October 19 was Pumpkin Sunday for the college bus ministry, and what an exciting day it was! Our students invested a great deal of effort in this special day. The Lord blessed their work with some wonderful results as 649 people rode the buses (not including college students), 72 people made professions of faith in Christ, and 9 of those followed the Lord in believer’s baptism. (We do not baptize people under 18 years of age without a parent’s permission). All of our bus routes, Sunday school classes, and church services experienced a tremendous day. Here are the results from our top three buses:
·   Caleb Cheedie and his workers on Route 28 brought in 82 riders.
·   Scott Link and the workers on Route 21 brought 122 riders.
·   Jorge Guerrero and the workers on Route 22 had a total of 123 riders.

Thank God for college students who care for others and have a burden to reach people with the Gospel.

Last week as I was preparing for a meeting with our faculty and staff, I noticed something in the Bible that I had never seen before. We are all familiar with the story of Moses and how he was reluctant to accept the call of God. Moses had fled from Egypt and was keeping sheep out in the desert when God appeared to him in a burning bush. God spoke to Moses and told him to go back to Egypt and free them from bondage. Moses’ first excuse was that he was not worthy of this great task. His second excuse was that he would not know how to explain who had sent him. His third excuse was that no one would believe that God had sent him. Moses’ fourth excuse was that he was not a good speaker, so the Lord would need to choose someone else.

Please consider Moses’ words as he gave this excuse to God. “O my Lord, I am not eloquent, neither heretofore, nor since thou hast spoken unto thy servant: but I am slow of speech, and of a slow tongue” (Exodus 4:10). As I read the words not eloquent, it struck me that Moses did sound quite well-spoken here in spite of his protest. I had always assumed that Moses had some sort of speech impediment. Of course, we have no way of knowing exactly how Moses sounded when he spoke. Perhaps he stuttered. He may have been unable to pronounce certain words correctly, but we do not know that for sure. We do know from the following verses that the Lord was angry with him. It does seem that Aaron, his brother whom God allowed to be his spokesman, was more of a hindrance than a help at times. We do not know for sure whether Moses really had a speech problem or if he was simply making a completely invalid excuse.

I thought about Moses in his later years, and how God enabled him to speak mightily for Him. The book of Deuteronomy is predominately a parting speech given by Moses to the children of Israel. The name of the book literally means, “The Words.” For a man who had a difficult time speaking, Moses certainly had a lot to say near the end of his ministry. I would challenge you to read the first chapter of Deuteronomy and see if you think that Moses was an eloquent man.

What if Moses really was a naturally talented person who simply failed to recognize the gift that God had given him? Remember the question that God asked Moses, “What is that in thine hand?” Perhaps Moses was holding on to more than just a rod. Could it be that through the influence of others upon his life (his parents, his siblings, and even his royal Egyptian tutors) God had gifted him far beyond his own recognition? Perhaps God had already given him the gift of eloquence, but he had never realized it.

Of course eloquence is a wonderful gift, but until that eloquence is yielded to God it is of no value. Eloquence in the mouth of a lying tongue is a deadly weapon. Eloquence as a conduit for godless ideology is a menace to society. But any gift that is yielded to God becomes a beautiful and useful tool, and when Moses gave what he had to God, God used it mightily.

What do you have in your hand? Yes, like Moses, we can see the rod; but is there more that we do not see? Would we say like Moses, “I am not eloquent,” when indeed, we do possess such a gift? The most important question that is raised by this story is not whether we speak well, but whether we are totally yielded to God.

“Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature.” – Mark 16:15

Every creature…what would it take for every person in the world to hear the Gospel? How many soul winners would it take, and how long would they have to work? How many missionaries would we need, and how long would they need to be on the mission field? How many pastors and churches would it take to train the numbers of soul winners and missionaries needed to tell every person? How many Bible translators would we need, and how long would they have to labor over each translation?

Obviously, God wants everyone to be saved, because He is “not willing that any should perish” (II Peter 3:9). But the command in Mark 16:15 is to get the good news to everyone. In the strictest sense, that means each person would have to hear it only one time. However, people are constantly on the move; so it would be a challenge to tell everyone in one city or village. Some pastors can say that the people of their church have knocked on every door in their town at least one time, and that is a great accomplishment; but that does not mean that every person has actually heard the Gospel. Over the last week or so, the people of the North Valley Baptist Church have passed out 100,000 invitations to church with the plan of salvation printed on the back; but that does not mean that everyone in Santa Clara has heard the Gospel.

Think about how many times you would have to knock on every single door in a given town before you had told every single person. Once you accomplished this, it would be a very short time until another child reached what we call the age of accountability or until someone new moved into town.

When you really think about it, every Christian must do his part in order for us to be able to accomplish this great task. We need missionaries who will go to the foreign field. We need pastors who will train soul winners. We need evangelists who will stir up the people of God to prayer and revival. We need people who will write Gospel tracts and translate the Bible into other languages. We need every Christian to tell the people he knows about Jesus.

Is it even possible for all the world to know about Christ? I believe it is possible, and I believe that God’s people must find a way to get involved in getting the job done. At Golden State Baptist College, our aim is to train as many people as we can to help fulfill the Great Commission.

Last Thursday many of our new students took the ACT test. The exam takes several hours to complete, and it is an added expense; so why do we require our students to take the test? The test results help us evaluate our students’ academic strengths and weaknesses, and this information enables us to structure our curriculum to better suit the needs of our students. English is one of the most important areas where the test is helpful. As the quality of the American educational system continues to decline, we are seeing a greater percentage of students who struggle with English. Communication skills are so very important in ministry; and at Golden State Baptist College, we are determined to do everything we can to help young people be prepared to teach and preach God’s Word. Dr. Mike Zachary, our Academic Dean, has done a tremendous amount of work with our faculty to help us implement specific components in our curriculum that address this issue. I am excited to tell you that we are already seeing the benefits of these changes, and we can see the ability level of our students steadily rising.