But look at Philippians chapter one.
I'm going to show you how unbiblical this attitude is
that tries to basically exclude sinners from soul winning.
Where I say, I don't care how sinful you are.
If you're saved, let's go soul winning.
If you got saved five minutes ago, let's go soul winning.
You don't get along with your wife, let's go soul winning.
You don't get along with the people who work,
let's go soul winning.
You're a big jerk.
Great, get out soul winning.
And maybe you'll quit being such a jerk
when you start doing something for other people
and loving other people.
Look at Philippians chapter one, verse 12.
"But I would you should understand, brethren,
that the things which happened unto me
have fallen out rather under the furtherance of the gospel,
so that my bonds in Christ are manifest in all the palaces
and in all other places.
And many of the brethren in the Lord,
waxing confident by my bonds, are much more bold
to speak the word without fear."
Now, this is a very misunderstood passage.
So I want you to pay very close attention this morning
so that we can interpret this correctly.
The first point I want to make is who are we talking about?
Are we talking about people that are saved or not saved?
Look at verse 14.
Many of the brethren in the Lord,
these people saved or what?
Waxing confident by my bonds are much more bold
to speak the word without fear.
Some, some of who?
Some of the brethren in the Lord?
Am I right?
It's a pronoun, the antecedent is the brother in the Lord.
Some indeed preach Christ, even of envy and strife,
and some also of goodwill.
The one preach Christ of contention, not sincerely,
supposing to add affliction to my bonds,
but the other of love,
knowing that I'm set for the defense of the gospel,
what then, not withstanding every way,
whether in pretence or in truth, Christ is preached,
and I therein do rejoice, ye and will rejoice.
So do we see the apostle Paul saying, you know,
these people are out-souling me with a bad attitude.
He's like, great, great.
Are some people out-souling for the wrong reason?
Yup, great.
What does the Bible say?
Great.
Hey, I rejoice.
And you know what?
I'm gonna keep on rejoicing in the future as well
because I just want the gospel to be preached.
I want people to hear the gospel.
I want people to get saved.
Now here's how I've heard some people
twist this passage or misuse it.
I've heard some people say something along the lines of,
well, you know, even if false religions
are preaching about Jesus, that's still great.
Is that what this is saying?
Well, they're preaching about false gospel,
but at least they're hearing Jesus.
Just hearing something about Jesus.
That's not what this is saying.
Or, oh well, you know, Judas Iscariot's outsold and great.
That's not what this says, okay.
This is talking about saved people witnessing.
Brethren in the Lord are witnessing boldly for Christ.
And the apostle Paul says this is a good thing
that saved Christians are boldly out there
witnessing for Christ.
And he says, you know what, I realize some of these people
are just in it because maybe they just want attention,
or maybe, you know, they're doing it for strife
and envy or contention.
You know, they have an attitude problem or whatever.
But he says, either way,
I'm glad that they're out there doing it.
Whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is preached
and I therein do rejoice, yay, and will rejoice.
And so here's the thing,
if somebody has a bad attitude or a bad spirit,
but they go out soul winning,
you know, obviously they should fix their attitude.
Obviously they should fix their bad spirit.
If somebody's living a sinful life and out soul winning,
obviously they should get the sin out of their life.
And we spend a lot of time preaching against sin
and preaching against a bad attitude.
But you know what?
Even if they never get that sin out of their life,
and even if they never fix their attitude,
going soul winning is better than nothing.