In the 13th chapter of Acts,
God the Holy Spirit separated Paul and Barnabas to be messengers
of the gospel sent out by the church at Antioch. And they were
sent out by that local church to preach the gospel among the
Gentiles. After preaching the gospel at
Antioch, Pisidia, they went on to preach to Iconium and to Lyconia,
and to Lystra. They went down to Derbe, and
back to Lystra and Iconium, and back to Antioch, Pisidia again,
preaching the gospel, confirming the brethren in the faith, and
ordaining elders in every place where God established gospel
churches. After that, they passed through Pisidia and preached
the word to Pamphylia, Perga, and Atalia. And then they returned
to Antioch in Syria, to give a report of all that they had
seen by the hand of God. When we get to chapter 14 in
verse 27, we read when they were come and had gathered the church
together, they rehearsed all that God had done with them and
how he had opened the door of faith to the Gentiles. Now, I hate the word share. when referring to preaching.
I don't come to the pulpit to share an opinion with you. I
come to declare a message to you. But tonight, I'm going to
share something. I want to share with you what
I've observed in the last few weeks by the hand of our God. The Lord was pleased, I believe,
to make a way open before us for the preaching of the gospel
in Ireland and in England. But let me first tell you the
reason for this. This congregation is by God's
grace, and I recognize it is by God's grace, is exemplary
in the work of the gospel and the work of evangelism. Supporting
missionaries, God's allowed us to have a hand in assisting gospel
churches being established. I was talking to some men who
put the tapes on for television every week. I never go out in
town or run across somebody who observes the fact that the gospel
is being preached in this place, watches it on television, or
hears it one way or the other. We've been sending out the Grace
Bulletin now for 28 years, sending it out to about 1,000 people
every month. Our books, and I say our books because they're ours,
13 of them, one at the press, being scattered literally all
over the world. The webpages are phenomenal. Everywhere I went in Ireland
and England, literally everywhere I went, we met folks who were
there because they had heard the message of God's grace on
one of the webpages, listening to the messages, either audio
or video. When we were in Sidmouth, Met
several folks who Actually for some of the folks who were there
and I'm getting ahead of myself a little bit They were at a this
Methodist retreat used to belong to some rich fella in England
he gave it to the Methodist Church and they use it for a hotel and
get a good price for it, but they were there for a It's a
good thing for Methodists to do they were having a photography
seminar Learning how to take pictures of flowers and sunset
but some of them Recognized sound of this gruff southern voice
Had been listening to messages on free grace radio and said
is RF we come to the meeting and of course trickle-to-death
wouldn't do so God has given us the opportunity and the means
the ability To carry the gospel literally into the four corners
of the earth in this day What a privilege What a privilege
what a responsibility Paul said to the Thessalonians, I know
your election of God, because I've observed your work of faith
and labor of love, because our gospel came to you not in word
only, but in power and in much assurance and in the Holy Ghost. And the evidence of that is that
from you, the word of God was sounded into all the world. And
I commend you for that. That's enough commendation, I
reckon, but I commend you for that, and I commend you to God
for that, and ask God's continued blessings upon you. Almost every
week, you send your pastor somewhere to preach the gospel, to a little
nook here, a little cranny there, somewhere almost every week.
And a lot of folks wonder, why do you do that? Wonder why I
endeavor to give myself relentlessly to the business of preaching
the gospel. Why? Why would you? take hard-earned
money and give it generously to missionaries or preachers,
send somebody to carry the gospel somewhere. It is for this reason
we're redeemed by God's free grace and we've tasted his goodness. We've experienced his mercy and
we know that our God has a people in this world whom he's chosen
in his grace who have been purchased out from under the hands of divine
justice and the curse of the law by the blood of his son,
who must and shall be called. And he might just use us to call
them. What an honor. You see, you're
caught. Look at this crowd who would
ever imagine God would be pleased to use any of us to blow dust,
much less to preach the gospel of his grace. But he does. And so we carry the gospel wherever
God opens away. Now, in the time that remains,
let me tell you what we've observed. I planned to give you this report
last Sunday night, but God had other plans. Paul asked the saints of Colossae
to pray for him, that God would open to us a door of utterance
to speak the mystery of Christ, just as I asked you to pray for
me as Shelby and I left to go to Ireland and England three
weeks ago. And I'm happy to report to you
as Paul did, a great and effectual door was opened to me. And we
left here Sunday afternoon 23rd of March, and we left here about
1 o'clock and got into England, Gatwick Airport, the next morning
at 7.30. And we had to wait around all day long at the airport to
catch the plane to Belfast, North Ireland. And when we did, on
the way to the airport in Lexington, I got to thinking about wait.
And somewhere purchasing my tickets, I remembered that The easy jet,
that budget airline I was flying out of Belfast, or flying to
Belfast, said you had a weight limit of 20 kilos. Now, I don't
know what a kilo is, don't have a clue. So I called Brother Brown,
I said, how much is 20 kilos? He said, I don't know. I said,
well, I think we're overweight. We were overweight. And a friend
of mine, I won't get him in trouble by calling his name, Told me
last year, he said, the British were made to be legalists. They
love regulations. So we got to the ticket counter,
going to check our bags in. And we were better than 20 kilos
overweight. And the gal said, you're 20 kilos
overweight. I said, you got too many kilos
is what she said. I said, I'm sorry, ma'am, I don't
have any kilos in that bag. But she didn't think that was
funny. All said and done, after three trips to the gate, buying
another bag, shall be repacking everything, cost us almost as
much to get from England to Ireland as it did to get from here, there,
and back again, $500 for the extra baggage or the extra weight. But be that as it may, we finally
got done with the mess there, got into Belfast about 3.30 in
the afternoon, and Brother Nigel, Nigel Newell and his wife, Elizabeth,
picked us up at the airport took us up to Ballymunny, North Ireland,
had a nice drive up there and spent the evening with Nigel
and Elizabeth and then with Russell and Sharon Smith and their son,
Johnny. Now, these folks have been listening
to our messages from here for years. Last year, we went there
and had one-night meetings and Russell and Nigel seemed very
keen on us coming back again and this time had two-night meetings
in the same building. Good bit of interest. I pray
God will be pleased to raise up a gospel preacher and a gospel
work there. There are at least three families
there interested in seeing something established. Another one is Brother
Stuart Boyd and his wife Harriet. Stuart is in really bad health,
has been ever since I've known him, but God taught him the gospel
in his old age and he rejoices in it. We had good visits with
him. And then on Thursday, after preaching there on Tuesday, Wednesday,
Russell and Johnny, his son is 14, 15, which is a 15-year-old
boy. And this boy asked, he said,
Daddy, can I go over to the meeting in England with you? So they
took us in their car. It was an all-day drive, but
about two and a half hours of it was on a ferry. We drove over
to Belfast again, got a ferry going to Scotland, and then had
a beautiful drive down through the southern part of Scotland
into Teesdale, which is in northern England. Brother Peter Minney
met us at Eggleston. We went to a cottage in a little
place called Wycliffe. This will be interesting, it
was to me anyway. This little cottage is 400 years
old. Now, it looked like a dollhouse, and inside it felt like a dollhouse. To get in the bathtub, you can
picture it. I had to get on my knees, literally,
to get in the bathtub. And when I got in, getting out
was a trick. But we survived. It was right on the Tees River,
beautiful place in Wycliffe. The name Wycliffe, you will recognize.
A fellow by the name of John Wycliffe. Actually, his name
was John of Wycliffe, and that was where he apparently was from.
They don't know for sure, but somewhere very close around there. But while in Ballymoney, I preached
to the folks there out of First Peter 1, 2, and then the next
night I had some liberty to bring an important message on what
can God's people do in a reprobate age. And then Eggleston, Pastor
Peter Minnie had asked that I bring three messages with regard to
God's salvation. Now, I hope we can get Brother
Peter to come over here sometime. I'm trying to get him to tape
his messages so we can put them on Free Grace Radio. Peter is
a prince of Othello. He and his wife, Jill, just jewels. He's a pastor of a Very small
congregation. The building was built in 1872,
I think it was, and it might possibly seat, if you jammed
them in real close together, 45, 50 people. Normally 12 or
15 people, but he's been there for a number of years. Faithful
pastor. Publisher, started GoPublications, publishes now most of the books,
a lot of books I've written in recent years. He publishes them,
this New Focus magazine, and he's just a prince of a fellow.
We had a delightful time with them. Preached at Egglesburg
Baptist Church on Friday night and on God's salvation, and then
on Saturday we had the whole day We've been staying in the
cottage with Brother George Ella. You know the name from New Focus
Magazine, brilliant, brilliant historian. He's an Englishman,
but he lives in Germany, spent all of his life in Germany, used
to write curriculum for German public schools, and just brilliant,
you know. One of those fellows, when he
opens his mouth, I want to learn to keep mine shut. I just feel
so dumb around him, but he's a gentleman, a jewel, just a
jewel. And Brother Ken Cotty and his
wife Sylvia. They all shared the cottage with
us at Wickliffe, there at Teasdale. Well, on Saturday, Peter had
asked Brother Ken Carty to bring a message on salvation in the
future tense. Ken preached on heaven, the glorious,
blessed anticipation of God's saints. And then Brother Georgela
brought two lectures on history. One, he brought a message on
heroes of the north. And when I heard that announced,
I had to tell him, I'm a southern boy. We don't have any northern
heroes. But these were heroes in northern England. I guess
that was all right. And what he was doing was dealing with
the men who were used of God early in the church, even before
the Reformation in the northern part of England. And then his
second was on John Wycliffe, the man to whom we owe the debt
for the English translation of scriptures, and just did an excellent
job with those. If you'd like to hear them, you
can get the audios, or if you'd like to read the papers, I have
those and would be happy for you to have them. There were
a good many folks who came from different places around to the
meeting at Teasdale or at Eggleston. It's hard for
me to get these things straight. Eggleston is a little town. Teasdale
is the, I guess, what we would call a county. And Durham is,
they call it County Durham, what we call state. It's a big area.
But Saturday night, I had some liberty to preach to the folks
there on the Day of Divine Visitation. Then on Sunday morning, on Christ
our Kinsman Redeemer out of the Book of Ruth. But Brother Sid
Buckins and his wife, Joan, we met while we were there last
year. I won't tell you their age, but they're older than most
of you and just jewels. They came up to the meetings
at Eggleston and then went down to Sidmouth with us and had the
opportunity to get to visit with them. Sid's pushing 80 and just
a man of rich experience. Let me tell you what he told
me. I've got to share it. I've never known this with anybody
else in my life. He said, as far as I know, me
dad, he called him, me father, he said, and me grandfather, and me great-grandfather, and
their wives, and I and my wife, and me sons, and their wives
are all in the fold. I said, what a heritage, what
a heritage. And they've known the gospel
of God's grace, but rich as that land has been in the past, so
rich. These are the names of men I
read after almost every day, all from Great Britain. John
Gill, Benjamin Keech, John Newton, James Hervey, John Berridge, C.H. Spurgeon, William Carey, and on and on
and on we go, Augustus Toplady. These are men whose names are
common household words among folks like Brother Buggins. to find somebody who will stand
up and boldly proclaim the gospel of God's grace. These folks who
came to the conferences, came to the meetings, most of them
drove for hours to get to each service, or went somewhere and
called a train to get to the services. Well, after we left
Teasdale, brother, many had arranged for us to take a train from Darlington,
England, down to Exeter. He had arranged good. He bought
Shelby and I first class tickets. You could get spoiled to that.
It's nice. And the train system's fantastic.
We didn't have to get up. Somebody came and brought us
anything we wanted. And all the way down there is about a, I
guess, what, six hours, five hour train trip. Just comfortable
and delightful. And we had a good chance to visit
and catch up with each other a little bit. And then we got
down to Honiton or to Exeter brother in pots picked us up
at the train station in Exeter and drove us down to Honiton
we had dinner with he and his wife Rachel and their boys Had
a had a delightful time with him and he had arranged facilities
for us down at Sidmouth which is way down in the very southern
part of England right on the coast and Beautiful, beautiful
area. Just a few miles from where Augusta's
top lady was a pastor at Broad Henbury and about 70 or 80 miles
from where Robert Hawker was pastor at Plymouth. But right
on coast and they'd put us up in a motel there. And we were
scheduled for two nights meetings there on Tuesday and Wednesday. The first night, Brother Ian
and a man by the name of Luis Gomez had both asked that I baptize
them. You know, are familiar with Brother
Ian Potts. He maintains the Grace and Truth
webpage. They meet every Monday evening
there and watch either our videos or Brother Mahan's videos. And
this fellow, Luis Gomez, contacted, I think, Larry, the first contact
I had with him through Free Grace Radio. He is a 32-year-old, strong,
handsome fellow, and his life was a wreck, just a wreck. I'd never met him until this
Monday a week ago. Yeah, Monday a week ago. And
he introduced himself to me, and we chatted a little bit.
He had been in England as a young man, went back to Portugal, And
when he was 16 years old, and then he came back to England
about a year ago and had just made a mess of his life, everything
ruined, just shattered. And he bought a Bible, one of
the new translations, and started reading it. Now, I remember he's
from Portugal. He was raised a papist. When
this young man, the local priest, tried to get him to commit himself
to go to a seminary and become a priest. And he said, even when
I was 10 years old, I knew I wanted to get married. That wasn't for
me. But he started reading the Bible, this translation, whatever
it was, he said, that's not right. So went and got him a Bible,
King James translation, started reading it and started going
to churches. Went to an Adventist church. and realized immediately
there was nothing there for him. Went to a few Baptist churches
and nothing there for him. Went to a few Reformed churches
and there's nothing there for him. And he was getting more
and more distressed all the time. And one day he's at his computer
and just started looking for sermons on grace. And two names
popped up, Henry Mahan, Don Fortin, and he started listening. And
God got him. And I baptized he. And Brother
Ian Booth, the first night we were there at Sidmouth, went
up to the swimming pool, baptized him, had a good many folks who
went up with us after the meeting and had a delightful time with
him. We chatted a little bit. Louis
is a sharp fellow. He asked me what he ought to
do. I said, go back to Portugal and carry what God's taught you.
Carry the gospel to your people as God opens the door. He said,
I ask you to remember him in prayer. And as I said that last
night in Sidmouth, there were a number of folks who came up
and introduced themselves to us and told us how very important
the Free Grace Radio Ministry had been to them and the tapes,
the videos and so on. Several that Shelby wrote the
names down, I'll let you talk to her about it later, one older
lady. She had pictured me with this soft, mellow voice that
I have as being a short, thin fella. And, you know, she's old
enough she could get by with it. She said, he's not short
or thin. And she said, I'll now have a picture put with the voice
when I listen to it. But we left there and went up
to London. Brother John Graham His wife
Ann met us at Waterloo Station. We went over to Westminster Baptist
Church after having supper with them. And I preached there that
night. And that was on Wednesday, Thursday
night. And after the services, we visited
a little bit, took a taxi at 10 o'clock, crossed down to the
Gatwick Airport so we could be there to catch the airplane out
next morning early. I didn't want any more confusion
with kilos. And so we got everything through
there. Did check into this hotel there. Never saw one like it
in my life. Couldn't figure out how to turn
the lights on. Couldn't figure it out. Finally called the desk.
About the time I got somebody at the desk, Shelby had to figure
it out. Had to put your key in a slot. There was a problem with
that. We couldn't figure out how to
get them off. Got in bed, took the key out, everything dark.
Just about the time you got to sleep, all the lights back on
again. But we finally managed that, got up early the next morning,
and came home. Now, the rest of the story, as
Mr. Harvey would say, and I know
you're interested. We got home Friday night late,
about 8 o'clock. It was so good to get in my truck
and stretch. I'd been riding around in those
little English bumper cars for two weeks, and believe me, they're
small. But if you think you're paying
through the nose at the gas pump, $10.20 a gallon over there. Folks are happy to be able to
ride those bumper cars. But anyway, we got home and both
of us were tired and took a quick look at the mail, went to bed.
And I got up early Saturday morning, came over to the office, and
I'd been having some pain right up in here. And it just got worse
and worse and worse. Saturday night, About 10 o'clock,
11 o'clock, it was getting real bad. And I finished my work about
1.30 and we started to go home. Actually, we went home, just
about 1.30. And I tried to lay down and I couldn't, just excruciating,
excruciating pain. And I had Shelby take me to the
hospital. And when I walked in the door, I remembered the pain.
It was exactly the same thing I had when they said I had pericarditis
five or six years ago. And 6 o'clock Sunday morning,
I finally got some relief. They gave me some morphine and
the pain eased off somewhat. But Dr. Hendrickson got back in town
Sunday night and he came in. He saw my name pop up on his
computer and he came in. He said, you shouldn't be having
pericarditis again. Said there's no reason for this.
We're going to get to the bottom of it. and started running tests, and
I could tell by the look on his face he wasn't happy with the
things he was seeing. He made arrangements for me to
go over to Lexington, and we went to the cardiological team
over at Central Baptist Hospital, had to go by ambulance, and that
was an experience. Anybody who wants to write to
the county judge executive and tell them to spend some money
on ambulances, do it. Oh, my, I can't imagine riding in that
thing. They call them bone boxes for a reason. They break your
bones. I mean, it was absolutely torturous. If I'd have known
what it was, they wouldn't have got me in that ambulance, I'll
tell you that. But anyway, I took the ambulance over and got in
there Tuesday and sat down in the room. The cardiologist came
in and asked his questions. By the time I got there, they
about closed up shop. He realized I hadn't had anything
to eat since early that day. Figured that was a good time
to cut me open. So he, the staff to get things
ready, went in there and they did this, whatever it is they
do, doing the catheter, the dye and all that stuff. And he came
back and made some recommendations to somebody. Other fellows came
in. And they all told me that I had to have this aorta replaced. Now, aortic stenosis is what
it's called. If you want to look it up and
read about it, 1% of the males in this country are born with
this defect that I have. I have to have it replaced. It
comes on with others with age, various things, but those who
have the birth defect, what I have, just 1% of the males in the country
born with it. Our father put it there. It's
there by divine arrangement. and there are no other contributing
factors. Now, the heart catheterization, the doctor told me, I was surprised
at what good help my heart was in otherwise, but I have terrible
fibrillation and all the electrical stuff is out of whack. I have
been having some shortness of breath and some, I never fainted. I don't know what it is to faint,
but I have sure come close several times in the last few months.
And I thought it was diabetes just bottoming out, but apparently
it's because I was My heart would quit, just four or five seconds
at a time. And so they put a pacemaker in
Wednesday, I think it was. And I don't really know whether
that's going to be permanent or not, but had to do it because the
best fellow to do this surgery, to replace this, judging by all
four of the cardiologists that I saw, there's a fellow with
St. Joe called Sokella, is that his name? Dr. Sokella. And he
came in and visited with us. And all the cardiologists said,
that's the man to get, but you can't get him tomorrow. They
wanted it done right away, but they said if it was me, I'd wait
on it. So we'll have him to do the surgery on Monday. And that
surgery will involve replacing the aorta. I'm going to put a
pig's aorta in there, if they can find a pig big enough. But
I chose that because if I put a mechanical valve in, then that's
for lifetime, which may be, you know, very briefly or maybe a
little longer. And you can be happy or sad,
depends on your attitude about that. But the mechanical valve
would require taking Coumadin the rest of my life. And I told
the doctor, I said, well, I'd rather not do that. And he said,
I would too. And so we're going to put the biological valve in,
and it will probably have to be replaced in 12 years, maybe
20 years. But at least we won't be taking
Coumadin all the time. And that's, here's the situation. Normally, your aorta puts out
a blood flow about the size of a penny. Dr. Segella told me
mine's putting out blood flow about the size of Lincoln's head
on a penny. And that's where the inflammation and the pain
and the arrhythmia and all that stuff is coming from and got
to be taken care of, got to be taken care of now. So, we'll
go to Dr. Henderson in the morning and
go back to the fellow who put the pacemaker in Wednesday and
then go to St. Joe on Friday and get the All
the prep work done, we'll have services here on Sunday, Lord
willing, and then Monday, surgery's scheduled for 3 o'clock. Now,
I know all of you are concerned, and we're so thankful, so thankful
for you. Thankful for your concern, your
love, and your care. And you call anytime you want
to. Obviously, after 3 o'clock Monday, I won't be talking to
anybody for a little while. And if Shelby's able to talk, she'll
be tickled to death to talk to you or to see you, come visit,
whatever you want to. And we'd love to have you. I
know some folks, when they're sick, don't want any attention.
When I'm sick, I want all I can get. So you can come hold my
hand, wipe my brow, feed me whatever you want to, just all you want
to. Be all right. And if I'm grumpy, understand.
But I'll try not to be. I'm only grumpy with her. Everybody
else gets by easy. But you've got our telephone
numbers. I would give them to you now. But this is going to
be posted on the internet, and I'd have some nuts calling me
the rest of my life. So I'm not going to give you
my telephone number on this thing. If you want the cell phone number
and you don't have it, you see Shelby, and she'll give you mine
and hers both. And thank you for your prayers. Thank God for
you. Thank God for you. And I'll tell
you a couple of things that have been on my mind, and I'm done. I am fearfully and wonderfully
made you too the Lord God Almighty put in
us he put in me everything necessary and needful for the totality
of my life and existence in this world everything and put in me
that which is going to take me out of this world. And that's good. That's good. He knoweth the way that I take. When he hath tried me, I shall
come forth as gold. When he's done, not wood, hay,
and stubble, gold. Gold. For he performeth the thing
that is appointed for me." And then Job said, for God maketh
my heart soft and troubleth me. These things are God's works. What do we do? We worship him. We worship him. We bow to him. rejoice in him. Rejoice in the
lord all way. And again, I say, rejoice. God give us grace ever to rejoice
in him. Brother Don Shirley, you wouldn't
choose this if you could. No. No, I wouldn't. I wouldn't. Wouldn't choose it for you, for
me, or does best, and I have always
found His way is best, and it shall be now. All right. God bless you.