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Houston's First Baptist Church is a relevant biblical community where we gather our hearts, grow our souls and give our lives as we seek to fulfill the Great Commission (Matthew 28:19-20). This podcast provides weekly messages from Pastor Gregg Matte and others. Visit us at HoustonsFirst.org to learn more about HFBC, and visit us in person the next time you're in Houston!
In Luke chapter 14, we find the story of Jesus Christ illustrating the coming of men to himself, of the story of a man who bid others succumb to a great feast. But many would not come. Then, in verse 23, Jesus concludes the story by saying this. Luke 14, 23, And the Lord said unto the servants, Go out into the highways and hedges and compel them, compel them to come in, that my house may be filled. Unsaved people are nowhere commanded to go to church. The Lord wants a full house. He is not honored with empty seats. He wants everything done well and fully and completely. And he says, You who are the Christians are commanded to go and bring them in. I preached a sermon once entitled, A Go -Go Theology. I read from Genesis to Revelation and discovered that 170 times the people of God are commanded to go to church. Now, a lot of people have a theology that is a sing -sing theology, a sit -sit theology, a think -think theology, and even a give -give theology. Too many of us have a talk -talk theology. How do you spell go? S -I -N -G? W -M -U? P -R -E -A -C -H? How do you spell go? Go is spelled G -O. And it is the commission of the church. Recently, someone did a study of the great ten Sunday schools of America. All denominations, the greatest, growingest, largest Sunday schools in the world are in the United States of America. They discovered that although there were few isolated differences in many, there were five central truths that were replete in every one of them. Five constant factors that never changed. Number one, the people were evangelistic and informal in their services. Number two, they were conservative in their theology. Number three, they were simple in their organization. They did not ask the people to do 10 ,000 things a week to such a degree that they didn't do anything well. We are trying very hard to simplify and unify the ministry of First Baptist Church. We're not going to ask you to come down here seven nights a week, just a little bit, but put all that we have into everything that we do. Number four, the pastor was entrusted with leadership and latitude and freedom to lead from the people. I have told that our church many times, I do not think that leadership is something that is demanded, it is something that is deserved and something that is earned. Number five, the church was organized for outreach. Outreach is the name of the game. As no other organization in the world, we do not exist solely for the sake of our membership. Everything that we do is geared to reaching those, first of all, who are outside of the membership, as well as ministering to those who are entrusted unto us. Jesus Christ told the disciples to go into all the world. He commanded them to go. He kept records. He told us that 3 ,000 were saved in the day of Pentecost. He had a goal. He said go to the whole world. He was systematized. He said go by two. He was organized. He counted disciples. When one fell, he replaced that one and kept the number where it was supposed to be. System, planning, outreach, goals, organization, and going is the name of the game. For the Christian church, we are compelled to go into the world, not be of the world, but be in the world, a redeeming factor in every sociological element of our community. The first time I attended a visitation program here in the First Baptist Church of Houston, I was excited and thrilled. 55 of our people came on Tuesday night to visit. It was a monthly visitation supper, and that was a very, very good number, and I was gratified. But it occurred to me that at 5 .30, as our people came in against the traffic, parked their car, rode an elevator down a parking building, crossed the street, went downstairs, ate supper, got a visitation card, re -crossed the street, went up the elevator, got in the car, came back out of the parking garage, and drove clear back home. They wasted three hours' time and then probably made a call five blocks from their house. With that in mind, your staff has been giving serious consideration and deliberation and prayer as to how to effectively have a program of visitation and outreach in the First Baptist Church. And ladies and gentlemen, we must do it. I cannot emphasize this to you enough. When the time comes that we are so concerned about getting out on time that we do not take time to come and greet the 10 or 20 new folks who join our church on Sunday, God will quit sending them to us. When the time comes that we so take for granted the blessings of God in the past, that we refuse to go forward in faith on the future, God will quit blessing us. Without a goal, without a vision, without a future, without faith, the people perish. When the time comes that we do not visit those who visit us and return the favor that they have expressed upon us in indicating an interest in our Lord and our church by visiting us and sharing Christ with them to determine if there are spiritual needs to which we can speak and for which we can find a solution, God will quit sending them to us. In recent Sundays, 150 to 200 visitors have come to visit us. How grateful we are to God for that. Every Sunday, that number comes. But this fall, in a few months, that will dwindle to 50 and 10 and 5 unless we are faithful in visitation. With that in mind, our associate pastor and minister of evangelism and minister of education have devised what I believe to be a most ingenious and simple program of outreach visitation for the First Baptist Church. It is entitled Zone Visitation. We have taken concentrations of postal zones. You will know your own zip code. That way it will be easy for you to identify the zone in which you operate and are to visit. You will come every Monday night at 7 o 'clock to the zone captain's home along with all of the other people from our church who live in that zone. You will have a word of prayer, be given some literature to give people when you visit them, and assign three or four visitors cards. We will ask you to take about an hour and a half and visit your friends and your neighbors in your neighborhood, people of similar interest. It will be easy from the plastic cards for you to identify their name, their age, their spiritual condition, their background, how recently they have visited the church. They're interested in our Lord and their interest in our ministry for him here at First Baptist Church. Then at nine o 'clock you will return to the home. You will turn in the reports, have pie and coffee, a season of fellowship, and a little after nine can be dismissed. It is conceivable and probable that we should have at least two or three hundred people every week visiting for our Lord and our church. This is the one last most important thing we need to organize and do at First Baptist Church. It begins tomorrow night. If there are any questions, anything you're not certain of, speak to Brother Fouts or to Brother Lloyd. You cannot miss him. He's the one here in the middle on the left this morning in the beautiful white suit. And doesn't he look nice? Just like a lollipop. Now you speak to them and they'll give you the details if there is any uncertainty. Ladies and gentlemen, I say to you that I believe in the providence of God in the most exciting, vibrant, aggressive city in the world, in Houston, Texas. God has entrusted us with the greatest opportunity and privilege and sacred trust of any church in history to build a great church, to have an impact on a city for God and to win multitudes to Jesus Christ. The heart of the thing, where the water hits the wheel, is the daily nitty gritty outreach visitation program. This is the heart. This is the skeleton. This is the framework. This is the core and the crux of what makes it all go. Without this, it is so much cotton candy, without any biscuits and potatoes, any heartbeat that makes the thing thrive and grow. I pray and plead and beseech and implore and entreat you that Monday night zone visitation will be priority in your life. It will be a means of being acquainted with people in your area. Those who may say it's too far to go to First Baptist Church, you can tell them it's worth a trip to town. I found it out. We go every week. We can pick up your kids and drop them at the youth activities. We can share eyes. We'll become acquainted with those who are our friends in our own neighborhood. It'll be the most wonderful thing I think First Baptist Church has ever done. Most of all, it will concentrate and simplify our church visitation program for Christ. Please be there tomorrow night. Your zip code, if you live in Greater Houston, is on the back of this bulletin. It is in one of these areas. Some of them have been combined. If you do not, you live in one of those that says to be secured. See Brother Faust and he will tell you where to go and what to do beginning tomorrow night. Some of our elderly ladies who are unable to visit are going to be asked to telephone. You can be a telephone helper to call the people in the zone to remind them to visitation, to come to visitation. Two or three will be secured and these will call at 7 .15 and see how many are in attendance at each one. They'll add it up and call back every home at nine with a report. We will have a centralization. We'll have unity and direction and purpose. The nursery will be handled like this. To come to town, to bring your youngsters, to open the nursery, to air condition the building, to pay workers, would cost at least $50 to $100 per week. So instead of that, we're going to ask every young couple with youngsters to just arrange for your own babysitter. Once a week, once a month, turn in to your own zone captain the list of your babysitting expenses and you will be reimbursed. Even if it is twice as much, it'll be much more simple. But I do not expect that it would be even as much as the other. So all young couples can visit. Arrange for your own babysitter. Once a month, turn in those expenses to the zone captain for the months gone by and you will be reimbursed by check from First Baptist Church. Brother Harrison just fainted. Now, what is the purpose for all of this? What difference does it really make? Why should I get excited about three or four cards that represent three or four people and take two hours of my time every week? For the last several Wednesday nights, I have been telling you how to prepare your body, your dress, your heart, your mind, your intellect, your soul to go out and visit. How to make a contact. How to represent our Lord effectively in a home. How to present the plan of salvation. Now, we know what to do. We have been taught and motivated and hopefully inspired to go. Now, the framework is built. The organization is established. We're ready to go. Our young people in Boldness Club, 10 and 20 a week are already going. Our married young couples are so excited. They've already been doing this on Tuesday nights for several weeks. Now, the heartbeat of the thing is this. We must keep one constant look at Jesus Christ and at souls for whom he died. And remember that we are not going for the preacher. We are not going for our own fame. We are not going to increase the church. We are not going to make someone impressed with the fact that I am a visitor. We are going because Christ died for men whom without Jesus have no hope in this life or in the world to come. Jesus told us that. I want you to look now in Matthew chapter 7 and verse number 13. In conclusion, I offer you five reasons. May they burn by the power of God's Spirit into our hearts until every deacon and every shut -in and every widow and every elderly person and every child, whether it is taking cards and calling on the phone or going one by one or two by two, shall be consumed with a passion that there is no excuse why I cannot be a witness for Jesus Christ. Enter ye in at the straight gate, for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction, Jesus speaking, and many there be which go in thereat, because straight is the gate and narrow is the way which leadeth unto life, and few there be that findeth. Verse 21. Not everyone that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven, but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven. Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name, and in thy name have cast out devils, and in thy name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you. Depart from me, ye that work iniquity. Write them in your Bibles, if you will. Write them on your heart. But remember five reasons why Monday night visitation, along with day -by -day personal witnessing for Christ, is the imperative of the church, is the dynamic of Christian growth, and is the compassionate priority of the heart of every Christian. Number one, because not everyone is going to be saved. Jesus said, Enter ye in at the straight gate, for wide is the gate that leadeth to destruction. From Genesis to Revelation, the Bible is a divisive book. It reminds us that the separation of the sheep and the goat, the saved and the lost, the righteous and the unconverted, is a reality in this life, and a judicial fact in the next life. Now, every once in a while, all of the denominations get together, and I'm glad that Baptists have since enough, not usually, to go along with it, and have a grand Christian brotherhood week. And they all throw their arms around each other, and they all get on the same platform, every preacher and priest and rabbi and monk and leader among them. And they all say in so many words, Well, we're all children of God. We're all sons of God. It really doesn't matter what you believe. We're all brothers. We're all going to heaven. God is a good God. He loves everybody. Now, that talks good, but its theology is bad. We are not all sons of God. We are in the sense that God has created us. But he also created the rattlesnakes, and the parakeet, and the scum, and the baboons. And they are not sons of God. The Bible says, Of the Pharisees, ye are of your fathers, the devil. Let us always remember that there are two divisions in humanity. The Bible says, When a man comes old enough to understand, he is a sinner, that his heart is rebellious against God, he is accountable for his sins, and he is lost. And the Bible says, The unsaved, the unbelieving, shall be turned into hell, and all nations that forget God. Only by the new birth, only by an experience of grace, can an unsaved man become a saved man. Get from hell to heaven, from lost to saved, from unconverted, from a child of Satan, into the family of God, and become a child of God. He said, He must be born again. May it grip our hearts. Everyone is not going to be saved. I think if we were to be honest, there is subconsciously, in the back of the minds of most of us, a belief that somehow, after all, we're really all going to make it. That when all is said and done, one of these days, we'll wake up, and find out that God was part of a cross -section between Emily Post and Santa Claus, the good old man upstairs, who though it makes him sad to see the way we live, he'll always say, I forgive. Not true. Not so. The Bible does not say it. Else Christ made a ridiculous mistake when he came and bled and died on the cross for the salvation of lost men. Some are lost, some are saved in your school room. That most popular boy in school, the beauty queen, your business associate, the grocer, the druggist, the postman, that man across from whom you sit at the breakfast table every morning, your own child, your best friend, your date, your loved one, that man to whom you marry, that boy that mows your yard. Some of them are unsaved and will spend eternity in hell without God unless they're saved. It is a fact from the word of God. Remember it, believe it, the lostness of men. The Bible says not everyone will be saved. Number two, more will be lost than will be saved. Now look at it again. Enter in at the straight gate because few there be which go in there at. Few there be which go in there at. He says broad is the way that leadeth to destruction and many there be which go in there at. Now this is Jesus speaking. This is not a radio evangelist. This is not an emotional preacher. This is not a pulpit pounder. This is the very Son of God himself. Gentle Jesus, meek and mild. Gentle Jesus, holy child. This is precious Jesus of whom we sing. Jesus loves me for I, for the Bible tells me so. Majestic sweetness sits enthroned upon the Savior's brow. This is Jesus speaking. This is the other side of the gospel. This is the other part of that two -edged sword. Not only are some going to be lost but more will be lost than will be saved. You see, I can't understand that. Preacher, it seems to me that most folks are good folks after all, aren't they? I mean, aren't most people at heart really good? That's not what the Bible says. The Bible says the heart is desperately wicked and who can know it? The natural bent of man is to do wrong. It is easier to do wrong than it is to do right. More will be lost than will be saved. Yes, most folks are pretty good folks, but that doesn't have anything to do with what we're talking about. Yes, the Astros may have won the last two or three games, but that doesn't mean the price of this quick is going up in the IGA stores tomorrow morning. The two have nothing to do with each other. And all of the righteousness and all of the loveliness and all of the goodness and all the finesse of good, wonderful, educated, fine people have nothing to do with where they spend eternal life. The only thing God accepts is total perfection. And regardless of how good we are, we cannot be perfect. That's why we need Christ. For in him, God accepts us. He accepts his righteousness. You take a beautiful black object, hold it up against the white sign, it looks even blacker. If you cover it with red, scarlet, cellophane, and the black will turn as white as snow. Now that's what happens in Christ. When my sins are placed under the blood of Christ by faith, God sees me not in my righteousness, but covered by his. My sins, though they be as scarlet, shall be as white as the new driven snow. I am made complete, whole, righteous in him, and God accepts me in him. Now everyone goes to heaven, so we all die, and we go to heaven. We've lived up there for 10 or 15 billion years. One of these days we hear a boom and an explosion. I say, what's that? Well, they say, you see, everybody goes to heaven. So Tojo's up here, and Mussolini's up here, and Khrushchev's up here, and Herahito's up here, and Hitler's up here, and Goering's up here. They're having a little war back on over there in the back 80s. They didn't say, get off the street, run for your life. You see, everybody goes to heaven. Do you expect that? Of course, we understand that the pimp, the pervert, the prostitute, the profligate, the purveyor of flesh, the discards, the rejects, the rebel from the one -way street of life. Of course, God has his penitentiary for the damned. Of course, people will be lost and in hell, but preachers aren't most folks good people. Yes, but the Bible says that all of the righteousness of even good people, apart from the righteousness of Christ, is that so many healthy rags. Nothing, nothing, nothing. Not only is not everyone going to be saved, but more will be lost than will be saved. Drive down your street. Drive down Bissonette or Bel Air. Drive down Timney Rock or Tanglewood. drive down M or Inn or O or 4th or 5th or 6th or Lamar, anywhere in this town. And remember, every day, as you go through life preoccupied with a job and pleasure, that the majority of people to whom you speak and upon whom you look, every day, the majority of them are unsaved. More will be lost than will be saved. And the third word, and I think the most tragic is this, many expecting to be saved will be lost. Look with me, please, in verse 21. Not everyone that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven. Many will say unto me, Lord, have we not sung in the choir, attended deacons' meetings? Have we not passed out tracts and preached sermons? Have we not ministered? Have we not prophesied? Have we not in thy name done many wonderful works? It's all in there. And then will I profess unto you, unto them, I never knew you. Depart from me, ye that work iniquity. Many will come and say, Lord, didn't we do? Didn't we say? Didn't we speak? And Jesus will say, I never knew you. That word knew means to be in oneness with. Mary was child of the Holy Ghost said, how can this be, seeing I know not a man? It means to be in oneness with. Jesus will say, I did not know you. I was never in oneness with you. You see, ladies and gentlemen, Christianity is giving my life up and receiving Christ who abides and dwells in me. It is Jesus reliving his life through me. And I have found that when the life is stopped up, when there is rejection and impotence and indifference, the heart has probably not been transformed by regenerative faith in Jesus Christ. In other words, in other words, many who thought they were saved could have proven to themselves that they were not because they only spoke and they did not do. Now, works have no part in salvation, but they are the ultimate proof of salvation. Created in his righteousness and to good works. Now, I talk to people sometimes, I have to pump them up to come to prayer meetings and pump them up to tithe and pump them up to be baptized when they're saved and pump them up to serve Christ. You know, I found that when one is genuinely born of the Spirit of God, you usually would have to talk him out of joining the church. You have to talk him out of giving. You ask a new convert, you say, did you know Jesus is coming? He says, where, where, where? They believe it. They expect it. They're alive. There's a vibrancy. Christ lives in them. Now, he says, if, if one hour on Sunday morning is an interminable experience. You know, a lot of people, they come to the services, the music is professional, the seats are commodious, the service is not long, the building is air -conditioned, and they squirm, they're miserable. Oh, they're so unhappy. Now, if they'd have been playing golf or watching the ball game or a beauty pageant or fishing, the hours would have sailed by. But they're so unhappy and miserable on Sunday morning, and they think they're going to die and go to heaven, and hocus -pocus, they'll be happy, they'll live forever. The truth of the matter is, you wouldn't be in heaven five minutes, and you'd be asking how to get out. You'd be miserable. You'd be unhappy. All the singing, all the religion, all the praising, and hallelujah, and all this and that about Jesus. Oh, if we can't stand to serve him down here. If any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his. Check up. Be dead sure. You can know. By your desire. Or do you have Christ in your life or not? Many people expecting to be saved will be lost, and I am saying that to you to say that whether one is a member of this church or any church in all the world, they need to be witnessed to and talked with and help to know that they know Christ as their Savior. The fourth word is this. No one will be saved after death. Now, most of us have the idea that it is not really determined here. You don't really know until you get to heaven. And God takes all of the things we have done, he adds up all the good deeds, and he gives us some brownie points over here, some plus marks. If we've been real bad, he writes some minus points over here. And he totals them all up, and he looks at them, and he is surprised as we are as to which way we go. That's not what the Bible says. The Bible says if any man is in Christ, he is passed from death unto life. That means now, here, today, it's decided in this life, not after death, by what you have done with Jesus Christ. Because, I remember in high school, I was a senior. I liked high school. I spent four of the happiest years of my life as a senior in high school. I almost never did get out. And one day, my superintendent, George Flavery, came and said, Johnny, you passed. He didn't say you're going to pass. He didn't say you might pass. One day, ultimately, will pass. He said, you have passed. The Bible says when you're in Christ, you have passed from death unto life. If you're in Christ now, you're a child of God. Now you'll go to heaven. It's saved. It's settled. It's decided. It's finished. But the Bible says he that hath not the Son is going to be condemned. No, it's condemned already. You're walking, leaving, living, breathing, dead man without Christ. He says, confess me before men, I'll confess you before my Father which is in heaven. Deny me before men, I'll deny you before my Father which is in heaven. By your confession, by your public profession, by your life. Ladies and gentlemen, make dead sure you are God's child, Christ in you, living for him now, doing his will, because no one will be saved after death. The Bible says the Son of man hath power on earth to forgive sins. That means now, here, in this life, not there. Now, here. The last thing is this. This could be someone's last chance to be saved. I told you this before. In Oklahoma City, when I became pastor there nearly six years ago, I inherited a group of young people who were about as interested in spiritual things as a billy goat. I worked and preached and pled and whipped and worked and scolded and prayed and organized. We had about ten who came. At the end of seven months, we had as many as old five and six in our youth choir. It was just great on Sunday night. One day, a girl was walking home from the swimming pool across Interstate 35. She was wet. She slipped and fell, was hit by a car and killed. I asked our young people if that teenage girl was a Christian. They said, as far as they knew, she was not. I said, did she ever have a chance? They said, preacher, she was on the front row of First Southern Baptist Church for the last four Sundays in a row with all of us kids. My heart was crushed at my own ineptness. I had not wanted a Christ. I said, and what have you? As you witnessed to her, they bowed their heads and began to weep. Not one of them ever said a word about Jesus Christ to the girl. They rededicated their lives. Next Sunday, there were 80 in the choir. There always have been. They got together that next summer and said, preacher, we bow under God. We shall win 100 teenagers to Christ these 90 days of summer. Well, they failed. They won 123. We baptized 97 of them in that church. Today, their lives have never been the same. Why? It took a tragedy. A girl in the blossom of life who thought she could live forever. A few Sundays ago, the day that Brother Knudson died, I flew up on Sunday afternoon to San Augustine, Texas, a little private plane, as you know, to dedicate a new building, a new auditorium for their church. I arrived back in town, parked in the garage, came across the street to First Baptist Church. Within 50 feet, three people stopped me and told me about someone who had died who had been in the services that morning. Three deaths in one day. You say, don't scare us. Don't give us that. Don't talk to us about death. You promised me that you'll never die. I promise you I'll never talk about death. But the Bible says it is appointed unto man once to die. And after that, the judgment. Oh God, give us a holy burden and realization of the fact that we are living in a sea, drowning in the midst of lost men and women. Remember it. Believe it. People are lost. Everyone is going to be saved. More will be lost than will be saved. Many expecting to be saved will be lost. There will be no one saved after death. And today, this hour, this service, this invitation, this moment, could be someone's last chance to be saved. That's why we go on Monday. That's why we witness through the week. That's why we urge you and preach and plead with you to come down this aisle to receive Christ as your Savior, to be saved today. Let's bow our heads in prayer. Our Father and our God, as we sing the verses of the invitation, we do pray, oh God, that not one person without Jesus Christ shall go away without the Lord. Dear God, help our people as they go from this place to talk it over at lunch and say we're going to have to get serious. Is making money, is taking a trip, is mowing the yard, is washing the car, is watching Lappin, is anything in this world more important than witnessing on Monday for lost souls for Christ. Oh God, help us to establish priorities. Thank thee for this beautiful, wonderful organization, this simple zone visitation, this framework upon which our people can hang the desire to do thy will, and now go and do it beginning tomorrow. Oh God, help us to dedicate ourselves to that. As our Father, we realize that for someone, Monday night may never come. Today is the day of salvation. Behold, now is the accepted time. This is the day. Lord, stir our hearts right now in this service, in Jesus' name. Heads are bowed. If you're a member of a Methodist church and a...