The title of my soul-winning tip today is, don't be a convenient soul-winner.
So I've got three points I want to go over with you on how to not be a convenient soul-winner,
or why we are not supposed to be a convenient soul-winner.
You see, point number one is this.
We are commanded to know, as in we are commanded to know what the gospel is.
In Ezekiel chapter 3, we have an Old Testament major prophet, right?
And in chapter 3, we have the Lord passing his words through the mouth of Ezekiel.
Ezekiel 3, 1 says this, Moreover he said unto me, Son of man, eat that thou findest, eat
this roll, and go speak unto the house of Israel.
Verse 2, So I opened my mouth, and he caused me to eat that roll.
And he said unto me, Son of man, cause thy belly to eat, and fill thy bowels with this
roll that I give thee.
Then did I eat, and it was in my mouth as honey for sweetness.
You see, the Lord is filling Ezekiel with his words.
He's filling Ezekiel with the words that he wants him to preach.
Likewise, the Lord, in the New Testament, we are given the words that we are to preach
as well.
The Lord has filled us with the words he wants us to preach.
In 1 Corinthians 15, we have, Moreover, brethren, I declare unto you the gospel which I preached
unto you, which also ye have received, and wherein ye stand, by which also ye are saved,
if you keep in memory what I preached unto you, unless you have believed in vain.
For I delivered unto you, first of all, that which I also received, how that Christ died
for our sins, according to the Scriptures, and that he was buried, and he rose again
the third day, according to the Scriptures.
You see, God wants us, and God has commanded us to keep the words of the Lord in our mouth,
in our memory, in our mind.
We are supposed to know what the gospel is.
And in 1 Peter 3.15, it says, But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts, and be ready
always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in
you with meekness and fear.
You see, we are supposed to be ready to give a person the reason why we know we are going
to heaven, the reason why we know that we are saved.
You see, we need to get up off our butts, and we need to study the Bible and learn the
gospel presentation.
If you haven't done that, you need to do that.
Proverbs 4.20 says, My son, attend to my words, incline thine ear unto my sayings.
Let them not depart from thine eyes, keep them in the midst of thine heart.
You see, not only are we supposed to know these words, not only has God given us these
words, but look, we've also been given pastors to teach and to preach to us those same words
too.
Ephesians 4.11 says, And he gave some apostles and some prophets and some evangelists and
some pastors and teachers for the perfecting of the saints for the work of the ministry,
for the edifying of the body of Christ.
Look, there's no excuse for not knowing the gospel presentation.
If you're here today, you need to at least know it.
All right?
If you're saved, you should know the gospel.
There is no reason not to.
And secondly, I want you to know that not only are we commanded to know, but we are
also commanded to go.
We are commanded to go preach the gospel as well.
We have the Great Commission, Matthew 28.19, Go ye therefore and teach all nations, baptizing
them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost.
Look, God wants us to preach that gospel to the whole world, right?
He wants us to go out and get people saved.
You see, Very Baptist Church has started five different churches in its lifetime, right?
We've gone on multiple mission trips.
We've gone up and down California.
We've gone to Mexico.
We've gone to the Philippines.
Look, we have an online ministry that touches multiple households all across the world.
It's an untold number.
You know, Very Baptist Church is responsible for thousands and most likely tens of thousands
of souls having been won to Christ.
I'm talking about tens of thousands that have had their eternal destination changed from
eternal hellfire to eternal life, eternal life in heaven, right?
However, in the Old Testament here, in Ezekiel chapter three, we see this.
We see that Ezekiel wasn't sent to the world, right?
No.
In verse four, we see that he was sent to his own nation of Israel.
Ezekiel 3.4 says this, And he said unto me, Son of man, get thee under the house of Israel
and speak with my words unto them.
Ezekiel wasn't sent to the world.
Verse five, For thou art not sent to the people of a strange speech and a hard language, but
to the house of Israel.
God didn't send Ezekiel to the Philippines.
God didn't send Ezekiel to Mexico.
He sent Ezekiel to the house of Israel, to people that were like him.
He wasn't sent to a receptive nation.
He was sent to a hardened nation.
He was sent to an impudent and disrespectful nation, like Sacramento, right?
Not only that, but in verse seven, God is telling Ezekiel that Israel won't even listen
to him.
God's saying, look, you're going to go to Israel and you're going to preach the gospel
to them and they're not going to listen.
Verse seven, But the house of Israel will not hearken unto thee, for they will not hearken
unto me, for all the house of Israel are impudent and hardhearted.
See, God's saying he knows they're not going to listen to you.
He knows it seems fruitless to preach them the gospel.
He knows they're just going to mock and laugh at you and they're going to persecute you.
You know, they're going to protest you.
They're going to stand out in front of the church and yell at you.
He says, but I want you to go anyways.
I want you to go out and preach them the gospel anyways.
You know, sure, Verity Baptist Church has changed the eternal destination of tens of
thousands of people, right?
All over the world.
But did you know that there are still tens of thousands of people right here in Sacramento?
There are still tens of thousands more souls in this hardened area of Sacramento.
They're dying and going to hell because we have soul winners that would rather show up
when the soul winning is what?
When it's easy, when it's convenient.
When the weather's nice.
When you know you're going to get somebody saved.
See look, there are people that need to hear the gospel when it's raining.
There are people that need to hear the gospel when there's a billions of degrees outside
right in the middle of summer.
There are people that need to hear the gospel in North Natomas.
Look, Verity Baptist Church didn't affect the world by preaching only to YouTube.
No.
Verity Baptist Church got there by starting right here.
It got there with Saturday soul winning.
It got there by people like you and me taking the time on Saturday morning to go out and
preach the gospel to a bunch of impudent and hard-hearted people.
It takes people going out to the heart in North Natomas.
Takes people going out to North Highlands, to South Sacramento.
Going out knowing you're going to get mocked and ridiculed.
It's not just the poor and hopeless people that need to hear that gospel either, right?
No.
It's those stuck up rich folks in Natomas.
They need to hear it too.
It's those gangsters hanging out on the street corner.
You know, it's those folks pouring out of them Catholic churches, right?
It's even those little old ladies that are so bent up on saying, once saved, always saved
is not real.
You know, you got to do works and they'll chase you down the road for it too.
But the point is, there are people that God knows are going to reject the gospel, right?
He knows they're not going to listen.
He knows they're going to end up dying and going to hell.
But he still wants you to go preach it to him.
Now, my third point is this, and really my third point is a question, why?
Why does he want you to do that?
Why does he want you to go waste your time and talk to these people?
You see, Ezekiel 3 17 says this, Son of man, I have made thee a watchman unto the house
of Israel.
Therefore, hear the word at my mouth and give them warning for me.
When I say unto the wicked, thou shalt surely die and thou givest him not warning, nor speakest
to warn the wicked from his wicked way to save his life, the same wicked man shall die
in his iniquity, but his blood will I require at your hand.
Yet if thou warn the wicked and he turn not from his wickedness, nor from the wicked way,
he shall die in his iniquity, but thou hast delivered thy soul.
You see, why do we need to go out and preach the gospel to these people?
You know, because if we refuse to go, if we refuse to give them the gospel, if you knock
on somebody's door and you're like, I'm not going to waste my time, I'm not going to give
them a chance, look, their blood's on your hands.
You know, nobody dies and goes to hell because of God.
People die and go to hell because of us, because of us not actually taking the opportunities
when we see them to give these people the gospel.
That's what this is about.
It's called the parable of the watchman.
You know, we need to be our, God's made us watchmen to our Israel.
Where's our Israel?
That's sacramental.
That's here.
That's your hometown.
You know, that's your street.
That's your Israel.
We've been given the gospel.
We've been given the ministry of reconciliation.
It's our jobs to make sure that everybody hears the gospel.
Look, we have to be willing to give the gospel unto all men, not just those when we feel
like it, when we think we know they're going to get saved, when it's convenient for us.
We need to do it all the time, every time.
We are not called to be Saturday soul winners.
We are called to be 24-7 soul winners, preaching to everybody we can, everybody we see.
2 Timothy 2, 1 says this, Thou therefore my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ
Jesus.
Verse 3, Thou therefore endure hardness as a good soldier of Christ.
We are enlisted in God's army.
That's what we're called to do.
We're going to go out to battle in a few minutes.
Let's be prepared to give people the gospel, whether we think they're going to hear it
or not.
It's not up to us.
It's up to them as to whether or not they're going to choose to die and go to hell.
I don't want it to be on my hands, and you guys shouldn't want it to be on yours.
Let's close in a word of prayer.
Dear Heavenly Father, Lord, I pray that as we go out today that you work in our hearts,
that you put your words in our mouth, that you give us the strength and the protection
we need, Lord, to be the soul owners you would have us to.
In Jesus' name I pray.
Amen.