Matthew Stuckey here from Verity Baptist Manila, and I wanted to quickly explain to you 1 Samuel
chapter 30 verses 21 through 24. This is the story of when the Amalekites took all the
supplies from David and his 600 men. What the Bible says in 1 Samuel 30 verse 21,
And David came to the two hundred men which were so faint that they could not follow David,
who they had made also to abide at the brook Bessor.
Now there's two hundred of these six hundred men that are too faint to go to the battle. They
don't have the energy, they don't have the ability to go to the battle. And then the Bible says in
the next verse, Then answered all the wicked men in menabieliel, of those that went with David,
and said, Because they went not with us, we will not give them aught of the spoil that we have
recovered. And so that you have the menabieliel, the children of the devil, the wicked false
prophets, the reprobates, these people are saying, you know what, we shouldn't give them anything
because they didn't go and fight the battle. We're not going to give them the supplies. We're just
going to keep it for the four hundred men. Now this is what David's response is. He says,
you know, you shall not do so, my brethren. He doesn't realize that they're false prophets,
but he says, you shall not do so. But what he says in verse 24 is this, For who will hearken
on you in this matter? But as his part is that goeth down to the battle, so shall his part be
that terrieth by the stuff. They shall part a life. And what he says is that, no, everybody's
going to get an equal share. The four hundred that went to the battle and the two hundred that were
too faint to go to the battle that just stayed and kept, made sure the stuff was taken care of.
Now these verses were preached from from Garrett Kirchway at the Prophecy Conference, and he
preached a sermon on soul winning. Now during the Prophecy Conference, you'd expect the soul winning
sermon to be the one to really motivate you to go soul winning, but it actually did the exact
opposite because he preached something very bizarre where he said in it that, you know,
in a church, if you're someone who doesn't go soul winning, you get just as many rewards as
someone who does go soul winning. He says, you know, he used the story and he says, your parts
shall be alike whether you go to the battle or whether you stay behind. Everybody in a church
gets an equal amount of rewards. Now this is a truly bizarre teaching because throughout the
Bible, it talks about being rewarded for your own personal work and labor that you do. So it's
completely wrong what he said. And I remember when I first heard it, I was just like, what in the
world is he talking about? That's completely not what the Bible teaches. But you know, there's
actually a really important truth that's told in this story because we shouldn't form our doctrine
just based on stories. But you know, the symbolism of the Bible is just amazing, and oftentimes it
can help really illustrate things for us really well. And because he preached something really
bizarre, he missed the great illustrations here. You see, there were 600 men that went,
that were there, and 400 went to the battle and 200 stayed behind. Now the 200 stayed behind
because they were too faint to go to the battle. Now when you look at a church, you know, there's
people that don't go soul winning because they just choose not to, because they're lazy. And
look, you know, in the story, these people weren't lazy, they were too faint to go. They didn't have
the ability to go. But you know what that shows us is this, because God talks also not about being
rewarded for your work, but also about for your heart. And you have to do things for the right
reason. God can actually look down at the heart. It says, man looketh on the outward appearance,
but the Lord looketh on the heart. And you have to realize that as much as we preach, and as much
as I preach about how you need to be soul winning, you need to be out there every week, you need to
be zealously knocking the doors, if you're not soul winning, you're not right with God, there
are some exceptions to that though. You see, there are certain people that are elderly, or they don't
have the greatest health, and the truth is they are too faint for the battle. And some of those
people, they really want to go to the battle. They want to go soul winning, but they don't have the
ability. And the reason why is they just either haven't been blessed with health, or they've aged
a little bit, they just don't have that ability. And look, you have to understand that, you know
what, their part's going to be the same as mine, or yours, or anyone who's a soul winner, if they
have just as much of a love for that as we do. Because God can actually look down at the heart,
and they can be rewarded even though they didn't have the ability to go. Obviously, when you're,
you know, 20 years old, you might be in a little bit better shape than someone who's 70 or 80 years
old. Once you start getting older, your health might start to fail you. But, you know, there's
also a couple other applications. You could look at someone who's maybe really busy in their life,
maybe a stay-at-home mom who's raising five kids. Look, she's not going to be able to go out soul
winning five times a week, like, you know, a single guy is going to be able to, or a single
girl. And so to think that she has to be going out soul winning as much as you if you're a single
person, that's a little bit ridiculous. You know, we ought to worry about ourselves rather than
worrying about someone else. There's certain people too, maybe kids that get saved, and they
want to be in church. They want to serve the Lord, but their parents will not allow them to. And,
you know, God can actually look down at the heart and look at these people and say, wow,
they really want to be involved in the battle. They're just as motivated. They're just as zealous,
but they're just not capable of doing it. So what are some takeaways from this? Well,
one takeaway we have is this. If you are someone who's been blessed with the ability to go soul
winning a lot and to be very zealous about it, and you have good health, you know, use that while
you have the opportunity. There may come a day when your health does fail you one day. There may
come a day when you start to get older and you start having kids and a family and you don't have
as much time to go soul winning. So if you have the time now, use it to the best of your ability.
But the other great application is for maybe, maybe you that are out there and you don't have
the ability to go soul winning, maybe as much as some other people. Look, I don't believe that God
has you here for no reason whatsoever. I believe that if you're here still on earth, he has a
purpose for you. And so I would encourage you to just say, you know, if you can get really involved
in church and see how you can be a blessing to a great Bible believing independent fundamental
Baptist church. And, you know, pray to God that God would open up doors for you that maybe you
don't have the energy to go out soul winning for hours like some other people have, but God can
still use you in a big way. And, you know, it's very important for you to find out what is that
way because you don't want to just be here just kind of like sitting around the rest of your life.
You want to do something with your life. And so, you know, if you don't have the ability to go soul
winning maybe as much as other people, you know, pray to God about how he can open up opportunities
for you and you can still serve the Lord very zealously and be a great benefit for the cause of
Christ and be a blessing to your church. Anyways, I hope that was an encouragement to you. Thank you and God bless.