Come on up, and I will get out of the way. Very much. It's so good to be here today. We met this church about well, actually, in 1978, I came first here when missionary David It's so nice to be with with you all. You got he's gonna have to sit down.

There you go. This evening and let you know a little bit about what's going on, where we are right now. As pastor Polar said, when we left the school here at Brandon, it was 2007 and you were already supporting us as far as I remember. So, it's been about twenty years that we have, had this wonderful relationship with you and we thank you so much. And when we left, the school at that time, we'd already been married twenty years, but we started a new ministry on the border of Mexico.

And we were there for a time, and then we went down into Monterrey and worked there for a few years. And then Juan felt called to go further south to Tanto Yuca, Veracruz where we are now. And for you to get an idea of where Tanto Yuca is, if you followed the last storm, which was Alberto, it hit just a little bit north of us. Okay? So it's south of the border on the Gulf Coast, a little bit in the path of the hurricane, which was just a tropical storm.

And now Beryl is coming in, and she's gonna hit right there just a little bit north of us. So you know, basically, where we are. Texas. It's gonna hit Texas, but we're just a little bit south of the border on the Gulf Coast. And so we're very happy that we did get rain because we've been in a drought for about three years and the rivers had dried up.

But Alberto brought us some some well needed rain. But anyway, we've been there now for ten years this summer, and we started with a group of two and two ladies who had been faithful. The church that had been there had dissolved. And so there were two ladies, and, we praise God. We've baptized 69 people in the ten years that we've been there.

Everyone in the congregation is a new believer. They don't come from Christian homes, and, so that is a challenge. It's a challenge to work with, those who know nothing of the gospel, nothing of what how a church functions and all, but we are blessed to have a good group of about, 50 that are consistent in church. And God has allowed, and Juan will talk a little bit about it, has allowed us to start, two missions, and we're working with two others. So we have four missions we're working with, and, that keeps us busy.

Juan and I go to two of them pretty consistently, so so we go to church a lot. Anyway, it's it is a blessing. And, we just wanna let you know that this year in our, last year, better said, the church was organized as a as a church. It had been a mission. And last year around Easter, we organized as a church, and so we've been organized for a year.

And this year, we had our first anniversary and we had a special special meetings and, we had 15 baptisms when the meetings were over. So we're we're blessed to have those 15 and we have a list of about eight who are ready for baptisms for the summer. Now we do baptize in the river, and so we're always expecting hoping for good water. In in Easter, it was a little low. It was a really low, But, the rains have come, and so now we've got water.

Now we can dunk them really easy. We don't have to go so far in, and that'll this will be good. And the waters will be clear and clean. And so that's that's been a blessing this year. Vacation Bible School will be when we get back, and we're expecting between 80, probably 80 or 90 kids to come in.

We're bringing in the mission kids as well and helping them helping the missions to get a feel of what it is to do and how to do it so that maybe next year they can do it on their own. And, so pray for us as we do that. Last year, we had about 80 kids in at VBS, which was pretty challenging. And as you see the pictures in the back, you'll notice that our building is a building without walls, truly a church without walls. Without walls.

And so when the heat comes, it comes full blast. And so you can just imagine, you know, being out in church at a 100, a 110 degrees and having 80 kids running around. It's it's pretty dynamic. And so just pray for us as we're as we're working for that. And, we started a new challenge in September with, an institute.

We started an institute, a bible institute. At the beginning, we had a lot of people excited and and we had 22 students and they were coming faithfully until they had homework to do. And they had to read the Bible and they had to do other things and they kind of petered out. But so this semester, we've had 11 that that, ended up being faithful. The others kind of just said it was too much for them.

And, so we have 11 students in the second semester. We're hoping, once we start the third semester in September, we'll at least have those 11. We'll see if anybody else thought it was too much homework. But, you know, it's hard when you're an adult to go back to school. Honestly, it's hard.

But when, you didn't go to high school and you didn't, you know, get higher education, it's even harder. So many of our people struggle. But, hey, the bible is is what we teach, and we need to know it. And we we say we believe it, we might as well learn it. And so we're excited about that.

The first semester, Juan taught, the life of Christ and and how to understand the bible. And, I taught bible survey, New Testament survey, and music. And that's another challenge because there's not, in for some reason, in the the city itself is very musical for their worship for their folklore and for the worship of their idols. That's that's music. Okay?

But when it came into this church setting, there is no inclination for music talent. So it's something that we're really praying for. There's just, no knowledge. It just doesn't set in. So music was very challenging.

And, but we did it, and, the men began to understand that music is part of of our worship, and it's part of what the Bible really pushed in the Old Testament. And when they started learning that a lot of these things were already in the Bible, they thought we were inventing them. And they said, you know, wow. This is in the bible. Yeah.

Music's in the bible, and it's really important. So we're working on that. And this semester, we will continue with bible doctrines and Yeah. Theology and, bible survey, Old Testament. That's gonna be fun.

And, so just pray for us as we're doing this other new work and, as we work in the missions. And then Juan has a ministry also in Monterey. So we are about, a nine hour drive from Monterey, but every, couple months, Juan goes to Monterey to teach pastors. And he has about 12 pastors that, that get together with him every two months. And and it's a training, helping them, be better leaders.

And so, this has been quite a blessing to many of them. I've been impressed at the growth that some of the men have had because they said, oh, we didn't know that leadership meant this. And so they're growing and they are becoming, in our eyes, better pastors, better leaders in their churches. And so yeah. They do a lot of work on how to build a team to, to lead the church.

So it's it's been it's been quite a blessing. But thank you so much for your prayers. Thank you so much for your support. You have been so faithful to us and, of course, to our Lord, and we thank you so much. And, may God bless you, and may God bless you.

Thank you. Cindy. Yes, I have a question. Yes. As far as your safety, that is an issue much where you are?

You it was when we first went. It was a little bit rougher, and then things got better. Right now, things are getting worse. But it's because, it's politics. Our president has, communist tendencies, socialist communist tendencies.

Are you dead from this? Yeah. Sure. No. No.

No. I'm not even a Mexican citizen. I don't care. I don't vote. But, the new president that's coming in, which will be our first woman president, she is a strict follower of his, and so she will implement even more, communist tendencies, and, it's going to get rough.

It's going to get rough. And we believe strongly believe that it's a cartel government anyway. So cartel is having its way around the country again, and, there are hot spots. Right now, we're not in one. Praise God.

But, we do, we do travel only in the daytime, and we don't go by ourselves. You know, we do certain things that are that we hope that are smart, and we have our plan, but, it is what it is, and we'll see what God has for Mexico. But I, we believe that this will bring a spiritual revival because many, are going to feel that need to have something they can trust in someone, and it's definitely not the government. Not now. Any other questions?

No? Please. Can you put it there? You can look at our pictures afterwards and we'll talk about it. Thank you.

Yeah. Any questions you could ask us afterwards? Well, thank you. I want to forgive my English. I'm too rough.

I wanna also include that in our institute we have three pastors. I don't know how but this has happened in in my ministry, in our ministry. Somehow pastors come close to me and ask me, you know, hey, would you teach us? Because they don't they have any no training in pastoring. They may be good preachers, but they don't know how to pastor.

That's a that's a tough job. And I got a call from God to to teach young and new pastors. And so it's it's every three months, not every two months that I go to Monterey and get together with the pastors and teach. So that's what. And also we have another pastor who was working with us for three years.

His name is Pancho. Pancho de la Torre. And he's back in Monterrey and he started a mission. So we consider that that mission is because of what we taught him in in Santa Yuk. So pray for us.

The work is too much. I was thinking about retiring in December of this year. But now that we started a Bible Institute, maybe it's gonna be another three years before we get the first the first graduates. So, anyway, pray for us. Thank you very much.

Now somebody asked about projects. Yes. We do have projects. And somebody asked us about money. Yes.

We do need money. And somebody said, how much? Lots of them. But anyway, God we let God put in your heart if you wanna help. Okay let's open our bibles to the book because now I'm preaching let's let's open our bibles to the book of psalm chapter 40 Psalm chapter 40 and verse one and two.

The bible says I waited patiently for the Lord and he inclined unto me and heard my cry. He brought me up also out of the horrible pit out of the miry clay and set my feet upon a rock and establish my goings. Well, the aim of this message is to be able to give you hope. Sometimes it happens into our lives even in my own life that we deviate from the way. The way is Christ.

The road is Christ. Sometimes we we come I don't know what's the circumstances, but then he anyway, we we deviate. We we have a detour, and we go to the wrong road. Jesus said that there are two roads. One is wide and the other is narrow.

And so we need to understand that it happens. It has happened in my life and maybe in some of your lives too. But I wanna give you hope. If you are there or you're going there and you're thinking going into that other white road, there's a way to come out and come back. So the Psalmist says, he brought me out of the pit, horrible pit.

Then after that he says he got me out of the miry clay have you been in a in mud I have you know you're in a car and you get stuck in the in the mud and then the wheels begin spin or spinning and you don't move. You you just stay there. Get get stuck. I've been there. Maybe you have too.

It is not a nice feeling. You feel like you're doing everything you can, but you're not advancing. It's about the same thing in a Christian life. See, we need to advance. We don't need to go back or to stay spinning the wheels.

No. We need to advance. And so, we take this thing that we deviate. We go to the wrong place. We go to the wrong people.

We go to the wrong highway. But God is the one who brings us out of the pit and out of the muddy places where we've been. So I want you to know one thing. It is God who can make us come back to the road, come back to the highway, come back to the right road, the right door. The wide door is easy, but the narrow door is not very easy.

And sometimes we get tired of being in the narrow road. People would make fun of us and people would make a a mockery out of us, and we don't like it. See, being a Christian and and I do I do say this with all respect. Being a Christian is not only coming to church. It's a good thing you're here.

Amen. Praise the Lord. However, being a Christian is is out there and give a witness and suffer for Christ's sake. And and and many people don't like that. Well, I thought it was just nice and easy.

Nope. The road is hard. It's narrow. So if you're thinking and going in the wrong way, there's a way that you can come out of it. And I'll let you know at the end of the message.

Now let's open to the book of Psalm chapter one zero three. Chapter one zero three. It says blessed bless the Lord, O my soul and all that is within me bless his holy name. Bless the Lord, O my soul and forget not all his benefits who forgiveth all thine iniquity who healeth all thy diseases. Notice what God does.

He says here that he forgiveth all the iniquities. Pastor, preacher, I don't know. You don't know what I've been through. You don't know my sins. No.

I don't. All I know is that God forgives all your iniquities. And my job here is to tell you what the God says, what what the Lord is saying here. It's about the same thing. Have you been in a pit?

God bring you up. Have you committed iniquities? God forgives every iniquity in your life. There's hope because he could he forgives us. Now let's go to Proverbs chapter three.

Proverbs three says in verse five, trust in the Lord with all thine heart and lean not into the thine own understanding in all thy ways acknowledge him and he shall direct thy path. If you have turned from the right path to the wrong path, he can direct your life to go back to the right path. Who can? The Lord. It's not it's not the pastor.

It's not the Sunday school teacher. It's not the deacon. It's the Lord who brings us out of our iniquities, forgives us, bring us out of the pit, out of the muddy place where we are have been doing or something. He directs our our doings. He changes.

So there's hope. We can come back. Now let's go to Matthew 11 and verse 28. Now I'm gonna come to the solution. If we have been out of God's way, obviously, we went to the devil's way.

If we had done that and got to the devil's way, there's a way to come back. I'm gonna read you three or four, elements, basic elements to come back, to come back to the Lord. Number one, the it's in verse 28 in chapter 11 of Matthew. He says, come unto me, all ye that laborer and are heavy laden and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and lead and learn of me for I am meek and low lowly in heart and he shall find rest and you shall find rest unto your souls.

Notice Jesus is promising us rest. See, going in the wrong way, you you will never have rest. You will never advance in your life in your Christian witnesses because you're going the wrong way. But God said, Jesus is saying, come on to me. So the first step to come back is to go to Jesus.

Go to Jesus. I hope you came here today to listen to Jesus because Jesus is asking you, come on to me. See, he also said in another passage, you can do nothing without me. Wow. That's why we get stuck.

We don't advance because we're leaving God's way. But then he says here, come on to me, and I'm gonna give you rest. Praise the Lord. It's like like, the match and the nail. I always I always give this illustration.

The match is so weak. We can take a match and bend it very easily, especially if it is made out of wax. If it is wood, it's hard to break it, but it is made out of wax. You can break it. You can bend it very easily.

But if you put the the the match together with a nail two inches nail and you try to bend it you cannot. Why? Because the nail is strong. If we are together with Jesus Christ we can come back. Nothing is gonna bend us.

We're gonna be able to be strong and defeat the old ways, defeat the the devil's ways, and go back to God's ways. See, the first thing and then to defeat this is that we need to come to Jesus. Now the second thing is in Philippians chapter three. This is Ephesians. Philippians chapter three and verse 13.

Notice what God says here. I'm just telling you what God says. Okay? And it is up to you to make a choice. It is up to you to make the decision because leaving God's way and going to the wrong way, it's our decision.

It's our election. Nothing nobody turn our our arms in the back and pull us up to go in in the wrong direction. Nobody. We did it by our choice. Now notice what was it Philippians three thirteen.

Brethren, I could not I count not myself to have apprehended it but this one thing I do forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forth unto those things which are before I press forward the mark for the Christ of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. First thing is first element is going to Jesus, coming to Jesus. The second is forgetting the past. One of the things that, the devil does, he will bring to your mind always what you have done wrong. And then you begin to feel guilty and then you lose dream.

You cannot dream. You cannot sleep. You you lose sleep out of it because you're remembering the past. You know one thing about the past? We're gonna change it.

It is there. It's recorded. Our past is recorded. But Jesus said that he took our sins and put it under the sea. That's what the Bible says.

I don't remember the do you remember what what passage is that? He takes Yeah. Okay. He takes the sins and put it under the sea. One day, a pastor in Monterey, he he wanted to accuse me of some things.

And so in front of bunch of preachers, came and and took my count to everybody. He he told everybody about my sins. He wanted to he wanted to kill my testimony. And one of the other pastors stood up and said, well, are you a deep sea diver? No.

Well, God says that he puts all our sins into the sea. How come you you brought those sins back up? You know? So everybody was staying in there, and I didn't say anything. I just let it go.

But that's the past. We cannot do anything to change it. But one thing we can do is to learn from the past and try not to commit the same mistakes all over, all over again and again and again. Forget the past. Keep pressing.

So that's two things. Number one, get closer to Jesus. Number two, forget the past and keep going. Turn the page. Turn the chapter and say, Start a page.

Yes. That's it. Another thing we could do is in first John chapter one. First John chapter one and verse seven. No, verse six, if we say that we have fellowship with him and walk in darkness, we lie and do not we do not have the truth but if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another.

And he and his blood of Jesus Christ his son cleanses us from all sin. If we say that we have no sin we deceive ourselves and and the truth is not in us but if we confess our sins he is faithful and just to forgive our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Notice here, the third thing we need to do is to confess our sin. One time I was preaching about this message here and I told the guys and I told everybody, you know, if you have sin in your life, just admit it and confess it and then live from it. If I confess my sin to God, what is he gonna do?

He says he's faithful to forgive me. And not only that, he says he forgives my sin when I confess them, and then he cleans my soul from all impurity. What does he do? He forgives and he cleanses us. Very easy.

And I I get criticized many times. And and this well, people say, pastor Juan says that just confess your sin and that's it. Is there any other way to get our sins forgiven? Just confess them. Just like that.

Lord, I had a bad thought today. I envy somebody. I covet something. Just say it and say, God, I've been doing this. I agree with you and please forgive my sin.

He will forgive you and clean you. Why do I say that? Because it is here. I didn't write it. I didn't write it.

And you need to trust in what God says. That's one of the things that we need to do. Trust in the Lord and lean not into your own understanding. Go to him. Go to the Bible.

That would be that's another another element basic element to to leave the the bad the bad road, bad highway. But there's another another thing we could do. That's the fourth. And with this, I'll finish. I'm gonna give you the the time for invitation, pastor.

In in chapter three in in James chapter three Verse eight says, but the tongue can no man tame. It is an unruly evil full of deadly poison. Therewith blessed bless we got therewith blessed blessed we got even the father and therewith therewithin cause a man which are made of after the similitude of God. Out of the same mouth is that the one I want? I don't think so.

13. Okay. 13. Sorry. Who is a wise man and endued with knowledge among you?

Let he show out of a good conversation his works with meekness and wisdom. But if ye have bitter envying and strife in your hearts glory not and lie not against the truth. This wisdom descended not from above but is on unearthly sensual devilish for where evening for where envying and strive is, there is confusion and every evil work. But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceful, visible, gentle and easy to be treated, full of mercy and good fruits without particularly and without hypocrisy. The first element the fourth element is seek wisdom.

Not only seek wisdom, ask God to give you wisdom because he is he is the one that gives us wisdom. To leave the bad road, to leave the bad highway, we need wisdom. Wisdom from above, who is pure, full of mercy. And so there's hope. If you have been in that way, I don't know.

I have a guy in in Santa Yuca who was in church for two years. Then he went to the world, and he was in the world for thirty eight years. Thirty eight years. God forgave him. He came back to the church.

God forgave him. But the consequences are there. If we're wise, we wanna think twice before we do something or say something that's wrong because we're gonna have consequences. Asking David, he had consequences. As Jonah, the prophet, he was God's prophet, but he was rebellious.

God against God's commandment. So are you stubborn? Are you rebellious? Have you heard God and disobey him on purpose? Well, there's a way to come back.

Get closer to Christ. Forget the past and ask for forgiveness and ask wisdom. Four little things, little words, and then you'll be back and God will be glorified. That's the thing. If we would do that, then God is gonna be glorified, and we will be in the right path.

He directs our paths. So trust him and trust the word of God and obey whatever God tells you. God speaks to the heart. The preacher speaks to our ears, but God speaks to the heart. If God has called you to do something today, make a choice, a wisely choice to come back.

Thank you. God bless you. Thank you, brother Warren. I