What I get you to do is turn to 1 Samuel, 1 Samuel chapter 14.
I'll just get you to turn there. I'm not going to be reading from there immediately, but at least you're open there.
So 1 Samuel chapter 14.
Now this mini sermon is lesson number 4 on soul winning for beginners.
Okay, so for those that were here in the hall watching those videos, videos 1, 2 and 3, this is video number 4.
Okay, so it's going to feel a little bit incomplete to those that haven't seen the other videos, but what I want to cover today is the silent partner.
That's the total for my sermon this afternoon, the silent partner.
So once you've locked in the verses, once you know how to present the gospel with those verses that you saw in those videos, the next thing to do is be a silent partner.
The next thing to do is to get out there with a fellow labourer and pay attention and learn. Just be silent.
You know there's not much more you need to do, but just be there, just be a help and just be silent.
Now what was great about the soul winning today is that how many speakers were there?
Myself, Jason, Callum, Rob and Matthew. Five speakers.
Now let's say only those five were going out knocking doors and we went two by two.
Well you could form one group of two and you could form a second group of three, or you could do two groups of two and one by themselves.
Well you were by yourself a little bit today. Anyway, but with silent partners, with our children, they're present, we were able to form five teams, weren't we?
We were able to double the amount of doors that were knocked, we were able to double the amount of gospel being preached just by having a silent partner on board.
And our kids don't know how to present the gospel, they haven't got the confidence, but how much more effective were we with a silent partner?
How many more doors were knocked, and so once you've got your verses and you're ready to preach the gospel, get out there.
You know, don't worry about practicing role playing in front of a mirror, because you're not going to get the experience unless you're out there and hearing the conversations being had.
Now one of the big mistakes that I made in my life, and I don't want you making the same mistake,
okay, now I gave you some very basic verses, right, to present the gospel in those videos, you're ready to preach the gospel now.
Okay, if you memorize those verses, remember the references, where to go from start to finish, you're ready to preach the gospel.
My big mistake, before, that took me a long time to get out there preaching the gospel is thinking, boy, I'm going to face atheists,
and I'm going to have to explain creationism and debunk atheist arguments, I'm going to face Muslims, and I'm going to have to understand why they believe what they believe,
I'm going to have to face Catholics, I'm going to have to face, you know, all types of people, and I'm going to have to give an answer for everything they give.
And so I spent my time trying to prepare, listening to videos, listening to arguments, all that time wasted, years wasted,
when I should have just been knocking doors and getting my experience out there in the field.
What I learnt was, with all the stuff that I learnt, almost none of it really came into play.
Like, I really didn't need it. All I needed to do was present the gospel and just learn how to make sure we stay on track.
Okay, when someone tries to get me off track, I had to get them back on track of the gospel,
and I had to do that, the second lady that got saved this afternoon, she was going off track a little bit, I had to get her back on track,
I thought I was losing her for a while, but she got it, she got saved, praise God.
And I didn't have to go and argue about her former, well actually the first lady that got saved was a former Jehovah Witness,
and was a former Mormon. I didn't have to worry about what Mormons believed, or what Jehovah Witnesses believed,
I just had to give her the gospel, and she heard it, she believed. Praise God for that.
So you need to be a silent partner, there's only so much preparation that you can do on your own,
you'll gain experience just going out there and listening to what people have to say.
And I'm not saying my way of giving the gospel is the most perfect way, but it's going to get you started.
And as you gain experience, you're going to use other verses, you might even drop some of the verses that I gave you,
and use other things, other analogies, other examples, other ways that make you feel comfortable to present the gospel.
But you'll develop that over time.
Now, why do we go out two by two? Why is it so important?
So let me just give you one reason why we go out two by two.
First of all, Jesus set the example, and I'll just read these to you. Mark 6 verse 7.
And he called unto him the twelve. So who were the twelve? The twelve disciples, the twelve apostles.
He got his twelve apostles, he called unto him the twelve, and began to send them forth by two and two,
and gave them power over unclean spirits. Two and two.
And we have power over unclean spirits. We go with the word of God, we go with the power of the Holy Ghost on our side,
and we are able with the word of God to deflect the devil and his unclean spirits,
presenting the gospel with truth and sincerity.
But it wasn't just the twelve disciples that he sent out two and two. In Luke chapter 10 verse 1,
did you know Jesus had another seventy apostles with him?
Now you probably don't even know their names, but he had another seventy that he appointed in Luke chapter 10 verse 1.
Sorry, yeah, Luke chapter 10 verse 1. After these things, the Lord appointed other seventy also.
Right? Now we were out, how many of us, there was five groups, we had nine sole winners, right? At one time.
We were almost made the twelve. Like the twelve that went out two and two.
I want to get to the point where we have seventy. Seventy people going out. That would be thirty-five teams.
Can we do that? Can we grow from the twelve to the seventy? I think we can.
I think in due time we can. I'm not saying tomorrow, but we continue doing the Lord's work.
He will add to our church, and we will be able to grow and keep knocking doors in this area.
Sorry, I didn't even finish what I was reading.
But after these things, the Lord appointed other seventy also,
and sent them two and two before his face into every city and place whither he himself would come.
So before Jesus would come, he would send his disciples, he would send those seventy before he got there.
Hey, we're doing the same thing. Jesus is sending us there.
We're introducing them to Jesus, and then we're saying, hey, receive him.
Receive Jesus Christ the same way these people were presenting the gospel at that point.
But another reason why two go in pairs is great is because in Ecclesiastes chapter four verse nine it says,
two are better than one. Two are better than one.
And you might say, yeah, but you were out with Sebastian, your six-year-old. He can't do anything.
Me and Sebastian were better than if I was just by myself.
Two were better than one, because they have a good reward for their labour.
Pay attention to that, kids. Their labour.
Sometimes when I go with my kids and we see someone saved, I say to my kids, you got them saved.
They're like, no, Dad, it was you. No, we're a team.
It says here, because they have a good reward for their labour.
We're labouring together. Silent partners with the experience.
Guys, you know, that's the next step. Become a silent partner.
Help us to grow, and you are going to enter into the labours of the preacher.
You're going to be rewarded with the preacher.
What's a better reason to go soul winning than getting those eternal rewards?
Trust me, when you're in heaven, you're going to want to wish you had more rewards than what you get.
Now, let me give you some other just practical reasons why having a silent partner is great and why it helps.
Well, the Bible just said there that your labour and reward is greater.
So it's greater than what one person can do.
But secondly, they are there to assist you.
A silent partner is there to help you.
Now, in Ecclesiastes chapter 4 verse 10, so the next verse after that one that said two are better than one,
it says, for if they fall, so if one of you fall, the other will lift up his fellow.
So he's a fellow helper.
But woe to him that is alone when he falleth, for he hath not another to help him up.
Now, just think about that practically.
Let's say I'm out there soul winning by myself.
I don't know, I hurt myself, I trip over, I get hit by a car, whatever.
I don't have any helpers there.
I'm going to be worse off than having someone there that knows me and that can provide aid.
Just from a practical point, we can get hurt.
We're going out there knocking doors, we're crossing the street.
Who knows in what way we can get hurt.
But hey, if we have a helper with us, they can be there to assist us if anything goes wrong.
They are there to assist.
Another reason why a silent partner is great is for protection from false accusations.
Protection from false accusations.
I never enter into a house if I see a single mum or a single lady.
Sometimes people will invite you into our house, but I will never do that.
I will just stay at the door.
But if you've got a silent partner, hey, they can't accuse you of anything.
They can't say, this happened, or if there's a fight, if there's an argument,
and they can claim, well, this happened.
Well, no, the partner there, you've got two witnesses saying the truth,
and you can protect yourself from false accusations.
Instead of being one word versus one word, it's one versus two words.
So there's protection in that sense.
Protection from false accusation.
Another great reason to have a silent partner is because the silent partner can be praying for you.
And that's what you should be doing as a silent partner
if the preacher's given the gospel to someone at the door.
Hey, be praying for them. Be praying. Intercede for them.
Ask the Lord to reveal these things to the person that's here in the gospel.
And ask the Lord to give the preacher wisdom and courage and boldness to continue
convincing that person of their need for a saviour.
So you have someone there praying with you at all times, continuously praying for you.
If you're a silent partner and you haven't been praying for the other person,
get that into your cycle, into your system.
It's something that's very, very important.
Another great reason for a silent partner is for the silent partner to give you feedback.
And even if you're brand new at this as a silent partner,
you can give an experienced preacher good feedback.
Because you know why? When you're preaching the gospel,
you're so focused on trying to get this message out, sometimes you don't see the big picture.
And the silent partner can see what's going on.
The silent partner can see how that person's reacting.
And they can give great feedback.
Don't get offended if someone that's less mature than you,
someone that's less experienced than you, gives you feedback.
And the experienced person should be giving feedback as well to that one that is less experienced.
Please ask for feedback.
Don't get annoyed if someone's just there trying to help you and say,
hey look, I noticed this happened, I think you could have done better if you'd done it this way.
I appreciate the feedback that I've heard people tell me about my preaching.
And again, it doubles the efforts.
Doubles the efforts.
Twice as much soul winning.
Twice as many people going out, knocking the doors.
Silent partner is an important part of the soul winning ministry.
You're not nobody. You're important.
And guess what? It's not just doubling the efforts, it's quadrupling the efforts.
Because when you're ready to preach the gospel,
then you can go out and you can get a silent partner.
And that silent partner will be now training and learning how to preach the gospel.
So while you're doubling the efforts, you're also getting prepared to quadruple those efforts.
Alright, now you guys are in 1 Samuel 14 verse 6.
1 Samuel 14 verse 6.
I wanted to take an Old Testament story and apply this to the silent partner.
I know it's not a perfect analogy, okay?
But I think there is a lot that we can learn from this story in 1 Samuel 14 verse 6
and apply it to you being a silent partner.
Okay, let's look at this.
Verse number 6.
And Jonathan said to the young man that bear his armor.
Do you guys know who Jonathan is?
That was the son of King Saul, one of David's best friends.
A great soldier.
He was a captain, a great man of war, okay?
Jonathan said to the young man that bear his armor.
So we have Jonathan who's experienced.
And we have then a young man, someone who's inexperienced, right?
Who's helping him.
He bears his armor.
Back in those days, you know, a soldier, someone that was experienced to fight
would not carry all their weapons by themselves.
Because if they took it with them by themselves and they got to the war,
they got to the fight, they'd be tired.
They'd been carrying their armor the whole way.
They'd been carrying the weapons the whole way.
So they had an armor bearer to help them carry the weight.
And that's what you should be doing as a silent partner.
Hey, you know, when I take my kids, I get my kids to carry the tracts.
I get my kids to carry the Bibles.
I get my kids to carry the water.
You're laboring together, okay?
You're the armor bearer, kids.
You know, if you're the silent partner or anyone else that's trying to learn,
be the armor bearer.
Help the other person. Carry what you can.
I remember one of the first times I took Matthew Saul in.
And Matthew had a backpack.
And I didn't have much.
What did I have? A Bible and a few tracts.
And Matthew had drink, he had water, he had all this stuff.
And he goes, oh, I got ready for Calum because Calum's never prepared.
That's so true.
You know, he was the armor bearer.
He was ready to get into the fight.
And now he's preaching the gospel on his own.
Praise God for that.
So, where am I reading from?
Verse 6.
Oh, look what Jonathan said to the armor bearer.
Come and let us go over unto the garrison of these uncircumcised.
It may be that the Lord will work for us,
for there is no restraint to the Lord to save by many or by few.
So Jonathan's experience was, hey, let's go to the Philistines garrison and let's go fight for us.
And if the Lord's for us, we're going to win whether we're many or we're few.
And you are few. You're two.
Okay, there's two of you, but you can go into the fight and save souls from hell.
All right.
Now, you might be thinking as a silent partner, yeah, but I'm not really helping.
I'm telling you, no, you're a huge help, first of all.
You're a huge help.
Okay, but if you think you're not even helping, look at verse number 7.
1 Samuel 14, verse 7.
And that's what you ought to be as a silent partner.
You're going to say to the preacher, hey, I'm with you.
You want to go knock doors, I'm going to be there with you.
Okay, what you want to do, hey, I'm ready to go and get into this fight with you.
And we need the encouragement of the silent partners.
It's so much harder to go soul winning just by yourself.
But when you've got someone with you, man, you can encourage one another, right?
Jonathan's like, let's go.
The silent partner, the arm and barrier is like, yeah, let's do it.
And, you know, when you got those two, yeah, the two are better than one.
Okay, you're going to get out there, you're going to be more encouraged,
you're going to be more motivated to go knock doors and preach the gospel.
Verse number 13. Drop down to verse number 13.
He's climbed up upon his hands and upon his feet and his armor bearer after him.
So they go to the garrison, they get up, they're going to get ready to fight.
And they fell before Jonathan and his armor bearer slew after him.
So Jonathan's the experienced fighter, right?
He's the experienced soldier.
He gets up and starts killing these Philistines or at least injuring them.
He knocks them down.
What does the armor bearer do?
The armor bearer is not leading the fight.
But notice when Jonathan knocks down his enemies, it says,
and his armor bearer slew after him.
So think about this.
And you'll see soon, let's have a look, where is it?
It's in verse 14 that they killed 20 men.
Just two of them.
Two of them killed 20 men of the Philistines, okay?
Now this is what was happening.
Jonathan was going as the experienced fighter.
He was fighting, knocking down the Philistines.
And then instead of finishing them off, because he's going to get distracted,
he's focusing on the next fight, the next man that's coming to fight him.
And he's going to fight that person.
But in those days, they didn't have guns and stuff like that.
Someone could be injured, but they could still get up and fight.
So the armor bearer, when he'd see someone that's injured, he would slay them.
He would take care of business so they wouldn't be able to get back up and fight against Jonathan.
Jonathan was focused on taking on the next enemy.
And that's what your job is as a silent partner as well.
Is to help the preacher not be distracted.
To help the preacher be focused on getting the job done.
We're not killing anybody.
We're not going into warfare in that sense and shedding blood.
But we are presenting the blood of Christ so they would be saved.
So they would be saved from hell.
This is a spiritual fight.
If you're saved, whether you like it or not, you've been enlisted into the Lord's army.
You've been enlisted to fight the good fight for the Lord Jesus Christ.
Look at verse 13.
And that first slaughter which Jonathan and his armor bearer made.
I just want you to notice those words.
Because these are the words of the Holy Ghost.
These are the words of God.
Does God look at this fight and say Jonathan did a great job?
Is it Jonathan that's getting all the glory?
Is it Jonathan that's getting the mention?
No.
And that first slaughter which Jonathan and his armor bearer made.
No doubt Jonathan had the greater fight.
No doubt that he was leading the fight and the armor bearer was just slaying people that were already injured.
But God says that it's a slaughter and he recognizes that it was Jonathan and his armor bearer.
Okay, you're the silent partner.
God looks down and says yes, the preacher and the silent partner got these people saved.
They did the work together.
So the silent partner is numbered with the leader.
You will receive rewards for the work you did together.
It is a team effort.
And again, I'm talking to my kids here.
It's a team effort.
I need you out there.
And if you guys say to me, my kids, I'm talking to my kids right now.
If you say to me, Dad, let's go soul winning, I'll take you soul winning.
You'll motivate me.
You'll encourage me to go out there.
And I want to take you because I want to see you guys to grow up and one day be a greater soul winner than any of us here in this church.
I want you to be greater than us.
I want your generation to be greater than our generation.
So Ecclesiastes 4 verse 9.
Actually, before I read that, I'll finish off with that one.
But we're talking about distractions, right?
We're talking about the armor bearer taking down the enemy so they wouldn't get back up and distract Jonathan in the fight.
That's your job as the silent partner, okay?
Now, I can think of one example.
Matthew, you might remember this.
When we were...
What was the beer while we were soul winning together?
Matthew was preaching the gospel to an old man.
And the old man had a flat tire.
I was the silent partner. What did I do?
What did I do?
I was changing the tire.
I was changing the old man's tire so he could just pay attention to the gospel being preached by Matthew.
Okay?
That's what you do.
You get rid of the distractions, right?
A dog starts barking.
Hey, you know, make the dog happy.
You know, distract...
You know, when we were...
Rob, you might remember also when we went to that town in Cherbourg, you were talking to one of the ladies.
You gave her a full gospel and she had a little kid.
So what did I do as a silent partner?
I just went to play with a little kid because he was making a lot of noise.
He was distracting mum.
I went, no, mum needs to focus.
Mum needs to concentrate.
Rob needs to be able to focus to give the gospel.
I'm going to go and play with a little kid, right?
Hey, that's your job as a silent partner.
Get rid of the distractions.
Slay the ones that are already taken down, right?
Get rid of those distractions so the preacher can focus on the work.
I mean, there's so many...
I'll give you another example.
I remember in the church in Punchbowl where one of the guys...
I was a silent partner.
He was preaching the gospel to a lady at the door and he was halfway through the gospel.
She seemed really keen to hear the gospel.
Then her husband came out the door and said, what's going on?
And instead of allowing him to come out and distract in the conversation,
I went to the husband and started talking to him, oh, we're from a local church, blah, blah, blah.
And I started to give him the gospel.
At the end of it, she got saved and he got saved, right?
But if I let him distract the conversation, it's possible that neither of them could have been saved.
Your role as a silent partner is huge.
It's important.
But first of all, of course, I'm not expecting you to give the gospel straight away.
Just get out there, double the efforts, double the work just by being quiet and learn and grow.
And I promise you this, at some point, you're going to be sick of being a silent partner
and you're just going to be like, let me take the next door.
Let me try it.
I promise you, you're going to get to that point where you'll be like, let me just do it.
I'll do it.
And at that point, you're pretty much ready to go.
I do want to say just one little thing as well.
As a silent partner, please don't, remember, the alma vera took care of the fallen,
so Jonathan wouldn't be distracted by the fight.
Don't distract the preacher.
There's been times where I've taken someone with me who's meant to be the silent partner
and I'm giving the gospel and they're interrupting me.
They think they've got a great thought, and it might be a great thought,
but then they think, ah, maybe I'll say my great thought, but it distracts me.
I don't know where you're going with that.
Like, I've got a plan.
I've got something that I want to do, but the silent partner wants to talk over me.
It's distracting. Don't be that way.
It's called the silent partner because you're silent.
And let me tell you this, even though I'm experienced
and if I have someone that's less experienced with me, but I let them to do the talking, I'll be silent.
Even if I think I could do a better job than that, no, I'm going to refrain and I'll be silent.
There's been times where I've had someone less experienced, they're trying to give the gospel,
and then they turn to me like, help, you know, with their eyes, you know, help.
I don't know what to do.
I don't interrupt.
I'm like, nah, you've got to go through it.
You've got to experience it.
You've got to do it.
You've got to learn.
I mean, if you take over, they're not going to learn, right?
I'll only help if it's like a disaster.
Like, if you just start preaching heresy or something, then I'll step in.
But if you're just struggling with it, no, look, you've got to learn, okay?
A fight's not easy.
Being a soldier is not easy.
It's hard work.
It's something we all need to do.
So the silent partner, again, I'll just finish with Ecclesiastes 4.9.
Two are better than one because they have a good reward for their labor, their labor, their labor.
You want to start earning treasures in heaven, those that are inexperienced
and don't know how to preach the gospel, you want to start getting treasures in heaven.
There's no greater treasure in heaven than souls that are saved from hell.
You want to start doing that?
Just be a silent partner.
Just come along and be quiet.
Okay, let's pray.