some kind of an entertaining little message to give people, but God, I've got the Holy Spirit of God
living inside of me, filling me. I have the Word of God in my hand, preserved in the King James Bible.
And Father, I just pray that you would speak to our hearts and use this sermon in a mighty way,
and in Jesus' name I pray, Amen.
Now we just read Acts chapter 1, which picks up at the beginning there, with the disciples,
the 11 that are left after Judas has committed suicide, after betraying Jesus.
The 11 disciples are standing at the Mount of Olives and watching as Jesus Christ
is ascending up into heaven after, I believe it was 43 days after he died on the cross,
40 days after he rose from the dead, and so they're watching him as he lifts up into heaven,
and they're just looking, and they watch him go up.
Now, I'm going to teach you a lesson this morning, this is a little more like a Wednesday night Bible study
than a Sunday morning sermon, because I'm going to teach you something about
Acts chapters 1 and 2 here, and show you this story,
and I'm going to teach you something that you probably have never heard before,
well, I've never heard before, and I've heard many preachers preach out of Acts chapter 2,
and talk about this, and to be honest with you, I think they get the story all wrong.
And so I'm going to show you just straight from the Bible what the Bible says,
and you're going to see it as plain as the nose on your face.
Now, first thing that I want to show you is that when these 11 men stand and watch Jesus
ascend up into heaven, pick up the story in verse number 12, it says,
Then returned they unto Jerusalem from the mount called Olivet,
which is from Jerusalem a Sabbath day's journey.
And when they were come in, they went up into an upper room,
where abode both Peter and James, now we're going to see the list of who's in this upper room,
and let me show you exactly who's there, the Bible's very clear about this,
Peter, James, and John, and Andrew, Philip, and Thomas, Bartholomew, Matthew, James the son of Alpheus,
and Simon Zelotes, and Judas the brother of James, now these are the 11 apostles, just listed there.
But look what's next, it says,
These all continued with one accord, in prayer and supplication, with the women.
So, so far we have 11 apostles, and then we have a group of women that's there,
probably a large group of women if you study the context of this chapter.
Then it says,
And married the mother of Jesus, there's somebody else that was there,
and with his brethren, now his brethren's referring to Jesus, that's talking about Jesus' four brothers,
James, Simon, Joseph, and Judas, they were his half-brothers of course, the children of Joseph and Mary,
after Jesus was born,
then Joseph and Mary, the Bible says they came together and had four children that were boys,
and then they had at least three daughters, it doesn't give us the exact number.
And so here they are in this room, we've got how many? The 11 apostles and four other men,
so we have 15 men, and then we have a group of women,
and the Bible says they're praying and they're making supplication,
and then look at verse 15, it says,
And in those days Peter stood up in the midst of the disciples and said,
the number of names together were about 120.
So we have this group that's praying and getting a hold of God for seven days,
15 men, large group of women,
and then a little later we see that the total number of disciples,
the total number of people at this point who are still following Jesus,
I mean you remember he used to preach to the great multitudes, the 5,000 were fed,
the 4,000 were fed, and in Luke chapter 11 it says there was an innumerable multitude assembled together,
but now we're down to 120 people
that are still following Jesus Christ after the death, burial, and resurrection.
And they're meeting together,
Peter stands up in the middle of them in verse 15,
the number of names together were about 120,
men and brethren, this scripture must needs have been fulfilled,
and on and on he talks about replacing Judas Iscariot with a new apostle.
Now if you would skip down to chapter 2 verse number 1.
The Bible reads here,
And when the day of Pentecost was fully come,
they were all with one accord in one place.
Now who's the they?
We're talking about the 120 people that we just read about in the first chapter,
a lot of women, the 11 apostles,
the four brethren, several other men that were there,
including these two men that they voted on to see who was going to be the next apostle.
And look what it says,
And when the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one accord in one place.
And suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind,
and it filled all the house where they were sitting.
And there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire,
and it sat upon each of them.
And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost,
and began to speak with other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance.
And there were dwelling at Jerusalem Jews, devout men, out of every nation under heaven.
Now let me give you the picture here.
Here we have 120 people.
This is the early church.
The church started,
a lot of people say, well, the church started on the day of Pentecost.
It's ridiculous.
Number 1, the day of Pentecost died in the Kur on Sunday,
because if you count the number of days from the resurrection, it's now the multiple of seven.
And so this is not even a Sunday.
The church is mentioned in Matthew 16 and Matthew 18 as already being in existence,
because Jesus Christ said upon this rock,
I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.
So the church was started by Jesus Christ,
with his 12 disciples that became the 12 apostles,
later the 70 apostles.
Now we're here with 120 people, men and women,
banded together, the local church,
they've gotten together, they're praying,
and getting a hold of God, they're in this house.
The Bible says they were all with one accord, in one place,
and suddenly, in verse 2, there came a sound from heaven,
as of a rushing mighty wind,
and it filled all the house where they were sitting.
Now, here's what happens.
In Acts chapter 2, we have the promise of the Father,
which we read about in Acts chapter 1,
which he said,
wait in Jerusalem until you're endued with power from on high.
He says you're going to be baptized with the Spirit of God,
and it's coming soon, wait for it.
That's what they're waiting for, that's what they're praying for,
that's what they're there for,
and then here it comes in chapter 2.
Now let me explain to you the stupidity of the modern tongues movement.
Yes, I said the stupidity of the modern tongues speaking movement.
I got a call this morning,
it's funny how God works these things out.
I get a phone call this morning,
you know, I'm musing about the sermon, thinking about it,
getting all fired up about the sermon, the phone rings.
I get the phone call, I pick up the phone.
Hi, you know, I get all these calls on Sunday morning,
you know, you're calling me, you know, all I got to do about it.
Just kidding, but anyway, I get this phone call,
and this guy says, hi, are you a full gospel church?
I said, no, this is an independent Baptist church.
He said, oh, so you don't believe in speaking in tongues?
I said, no, we don't.
And I said, in fact, this morning I'm preaching against it.
At 10.30 this morning, I'm going to be preaching against speaking in tongues.
At 10.30, Acts chapter 2,
why don't you come and you can learn all about it?
He's like, well, wait a minute, let me ask you something.
How do you separate both?
I said, did you just hear what I said,
you know, I'm all fired up by this.
I said, did you just hear what I said?
I said, I'm not going to argue with you.
I said, it's at 10.30, come and I'll dismantle
speaking in tongues, right in your presence,
so come hear it.
He's like, oh, okay, all right, we'll see you later.
Where is he?
Anyway, was that you?
No, he's not, I'm just kidding.
He's not here this morning.
And, you know, I did not spend an hour wasting my time
arguing with somebody who just,
the devil wants to send my way to just try to divert me,
or maybe God just sent him my way just so I could get madder,
so I could preach better.
But anyway, look if you look at this chapter.
I'm going to show you how simple this is.
I'm kidding, of course.
Well, not really.
Let me show you the, let me show you how simple this is.
It says here in verse number five,
I'm just going to briefly go over this
because this isn't the message.
But look at this, it says,
and there were dwelling at Jerusalem, Jews,
this is verse five,
devout men out of every nation under heaven.
Now, does the Bible mean that
when it says every nation under heaven?
Absolutely.
I mean, there were people in Jerusalem from Timbuktu.
There were people in Jerusalem from Africa,
Asia, Europe, everywhere,
that had come for this great feast
of the first fruits of the in-gathering of Pentecost.
And so here they are, they're devout Jews,
that means they believe on God from the Old Testament,
and they're coming to worship at this feast,
and they came from every nation under heaven.
And the Bible says,
now when this was noised abroad, in verse six,
the multitude came together and were confounded,
means they were confused,
because they, that every man,
heard them speak in his own language.
You see how simple this is?
Right before that, we saw in verse number four,
that they spake with other tongues, okay?
Now we're seeing that every man
hears them speak in his own language.
See how the words are used interchangeably?
Now look at this.
And they were all amazed and marveled,
saying one to another, verse seven,
behold are not all these which speak Galileans,
and how here we, every man in our own tongue.
You see how that is?
It's said a minute ago,
they hear every man in their own language.
Now it says, how here we, every man in our own tongue,
wherein we were born.
And then it lists the languages, 17 of them.
Parthians, and Medes, and Elamites,
and the dwellers in Mesopotamia,
and in Judea, and Cappadocia, and Pontus, and Asia,
Phrygia, and Pamphylia, in Egypt,
and in the parts of Libya about Cyrene,
and Stranges of Rome, Jews and Proselytes,
Creeks and Arabians, we do hear them speak in our tongues,
the wonderful works of God.
And they were all amazed,
and were in doubt saying one to another,
what mean it is?
Now, I don't understand
what's hard to understand about that.
I don't understand why it's so difficult to understand
that when the Bible talks about speaking in other tongues,
it's talking about speaking in a foreign language.
It's talking about speaking in,
like I speak German with my wife, my wife's from Germany.
It's like when I speak Spanish,
it's speaking in another language.
Now, nobody here was speaking a language
that somebody could not understand.
Nobody was slobbering and foaming at the mouth,
rolling around on the ground, barking like a dog,
and rocking back and forth.
Hey, nobody was doing anything like that.
They were preaching the gospel,
and people were getting saved.
And it was somebody speaking a language
that they did not know.
They were Galilean, born and raised,
and yet they walk up to some Carpathian
and start speaking his language.
They walk up to a Cretan, an Arabian,
and they say, Mahaba, and they start speaking Arabic,
because they were being filled with the Spirit of God,
and there was a miracle that took place
where they were actually able to speak in a foreign language.
Now, look, doesn't this make sense?
Since Jesus just rose from the dead,
there's only 120 believers.
Hey, God wants the world saved.
He wants the gospel to get out to the world,
so what better place than at this feast
where everybody's here from all over the world,
people who are already familiar with the Bible,
they're already familiar with the Old Testament,
great candidates for getting saved.
They're going back home.
They could bring the gospel with them
and win see the Lord in their own home.
He says, let's get them all together.
I'm going to pour out my Spirit upon all flesh,
and these 120 people,
they're going to speak with other tongues
and be able to win these people to Christ,
even though they've never learned the language
in their life.
Now, look, anybody who would just an honest interpretation
knows that that's what this is about,
and yet I have Mr. Full Gospel calling me up,
asking me if I believe that somebody
should slobber on themself and speak in gibberish.
It's wrong, it's a sin.
You say, I don't appreciate you making fun
of other religions.
Hey, you must not have been here on Sunday night
when I read what God said about other false religions
that lie and that preach a false gospel.
Get the tape on that one or it'll be there next time,
because I'm going to tell you something.
God doesn't like false religion.
You remember Elijah when he mocked the prophets of Baal?
He said, your God is lazy, he's asleep,
he's on a trip somewhere.
You better cry a little louder
because your God can't hear you, he's a phony.
That's what the Bible kind of preaching is.
I hate to break it to you.
Now, the only time in the Bible
that you'll ever find somebody on the ground rolling around,
the only time you'll ever find somebody speaking
with a voice that's not their own voice
is when they're demon possessed.
Yes, I said it's when they're demon possessed,
when they're losing control,
when they're speaking ecstatically and crying out
and saying all these things and, oh, the son of God
and bowing down and stuff.
Hey, they were demon possessed.
That's why they weren't in the driver's seat.
The Bible says the spirit of the prophets
is subject to the prophets.
See, the difference between a man of God
who's filled with the Holy Spirit
is that he still has control.
He's not out of control.
The Bible says the spirit of the prophets
is subject unto the prophets.
I can decide right now
whether I want the Holy Spirit to lead me
or whether I just don't want the Holy Spirit to lead me.
But see, people that are demon possessed,
they're not in the driver's seat.
People that are speaking in tongues
aren't in the driver's seat.
If you've ever been to a service
where people speak in tongues,
you look at them and the thing that comes to your mind is
this person is not in the driver's seat.
There's no way.
I mean, they're not faking it.
There's something's going on and it's not of God.
I'll tell you that right now.
But anyway, moving on from that point,
because that's not the sermon at all,
but I wanted to show you that since we're there,
the Bible says in verse 13.
Now, keep in mind, so far what we've seen
is a group of people from all over the world
who were just shocked
that they were hearing the gospel preached
in their own language, right?
I mean, they're, wow, this is amazing.
Now, are they negative about what's going on?
No, they're very excited.
They're very thrilled that they're hearing
the wonderful works of God in their own tongue,
the Bible says.
Now, here's another group
that comes on the scene in verse 13.
Now, are we talking about the same people?
No, we're talking about a different group of people.
Others mocking said, these men are full of new wine.
Now, here's where I'm going to depart
from every sermon that I've ever heard on Acts chapter two,
everything I've ever heard
in an independent fundamental Baptist church
that has been taught me on this subject
that I don't agree with because it's just not true.
Everywhere I've ever been, every church I've ever been to,
this is what they said.
And this is the whole point of the sermon.
This is what they taught me.
They said, Peter got up and preached at Pentecost.
You've been in church, you've heard this.
Peter got up and preached at Pentecost
and 3,000 people got saved and baptized
as a result of Peter preaching.
Now, friend, that is not true.
That is a lie and I'm going to show you why.
And I've never heard anybody that didn't say that.
And I think where it comes from
is because we're reading all our books,
we got all our Christian books,
we go by what the preacher says,
but we don't search the scriptures for ourselves
and just open the Bible to the book of Acts
and just read it for what it says.
Now, look, I'll show you why that's not true.
It says, others mocking said,
these men are full of new wine.
But Peter, standing up with the 11,
okay, so we have 12 people here.
We have the 11 apostles and Peter,
lifted up his voice and said unto them,
ye men of Judea and all ye that dwell in Jerusalem.
Now, stop for a second.
Is he talking to people from all over the world?
No, look what it says.
I mean, a minute ago,
we saw people from 17 plus nationalities
and yet this says, he lifted up his voice and said to them,
ye men of Judea and all ye that dwell at Jerusalem,
be this known unto you and hearkened to my words,
for these are not drunken as you suppose.
See, these men that were scoffing,
the men who said, you guys are drunk,
this is ridiculous, this is not of God,
they were the men who were from Jerusalem.
Do you see that?
The people from the foreign countries,
they're not denying it
because they're hearing them speaking their own tongue.
They know what's going on, it's real.
Yet these scoffers that are there, the mockers,
they're the ones who live at Jerusalem
that dwell at Jerusalem.
And so that's who Peter is speaking to.
That's the only people he's speaking to.
I'm going to show you right now six times
to prove to you that that's the only people he's speaking to.
Number one and two are of course in verse 15,
I'm sorry, verse 14 where it says,
ye men of Judea, see what we're talking to,
and all ye that dwell at Jerusalem.
Now, the word dwell means you live there
for an extended period of time.
It says that they dwell at Jerusalem.
Look up at verse nine, if you would.
See, it says dwellers in Mesopotamia.
Are these the same people?
No.
There's people up here that are dwelling in Mesopotamia.
They're dwelling all over the world.
Down here, Peter's only talking to people
that are dwelling in Jerusalem.
Look at the next time that it explains it.
Go down, if you would, to verse number three.
I'm sorry, verse number 22, the third time.
In verse number 22, well first read verse 21,
and it shall come to pass that whosoever shall call
in the name of the Lord shall be saved.
There's the salvation plan being preached there.
And then the next verse says, ye men of Israel,
hear these words, Jesus of Nazareth,
a man approved of God among you.
See, he's talking to people that were in Israel
at the time of Christ.
You saw Jesus Christ, you saw the miracles that he did.
You heard the great sermons that he preached.
That's the third time.
Look at the fourth time in verse 23.
Him being delivered by the determinate counsel
and foreknowledge of God, you have taken
and by wicked hands have crucified and slain.
These are the Jews that took part in crucifying Jesus.
And then look, if you would, at verse number 36.
Therefore, let all the house of Israel know assuredly
that God has made that same Jesus
whom he has crucified, both Lord and Christ,
whom you've crucified.
House of Israel is who I'm talking to.
You see how many times this is emphasized and repeated?
Look, if you would, at verse number 39.
For the promise is unto you and to your children.
He's saying the promises of the Old Testament were for you.
You're the ones who would be the most ready
to receive Christ, because you're Jews.
You're the children of Israel.
And he says, and to all that are afar off,
still in verse 39, even as many as the Lord our God
shall call.
Now, what's the point?
You say, well, what does that matter?
What's the difference?
Well, I'm going to show you why it matters.
It matters a lot.
Because the difference is between one man, Peter,
standing up and preaching and having 3,000 people
get saved and baptized because of his great sermon
that he preached, or the fact that they were all
with one accord in one place, that all 120 of them,
and yes, the bulk of them were probably women,
to be honest with you.
Probably even the majority were women,
but we know that there were several men and women,
and yet it was 120 people who saw 3,000 people saved.
It wasn't just one man's show.
It wasn't just some great preacher comes on the stage,
ah, and he preaches and has 3,000 people saved.
Hey, that's not the way God works, friend.
That's not the way God has ever worked.
God works through the local New Testament church,
which is a congregation of people.
It's not a one man's show.
It's not one man getting up and he's going to set
the world on fire with the gospel.
No, it's when we're all with one accord in one place,
striving together for the faith of the gospel.
You see, it's not just my job to be the only soul winner
in this church.
See, I had this mentality taught to me growing up,
and I'm not against this at all,
but I had this mentality taught to me growing up.
It's not our job to win souls.
We don't know how to win souls.
We don't know how to talk to people.
We don't know how to get somebody to gospel,
but we'll bring them to church,
and they'll hear it from the pulpit.
And I remember times, I remember even times
when I was younger and stuff,
I'd call the pastor one time, and I'm like,
Pastor, I'm bringing all these people to church,
and so I want you to really preach on the gospel.
I mean, I really want you to preach on salvation
because I'm bringing these people,
and I want them to get saved.
That's not God's plan.
You see, the church is a place
for born-again baptized believers.
Now, unsaved people are welcome.
I mean, we have unsaved people who come all the time,
and I went into the Lord before and after the service,
but I'm not going to gear my sermon toward unsaved people.
I'm not going to gear my music toward unsaved people.
I'm going to gear it toward the people of God.
Now, let me explain something to you.
Let's say I had this philosophy that says,
let's just get all the unsaved people together.
Let's get a big crowd of unsaved people in here,
and then I'm going to preach to them,
and then they'll all get saved,
just like the day of Pentecost,
and they're going to come down the sawdust trail,
and they're going to be crying and getting saved
and falling on their faces.
Let me tell you what's wrong with that.
Number one, then I'm the only soul winner in the church.
I'm the only person getting the blessing
of winning somebody to Christ.
Number two, it never happens.
Did you hear me?
It never happens.
You say, wait, I saw the Billy Graham Crusade.
Hey, that's a bunch of trash Hollywood pony garbage.
I talk to people that have been
with the Billy Graham Crusade since the 1960s.
Half the people that are getting up
are the workers going down the aisle,
and when the people go down the aisle,
you know what they find when they get to the end of the aisle?
You say, I don't like this.
Hey, I don't care whether you like it.
When they get to the bottom of the aisle,
they might be dealt with with a Catholic priest.
They might be dealt with with an Episcopalian rector.
They might be dealt with with a full gospel charismatic.
They might be dealt with with anybody
because it's just an ecumenical service
where you got the Catholics, the Mormons,
Jehovah's Witnesses, everybody's involved.
It's like the Tower of Babel.
It's not of God.
The Bible says, have no fellowship
with the unfruitful works of darkness,
but rather reprove them.
The Bible says, wherefore come up from among them
and be ye separate, saith the Lord.
I'm not going to be standing side by side
with some Catholic priest trying to get people saved.
He's out of hell.
He's going to hell.
I'm not going to do that.
I am going to be with people that love the Lord
and then people that are actually saved
and believe the same gospel that I believe,
have the same Bible that I believe,
priests the same things that I believe.
So number one, the problem with that is that,
look, I don't want to be the only soul winner.
I want everybody to be a soul winner.
I want everybody to be fruitful and win people the Lord.
But number two, it just doesn't happen.
I brought, I literally, while I was a teenager,
you know, I'm talking about 15, 16, 17 years old,
I probably brought 40 people to church, visitors.
I mean, I used to make deals with people at work.
I'd say, I'll cover your shift on Friday night.
I'll cover your shift on Saturday night
if you'll come to church with me on Sunday.
And I would bargain with people
and get them to come to church with me.
And I was bringing visitors every single week.
Never, never, you say it a few times?
No, never, never did somebody that I brought to church
get saved in the service.
Now, I'm not saying it never happens,
but it never happened for me.
But how many times could I tell you?
Oh, how many times could I tell you about the times
that I took somebody aside myself,
some of those same people, totally outside of church,
maybe at a door somewhere, maybe a friend or a relative,
maybe a coworker driving in the work van,
maybe in the hotel room as we stayed out of town
together at night and we're on our per diem
and we were eating the meals together
and we worked by day and we stayed in the hotel room
by night, how many times have I kneeled down
by the bedside of somebody and we prayed
and I asked Jesus Christ to save them
and been born again and been translated
into the glorious kingdom of his dear son
because that's God's plan.
Look at Jesus throughout the Bible.
Look at him at the woman at the well.
He singles out one person,
says I'm going to win her to Christ.
I don't care if she's been married and divorced five times
and now she's living with somebody she's not even married to.
He says, that's who I want to talk to
because I love her and I want her saved.
And he spends all the time on one person.
Then he goes over here to Nicodemus,
just him and Nicodemus, just wins in the Lord one on one.
He goes over here to a blind man, two blind men.
He takes them into the house separately,
just these two men and talks to them individually.
We saw that in the book of Matthew on our Wednesday nights.
But then he's got the big crowd, right?
The 5,000, feeding the 5,000.
Where did the big crowd come from?
They came from a little bit previous
when he sent out the disciples preaching in every city
two by two, winning people to the Lord.
They brought in the people that they'd won to the Lord.
That's why when you read the great preaching
of Jesus in the book of Matthew,
he's not preaching on salvation.
He's preaching in the Sermon on the Mount
on how to live as a Christian.
He's preaching the Christian life
because he's preaching to people that are already saved.
Or he's preaching because he's trying
to teach them how to live.
There's more to life than just being saved.
And being saved is the most important thing.
But look, would you get a little sick of it
if I preach on the gospel every Sunday morning?
Plan of salvation, plan of salvation, plan of salvation.
How are you going to grow as a Christian?
How are you going to learn the Bible?
How are you going to learn the things that you need to learn
if you're just constantly coming to hear the gospel,
the gospel, the gospel?
I mean, think about it.
I'm calling my pastor, as a teenager,
telling him, would you change your whole sermon?
I mean, I know you had a sermon that people need
and that's going to help them grow as a Christian.
Would you change it so I can bring these people,
these three people or whatever that I'm bringing,
and just gear the whole sermon toward them?
Doesn't make any sense.
What he should have said to me is,
no Steve, why don't you take those people
and win them to the Lord yourself?
You don't know how to get saved?
You don't know how to open your Bible
and show somebody the Romans Road or John 3.16
or John 5.24 or Acts 16, 31?
Hey, be a soul winner yourself.
And you say, why aren't we seeing always
these kind of big results that we see in the book of Acts?
I mean, we don't see it anywhere,
the power of God like this.
Well, first of all, the book of Acts
comes after Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, okay?
You can't just jump into the book of Acts.
You got to realize that we had a whole ministry
of John the Baptist where he spent 30 years
in the wilderness just praying, just learning the Bible,
just getting a hold of God.
Then he preaches for six months
and just pairs the place up,
turns the world upside down with his doctrine,
baptizing thousands of people.
Then you have Jesus Christ on the scene
for three and a half years preaching in every single city.
And so maybe some of us might be in a little bit of a stage,
maybe in Faithful Word Baptist Church,
or maybe just in Christianity as a whole
where we need to be in the wilderness a little bit,
where we need to be just working.
Like we just expected this, let's just go out one day
and just have 3,000 people baptized.
Well, look, it's going to take several years
of knocking the doors, of going up and down every street,
of going up and down the cities,
of talking to everyone that we know
and preaching the gospel before we'll see
that kind of a great harvest.
But you want to know the number one reason
why we don't see it?
I'll tell you why.
It's in verse number one of Acts chapter two,
where we started out this whole thing.
The Bible says in Acts chapter two verse one,
it says, and when the day of Pentecost was fully come,
they were all with one accord in one place.
Then skip down if you would to verse number four,
and they were all filled with the Holy Ghost.
You see the unity there?
It's not a unity of saying we all get along great
100% of the time.
We all see eye to eye on everything.
It's a unity where we're all in one place.
I mean, that means we're in church.
See, when you're not in church,
you're not going to be in the same page with us,
with this group right here.
We're all with one accord in one place.
We're all filled with the Holy Spirit.
That means we don't just live our life filled with the world
and everything else and put on church three times a week,
or every time we read our Bible,
15 minutes in the morning,
but we're all filled with the Holy Spirit of God.
You say, hey, how about filled with this book?
Because Jesus said, the words that I say unto you,
they are spirit and they are life.
How about let the word of God dwell in you richly
with all wisdom?
How about being filled with the Holy Spirit
is having the word of God fill you?
It's having the things of God consume your life.
And you say, when everybody has the things of God
consuming their life,
when everybody's filled with the Holy Spirit,
when everybody's in one accord in one place,
and when everybody,
turn in your Bible to Acts 4.31, a few pages over,
we'll see the result of what it means
for everyone to be filled with the Holy Spirit.
Look at Acts 4.31.
And when they had prayed,
the place was shaken where they were assembled together,
and they were all filled with the Holy Ghost.
Here's the result.
And they spake the word of God with boldness.
You see, when we're all in one accord,
we're all in church, we're all in our place,
everybody who God has ordained to be in this church,
which is a lot more than are here,
people have fallen by the wayside,
the devil's attacked them and gotten them out of his church
since its inception eight months ago.
And so when everybody's here,
when we all get on board, when you're in your place,
and you say, I'm not going to dabble in Christianity,
I'm going to be filled with the Holy Spirit,
and I'm going to open my mouth boldly
to make known the mystery of the gospel,
that's when you see the power of God, my friend.
Not just one man, not just anybody.
You say, well, I'm a woman, and I just,
the Bible says I can't be a pastor, which it does.
You know, the Bible says I can't be the deacon,
which it does say that you cannot be the deacon.
The Bible says I can't get up and preach a sermon
or get up and teach the Bible.
Well, what good am I?
Hey, look, this was a bunch of women
who helped get this thing done
in the day of Pentecost.
Look, it wasn't just, the Bible says in Christ
there's neither male nor female, neither bond nor free,
nor Greek, Jew, he said it doesn't matter.
He says every single person has the capability
to win just as many souls as anybody else.
You say, well, I don't know, I just want to be,
I'm a woman, I just really want to be the pastor.
Hey, look, being a pastor is meaningless, I'm serious.
I mean, it means almost nothing to me, being a pastor.
And you say, well, I don't know, this is so important,
that title of being a pastor.
Hey, that title means nothing.
Because I'll tell you something,
if when you stand before God, if you're a soul winner
and you stand next to some pastor that's not a soul winner,
he's going to be like in the back of the line.
He's going to be at the back of the bus.
Because I'm going to tell you something,
no pastor who's a soul winner is worth spitting on.
Because I'm going to tell you something,
being a soul winner is the calling of the Christian life.
Jesus said, I am come to seek and to save
that which was lost.
He said, I came to stand up and preach sermons
and have crowds and build buildings.
He said, I came to save the lost.
And if you are going to do the work that I did,
that means you're going to be a soul winner.
It means you're going to win people to Christ.
It means you're going to preach the gospel
to every creature.
And I'm going to tell you something,
if you are a soul winner,
I don't care if you're man, woman, boy, girl,
you are the most important person in this church.
You are the most important person in God's economy.
If you're the one that God is using,
go win people to Christ.
Did he say that's not my gift?
Nowhere in the Bible is there a gift for winning souls.
Go, show me, go to the book of Romans
and show me the spiritual gifts that are listed there.
Go to 1 Corinthians chapter 14
and you see the gifts that are listed.
Go to 1 Corinthians chapter 12,
it'll give all these different gifts
that different people have of prophecy,
of exhortation, of this and that,
of speaking with different kinds of tongues,
being able to interpret tongues
and all these different gifts.
None of them is a gift for preaching the gospel,
because preaching the gospel is for everybody.
Preaching the gospel is not a gift.
Well, you know, telling the truth, this isn't my gift.
I mean, that's you.
And we can't all be the same,
but telling the truth is just not my gift.
I find myself lying a lot.
You see how stupid that is?
Now it's like God commanded you not to lie.
Well, thou shalt not murder,
maybe you're gifted in that area.
I struggle with that.
So I'm gonna let you be the one who abstains from murder.
It makes no sense.
Well, Bible reading's not my gift.
Prayer's not my gift.
That's your gift.
I don't pray at all.
Tithing's not my gift.
Look, that makes it stupid.
It makes no sense.
Because if God commands every one of us
to go ye therefore into all the world
and preach the gospel to every creature,
sounds like that's what you need to do.
Sounds like that's your gift.
And so it's not gonna work for us to think,
well, that's the pastor's job.
It's not the pastor's job.
Well, it is, but it's as much as it's your job.
And if I had to stop being a pastor tomorrow, who cares?
I don't care.
But if I had to stop being a soul winner tomorrow,
I might as well just throw in everything.
I mean, what's the point?
It's bad.
And you talk to these people, and this is controversial.
It shouldn't be controversial,
because the Bible's so clear.
The Bible says that a pastor's
supposed to be a husband of one wife.
That means he can't be divorced and remarried.
Now, these pastors, there's one,
well, I couldn't throw a rock at him,
but he's, you know, 10 miles from here.
Independent, fundamental Baptist pastor,
divorced and remarried.
And he wrote a whole book about it,
just saying how it was so mean and unloving
to say that a divorced and remarried man cannot be a pastor.
And the book, and you hear these people all the time,
what are these people supposed to do?
I mean, what's this guy supposed to do?
I mean, he's right, what's he supposed to do?
It's the same thing that everybody's supposed to do.
He's supposed to take his Bible and take the word of God
and go preach to the lost and get him saved.
That's what he's supposed to do.
He's supposed to read his Bible, pray, be in church,
be a sole winner, and he could be the greatest
in the kingdom of heaven.
He could forget his past and move on from that,
and he could earn great rewards with the things of God,
and he could be the greatest man on the face of the earth.
But no, he wants some title.
You know, he wants a title after his name.
He wants to be on some literature somewhere.
It's meaningless.
It's ridiculous.
The thing that matters is, are you a sole winner?
The thing that matters is you're in one accord
with the brethren working to see people saved.
See, number one, how are we going to be all in one accord
in one place?
Well, we got to be in one place.
It means we all got to be here together.
See, church is not a building.
Church is a congregation of people,
and it's a church when we're congregated together here,
and when you're here and you're part of the church,
you're in one accord with us.
You're in one place with us.
But number two, we all have to be a sole winner
if we're going to be these kind of results.
That's how we're in one accord.
We're all moving the same direction.
We're all pushing for the same thing.
And number three, of course, everyone must be spirit-filled.
We must not play around in Christianity.
We must not read some little devotional
that's like one verse and then like some guy
wrote a whole page that you read about
or some kind of a reading five verses every day.
That's not filled with the Spirit.
Don't tell me you're filled with the Spirit
unless you read the Bible one chapter a day
for three minutes.
Don't tell me you're filled with the Spirit.
You're not.
You're not filled with the Spirit
unless you're filled with this book,
unless you're filled with being in church,
hearing the preaching of God's word,
unless you're filled with prayer.
See, let's break it down.
It's not some spooky feeling that comes over us
where we speak in tongues.
It's something real,
like the Spirit-filled is something concrete,
like you read the Bible,
like you actually pray,
like you actually attend a church faithfully,
like you actually, when you're at work
and you're on break and you're sitting around
in the break room, it's just you and one other person
where you open your mouth and give me the Gospel.
That's Spirit-filled Christianity
where you speak before the God of the boldness.
You say, that's not me.
Maybe you need to increase the Bible reading.
Maybe you need to increase the church attendance.
Maybe you need to increase the prayer
so that God will fill you with the Spirit
and give you the boldness to open your mouth
and preach the Gospel.
See, it's for everybody.
Yes, it's for you.
You say, I'm shy, I'm timid.
Are you like Moses?
He said, I've got a stammering tongue.
He said, I stutter when I talk.
He said, I can't speak eloquently.
He said, I wasn't eloquent before.
And he said, since you started talking to me
out of this burning bush, I'm still not eloquent.
And God said, who made the tongue, Moses?
He said, I can give you the ability
to speak the Word of God with power to Pharaoh
and lead out a great nation of people.
He said, I can give you that ability
because I made the tongue.
And God says that he didn't choose people
that are strong and that are wise
and that are good looking.
He says, he's chosen the fullest things
of this world to confound the wise.
He said, my strength is made perfect in weakness.
He said, I can take somebody who's weak
and I can use them mightily for God
because they understand that it's not them.
It's me that does it.
They have the humility to understand
without me, as Jesus said, without me, you can do nothing.
And they understand that because they are weak.
They understand that because maybe they do have
a sinful past, they know what they're capable of.
They understand that, that Jesus Christ is all and in all,
that we're not going to do anything
unless we're filled with the Spirit of God.
And it's going to be God's power that does it.
He said, don't waste your time in the next seven days
trying to do something for God.
He said, wait for the promise from heaven
that you're going to be in dude with power.
But he shall receive power after that the Holy Ghost
has come upon you and you shall be witnesses unto me.
He says, don't even mess with it until you got a power guy.
You say, okay, well, I'm going to wait
until I'm perfectly sanctified,
as the guy would understand the terminology
that called me earlier about tongues.
Till I'm totally sanctified,
then I'm going to go out soul winning.
Hey, look, you're not going to be sanctified
until you go soul winning because you're not obeying God
until you go out of soul winning.
So it's kind of a cycle that you got to break.
You got to go out of soul winning
because God told you to do so.
Now you're in obedience to God
and now you're getting more and more closer to God.
I mean, the first, I'll be honest with you,
the first year that I went out of soul winning,
I didn't see that many people say.
I was going out a couple hours a week,
you know, two hours a week,
knocking doors, I didn't see how anybody's safe
because I was living worldly.
But God looked down and he saw Steve Anderson
trying to win people the Lord.
He saw me trying to do what was right.
He saw all the wrong things that I was into,
all the rock music,
all the filthy movies I was watching and everything.
And I'm not talking about pornography,
but yes, the movies that people watch,
mainstream movies, they're filthy too.
And so, you know, the garbage that I was into.
And so God said, you know what?
I see a tree that's bringing forth fruit though.
You know, he's trying, he's got a few people safe.
And so here's what I'm going to do.
I'm going to purge that tree
so that it can bring forth more fruit.
And here's what God did.
God took me, I was worldly,
I was not seeing a lot of people safe,
but I was bearing a little fruit.
He said, let me take hold of you.
Let me cut off some of the things
that I don't like about you.
Let me cut out the rock music and let me taste them.
When somebody starts cutting branches off your tree,
you feel it, it's going to hurt.
And boy, I felt it.
And I felt God cutting things out of my life
that were not right.
And I said, oh God, that hurts.
But he said, no, you don't understand.
Your whole purpose in life is to bring forth fruit.
You're not a decoration.
You're not that flowers all over you and fancy tree.
I want a tree that's going to produce.
And so God said, I've got to cut off this dead piece here.
I've got to cut off this unfruitful bough that's on you.
I've got to cut out the rock music.
I've got to cut out these abominable DVDs
that you're watching and the worldly sinful kind of movies
and worldly and sinful, it's redundant
because it's all sinful, all the world's garbage.
And he said, I've got to cut out some of these bad friends
that you're hanging around that aren't saved,
that aren't living for God.
And it was painful.
But wouldn't you know it, the next season comes along
and once I had the garbage cut out, boy, the fruit.
Boy, the people saved.
Boy, the people coming down the aisle,
getting baptized and I've won to the Lord.
Boy, the mighty power of God.
Because I've been purged of some of the wrong things
that were hindering me from bringing forth fruit.
Because I laid aside every weight
and the sin which did so easily beset me
that I might run with patience
the race that was set before me.
You see, I don't preach on sin.
And he said, man, you preach hard on sin.
You're beating things with a hammer a couple of weeks ago,
you know, you're yelling, you're preaching
and you're naming all my sins.
You know, you go through these lists of like 40 TV shows
and preach on all of them
and you list all the Hollywood stars.
Why do you preach on sin?
Because sin is what's keeping us from being in one accord.
Sin is what's keeping you from being a productive Christian.
Sin is what's keeping you from producing fruit.
That's why I'm not going to preach the gospel every service.
Who's going to preach on your sin
if I preach on the gospel every service?
And yeah, maybe the one visitor that showed up
might get saved.
But what about the hundreds of people who could be saved
if we would be a soul winner every day?
I mean, think about how many people could be saved
if we would just talk to just our own relatives
and friends and loved ones and get them saved.
But you're never going to get there, my friend,
where you're really seeing a lot of people saved.
I'm talking about in your friends,
your relatives, your family.
That's what you want, isn't it?
Well, you're never going to get there
until you become a soul winner.
I mean, until you go out knocking on doors, ideally.
Because I'll tell you something,
I never saw anybody saved until I knocked doors.
And believe me, I tried many times.
17 years old, knocked on my first door,
slowly but surely started seeing people saved.
Somebody taught me how to preach the gospel
and do it right and do a good job.
And boy, ever since then, I've seen all kinds of friends,
family, coworkers, and people that got baptized,
people that are in church,
people that are soul winning themselves today.
Because I didn't just sit around and say,
well, it's not my gift.
I'll talk to somebody every six months
that's my friend or relative.
No, when you go out soul winning and you obey God
and get somebody else's friends and relatives saved,
God will bless you.
God will help you to get your friend and relatives saved.
And those of you that are soul winners,
those of you that know what I'm talking about,
you've already been out knocking the doors
or out talking to people or you've won people to the Lord.
You could point at people that are your converts
from the past and say,
these are people that I won to the Lord.
These are people that I got saved.
Hey, how about the friends and loved ones?
How about the coworkers?
Let's up that and that's what I want to work on.
I want to work on getting more people in my circle saved.
Not just knocking doors to strangers talking to people,
but just getting everybody that I know saved.
Because it's a lot easier to get somebody that you know,
if you get them saved, to get them in church.
Because they know you.
And see, the way that this church is going to grow
is when all of us are working together.
When we're all in one accord.
When we're all in one place.
If this church, if I'm the only soul winner in this church,
which I'm not, I mean, people in this room are soul winners.
But if I were, this church would never grow.
And if it did,
it would grow because I brought in a rock band.
You know, it would grow
because I brought in Steve Green today.
Or it would grow because I brought in Amy Grant,
I'm sorry, Amy Grant, and had her today.
Because I'm going to tell you something,
it wouldn't grow the right way,
unless it's God's formula here,
of all with one accord and one place.
This is the difference.
I'm going to teach you these two words before we close.
Soul winning and evangelism.
Heard those two words before?
Now, I use the word soul winning.
The Bible says,
the fruit of the righteous is the tree of life,
and he to win its souls is wise.
The Bible talks about a Christian bringing forth fruit.
Winning souls to Christ is like them producing,
not just fruit,
but producing another tree that also produces fruit.
So that's Proverbs 11, 30.
The fruit of the righteous is a tree of life,
and he to win his souls is wise.
What I refer to as soul winning,
what's in the bulletin when it has our soul winning times,
you know, Thursday night at 6.30,
Sunday and Saturday morning, Saturday night.
Hey, that is talking about us going out
and winning people of the Lord.
The key word, going out and winning people of the Lord.
Go ye therefore into all the world,
and preach the gospel to every creature.
Go ye therefore and teach all nations.
Go out into the highways and hedges
and compel them to come in.
Daily in the temple and in every house,
they teach not to preach and preach to Jesus Christ.
I'm talking about going out of church.
Church is not the evangelistic tool.
Going out of church and winning people to Christ,
and then coming back bringing your sheaves with you.
That's soul winning.
That's the ideal.
That's the ultimate.
Now look, if you bring unsaved people to church,
praise the Lord.
I mean, at least you're trying.
I mean, you're getting people in.
Hey, praise the Lord.
God bless you.
I'm not trying to discourage you at all,
but the ultimate that you should try to work toward,
this should be your goal to get to the point
where you're winning people of the Lord yourself.
And then you could bring saved people and say,
this is my saved convert right here.
Now, the difference between that
and what our Baptist brethren unfortunately
have been influenced by the Protestants
and by the Presbyterians and the Methodists,
their methodology is let's get as many unsaved people in
as we can and we'll preach the gospel to them.
That's called an evangelistic church,
as opposed to a soul winning church.
Let's go out and get them saved.
Evangelistic says, let's get as many people in as we can
and then we'll get Mr. Hotshot, soul winner.
Mr. Steve Anderson, you know, he can like.
You know, I can just preach the gospel
and everybody's going to get saved.
Hey, that's not what God wants.
God wants the soul winning church
where everybody's doing it.
But see, here's the problem with the evangelistic church.
You start out a soul winning church
and then you become an evangelistic church
where it says, bring them in.
Let's not go out soul winning anymore.
Let's change it to visitation and here's what we'll do.
Instead of soul winning, we'll have visitation.
We'll go out and just invite people to church
and we'll just be real friendly.
Hey, how you doing?
God bless you.
Come to church with me, you know,
and give them a flyer and everything
and get them to come to church.
Well, here's what happens.
Start getting all these unsaved people in.
Well, pretty soon you're going to start
gearing the whole service toward unsaved people.
Not only are you going to preach, just the gospel.
Now the people aren't being fed.
Now nobody's screaming and yelling about their sin.
Now nobody's teaching them the Bible,
the verse Bible, the word of God.
Now nobody is helping them grow and feeding them.
But not only that, pretty soon you're going to say,
well, you know what?
We're going to get a lot more people in.
A lot more of these unsaved people in.
We get the music that they like.
Let's get the golden oldies.
You know, let's get the rap music.
Let's get Christian rap.
Let's get, I got emailed some Christian rap artist
wanted to come perform at our church today.
I'm still thinking about it.
But there was a Christian, you know,
let's get into Christian rock.
Let's get into just the full blown rock music.
Let's send out a survey.
And we'll question everybody in Tempe.
What kind of music do you listen to?
How do you like to dress?
What do you want the building to be like?
You want to have Starbucks during the service
and just send out and just whatever you want, we'll do it.
Hey, pretty soon church is exactly like the world.
And that's what you're saying.
You say, I don't think it's going to happen like that.
Oh really, it already did.
Go around, check out these churches.
Open the phone book and see what they're advertising.
Contemporary music, contemporary service.
This is not your parents' church.
You know, they have people on the cover
that are dressed inappropriately in the Yellow Pages ad.
Girls with real low cut shirts.
In the Yellow Pages ad, in the name of Jesus Christ.
That's church because it's become geared toward,
let's get as many unsafe people to come
because we're too lazy to go out and get people saved
and have a church that's filled with born again,
blood washed, baptized saints of God.
You say, why, you know, the way you praise
Pastor Anderson, you're going to run off people.
Hey, I'm not going to run off people
that have the Spirit of God living inside of them.
And if I do, then they probably
didn't want to live for God anyway.
And hopefully down the road they'll realize
that they need to be in a church that preaches on sin
and they need to be in a church that preaches
the Bible straight down the line.
But if they never do, this church will never change.
Did you hear me?
This church will never change.
You come back in 20 years,
these are the songs we'll be singing.
This is the Bible I'll be preaching out of,
not the NIV and the RSV and the HIV.
I will be preaching out of the King James Bible
20 years from now, 200 years from now
because I don't change because God doesn't change.
And you say, that offends these unsaved loved ones I'm bringing.
Well, get them saved, get the Spirit of God inside of them
and maybe they'll like it.
Maybe they'll like to God be the glory,
great things He has done.
So love He the world that He gave us His Son.
Because they'll be so thrilled that they're saved.
Then when they get to that chorus,
they'll sing it out with all their hearts.
Praise the Lord, praise the Lord.
Let the earth hear His voice.
Praise the Lord, praise the Lord.
Let the people rejoice.
Don't come to the Father through Jesus the Son
and give Him the glory, great things He has done.
Hey, they'll know what that means when they're saved.
The unsaved crowd, pop that in your CD player,
they'll look at you like you have two heads
because they're not saved.
They want to hear ACDC.
And so you've got to understand the purpose of this church,
what the purpose of church is and what your purpose is,
what your part is in this church.
Your part is to be in one accord with us,
winning souls with us, getting your loved ones saved,
getting your friends saved.
And you have to understand that church is not for them,
church is for you.
That's who it's for.
Church is for you.
Hey, you should be flattered.
Wow, church is geared toward me?
Yeah, church is geared toward you.
I mean, I have geared church, I'm thinking about you.
Well, I'm not thinking about some visitor that might come
that's going to be here one time and get mad and leave.
No, I'm thinking about you.
I'm thinking about the people that come to this church
because that's who I'm investing in.
That's who Jesus invested in.
It's the people that were His followers, His 12 disciples.
Let me take you aside.
Let me teach you, let me preach to you.
That's where the local church started in the four Gospels.
This big crowd on Acts 2, that wasn't the church.
That was soul winning time.
And that's why it wasn't even on a Sunday,
and that's why it was outside,
and that's why it was 120 people doing the preaching.
Yes, women preaching.
You say, are you against women preachers?
No, I'm all for it.
I think every woman should be a preacher.
But I'm not talking about standing up like Joyce Meyer
with a short haircut preaching.
I'm talking about every woman being a preacher
like taking the Bible and showing somebody
how to be saved, like the Bible calls preaching.
So let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer.
Father, I thank you so much for the word of God,
and I thank you so much for the direction
that you give us for our lives.