Tom Terry, a guest speaker at NTC Ministries, asks every believer a simple question: are you content to be part of the multitude, or will you press closer to Jesus? Walking through the Gospels and Acts, he shows five circles around the Lord, the multitudes, the 120 in the upper room, the seventy He sent out, the twelve He empowered and the three who saw His glory, and he explains what it costs to move from one to the next.
Below you will find the full video, a structured summary of the message, every Scripture linked to the New King James Version on Bible Gateway, a timestamped outline, answers to common questions and practical steps for going deeper with God this week.
Sermon at a Glance
This message was preached at NTC Ministries and posted on May 2, 2023. Pastor Tom Terry, who pastors a church in Sturgeon Bay in Door County, Wisconsin, opens by honoring Dr. Hohman and Pam as some of the most faithful people he has ever known. The message runs about 55 minutes and closes with an invitation to receive the Holy Spirit and get more involved in the local church.
He begins with a report from a ministry God gave him about seven years earlier: crusades in Pakistan held over Skype. In the latest crusade, he reports, 462 testimonies of healing were received and 1,019 people were saved, at a cost he puts at about fifty cents a soul. Over the whole ministry he counts 85,393 salvations, many confirmed healings, 968 deliverances and 250 churches established, all without ever setting foot in the country.
| Detail | Information |
|---|---|
| Speaker | Pastor Tom Terry (guest speaker) |
| Series | Stand-alone guest message |
| Main text | Luke 9:57–62 and Luke 10:1 |
| Key theme | Moving from the multitude to committed, Spirit-empowered discipleship |
| Length | About 55 minutes |
Tom Terry on the Great Multitudes
Pastor Tom asks the church to lock in for a few minutes, because he believes this is a word for every church that is hungry for God. He starts in Matthew 15:29–31, where great multitudes came to Jesus on a mountain by the Sea of Galilee, bringing the lame, blind, mute and maimed. He healed them, and the multitude marveled and glorified the God of Israel.
Then Luke 6:17–19: a great multitude came from all Judea, Jerusalem and the seacoast of Tyre and Sidon to hear Him and be healed. Those troubled by unclean spirits were healed, and the whole multitude sought to touch Him, because power went out from Him and healed them all.
When Jesus healed, delivered and multiplied bread, multitudes came out to see it and were touched by it. Pastor Tom points out that multitudes of Christians sit in American churches today, and that is not a bad thing. Everybody starts out as what he calls a multituder. He is thankful to be one, and so should we be.
But there is more than being part of the crowd. Tom Terry spends the rest of the message showing that Scripture describes smaller and smaller groups drawing closer to Jesus, and that each step requires something the previous one did not.
The 120 in the Upper Room
In Acts 1:1–8, the risen Jesus gives a commandment, not a suggestion: do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the Promise of the Father. John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit, and you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you to be witnesses to the ends of the earth.
Jesus appeared to many people after the resurrection, more than five hundred at once according to 1 Corinthians 15:1–7. Pastor Tom imagines it happening in Merrill or Door County: people would talk. A man everyone knew was crucified is seen alive and preaching. Paraphrasing, he says one of those sermons was simply this: do not do anything until you are filled with the Holy Ghost.
Nothing in the text, he notes, limits that invitation to the apostles. Yet on the day of Pentecost only about 120 gathered. Not even the five hundred showed up. Why? Because we are in a spiritual war, and the devil does not want people filled with the Holy Ghost. He would rather they stay normal, average Christians.
In Acts 2:1–4, all of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke with other tongues. Pastor Tom traces the same pattern through the church’s growth: Philip’s preaching in Samaria (Acts 8:14–17), Peter’s interrupted sermon to the Gentiles (Acts 10:44–46), and Paul asking the Ephesian disciples whether they had received the Holy Spirit since they believed (Acts 19:2).
After salvation, he says, the greatest thing a believer needs is to be empowered from on high. He has operated in that for years, as has Dr. Hohman. Being one of the 120 is wonderful. But there is still more.
One of the Seventy: Stop Making Excuses
In Luke 10:1–2 the Lord appointed seventy others and sent them two by two into every city He was about to visit, because the harvest is great and the laborers few. Pastor Tom says these were people close enough to Jesus that He could trust them with His power. Every church has them: the ones in every prayer meeting and Bible study, always pressing in.
The seventy came back amazed that even demons were subject to them in His name. Jesus told them to rejoice instead that their names are written in heaven, and then He Himself rejoiced in the Spirit (Luke 10:17–21). Pastor Tom pictures Jesus overjoyed to see His disciples excited about the things of God.
Why only seventy out of the multitudes? He answers from Luke 9:57–62, the passage just before. One man promised to follow Jesus anywhere. Jesus replied that foxes have holes and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head. Pastor Tom reads that as Jesus naming the man’s love of comfort: a nice bed and a dislike of travel.
A second man asked to bury his father first, and Jesus said, let the dead bury their own dead, but go and preach the kingdom of God. A third wanted to say goodbye at home, and Jesus answered that no one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom. Pastor Tom calls the second man’s problem his family, and he names the greatest problem in the American church as idolatry in the realm of relationships.
He is careful about what this means. Jesus wants us to love our families, but in the right place. Your marriage is not first; He is. Your church is not first; He is. Your children are not first; He is. Bobby’s soccer game will not matter in three years. God loves us and will never give up on us, but He keeps calling us to the next level.
Pastor Tom says he is 67 and has no plans to retire; he wants to go home to heaven in the middle of a service. He has the church tell their neighbors to stop making excuses, admitting he had to stop making his own before his life got interesting.
Every Member Has a Ministry
Pastor Tom notices a disconnect. Only a few in the room have ever laid hands on the blind or cast out a devil, yet believers should be doing that regularly. People are coming into churches confused and bound, and nobody sets anybody free except Jesus Christ, who is the way, the truth and the life (John 14:6).
He reminds the church that every believer will give an account, not to lose salvation but for rewards (2 Corinthians 5:10). In Romans 12:3–4 God has given each one a measure of faith, and we are many members in one body without the same function. Everybody has a ministry, and nobody gets out of it.
How do you find yours? Pray in the Holy Ghost, then go to your pastors and ask what you can do. Pastor Tom started with what he jokingly calls toilet ministry, as the church janitor, and served in that role for ten years. He and his wife did everything except run the sound board, including nursery and youth ministry.
Most people are called to the ministry of helps, he says: setting up chairs, catching in prayer lines, serving in the sound booth and in worship. Some become deacons who lead those helps ministries, and every five-fold minister should start out the same way.
He tells of the time his pastor, tired of strife on the worship team, asked him to lead worship. He cannot sing and did not know what key he sang in, but he led two services because his pastor asked. Afterward the pastor thanked him and said that was enough. He did not get offended. He did everything godly his pastor asked without question, because he wanted to serve, and he says that is why he is in ministry today.
The Twelve: Power With a Price
In Matthew 10:1–26 Jesus calls the twelve closest to Him and gives them power over unclean spirits and to heal all kinds of sickness and disease. Many are called but few are chosen (Matthew 22:14), Pastor Tom says, and there are reasons God chooses certain people. He has seen God use him with no natural talent at all.
The sermon in Matthew 10 begins like good news. Heal the sick, cast out demons, freely you have received, freely give. Take no gold or extra coat; God will provide. He imagines the disciples dancing with excitement. Then it turns. I send you out as sheep in the midst of wolves. Beware of men, for they will deliver you up to councils and scourge you in synagogues.
It gets harder still: brother will deliver up brother to death, children will rise against parents, and you will be hated by all for His name’s sake, but he who endures to the end will be saved. Pastor Tom says some of this points to the end times, but the principle stands: at this level the enemy will target you, and it will not always be fun.
He mentions Dr. Hohman having to build outside of town, and his own church facing death threats, bomb threats and an arson fire that destroyed their cameras. He has been called a cult and a devil. If they called the Master of the house Beelzebub, how much more His household (Matthew 10:25)? He smiles and says thank you, because it means he is doing something for God. A church of twelves can change the world.
The table below summarizes the five circles as he teaches them.
| Circle | Scripture he uses | What marks it, as taught |
|---|---|---|
| The multitudes | Matthew 15; Luke 6 | Came to see, hear and be healed; where everyone starts |
| The 120 | Acts 1–2 | Obeyed the command to wait and were filled with the Holy Spirit |
| The seventy | Luke 9:57–62; Luke 10 | Stopped making excuses; trusted with His power |
| The twelve | Matthew 10 | Given power and sent out, knowing persecution would come |
| The three | Luke 9:28–36 | Closest to Jesus; saw His glory on the mountain |
The Three and the Cloud of Glory
Pastor Tom shares that in 1978, soon after he was saved and filled with the Holy Ghost, he had a vision lasting three days and nights in which he saw the ministry he does today. He says a cloud of glory then hovered in his small room for about thirty days. Decades later, he says, the Lord told him the point was that He had brought heaven down to earth, and that in these last days that kind of glory will come on churches that receive it.
That brings him to Luke 9:28–36. Jesus took Peter, John and James up the mountain to pray, the three closest to Him. His face was altered and His robe became white and glistening. Moses and Elijah appeared in glory. A cloud overshadowed them, and a voice said, This is My beloved Son. Hear Him! Afterward they saw no one but Jesus only (Matthew 17:8).
He believes any of the three could have cast out the demon the other disciples could not, since Jesus said that kind goes out only by prayer and fasting (Matthew 17:21). And the mountain changed Peter. In Acts 5:15–16 people laid the sick on beds and couches in the streets so that his shadow might fall on them, and they were all healed.
For that kind of glory to come, churches need committed people who pray, love Jesus, praise God, come whenever the doors open and work together without being flaky. The days of leaving because someone offended you are over, he says. Feelings change; imagine opening the door to news that you have won five thousand dollars a week for life. Learn to control your feelings instead of letting them control you.
He closes by describing revival in his own church over the past two years. It has more than tripled, with most people driving 45 minutes or more and many coming for deliverance. He tells NTC its future is bright, and that he saw its altar like the pool of Bethesda, where people come for miracles (John 5:2–4).
Moving Closer to Jesus This Week
Pastor Tom asks the church who wants to be one of the 120, and who wants to be one of the seventy, then asks how much more they could get involved. Here are practical steps from his message:
- Be thankful for the multitude, but do not stay there. Salvation is the start; ask God to draw you into the next circle.
- Seek the baptism in the Holy Spirit. Jesus commanded His followers to wait for the Promise of the Father; ask for that power.
- Name your excuses. Like the three men in Luke 9, identify what comfort, relationship or habit is ahead of Jesus, and put Him first.
- Ask your pastor how to serve. Start in the helps ministry, whether cleaning, setting up chairs or catching in prayer lines.
- Expect opposition and stay faithful. Do not quit when offended or criticized; endure to the end as Matthew 10 says.
- Pursue His presence. Pray, praise and fast like the three who went up the mountain and came down seeing Jesus only.
Timestamped Outline
- 0:00 Greeting and honoring Dr. Hohman and Pam
- 1:01 Skype crusades in Pakistan
- 3:35 Matthew 15: great multitudes
- 4:30 Luke 6: power went out from Him
- 6:31 Acts 1: wait for the Promise
- 8:43 Why only 120 came
- 9:46 Acts 2: all were filled
- 12:32 Luke 10: the seventy
- 14:37 Luke 9:57: nowhere to lay His head
- 16:50 Let the dead bury the dead
- 19:56 Hand to the plow; Jesus first
- 22:10 Stop making excuses
- 24:17 Romans 12: everyone has a ministry
- 26:21 Ten years as a janitor
- 29:27 Leading worship when he couldn’t sing
- 30:31 Matthew 10: the twelve
- 34:44 Sheep among wolves
- 37:59 Opposition comes with the territory
- 39:51 The 1978 vision and cloud of glory
- 42:51 Luke 9:28: the three on the mountain
- 45:11 Peter’s shadow in Acts 5
- 47:20 Committed people and controlling feelings
- 48:27 Invitation to the 120 and the seventy
- 50:46 Revival in Door County
- 54:35 An altar like the pool of Bethesda
Frequently Asked Questions
Is it wrong to be part of the multitude?
No. Pastor Tom says everyone starts as a multituder and he is thankful to be one. The multitudes saw Jesus heal and were touched by His ministry. His point is that God has more for every believer than watching from the crowd. The same Jesus who healed the multitudes also called people closer, filled them with the Spirit and trusted them with His power.
Does putting Jesus first mean neglecting family?
Pastor Tom says plainly that Jesus wants us to love our families. The issue is order. He describes idolatry in relationships as making a spouse, children or even the church more important than Jesus. When He is first, every other relationship finds its right place. The men in Luke 9 were not condemned for loving family but for letting it become a reason not to follow.
How does someone start serving in the church?
Go to your pastors and ask what you can do. Pastor Tom started as a janitor and served for ten years, along with nursery, youth and many other roles. He says most believers are called to the ministry of helps, such as setting up chairs, cleaning, working in the sound booth or catching in prayer lines, and that faithful service is where future leaders begin.
Scripture References
All passages open in the New King James Version on Bible Gateway:
- Matthew 15:29–31 — great multitudes come to Jesus
- Acts 1:1–8 — wait for the Promise of the Father
- Acts 2:1–4 — all filled with the Holy Spirit
- Luke 9:57–62 — the cost of following Jesus
- Luke 10:1–2 — the seventy sent out
- Romans 12:3–4 — many members, one body
- Matthew 10:1–26 — the twelve given power
- Luke 9:28–36 — the transfiguration
- Acts 5:15–16 — Peter’s shadow heals the sick
How this summary was made: written with AI assistance from the sermon’s own transcript and checked against the Scriptures listed above.
Watch More Messages
If this message stirred you to press closer to Jesus, there are hundreds more teachings from NTC Ministries waiting for you. Browse the full sermon archive and keep growing in His Spirit.
