This is the Truth Network.
The following program is recorded content created by the Truth Network. Be the lost Vegas. What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, or does it? Because when you go plant the seeds of Christ, there's a lot of fruit. There are souls now that are in Vegas because of these three men who are just back from Vegas.
They're on fire for God. You didn't go out there, Jamal, to gamble, or to play blackjack, or the slots, or to see the shows. What did y'all go to do? We went to save souls through plain and simple, give out Bibles, and connect people to a church around like-minded folks. And if it can happen in Vegas, it can happen anywhere else. Well, and Fred, you went out there, you just wrote a soul winning book, and you took a bunch of them with you, but you actually did what you say you do in the book, didn't you?
That's correct. I love sharing the gospel in dark spiritual environments. That's where you can see the message of the cross shine the brightest.
We're in Dario. These guys are some of our Wednesday the Word guys. They're all very active in their local church.
They love Jesus. But they got up a couple weeks ago and said, hey, we're going to Vegas on a missions trip. Who's going? And it looks like you three ended up going, including Mike here. Mike, you were pretty fired up about that, weren't you, brother? Look, we've been three previous times.
This was our fourth trip. And when Fred came to me and he said, I want to go to Las Vegas, I thought he was crazy. But I will tell you this. I have never been more blessed in my life. And I promise you, when you reach someone for Jesus, that will stick with you your entire life. And when you tell somebody about Jesus, they never, ever, ever forget about it. I haven't talked to many people that just go to Vegas for I mean, people go for trade shows.
I'm not saying it's all bad. I mean, there's people, you know, there's there's there's businesses there. There's you left family there. I play ball with a guy that lives.
It works at a Christian school there. I want to go see him at some point. But you guys went and each of you has kind of a highlight of something the Lord did.
Lord did a lot of things. You show me some pictures you share with a group here today. I want you to think of what's a highlight. Like what's what's something that really touched each of you individually? I guess I'll start with Mike here.
Well, I'm going to I'm going to let Jamal take the one about the mold on the ground. Jamal and I were able to speak to the prisoners out there and it was about one hundred and twenty of them. They were all dressed in orange from the top of their head to the to the bottom of their feet, orange socks, pants, shoes. And we were able to share testimonies, read God's word to prisoners. But really what impacted me so much, Stan, is when they gave the invitation and they started playing a Christian song, how those prisoners were praising Jesus.
Now, when the invitation came, I had my head bowed praying. But I heard and Jamal heard I know several of those guys prayed to receive Christ. I have no no idea how many, but the impact of those guys praying to receive Christ behind bars with no hope, with no family.
Only thing they're relying on is Christ to lead them through their daily lives. And that impacted me more than anything just to see how prisoners with no hope realized they did have hope in Jesus Christ. Jamal, what say you? I would have to share with Mike's sentiment. I know he wanted me to touch on the more people and I will.
But real quick, just to cut to the chase. I got emotional when I was in the prison. I just felt the weight, the weightiness of despair. I felt the weightiness of isolation.
I felt the weightiness of guilt and shame. And here we are trying to share the gospel with these guys. What can we tell these guys to give them hope? Well, I can't tell them anything from me.
But Jamal, Fred and Mike can do. I can tell them what Jesus did. I can tell them something that's going to be beyond the prison, going to be beyond their shame, going to be beyond their guilt.
And that's what I did. But one of the reasons why I got emotional is I was going to leave these guys. I was not going to be connected with them once I left.
They're going to be behind bars, behind that door for who knows how long. And they expressed feelings to me that wasn't about money, wasn't about drugs, wasn't about position. They shared a pain of isolation. They shared a pain of losing their friendship, not being with their family, having somebody on the outside unprotected. I felt that. So when you are out there with somebody, I don't care who it is. It could be the toughest guy out there and the meekest guy out there. We all need connection.
We all need somebody out there to be our confidant. These guys in prison were saying the exact same thing. So if you could be a friend of somebody, give somebody Jesus, that's one of the best gifts you can give anybody. And that's the voice of Jamal who loves Jesus. He and Mike and Fred went to.
That would be a great book. The missionary adventures of Jamal, Mike and Fred. They just got back from Vegas. Hey, they went out there and this guy, did he go with you too?
Yeah, he did. Oh, well, you went to Vegas too? What was it like for you, man? You're a young man. What are you doing going on missions trips, man? You should be out there partying and having a good time.
What's going on? Yeah, it was a blessing to be able to have the opportunity to, you know, share the gospel and be able to just step out of, you know, my comfort zone of, you know, talking to people about Christ. And sometimes it's sometimes you want to as a young person, you want to just like figure out everything that you need to be doing and whatever you need to be kind of like stepping into.
But I was also as a young person, you got to think about, you know, who you're around and who you surround yourself with. And and and it's and it's and it's a blessing to be able to surround myself with people that love the Lord. And that's a big part of something that something that I'm coming up on as I just coming up on and just sharing the gospel is. Sharing the gospel has been a big thing on my mind now since I've been on this trip.
And and just the freedom that Christ gives us and the freedom that's in his word and the and the and just and the blessings that he gives to us. Yeah, that's Fred. You got up in front of a bunch of men here in Dario Wednesday, the word about an hour ago. And you you have a new name for Las Vegas.
Talk is rocking around. You heard it to Las Vegas is the last capital of the world. And what called me to Las Vegas about five years ago was I wanted to do a mission in a dark spiritual environment.
That's where you see the message of the cross shine the lightest. I thought about Las Vegas. And when we got out there, it was so exciting seeing some of those people make those decisions. The next time I started that I went, what got me excited was DC and these guys get excited about sharing their faith. There were 10 of us out there and some of these folks that went with us are incredibly introverted people. They got out of big time comfort zones to go out there. And it was so exciting to see them watch them share that same joy and excitement that really motivates me. That was the thing that made this trip such a real blessing to me.
That's the neat thing about missions trips. Not only are you sharing the gospel and engaging and it just brings a fire to you. If you're in a rut, go share the gospel with someone. Suddenly you realize that your problem is a lot more smaller than the person's problem there because they don't even have a Christ. They're on their way to a Christless eternity.
But the other piece of that is you're like brothers in Christ. Now it's like going to battle. You're fighting with these people. They're protecting you.
You're protecting them. You have a common enemy. You have a common mission.
And so there's something powerful about bonding. And Mike, I think you experienced that too, didn't you, with your brothers in Christ? I did.
I did. And let me tell you something. We thought when we had three or four that we were doing really good in years past. And when we took that group of 10 and out there and bonding with each other and sharing the word of God with people, we grew not only as a family. I have new brothers and sisters in Christ that I never even thought, never even knew that I would even be associated with like Jamal and Wedajio. These guys, I was watching how they were passionately sharing Jesus to people. And quite frankly, Stu, I'm an emotional guy.
Tears were running down my face saying, this guy's 21. This guy's never been. And they were sharing the word of God to people that were hungry to hear about the Lord. Well, this is Truth Talk.
I'm Stu Epperson. And we've interviewed a lot of missionaries, people that have been in the same mission field for 40, 50 years, making a huge impact all over the world, organizations. This is just a bunch of Christian guys that says, we're going to go on a missions trip. And so now this is a raw show.
I mean, we just we talk to people that love Jesus and are sharing Jesus, that know him and are making him known. Jamal, you guys went on a trip to Vegas. We got to wrap it up. This isn't about play it safe Christianity. This isn't about, well, kind of stand my own little lane and just kind of keep to myself and have a little home, my two car garage. This is about risking it for Christ and going to a very dangerous, sinful place, Sin City, Las Vegas. Take us home.
You're challenged. Everyone is summarizing this trip that you guys took to Vegas recently and what God did. Well, first of all, I want to give thanks to my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. That's something that is really being challenged right now. And if we can't say that, then that's that's taking a lot out of society.
We all need Jesus. And just thankful, be thankful for the opportunity to say that. I also want to thank you, Stu, Truth Network, for giving us the platform, the opportunity to say this to where any other platform wouldn't give us that kind of opportunity. And you're being brave right now by putting this word out there, because, again, not not anybody would.
You're one of the only guys out there to do that. I got to thank you for your bravery. And it's not just business trips that you're talking about. You're talking about focus on the family. You're talking about abortion, talking about political issues. You're talking about a whole lot.
So I want to give thanks to you again. So I think about Paul. I think about Jesus who went out to the dangerous territories under Roman rule, who had the threat of not just being blocked online or being befriended or not people talking to him. They went under the threat of death and torture.
So if they can do that, how can I sit back in my comfortable couch, my Netflix, my HVAC and not go out and tell somebody? Vegas was only the starting point. We want to go to places that's going to be dangerous. Why not China? Why not Russia? Why not the Middle East?
So if you can do it in Vegas, again, we should be able to do it anywhere else. So that's my challenge. If you are at home and thinking about what to do, go out and be a bus and share the gospel. Once you share the gospel, everything else will fall in line. When you have that mind of Jesus Christ, that's going to affect your business, it's going to affect your family business, it's going to affect your family life, it's going to affect everything. So go out there and share the gospel. What happens in Vegas doesn't stay there because when the gospel goes somewhere, it goes all over the world. So people you all led to Christ on this missions trip, they're taking the gospel, they're going on airplanes, they're going all over. Fred, you wrote a book. Give a quick shout out for the book because I want everyone listening to be a soul winner. Proverbs says, he that win his souls is wise. Proverbs 11 30. Get us out of here. What's the name of that book?
Give it a shout out. Give them Jesus. The book will walk you through step by step the development of your own personal witnessing skill set that you tailor to fit you. Our personalities are all different. This is tailoring your skill set to fit you.
And once you get your skill set, once you get comfortable with your skill set, then you become very effective. I got a copy of that book for anyone that wants one. Come see me. Reach out to us. We'll get you a copy of Fred's book.
You get a case of them, give them to people. Let's be soul winners. It's become a bad word. Of course, we can't save a soul. He does. But let's introduce people to the only one who can change anyone. Whether it's in Winston State, North Carolina, whether it's in Biloxi, Mississippi, whether it's in Las Vegas, Nevada. Another program powered by the Truth Network.
