("Pomp and Circumstance")
- Folks, welcome back to Anchor Baptist Church.
It is about that time to get started.
If you'd find a seat, grab a hymnal
and turn to hymn number 421, "The First Noel."
Hymn number 421, 421, "The First Noel."
("The First Noel")
421 there on the first.
♪ The first, oh well ♪
♪ The angels did say ♪
♪ Was to certain poor shepherds ♪
♪ In fields where they lay ♪
♪ Keeping their sheep ♪
♪ On a cold winter's night ♪
♪ That was so deep ♪
♪ Noel, oh well ♪
♪ Born is the King of Israel ♪
♪ And by the light ♪
♪ Of that same storm ♪
♪ Green wise men came ♪
♪ From country far ♪
♪ To seek for a King ♪
♪ Was their intent ♪
♪ And to follow the star ♪
♪ Wherever it went ♪
♪ Noel, oh well ♪
♪ Born is the King of Israel ♪
♪ This star tonight ♪
♪ To the northwest ♪
♪ For Bethlehem ♪
♪ It took its rest ♪
♪ And there it did ♪
♪ Born, stopped, and slain ♪
♪ Right over the place ♪
♪ Where Jesus lay ♪
♪ Noel, oh well ♪
♪ Born is the King of Israel ♪
♪ They entered in ♪
♪ Those wise men green ♪
♪ For ever and be ♪
♪ Upon their knee ♪
♪ And offered there ♪
♪ In His presence ♪
♪ Their gold and myrrh ♪
♪ And frankincense ♪
♪ Noel, oh well ♪
♪ Born is the King of Israel ♪
- Amen, we'll open with a word of prayer
if you bow your heads with me.
Heavenly Father, we thank you for this day.
We thank you for the souls that were saved this afternoon.
Lord, I just also pray that you'd be with us
for this service and the services to come.
Be with also all those that are traveling
just to keep us safe as we part ways
after service this evening.
These things we pray in Jesus' name, amen.
All right, for our next hymn, turn the page to 423.
Joy to the world, 423.
Probably good practice for the caroling coming up, 423.
Joy to the world.
On the first.
♪ Joy to the world ♪
♪ The Lord is come ♪
♪ Let earth receive her King ♪
♪ Let every heart prepare Him room ♪
♪ And heaven and nature sing ♪
♪ Joy to the world ♪
♪ The Savior reigns ♪
♪ Let then their songs employ ♪
♪ What fields and floods ♪
♪ Rocks, hills, and plains ♪
♪ Repeat the sounding joy ♪
♪ Repeat, repeat ♪
♪ The sounding joy ♪
♪ No more let sins and sorrows grow ♪
♪ Nor thorns infest the ground ♪
♪ He comes to make His blessings flow ♪
♪ Far as the curse is found ♪
♪ Far as, far as the curse is found ♪
♪ He rules the world with truth and grace ♪
♪ And makes the nations prove ♪
♪ The glories of His righteousness ♪
♪ And wonders of His love ♪
♪ And wonders and wonders of His love ♪
Amen.
(heart beating)
- Good evening, everyone.
Welcome to Anchor Baptist Church.
At this time, we'll go through some announcements.
If you don't have a bulletin, raise your hand.
Brother Cameron will bring you one.
On the front is our Bible memory passage of the week,
Hebrews 6 verse 17.
And remember, if at the end of this challenge,
you can quote it word perfect to a non-family member,
you will receive a prize.
On the inside is our service times listed,
Sunday morning, 10.30, Sunday evening at 4.30,
and our Wednesday evening Bible study at seven o'clock.
All of our soul winning times are listed there,
and all of them meet here at the church building
if you're interested in joining us out preaching the gospel.
Our nursing home ministry schedule is listed there.
It's gonna pick back up next week, Lord willing.
Our Anchor Baptist Church statistics are listed there
for salvations and baptisms.
Please do report those salvation totals to the email there,
or you could send it in our signal group as well.
That works fine.
On the right is our expecting ladies.
Please be in prayer for the Reed family
for their expecting little boy.
And our upcoming events, on December 9th,
we're gonna have Christmas caroling
out in likely the Nichols Hills area
that's gonna meet here at the church building at 6.30.
So really excited for that.
And hey, the more people that come,
the better it sounds out there.
We don't wanna just have me and my family showing up.
That might be awkward for some of these people.
So the more the merrier for that, it's gonna be great.
December 20th is the ladies' Christmas party.
There should be details in the bulletin next week.
So you know what to expect for that.
Saturday, December 21st is our Christmas soul-winning push.
That's the last Sunday, or last weekend,
I should say, before Christmas.
So it's a time people are often thinking about Christ,
and it's a good time to reach them with the gospel.
One thing that's not on here, but December 22nd,
we would like to have a children's choir performance.
That's gonna be the last Sunday before Christmas.
Christmas this year is on a Wednesday.
And so what we'd like to have is kids
that are three years old to 17 years old.
And I say three if you think that your three-year-old
can sing and stand up here nicely.
We'd like to have them sing a couple Christmas songs
for the church.
Brother Cameron has agreed to help lead that group.
And so what we're gonna do is if you want your children
to participate in this, starting next Sunday,
immediately after the a.m. service, Brother Cameron's
gonna lead just a 15, 20-minute practice.
So if you don't mind having your kids participate in that,
he's gonna be leading that next week.
And there's gonna be, I think,
three songs that they're gonna sing.
John 316 is one of 'em, but it's the tune of,
what is it, Brother Cameron?
It is Silent Night, yes.
So that's a really great one.
It's really adorable seeing the kids sing that.
There'll be a couple others as well.
So please participate in that.
We're looking forward to that coming up.
December 31st is our New Year's Eve party,
and that is also a men's preaching night.
And please make sure you remember
that we're not gonna have a Wednesday service that week.
Our midweek service is going to be this event on Tuesday.
So Tuesday is our midweek service for that week.
It's gonna be a men's preaching night,
then a time of fellowship and games
to bring in the new year.
Online giving is there at that QR code.
And as usual, our prayer list is on the back.
If you have any prayer requests, please let me know,
and I'll be glad to add those for you.
That's gonna be it for announcements this evening.
Let's go ahead and go to our third song.
All right, for our third hymn this evening,
turn if you would to 425, "No Room in the Inn."
425, 425, "No Room in the Inn."
We'll sing there starting on the first.
♪ No beautiful chamber ♪
♪ No soft cradle bed ♪
♪ No lathe but a manger ♪
♪ No where for his head ♪
♪ No raises of blackness ♪
♪ No thought of their sin ♪
♪ No glory but sadness ♪
♪ No room in the inn ♪
♪ No room, no room for Jesus ♪
♪ Forgiven, welcome, free ♪
♪ Lest you should hear at heaven's gate ♪
♪ There is no room for me ♪
♪ No sweet consecration ♪
♪ No seeking his heart ♪
♪ No humiliation ♪
♪ No place in the heart ♪
♪ No thought of the Savior ♪
♪ No sorrow for sin ♪
♪ No prayer for his favor ♪
♪ No room in the inn ♪
♪ No room, no room for Jesus ♪
♪ Forgiven, welcome, free ♪
♪ Lest you should hear at heaven's gate ♪
♪ There is no room for me ♪
♪ No more to receive him ♪
♪ No welcome while here ♪
♪ No more to redeem him ♪
♪ No staff for the sphere ♪
♪ No seeking his treasure ♪
♪ No weeping for sin ♪
♪ No doing his pleasure ♪
♪ No room in the inn ♪
♪ No room, no room for Jesus ♪
♪ Forgiven, welcome, free ♪
♪ Lest you should hear at heaven's gate ♪
♪ There is no room for me ♪
- Amen.
As the offering plates are being passed,
turn if you would to Matthew chapter 28.
Matthew chapter 28.
(gentle music)
Matthew chapter 28.
In the end of the Sabbath, as it began to dawn
for the first day of the week,
came Mary Magdalene and the other Mary to see the sepulcher.
And behold, there was a great earthquake
for the angel of the Lord descended from heaven
and came and rolled back the stone
from the door and sat upon it.
His countenance was like lightning
and his raiment white as snow.
And for fear of him, the keepers that shake
became his dead men.
And the angel answered and said unto the women,
fear not ye, for I know that ye seek Jesus,
which was crucified.
He is not here, for he is risen.
As he said, come, see the place where the Lord lay
and go quickly and tell his disciples
that he is risen from the dead and behold,
he goeth before you into Galilee.
There shall ye see him, though I have told you.
And they departed quickly from the sepulcher
with fear and great joy and did run
to bring his disciples word.
And as they went to tell his disciples,
behold, Jesus met them, saying, all hail.
And they came and held him by the feet and worshiped him.
Then said Jesus unto them, be not afraid,
go tell my brethren that they go into Galilee
and there shall they see me.
Now, when they were going,
behold, some of the watch came unto the city
and showed unto the chief priests
all the things which were done.
And when they were assembled with the elders
and had taken counsel, they gave large money
unto the soldiers saying, say ye,
his disciples came by night and stole him away
while we slept.
And if this come to the governor's ears,
we will persuade him and secure you.
So they took the money and did as they were taught.
And this saying is commonly reported
among the Jews unto this day.
Then the 11 disciples went away into Galilee
into a mountain where Jesus had appointed them.
And when they saw him, they worshiped him,
but some doubted.
And Jesus came and spake unto them saying,
all power is given unto me in heaven and in earth.
Go ye therefore and teach all nations,
baptizing them in the name of the father
and of the son and of the Holy Ghost,
teaching them to observe all things whatsoever
I have commanded you.
And lo, I am with you always,
even unto the end of the world, amen.
Let's pray.
Heavenly Father, we're thankful today
to be gathered in a place of worship for you
and Lord that service and preaching of the word
would be pleasing to you, Lord,
and pray that you feel the pastorality and the spirit
and help us to apply this sermon to our hearts
and to gain wisdom in the name of Jesus.
And we pray to that.
And Jesus came and spake unto them saying,
all power is given unto me in heaven and in earth.
Go ye therefore.
(no audio)
All right.
So this is the Great Commission.
And of course, this is a passage of scripture
that our church takes very seriously.
Churches that we're friends with take very seriously.
We are a soul winning church.
We believe that the Great Commission that Jesus gave us
is not just to simply have church, be a church,
but actually to go out into all the world
and preach the gospel to every creature.
And if you yourself take this commandment seriously,
you likely already are a soul winner.
And if you take this seriously,
you go out into all the world,
you preach the gospel to every creature,
you're going to encounter a lot of different people
in this world.
And one of the most interesting things about soul winning
is just the different types of people that you come across.
And I want to preach a very practical sermon this evening
about soul winning.
The title of my sermon is dealing with people
out soul winning, dealing with people out soul winning.
If you go out and preach the gospel,
you're going to run into all sorts of different people
of all different backgrounds, all different attitudes,
all different temperaments.
And being a soul winner can really help you learn
a lot about people.
And I started out soul winning by myself.
I started out not as a silent partner, not with a church,
really, I kind of just started out on my own.
And that was good and bad.
It was good in the sense that I had to learn quick.
I had to learn what worked and what didn't.
But I also made a lot of mistakes along the way.
However, I've been doing that for 11 years.
I've been soul winning for 11 years.
So I have learned some things
and I hope I could be a help this evening.
But number one, I'm going to teach you
how to deal with the receptive.
How to deal with the receptive.
Go to Acts chapter number eight.
One of the type of person that you're going to run out
into out soul winning is a receptive person.
And of course, this is the people
that we're wanting to talk to.
This is the people that we're out targeting
is the people that are receptive.
But let's look at an example of that in the Bible.
Acts chapter number eight, verse 26.
And the angel of the Lord spake unto Philip saying,
Arise and go toward the south unto the way
that goeth down from Jerusalem unto Gaza, which is desert.
And he arose and went and behold a man of Ethiopia
and eunuch of great authority under Candace queen
of the Ethiopians who had the charge of all her treasure.
Notice what this says.
And had come to Jerusalem for to worship.
Of course, if you know this story,
you know that this person ends up getting saved.
But one of the indicators that you could see
in this man's life that he was likely a good candidate
for salvation is that this was someone who was seeking God.
And when you're out soul winning,
you wanna find people that are seeking the Lord.
And anytime someone shows any interest
that they in their life are seeking God,
that should immediately pique your interest
as a soul winner and say, hey, this might be a person
that is a good candidate for salvation.
Why? 'Cause it says this person is going to Jerusalem
for to worship.
This guy isn't even saved.
Yet he knew like, hey, Jerusalem is where it's at.
This is where the house of God is.
This is where the worship of God is.
He was ignorant about salvation, but he was seeking.
You see, to be saved, here's a really important thing.
You have to want to be saved.
You have to desire to be saved in order to be saved.
Keep your place there.
Go to Matthew chapter number seven, Matthew seven.
And while you're turning to Matthew seven,
I'm gonna read second Thessalonians 2, 10.
The Bible says, and with all deceivableness
of unrighteousness in them that perish,
so those are people going to hell,
because they received not the love of the truth
that they might be saved.
You see, in order to be saved, you have to love the truth.
That is, and this is why people go down a dark road
towards eventually becoming a reprobate,
is when they start just denying truth in general.
Things like creation.
You know, Romans one talks about how the Godhead
is manifest through creation.
There's things that are just clearly seen,
things that are just manifest.
That is just truth being revealed to someone.
When someone rejects truth in general,
they're going down a dark path.
But when someone desires truth,
they're going down the right path towards salvation.
Matthew seven, six, Jesus said,
give not that which is holy unto the dogs.
Neither cast ye your pearls before swine,
lest they trample them under their feet,
and turn again and rend you.
Ask, and it shall be given you.
Seek, and ye shall find, knock,
and it shall be opened unto you.
For every one that asketh receiveth,
and he that seeketh findeth,
and to him that knocketh, it shall be opened.
You see, the Ethiopian eunuch was a man that was seeking.
And all the time out soul winning,
you run into people that tell you,
I was just praying about this.
If you're a soul winner,
you know what I'm saying is true right now.
You knock on their door, you ask them,
if you were to die today, are you 100% sure
you're going to heaven?
And many times you hear this, I was just praying this.
I was just reading the Bible.
I was just watching a sermon.
That's a person that's seeking God.
And because they're asking, because they're seeking,
they will find.
But it's not like a Calvinist God
where the gospel just magically comes upon them
and they're forced to believe by God or something like that.
No, rather God directed us, guided us
to go to that person's door
because that person was seeking.
Go to John chapter number five, John five.
John five verse 39, Jesus said, "Search the scriptures,
"for in them you think you have eternal life
"and they are they which testify of me.
"And ye will not come to me that ye might have life."
He's saying to the Jews here, you don't want to come to me.
And because of that, you are not going to be saved.
Why, because someone that gets saved
is someone that wants to come to Jesus.
You don't just accidentally put your faith
and trust in Jesus Christ.
It has to be something that you understand
and make a decision to trust in yourself.
It's something that you have to desire.
Verse 41, "I receive not honor from men."
Verse 42, "But I know you that ye have not the love of God
"in you."
Why is it that these Jews wouldn't get saved?
'Cause they didn't want Jesus
and because they didn't love God.
And someone who's unsaved can still have
an inner desire for God and an inner desire for Jesus Christ
even though that they haven't fully understood
the gospel yet.
There's plenty of people out there,
they want to be saved, they're seeking,
they're looking for answers,
they just haven't found them yet.
But that's where we come in, right?
That's why we go out and reach them.
That's why we pray, Lord, please lead us to people
that are receptive.
Lead us to people that are thinking about you,
that are wanting to be saved.
Help us not to waste our time with the distractors.
Help us to go find those people.
Go back to Acts chapter number eight.
So here we see an indication that the Ethiopian eunuch
wants to be saved, why?
'Cause he's going to Jerusalem for the worship.
Verse 28, or 27, "And he rose and went and behold,
"a man of Ethiopia and eunuch of great authority
"under Candace, queen of the Ethiopians,
"who had the charge of all her treasure
"and had come to Jerusalem for it to worship,
"was returning and sitting in his chariot,
"read Esaias the prophet."
What is he doing?
He's reading the Bible.
He's reading the book of Isaiah.
And like I said, how many times have you gone out
soul winning and you're saying, I was just reading this?
That actually happened in this story.
Verse 29, "Then the spirit said unto Philip,
"Go near and join thyself to this chariot.
"And Philip ran thither to him."
That's a good soul winner right there.
When you pick up cues on someone saying,
this person wants to be saved,
this person is reading the Bible,
this person is wanting to know about God,
you run to those people and you spend time
with the receptive because these are the people
that are gonna get saved.
It says, "And heard him read the prophet Esaias and said,
"Understandest thou what thou readest?"
And he said, "How can I except some man should guide me?"
And he desired Philip that he would come up
and sit with him.
Notice this person desired for Philip
to preach him the gospel.
Let me tell you, it is a waste of your time
to just try to force the gospel down someone's throat
that doesn't want to listen.
And there are people out there
where they're just non-confrontational,
they're not rude, and they will just let you sit there
and preach the whole gospel, but they're not interested,
they're not listening to you,
they're not going to get saved the majority of the time.
What you wanna do is you wanna go soul winning,
you wanna present them with the question,
can I show you this from the Bible?
Do you wanna hear this from the Bible?
And be prepared to walk away if they say no.
Or if they come up with the world's dumbest excuses,
realize that that's just them saying no.
'Cause most of the time, people when they say,
oh, I was just reading this in the Bible,
they're really excited to hear the gospel.
But I think it was last week,
I think I was with brother Cameron,
he asked the question and he said,
sorry, I'm reading my Bible right now, I can't listen.
It's like, well, that has to be the dumbest excuse
I've ever heard out soul winning.
You can't listen to the gospel
because you're reading the Bible.
What?
Translation, he's lying to you.
He's not interested.
He doesn't wanna hear.
And when someone tells you,
like someone told a soul winner I was with one time,
oh, sorry, I've got a cat here and he's new.
Translation, that person doesn't wanna hear the gospel.
Whatever weird excuses they make up,
they don't wanna hear it.
But this person desired that Philip would come unto him.
And when someone desires it,
hey, that's the receptive person,
that's who you wanna spend your time with.
Look at verse number, actually go to Romans one,
Romans chapter number one.
Also, what's important about this passage we just read
is that Philip asked him,
do you understand what you're reading?
And he said, how can I except some man should guide me?
You see, God has ordained that people get saved
through a spirit filled soul winner,
preaching them the gospel.
There's no such thing as just someone opening up
the book of Isaiah who's unsaved
and they're just gonna open up the Bible
and all of a sudden they're just gonna get saved
by reading the Bible, that doesn't happen.
Now, perhaps someone could hear the gospel
several times in their youth and later on in life,
they open the Bible and they're reminded of those things
and things start to click, I could see that.
But without the influence of a spirit filled soul winner,
no one's just opening up the Bible and getting saved.
And I've heard people say that they read
the story of Armageddon in Revelation 19
and that they realized they were gonna be on the wrong side
and that's how they got saved, didn't happen.
That doesn't work that way.
I've heard people say that they read Romans 1 about reprobates
and said that that's what caused them to get saved.
Nope, that's not what happened either.
Romans 1 actually does explain though
how someone gets saved, look at verse 15.
It says, "So as much as in me is,
"I am ready to preach the gospel
"to you that are at Rome also.
"For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ,
"for it is the power of God unto salvation
"to everyone that believeth, to the Jew first
"and also to the Greek.
"For therein is the righteousness of God revealed
"from faith to faith as it is written,
"the just shall live by faith."
See, the gospel is revealed from faith to faith.
You know how I got saved?
I watched a Bible Way to Heaven video
by Pastor Roger Jimenez and he presented clearly
the gospel of salvation and I decided to believe it
and it went from faith to faith.
Go to, if you would, First Corinthians chapter number two,
First Corinthians chapter number two.
Now, I don't really know why people want
to believe this doctrine, that people can just get saved
by just picking up a Bible off the shelf,
other than just pure laziness.
Because if you understand that it takes soul winners
to get people saved, what's the application of that truth?
We need to go soul winning.
We need to go preach the gospel
'cause that's how people get saved.
Okay, what's the application of the truth
that someone can get saved all by themselves?
Are we just gonna start filling up bombers with Bibles
and fly over third world countries
and just start dropping them Bibles
with little parachutes or something?
That's not how people get saved.
They need a soul winner.
First Corinthians two, verse 14 says,
"But the natural man receiveth not
"the things of the Spirit of God,
"for they are foolishness unto him,
"neither can he know them."
Neither can he know them.
Because they are spiritually discerned.
Look, an unsaved person can open up the Bible
and they can understand the carnal truths of the Bible.
They could say, oh yeah, Noah built an ark, okay.
Oh yeah, you know, Abraham went to sacrifice his son.
They can understand those type of things
and sometimes people can fool you
because they can have a lot of carnal knowledge
of the Bible, but when it comes to spiritual things
like salvation, the Bible says that the natural man
can not know them.
It takes a spiritual person to sit down
and explain the gospel to them.
Go back to Acts chapter eight, Acts eight.
Acts chapter eight, verse 32 says,
"The place of the scripture which he read was this,
"he was led as a sheep to the slaughter
"and like a lamb done before his shearer,
"so opened he not his mouth."
Verse 33, "In his humiliation, his judgment was taken away
"and who shall declare his generation?
"For his life is taken from the earth.
"And the eunuch answered Philip and said,
"I pray thee, of whom speaketh the prophet this,
"of himself or of some other man?"
Another good indicator to tell you that someone is receptive
is when they are asking you good questions.
You know, just because someone doesn't understand something
doesn't mean that they're not receptive.
Oftentimes they could just be ignorant about something.
They're trying to grasp these concepts.
They're trying to get their mind wrapped
around these concepts.
And when someone asks you a good question,
that's not the time to get frustrated with them
or to get impatient.
That's the time to realize, hey, this person is listening.
This person cares.
This person wants to understand,
here am I, Lord, send me, help me to help this person.
That's what you should be doing.
Look at verse 35, "Then Philip opened his mouth
"and began at the same scripture and preached unto him Jesus."
Do not forget when you're preaching the gospel to people,
especially people that are very receptive
and are ready to get saved,
do not forget to preach Jesus.
Now I've seen this so many times
where someone preaches the gospel to someone
and they say, hey, do you know you're a sinner?
Do you know that we deserve hell?
And then they go to this, they say,
and salvation's just by faith alone,
it's just by faith alone, faith alone, faith alone.
Oh, you can never lose it, never lose it.
Faith alone in what?
Faith alone in who?
I've seen soul winners completely skip
the whole part about Jesus,
the gospel, look, the gospel of Jesus Christ
is what has the power.
And I cannot stress to you this enough,
do not speed through the portion
of your gospel presentation that's dealing with Jesus.
Take the longest time that you need
to preach unto them Jesus.
And usually how I start it
is I start talking about the virgin birth.
You know, I show them Romans 5,8,
"But God commanded his love toward us
"and that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
"God showed us his love in a very specific way
"by giving us his son, Jesus Christ."
The Bible says that Jesus was born of a virgin.
Because of that, he didn't have an earthly father,
his real father was God in heaven.
Have you heard that before?
If they say yes, great,
I move on to the next part of Jesus's life.
Yeah, okay, well, since Jesus is 100% man and 100% God,
he lived his entire life perfectly without sin.
You and I, we probably sin every single day,
but Jesus Christ never sinned.
Do you believe that, have you heard that before?
Check, yes, if they say no,
then I might show them a verse about how Jesus never sinned.
They don't know about the virgin birth,
I might show them about that.
If they don't know Jesus is God, I might show them that.
But usually I at least just cover that with them.
I say, hey, when Jesus was about 30 years old,
he started his ministry, he did a lot of great miracles,
he rose people from the dead, he walked on water,
he healed people of all their diseases,
he preached the word of God.
Because of his preaching, he was hated by the world
and hated of the Jews, they ended up lying about him
and putting him on the cross and torturing him to death
on the cross.
They spit in his face, they plucked out his beard,
they put a crown of thorns on his head,
they put the nails through his hands and through his feet
and pierced his side and killed him on the cross.
I don't just say like, hey, Jesus died,
do you believe that, check.
No, I wanna tell them about Jesus.
I wanna explain to them about his life, about his birth,
about his death in detail, about the fact that he went
to hell and about the fact that he rose again.
Why, because the gospel of Jesus is what changes
people's hearts.
It's not just knowing facts, okay, I need to believe,
oh, faith alone, faith alone, faith alone, faith alone.
Oh, you know, you can't lose your salvation.
No, they have to believe in Jesus Christ.
They have to know who Christ is.
They don't have to have some crazy, deep, you know,
Bible scholar knowledge of everything,
but they have to know who their savior is.
And Philip here, what does he do?
He began at that same scripture
and preached unto him Jesus, right?
Doctrine's important in your gospel presentation.
And you should make sure that you hammer faith alone.
You should make sure that you hammer eternal security
after you've preached Jesus.
You wanna make sure that you don't have this weird order
where you're like explaining faith, faith, faith,
eternal security, then you tell them
that Jesus died on the cross.
I've seen people do this,
but it's not an effective soul winning method.
Preach Jesus first.
Verse 36, and as they went on their way,
they came unto a certain water and the eunuch said,
here, or see here is water.
What doth hinder me to be baptized?
Another good question he's asking.
Philip said, if thou believest with all thine heart,
thou mayest.
He answered and said, I believe that Jesus Christ
is the son of God.
By the way, if you have an NIV,
that verse is gone in your Bible.
Verse 38, 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.
And when they were come up out of the water,
the spirit of the Lord caught away Philip,
that the eunuch saw him no more,
and he went on his way rejoicing.
When it comes to when you're dealing with the receptive,
the interested person, out soul winning,
here's another tip.
Spend as much time with them as you need to.
Don't feel like, all right, I got the Ethiopian eunuch saved,
go to the next door as soon as possible.
Hey, if that person is interested and has questions,
there's nothing wrong with you just spending a moment
and talking about baptism with them.
There's nothing wrong with you just taking a moment
and talking to them about church,
trying to get them to come to church,
explaining, hey, we're out soul winning,
we're out preaching the gospel, you're saved,
this is something you should be doing,
you should come to church, join us.
You know, Philip, he didn't just go away
as soon as this person got saved, he also baptized him.
He also spent time with him.
And you know, I think we should exhort people
to be disciples, why?
Because the harvest is plenious, but the laborers are few.
We need more soul winners in this world.
We need more soul winners in this church,
and how is that gonna happen?
By us making them soul winners.
We have to make them soul winners.
Go to Acts 16, we're gonna see another story
about an interested person, Acts chapter number 16.
And of course, I'm starting with the best.
This is the people that we wanna deal with.
This is the best person you could run into out soul winning.
Acts 16, verse 27, "And the keeper of the prison,
"awaking out of his sleep,
"and seeing the prison doors open,
"he drew out his sword and would have killed himself,
"supposing that the prisoners had been fled.
"But Paul cried with a loud voice saying,
"Do thyself no harm, for we are all here.
"Then he called for a light and sprang in,
"and came trembling and fell down before Paul and Silas,
"and brought them out and said,
"'Sirs, what must I do to be saved?'"
Don't you love it when that happens to you?
Let me tell you, if you go on a foreign missions trip,
if you go to the Bahamas,
this kind of stuff literally happens.
Where you go out to the schoolyard
and you're preaching to all the kids,
and another kid comes up and says,
"Hey, I wanna go to heaven too."
Or just, "Hey, what are you guys talking about?
"What are these invites about?"
And people will just literally ask you,
"What must I do to be saved?"
You ever run into a person
that wants you to preach them the gospel?
Take that opportunity, every single time.
Doesn't matter if you feel like,
"Oh, I don't have time right now."
If someone's willing to get saved,
you should invest your time into that person.
Verse 31, "And they said,
"'Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ,
"'and thou shalt be saved and thy house.'
"And they spake unto him the word of the Lord,
"and to all that were in his house."
And he took them the same hour of the night
and washed their stripes and was baptized,
he and all his straight away.
So once again, we see when someone's interested
and they wanna get baptized,
and you wanna hear the word of the Lord,
he didn't just preach them the gospel,
he actually went even further to talk about other things.
When someone's interested,
spend as much time as necessary with them.
Go to John, John chapter three.
Talk about the uninterested, the uninterested.
This is, unfortunately, the majority of the people
you will run into out-soulening.
The majority of the people you run into
will not want to hear the gospel.
John 3:16, "For God so loved the world,
"that he gave his only begotten Son,
"that whosoever believeth in him should not perish,
"but have everlasting life.
"For God sent not his Son into the world
"to condemn the world,
"but that the world through him might be saved.
"He that believeth on him is not condemned,
"but he that believeth not is condemned already,
"because he hath not believed in the name
"of the only begotten Son of God.
"And this is the condemnation,
"that light is come into the world,
"and man loved darkness rather than light,
"because their deeds were evil.
"For everyone that doeth evil,
"hateth the light."
Notice this, "Neither cometh to the light,
"lest his deeds should be reproved."
There's some people in this world,
and it's hard for us to understand,
because people that are in church on a Sunday evening
are not people that hate the light.
But there's people in this world that just hate the light.
And the Bible says that they won't come to the light,
lest their deeds be reproved.
There's some people that wanna live in a lie.
People say this saying, "Ignorance is bliss."
No, it's not.
It is absolutely not bliss.
There's people out there that they think,
"Well, if I just don't think about the fact
"that I'm a sinner,
"if I don't just face the fact that I'm a sinner,
"I don't wanna admit the fact that I'm a sinner.
"I think I'm a good person.
"I don't think I deserve hell.
"If I just put this off and don't think about it,
"then I'll probably be fine."
No, wrong.
If you don't deal with your sin,
if you don't get your sins forgiven,
you will spend eternity in hell.
But there's some people that you offer this to them,
to hear it, they want nothing to do with it,
because oftentimes they hate the light.
Go to Matthew 10, Matthew 10.
Now, Matthew 10 is a great chapter about soul winning,
because Jesus is kind of commissioning His disciples
to go out and preach the gospel.
So He gives us a lot of good doctrine
on soul winning in Matthew 10.
Verse 11 says,
"And into whatsoever city or town you shall enter,
"inquire who in it is worthy,
"and thereby till you go thence.
"And when you come into a house, salute it.
"And if the house be worthy, let your peace come upon it.
"But if it be not worthy, let your peace return to you.
"And whosoever shall not receive you,
"nor hear your words,
"when you depart out of that house or city,
"shake off the dust of your feet.
"Verily, I say unto you, it shall be more tolerable
"for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of judgment
"than for that city."
What is Jesus teaching?
He's saying, hey, when you go out to preach the gospel,
you come to a house, you salute it,
and if they receive you,
you let your peace abide on that house.
That's like us going out, knocking on doors.
We tell them, hey, we're from Baptist Church.
Are you 100% sure if you die today, you're going to heaven?
They say yes or no,
and they agree to hear the gospel, or they don't.
That's them deciding whether or not our peace stays on them.
They say, yeah, I wanna hear the gospel.
Great, be super kind, be thorough,
preach the gospel to them.
But if they don't wanna hear you, leave.
And this is what new soul winners sometimes do,
is they don't have discretion when someone is not interested.
And sometimes they just wanna force the issue
to preach the gospel when someone's not interested,
and it can get really awkward.
You know, the person that, they open their door,
and they're like, thanks, have a good day.
Okay, yep, all right, yep.
And the person's like, well, can I just give you one verse?
Hey, hey, do you have, it'll just take five minutes.
They're like, uh-huh, yeah, close the door.
Just leave, just leave, just go to the next door.
Why, because if someone's not interested,
they're not gonna get saved.
Remember point one, they have to want to get saved.
They have to want Jesus Christ.
If they're pushing you away, they're coming up
with dumb excuses, you could read their body language.
This comes with time, out soul winning,
when you could read someone.
You can have just a perception of that person
that they're not interested.
Hey, leave 'em on a good note, be friendly,
but go to the next door.
Go to Acts chapter number 13, Acts chapter number 13.
What should you do when someone is unreceptive?
Well, there was a large group of people
that were unreceptive in the New Testament.
They're called Jews, and oftentimes,
Paul's getting himself into trouble
by just banging his head against the wall,
no pun intended, wasting his time on the Jews.
Look at verse 45, "But when the Jews saw the multitudes,
"they were filled with envy and spake against those things
"which were spoken by Paul, contradicting and blaspheming.
"Then Paul and Barnabas waxed bold and said,
"It was necessary that the word of God
"should first have been spoken to you,
"but seeing you put it from you,
"and judge yourselves unworthy of everlasting life."
Didn't Jesus say to inquire in that city who is worthy?
The Jews here, they made themselves unworthy
of everlasting life.
"Lo, we turn to the Gentiles."
Now, this was easier said than done by the apostle Paul.
He said, "Oh, you guys are unworthy of everlasting life.
"We're going to the Gentiles."
Then he just keeps preaching to the Jews, right?
But we don't wanna be that way.
We wanna make sure we actually go to the receptive people,
leave the unreceptive people.
"For so hath the Lord commanded us, saying,
"'I have set thee to be a light of the Gentiles,
"'that thou shouldest be for salvation
"'unto the ends of the earth.'
"And when the Gentiles heard this, they were glad
"and glorified the word of the Lord.
"And as many as were deigned to eternal life believed,
"and the word of the Lord was published
"throughout all the region."
And see, God wants us to go to the receptive.
God does not want us to waste our time with the unreceptive.
Remember this morning we were talking about
how short life is, and how pretty soon
we're gonna be old and gray,
and pretty soon we're gonna be in heaven.
What sense does it make to spend our time
evangelizing Israel?
Yet today in the Old IFB there's programs
where people get so excited
about sending missionaries to Israel.
It's like, wouldn't it be a lot better
if those missionaries went to the Philippines,
or the Bahamas, or Mexico, or even Germany,
for crying out loud?
I mean, Germany would be a better place
to go than Jerusalem.
God said, no, I want the light of the gospel
to go to the Gentiles.
Go to Romans 12, Romans 12.
Look, if someone's uninterested, give them a chance.
Offer them for them to hear the gospel, right?
You don't wanna just say like,
well, you got a weird look on your face,
so I'm not even gonna ask you.
No, just ask them, give them a chance.
But when you perceive that someone is uninterested,
go to the next door.
You can't get me away from that person's door fast enough
because I'm not trying to just go out there
and spin my wheels and accomplish nothing.
I'm trying to actually get people saved.
Now, the third group of people you're gonna run
into out soul winning is the simple.
People that are simple.
Romans 12, 16 says this.
Be of the same mind, one toward another.
Mind not high things, but condescend to men of low estate.
Be not wise in your own conceits.
So, the Bible tells us not to be high minded,
not to mind high things, but condescend,
meaning go lower to men of low estate.
There's really no nice way to say this,
but if you go out soul winning a lot,
you will run into people who are simple.
You will run into people that are extremely uneducated.
You will run into people who are illiterate.
You will run into people that don't understand
what a gift is.
And if you're not a soul winner,
you might think I'm kidding,
but you literally run into people like,
hey, you know, if I gave you this Bible as a gift,
but I said you had to pay me $100 for it,
would it be a gift?
Yeah, there's people out there
that they don't understand that stuff.
And I'm not trying to be mean or rude to those people.
I'm just trying to tell you as a soul winner
that you will experience those people.
And what you should do is not just get immediately frustrated
at that person or be high minded,
but you should be willing to condescend
to men of low estate.
You should be willing to take the time
and explain things to them.
This is also why it's very important
when you're out soul winning to ask questions
to gauge the person's understanding, okay?
Because if you just go through your gospel presentation,
you're just assuming they understand things
that they don't understand.
You're gonna get to the end,
the person's gonna be confused.
Let me tell you this,
this is a bad question out soul winning
that I hear people often say,
is they'll read a passage, they'll explain it,
and they'll just say this, does that make sense?
That's not a good question to ask.
Because you know what?
Everybody is gonna respond to that question by saying,
yeah, yeah, that makes sense.
This is a bad question because it doesn't actually tell you
if it makes sense to them.
What you need to do is ask a question
that proves by their answer that they understand.
Hey, where does the Bible say
that we deserve to go for our sins?
They have to answer that
and actually show their understanding.
You know, if they say, oh, heaven, okay, let's slow down.
Let me show you about hell.
Let me show you Revelation 14 or Revelation 20,
Revelation 21, right?
So throughout your gospel, it's good to pause.
When you explain a concept, pause,
ask a question that proves their understanding
and don't take it for granted
that they're getting everything you're saying
because let's be honest,
there's a lot of people out there
that smoked way too much marijuana in their life
and their brain is fried and they're simple
and you need to condescend to those people.
Now, here's the good news is that people that are simple,
it's not necessarily a lost cause.
It's not like someone that's simple is hopeless.
Why?
Well, Psalm 19, seven says the law of the Lord
is perfect, converting the soul.
The testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple.
Thank God being simple is not necessarily
a permanent state for all people
because the law of the Lord can make wise the simple.
But you're gonna meet that person,
that simple person out soul winning
and they might be at that level of being simple
and it's your job to condescend to men of low estate
and try to bring them up a notch
by preaching them the Bible.
Go to Proverbs 14, Proverbs 14.
Proverbs chapter 14, verse 15
is the life verse of our generation.
It says, "The simple believeth every word,
"but the prudent man looketh well to his going."
You know, when you're preaching to the simple,
you're gonna notice something about them
is that they, in their life,
have believed everything they've heard.
They believe every single lie
their Catholic priest taught them.
They believe every single false sermon
that they learned from their false prophet
because the simple believeth every word.
That's what's so dangerous about being simple
is that you make yourself a prey to predators.
And these people, they've just lived their whole life
believing every word.
And what we have to do when we talk to the simple
is we have to teach them to think critically.
We have to be like, "Hey, you know,
"I know that the Roman Catholic Church has taught you
"that you have to confess your sins to a priest,
"that you have to do all these rituals to be saved,
"and there's purgatory,
"but I'm showing you the Bible right here.
"Look what Jesus said, look what the Bible says.
"Look at John 3:16, look at John 3:18,
"look at Ephesians 2, 8, 9.
"Look at what it's saying there and then ask them,
"hey, ask them some sort of clarifying question.
"What does this verse say we have to do to be saved?"
And then give some examples.
You're actually teaching them that way to think critically,
not just to receive everything that they've heard.
Because what you don't want is for them
to just shut their brain off and agree with you,
'cause they're so used to being simple
that they just believe every word.
You want them to actually internalize and understand
the words that you're showing them.
2 Timothy 2, 2 Timothy chapter two.
Now, I said that they're not hopeless, right?
We wanna try to get these people saved,
but there is one thing that you don't wanna do
with a simple person, and that is engage in their stupidity.
That's what you don't wanna do.
2 Timothy 2, 23 says this,
"But foolish and unlearned questions avoid,
"knowing that they do gender strifes."
Don't let some foolish person derail you from the gospel
with stupid questions that have nothing to do
with the gospel.
You wanna keep that person's mind focused
on what matters getting saved, okay?
You could just say things like,
"Hey, I'll address that in a minute,"
or, "That's really not important to this conversation."
You just be really direct with them,
and oftentimes they'll just be like,
"All right, they'll just listen."
But you don't wanna engage
in foolish and unlearned questions.
Verse 24, "And the servant of the Lord must not strive,
"but be gentle unto all men,
"apt to teach, patient in meekness,
"instructing those that oppose themselves.
"If God peradventure will give them repentance
"to the acknowledging of the truth,
"and that they may recover themselves
"out of the snare of the devil,
"who are taken captive by him at his will."
You know, when you're dealing with the simple,
you're not there to show everyone
how much smarter you are than the simple.
It's not hard to be smarter than a simple person, okay?
You're not there to show off
or make them feel even dumber than they already are.
Honestly, you should feel pity for them
because they're someone that's taken captive by the devil.
And you should be there to instruct the person
that opposes themselves so that they could repent
and get saved.
You should actually have love in your heart for that person.
Go to Romans 12, Romans chapter number 12.
The fourth person that I wanna talk about
that you're gonna deal with is the rude person.
The rude person.
And boy oh boy, geography matters when it comes to this
because when you're soul winning in Vancouver and Portland,
I feel like this is the majority of the people you run into,
is the rude person.
Here it doesn't happen as often,
but it will happen to you if you go soul winning.
I heard it happen today.
But look at Romans 12 verse 17, it says this.
Recompense to no man evil for evil.
Provide things on us in the sight of all men
if it be possible as much as life in you
live peaceably with all men.
You know, it's important when you encounter someone
out soul winning that's rude to you
not to render evil for evil.
You know, nine out of 10 times when someone is rude to you,
you should be able to leave that conversation peaceably
and being kind to that person,
being long suffering to that person,
and not just they call you a name
and you just call a name right back.
I mean, I heard a story today that out soul winning,
one person said to one of our soul winners, "F you."
Well imagine if a soul winner just gave that right back at 'em.
Would that really look good for our church?
Or does the Bible say that we're ambassadors of Christ?
Is that a way that ambassador would act?
No, they're above that.
They're supposed to be better than that.
And when someone gives you some little rude remark,
some little snide remark,
you know, the worst thing you could do
is just give it back to them
because then you're just kind of feeding them.
You're kind of giving them the satisfaction that they want.
They wanna see you get angry.
They wanna see you get riled up.
They wanna see that you're getting at them.
And what they hate is when you just have no reaction.
You're just like, "Okay, have a good day."
You just walk on your way.
That's what they hate.
But that is actually how we should act as Christians
because guess what, you're not getting brownie points
in heaven for the smartest comeback
to some jerk out soul winning.
There's no rewards for that in heaven.
Go to Matthew chapter five, Matthew chapter number five.
Now this is hard for our flesh.
This is hard for our sin nature
because our sin nature wants to retaliate.
We wanna make sure that person knows
that we're better, smarter,
whatever you think you are in your flesh.
That's what we wanna do.
But what Jesus teaches in Matthew five,
this is where the rubber meets the road
in Christianity right here.
Verse 38, "You have heard that it hath been said,
"an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.
"But I say unto you that you resist, not evil.
"But whosoever shall smite thee on the right cheek,
"turn to him the other also."
The principle here is that if someone does something
to you unjustly, you should just take it.
That's what Jesus is teaching.
Now today, the Bible talks about how in the last days,
perilous times shall come.
We're living in very dangerous times.
I don't really recommend that if someone just walks up to you
and punches you in the face,
that you just turn them the other cheek, okay?
This isn't teaching that you can't defend yourself
or anything like that.
He's just teaching, hey,
when someone is trying to be rude to you,
when someone's trying to get at you,
when someone's trying to hurt your pride,
you know what, don't render evil for evil.
Just turn the other cheek
and just allow that person to do that to you.
You don't have to get them back.
Verse 40, "And if any man will sue thee at the law
"and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak also.
"And whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile,
"go with him twain.
"Give to him that asketh thee,
"and from him that would borrow of thee turn not thou away.
"You have heard that it hath been said,
"thou shalt love thy neighbor and hate thine enemy,
"but I say unto you, love your enemies.
"Bless them that curse you,
"do good to them that hate you,
"and pray for them which despitefully use you
"and persecute you."
Hey, someone hates you while you're out soul winning,
love them.
Someone curses you while you're out soul winning,
bless them.
Someone speaks against you falsely, pray for them.
That's what Jesus is teaching here
because while of course we are to hate the enemies of God,
Jesus taught us to love our enemies.
And when you go out soul winning
and someone says something nasty against you,
someone's being mean to you,
that is not a time to hate that person
or take revenge or get your cool comeback at that person.
That's actually time to love that person
and give that person mercy and grace.
That's what Jesus taught.
Look at verse 45,
"That ye may be the children of your father,
"which is in heaven.
"For he maketh his son to rise on the evil
"and on the good and sendeth rain on the just
"and on the unjust.
"For if ye love them which love you,
"what reward have ye?
"Do not even the publicans the same.
"And if you salute your brethren only,
"what do ye more than others?
"Do not even the publicans so,
"be ye therefore perfect,
"even as your father which is in heaven is perfect."
You know, we're not gonna just love people that love us.
We should even love those that are our enemies,
that speak against us.
You know, like Jesus when he was dying on the cross,
"Father, forgive them for they know not what they do."
You know, Jesus could ask for people's forgiveness
that were killing him.
I'm pretty sure that you don't need to pray
in precatory prayers against the person
that cussed you out while he was drunk on a Sunday afternoon.
You know, I'm pretty sure we could just let that go
and just pray for that forgiveness for that person.
And hey, hopefully next time we come to the door,
he's sober so that he can actually get saved.
You know, if Stephen could pray as he's being stoned
not to have the sin of those people laid to their charge,
you know, we can forgive people out soul winning
for being mean to us.
When the apostle Paul talked about how all men forsook him,
but the Lord stood with him,
I pray that it's not laid to their charge.
When Paul can have that level of forgiveness,
yeah, I'm pretty sure we could render good
unto people that do us evil out soul winning.
And here's one thing I've noticed,
and this could be a tip for you.
This doesn't work 100% of the time,
but I've noticed that the number of people
that are rude to you, that will cuss you out,
that'll say mean things to you,
goes down dramatically when you're soul winning
with children and women.
When it's just two guys, man, we get cussed out all the time.
Let me just tell you a secret, ladies.
We go out soul winning and people are just,
they don't pull any punches with us.
But I noticed that if I go with my wife,
or if I have my daughters with me,
the number of times that this happen goes down dramatically.
Now there's exceptions to that,
'cause that exception happened tonight, I was told,
out soul winning.
But in general, that is something that happens less.
So I would encourage you to take your family out
soul winning, take your children out soul winning,
and you'll probably have a better experience
most of the time.
The fifth group of people we're gonna talk about
is the scorner, Proverbs 1, Proverbs chapter number one.
The scorner.
This is one of the worst group of people to deal with.
Proverbs 1, verse 22, says this,
"How long, ye simple ones, will ye love simplicity,
"and the scorner's delight in their scorning."
And fools hate knowledge.
Here's what you have to understand about a scorner.
What is a scorner?
It's someone who is foward, someone who is contrarian.
They are just gonna speak against whatever you're saying,
they're gonna resist your words,
they're gonna deny whatever doctrine you're giving them,
they are scorners.
And it says that scorners delight in their scorning.
Let me tell you something about a scorner,
there's no helping a scorner.
There's no combination of words in the English language
that you could give to a scorner
that's going to help them in any way.
They have a heart issue that they have to fix with God.
You're not gonna be able to fix a scorner, why?
Because scorners delight in their scorning.
That's what the Bible says.
They take pleasure, they think it's a fun little game
to be a foward, contrarian person,
and you're not gonna help them.
And here's what you have to understand about scorners,
is that there is a big, massive difference
between preaching the gospel to someone
who they're just struggling to grasp concepts.
You know, you're preaching to them,
they're not quite getting it, they're struggling,
they're asking questions,
it's taking a really long time to get them saved maybe.
There's a huge difference between that person
and the person that is denying your doctrine,
the person that is preaching against what you're saying,
the person that's actively resisting you
while you're out soul winning and telling you,
no, that's not true, what about this?
Well, no, over here, the Bible says this.
That person is a scorner.
And what you need to do with scorners is go to the next door
and don't waste your time with scorners.
You know, a few weeks ago, I believe it was last Sunday,
I was out soul winning,
and this lady turned out to be a scorner.
'Cause in the middle of the gospel presentation,
she asked, "Does your church keep the Sabbath?"
And I showed her something, go to John chapter number five,
John chapter number five.
She said it in a really arrogant, smug, prideful way,
like she wasn't actually asking for information,
she wanted it to be a scorner, okay?
And I showed her this, John 518,
or I told her about this, I should say.
John 518, the Bible says, therefore the Jews
sought the more to kill him, that's Jesus,
because he not only had broken the Sabbath,
but said also that God was his father,
making himself equal with God.
So here you have the narrator of the Bible, the Holy Spirit,
telling us that Jesus did something, he broke the Sabbath.
Why?
Because Jesus is Lord of the Sabbath.
And Sabbath was made for the man, not man, for the Sabbath.
And the Jews here had a misconception
about what the Sabbath was,
and so Jesus here broke the Sabbath, but he didn't sin, okay?
Let me read for you Colossians 2:16,
I also told her about this.
Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink,
or in respect of an holy day, or of the new moon,
or of the Sabbath days, which are a shadow of things
to come, but the body is of Christ.
The Bible teaches that the Sabbath was a picture of Christ.
Why, because it was a day that you rested from your work.
How do you get to heaven?
By resting in the works of Jesus Christ.
By resting from our work, by ceasing from our own works.
You don't get to heaven by doing good things,
you get to heaven by trusting in Jesus Christ.
And it's not work, it's easy.
It's easy to be saved, and that's why the Sabbath
was a shadow of things to come,
but the thing that has come has already came, Jesus Christ.
Salvation's already come, and so now,
there's no reason to keep the Sabbath.
This is not a law that's active today in the New Testament.
And I just explained that to her,
and she just responded something smart.
She was like, "Hmm, shame, shame, shame,"
or something like that.
And I said, "Bye, have a nice day."
And I left.
Why?
Because she's a scorner.
Because she didn't care about what the Bible said.
She didn't care about these verses.
She didn't want to know what the truth was.
She just was a prideful, arrogant person
that's not interested in getting saved.
She was just interested in looking smart.
And I'll just show these guys
what I know about the Bible.
Oh, shame on this church for not being as smart as me.
Hey, okay, you want to see what the Bible says?
Here's a verse, here's another verse.
You want to see it?
See you later.
Not going to stand here all day
and argue with someone that doesn't want to know the truth.
Go to Proverbs chapter three.
Now, let's look at several verses in Proverbs
about the scornful, the, I'm sorry,
the froward person, yeah, the scorner.
Proverbs 3.32 says, "For the froward is abomination
to the Lord, but his secret is with the righteous.
The curse of the Lord is in the house of the wicked,
but he blessed the habitation of the just.
Surely he scorneth the scorners,
but he giveth grace unto the lowly."
How does God treat the scorners?
He scorns the scorners.
Oh, you want to be froward?
You want to be contrarian to God?
You want to be a scorner to him?
Then he's going to be that way right back at you.
And guess what?
Outsouling, if someone wants to be a scorner,
someone wants to just be a jerk and act like
they know the Bible so much more and they're here,
they're there to teach me scripture.
They're there to tell me their false doctrine.
Bye, I'm leaving.
I'm not going to have a nice conversation.
This is over.
This person is a scorner.
Verse, Proverbs 9.7, Proverbs 9.7.
Let's get some more instruction on this.
You say, I don't know, that doesn't sound right.
That sounds kind of mean.
This might be your opinion.
Well, Proverbs 9.7 says, "He that reproveeth a scorner
geteth to himself shame."
You know, if you just sit there and go back and forth
with a scorner, you are in a shameful act at that point.
You're bringing yourself shame.
We're not impressed.
We're not thinking like, how loving, how gracious,
how long-suffering that you're dealing with a scorner.
No, you just keep reproving a scorner,
you're engaging in a shameful act.
"And he that rebukeeth a wicked man
geteth himself a blot."
Notice verse 8, "Reprove not a scorner, lest he hate thee.
Rebuke a wise man and he will love thee."
See, if someone's wise, if you're out-soul-winning
to a wise person, you could even go as far
as rebuking that person and they will still love you.
And I've seen it happen out-soul-winning many times.
You just tell them as bluntly as possible,
look, you are in a false religion right now.
You've spent your entire life in a false religion
that is completely meaningless and if you died right now,
you'd go to hell.
You need to believe in Jesus Christ.
You need to get saved.
And I've seen countless people do that.
They're like, okay, how do I get saved, right?
Let's call upon the name of the Lord.
They love you for telling them that,
but when you reprove a scorner, no, he actually hates you.
He doesn't want to be reprove.
He doesn't want to actually know what the Bible says.
He just wants to look smart.
Proverbs 13, verse 1.
You say, I don't know, I still think
I should rebuke a scorner.
Okay, a wise son heareth his father's instruction,
but a scorner heareth not rebuke.
He's not going to listen to you.
He's not gonna receive your correction.
You say, well, if I just show him the perfect verse.
No, this person does not receive correction.
They don't care what the Bible says.
They don't care what you say.
They just want to argue.
Go to Titus chapter three, Titus chapter number three.
So Titus is gonna give us detailed instructions
on how to deal with this type of a person.
Because the scorner, it's not like they're just ignorant.
Like, oh, I don't know what the Bible says.
Can you show me?
No, what they are is they're heretics.
There are people that say, no, no, no.
It is by works.
No, you just don't understand Matthew seven.
They'll just bring some sort of false doctrine to you.
They're heretics.
They don't believe the Bible.
And what do we do with those people?
Titus 3, 10 says this.
A man that isn't heretic after the first
and second admonition, reject.
Knowing that he that is such is subverted
and sinneth being condemned of himself.
Remember what I said?
You can't fix these people.
The only way that these people can be fixed
is if they fix the problem themself in their heart.
God has to fix them.
They have to get right with the Lord.
And obviously a heretic can never do that.
But in general, people can also be froward
that are not reprobate heretics.
But what we do, we admonish them.
The first and second admonition after that, reject.
People will try to waste your entire soul winning time
arguing with you about the Nephilim,
arguing with you about the flat earth,
arguing with you about whether or not vaccines
are the mark of the beast.
Don't waste your entire soul winning time with those people.
You give them the first and second admonition
and then you reject.
Now as much as possible,
the Bible says live peaceably with all men.
You should always try to leave every conversation
if you can as positive as you can.
Hey, have a good day.
We're gonna go talk to someone else.
Hey, appreciate your time.
We're gonna get to talking to your neighbors here.
But there are some people where they won't let you leave.
They'll keep talking to you, keep talking to you,
keep talking to you.
And there are some people, unfortunately,
that you do have to be rude with
and you just have to literally walk away.
Don't let someone steal your whole soul winning time
just trying to be super polite.
There's been times where they're just wanting to preach,
wanting to preach and it's just like, see you man.
And we just walk away.
It usually makes them mad.
But you know what?
That's better than wasting your time with a scorner.
Galatians one, go to Galatians one.
Galatians chapter one verse eight.
I think false prophets definitely fall into the category
of being a scorner, someone that's froward.
Galatians one eight says,
but though we are an angel from heaven,
preach any other gospel unto you,
then that which we have preached unto you,
let him be accursed.
As we said before, so say I now again,
if any man preach any other gospel unto you
than that which you have received,
let him be accursed.
Again, I'm gonna keep repeating this.
There's a difference between someone who's ignorant
and someone who's there to preach you a false gospel.
Someone who's trying to preach you a false gospel,
the Bible says, let that person be accursed.
Let them go to hell.
They're on their way to hell.
You can't change anything about it.
There's no verses you can show them.
Just let them be accursed and go to the next door.
Go to Acts 13, Acts chapter number 13.
We're gonna talk about two more groups of people here.
We'll make it quick.
The sixth group that we're gonna talk about
is what I call the distractor.
You know, we definitely, if you've gone soul-winding,
you've run into people that are just trying
to distract you or distract the person listening
from hearing the gospel, look at Acts 13 verse six.
"And when they had gone through the island of Paphos,
"they found a certain sorcerer, a false prophet,
"a Jew whose name was Bar-Jesus,
"which was with the deputy of the country,
"Sergius Paulus, a prudent man who called for Barnabas
"and Saul and desired to hear the word of God."
So this deputy, Sergius Paulus,
he called for Barnabas and Saul.
He desired to hear the gospel.
It straight up says he desired to hear the word of God.
Now that's group one, right, the interested.
That's the people that are most likely to get saved
that we want to reach with the gospel.
Look at verse eight, "But Eliamus the sorcerer,
"for so is his name by interpretation,
"withstood them seeking to turn away
"the deputy from the faith."
There are people out there like this
when you're soul winning, where one individual
wants to hear it and another individual
is trying to turn that person away from the gospel.
This is where, as a silent partner,
you have to do something.
Or as a soul winner, you can help direct
your silent partner of what to do.
Oftentimes, one thing you can do as a silent partner
is just pull cover for that person.
And while it's normally not good to engage
with a fool or a scorner, if you could take this fool,
this scorner, this distractor aside from your silent partner
and just be like, "Yeah, man, let's talk about the Nephilim."
(sighs)
Okay, let's talk about the Flat Earth, all right.
Okay, Joe Biden, the hologram, uh-huh.
Let's talk about it, man.
And just deal with it if you have to.
Just engage with the stupidity if you have to
so your soul winner can go get the deputy to save.
And then it's just like, "Oh, here, he's calling upon
"the name of the Lord, in Jesus' name I pray, amen."
All right, let's go and just leave that guy
as soon as possible, right?
But sometimes, you might have to do that as a soul winner.
You might have to just be a distraction.
You might have to just be a distraction, you might have to pull cover.
And other times, and again, like I said,
you wanna be as nice as possible out soul winning
as much as you possibly can, but there can be a time
where it is appropriate and needful for a sharp rebuke against a person.
And what type of person would that be?
This story right here, verse nine.
"Then Saul, who was also called Paul, filled with the Holy Ghost,"
so what he's about to do is write, "set his eyes on him and said,
"'O, full of all subtlety and all mischief, thou child of the devil,
"'thou enemy of all unrighteousness, wilt thou not cease
"'to pervert the right ways of the Lord?
"'And now, behold, the hand of the Lord is upon thee,
"'and thou shalt be blind, not seeing the sun for a season.'
"And immediately there fell on him a mist and a darkness,
"and he went about seeking some to lead him by the hand."
Paul saw this wicked person turning away the deputy from the faith,
trying to get him to stop hearing the gospel,
and Paul called this person a child of the devil,
and not only that, he smote him with blindness.
I mean, that would be a cool soul-winning tool if we had access to that today.
I could think of a couple times where I would have liked to have struck
a few sodomites bothering us out soul-winning with blindness.
There have been some times where I wish I could have struck
a few Mormon missionaries with blindness,
but you know what we can do sometimes? We can rebuke them.
And there has been one time I could think of where I had to rebuke someone
extremely sharply out soul-winning, and that was when I was at Sure Foundation,
we were soul-winning in a town called Woodland,
and we were preaching the gospel to this person on his front porch,
and these Mormon missionaries came up to us,
and were trying to get us to stop preaching the gospel.
They're like, "This is our person. We're here to visit this person or whatever.
"You guys are teaching lies."
And I just took those people aside, and I just ripped them to shreds.
I was screaming at them. I was irate. I was losing my mind.
And guess what? The person got saved.
What happens in this story after Paul lost his mind?
Okay, he just went on some raving rant here.
What does it say? Verse 12.
"Then the deputy, when he saw what was done," said,
"Man, you guys are mean and hateful. I don't want anything part of this Jesus thing."
No, it says, "Then the deputy, when he saw what was done,
"believed, being astonished at the doctrine of the Lord."
This action that Paul took worked.
And there is a time and a place to lose your mind on someone a little bit.
And again, it's not the majority of the time.
It should be an extremely rare exception.
But when this demon-filled guy comes up to you and is trying to turn people away from the faith,
yeah, there's a time to rebuke someone sharply.
And I recommend that you do it in situations like this.
Go to Matthew chapter 21. Matthew 21.
Now Jesus, He also, in His ministry, encountered times
where He was preaching the Word of God and people were trying to distract His listeners.
People were trying to get Him to stop and stop people from getting saved.
It's in Matthew 21 verse 23. It says, "And when He was come into the temple,
"the chief priests and the elders of the people came in unto Him," notice,
"as He was teaching, and said, 'By what authority doest thou these things?
"And who gave thee this authority?'"
See, Jesus is in the middle of preaching to people and these distractors come up
and they start asking stupid questions to keep Jesus from preaching the Word of God.
Now stay there. Proverbs 26, 4 says, "Answer not a fool according to his folly."
Right? We already talked about that.
There's a time where it's completely foolish to answer a fool, right?
"Lest thou be also like him."
But then it says, "Answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own conceit."
There is a time and place where you don't answer the fool.
That's the vast majority of the time.
But sometimes it actually is appropriate to answer the fool.
And I believe that it's the exact example that Jesus is giving us here in this story.
Verse 24, "And Jesus answered and said unto them, "I also will ask you one thing,
"which if ye tell me, I and likewise will tell you by what authority I do these things."
The baptism of John, whence was it, from heaven or of men?
And they reasoned with themselves, saying, "If we shall say from heaven, he will say unto us,
"Why did ye not then believe him?
"But if we shall say of men, we fear the people, for all hold John as a prophet."
And they answered Jesus and said, "We cannot tell." And he said unto them,
"Neither tell I you, by what authority I do these things."
So Jesus absolutely shut these people down, simply by asking a question.
I think it's just such a cool story how smart Jesus is, where he's interrupted by these guys,
and he just asks them a question and completely shuts them down.
Now, I heard a pastor teach this one time, and I've used this strategy and it has helped me.
He basically said this, "When you have these distractors that come in,
"they want to ask you some stupid question, just respond by saying this,
"What do you mean by that?" And just let them sit and explain what they mean.
Because you want to know the truth, people that don't know the Bible
have no idea what they're talking about.
People that believe false doctrine have no clue what they're talking about.
And a lot of times, someone can't even answer that question, "What do you mean by that?"
They start to spit and stutter and not know what they're talking about.
Now, the next question that he said is to ask this, "How did you come to that conclusion?"
What do you mean by that? How did you come to that conclusion?
Because when you believe lies, when you believe false doctrine,
when you're not standing on the Bible, you can't answer those two questions.
What do you mean by that? We could actually explain our beliefs from the Bible.
And how did we come to the doctrines that we have? How do we know that hell is real?
How do we know we're all sinners? How do we know Jesus died on the cross?
How do we know that if we put our faith in Him, that we'll have eternal life?
I can show you chapter and verse for every single one of those.
I can show you dozens of verses for all of those.
Yet, these people that are distractors, they can't because they don't know the Bible.
Stay there. 1 Timothy 1, 7 says this, "Desiring to be teachers of the law,
understanding neither what they say nor whereof they affirm."
People that don't know the Bible, that desire to be a teacher, they want to come
distract you. The Bible says they don't know what they're saying nor whereof they affirm.
Meaning, how did they come to that conclusion? They have no clue, right?
So oftentimes, if you're preaching the gospel to someone, this person's interested.
This person wants to hear. Then his buddy, his friend, his mom, his girlfriend, his whatever,
comes up and starts asking all these stupid questions. What about this? What about that?
Hey, man, what do you mean by that? OK, how did you come to that conclusion?
You know what you're going to find is that you're going to make that person look like
a complete idiot. And you know what that's going to do in the mind of the person you're
preaching the gospel to? That person's going to say, "Wow, this person actually knows what
he's talking about and this person doesn't. Wow, this person's actually showing me the Bible.
This person actually has proof for the things that he's saying." This person was just asked a
simple question. What do you mean by that? How did you come to that conclusion? And they're
stumbling and have no idea what they're doing. Because if you ask someone those questions,
"Hey, you know, how did you come to the conclusion that salvation is not by grace? How did you come to
that conclusion?" If you go to Ezekiel 25 and you look at the angels, you got nothing, buddy. Why?
Because the Bible's on our side. And so when you ask someone those two questions, it works all the
time. I love that saying. Last group of people. Go to Proverbs 15. Proverbs 15. Last group of people
we're going to talk about, everyone's favorite. Apartment managers and cops. Aren't these the best
people to deal with without soul winning? Now here's the thing. When you're dealing with an
apartment manager or a cop, please, please, please make your default setting respectful, kind,
obedient to law enforcement's orders. That should be your default mode, okay? I don't like it when
people come swinging out of the gates being a jerk to cops. I don't like it at all. It's disrespectful.
I don't think it's a good Christian attitude. Please don't do it. And here's the thing. I've had,
you could ask Brother Rich Caputo at St. Fast Baptist Church. I was soul winning with him
and an apartment manager came up to us and said, "You guys can't be here. You guys are soliciting.
You guys need to leave right now." I said, "Oh, hey, ma'am, you know, we're not selling anything.
We're actually just handing these invites out to people and if they want to talk to us, we talk to
them. If they don't want to talk to us, we don't bother them. We just go to the next door. Yeah,
we're just, you know, out here handing church invites." She goes, "All right, just don't knock on
my door." And she just let us keep going. Now that doesn't happen very often, but if I would have just
been a jerk and just been like, "Shut up, Karen. Get back in your apartment manager kitchen and
just go away," whatever, that would not have gone very well for me. But when you're nice, oftentimes
it can go well. Look at Proverbs 15.1. It says, "A soft answer turneth away wrath, but grievous words
stir up anger." Oftentimes when these apartment managers come up to you, they're already angry.
They're already angry either because they hate God, that is some of the time, or because they
misunderstand what you're doing. They're not used to seeing people going around knocking on doors.
Maybe they have some sort of security mindset that they're worried about, especially if it's
like two dudes out soul winning alone, you know. And so what you don't want to do is you don't want
to stir up their anger. You don't want to bring grievous words to them and make them even more mad.
You want to have a soft answer that turns away wrath. Now when it comes to an apartment manager
comes up to you and asks you to leave, honestly, that's up to your own discretion. I think you can
make your own decision on that of whether or not you want to stay or you want to leave. Because
sometimes the best thing to do might be like, let's say we have three or four groups at an apartment
and me and a brother out soul winning and an apartment manager comes up and says, "Hey,
you guys need to leave." I might just quickly agree with my adversary so that we could like disarm
their concerns and think that we're the only soul winners there, just so that the other soul winners
can keep going. You know, that happens sometimes where it's like, "Oh, you guys need to leave. Hey,
no problem." And we just go across the street and go soul winning, right? Meanwhile, we have three
other groups in there that are still preaching the gospel that they don't know about. Sometimes that
could be the right thing to do. Go to Matthew chapter 10, Matthew chapter number 10.
There may be other times where you find in your discretion that you want to say, "Hey, you know,
we're not soliciting. We're not doing anything wrong. We're just going to keep, you know, doing
this. We're not breaking the law or anything like that." And just let them call the cops. And we're
going to talk about cops in a minute. Matthew 10 16 says, "Behold, I send you forth as sheep in the
midst of wolves. Be therefore wise as serpents and harmless as doves." What does a serpent do? A serpent
waits for the right opportunity to strike. And sometimes when you go out soul winning and some
apartment manager asks you to leave, you can just have this mentality that, "Hey, this isn't the best
time to strike on this apartment. I'm just going to go across the street where I could just preach
unmolested and come back to this one the next week." I don't think that you're being weak or compromising
your values by doing that whatsoever if you decide to make that decision. Now, what about cops? Look
at verse 17. It says, "But beware of men for they will deliver you up to the councils and they will
scourge you in their synagogues and you shall be brought before governors and kings." Those are
authorities for my sake, for testimony against them and the Gentiles. "But when they shall deliver
you up, take no thought how or what ye shall speak, for it shall be given you in that same hour what
ye shall speak. For it is not ye that speak, but the spirit of your father which speaketh in you.
And the brother shall deliver up the brother to death, and the father the child, and the children
shall rise up against their parents and cause them to be put to death. And ye shall be hated of all men
for my name's sake, but he that endureth unto the end shall be saved. But," notice this, "when they
persecute you in this city, flee ye into another. For verily I say unto you, ye shall not have gone
over the cities of Israel till the Son of Man be come." I believe that the best strategy in dealing
with law enforcement is to avoid legal troubles as much as you can. Why? Because we have right now
religious freedom in America. We can freely preach the gospel. There may come a day where that is
illegal, and at that point obviously we have to take a stand because we ought to obey God rather
than men. But just because you get one cop that doesn't understand the law, that doesn't understand
that we're not soliciting, or some apartment manager that doesn't understand that we're not
soliciting, I think that the best thing to do is just say, "Okay, no problem. We'll go to the next
apartment complex, and guess what? We're coming back again later." It's not like this is our one
chance to ever knock on their door. Look, if someone tells you, if an officer just tells you to leave,
I have no problem with you videotaping, getting their name, getting their information,
submitting a formal complaint against them if they had any wrongdoing whatsoever. I've done
that personally out soul winning. I was, you know, harassed by cops before. I'm sure we all have been.
But at the end of the day, I don't think it's smart to just sit there and allow yourself to
get arrested when you could just walk across the street and preach the gospel. Look, if you,
if we're living in a time where you're getting arrested for preaching the gospel, and you take
a stand for that, I salute you. I have respect for those people. That's a bold stance. But to me,
it's kind of a virtue signaling thing where it's like, I'm going to allow myself to get arrested
right here in this apartment complex because I'm taking a bold stance for Christ. I'm going to go
soul winning. I'm not going to stop preaching the gospel. But it's like, yeah, but you could have just
gone across the street and preach the gospel. No problem. And I'm not saying we're never going to
come back to that apartment because we're coming back. We're coming back. We're going to knock every
door and we will preach the gospel to every creature like Jesus Christ commanded us. But I
don't think it's a good idea to sit there, mouth off to cops. And I haven't seen people doing this
in this church. I'm just saying this so that it doesn't happen in the future. Mouth off to cops,
you know, try to puff your chest out at them, be a jerk to them. No, just be meek, be humble,
agree with thine adversary quickly. Just go to the next apartment. I'm not mad at you if you get
the cops called on you. But I am mad if you're being disrespectful and a jerk to them. If you
get the cops called on you, that's just the cost of doing business preaching the gospel. That's
going to happen a lot. But, you know, if I see people, you know, doing this holier than now fake
spiritual stance where they're just, you know, sitting there fighting a cop, going back and
forth with the cop, being arrested for preaching the gospel when they could have freely done so
across the street. Honestly, I'm not going to be impressed. I'm not going to be pleased with that.
You should obey as long as you can. Now, like I said, if an officer is being, you know, out of lane,
if they're trampling over your rights, if they're doing something illegal,
film them, take their name and badge number, file a formal complaint against them. That's within our
rights to do as citizens. That is a proper channel of getting your grievances addressed with the
government. But don't get yourself arrested for no reason. Doesn't make any sense. We should try to
avoid legal trouble for as long as we can, right? We want to live peaceably with all men.
Last verse we'll go to is Proverbs 11. Proverbs chapter 11.
Proverbs 11 verse 30. We'll end with this verse here. It says, "The fruit of the righteous is a
tree of life, and he that winneth souls is wise." You know, this verse kind of has a double meaning
because if you're a soul winner, you're already showing yourself to be wise in the fact that
you are living for the eternal things. You're caring about people's souls. That is a wise thing to do.
But the other side of this verse is that as you go soul winning, it will make you wise. Why? Because
you're going to be dealing with all sorts of different people. And you know, I can't teach in
one sermon. I can't cover every scenario you're going to encounter, all the different things that
people are going to say to you. So what you need to do is you need to go out soul winning, get some
experience, and also just read the Bible because the Bible has all the answers for that, right?
So us as a church, we need to strive to be a church that has wisdom in how we deal with people. Our
default setting is love. Our default setting is peace. Our default setting is respect. Our default
setting is kindness. But through the scripture, we learn that there's different scenarios that
might cause us to act in different ways. We have to continue to be reading the Bible and going soul
winning to gain more and more wisdom in this area. Let's have a word of prayer. Lord, thank you for
this day. Thank you for our church. And thank you for the fact that we could freely preach the gospel
in this country and in this community. I pray that we would use this freedom to the fullest extent we
possibly can so that we could hang on to this freedom. I pray that every person under the sound
of my voice would have a desire to be a soul winner, that they would join us in preaching the gospel,
that they'd start as a silent partner, and that they could see and learn how to deal with different
types of people out soul winning. And of course, none of us are perfect. I pray that you'd give us
grace as we learn and help us to grow in this area. We love you and you see me pray. Amen.
All right, for our last hymn this evening, turn if you would to number 427. We Three Kings of Orientar.
427. 427. We Three Kings. We'll sing there starting on the first.
Oh, star of wonder, star of night, star with royal beauty bright, westward leading, still proceeding, guide us to thy perfect light. Born a king on Bethlehem's plain,
hold thy brain to crown him again, king forever ceasing, never over us all to reign.
Oh, star of wonder, star of night, star with royal beauty bright, westward leading, still proceeding, guide us to thy perfect light.
Frankincense to offer at by, incense o'er the Deity night, prayer in raising, hope in raising, worship in God on high.
Oh, star of wonder, star of night, star with royal beauty bright, westward leading, still proceeding, guide us to thy perfect light.
Her is mine, his bitter perfume, praise the life of gathering gloom, starving, sighing, pleading, dying, sealed in the stone cold tomb.
Oh, star of wonder, star of night, star with royal beauty bright, westward leading, still proceeding, guide us to thy perfect light.
Glorious now behold him arise, king and God and sacrifice, alleluia, alleluia, peals through the earth and skies.
Oh, star of wonder, star of night, star with royal beauty bright, westward leading, still proceeding, guide us to thy perfect light.