2 Corinthians chapter 4, there's a lot of talk about soul-willing in this chapter, that's pretty much what the chapter is about.
It's about preaching the gospel to the lost, getting people saved, pretty much from start to finish, that's the subject of the chapter.
And the Bible says in verse number 1, therefore seeing we have this ministry.
And in chapter 3, he's talking all about getting people saved, but he says,
We have renounced the hidden things of dishonesty, not walking in craftiness, nor handling the word of God deceitfully,
but by a manifestation of the truth commending ourselves to every man's conscience in the sight of God.
Verse 3, But if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost, in whom the God of this world had blinded the minds of them which believe not,
lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.
Now, according to the Bible here, those who are not saved, those who are lost, are blind.
They're blinded by the God of this world.
Now, who do you think that is, the God of this world, with the little g?
I'm talking about the devil.
He's blinded their eyes, lest the light of the glorious gospel should shine in.
You see, the devil basically walks to and fro in this earth, and he pretty much controls a lot of the things that go on in this earth.
Remember when he said to Jesus, he showed them all the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them?
And he said, All these things will I give thee if thou wilt fall down, worship me?
And he said, It's delivered unto me, and unto whomsoever I will, I give it.
You see, the God of this world is what Satan is called right here,
and it says that he is blinded the eyes of those that believe not.
You see, those that believe not, they think that they can see.
They think that they know the truth.
They think that they know their science or whatever religion that they're following,
and they think that they're right, but it's because they're blind.
And so you try to explain to them the truth, and they don't understand it.
It's like trying to explain to a blind person who's been born blind, who's never seen anything, you know, the color aqua.
You know, how are you going to explain?
I was talking to Jessica that was sitting here in the front row this morning.
She's been blind since she was an infant.
And I asked her if she understood colors, if she had a concept of what colors are, if she could see them in her mind.
She said, You know, I can see a few basic colors in my mind, like red or blue or something,
but she said, you know, if you said to me, aqua, you know, turquoise, sir, she said, I have no clue, no idea.
You know, I pretty much know just a couple of basic primary colors, and that's it.
And you try to explain to somebody who's not saved spiritual things.
The Bible said, 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.
And so the unbeliever, the unsaved person looks at spiritual things, they hear the word of God perhaps, and it's foolishness to them.
But according to the Bible, they're the fool.
It's the fool that has said in his heart, there is no God.
They're the one who's been blinded by the God of this world.
They're the one who's been deceived and lied to, and they think that they can see, but they can't see, they're blind.
Jesus said to the Pharisees, when they asked the question, Are we blind also?
He said, Well, you say that you can see.
He said, You know, it'd be one thing if you didn't know any better.
But he said, You know, you're blind spiritually.
He said, I just healed a man who's blind physically.
He said, You're spiritually blind.
You think you can see, but you can see nothing, because you're blinded.
And it's our job as so many Christians to shine the light of the glorious gospel that people might be saved, and in the minds of those that believe not.
Now, look what it says in verse number five.
It says, For we preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord, and ourselves your servants for Jesus' sake.
For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, has shined in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
And here's the verse I want to focus on, verse seven, because this is really the text verse tonight.
And let me tell you something, this is a verse that means a lot to me.
This is a verse that has a special place in my heart.
Because for years and years, literally for years and years, every week, when I was soloing in a certain area of the country in South Chicago,
for over two years, every time I went soloing, every week, I had a soloing partner that I pretty much went with every single week.
His name was Reggie.
And we would always turn in our Bibles before we went soloing for years.
I mean, we did this over a hundred times.
We turned to 2 Corinthians 4-7 and read this verse out loud every single time before we went soloing, for years.
And this is the verse we read,
That's the verse that we read every single time.
And then we prayed, and we took turns praying.
We said, God, we know it's not us.
We know it's not our own power.
We know it's nothing that we can think of.
It's not something that we can say or some kind of intelligence that we have or eloquence we have, God.
We know that the power to get somebody saved is the power of God.
It's not us.
We're just earthen vessels.
We're sinful flesh.
We're imperfect vessels.
It's the light of the glorious gospel that's going to save them.
We have this treasure of earthen vessels that the excellency of the power may be of God and not of us.
And every week we prayed, it's not us.
And we got many people saved.
We got people saved every week, and we prayed that prayer, and we read this verse every time.
He goes on a little bit later, and he explains...
Let me see the part that I was looking for.
He said, the excellency of the power may be of God and not of us.
He said, we're troubled on every side.
And if you go down to verse number 13, he says,
We having the same spirit of faith according as it is written, I believe, and therefore have I spoken.
We also believe, and therefore speak,
knowing that he which raised up the Lord Jesus shall raise up us also by Jesus,
and shall present us with you.
For all things are for your sakes that the abundant raised might through the thanksgiving of many
redound to the glory of God, for which cause we faint not.
But though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day.
Go back to verse 1.
Compare that with verse 16.
He says, Therefore, seeing we have this ministry, as we have received mercy, we faint not.
Now he's saying, our outward man can become weary with going soul winning or doing the work of the ministry,
going out and knocking the doors, and week after week, it can become something that's tiresome and tiring.
But he said, because we've received this mercy, we faint not because we want other people to have the same chance.
Now, what I want to preach about tonight is this.
And if you would, turn to 1 Corinthians chapter 3, and we'll get into the points of the message.
That was introduction.
But 1 Corinthians chapter 3, just go back a few pages.
The title of the sermon is this, The Power of Soul Winning.
The power.
Now, the power is not us.
It's God.
That's what it said in 2 Corinthians 4, 7, one of my favorite verses.
1 Corinthians chapter 3, 4 says this, For while one sayeth, I am of Paul, and another, I am of Apollos, are ye not carnal?
Who then is Paul, and who is Apollos, but ministers by whom ye believe?
And watch this next phrase, even as the Lord gave to every man.
You see that?
As the Lord gave to every man.
Every single person who's saved, and I'm going to prove this from the Bible.
Every single person that's saved, it's because someone was that earthen vessel that God used to present the gospel to that person,
to bring the gospel to that person.
Ministers by whom they believed, even as the Lord gave to every man.
But let me ask you something.
Does every man hear the gospel?
No.
Because God gave them someone to give them the gospel.
God gave this part of Tempe and Phoenix a faithful word about this church.
But if our gospel's hid, it's hid to them that are lost, the Bible says.
And they'll be blinded continually.
You see, it's our job to be that person, to give the gospel, to be that minister by whom they believe that God has provided for them.
It takes someone giving them the gospel for them to be saved.
You see, faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God, the Bible says.
It says, for whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.
How then shall they call on him in whom they've not believed?
And how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard?
And how shall they hear without a preacher?
Did you hear that?
How shall they hear without a preacher?
And how shall they preach except they be sent?
Look at 2 Corinthians 5, the Bible says, God gave every man a minister by whom they might believe.
Look at 2 Corinthians 5.
You see, it's our responsibility to give the gospel, to present the gospel.
What is it going to take to get someone saved?
What is it going to take to lift the darkness out of somebody's eyes who's blinded by the God of this world because they believe not on Jesus Christ?
What's going to be the power that's going to be able to break those chains and break that bond of blindness?
It's going to be number one.
It's going to take a Christian, a soul winner, a spirit-filled preaching Christian, whether they're man, woman, boy, or girl, to take the Bible and preach them the gospel.
And if it's hid, it's going to be hid to them that are lost.
2 Corinthians 5.18 says this,
And all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, and hath 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 reconciled to God.
Look, God has committed to us the ministry of reconciliation.
It's our responsibility.
It's our job to preach the gospel to the lost.
He didn't give it to the angels.
Their job is not to preach the gospel.
He doesn't come down here and do it himself.
No, he committed it to us.
It's our job.
And if we don't do it, if our gospel is hid, it's hid to them that are lost, let me tell you something.
It's going to take the power of God to get somebody saved, and it starts with a Christian who saved himself,
who's going to take that Bible and preach the gospel and get somebody saved.
Look, if you would, at Acts chapter 8.
And if you get there, turn to John chapter 5.
That's where we're going next.
But Acts chapter 8, famous story about the Ethiopian eunuch.
He was a man who worked for the queen of Ethiopia, Candacy.
And basically, he's on his way back from Jerusalem to Ethiopia.
So he's passing through Gaza, okay?
And as he's passing through, Philip comes upon the chariot.
And he finds this Ethiopian man reading the Bible.
He's reading the book of Isaiah chapter 53.
He's reading the Old Testament.
And as he's reading the Bible, Philip ran thither to him, it says in verse 30, and heard him read the prophet his eyes.
So basically, this guy is reading in the chariot out loud.
He's got his Bible.
He's reading it out loud.
And Philip runs up to the chariot.
He hears where he's reading.
And it says in verse number 30, and said, understandest thou what thou readest?
He's saying, do you understand what you're reading?
And look what he said.
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.
Now compare that to 1 John chapter 2, where he says to those that are saved, he says, ye need not that any man teach you,
but as the same anointing teacheth you of all things, and is truth and is no lie.
And even as it hath taught you, ye shall abide in him.
Talk about the Holy Spirit being your teacher.
But the unsaved person is not indwelt by the Holy Spirit.
They are the natural man.
They cannot receive the things of the Spirit of God.
He said, how can I except some man should guide me?
And so he needed a Spirit-filled Christian to take the Bible and show him, and explain to him, and expound to him the Scriptures.
That's exactly what Philip did.
Then Philip gets to the point where he's done explaining it.
The Ethiopian eunuch understands it, and he says in verse number 36, see, here is water.
What doth hinder me to be baptized?
And Philip said, if thou believeth with all thine heart, thou mayest.
And he answered and said, I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.
And he commanded the chariot to stand still, and they went down both into the water, both Philip and the eunuch, and he baptized him.
But you see, he wasn't going to get saved on his own just reading his eye.
He could have read it all the way back to Ethiopia, but he wouldn't understand it because listen to me,
it's impossible for an unsaved person to understand the Bible because it's spiritually discerned.
You can't just pick it up with your unregenerate blindfolded.
It's like, here, read this blindfolded.
That's what the unsaved person's doing.
It says they have a veil over their eyes in Galatians 4.
They read the Old Testament, the veil's over their eyes, they can't see it.
My wife said that when she picked up the Bible as a teenager a few different times throughout her life,
she picked up the Bible and tried to read it.
She tried the book of Psalms, she tried the book of John, and she walked away saying,
it doesn't make any sense.
I don't get it. What's the point?
And she had no desire to read it.
But then after she got saved, she went back and read John, she went back and read Psalms,
and it made sense to her because she was saved, because the Holy Spirit was inside of her.
It's like the veil had been lifted, the scales had come off her eyes,
and now she could understand it. Ask her. She'll tell you. It's the truth.
I gave her a Bible as a gift before she got saved.
You know, she tried reading it a little bit, but just walked away saying, you know, why?
She didn't get it.
And she never would have gotten it.
And so she got saved. She never would have comprehended it.
That's why people don't just get saved by themselves.
I know, you know, some people think they just pick up the Bible and just read it and get saved.
It's just not true. It's just not biblical.
And the Bible says, and look at John chapter 5.
Here's something that's a little more of a parable, but look at John chapter 5.
And here's a story about Jesus healing a man,
but it has a spiritual application in reference to salvation,
even though it's a physical story, it has a spiritual meaning.
It says in verse number 1, after this there was a feast of the Jews,
and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.
Now you're reading in John 5 verse 2.
Now there is at Jerusalem by the sheep market a pool,
which is called in the Hebrew tongue Bethesda having five porches.
In these lay a great multitude of impotent folk,
of blind, hauled, withered, waiting for the moving in the water.
Now verse 4, if you're reading the NIV, is completely gone.
I don't know if you know that.
You know, thank God you have the King James Bible in your hand,
but all these modern Bibles take out verse 4 completely,
along with 17 other verses, you know.
And they take out the verse that we just read in Acts chapter 8,
about where the Ethiopian eunuch said,
I believe Jesus Christ, the Son of God, that's all gone too.
And this verse, if you're reading the NIV, it literally goes 1, 2, 4.
You know, it sounds like a one-year-old trying to learn how to count or something.
1, 2, 5, 6, 7.
And it says 1, 2, 3, 4.
I'm sorry, it says 1, 2, 3, 5 in the NIV.
I can't count either, sorry.
But in verse number 4, thank God for the King James Bible, it says,
For an angel went down in a certain season into the pool,
and troubled the water,
whosoever then first, after the troubling of the water,
stepped in, was made whole of whatsoever disease he had.
And that's kind of a big verse to remove, huh?
It says in verse 5,
And a certain man was there, which had an infirmity thirty and eight years.
That's a long time to be ill.
When Jesus saw him lie and knew that he had been now a long time in that case,
he saith unto him,
Will thou be made whole?
He's basically saying, do you want to be healed?
You know, you've been sitting here for 38 years,
do you even really want to be healed?
That's what it means, will thou be made whole?
Will you be whole here?
And he said,
The impotent man answered him,
Sir, I have no man.
Get that statement.
Sir, I have no man.
That when the water is troubled, put me into the pool.
But while I am coming, another step it down before me.
Jesus saith unto him,
Rise, take up thy bed, and walk.
And immediately the man was made whole,
and took up his bed, and walked on the same day as the seven.
You see, the problem wasn't that he didn't want to be made whole.
You know, he's probably a little bit offended by that question, like,
Of course I want to be healed.
It's just that I don't have anybody to get me there.
I don't have anybody to pick me up and take me down there when the water's troubled.
And that's the problem with most people today in America.
They'd be crying out,
I have no man.
How can I, except some man should guide me.
I want to go to heaven. I'd like to be saved.
How many times do we say,
Do you know for sure if you die today, you go to heaven?
And no, I don't.
Would you like to know that?
Oh, yeah, sure.
But I have no man.
Nobody will show me.
Nobody will tell me.
And he says here, I have no man.
And then Jesus basically says to him,
Rise, think up thy bed, and walk.
And immediately the man was made whole and took up his bed and walked.
On the same day was the seventh.
Have you ever noticed how much Jesus was healing on the Sabbath?
Because there's a spiritual parallel.
Obviously there's the physical story.
Here's a man, he's a paraplegic.
You know, he's laying there, he can't walk.
Jesus physically heals him.
He gets up and walks and carries a bed.
Okay.
But there's a spiritual application here about salvation.
You need a man, you know, to get you there.
To give you the gospel.
To preach unto you salvation.
And I think the reason why Jesus was always healing on the Sabbath day,
the symbolism there is that the Sabbath day was a day of rest.
And the Bible says that about salvation in Hebrews chapter 4,
Now he that has entered into his rest,
he has also ceased from his own works as God did from his.
You see, in order to be saved, you've got to cease from your own works and just trust Christ,
his finished work on the cross.
And so that's the symbolism of Jesus healing on the Sabbath.
That's why he always did that.
That's the point that's being made.
You don't have to turn there, but Philemon chapter 1,
Paul said this,
I beseech thee for my son Onesimus whom I have begotten in my bonds.
Now he's referring to a guy that was in jail with him that he won to Christ.
He said, I've begotten him.
Okay.
It said in 1 Corinthians 4.15,
For though ye have ten thousand instructors in Christ,
yet have ye not many fathers,
for in Christ Jesus, Paul said,
I have begotten you through the gospel.
You see, when you get somebody saved, it's like you've begotten them.
Because the Bible says, when you got saved, 1 John 3.9,
Whosoever is born of God did not commit sin,
for his seed remaineth in him,
and he cannot sin because he's born of God.
The Bible says the sower sows the word.
The seed is the word of God.
And God's word being preached by you is what gets somebody saved.
You see, don't take out the human element of getting someone saved.
You say, oh, it's all God.
People are constantly criticizing me for saying, I got somebody saved.
Oh, how can you say that?
You know, I'll say, hey, we got somebody, we got two people saved.
Oh, you know.
And I've gotten so many people.
I had a childhood friend of mine contact me and say,
yeah, you know, I see that you're a pastor, I see you're a preacher,
but there's something that I don't understand about your ministry.
They said, I don't understand how you keep saying,
I got somebody saved, or he got someone saved,
as if we had something to do with it.
It's not just all God.
And I said, well, here, let me give you some scriptures that might help you understand.
Here's one.
I have become all things to all men that I might by all means save some.
So I said, if you want me to be more scriptural, just say, I saved two people.
Would you like that better?
You know?
Or what about when he said, if by any means I might provoke to emulation
them that are of my flesh and might save some of them?
Romans 11.
Or what about Jude?
And of some have compassion making a difference, others save with fear,
pulling them out of the fire, hating even the garments spotted by the flesh.
Don't tell me that man has nothing to do with it.
Paul said, I begat Onesimus in my bonds.
He said to the Corinthians, I begotten you.
He said, I've become all things to all men that I might all by all means save some.
There's only one savior, and that savior is Jesus Christ.
But that's not going to do anybody any good if they don't hear about Jesus Christ,
if they don't have the gospel preached to them by somebody who's saved,
who can show them what the Word of God means,
because they will not understand it on their own.
They need some man to guide them, and it's not going to do them any good.
Jesus is the savior, so let's sit back and let him save everybody.
That is not what the Bible teaches.
The Bible says he's committed unto us, the ministry of reconciliation.
We beseech you, therefore, in Christ's stead be ye reconciled to God.
It's like when Jesus Christ is on this earth, he said,
as long as I'm in the world, I'm the light of the world.
He went around and preached and got people saved,
but Jesus is no longer in this world physically.
He sees it at the right hand of the Father,
and he tells us, go ye therefore to all the world and preach to the gospel to every creature.
There's got to be a man or a woman or a boy or a girl
that will be the earthen vessel that God can use to get the gospel to the world.
That is one of the elements that has to be there for somebody to be saved.
He said, well, people can get saved without that.
Okay, well, then why do we even do soul winning?
And that's why people who believe that don't do soul winning,
because they just think God's going to take care of it all.
And the world goes to hell, because we all just sit back and say,
well, God's got that covered.
No, he gave it to us.
He committed that responsibility unto us.
It's our job to go out and preach the gospel to the world.
He said, that's why we faint not.
That's why when I'm tired, I'm going to go anyway.
That's why when I don't feel like it, I'm going to go anyway, Paul said.
He said, my outward man is perishing,
but the inward man is renewed day by day.
The love of Christ constraineth us.
Woe unto us if we preach not the gospel.
If our gospel be hid, it's hid to them that are lost.
They're going to be damned because they didn't hear the gospel from us.
We better go.
That's what the Bible teaches.
You know, it's funny, Calvinists, they love Paul,
but this is Paul, more than anybody, preaching this stuff.
Paul was the one that was saying all these things.
And so, I mean, I've got other scriptures, same thing.
Paul said in Galatians 4,
My little children, of whom I travail in birth again,
until Christ be formed in you.
You know, it's like giving birth to a child.
And you say, well, can you give birth?
Can just a man produce a child? Just a man.
You know, I know they're doing all kinds of screwed up things with science,
but, you know, just a man is having the child.
You know, or just a woman.
No, both are necessary.
Both elements must be there.
And guess what?
In salvation, there's a few elements that have to be there.
God's got to be there.
And the Spirit-filled Christian's got to be there.
And that's what it's going to take to get somebody saved.
Because getting somebody saved is a spiritual thing.
Turn to 1 Peter, chapter 1.
And I'm going to show you a little bit more of the power,
the power of soul winning.
You see, an unsaved person,
and we started out by saying, number one,
that, you know, somebody just reading the Bible
isn't going to get saved on their own.
Because they cannot understand it.
It's impossible for them to understand it.
They have to have some minister by whom they believe.
Somebody's got to save them.
Somebody's got to give them the Gospel.
Somebody's got to preach it to them.
But number two, somebody's not going to get saved
with an unsaved person giving them the Gospel.
It's not going to happen.
Because everything brings forth after its own kind.
And if Paul said, I've begotten you in the Gospel,
that's a childbirth term.
Yeah, that's a child begetting, is what he's talking about.
Like, I've begotten these, you know, five children that are mine.
I've begotten them.
I've sired these children.
My wife gave birth to these children.
We have engendered these children.
And that's the term that Paul used.
He said, I've begotten Onesimus.
He said, Timothy's my son in the faith.
Titus is my son in the faith.
Because I'm the one who gave them the Gospel and got them saved.
God forbid that he would, you know,
mention that he was the one who got them saved.
But it's the truth.
But not only that,
everything brings forth after its own kind.
A good tree bringing forth good fruit,
but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit.
A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit.
Neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit.
That's what Jesus preached.
He said, a bad tree isn't going to produce good fruit.
Somebody who has not even saved himself,
who's believing in another Gospel,
they cannot get someone saved.
It's not possible for them to bring forth good fruit,
to multiply after another kind.
You know, despite what the phony junk science of evolution teaches,
everything brings forth after its own kind.
Amen.
You say, oh, but, you know, these,
we kept breathing these dogs,
and they kept getting bigger and bigger and bigger,
and they kept getting smaller and smaller.
But guess what, it's still the same kind.
Dog.
Now, it might be a poodle or a German Shepherd,
or a teacup poodle, or a standard poodle,
but it's a dog.
It's not going to grow webbed feet and flippers.
It's not going to fly away.
You know, breed dogs all day long.
Breed them however you want.
It will never grow wings and fly away.
It will never fly.
If you lose your dog,
it's not going to be because it flew out of your backyard.
It's going to be because it dug under the fence.
It's not going to be because it swam underneath the water,
you know, and went way down in the water,
and just started to just live underwater,
because it developed a breathing apparatus
that could breathe underwater.
You see, there's the animal kingdom,
and then there's the, you know, the,
and again, I'm not an expert on this,
but the genus, the phylum, you know, the whatever.
Does anybody know what I'm talking about?
What is it?
Order, family, kind, species, right?
And kind is pretty low on the chart, right?
There's eight different things there.
I don't think kind is up there
with like the difference between a plant and an animal.
You know, kind is, that's kingdom, okay?
It's all the way down at the bottom, you know?
Kind is down here.
And yeah, there could be variations within the kind,
but as sure as I'm standing here,
there's not a scientist on this earth
that can make something bring forth after a different kind.
You know, and they think that they're God, but they're not.
And so only an animal can bring forth after its own kind,
but the Christian brings forth the Christian,
because it's a light kind.
See, the physical application has a spiritual meaning.
You know, he said the animals bring forth after their own kind,
the herb-yielding seed after his kind.
And then the Christian brings forth the Christian.
The unbeliever is not going to bring forth the Christian.
Judas Iscariot was not saved.
From the beginning, he believed not,
the Bible says in John 6.
Judas Iscariot went out with the disciples,
preaching the gospel.
He did not get anyone saved, period.
Because it was not possible that he might be people saved.
And you say, well, wait a minute.
Couldn't it be that he could have,
since he was just probably just regurgitating
a lot of things that he was hearing?
And I'm sure Judas, and this is an important point.
Don't miss this part of the sermon.
This is the important part of the sermon.
I'm sure that Judas was repeating
the same things that he heard all the other disciples saying.
I'm sure he was preaching the same things
that Jesus was preaching because he was trying to fit in.
Are you getting this?
He was trying to fit in because he was a deceiver.
He was stealing money.
He had the bag.
He bore what was put there in.
And so he wanted to fit in.
He wanted them to think that he was one of them.
So he wasn't going out and preaching a different gospel.
He was saying the same things that they were saying.
And they were two by two.
So they knew what he was saying.
Get this.
And at the last supper, they did not
know it was him that would betray him.
Because when he said, one of you shall betray me,
they said, is it I?
They didn't say, it's probably Judas.
I've had a weird feeling about him.
And even when Jesus said, it's the one
that I dipped the sop and handed to him,
then he dips the sop, hands it to Judas,
and says, that thou doest do quickly.
And they said, oh, he must just be sending Judas
to go buy something.
Because it can't be Judas that's the traitor.
So did he fit in?
Was he saying the right things?
But yet, according to the scripture,
he couldn't have gotten anyone saved.
Because it's the wrong kind.
You see, what you need to get through your head here,
what you've got to get here and grasp and let it sink down
into your heart and your ears, is that getting somebody saved
is the work of God, not man.
And it's a spiritual thing.
And it can only be done by a Christian that
has the Holy Spirit living inside of them, period.
It's not just a math problem.
See, two plus two is four.
OK.
Yeah, I believe that.
No.
They're blinded by the God of this world.
And you've got to shine that light of the gospel.
And it can only be done.
It can't be the blind leading the blind.
When he said, how can I, except some man should guide me,
what if there was another unsaved guy there
with him in the chariot?
Well, here's what I heard somebody say.
No.
It's got to be bringing forth that to your own kind.
Because when you get somebody saved,
you're begetting them with the gospel.
You're begetting them through the gospel,
it says in 1 Corinthians 4.15.
And so you can't have, number one,
an unsaved person just reading the Bible on their own
to be saved.
No.
The Holy Spirit's got to be there,
present in the person who's giving them the gospel, who
is the saved Christian.
So number one, they can't just get it with the Bible.
Number two, they can't just get it from an unsaved person just
repeating something to them.
I mean, somebody could memorize our soul winning demonstration
video and quote it to somebody and will never, never
get someone saved.
I believe that from the top of my head
to the bottom of my feet because of all the scriptures
that I just read to you.
So let me ask you, doesn't that make you stop and think,
wait a minute.
Maybe God's not always going to use me if I'm living in sin,
if I'm walking in the flesh.
Maybe I'll go out and just go through the motions.
Think about this now.
And give people the gospel.
Go through Romans 3.23, Romans 6.23, Romans 5.8,
Revelation 20, 14, 15.
I'm going to push the button.
The light bulb's going to come on.
If you're carnal, if you're living in the flesh,
if you're not walking in the spirit of God,
Jesus said, without me, you can do nothing.
You better abide in that vine if you
want to bring forth truth.
It's true.
I remember when I first started soul winning,
I was living a worldly life.
And I remember, I mean, I was just completely inundated
with the worldly music, movies, just totally not
walking in the spirit, totally walking after the flesh.
And I used to go soul winning.
And you know what?
I was not getting good results out of soul winning.
And I started to realize this because I was carnal,
because I was walking in the flesh.
And as I started to pray and started
to get rid of a lot of things and started
to meditate on God's word day and night,
that's where I started seeing people saying
there was a big difference.
And it wasn't the methods were changing.
God has chosen the foolish things of this world
to confound the wise.
It's not about having the best method.
It's not about being eloquent.
It's not about being perfect at it.
You can stammer and stutter, but if you're
filled with the spirit, you will get people saved.
And if you're carnal and you're walking in the flesh,
God doesn't want to use a filthy vessel.
Yes, we have an earthen vessel, but he wants a clean vessel
to pour his spirit into, not one that's filled with the world.
How can you be filled with the spirit
when you're filled with Hollywood,
you're filled with rock and roll,
you're filled with everything in this world
that is against the Bible, everything that's against God.
And then you expect God to just use you in this great way
just because he's so lucky to have you to go out and do it.
He says, I demand that anyone who wants to serve me,
he said, deny themself and take up their cross and follow me.
He said, present your body, a living sacrifice,
holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service,
which tells me that if it's unholy, it's not acceptable to God.
He said he wants a holy vessel.
But here's the third thing that's not going to happen.
Somebody's not going to be saved with the wrong word of God,
the wrong Bible.
Look at 1 Peter chapter 1.
Number one, they're not going to be saved
without some man to guide them, number one.
Number two, they're not going to be saved with the blind leaving the blind.
It's going to have to be a Christian that gives them the gospel.
But number three, they're not going to be saved without God's word.
They need God's word to be saved.
Not only do they need the Holy Spirit to be saved,
not only do they need some man who has the Holy Spirit living inside of him
to preach in the power of the Holy Spirit the word of God
and then they might be saved, they need the word of God.
Look at 1 Peter chapter 1, verse 23.
"...being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible..."
And he's going to tell us what that is.
"...by the word of God, which liveth and abideth forever.
For all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man is the flower of grass.
The grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away,
but the word of the Lord endureth forever.
And this is the word which by the gospel is preached unto you."
You see, it's going to take the eternal, incorruptible word of God to get someone saved.
Now stop and think about this.
You say, well, I think somebody could just get saved from reading the Bible.
I think somebody could get saved without the Bible.
I think somebody could get saved just from an unsaved person giving them the gospel.
But wait a minute, what you're missing here is that this is a spiritual action that takes place
where somebody who is saved takes the word of God and gives the gospel because otherwise it is impossible.
And in reality, it's impossible for anyone to be saved.
With men, it's impossible. That's what Jesus said.
Because when he said it's easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to be saved,
the disciples said to him, who then can be saved?
They're basically saying, who in the world can even be saved?
How is it possible for anybody to be saved?
And you know what Jesus said to him?
With men, it's impossible.
Did you hear that?
How can anyone be saved?
He said, with men, it is impossible.
Salvation is impossible with man.
But with God, all things are possible.
That's it right there.
We have this treasure in earthen vessels that the excellency of the power may be of God, not of us.
Salvation is not through man, it's through God.
And if you don't have God's word and God the Holy Spirit there to regenerate through faith in his word, there's no salvation.
The power of soul winning is the gospel of Jesus Christ as preached by a Christian from the word of God.
He said, where did I have you turn? Anywhere?
1 Peter.
Look at James, just a few pages to the right in your Bible.
1 Peter said that we've got to be born again with the incorruptible seed.
Not the corruptible seed of the NIV or some version that changes the verse to a completely different statement.
I mean, it would be one thing if there were verses that were identical.
You know, like some verses in the New King James are identical to those in the King James.
If you were to use that verse only, then yeah, it could be possible to use a verse to get somebody to say it only because it's identical.
Because if it was any different, you couldn't get them saved.
Because it must be God's word as he spoke it, not man's twisted version of it.
And let me tell you something, every verse that you use out solely, every verse that I use out solely in the NIV is different.
Romans 3.23 is different. Romans 6.23 is different. Romans 5.8 is different. Romans 10.9 is different.
I mean, pretty much everything is twisted.
And by the way, if you put something that's right with something that's wrong together, the whole thing becomes wrong.
The whole thing becomes a lie.
You know, if you mix in a lie into truth, you could just change one word of a sentence and make it from a true statement to a false statement.
And so therefore, you know, it's not possible.
I don't believe that people get saved from the NIV because all the verses are changed. They're all different.
Now, people have literally quit this church because I preach that.
They quit the church that I went to in Sacramento because my pastor in Sacramento preached the same thing.
People quit the church and said, oh, heresy is a cult.
Oh, wow. Real fanatical to think that something that is twisted and changed to say something completely different than what this says, and it's still God's word.
They can still be saved.
And that's what people say. Well, there's enough truth in there to get them saved.
It doesn't matter. I mean, if I tell you a story that's 90% true, what if I go home tonight and I sit down with my wife and I tell her all about my travels over the last three days and 90% of what I tell is true?
Do you think my wife would like that?
That means I'm lying 10% of the time.
That means every 10 sentences that come out of my mouth, one of them is a full-face lie.
Do you think my wife says, well, I can handle, I can live with that if my husband tells me the truth 90% of the time?
I mean, come on, 90%, that's an A-minus.
So every 10th thing I tell her is just a total lie.
You know what I mean?
You say, well, there's enough truth there to have a good marriage.
You know, and I've used this illustration many times, you know, but a sandwich from Subway.
You don't like the sandwich?
Let me pick a new one. A pizza!
It's funny, I've been traveling with Scott and he's kind of a picky eater, you know?
And it's like, imagine if I gave to Scott something and I said, well, you know, 80% of this is stuff you like, Scott.
But I'm going to smear this sauce all over it that you don't like.
That sauce would probably ruin the whole thing for him.
Is that a little milder of an illustration?
Let me get back to my Subway sandwich.
Let's say I'm going to give you a Subway sandwich.
And I take that Subway sandwich and I throw it in the garbage can out here.
Now, who's ever examined this garbage can?
It's a pretty dirty garbage can. This garbage can is bad.
What if we took that Subway sandwich and we just threw it in that garbage can?
And it went all the way down into the garbage.
But it was still wrapped in the paper.
And I said to you, are you hungry?
You said, yeah.
I said, there's a sandwich on that garbage can.
In fact, I need to tell you what part of the garbage can it's in.
I said, you won't have to dig for very long.
It's really easily recognizable with the wrap that says Subway.
And you'd say to me, no, the sandwich is dirty.
I said, well, it's wrapped in paper.
It's a clean sandwich.
It's from Subway.
You like Subway.
But you'd say no because of the fact that it's been in that garbage can.
It's become contaminated.
So if you want to dig in the garbage can at the NIV
and see if you can find one phrase that's kind of the same,
well, there's enough truth in there.
Well, there's enough nourishment in that sandwich for you to do.
But do you want to eat it?
Or back to my old illustration, what if we then took that Subway sandwich
and just applied a very, you know those little round knives
that they have at Subway that they put the spread on?
What if we just took a very thin layer of just dog goo
and just very thinly, you know, we'll go light on it for you,
and spread that onto the bun.
Now, the sandwich has a lot of good nutrition in it.
It's 99% good.
But wouldn't you say that 1%?
Well, what about this?
What if I gave you a glass of water and said,
here's a clean, fresh, ice-cold glass of water, okay?
And I just said, I'm just going to just take one drop of toilet water
and put it in, okay?
I take a little dropper from the toilet.
It's after it's been flushed, okay?
Just a clean toilet.
And we're just going to take a little dropper
and just give a little spritz of toilet water for a sip.
And say, will you drink that water?
Don't nod your head.
You need to talk to this boy.
You'd say that the water's been contaminated by the toilet water,
and you'd be right, because there's microorganisms
by the millions living in that drop of toilet water
that would then just start swimming around the whole glass,
and you drink your glass, and you're going to get it.
You see, the lie contaminates the truth.
Dirt contaminates, I would say.
If we had a glass of just the muddiest, dirtiest water right here
and crystal clear water,
if we were to take one dropper of clean water,
would it clean up that dirty water?
But if we were to take one drop of dirty water
and drop it into the clean water,
you'd watch it spread like a cloud,
and the whole thing would be dirty.
That's how it always is.
In order for something to be clean, it's got to be 100% clean.
And it'd be one thing if the NIV had certain passages
that were completely right.
You know, maybe some passages were wrong,
others were right.
You could take them to the clean passage
and give them the Word of God.
But you know what?
Every verse has changed.
I mean, it's virtually every verse.
You know, it's not happening.
And I'll stand my grand on that.
And you know, if people don't like it,
they cannot like it, but it's the truth.
And the devil is using these versions,
where the change is what it says,
and people can even go out with their heart in the right place
and give all these other versions.
But you know what?
God's Spirit is not there.
God's Spirit only speaks of truth.
He's the Spirit of truth.
And He will not speak a lie.
And if you've taken out or added to,
the Bible calls you a liar.
He said, add thou not unto his words,
lest he reprove thee, and thou be found a liar.
And if you're going to sit there and say,
you know, Jesus said,
and it's a little different than what He actually said,
the Holy Spirit is not there speaking that.
And therefore, people can't be saved.
They need to hear God's true, incorruptible Word.
And look, I didn't write it.
That's what it says.
Being born again, not of corruptible seed.
Not some messed up seed, some messed up version,
some messed up claiming to be the Bible,
but of incorruptible seed.
Now, for example, let's say we're in Spanish, you know,
and there's all these different versions of Spanish,
and you know, the modern versions are terrible.
They're like the NIV or whatever.
But then of the old versions,
there's like the 1569 Casa de la Reina.
There's like the 1602 Reina Ballera.
There's the 1909 edition.
There are a variety of different editions of it
that have variances in them, okay?
And I could sit down with my King James Bible
and show you where, in a couple places,
they're a little bit off.
It's wrong.
You know, I could show you a verse where I say,
you know, this isn't what it's supposed to say.
You know, it's a mistake.
There's a couple places where they take out hell and stuff
and soften it up.
But see, the thing is,
if you were to take most of 99% of those versions, okay,
I mean, I mean, 99% of the Bible in that version,
if you took people to the part that's right,
it's God's word, you know?
If you show people the part that's wrong,
it's not God's word.
And if you give somebody God's word that's right,
they can be saved.
But if you've got some phony, messed up version,
they can't be saved.
Now, I don't know what people don't understand about that.
Like, people get confused about that and say like,
well, this verse has, this Bible in Spanish
has one verse wrong over here, therefore, you know,
it's like, well, you know, you use the part that's right.
And if you start mixing in the part that's wrong,
you've tainted the whole thing, just like the dropper, you know?
And so when you're giving somebody the Gospel,
you want to make sure that you're giving them God's word,
not man's twisted rendition of it,
like, you know, the living Bible
or good news for modern man
or the message where they just say,
well, this is what we think the Bible means.
No, it's not, it's your words.
This is God's word.
And so I'll stand my ground on that.
It's got to be a person who's saved.
It's got to be a person.
And they've got to have the Bible in their hand
preaching you the Gospel.
Look at James 1 where I had to turn.
James chapter 1 says this.
In verse number...
Sorry, verse number 18, it says,
of his own will, let's talk about God,
begat the us with the word of truth
that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures.
Look at verse 21.
Wherefore, lay apart all filthiness
and superfluity of naughtiness,
and receive with meekness the engrafted word
which is able to save your souls.
So God has begotten us.
The word of God has begotten us.
And the person who gave us the Gospel has begotten us.
All three.
Did you get that?
God has begotten us.
The Holy Spirit regenerated us.
The word of God has begotten us.
And we see Paul said, I've begotten you.
See how it's all the same term?
These are the elements that have to be there.
And so that was basically the doctrine of tonight's sermon.
There's your doctrine right there.
Sound Bible doctrine that says,
getting saved is a spiritual thing,
not a math problem,
not A plus B equals C.
No, people are so blinded,
they must have God's word preached to them
by someone who's filled with the Spirit.
Those three elements have to be there.
The Holy Spirit,
the person who's preaching it to them,
and the word of God.
But here's the application.
Your soul wedding.
Do you have the power of God upon your soul wedding?
Or are you going out there just spinning your wheels in the flesh,
just talking to people in your own power, in your own strength?
Do you truly realize that the power is of God?
Let me ask you something.
Do you pray that you'll be filled with the Spirit?
Do you pray that God will lead you and direct you?
Do you pray that God's power would rest upon you
when you go out soul wedding?
Or are you just showing up and just going through the motions?
Get God involved in your soul wedding,
because that's where the power is going to come from.
God.
Are you filled with the word of God?
Are you filled with the Spirit of God?
That's what it's going to take for you to get people saved.
It's not going to be you going out and just doing a lot of hours
and knocking a lot of doors.
You better be filled with the Spirit of God.
Clean up your life. Clean up your heart.
Clean up your video case. Clean up your audio case.
And don't just fill your mind with everything the world has to offer.
Hey, get filled with the Spirit of God.
Get on your knees and pray to God for God to use you as a vessel
to get people saved, because it's not just going to happen
because you decided you're going to go do it.
No, it's going to be because God's power rests upon you,
because the Spirit of Christ rests upon you.
That's why 3,000 people got saved on the day of Pentecost,
because they were filled with the Spirit of God.
That's why.
That's why. You say, that could happen today.
If God's people in the number of 120 would be filled with the Spirit of God
like they were filled with the Spirit of God and have God's Word,
they'd go out and see a multitude saved as well. I believe that.
Jesus said to his disciples,
the works that I do shall ye do, and greater works than these,
because I go to my Father.
He wasn't talking about greater and quality.
You can't do anything greater than Jesus and quality.
He said you do it greater in quantity,
because there's one of me and there's 120 of you.
There's 70 of you. There's 12 of you.
And he said, when I go to my Father, you should rejoice,
because then I'm going to send you the Spirit of Truth.
And when you have the Spirit of God upon you,
he said you will do greater works than Jesus.
Greater in the size, he's saying, not the quality.
He said you'll do greater works,
but you've got to be filled with the Spirit of God.
You've got to stop and acknowledge him,
or else he won't direct your pass.
Proverbs 3, 5, and 6.
That's why we read that verse every day. It wasn't just some ritual.
We weren't just doing it as a chant or a ritual,
or some kind of a thing where we go through some procedure.
We did it because in our hearts,
we just wanted God to know that we knew that it was all him,
and we were trusting him to guide us,
that we were trusting him to put his power upon us.
And we wanted God to know that,
so we went through this every week for years.
We'd read that verse and say, God, it's not us.
And God really blessed our soul when he because of that,
because we gave him the glory,
and because we relied upon him,
and we said, we can't do it in the flesh.
The same guy, I thought this was kind of funny.
I've never done this.
I thought this was kind of funny.
The same guy did this.
He was a great guy. He was a good friend of mine.
He had this neighborhood.
He was going to knock every door in this certain neighborhood.
You know, like we have the map, and we go to a certain area.
He had this other kind.
He was going to knock every door in this neighborhood.
And this is kind of silly, but it shows the point.
He walked around it.
He got up every morning for seven days,
and he walked around it.
And didn't say anything.
On Saturday morning, Sunday morning, Tuesday morning,
Wednesday morning, Thursday morning, Friday, Saturday.
And then on the seventh day, he walked around it seven times.
He marched around it seven times.
And then he started knocking the doors in that neighborhood.
He got a ton of people saved.
Why?
Not because he marched around it like Joshua.
You know, like the walls are going to fall down.
But because it was his way of showing God,
God, I know that it's your power, not mine.
God, I want you to bless here.
I want your spirit to be upon us.
I want you to do something in this neighborhood.
And he did something.
That was just his way of showing God that he's relying on God.
And it seemed kind of silly, but you know what?
It worked.
Because he was resting upon God.
And so don't think that it's just some mechanical thing.
You just memorize something.
You go through some spiel.
Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
No.
Understand the fact that it's a spiritual thing to win somebody to Christ.
And you better get it down that, hey, you've got to be the right person.
You've got to be filled with the Spirit if you're going to be effective at winning souls.
There's a difference between somebody who's carnal and somebody who's spiritual going out soul winning.
And the person who's spiritual is going to get more people saved, period.
And the person who's got the wrong Bible is going to get no people saved.
And the person who doesn't go out, nobody's going to get saved.
Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer.