year, two years, three years, and we came home for Thanksgiving and my mom told my wife, listen, if you ever had to divorce Jimmy, we’d understand because I was just too on fire for them. But I’d had my Saul of Damascus experience. I’d been knocked off my horse with lightning and that thing hasn’t changed for me.

When people say, you’re coming to the end, I’m closer now as many of us are than I was when I first believed, but I’m not slowing down. I’m not giving up. There’ll come a day when I can’t stand up here and speak, but I can pray. I can give. I can have somebody else go for me, but right now I can still go. And that’s where the Gideons come in.

And I’m not going to tell you every unbelievable, beautiful story, how God has met me in the last 50 years and has healed all my diseases. And fixed my sin-sick soul and helped me to understand and know. And I’m still learning even in our Sunday school class today. How do we discern? How do we judge? How do we go out into the world? How do we make a difference for Jesus? That’s the only thing that matters. State wrestling championships don’t matter. Captainships don’t matter. Colonelships don’t matter. None of that. I consider all that dung. The only thing that matters is the gospel of Jesus Christ because it’s the only thing that has the power to save.

And that is my verse for this year. God gave it to me earlier in the year. I’m not ashamed of the gospel. First, the only thing. You know, they didn’t hate Jesus for doing miracles. They didn’t hate Jesus for loving people. They didn’t hate Jesus because He did a nice thing here or there. They hated Him because of His message that He was the King of Kings. He was the great I am. He was the bread of life. He was the living water. He was God Himself in the flesh. That’s what they hated. And that was going to disturb everything they had set up. And to this day, that’s what they hate. They don’t hate us. They hate our message and they hate our Savior.

When I retired from the Air Force, the Gideons came to me and said, “Hey, would you come to a chicken dinner?” They didn’t say it that way. They said, “Would you come to a dinner where we can talk to you about the Gideons?” And I said, “You don’t have to have the dinner. You can save the 14 bucks. I already know about the Gideons because I’ve seen them.”

I saw them in the Dorchester Motor Lodge. I’ve seen them in the hills of Guatemala where I took 50 Bibles up a mile and a half up into the mountains to a small village we were ministering to up there. I’ve seen them in Afghanistan. I’ve got one here in my Bible. Maybe I pulled it out. I’ve got one right here. I brought my flight bag. I carried this with me everywhere I went. I have one like this since the beginning, but I got this one on a deployment line. How did I get it? A Gideon was at the end of the deployment line passing them out to every soldier that went through that deployment line as we prepared ourselves to go to battle.

And that’s what the Gideons do. Three men, it was actually just two in a hotel room over 100 years ago, got together. They were Christians sharing a room and said, “Hey, we’re Christians. We could start sharing the gospel together as we went out as salesmen.” And they did. They decided the next year to have a convention of salesmen. They’ll pull in all the workers, all the servants and say, “We’ll go do the work of God.” And three people showed up, three of them. And they came out of that day from prayer and said, “We’ll be called Gideons.”

Today, there’s over 270,000 Gideons. The last check, there were over 350 in Pakistan. I talked to a woman yesterday from Pakistan and thought of this story. There’s 350 Gideons in Pakistan. I can’t get to Pakistan anymore. But there’s 350 Gideons there. They’re willing to go out and pass out a Bible to somebody. They’ll put those Bibles anywhere, anyplace. Over 2 billion of them are out in the world that Gideons have placed there.

Most of you have probably been at a hotel. It’s getting a little tougher with culture in America. But in other places in the world, that’s why the Gideons have gone international. We pass them out at elementary schools. We can’t get on the campus, but we can be right outside. We can be outside College of Charleston, the Citadel. We can be right outside Charleston Southern giving out the Gideons.

If Pastor Al were to ask for volunteers today and say, “I got a small project. If anybody was willing to help me, come out in the back here and meet me after church,” and he opened up those back doors and there were 270,000 volunteers. I don’t know what you think, but that’s what the Gideons are. 270,000 volunteers and their wives stand by them as auxiliary members, but it’s men. The reason why Pastor isn’t probably a Gideon is they don’t. Pastors are too busy doing other stuff. And the Gideons say, “You be about your business. You preach the word. All we need to do is partner with the churches.”

That’s what those three men did. They partnered with a church and the church said, “Well, if you’ll send them, when you go out on your sales trips, if you’ll get the Bibles out, we’ll supply them.” And the church supplied the first set of Gideon Bibles. And the church is still this day.

So when they asked me to come to the dinner, I said, “I’m in. You don’t have to tell me. I’ll be there.” And what I found out was more about them. Not only how effective they are. I knew that. But if you give $1.25, $1.25 will buy a Bible. It won’t pay to supply overhead or administration or any of that. We pay that. The Gideons themselves pay a very small dues and all that. Everybody else is a volunteer. So that if you gave $5, it’ll buy a Bible. That’ll be put in a hotel room that might last 6 to 12 years. I don’t know of any organization that’s got a more pure ministry than that. One that says, “Hey, you give us the money, we’ll Buy the Bibles, and we’ll get them out. If you ever wanted to be one, you can talk to any of us. All we do is put the word out. It’s another thing about the purity of the mission. The Gideons are completely, almost totally dependent on the Holy Spirit to do the work. Almost 100%. So that you might have a story of a man who went to commit adultery in a hotel room that got back to us. And while she was in cleaning herself up or getting ready, he opened up his Bible and got one of those, I see you. He closed it up and ski-daddled out of there and later became a Christian. Just a Gideon Bible that God had opened up to the right place, to the right verse. That’s the Holy Spirit doing His work. Nobody was in that room with him but the Word of God.

We believe if the Word of God goes out, it won’t return void. It’s going to go out and do its purpose because it’s not going out by itself just as we don’t go out by ourselves. None of you, when you leave this church, we’re commissioned. Go ye therefore into all nations, teaching and discipling them, making disciples, and baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. We don’t go out by ourselves. We go out with the Holy Spirit, and that’s what the Gideons do. And let the Bible do its work.

So I think Pastor Al was gracious again to let me come and speak. Little Jimmy the Volunteer, that’s all, along with 270,000 others willing to go out and do. We thank the churches like y’all’s that are so faithful to help us do the mission, do the ministry. Thank you so much. Take my flight bag.

The gospel’s been pretty clear today. I don’t know it changes Jim’s life and Wayne’s life and my life and many of your lives. But, and there may be someone out there that, I mean, you’ve heard the gospel pretty clear who may need to make that decision. And I’ll be up here to talk to you. We’ll get together if we need to do that. But you may need to get things right. You may not need to wait. You may get only so many opportunities. And maybe you’ve already had a few. And it might have been in third grade or eighth grade or 11th grade or college or wherever. Or even in the business world. So, Donnie, if you’ll come on down, lead us.

You may be also thinking, you know, I might want to do what Jim and Wayne do. You might want to be a Gideon. You know, I couldn’t think of a better thing to be a part of than handing out a Bible to somebody. You know, sometimes you just got to get them the word. God will take care of the red. That’s what the Holy Spirit, you know, we don’t save anybody. Holy Spirit saves us. Jesus saves us. God just uses us to kind of get it to them and to be that vehicle. And maybe God’s putting on your heart, man, to be a Gideon. And if you’d like to find out more about it after the service, these guys will be around. And we’d love to talk with you about that.

But we’re going to have a time of invitation. I just think that’s pretty important. And just getting right with Him. And if you’ve been a Christian that maybe have just kind of slid off a little bit, I couldn’t think of a better time to get right with God than right now. And be all in. Just be partly in. So let’s stand now. Donnie, if you’ll lead us in our invitation.

Be seated for just a moment. What we’re going to do now is we’re going to have a love offer. One of the best ways that we can be missionaries that God wants us to be, sometimes, like Jim says, you can’t go to Africa or China or wherever, or even just somewhere else in Charleston. But what you can do is you can help give, and you can help give Bibles. And we’re going to have to take a love offering now, and if our ushers will come forward and just kind of get the plates, we’ll have a prayer right before we do that. If you’re making out a check, make it out to the Gideons. That way it doesn’t go through the church. We just want to go straight to them. If you can do that, that would be great. But we’re going to take up a love offering now. And like Jim said, 100% of every dime that comes in goes to Bibles. Like I said, they’re volunteers and that kind of thing. So before we do that, gentlemen, let’s go and have prayer.

Father, thank you. Thank you for, first of all, just thank you for letting us have Your Word. The fact that we can pass it out. We also thank You for Your Spirit that goes even before us and is already working on hearts that each one of these Bibles will touch. Thank You for giving us the opportunity to be part of an incredible ministry. Most importantly, thank You for You. Number one, for saving us when You didn’t have to. While we were yet sinners, You did that. And so, Lord, let us now just give generously to an incredible cause of getting Your Word out to a lost and dying world. In Your Son’s name we pray. Amen.

Stand as we’re dismissed. Again, thank you for being in God’s house today. Jim Wayne, thanks for being. Jim, thanks for just opening yourself up and sharing. I would like to know a little Jimmy. That’s been good, isn’t it? Isn’t he? Well, let’s go to the Lord. Remember this. Again, you may be, you know, I say this every Sunday, but you may again be the only Jesus someone ever sees. And that’s pretty important. Just remember that there are folks out there. It’s hard to believe people in our own country. I understand maybe someplace in Costa Rica or, you know, or Philippines or someone that maybe has never heard of Jesus. But there’s folks in our own country who never heard of Jesus. There’s people in Charleston that have never heard of Jesus. Now, my prayer would be, do you have an opportunity this week? Let’s go to Lord in prayer as we’re dismissed.

Father, thank you. Oh, thank You for testimonies. Thank You for changing lives. Thank You for letting us be a part of a ministry and passing out Bibles. How awesome is that? Lord, my prayer is that You’ll take the money here and that You will multiply it like only You can, like loaves and fishes. And it will just go and just be unbelievable. So, Lord, just take a hold of it. Let Your Spirit again go before us this week. Watch out over and protect us until we come back together again. And we ask this in the name that is above every name, the awesome name of Jesus. And again, all God’s people said, amen. Thank you, folks.