What we accomplish when we're out soul winning and no one gets saved, and usually when I
go soul winning with someone for the first time, obviously I don't go soul winning with
ladies, but when I take a guy out for the first time, I always try to walk new soul
winners through this because I've noticed that a lot of times we get the wrong idea
about soul winning and sometimes people get discouraged because the truth is this, that
you're not going to go out soul winning and get somebody saved every week.
In fact, you may go several weeks without seeing somebody saved and people might think
like, oh, what's the point or this is a waste of time or nothing's happening.
And there are five thoughts that I want to give you just quickly.
I want to help you with this and remind you what is it exactly that we are accomplishing
if we go out soul winning and nobody gets saved.
Now here's the thing, obviously the point is to get somebody saved.
The point is for us to go and present the gospel to someone, explain the plan of salvation
to them, and lead them through a sinner's prayer where they in faith call upon Christ
to save them.
That's the goal, that's what we're all trying to accomplish, and that is what we want to
do.
However, what happens or what are we doing when we don't accomplish that?
And the first thing I want you to notice is that when we go out soul winning and no
one gets saved, you may, maybe you didn't get anybody saved, maybe you didn't do really
any soul winning, but at the very least you've warned people.
And sometimes, you know, we call this soul winning, but I think sometimes we should just
call it soul warning.
Because what the Bible commands us to do is to go out and to warn people and to give them
an opportunity to be saved.
And that's what the Bible says there in Acts chapter 20 in verse 31, we read it, but the
Bible says, Paul said, therefore watch and remember that by the space of three years,
he says, I cease not to warn everyone night and day with tears.
In Colossians 1, and you have to turn there, I'll just read these verses for you.
In Colossians 1 28, the Bible says this, whom we preach, warning every man and teaching
every man in all wisdom that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus.
And I think sometimes when soul winners get this idea that if I don't get somebody saved
this week, then I failed.
You have the wrong idea in regards to soul winning because the only thing that God has
commanded you and I to do is to go out and warn everyone and give them an opportunity
to be saved.
And if you go out on a street and you knock 50 doors, 60 doors, 70 doors, 80 doors, and
you gave those people an opportunity to hear the gospel and none of them took it, you did
not fail.
In fact, you accomplished exactly what you were commanded to do.
You went out and you warned and you gave people an opportunity to be saved.
So when you go out soul winning and you think, well, nobody got saved.
So was that a failure?
Well, as long as you warned people, as long as you gave them the opportunity, as long
as you gave them the opportunity, you said, hey, you know, the Bible says you can know
for sure you're on your way to heaven.
Can I explain that to you?
May I show you that?
And they said, no, as long as you gave them an opportunity, you have accomplished what
you were sent out to do.
But there's another thing that we do when we're out soul winning, not only and nobody
gets saved.
We get to warn everybody that we talk to in regards to hell and the fact that they can
be saved.
But secondly, when we go out soul winning and nobody gets saved, we are being obedient
to what God has commanded us to do.
And you're familiar with these verses.
I'll just read them for you.
Matthew 28 19 says, go ye therefore and teach all nations.
Mark 16 15 says, go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.
The truth is this, you and I have been commanded to go and you say, well, I went out and nobody
got saved.
So you know what?
At the very least, you were obedient to God's command.
And you can look up to heaven and say, God, I've asked, I've done what you've asked me
to do.
I warned people, they didn't want to hear it.
That's between them and you.
They will suffer the consequences of their decisions.
But I've done what I was commanded to do.
So don't feel like you go out today for an hour, two hours, and hopefully you go out
and get somebody saved.
But if you go out today and you say, well, nobody got saved.
At the very least, you warned people and at the very least, you were obedient to God's
commands.
And at the very least, number three, you will be rewarded for the labor that you put out.
And the truth is this, that God, the Bible teaches, and I'll read you a couple of verses.
The Bible teaches that God rewards us for the labor that we do, for the work that we
do.
And we're not saved by works, but we are rewarded based on our works.
And the Bible teaches that God rewards us for our labor.
He does not reward us for who gets saved.
It's not like you get rewards in heaven.
I got a thousand people saved and you got 800 people saved in your lifetime or whatever.
I got 90 people saved and you got 50 people saved.
That's not how it works.
First Corinthians three, verses seven and eight, the Bible says this.
So then neither is he that planted anything, neither he that watereth, but God that giveth
the increase.
And the Bible says, look, when somebody gets saved, God saved them.
It's God who did that work.
Now we get to enter into his labors, but he says, look, whether you planted or whether
you watered, he said, so then neither is he that planted anything, neither he that
watereth.
He says, look, you planted and you watered or you got to play a part in it, you're playing
the same role because in the end of the day, it is God that giveth the increase.
Now he that planted and he that watereth are one.
He says, look, you say, well, I got to plant a seed, great.
I got to water a seed, great.
Today I got somebody saved, I got to reap the seed.
Well, look, you've not done anything different when you take someone through the sinner's
prayer.
You've done nothing different in regards to the rewards you will receive than someone
who maybe just planted the seed.
Because at the end of the day, when somebody gets saved, it is God that gives the increase.
The Bible says, now he that planted and he that watereth are one and every man shall
receive his own reward according to his own labor.
So here's the truth.
When you go out soul winning today, you knock 100 doors, you warn 99 people, one person
wants to hear it and you get them saved, you're going to get rewarded for that.
But if somebody else go out soul winning and they knock 100 doors and they warn 100 people
and none of them want to hear it, they're going to get rewarded for being out there
for the labor because God doesn't reward you for who he gets saved.
God gave the increase.
God rewards you for putting the work out there, for putting the labor out there.
So when you go soul winning and you say, oh, nobody got saved today.
Well, you know what?
I earned some rewards in heaven and I was obedient to the command of going out soul
winning and I warned people and I gave them the opportunity to be saved.
But there's a fourth thing that we accomplish when we're out soul winning.
And it is this, that we get visitors that come to church.
We get visitors that come to church.
You know, today you're going to go out soul winning and maybe you'll not talk to anybody.
No one will give you the opportunity to get saved.
But today between the 80, more people have showed up since I got the count, but 82, 83
people we have out today, we're probably going to give out, I'd say somewhere between 1,000
and 1,500 of these invitations as you knock doors and nobody answers, you just leave them
or you knock doors, somebody answers, you give them an invitation, but they're too busy
to talk or they're on their way out or whatever.
We'll probably give out 1,000, 1,500 of these invitations between today, between Thursday
soul winning, between Sundays soul winning and you say, well, what's the big deal with
that?
Well, here's what we've learned.
We've learned that for about every 1,000 of these invitations that we hand out, we can
count and honestly, and obviously this is just a statistic, but we can count on one
visitor coming to church.
Now that visitor, one visiting unit, for every 1,000 of these that we hand out, we can pretty
much know that we'll have about one visiting unit come to church and I say one visiting
unit because that may be a family of six, that may be one single individual, but someone
will visit as a result of 1,000 invitations being handed out and you say, well, what's
so good about that?
Here's what's good about that, is that we've got a system set up at Verity Baptist Church
where we do our best to make sure that every visitor gets the gospel and you know what's
beautiful about that and what's funny is that some of the workers that we have that help
us in this ministry, they get people saved a lot, visitors after service, they don't
even count those for their own personal salvations.
Now we put those in the bulletin, they don't count them because they're so easy.
Because the truth is that when somebody takes the time to walk through these doors and sit
through a church service, the likelihood of them getting saved is really high because
they're already in a place where they understand that we're talking about spiritual things,
they're already in a place where it's not uncomfortable for somebody to walk up to them
and talk to them about salvation, but here's the thing.
When those soul winners get somebody saved, you took a part in that when you put out a
thousand of these invitations.
So when we put a thousand invitations out and one visitor comes, or one visiting unit,
one visiting family, we put out two thousand of these invitations, two visitors come, two
visiting units, and then they get approached with the gospel and they got saved, you say,
well, I didn't take a place in that.
Or really, because we just read what the Bible says, if you sow, if you water, you're one.
If you take any part in the soul winning process, you're doing the same work, you're getting
the same reward.
If you say, oh, well, nobody got saved today, so I accomplished nothing, no, you've accomplished
a lot because you've gotten the word out about the church and there's, we know statistically
speaking that there's going to be somebody that comes and they're likely to get saved
and they're at least going to be warned with the gospel.
You warn people to preach the gospel.
You have been obedient to the command of God and you have earned rewards in heaven.
Let me give you one fifth reason real quickly, if you would not mind, and that is this.
When you go out soul winning and no one gets saved, you get to fellowship with other believers.
And in Philippians chapter number one in verses four and five, the Bible says this, always
in every prayer of mine for you all making requests with joy for your fellowship in the
gospel from the first day until now.
And you know what I've learned is this, that when people go out soul winning and they get
partnered with somebody and they get partnered with a different individual every week and
they go out, you get to develop friendships, you get to develop relationships, you get
to know people in a way that you really don't get to know them at church because at church,
you know, you come in and maybe you fellowship a little bit before the service and you fellowship
a little bit after service.
But for the most part, you're sitting quietly or singing or hearing preaching.
In soul winning, you get to fellowship with somebody while you're out soul winning.
Sometimes you're having, you know, for me, and this might sound carnal, but sometimes
you're having such a good time fellowshipping, you're hoping somebody doesn't open the door.
You know, you're having a good time, you fellowship with your fellow brother in Christ.
You know, it's kind of an interruption.
And of course we shouldn't see it that way, we're there to preach the gospel.
But what I'm saying is this, if you went out soul winning for a couple hours and nobody
got saved, but you fellowship with your brother in Christ, hey, you've accomplished something great.
God wants you to fellowship with your brothers in Christ.
God wants you to develop friendships.
So don't look at soul winning as a waste of time.
It's never a waste of time to go out and preach the gospel.
And let me let you in on a little secret.
Verdi Baptist Church virtually never goes out soul winning and doesn't get somebody saved.
Now you may go out soul winning this week and not get somebody saved.
But I believe, and I can prove it statistically, and of course there's always an exception,
that with these 80 soul winners, if we were to gather all of you up right after soul winning,
if we had you all meet here in this auditorium at 1 p.m. this afternoon and ask, did anybody
get anybody saved, one of you, at least one of you, and probably multiple of you will
have gotten somebody saved this week.
And it'll happen next week, and it'll happen next week, and it'll happen next week.
And here's the thing.
If it was just you, you'd say, well, I haven't gotten anybody saved in six weeks, this isn't
working.
But it's not you.
We're a church.
We're a family.
We're working together.
There's 80 of us out this morning, 82, 83 of us out this morning, and two or three people
will get saved because all of us went out.
So don't ever feel like, ah, nobody's getting saved.
People are getting saved every week.
As a church family working together, people are getting saved every week.
But even if you individually don't get anybody saved, don't think you've wasted your time
because you've warned people, which is all God has commanded you to do.
You've already won if you've warned the individuals you've given the gospel to because you've
been obedient to the command of going out and preaching the gospel because of the fact
that you have helped pass out invitations, which will produce visitors, which will likely
get saved because you've earned rewards in heaven.
Because God does not reward you for the increase, but he rewards you for the labor and because
you have fellowship with other believers in Christ.
So I hope you'll never look at, I hope you'll never look at soul winning as a waste of time
because it's not a waste of time to go soul winning, even if no one gets saved.
So let's go ahead and bow our heads and have a word of prayer.
Heavenly Father, thank you Lord for your word and thank you for these reminders.
And Lord, I know that we're aware of these things, but it's good to be reminded sometimes
that we are laboring together, not just with you, but with each other.
And the work that we're doing here is an important work and Father, we love you and we thank
you in the matchless name of Christ, we pray, amen.
Amen.