The Call of Jesus
Welcome to this series "The Call of Jesus".
Step by step, we are going through what Jesus has called us to in Luke 10.
We have now come to chapter 15: "Wipe Off the Dust."
And this is very, very important.
We have seen that Jesus wants us to go out and find a person of peace.
A person of peace is somebody the Holy Spirit is drawing,
is somebody who's ready to receive Jesus.
They are ready.
And they are many out there.
We have heard about it, how the harvest is ready, but the workers are few.
But if you want to be effective in finding the person of peace,
you need to listen to what Jesus is saying here,
when He talks about how we need to wipe off the dust and move on.
Because if you don't understand this...
...you would not be effective.
You would not be effective when it comes to finding the person of peace.
What I will share here, in this video, is very, very important.
It already has been a blessing for many, many people out there.
It's so important if we want to be effective in the Kingdom of God,
if we want to see homes and entire cities come to faith,
as I spoke about in the last video.
In the last video we looked at what Jesus was saying in Luke 10:7,
where He said that we should not move from house to house.
In this video we are going to move forward a little and jump to verses 10 and 11.
Why? Because that is really connected with finding the person of peace.
And I want to talk about that first.
Jesus is saying in Luke 10:10-11: "But when you enter into a town
and are not welcomed, go into the street and say,
'Even the dust of your town we wipe off as a warning to you."
What Jesus said here is very, very important, if you want to bear good fruit.
If you want to bear good fruit, you need to listen to His words,
and be fast to take the dust off your hands and feet and move on.
It's not often we talk about it, but it's important.
Try to imagine if you are a farmer and you have some seed in your hand.
If you take that seed and sow it in the ground that doesn't bear fruit,
you can keep sowing the same seed in the same ground,
but it will not bear fruit. Why?
Because the ground is not ready for it.
But if you take the same seed instead and sow it in the different ground,
some good ground, it will suddenly bear a lot of fruit.
And this is what Jesus is saying here.
He said: If people will not receive our message...
then take the dust off your hands and feet and move on.
Don't continue just putting the same seed, in the same people. Why?
It will not bear fruit.
When I started to tell people about Jesus many, many years ago,
I did not know what He was saying there.
I was not aware of what He was saying.
And because I did not know what Jesus was saying
I spent too much time just talking to the wrong people
and I did not bear a lot fruit.
I did not know, at that time, that some of the people I will meet
were people who were not ready.
And with some of those people, I should have just taken the dust off my hands and feet,
and I should have just obeyed Jesus and moved on.
But I did not know that.
So instead, when I met people who were not interested,
I often ended up discussing with them.
You need Jesus!
No. Yes, you do!
No. I don't want Jesus. Yes, you need Jesus.
And people were not interested.
We just discussed, and discussed, and discussed.
And I thought that the reason they did not want Jesus is because
I was good enough to evangelize,
so I tried to be better, I was practicing, I was preparing,
and if they came with questions: Er, what about Darwin? What about evolution?
I thought: Oh, I need to give them answers.
So I went home, and I studied about Darwin, I studied about evolution,
and I went out again. And I thought: Now they are ready to receive.
But no one wanted.
Because when they asked a question: Hey, what about Darwin?
And you gave them an answer... Hmm. They just asked a new question.
Why? They were not a person of peace.
They did not want to give their life to God.
They were not ready to give their life to God.
The Holy Spirit was not drawing them.
And my words were not going to do it alone.
But what did I do? I was spending a lot of time
studying evolution, and Darwin, and different religions, Mormons,
Jehovah's Witnesses... I was studying all of this because I thought
I needed answers for everything, if people want to receive God.
But I did not see anyone of those people come to Christ.
I should have done what Jesus has said.
If people wanted to discuss with me, when people were not open,
when people did not want to listen...
...I should have just moved on.
If I have moved on, instead of spending all my time with people who don't want it,
I could have moved on, and I could have found those people who want it.
And this is so, so important.
Don't waste your time on people who don't want to listen.
Because when you have used your time one time,
it's not going to come back.
When you first have sown that seed,
you cannot sow it again.
If you want to be a good farmer,
if you want to see good fruit,
you need to be ready to move on.
You need to do what Jesus is saying.
He is saying: The harvest is ready.
He is saying that we should go out
and find a person of peace.
He says that when we find a person of peace
we should stay in their house,
we should eat and drink what they serve.
He says that we should heal the sick and we should preach the gospel.
But He does also says...
...that we should move on,
if people will not listen to us.
If I today, for example, should go out on the street,
I will maybe stop 20 people before I find that one who is open.
And because I don't waste all my time with the first people I meet,
discussing, discussing, discussing,
I will find a person of peace, much more often than I did before.
Before, many years ago, when I was out evangelizing,
I met somebody who did not want God, so I thought: You need it!
No, I don't want. You need it.
And I ended up discussing with them.
And it was hard, and I went from one person to another, and three people...
And suddenly I have been discussing with three people.
And I went home and I was tired.
I was so tired. I was saying: What is wrong?
The people in Denmark don't want God. There's no people here,
or people in America, and no matter where I was...
People don't want God. They are not open.
They are. Just not those few I talked with.
Instead of spending one and a half hour with that person discussing,
half-hour with that person, half-hour with that person,
if I have been fast in moving on...
I would have come to number 15, or number 10, or number 8 -
that person who is ready to receive.
And I would have seen so much more fruit.
So, when Jesus said...
If people will not receive your message, then take the dust off your hands and feet
and move on - He really, really meant it.
In Acts 13 we can read how Paul and Barnabas did it.
They did what Jesus said.
We read here, Acts 13:50-51:
"But the Jews stirred up the devout and honourable women,
and the chief men in the city, and raised persecution against Paul and Barnabas,
and expelled them out of their coasts.
But they shook off the dust of their feet against them, and came unto Iconium."
Here we can read how Paul and Barnabas, actually,
did what Jesus has commanded us all to do.
They were at place where people did not want to receive the message.
They started to discuss and argue.
But they did not stay there and kept arguing and discussing with them.
No. They obeyed Jesus, so they took the dust off their feet and moved on.
And because they moved on, they came to Iconium,
and we read here, in the next verse (Acts 14:1):
"And it came to pass in Iconium, that they went both together
into the synagogue of the Jews, and so spoke,
that the great multitude both of the Jews and also of the Gentiles believed."
What we read here was that Paul and Barnabas were one place,
and in that place people did not want to listen.
They only wanted to argue and they created persecution.
What did Paul and Barnabas do?
They obeyed Jesus.
They took the dust off their hands and feet and they moved on.
And the next place they came, we read how the great multitude,
both the Jews and Gentiles came to faith.
If they have spent all their time the other place, discussing...
they would not have seen that great multitude coming to faith.
If you want to see people come to faith,
if you want to see many people come to faith,
then you need to do like them -
don't waste your time on the wrong people.
Don't waste your time on people who don't want to listen,
who don't want to get saved.
But I really want these people to get saved.
Yes, you want. And I want people to get saved.
And God wants. But do you know...
if they don't want it...
they don't want it.
Give them time.
Give them time to come to a place where they are ready to open up.
Because if they don't want to get saved,
and you keep preaching to them,
the only thing you do is... their hearts harden even more.
And I've seen that.
I've seen again, and again, and again, people who did not want to get saved.
They were not ready. They were not person of peace.
But they have their friends and family around them
who keep preaching to them, who keep preaching, and preaching,
and preaching, and preaching, and preaching to them.
And they did not want it, but they kept preaching, and preaching, and preaching.
They did not want it and they argued against it,
but they kept preaching, and preaching, and preaching to those people.
Do you know what happened?
They did not come to God. The came farther away.
They started to harden their hart and they became bitter.
Don't preach to people who don't want to listen.
Don't keep doing that.
Give them time to come to that place where they are ready.
And in the meantime you can move on
and find people who are ready to receive.
Let me read something from this chapter in my book.
"In the past, when I went out to evangelize on the street,
I only stopped three of four persons within one or two hours
because I always had very long discussions.
Yes, I had discussions with them about God, evolution, and science,
and after our discussions finished, I went home
without ever finding the person of peace.
I went home thinking there was something wrong with the harvest
because those I met were not open.
Yes, I thought the harvest was not ready and plentiful, like Jesus was saying,
because I did not see those (few) I talked to
wanted to have anything to do with God.
This was my experience until I started to wipe the dust off and move on
like Jesus said I should.
When I did that, I saw that it is actually just as Jesus says.
If your experience is that the harvest is not ready and plentiful,
you are looking in the wrong place.
Maybe it is time to move on and not spend all your time on the wrong people."
Those words can seem very hard - just move on and don't spend all your time.
But it's right thing to do.
It's the right thing to do.
Give them over to God.
Take those persons, pray for them, and give them over to God,
and let God bring them to that place where they are ready to receive.
And in the meantime be effective in the Kingdom of God.
In this chapter in my book I tell a story about...
I come with some example about it.
One example is a woman I led to God some years ago.
She got born again, received the Holy Spirit. It was very beautiful.
And then she invited me over to her house
because she wanted me to preach to her brother.
She invited her brother over to her house also.
And there were some other people there.
I sat down, eating, drinking, and then I started to share the gospel to her brother.
But very fast I found out that he was not ready.
I tried a few times to get it in, I brought it up, but every time he just...
shifted the conversation and he did not want to talk.
So, instead of having an evening where I just sat and discussed the whole night,
I just talked about other things with him.
I went to his sister afterwards and said:
I know you want your brother to get saved, but he is not ready.
Don't keep preaching to him. You are just pushing him more and more away.
Just give him over to God.
Let him over to God, pray for him.
Do what I have said here and then go out and find some person of peace.
She wanted him to get saved, but he didn't want.
That was the truth.
What happened here? One year later I was back the same place.
And this time he was there.
And this time, when I shared the gospel, he opened his heart and said:
I want it. I want it.
God has brought him to a place where now he was ready.
And that night he received the Holy Spirit.
He got baptized in water and he received the Holy Spirit.
And it's so important that we understand how God is working.
Don't harden people's heart by keeping preaching to people who don't want it.
They are just going to attack you in the end.
They are going to be bitter.
Jesus is saying that in Matthew 7:6.
"Do not throw your pearls to pigs.
If you do, they may trample them under their feet,
and turn and tear you to peaces."
What does Jesus say here?
Jesus says: Don't give the gospel to people who don't want to listen.
They are not going to appreciate it. They are going to mock it.
They are going to attack you with it.
No, when you meet people who don't want to listen,
then move on.
Move on to the next people.
Move on.
And keep moving...
until you find those people who are ready.
When you do that, you will see what Jesus is saying is correct.
The harvest is ready.
The harvest is ready, but the workers are few.
Or, the workers, they are there, are too busy in the barn,
doing other things.
The workers are too busy with the wrong people.
They are too busy doing other things
instead of finding that harvest that is ready.
So, this is very, very, very important.
I encourage you to start to do this.
Look at those people who are in your life already.
If there's people in your life you have spent months or years on,
and you have never seen them come to Christ,
and they actually started to harden their hart...
move on.
Don't continue spending the time on those few people.
Move on.
Go and find somebody who is ready to receive.
When you do this, you will be surprised.
They are out there, those people who are ready,
those people who are calling on God, those people who are seeking.
They are out there.
But you will not find them
if you spend all your time on the wrong people.
Later in this book I will put it all together.
I will put all of this together, we have talked about, with the call of Jesus.
But until now, please, pray.
Pray with me. Pray that God will send out more workers.
And then pray that God will lead you to the person of peace.
Pray that God will open your eyes to see who is not that person of peace.
And have that in your mind, when you talk with people.
And then you practice. You'll become better and better to recognize
who is the person of peace and when shall you move on.
In the beginning it can be very difficult.
You know, every beginning is difficult.
In the beginning is difficult, like: is this a person of peace
or is not a person of peace?
Is this a person of peace I should sit down and talk with,
or is that somebody I will just end up wasting my time?
In the beginning it's difficult but you try and then you learn,
and then you grow, and then you become better
to recognize where is the good harvest. You become better to recognize
who are those people who are ready to receive.
And then, when you find those people, you will know what to do.
You will sit down with them. You will lead them to Christ,
baptize them in water and Holy Spirit,
heal the sick, cast out demons, as we are going to look next time.
And you will bear so much fruit.
So let's do what Jesus did.
Let's do what Jesus' disciples did.
Let's do what Jesus has called us to do.
You know, Jesus did the same.
He did not end up discussing with those Pharisees.
He said something clear to them and then He moved on.
And where do we find Jesus? He was sitting in the house of the sinners.
He was there to bring salvation to those who were lost.
He did not come to call righteous, self-righteous people.
He came to call sinners to repentance.
He came to bring healing to those people.
We are going to look at that in the next lesson.
God bless you! Bye-bye!
The Call of Jesus