How much is one soul worth?

You're listening to the Truth Network and TruthNetwork.com. How much is one soul worth to the Savior?

When's the last time you invited one soul to come to know Jesus, to enter into a relationship with Almighty God? It could be said that the world is on fire. There are so many wars going on. Literally, in California, I see those fires. Those are places I used to go all the time. My Uncle John and Aunt Jeanette lived up in the hills. My Auntie Mo and Uncle Ed live over closer to Camarillo, which is getting... The winds are hitting the fire that way. Thousand Oaks, all these areas.

Malibu. The fire literally is raging, but there's another fire going on across the world, and there is a battle for souls. And so we are fully praying for all of our friends in California. You need to start praying.

I mentioned a couple names, because that's how it touched me. You start praying for people by name. Pray for these actors.

You're like, I can't stand that actor and all this language and all that. Well, pray for him, that God will use this horrible tragedy to bring him and his family to Christ. Pray for all those affected. Pray for the first responders. And there really is a sense of urgency, because Doug Elks, with AIM Ministries, when something's on fire, when the house is on fire, suddenly you've got to move, right?

You can't wait. That's right. There's something very serious that's very sobering. 100%, man. It's really sad what's going on. I agree. I think we need to continue to pray.

Not only would the fires stop and the physical earth is healed, but I just pray for spiritual healing in the state of California. So yeah, you're 100% right, and it's a serious thing. And I think when certain events like this happen, we recognize that life is fragile. There's nothing guaranteed. Tomorrow's not promised. There's that Proverb, Proverbs 27.1, you know, we shouldn't boast about tomorrow. And I think it's really important to know who your Savior is.

Yeah. It's interesting, Miguel Viera, you're with this wonderful family ministries. You're feeding people, sharing the gospel with people. You're mobilizing churches to do the same. But Miguel, I think it's really fascinating that with your ministry, Miguel Viera, there's an urgency to you.

We had breakfast earlier, and you just went on and on about, we've got to reach souls right now. We've got people that are unreached, and you see these fires burning. We need to put a fire under the believers, myself included, to get about the business of the gospel. Just think about the definition of insanity as doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. And there's people that are living their lives, and they're banging their head against the wall, and they're doing the same things, and they're looking for meaning and purpose that can only be found with a changed heart and with a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. So we're just called to show people something different that they're currently experiencing.

Wow. And the fire of the wrath of God is real. And this isn't where we sit back and say, oh man, that guy owed me money.

He lives in LA. Yeah, I'm so glad his house burned down. No, that is awful. This is where we pray. We ask God for mercy. We recognize that, hey, I could lose everything in a second. Just like that.

It's gone. And people who had million dollar homes, people who had hundred thousand dollar homes have lost everything, and people have died. We need to sober up and pray, but there's a sobering reality, John Perry, a.k.a. BallerNation, that Christ is coming back and that it's real. And the fire of hell is real. It reminds us of that eternal fire and that there's the souls of men and women hanging in the balance, right?

There is. There's men and women out there that need to hear the gospel, and that's why it's so important to, just as individuals, be praying about what's that one person you can reach today at a gas station, at your job, wherever that might be, because God's placed you there for a reason. And that's why it's so awesome to have guys, like the hit man and Doug over here, that come in and light a fire under people's behinds. Here's John, thank you for a nice way to say that. We appreciate you doing this.

Thank you for the high road there. But it's so encouraging, and we need to be people who are bold with Christ. I just think about, I always love to bring up Randy Shepard, because I know he's been a huge Truth Network supporter and he passed away, sadly, but he was so bold, and he encouraged me to be even bolder because I feel like we need more people like that today. Yeah, Miguel, you met Randy Shepard. He came and spun the balls and shared the gospel.

We had a great lunch with him last Thanksgiving, and then this past Thanksgiving, Jamie Johnson was there. And we were celebrating Randy's life, the legacy of Randy Shepard, but looking for every opportunity, looking for every way. The good news is there's a lot of Christians flying to California, like, why are you going that way? Why are you going toward the fire? Because that's where God calls us to.

Where is the need, right? Miguel, you shared a statistic when we met earlier about less than 5% of born-again Christians are sharing their faith. Just a little step one, just talk about Jesus. Just ask someone, who is Jesus to you? Ask someone, how can I pray for you?

You do that a lot, don't you? Absolutely. Less than 5% are actually sharing their testimony with somebody outside of their family, and less than 5% are actually physically leading somebody to Christ. So 5% of all the Christians are doing all the work. I got to go to the Billy Graham Cove last year with my wife to go to a concert, and Gigi was there, and she shared a story. And I won't share the whole story, but I'll share the lesson that she learned at the end from her father. She said that the people are called to love others.

The Spirit is called to convict, and God is the judge. So what would happen if we just show people in difficult places just an uncommon love that we have access to through the Spirit that is coming out of the overflow that he's pouring into us? Wow. Yesterday I heard on one of the talk shows that they're showing these pictures of the fires all over, but you can't get away from it. And of course, there's been a lot of love and support, and poured out care and love. And I was on the phone with my uncle, he had to hang up, because he's getting reports that there's a fire coming close to the Christian school out there. And so we prayed right then. I prayed with him right there on the phone.

It was a quick prayer, you know? But I heard someone read to an actor who's kind of more in the conservative camp. They read the statement of another actor who loathes and hates that actor because of his stance. And the other actor said horrible things about him, about his house burning down.

The other actor said he didn't know he had it coming, and just terrible things. But look, I'm not picking on an isolate in the party, because we know it's going both ways. We know people are saying the same thing about the people they don't like, the people they do like, whatever.

Throwing jabs out even at the political people who have probably messed up. But at the end of the day, Doug Elks, this is an opportunity, an open door. Even a discussion about the fire in snowy North Carolina or snowy Ohio could open up a door to the fire of the Holy Spirit, to avoid the fire of God's eternal wrath. Wow. It's good.

Excuse me. I'm getting over a sickness that I caught down in Atlanta, and I think of even sicknesses or fires are the harder things we go through in life. It's sometimes what God uses to bring us into the truth. It's sometimes what he uses to bring us into what he has called us to do. But something the hit man just said that really hit me as well is that when people want to love others, people want to show the love of Jesus, well, it's really unloving to let someone believe a lie. And I think a lot of us are consumed in what the world wants us to believe is true, but it really isn't. And I think you and I would both agree, as well as everyone here, that Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life, and no one will come to the Father except through him. And so we're responsible as believers to help people understand what the truth is, even in the midst of some of the hardest, most catastrophic events that they're going through in this world, because when sin entered the world, a lot of things got really crazy.

Diseases came, people started dying. Now we have catastrophes like these crazy fires that are really unfortunate events, but we just have to be reminded of who is the truth and how can we find him. Wow.

It's fascinating. And Doug Elk's an incredible man and guy with a great mission with AIM Ministries where you're going and you're sharing the gospel with basketball teams, with athletes, FCA groups all over the country, all over the world. You play with Randy Shepard. That guy never missed an opportunity to share the gospel, did he? He sure didn't. And yeah, he's had a massive impact on my journey in ministry. And I'll never forget this, a quick tidbit on him to honor him. We would go to these different places in the Philippines. We were going village to village, city to city, and he was preaching the gospel in front of thousands and thousands of people every single time. And that was amazing. People were coming to Christ and professing Christ as their Lord and Savior. But what really stuck out to me, which goes along with what you're talking about, is how we would go to McDonald's late at night because they wouldn't let us eat the food on the streets.

And everyone would be sitting there taking their shoes off, drinking water on their phones, and he would be going to each and every worker one by one, giving a gospel track, presenting the gospel, because he knows how important it is. I love that. Doug, what's your website? Folks want to learn more about you, have you come speak to their group, share with their team, whatnot?

Yeah, our website's aimmissions.com, AIMmissions.com, and we would love to do that. We'd be honored to serve. Well, you know, it's interesting. There's many fires in the Bible, and we're grateful for fire, right? It's great in the fireplace, right?

You don't want to get in anywhere else. But there's the fire of the Holy Spirit, which is a cleansing fire and a healing fire. It's painful, but it's burning out the sin when we welcome the Holy Spirit in. And that's an immediate fire, right?

The one that John the Baptist brought, the baptism of fire. But then there's the fire of God's wrath. We don't want to wait for that. We don't want to wait until it's too late. We're alive. We're breathing. We're talking. We're listening. We're involved. We're going to walk out of the studio.

The question is, where are our feet going to take us, and who are we going to share the good news of Christ, and invite them into the glory, and invite them to have the fire of Christ light their light up so they're not burned for eternity, which would be the worst thing. And as we're talking, Miguel Viera, we've got to get out of here, but it's got to bring you great joy, and Doug great joy, and John Perry, a.k.a. Bower Nation Great Joy, to see in the two-way mirror back there as the Christian Gargay has set up, and St. Nick has brilliantly put this program in today, our producer, to see David Parsons. We're all here because of David Parsons.

Now, why is that? Because you're like, I only prayed with him briefly on the phone when you were on my way to Wednesday, the word with me, Doug. Miguel and I, we don't spend a lot of time together, but we all have him in common because David Parsons mentored me long before you guys were born. I'm 54, don't tell anyone. He's been mentoring me since I was like 51. I was a little tiny guy, and he popped me on his lap mowing the yard, and then he said, you see those crickets jumping behind the lawn mower?

I said, yeah. He said, well, catch them, we'll go fishing at the rescue mission's big lake. So he did that, and he mentored me since then. Well, he started mentoring you, right? And then because of his mentoring me, I mentored John Perry sitting right here, and John Perry introduced me to Doug.

So you're one of his grandkids. Get us out of here on the fire real quick. We've only got about 10 seconds left, or 15 seconds.

Go real quick. We'll go challenge everybody. I just encourage the listeners to think about having a conversation with people versus an argument, and just sharing how God's changed your life. It's never going to be insulting to ask somebody how you could pray for them, because there's always something that they could be prayed for, and it could just plant that seed to discover a relationship with Jesus Christ. Amen. And let's pray for California. Let's pray for so many affected, and let's pray for the Lord to open the door, and let's pray for the hands and feet of Jesus Christ to be active there. Stu Epperson, Truth Talk Live!