Man, the title of my sermon this morning is "Only a Saved Person Can Get People Saved."
Only a saved person can get people saved.
Why is this important?
Because we're saved people, and there's a world out there that needs to be saved.
There are unsaved people out there, and we are their hope.
Because only a saved person can get another saved person saved.
And we're going to approach this from four different angles in Scripture this morning.
First of all, I want to point out to you that number one, people cannot just get saved from
reading the Bible on their own.
That's why the Bible doesn't emphasize, "Hey, we just got to print copies of the Bible.
We just got to ship this book everywhere, and if they would just read it, they'll get
saved."
No, my friend, people don't just get saved from reading the Bible on their own.
It has to be preached to them by someone who's actually saved to explain it to them.
Now look what the Bible says here in 1 Corinthians chapter three, verse four.
It says, "For while one saith, 'I am of Paul,' and another, 'I am of Apollos,' are you not
carnal?
Who then is Paul, and who is Apollos, but ministers by whom ye believed, even as the
Lord gave to every man?"
Doesn't the Bible here say that there are ministers by whom we believed, even as the
Lord gave to every man?
So everybody has some minister by whom they believe.
Now when it says minister there, that doesn't necessarily mean that it was a pastor or a
preacher.
That could be a little boy or a little girl, man, woman, that could be anybody, whoever
is serving God, minister simply means servant, whoever explained the gospel to you is a minister
by whom you believed, okay?
And the Bible says God gave that to every man, okay?
So everyone got saved as a result of someone giving them the gospel, or many someone's
giving them the gospel.
But it was explained to them by someone, okay, that's how they understood it and learned
the gospel.
Now if you would flip over to Acts chapter number 8, here's the famous story of the Ethiopian
eunuch in Acts chapter 8.
And here's a man who is devout as far as he's sincere and he's coming to Judea to learn
about the God of the Hebrews and he's interested in the Old Testament Scriptures and he's showing
up in Jerusalem for the holidays and the feasts.
He's a very wealthy man.
He's an important man because of the fact that he works for the Queen of Ethiopia.
He's her servant.
And so the Bible says in verse number 27 that Philip, he arose and went and behold a man
of Ethiopia, a eunuch of great authority under Candace, Queen of the Ethiopians.
Let me ask you something.
Do you think this guy's pretty smart or what?
This guy is a man of great authority.
You're not put in great authority over a nation without, well, there's Biden, but you know,
okay, the exception proves the rule.
You're not typically going to be in great authority, seconded command to Candace, Queen
of Ethiopia.
He's obviously an intelligent, educated man.
He's traveling to another country.
He's reading a book in a foreign language, right?
I mean, this guy knows something and he's sincere, okay, but he doesn't understand what
he's reading because look what the Bible says.
He had the charge of all her treasure and it says, "He had come to Jerusalem for to
worship, was returning and sitting in his chariot," verse 28, "read Isaias the prophet.
Then the spirit said unto Philip, 'Go near and join thyself to this chariot.'
And Philip ran thither to him and heard him read the prophet Isaias and said, 'Understandest thou
what thou readest.'"
And the Ethiopian eunuch is riding down the road and he's reading it out loud.
He's reading Isaiah out loud and he just happens to be at one of the great messianic passages
pointing to Jesus Christ.
He's reading in Isaiah 53.
And so Philip says to him in verse 30 there, "Philip ran thither to him and heard him read
the prophet Isaias and said, 'Understandest thou what thou readest?'
And he said, 'How can I except some man should guide me?'
And he desired Philip that he would come up and sit with him."
Here's a smart guy, he's reading the Bible, but you know what?
He needs someone to guide him and teach him the gospel and explain to him salvation through
Christ.
Go, if you would, to 1 Corinthians chapter number two.
First Corinthians chapter number two.
People do not get saved from reading the Bible on their own.
If they do, show me an example in the Bible.
I'd like to see an example in the Bible of someone just reading the Bible all by themselves,
no one's teaching them, no one's preaching them, and they just get saved on their own.
Because I just showed you an example where scripture's showing us a smart, important
guy reading the Bible, sincere, devout, but yet he doesn't get it until a preacher explains
it to him.
Look at first Corinthians chapter two verse one.
And I, brethren, when I came to you, came not with excellency of speech or of wisdom
declaring unto you the testimony of God.
For I determined not to know anything among you save Jesus Christ and Him crucified.
And I was with you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling.
Watch this, and my speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of man's wisdom
but in demonstration of the spirit and of power that your faith should not stand in
the wisdom of men but in the power of God.
You see, understanding the Bible, understanding the gospel, understanding the salvation is
not just a math problem where the wisdom of this world is going to help you just comprehend
facts and kind of put two and two together and A plus B equals C.
That's not how it works, it's a spiritual thing to get saved, to understand the gospel.
Look if you would at verse number 13, "Which things also we speak not in the words which
man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth, comparing spiritual things
with spiritual.
But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness
unto him, neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned."
The Bible teaches it is impossible for an unsaved man to comprehend scripture.
Doesn't matter how smart he is, doesn't matter how educated he is.
And folks, there are whole theology departments at Yale and Harvard and Stanford and all these
big Ivy League schools, and if you sat in those you would laugh at the things that they
teach many times, because they don't understand the Bible, even if they spent their whole
life studying it, even if they study all the biblical languages and they know Hebrew and
Greek and Aramaic, they don't get it because it's spiritual and the natural man receive
it not the things of the Spirit of God, they're foolishness on them, neither can he know them.
It's not that he just doesn't want to, he can't, he can't understand it because these
are the things which the Holy Ghost alone can teach.
The unsaved man picks up the Bible, and how many times have you talked to unsaved people,
oh I read the Bible cover to cover in prison, two times, three times, but they don't get
it, they don't understand it, right over their head, but yet in ten minutes you can explain
it to them and they get saved ten minutes later.
You spend years reading it, don't get saved, ten minutes with a spirit filled soul winner
and they're saved.
Why is that?
Because it's spiritually discerned, and here's the thing, they don't have the Holy Spirit
inside them, the unsaved.
You do, the saved person who goes out so many, so basically they're able to piggyback off
of your indwelling Holy Spirit in that sense, right?
It's like a rescue breathing, you're coming to them with the scuba gear and saying, "Hey
here you go, here is the Spirit of God, you have to have the Holy Spirit to understand
the Bible.
But when I show up to an unsaved person, I bring the Holy Spirit to the party and then
they're able to understand the Bible, okay.
Now the Bible says in, flip over here to 2 Corinthians chapter 5, 2 Corinthians chapter
5, so we see that every man has been given ministers by whom they believed.
Nobody can just say I won myself to Christ, I got myself saved, just me and the Bible,
we did it all on our own, look at me, I did it all by myself like a big boy and nobody
helped me.
That's not true because somebody preached the gospel to you at some point, somebody
taught you the word of God because that's how the Holy Spirit spoke to you was through
a preacher who was saved.
And again when I say preacher, I'm not talking pastor, that could be man, woman, boy, girl,
just whoever gave you the gospel, okay.
And God uses all kinds of people to get people saved, not just ministers in the strict sense.
But we also see that the unsaved man is incapable of understanding scripture and God gives us
a story to exemplify that with the Ethiopian eunuch, okay.
But 2 Corinthians chapter 5 verse 18 says this, "And all things are of God who hath reconciled
us to himself by Jesus Christ and has given to us the ministry of reconciliation to wit
that God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses
unto them, and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation.
Now then we are ambassadors for Christ as though God did beseech you by us, we pray
you in Christ's stead be ye reconciled to God."
Now the word commit has several definitions and here's what the dictionary says for commit
and this is the relevant definition, to give in trust or charge especially for safe keeping,
to hand over as for safe keeping, charge or in trust, for example, to commit a child to
the care of its aunt.
So what's the Bible saying here, or not the Bible, good night.
The dictionary is saying it's trusting somebody with something, you're giving it to them for
safe keeping, you're committing it to them.
So when the Bible says that God committed unto us the ministry of reconciliation, you
know what he's saying?
Okay, this is your responsibility, this is your job, I'm trusting you, I'm relying on
you to get this done, here is the job, right?
If I were running a business and I committed this job unto this employee, if he's a good
employee I'm just going to put it on him and I'm just going to forget about it and just
say well it's as good as done because I committed it unto old Joe over here and he's going to
get it done, I can trust him.
God has committed to us the ministry of reconciliation.
And notice what the Bible says, it says that we beseech you, in verse number 20 it says
now then we are ambassadors for Christ as though God did beseech you by us, we pray
you in Christ's stead, in the place of Christ.
Instead of Christ, we plead with you, we represent Christ, God has committed to us the ministry
of reconciliation.
Oh, just kidding, people get saved by themselves.
I'm committed to you the ministry of reconciliation, oh just kidding, people just reconcile themselves
to God, reading the bible by themselves.
That's not what the bible teaches my friend.
So number one, people can't get saved just from reading the bible on their own.