Amen, the title of my sermon this morning is Three False Doctrines About Soul Winning.
Three false doctrines about soul winning.
I'm going to use a lot of scripture this morning to debunk each of these false doctrines, and
this is the type of sermon that needs to be preached from time to time just to lay down
some fundamental truths about what it takes to get someone saved.
And we're going to make the Bible the authority this morning here on this subject, not someone's
personal experiences or what they think or what they've seen and this story and that.
You know, when people come at me with a personal anecdote that contradicts what the Bible teaches,
I just glaze over right away, just like in one ear and out the other.
Because at the end of the day, I don't base my faith on what I hear people say or what
stories I've heard from people about their experiences.
I base what I believe on the Bible.
The Word of God is the final authority.
And these three false doctrines that I'm going to talk about this morning can easily be refuted
with scripture.
So forget your preconceived idea and go into these scriptures with an open mind and let
God speak to you this morning through His Word on these three subjects that I'm going
to cover.
Now, point number one or false doctrine number one that I want to deal with is this idea
that people can be saved without the Word of God, that people can be saved without the
Bible, that they don't have to have the Word of God or scripture or the Bible to get saved.
They can just hear the gospel explained to them in someone's own words or something like
that, and that a person can be saved as a result of that.
No, the Bible makes it crystal clear that it is God's Word that saves us and that we
must have God's Word to be saved.
Now turn to Luke chapter 8.
While you're turning to Luke chapter 8, I'm going to read for you some other scriptures.
Listen to these scriptures, though, as you're turning.
The Bible says in Romans chapter 10 verse 17, so then faith cometh by hearing and hearing
by the Word of God.
So sure, we're saved by believing in Jesus Christ, but what is it that causes us to believe
on Christ?
How does that faith come?
Faith comes by hearing and hearing comes by the Word of God.
So in order for us to have faith to put in Christ, we have to hear God's Word.
That's where the faith comes from, our response to God's Word.
Acts 11, 14 says, who shall tell thee words whereby thou and all thy house shall be saved.
He said you'll be saved by these words.
Mark chapter 4 verse 14 in the famous parable of the sower tells us that the sower soweth
the Word.
Now here's another instance of the parable of the sower in Luke chapter 8.
Look down at your Bible at verse number 11 there, it says, now the parable is this, the
seed is the Word of God.
Those by the wayside are they that hear.
Then cometh the devil and taketh away the Word out of their hearts, lest they should
believe and be saved.
So according to this scripture, when someone hears the Word of God, if the devil snatches
that Word out of their heart, guess what?
Now they're not able to believe or to be saved.
See he catches the Word out of their heart, lest they should believe and be saved.
Why?
Because in order to believe and be saved, you have to have God's Word.
You have to hear God's Word.
God's Word has to come in and then you could be saved as a result of that.
Look at James chapter 1.
We're going to go to James 1 and then we're going to go to John 6.
Those are the two places we're going to go.
But Ephesians chapter 1 verse 13 says this, in whom ye also trusted after that ye heard
the Word of truth.
So you see the order here.
You hear the Word of truth, then you trust Christ.
It says in whom ye also trusted after that ye heard the Word of truth, the Gospel of
your salvation, in whom also that after ye believed ye were sealed with that Holy Spirit
of promise.
Look at James chapter 1 verse 18.
Of his own will begat he us with the Word of truth.
So what did he beget us with?
The Word of truth.
The sower soweth the Word.
The Word of God is the seed that creates new life in a believer.
Just as for a physical baby to be born, the seed from the man is what's there to bring
life to that egg that's not alive, well God's Word has to come and bring life to the one
who's not saved.
And so he begat us with the Word of truth, the Bible says, that we should be a kind of
first fruits 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.
It's the Word that's able to save your soul.
Go to John chapter 6.
John chapter 6, while you're turning there, I'll read for you some verses from Psalm 119.
Verse 50 says, this is my comfort in my affliction for thy Word hath quickened me.
What does it mean to be quickened?
Quick means alive.
To be quickened means to be brought to life.
The person who's unsaved is spiritually dead and the Bible says that God's Word quickens
them.
Verse 93, I will never forget thy precepts for with them thou hast quickened me.
Look at John chapter 6 verse 63.
It is the Spirit that quickeneth, or what, brings to life.
The context of this passage is Jesus Christ talking about whether people have eternal
life in them or whether they don't have eternal life in them.
And he says, it's the Spirit that quickeneth.
The flesh profiteth nothing.
The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit and they are life.
So what is it that quickens according to the Bible?
It's the words that Christ speaks.
It's God's Word that quickens.
That's what Psalm 119 said.
That's what James 1 said.
That's what Luke 8 said.
Mark 4, Acts 11, Romans 10, go to John 5, just one page to the left in your Bible.
So this isn't an obscure doctrine.
This is something that the Bible is very clear about, the necessity of God's Word in regard
to salvation.
Look at John chapter 5 verse 24, verily, verily, I say unto you, he that heareth my word and
believeth on him that sent me hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation,
but is passed from death unto life.
Go if you would to Revelation 22, Revelation 22.
Now the question comes up then, because it's pretty obvious that God's Word is necessary
for salvation.
It's pretty clear that God's Word is the saving agent.
It is the seed that is sown.
It is that seed that even brings new life in order for us to be born again.
In order for us to be regenerated, the Word of God is that seed.
I mean, it's super clear.
But then people will bring up the subject of, well, can someone get saved from a corrupt
Bible?
Can a corrupt Bible version save them?
Well, the Bible said, we read it before the sermon in 1 Peter chapter 1, being born again,
not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the Word of God, which liveth and abideth
forever.
And elsewhere, the Bible says, we are not as many which corrupt the Word of God.
So the Bible says there are many people out there who corrupt the Word of God.
And the Bible says, we're born again, not with a corruptible seed, but with an incorruptible
seed, by the Word of God.
We're born again by the Word of God, which liveth and abideth forever.
It's an incorruptible seed, not a corruptible seed.
Now here's the thing about that.
Obviously it doesn't take 31,000 some verses to get saved.
You don't have to read the entire Bible to be saved, right?
I mean, you could just get one good solid Bible verse out there or a few Bible verses.
When we go soul winning, we typically give people probably about 10 to 15 Bible verses.
When we go through the plan of salvation with somebody, it's pretty much the Romans
road with a few extracurricular verses to beef up our soul winning presentation.
So we usually give someone about 10 or 15 verses to get them saved.
But someone could be saved from fewer than that.
I mean, John 3.16 packs quite a punch.
It packs a lot of great information.
Romans 6.23 packs a lot of great information, and it packs a powerful punch.
And that's the thing that we need to understand, is that a person getting saved isn't a
mental exercise.
It isn't a math problem.
It is a spiritual event.
It is the power of God that regenerates the lost sinner.
And so we need to understand that God's word has the power to supernaturally regenerate
the lost soul.
And so we've got to have God's word.
Now do we have to have the whole Bible?
No.
All we need are a few verses, right?
All we need are some power.
But you know what?
Those few verses better be right.
And I don't believe for one second that you can pull out the NIV or the ESV and pull out
verses that have been changed, verses that have been corrupted, and that you're going
to get somebody saved with verses that are different.
Guess what?
If they've been changed, they're not God's word anymore.
They've changed the truth of God into a lie.
How could lies save you?
How could the Holy Spirit work through a lie?
Now here's the thing.
The only way somebody could get saved from one of these modern, corrupt Bible versions
is if somebody happened to turn to a verse that's the same, because there are going to
be some verses that are the same.
But the problem is most of the salvation verses have been tampered with in a substantial way.
Now if you pull out a verse that's the same, then yeah, of course they could be saved.
It doesn't matter what the cover of the book says.
John 3.16 is still John 3.16 if it says that God gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever
believeth it, if it says the same thing, right?
Now look, obviously if it changes believeth to believes, it's still God's word, because
that's the same thing.
Guess what believeth means?
Believes.
So I'm not talking about changes like that.
I'm not talking about changing everlasting to eternal, or eternal to everlasting.
Well guess what?
Those both mean the same thing.
But what I'm talking about is where there's a substantial change, and guess what?
If you look up your Romans Road in a lot of these modern, corrupt Bible versions, you're
going to find that the Romans Road has been changed in a substantial way.
You'll go to verses that instead of saying, you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus,
they say, confess that Jesus is Lord, you know, which isn't the same thing.
Or instead of saying that He gave His only begotten Son, He gave His one and only Son.
Well that's not true, because I'm God's Son, and you're God's Son if you're a believer.
That's not His one and only Son.
You know, these are changes that have actually changed the meaning, and so it's no longer
God's word anymore.
If it says something completely different, if it changes what's being said.
So you know, people freak out about that and say, oh I can't believe that you think people
need the King James to get saved.
Well you know what?
Then explain something to me.
Explain to me why, when I was a teenager, I went to these churches where they preached
the new international version, the NIV.
Explain to me why half the congregation isn't saved.
Because if you walk up to the pastor of the church, you know what he'll tell you?
Oh, salvation is by faith.
And if you ask him, can you lose your salvation, he'll say no, you can't lose your salvation.
Yet all the teenagers in the church, or the majority of them, ended up not being saved.
The majority of the young people and young adults that I knew, later on I would talk
to those people, they ended up not being saved.
I'll tell you why, because the power is gone.
When you're getting up and preaching sermons from the NIV, there's no power of God there.
That's why their doctrines write on paper, but yet, more than half the congregation's
damned.
Because I would ask my friends at those churches, do you know for sure you're going to heaven?
I hope so.
What?
I asked them, and I would talk to them about the gospel, and here's what my friends would
tell me.
When I started to learn about soul winning, and I started talking to them about the gospel,
here's the type of things they'd say.
Well, you know, last summer I got away from the Lord, and I was pretty back then.
I think if I would have died at that time, I would have gone to hell, but now, you know,
I'm back, living right and everything, so I think I'd go to heaven now.
I mean, I think it's by works.
Do you understand?
It's by faith.
Even though the doctrine of the church clearly said that it's by faith.
But they're not getting it.
It's not getting to their heart.
They're not getting it because it's not the power of God, because it's not the word of
God, because the NIV is a corrupt piece of garbage.
And you say, oh, yeah, King James only.
Look, people act like you're crazy when you're King James only.
It's crazy not to be King James only, because it's crazy to think that God wrote 400 different
Bibles that all say 400 different things, and you're going to say that they're all right?
How can they all be right?
If these new Bibles subtract 17 whole verses from the New Testament, well, either those
17 verses are God's word or not.
How can they both be right?
When the NIV is deleting giant chunks, they can't both be right, friend.
It's crazy.
Now look down at your Bible at Revelation 22, verse 18.
For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, if
any man shall add unto these things, what are the things?
Look at the first part of the verse.
For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, if
any man shall add unto these things, so he's saying adding unto his words, God shall add
unto him the plagues that are written in this book.
And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take
away his part out of the book of life and out of the holy city and from the things which
are written in this book.
That is one of the strongest warnings in the whole Bible.
It's at the very end of the Bible.
It's on the last page of the Bible, which means God's emphasizing it.
By putting it at the very end, he's leaving you on this final thought.
Do not tamper with the word of God.
And what's the penalty for tampering with the word of God?
Eternal damnation.
He says, I'll add unto you all the plagues in this book.
And he says, if you take away a word, if you intentionally remove a word from the Bible,
he says, you know what, I'll take away your part out of the book of life, out of the holy
city, and from the things which are written in this book.
The place in the book of life where your name would have been written, that part's gone.
You know what this is saying?
This is saying an unsaved person who tampers with God's word can never be saved.
That means if unsaved John Doe adds to God's word at age 20, it doesn't matter whether
he lives to be 70 or 80, he could never get saved.
He is eternally damned because his part has been removed from the book of life, his part
of the holy city where his mansion could have been, it's all gone.
He is eternally damned.
That's the punishment.
If John Doe adds to God's word at age 25, guess what?
I don't care if John Doe is 105, he's going to split hell wide open, he has no hope of
getting saved.
There are people who can push God too far and become what's called a reprobate, where
they can no longer get saved anymore.
That's why Jesus said in John 12, they could not believe because God had hardened their
heart and blinded their mind.
Look, a person who tampers with God's word.
God is so serious about this, not tampering with his word, that he eternally damns anyone
who messes with it.
You say, well what if a saved person does?
A saved person would never do that.
A saved person who has the Holy Spirit living inside of them isn't going to intentionally
add to or take from God's word.
So this isn't teaching you can lose your salvation.
No one can lose their salvation.
Nothing can separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
This is an unsaved person blaspheming the Holy Ghost or adding to or taking from God's
word and he says, you have no forgiveness.
You're damned.
You're going to hell.
It's over for you.
In light of this powerful warning, I mean it's all right there in your Bibles, isn't
it?
Revelation 22, 18, 19, pretty clear, one of the most famous scriptures.
In light of that, don't you think it's a pretty serious issue?
How can you have a lackadaisical attitude toward this issue?
How can you be flippant about this issue with a verse like this in the Bible and think,
oh, who cares that the NIV removes 16 entire verses?
Who cares that it's removing entire sections and adding entire sections?
Who cares?
No big deal, right?
It's a huge deal.
Everybody who worked on it, everybody who participated in it is on their way to hell,
period, because this is the penalty.
So how can you sit there and say, oh, it doesn't matter.
It matters.
And these corrupt versions are sending people to hell.
That's what explains why even in Baptist churches you have tons of the congregation
unsaved because you've got the NIV coming across the pulpit.
The Holy Spirit's not working in that church.
People aren't being regenerated.
People aren't being saved.
It makes sense.
Go to John, Chapter 8, and I want to explain to you why this is such a dangerous doctrine.
When people start teaching that you can get saved without the Bible, it's a very slippery
slope.
It's a very dangerous doctrine.
I remember when I was at Hiles Anderson College, they started to teach this doctrine.
And this was the main reason why I left Hiles Anderson College, was that Pastor Scopp started
teaching this doctrine.
He said that you can be saved without the Bible.
He got up and said, and I heard him say this repeatedly, he said, you can get saved from
any version of the Bible, Jehovah's Witness Bible, NIV, whatever, or you can get saved
with no Bible.
He said, I can get someone saved with the instructions on the back of a tissue box as
my Bible.
That's literally what he said.
He said that at least five times that I heard, because he said, it's not the Word of God
that saves you, it's the truth that saves you.
He said, you should know the truth, and the truth shall make you very – and just erupting
in amens.
I'm sitting in a church education class, and that was one of the classes named church
education that all the preacher boys were in, and he got up and said that in church
education class, and more than half the place erupted in amens as he said, oh, it's not
the Word of God that saves you, it's just the truth, and you don't need the Bible,
you don't need any Bible, you certainly don't need the King James Bible, you could
use the instructions on the back of a tissue, it's just what you say when you explain
it, your words that save.
Now as everyone's erupting around me in amens, what popped into my mind, because he
said, you should know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.
Here was my thought process, okay, he's quoting John chapter 8, and my thought process
was the verse that came right before it.
Look down at your Bible and see the quote, he's quoting this, verse 32, you shall know
the truth, and the truth shall make you free, amen, amen, amen.
Look every worldly, unsaved person knows the quote, the truth shall make you free.
Every atheist would say amen to that, wouldn't they?
The truth shall make you free, or they'll say the truth will set you free, right?
They'll update that.
But what does the Bible say in the verse before it?
Then Jesus said to those Jews which believed on him, if you continue in my Word, then are
you my disciples indeed, and you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.
How do you know the truth?
By continuing in Christ's Word.
So isn't this pretty stupid to pull this out as your proof text of, you don't need
the Word to be saved, you just need the truth.
But all the idiots saying amen, they don't know the context.
Now you say, how dare you call them idiots, maybe they're new believers.
No, no, we're in a Bible college.
We're in a class training to be pastors.
Everyone in the class was training to be a pastor or a missionary.
So yeah, you should have a basic understanding of the Gospel of John, the most basic book
in the whole Bible, the book that when we get someone saved, we say here, start in John.
Yeah, you should know this scripture if you're going to be a pastor or a missionary, amen,
amen.
It's garbage, friend.
The Word of God is what quickens you.
The Word of God is what saves you.
Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God is so clear, is so simple.
Okay, they started teaching this at Hyles Anderson, things started going downhill at
Hyles Anderson.
A little bit later, I was in a summer school class at Hyles Anderson and it was a summer
school class about the King James Version and why we're King James only.
We get to day five of the summer school class and he's touching on this issue of, you know,
these false versions are leading people to hell because they're corrupting the Word of
God and we need the incorruptible seed to be saved.
Okay, more than half the class is choking on this because they've been hearing Pastor
Scott, you know, push this false doctrine.
So they start raising their hand arguing with the instructor.
The instructor was a very old man and he's, you know, he's teaching this and they're arguing
with the instructor.
Well, pretty soon, the argument went from being about whether you needed the King James
to get saved to just whether you need the Bible at all to be saved.
You know, the tissue box doctrine, okay.
And I kid you not, 20 minutes later, you know what the argument was about in the class,
literally 20 minutes later, whether you have to know the name of Jesus to be saved.
So the same people who were saying, oh, you don't need the Word of God to be saved, 20
minutes later were saying, you don't have to know the name of Jesus to be saved.
And here's what they said.
They said that if a guy's out in the jungle somewhere or on an island somewhere and he
just looks up to the sky and sees the heavenly host of the stars and he just kind of looks
up to the sky and says, God, whoever you are, God, you know, I just want to know you or
I believe in you, the creator or whatever, that that person could be saved just by trusting
in God, okay.
Not Jesus, not the Lord, but just whatever God that they believe.
And they said that, you know, there were stories, it's always stories, isn't it?
You keep your stories, I'll keep the Bible.
You keep your little stories about people that you've run into who got saved without
the Bible, I'll just stick with what the Bible says.
But this guy said, oh, you know, this missionary went to this island and there were all these
people and they've never heard of Jesus, but a bunch of them were already saved.
They were already saved just from trusting in, you know, the Spirit in the sky or whatever.
I'm not kidding, folks.
This was in a Bible college, Independent Fundamental Baptist, Hollis Anderson College.
So I kept my mouth shut up to this point.
You know, believe it or not, I am not a person that likes to start trouble or anything like
that.
You know, I was just sitting there just kind of taking this all in.
I wasn't, I actually just jumped out of my seat when I started hearing that.
And I started screaming at the whole class.
And I said, I can't even believe that I'm in a Bible college hearing this.
I said, you know, the kind of stuff that you guys are saying is the kind of stuff that
I was expecting an unsaved person to tell me at the door when I'm out soul winning.
What about this guy out in the jungle?
I said, I've never heard a saved person say that.
And I said, you guys who believe that, you're not even saved.
You're not even saved if you think people can be saved without Jesus.
There's none other name.
And I was screaming.
I'm like, there's none other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved.
And I said, if you could be saved without knowing the name of Jesus, why would you even
be a missionary?
Why would you even go, you know, they're already saved.
It's garbage.
So I screamed.
And, you know, the instructor was nodding his head like, amen.
So I mean, I just, I blew up.
I lost it.
I just screamed and ranted.
And then I sat down and then the moderator of the class was like, let's take a 15 minute
break and cool down.
You know, I think we need to cool.
And then literally there were guys there that wanted to meet me in the parking lot for a
fistfight because I got up and yelled at them like that.
And they did meet me in the parking lot afterward.
And thankfully they didn't get physical with me or anything, but they met me in the parking
lot and tried to argue with me about this.
And I said, no, it's garbage.
It's a false doctrine.
And here's, here was their answer.
I had all the scripture that you need the name of Jesus.
Hey, it's whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.
The name.
And here was their answer.
Well, do you believe like Pastor Scott or not?
I just said, no, I don't.
No I don't.
If that's what he's teaching, then no, I don't believe in it.
And I left the school.
But look, it's a slippery slope friend.
When you start saying, oh, you don't need the Bible.
Oh, you can use any old Bible.
Use the Jehovah's Witnesses Bible.
Oh, turns out you don't even need the name of Jesus.
It's just the gospel that saves you in the stars or whatever.
All right, I got to hurry up because I got more points.
So false doctrine number one is that you can be saved without the word of God.
That's a false doctrine.
You need the word of God.
Look, you want to be an effective soul winner, you better use the Bible.
And I have personal experience with this because I tried winning souls without the Bible for
years because no one taught me how to go soul winning.
And I grew up in a Christian home.
I've been saved ever since I was six years old.
And as a teenager, I tried to win my friends, the Lord, but I never quoted them any scripture.
I would just explain the gospel to them in my own words and I had zero saved.
None of them got saved.
And I didn't understand what I was doing wrong.
I thought I was just bad at soul winning.
Then I got in a soul winning church and somebody showed me, hey, you know, you go through the
verses.
And then I started having success when I started using the Bible.
You got to use the Bible.
Now, you don't have to have a physical Bible because you can quote it from memory.
But you got to get the word of God.
That's where the power is.
The Bible tells us that it's the power of God and salvation, the gospel of Christ.
But it's the word of truth that's how we get the gospel to people, the scripture.
Number two, false doctrine is, and this is the opposite false doctrine, salvation with
only the Bible.
So false doctrine number one was salvation without the Bible.
It's been debunked.
Amen?
Okay.
But here's the opposite problem people have.
They think people are going to get saved from just the Bible.
What I mean by that is no soul winner, no one explaining it to them, no one preaching
them the gospel, but just getting saved from the Bible alone, like just pick up and read
a Bible and get saved, nobody's ever preached you the gospel.
This is also a false doctrine.
Go to Romans chapter 10.
Let's go to the famous Romans 10 where it says that faith comes by hearing and hearing
by the word of God.
And first I would like to point out to you that it doesn't say faith cometh by reading.
It says faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the word of God.
Look down at your Bible at verse 13, 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?
How should they believe in him of whom they've not heard?
And how should they hear without a preacher?
And how should they preach except they be sent?
As it is written, how beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace and
bring glad tidings of good things?
But they've not all obeyed the gospel, for Isaiah said, Lord, who hath believed our report?
So then faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the word of God.
If you get the context of verse 17, it says earlier, how shall they hear without a preacher?
Now it didn't say how shall they hear without a pastor.
That preacher could be a man, a woman, a boy, or a girl, you know, preaching the gospel.
Anybody can preach you the gospel.
It could be a child.
It could be male, female, old, young, brand new Christian or experienced, whatever, it
doesn't matter.
But somebody preaches you the gospel for you to get saved.
Go to 1 Corinthians chapter 3, 1 Corinthians chapter number 3, and there's just as much
evidence for this as there is that you have to have the word of God.
So let's look at the evidence on this point.
1 Corinthians chapter 3 verse 4 says, 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 believed, even as the
Lord gave to every man?
Did he give it to some men?
Did he give it to most men?
No.
Ministers by whom ye believed, even as the Lord gave to every man.
Look, if you are saved today, there is some minister by whom you believed.
Now, again, I'm not saying it has to be a pastor.
It could just be a man, woman, boy, girl.
You know, my mom gave me the gospel.
But not only that, I heard the gospel in Sunday school.
I heard the gospel from the pulpit.
I heard the gospel from my dad.
I heard the gospel from my siblings.
But you know, when I actually got saved, it was my mom going through the plan of salvation
with me at age 6.
But the bottom line is, if you're saved, somebody gave you the gospel, somebody preached you
the gospel, somebody explained you the gospel, and you say, well, that's not true.
I got saved only from reading the Bible.
Number one, you're either, number one, wrong.
You just don't remember when people did preach you the gospel, which is possible that you
just forgot about the times that people had preached you the gospel and given you that
information.
Or number two, you're just not saved and you're lying to me.
You're still not saved.
Okay?
Now, I'm not trying to make anybody doubt their salvation, because if you believe on
Christ, you're saved.
You know in your heart whether you believe on Christ, whether you're fully trusting Christ,
you're saved.
If you do, you're saved, period.
I'm not trying to get you to doubt that if you've done that.
But what I'm saying is that I don't want to hear your anecdote, because I'm going with
what the Bible says, that God gave us ministers by whom we believe.
Faith cometh by hearing the word of God.
Go to Acts chapter 8.
Here's another example.
I'll finish in 1 Corinthians 3 while you're turning there.
It says, I've planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase.
So then neither is he that planteth anything, neither he that watereth, but God, they give
it the increase.
Now, he that plantereth and he that watereth are one, and every man shall receive his own
reward according to his own labor, for we are laborers together with God, ye are God's
husbandry, ye are God's building.
And I've had people come at me with stories trying to debunk me on this, and I always
end up debunking them.
Like somebody came at me and said, oh, what about the sermon that Glenn Shunk preached
where he talked about getting saved reading a Catholic Bible?
Okay, go back and listen to the sermon again, and you'll hear him say, first thing that
happened was a guy walked into a diner where he was eating and gave him the entire plan
of salvation from a King James Bible and ratted off so many scriptures, and he was impressed
by how many scriptures the guy ratted off.
And the guy preached him the Gospel, then after giving him the whole plan of salvation,
he wrote down a list of verses and said, go home and look these up in your Catholic Bible,
and you'll see that it says the same thing.
So then the guy goes home, looks them up in the Catholic Bible, and then prays and receives
Christ.
And number two, the Catholic Bible he was looking them up in was from the 1600s and
said almost the same thing as the King James anyway in those particular verses, many of
them was identical.
But the point is, he'd already got the Gospel explained to him in the diner.
It was already preached to him from the right Bible in the diner.
Whether he emphasized that or not, if you listen carefully, that's what you'll find.
Or I've talked to other people who said, oh, I just got saved from reading the Bible alone,
but then they talk about being for a decade in a church that had the right plan of salvation
before they got saved.
So it's like, well, you know, I'm sure you heard the Gospel in that 10 years of church.
And then some people say, well, you know, Billy Graham's a false prophet, but people
got saved at his conferences.
But guess what?
That's because at a Billy Graham crusade, you go down the aisle and there's an altar
worker to deal with you.
If you get to the altar and there's some Catholic priest there to deal with you, you're not
getting saved.
If you get down to the front and there's some United Methodist there, you're not getting
saved.
But if you get down there and there's a Baptist there or some evangelical Christian who knows
the Gospel, yeah, you're very likely to get saved.
Look, Pastor Nichols' dad, Charles Nichols, you know, he used to work at the Billy Graham
Crusade.
So if you got down to the front and he's there, you're in luck and you're going to get the
right Gospel.
Ten feet away, somebody's getting lied to by some pedophile Catholic priest.
So it depends on the altar worker, not Billy Balaam behind the pulpit.
And it didn't take long for Charles Nichols to figure out that Billy Balaam was a liar
and to separate from that.
But he did it for a few months until he saw that it was a fraud and that Billy Balaam
was a false prophet.
But still, God can use – now, a lot of people will say this – well, I'm getting ahead
of myself.
That's point three.
Let's hurry up here.
I got to hurry.
I'm running out of time.
Acts, Chapter 8, Verse 27.
And he arose and went, and behold, a man of Ethiopia, a eunuch of great authority under
Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, who had the charge of all her treasure and had come
to Jerusalem for to worship, was returning and sitting in his chariot, read Isaiah the
prophet, when the Spirit said unto Philip, Go near and join thyself to this chariot.
And Philip ran thither to him and heard him read the prophet Esaias, or Isaiah, and said,
Understandest thou what thou readest?
And he said, How can I, except some man should guide me?
Why didn't this guy get saved from just reading the Bible?
He had to have someone explain it to him, so God brought him, a soul winner, Philip,
to explain it to him, because how could he without guidance?
Go to Acts 10.
Let's see if there's a pattern on this.
Actually, go to Acts 9.
So Acts 8, we have the Ethiopian eunuch.
He needs someone to explain him the Gospel, doesn't he?
Okay, let's look at Chapter 9.
Verse 3, this is Saul on the road to Damascus.
Saul will later be renamed Paul.
So this is the Apostle Paul on the road to Damascus.
And as he journeyed, verse 3, he came near Damascus, and suddenly there shined round
about him a light from heaven.
And he fell to the earth and heard a voice saying unto him, Saul, Saul, why persecutest
thou me?
And he said, Who art thou, Lord?
And the Lord said, I am Jesus, whom thou persecutest.
It is hard for thee to kick against the pricks.
And he trembling and astonished said, Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?
And the Lord said unto him, Arise, and go into the city, and it shall be told thee what
thou must do.
Why didn't he just tell him right there, well, you need to get saved?
Why didn't he just give him the Gospel right there?
You know why?
Because it's human beings that preach the Gospel.
The only person who got saved directly from God were all the people that got saved when
Jesus was walking on this earth as a human being, as mortal man, right?
When Jesus walked on this earth as mortal man, he won people to Christ on his own.
He won people to himself.
But guess what?
He said, as long as I'm in the world, I'm the light of the world.
He tells us you're the light of the world.
And the Bible says if our Gospel be hid, it's hid to them that are lost.
God does not get people saved without using a human instrument to deliver the Gospel.
Otherwise he'd just send all his angels to preach the Gospel, right?
Wouldn't that be great if the Lord would just send angels up and down the street of South
Phoenix to knock every door and win everyone to Christ?
Or how about if God himself would just appear unto everyone and just give them the Gospel?
Why doesn't he do that?
He never does that.
And even when he appeared to Saul on the road to Damascus, he did not get him saved.
Let me prove it to you.
Go to Acts 22.
Acts 22.
Acts chapter 22.
People think that Saul got saved on the road to Damascus, wrong.
He got saved three days later when a soul winner gave him the Gospel.
That's why when he says, what do I do, Jesus?
What do I do, Lord?
He says, go into the city and you're going to find somebody who's going to tell you what
you need to do.
Look down at your Bible, Acts 22, 16.
And now why terriest thou?
Arise and be baptized and wash away thy sins, calling on the name of the Lord.
He had not yet called on the name of the Lord and washed away his sins yet.
This is three days after the road to Damascus.
So he goes and he gets the Gospel from Ananias.
That's when he calls on the name of the Lord.
Now some people will misunderstand this verse that water baptism washes away your sins.
No, no, no.
He washed away his sins, calling on the name of the Lord.
You don't wash your sins in physical water.
You wash your sins in the blood of Jesus.
The Bible says our sins are washed in his blood.
Have you been to Jesus for the cleansing power?
Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?
Are you fully trusting in his grace this hour?
Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?
Not, are you washed in our tub of water, in the soul cleansing tub of water in the parking lot.
No, no, no.
It's the blood.
See, but here's the thing.
Baptism pictures that, amen?
You know, getting dunked in the water, yeah, okay, that's a picture of washing away your sins.
But guess what?
It doesn't actually literally wash away your sins.
Your sins aren't a film on your skin that needs to be scrubbed off.
Your sins can be washed away by the blood.
Baptism is a picture of that.
Baptism doesn't actually do that.
You could get baptized every day and go to hell, or you can go to heaven without being baptized if you believe on Jesus, because it's not baptism that saves you.
So go to Acts 10 now.
So Acts chapter 8, Ethiopian eunuch must have Philip to explain in the gospel.
Acts chapter 9, Paul must have Ananias to explain in the gospel.
Acts chapter 10, Cornelius must have Peter to explain in the gospel.
Are you seeing a pattern here?
Look at Acts chapter 10.
I'm trying to hurry through so much material.
Verse number 1, there was a certain man in Caesarea called Cornelius, a centurion of the band called the Italian band, a devout man, and one that feared God with all his house, which gave much alms to the people and prayed to God all the way.
But guess what?
That doesn't mean that he's necessarily saved.
You can be sincere.
You can be devout.
You can fear God.
You can give money.
That doesn't mean you're saved.
You've got to put your faith in Jesus to be saved, right?
He saw in a vision evidently about the ninth hour of the day an angel of God coming into him and saying unto him, Cornelius.
And when he looked on him, he was afraid and said, what is it, Lord?
And he said unto him, thy prayers and thine alms are come up for memorial before God.
So if an unsaved person does good things, God looks down at that and says, hey, this guy's heart's in the right place.
I'd like to get this guy saved, right?
So then it says, now send men to Joppa and call for one Simon, whose surname is Peter, verse 6.
He lodgeth with one Simon a tanner, whose home is by the seaside.
Watch this.
He shall tell thee what thou oughtest to do.
So why didn't the angels just give him the gospel?
Because angels don't give the gospel.
Why doesn't God just give people the gospel?
He's not going to.
Why doesn't Jesus give people?
He's not going.
He did it while he was on this earth as a mortal man.
But he's seated at the right hand of the Father, and it's our job now.
He's not going to do it.
That's why he said you've got to go talk to someone else that will tell you.
And then, look, later in the chapter, for sake of time, we'll jump straight to verse 43.
But later in the chapter, he tells them all about the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus, explains the gospel to him, and then it culminates in verse 43.
To him give all the prophets witness that through his name whosoever believeth in him shall receive remission of sins.
And this is where it clicks with Cornelius and them.
They've heard the whole plan of salvation.
They get this.
And it says, while Peter yet spake these words, the Holy Ghost fell on all them which heard the word.
And how do they know that the Holy Ghost fell on them?
Because they're literally calling out verbally to the Lord.
It says they heard them speak with tongues and magnify God.
So they verbally are confessing the Lord Jesus.
Even before the sermon's over, they're already confessing with their mouth the Lord Jesus.
And you say, oh, speaking in tongues, did they flop around and no, no.
Speaking with another tongue, just me speaking another language.
These guys are Italian, right?
They're Italians.
Peter and them are from Judea.
Well, when these guys called out and confessed to the Lord, they didn't do it in Italian.
They weren't like, Señore, you know, they basically, they basically called out and it was in the tongue of the Judeans.
So they were like, whoa, they're speaking our language.
So that was evidence of the Holy Spirit working in them a miracle where they spoke in a language.
Now, why would God have these Italians calling out and confessing their belief in Christ in the language of the people that Peter brought?
Why didn't he just have them do it in Italian?
Which, obviously, I know it was Latin back then.
I get that.
I'm joke, it was a joke, okay?
I know they spoke Latin back then.
But anyway, why?
It was for the benefit of the people Peter brought.
The people Peter brought, they were skeptical whether Gentiles could even get saved.
So God allowed these people to confess their faith in Christ in a language that the Judeans would understand.
Why?
So that they would get to see these people really got saved.
Because later, Peter's in hot water.
Why'd you even go to Cornelius' house?
And then they all say, you know what?
We were there.
Those guys got saved.
How'd they know?
Because they heard it in their own language, not Latin or something else that they didn't speak.
Go to 1 Corinthians chapter 4, 1 Corinthians chapter 4.
Quick review of the evidence.
We saw in Romans 10, faith comes by hearing, and how should they hear without a preacher?
Piece of evidence number 2, 1 Corinthians chapter 3 said, God gave everyone ministers by whom they believed.
Everyone had the gospel preached to them by someone if they're saved.
Evidence number 3, Ethiopian eunuch needed some man to guide him.
Evidence number 4, Saul in Acts 9 needed Ananias to guide him.
Evidence number 5, Cornelius in Acts chapter 10 needed Peter to come guide him to Christ, to lead him to Christ.
Amen?
Piece of evidence number 6 is how many times the Bible refers to winning someone to Christ as begetting them.
Now we know that the person who gets saved is begotten of God, but they're also begotten of us.
That's why Paul said in Galatians 4, 19, my little children, he's talking to people that he won to the Lord,
my little children of whom I travail in birth until Christ be formed in you.
He's using the illustration of being like a woman in labor, giving birth to people.
He's relating soul winning to that.
He said to Timothy in 1 Timothy, unto Timothy my own son in the faith.
He said to Timothy in 2 Timothy, to Timothy my dearly beloved son.
It wasn't his physical son.
It's his son in the faith.
He said to Titus, Titus my own son after the common faith.
He said in Philemon, Onesimus whom I've begotten in my bonds.
He said I begat Onesimus in my bonds.
What does he mean?
I want him to Christ.
So are you telling me people can be born without parents?
You think a physical child can come in this world with just a father or just a mother or do you need both?
You need both, right?
Well, guess what?
To get someone saved, you need both, the word of God, and you need the soul winner to explain it.
You need both, okay?
Look at the Bible, 1 Corinthians 4, 14.
I write not these things to shame you, but as my beloved sons I warn you, for though you have 10,000 instructors in Christ,
yet have you not many fathers, for in Christ Jesus I have begotten you through the gospel.
Wherefore I beseech you, be ye followers of me.
He's saying, look, there's a lot of preachers out there.
There's a lot of teaching out there, but only one person won you to the Lord.
You might have many instructors in Christ, but you don't have many fathers.
I begat you through the gospel.
That's pretty strong language.
So don't tell me that people get saved by just reading the Bible on their own.
No, they get saved with the word of God, yes, and with the soul winner explaining it, someone preaching the word of God.
Go to Matthew 7.
I got to hurry, but I was going to turn to John 16.
I'm not going to turn there for sake of time, but the Bible talks about in John 16 how the Holy Spirit is going to reprove the whole world of sin, of righteousness, and judgment,
of sin because they believe not on me, on judgment because the prince of this world is judged, and of righteousness because I go to the Father.
And so the Holy Spirit works in the hearts of people.
In order for people to get saved, you have to have the word of God, you have to have the soul winner preaching to them, and you have to have the Holy Spirit at work.
Those three elements are there.
Why?
Because this isn't a math problem.
This isn't a debate team.
This isn't winning an argument.
Going solely is not winning an argument.
What is it?
It's a supernatural work of the Holy Spirit.
And so you say, well, you know, I think logically, logically if you say all the same stuff but don't quote the verses, hang your logic, it's a supernatural work of the Holy Spirit.
And he uses the word, he uses the Bible.
Well, I think somebody could read the book of John and be saved after all these words are written that you might have eternal life.
Yeah, they're written so somebody could explain them to you so you could have eternal life.
Now look, those that are, look, the Bible says you have no need that any man teach you if you're saved.
Because why?
The same anointing teaches you all things.
Why does the saved person pick up their Bible and learn things on their own with no help?
Why?
The Holy Spirit is their teacher.
Guess what the unsaved person doesn't have?
The Holy Spirit.
Guess what the soul winner does have?
The Holy Spirit.
So how do we get the Holy Spirit to the unsaved?
Via the soul winner, that's how.
And I know there's people who choke on this but you're just wrong.
You can choke on it but you're wrong.
This is what the Bible teaches.
Hang your anecdotes and go with what the Bible says.
False doctrine number three is kind of tied in with false doctrine number two.
Because remember, false doctrine number one was, oh, you can get saved without the Bible.
Wrong.
False doctrine number two, you can get saved with just the Bible.
Wrong.
Okay.
Point three is kind of a variation on point two.
Oh, you can get saved from an unsaved person giving you the Gospel.
If an unsaved person gives you the Gospel, you could still be saved.
Okay, let's see if that's biblical.
Because we said that you have to have the soul winner explain it to you but it has to
be somebody who's actually saved explaining to you the Gospel.
Are you in Matthew 7?
Did I have you turn there?
Matthew 7?
Okay.
Look at verse 15.
Beware of false prophets which come to you in sheep's clothing but inwardly they are
ravening wolves.
Who are we talking about here?
We're talking about people pretending to be our brothers and sisters in Christ.
What is the sheep's clothing?
What's a sheep?
The sheep is the believer.
So is the wolf a believer?
No, he's a predator but he comes in sheep's clothing.
So do they actually just come wearing a wool suit?
Is that what that means?
Oh, watch out for these false prophets in sheep's clothing.
Is this wool?
Is that what that means?
No, the sheep's clothing means that they're impersonating what?
A believer.
Now do you think that they're good at impersonating a believer or bad at impersonating believers?
They're good at it.
The devil's transformed into an angel of light.
His ministers are transformed into ministers of light.
They are wolves in sheep's clothing and they are very good at blending in.
Here, how about Judas?
He did a great job for three and a half years convincing everyone around him that he was
a true believer and he never believed on Christ.
The Bible is very clear on that in the book of John and everybody around him believed
he was legit.
At the Last Supper when Jesus says, the traitor is the one that I hand the sop to after I've
dipped it, he dips the sop, hands it to Judas and says, that thou doest too quickly and
they said, oh, he must be going to buy something.
They couldn't grasp it.
They never would have thought it was Judas that was the traitor.
He was that good.
People are like, oh Pastor Anderson, you just have bad discernment because people are always
tricking you.
You know what?
I'll admit it.
I've been fooled by false prophets.
You know why?
Because they're as good as Judas sometimes and they're like, oh, you know, you ought
to be ashamed of yourself that you have this false prophet on your staff.
Well guess what?
Jesus had a false prophet on his staff.
He had him in charge of the money.
And did Peter say, oh, I can spot these traitors a mile away.
I don't see John and James speaking.
So excuse me for not being better than Peter, James and John all rolled into one.
Okay?
So that's stupid.
You cannot prevent this from happening.
There will be false prophets among you, the Bible says.
You cannot prevent it.
But the Bible says here, you shall know them by their fruits.
So who are you going to know by the fruits?
The false prophets, people that are pretending to be saved, they creep in but they're really
not.
Okay?
Now look, if somebody's pretending to be saved, aren't they going to say all the right things?
So people will be like, of course he's saved.
I heard him give the right plan of salvation.
What does that mean?
Nothing.
Because Judas went out for three and a half years and preached all the right things.
Otherwise his silent partner would have been coming back to Jesus saying, hey, can you
pair me up with somebody else?
This guy's a false prophet.
Why did you even pick this guy?
You could have picked all these followers and you pick only 12 and this is who you picked?
No.
They came back saying, oh man, things were great, soul winning with Judas.
Judas is a great soul winner.
That's what they said.
You don't think that's what they said?
They had no complaints for three and a half years.
And look, they weren't soul winning once a week, they were soul winning every day.
This was their full time job.
This is all they did.
I mean, obviously they took rests and breaks, but I mean, they were soul winning full time.
They were preaching.
You shall know them by their fruits.
Do men gather grapes of thorns or figs of thistles?
Even so, every good tree bringeth forth good fruit, but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil
fruit.
A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit.
What do you not get about this when it says neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good
fruit?
It's impossible.
So if a person comes in here pretending to be saved and goes soul winning and they really
weren't saved, it is impossible for them to win someone to the Lord.
I don't understand what people don't get about that.
Do men gather grapes of thistles?
A good tree cannot produce evil fruit.
A corrupt tree cannot produce good fruit.
Period.
Case closed.
Hang your anecdote.
I don't care.
The Bible says it's impossible.
I don't believe it.
Everything brings forth after its own kind.
Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down and cast in the fire.
I'm talking about these false prophets.
Therefore by their fruits you shall know them.
Go to Matthew 12-33.
Matthew 12-33 says, either make the tree good and his fruit good, or else make the tree
corrupt and his fruit corrupt, for the tree is known by his fruit.
Look either the fruit is corrupt and the tree is corrupt, or the tree is good and the fruit
is good.
Don't tell me, oh well he's a corrupt tree but here's his good fruit over here.
Why would I believe that?
Because you've got a story about that?
Is that why?
And you know people get so hung up on this they say, well you know Tyler Baker has exposed
his false prophet.
What about all the people that he won to the Lord?
Okay, is anybody here this morning that was won to the Lord by Tyler Baker?
Anybody out there?
Tyler Baker won me to Christ.
No one.
There's not one person.
Okay, so let me ask you this, then where's the evidence that Tyler Baker ever won anyone
to Christ?
Oh well he went out of soul winning and came back and reported that he won people to Christ.
Or I saw him pray with somebody.
What if I told you that every person that you pray with isn't actually saved?
Is that a revelation to you?
You say yeah but we count up, look we count up the soul winning and look there are times
when we count people and we think they got saved and guess what they didn't actually
get saved.
And we're not going to know the exact number until we get to heaven folks.
Do you really think that this number in the bulletin is exact?
No because there are false prophets who creep in among us and say oh I had two saved and
guess what they had zero saved because they cannot produce good fruit, period.
You don't know until the harvest who the wheat and the tares are, okay?
Now you say well that number is a joke.
No because here's the thing, there are a lot of people that I pray with that I don't even
count because when in doubt don't count.
I'll give somebody the gospel and pray with them but if I think they were a little shaky
I don't count them.
And sometimes I'll go back and talk to the same people later and they are totally saved
and then I'm like oh I'm going to go back and count that person because they actually
were saved.
We don't really know.
All we can do is give a thorough presentation of the gospel, do our best and if people seem
like they really understood and comprehended and called upon the name of the Lord we count
them.
And this is an average or an estimate.
It's not exact.
And people who criticize the number, oh I don't think you guys really had 10,000 people
saved, their church is claiming like five salvations.
So even if only half the people we wanted the Lord got saved we still got 5,000 saved.
Still a thousand times the dead church down the street.
But here's the thing, the number is just to help encourage us and just to kind of gauge
approximately how many people were getting saved.
And I frankly think that the number is way higher than what's in the bulletin because
you know what the bulletin doesn't count?
The internet.
And we have, we literally have 1.2 million viewers on YouTube on our main channel every
month.
1.2 million people tune into our channel every month.
So I think some people are getting saved from that too, especially since I go out preaching
around the country and people say, hey I got saved watching your videos.
All day long hearing the word of God being preached by a spirit filled preacher over
the internet can get you saved, amen?
Who got saved listening to the preaching of Pastor Steven Anderson on the internet?
So here come do a fruit inspection.
Here's my good fruit right here.
So don't tell me, oh Pastor Anderson is a false prophet.
Really?
Then why is all this good fruit?
How come when I go all over the country, West Virginia, whatever, there's good fruit popping
up everywhere as a result of faithful word Baptist church.
Show me the good fruit from these false prophets that we threw out of our church, these modalist
heretics, Tyler Baker, Josh Hall, whoever else we threw, Rick Martinez, they're corrupt
people.
They brought forth corrupt fruit.
Whatever numbers they brought in were lies of the devil, period.
I don't know.
Well, you don't know but I do know because I just looked in the Bible and the Bible said
that the good tree can't bring forth evil fruit and vice versa.
Go to John 15.
Here's the clincher folks.
You're still not convinced on this point, a couple of you.
I know most people in here agree with me.
I bet 97% of people agree with me but I know that there might be a few people in here that
are not convinced.
Well, you know what?
Here's the clincher.
If this doesn't convince you, then I give up and I'm going home but I'll be back tonight
to rip.
No, it's a different subject tonight, different sermon but look at John 15.
It boggles my mind that anybody could believe this after reading John 15.
Let's read John 15, okay?
Verse 1, I'm the true vine and my father is the husbandman.
Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away and every branch that beareth
fruit he purgeth it that it may bring forth more fruit.
Now ye are clean through the word which I've spoken unto you.
Abide in me and I in you.
As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself except it abide in the vine, no more can ye
except ye abide in me.
I'm the vine, ye are the branches.
He that abideth in me and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit, let these words
ring in your ears for without me you can do nothing.
Oh I believe these unsaved people are winning people to Christ.
Really?
So are they abiding in Christ and Christ abiding in them?
Because that's the only way to bring forth fruit.
That's like saying you just have a branch all by itself, no plant, no root, no trunk,
just a branch.
Well I guess you're like Aaron's rod that budded.
You know what I mean?
Just this stick that just produces fruit.
That was a miracle.
And let me tell you something, without Christ we can do nothing.
Let me ask you something, if Garrett Kirschway is now preaching damnable heresy, denying
the trinity, preaching all kinds of lies and false doctrine, let me ask you something,
is he abiding in Christ?
Christ in him?
And how do you think that he got people saved?
He didn't.
Okay.
And, you know, oh I'm just having trouble with this.
I'm just having a hard time with this.
Okay.
What else are you having a hard time with?
You know what I mean?
It's like, well, okay, well, go have a hard time, but get it done.
People are just like, I'm having a real hard time with this doctrine.
Well, I'm sorry to hear that.
I'm really sorry to hear you're having such a hard time with it, because I find it real
easy.
I don't think this is a hard doctrine.
How hard is it to believe that in order for the supernatural work of regeneration to take
place, God's word has to be present and his instrument, his tool, the soul winner, has
to be present and those two elements have to be present.
I mean, that's what the Bible says.
How hard is it to believe that without Christ you're incapable of doing anything in the
fruit production department?
How can you sit there and say, well, I still think an unsaved person could get someone
saved.
Really?
Because without Christ they can do nothing.
And what does that mean?
Oh, well, the word is Christ as long as they have the word.
No, no, no.
They have to abide in Christ and Christ has to be in them.
That's how they produce fruit.
So how can you, you're going to convince me that an unsaved person is abiding in Christ
and that Christ is abiding in them because I'm not buying it.
It makes no sense.
Look, and you say, well, I just feel so bad for all the people that they witness to.
Feel bad then.
Feel bad.
Feel worse.
Go throw up if you have to, but that's the truth.
Maybe you'll feel better after you throw up, but the bottom line is that that's what happened.
But why do you feel, there's Mormons going around lying to people every day too.
Jehovah's Witnesses going around pretending to be something that they're not every day
too.
Just get over it.
I just have a hard time believing that these people could creep in.
Read the Bible.
The Bible said they're going to creep in.
They're going to be convincing.
You're going to be fooled.
James was fooled.
John was fooled.
Peter was fooled.
You're going to be fooled.
I'm going to be fooled.
And I'm not one of these people who's, oh, I saw that coming all the time.
I knew he was bad.
Now, look, some of the people that we've thrown out, I did know were bad.
There were several of the people where I'm like, that's not a surprise.
But a lot of people, I was really blindsided by it.
I didn't see that coming at all.
Why?
Because I'm not God.
See, Jesus, when he walked on this earth, he knew who the bad people were.
He said he had no need for anyone to testify him what was in, he knew what was in man.
And that's why he looked at his disciples, even in the early days, and said, have not
I chosen you 12 and want to use the devil?
He knew that.
He picked Judas on purpose to teach us that we're always going to have a Judas around.
So even he had a Judas around.
And he did that because it was part of his plan that Judas would betray him and he would
fulfill scripture and go to the cross.
That was all part of the plan.
So I'll close on that.
Without Christ, we can do nothing.
I think this is clear.
Three false doctrines.
Salvation without the word of God is false.
Salvation without a soul winner is false.
Salvation with an unsaved soul winner is false.
Now you say, but I know a guy.
Okay, but here's the thing.
How do you know that that person didn't hear the gospel from someone who, let's say there
was someone who was truly saved and you're like, I know this person's saved.
And they got the gospel from that person who later turned out to be, well then they must
have got the gospel from somebody else before that would be my answer to that.
But here's the thing.
I can't point to anyone in our whole church who was won to the Lord by Tyler Baker, Rick
Martinez, Josh Hall, Garrett Kirschway, or Dominique Davis.
I can't point to anyone who would say that's who won me to Christ.
Okay.
So this isn't really a tough sell for me.
Why?
Because, you know, most of the people who went to the Lord aren't going to join our
church.
They often go to church somewhere else or sometimes nowhere at all.
So guess what?
We're going to have to wait until we get to heaven to find out.
And there's a Judas sitting in here right now as sure as I'm standing here.
We have, there's like 300 and some people here.
There's 325 people in here.
I guarantee you, one of you is a rotten Judas and when I figure out who you are, all right,
let's bow your heads and have a word of prayer.
Father, we thank you so much for your word, Lord, and we thank you for the ministry of
soul winning that you've given us, Lord.
Help us to be faithful.
Help us to get out there with our Bible and preach the word of God.
Help us to abide in you so that we can be effective.
Help us to abide in you.
Without you, we can do nothing.
Help us to use the Bible because without the Bible, we can do nothing.
Help us to use your word to pray for the power of the Holy Spirit and to abide in you and
get out there and win some souls to Christ and not whine about the people who didn't
get saved.
Let's go out and get some people saved.
And thank you for everything.
In Jesus' name we pray.
Amen.