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["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] We don't want to just have me and my family showing up. That might be awkward for some of these people. The more the merrier for that. It's going to 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 weekend 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 going to be the last Sunday before Christmas. Christmas this year is on a Wednesday. What we'd like to have is kids that are 3 years old to 17 years old. I say 3 if you think that your 3-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. What we're going to do is if you want your children to participate in this, starting next Sunday immediately after the AM service, Brother Cameron is going to lead just a 15-20 minute practice. If you don't mind having your kids participate in that, he's going to be leading that next week. There's going to be 3 songs that they're going to sing. John 3.16 is one of them, but it's the tune of... What is it, Brother Cameron? It is Silent Night. That's a really great one. It's really adorable seeing the kids sing that. There will be a couple others as well, so please participate in that. We're looking forward to that coming up. December 31 is our New Year's Eve party, and that is also a men's preaching night. Please make sure you remember that we're not going to have a Wednesday service that week. Our midweek service is going to be this event on Tuesday. Tuesday is our midweek service for that week. It's going to 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. As usual, our prayer list is on the back. If you have any prayer requests, please let me know. I'll be glad to add those for you. That's going to be it for announcements this evening. Let's go ahead and go to our third song. Alright, 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 lace but a manger, nowhere for his head, No praises of gladness, no thought of their sin, No glory but sadness, no room in the inn, No room, no room for Jesus, O give and welcome free, Blessed you should hear at Heaven's gate, There is no room for me. No sweet consecration, no seeking his part, 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, O give and welcome free, Blessed you should hear at Heaven's gate, There is no room for me. No want to receive him, no welcome while here, No want to repeat him, no staff but a spear, No seeking his treasure, no weeping for sin, No doing his pleasure, no room in the inn, No room, no room for Jesus, O give and welcome free, Blessed you should hear at Heaven's gate, There is no room for thee. Amen. As the offering plates are being passed, turn, if you would, to Matthew chapter 28. Matthew chapter 28. Matthew chapter 28. Matthew chapter 28. In the end of the Sabbath, as it began to dawn toward 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 did shake and 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, lo, 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 from the city. 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 eleven 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. I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. Amen. Let's pray. 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 Holy Ghost. 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 with 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, you know, 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 people, 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 goes 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 the 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 want to find people that are seeking the Lord. And any time 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? Because 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 going to read Second Thessalonians 210. 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 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 you shall find knock and it shall be opened unto you for everyone that asketh receiveth. And he that seeketh findeth. And to him that knocketh, it shall be open. 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 him if you were to die today. Are you 100 percent 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, you know, 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 thirty nine. Jesus said, search the scriptures for in them. You think you have eternal life and they are they which testify of me and he will not come to me that you 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 forty one. I receive not honor for men. Verse forty two. But I know you that you have not the love of God in you. Why is it that these Jews wouldn't get saved? Because 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. They're 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? Because he's going to Jerusalem for worship. Verse twenty eight or twenty seven. 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 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? They're saying I was just reading this. That actually happened in this story. Verse twenty nine. 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 going to 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 want to do is you want to go soul winning. You want to present them with the question. Can I show you this from the Bible? Do you want to 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. Because most of the time people, when they say, Oh, I was just reading this, 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 Bible because 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 want to 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 want to hear the gospel. You know, whatever weird excuses they make up, they don't want to 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 want to spend your time with. Look at verse 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 accept 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 going to open up the Bible. And all of a sudden they're just going to get saved by reading the Bible. That doesn't happen right 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. You know, and I've heard people say that they read the story of Armageddon in Revelation 19 and that they realized they were going to be on the wrong side. And that's how they got saved and didn't happen. That doesn't work that way. I've heard people say that they read Romans one about reprobates and said that that's what caused them to get saved. Nope. That's not what happened either. Romans one actually does explain, though, how someone gets saved. Look at verse 15 and 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 shelf other than just pure laziness, because if you if you understand that it takes soul winners to get people saved, what's the application of that truth? We need to go so many we need to go preach the gospel because that's how people get saved. OK, what's the application of the truth that someone could get saved all by themselves? Are we just going to like start filling up bombers with Bibles and fly over third world countries and just start dropping them Bibles and 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, OK? 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 they go to this, they say, and salvation is 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 him Romans five eight, but God commandeth 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. OK, well, since Jesus is 100 percent man and 100 percent 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 beer. 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 want to tell them about Jesus. I want to 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 fact. OK, 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 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? Doctrines 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 want to 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 thirty six. 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 believe this 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 thirty eight. 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 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, the Philip, he didn't just go away as soon as this person got saved. He also baptized him. He also spent time with him. You know, I think we should exhort people to be disciples. Why? Because the harvest is plenty. But the labors are few. We need more soul winners in this world. We need more soul winners in this church. And how is that going to happen by us making them soul winners? We have to make them soul winners. Go to Acts 16. We're going to 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 want to deal with. This is the best person you could run into outsole 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. Another kid comes up and says, Hey, I want to go to heaven, too. Or just, Hey, what are you guys talking about? What are these invites about? And people just like literally ask you, what must I do to be safe? You ever run into a person that wants you to preach them the gospel? Take that opportunity every single time. Doesn't matter, you know, 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 strayed away. So once again, we see when someone's interested and they want to get baptized and you want to hear the word of the Lord. He didn't just preach in 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 outsole me. The majority of the people you run into will not want to hear the gospel. John three. Sixteen. 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 believe he that believeth 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 men 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 reproofed. There's some people in this world and, you know, 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 reproofed. There's some people that want to live in a lie. You know, 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 want to admit the fact that I'm a sinner. I think I'm a good person. I don't think I deserve help. I just put this off and don't think about it. Then, you know, 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. 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 percent sure if you died 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, you know, I want to hear the gospel. Great. Be super kind. Be thorough. Preach the gospel to them. But if they don't want to 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 want to force the issue to preach the gospel when someone's not interested. And it can get really awkward. You know, the person that they got, they open their door and they're like, thanks. Have a good day. OK. Yep. All right. Yep. And the person is 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 just leave. Just leave. Just go to the next door. Why? Because if someone's not interested, they're not going to 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 them 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's 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 on worthy of everlasting life. Didn't Jesus say to inquire in that city who is worthy? The Jews here. They 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 want to be that way. We want to make sure we actually go to the receptive people. Leave the unreceptive people for so at the Lord commanded us saying, I have set thee to be a light of the Gentiles that thou shouldst 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 in 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're talking about how short life is and how pretty soon we're going to be old and gray. And pretty soon we're going to 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 want to just say like, well, you got a weird look on your face. I'm not even going to 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 going to 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. You know, 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 if I gave you this Bible as a gift, but I said you had to pay me one hundred dollars for it, would it be a gift? Oh, 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 with 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 to gauge the person's understanding. OK, because if you just go through your gospel presentation, you're just assuming they understand things that they don't understand. You're going to get to the end. The person's going to be confused. Let me tell you this. This is a bad question out soul winning that I hear people often say is they'll 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 going to 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 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, OK, let's slow down. Let me show you, you know, 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 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 going to meet that person, that simple person out so 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 going to 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 learn 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 there's purgatory. But I'm showing you the Bible right here. Look what Jesus said. Look what the Bible says. Look at John three sixteen. Look at John three eighteen. Look at Ephesians two eight nine. Look at what it's saying there. And then ask them, hey, you know, 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 every thing that they've heard, because what you don't want is for them to just shut their brain off and agree with you because 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. Second Timothy to second Timothy, chapter two. Now, I said that they're not hopeless, right? We want to try to get these people saved. But there is one thing that you don't want to do with a simple person, and that is engage in their stupidity. That's what you don't want to do. Second Timothy to twenty three says this. But foolish and unlearned questions avoid knowing that they do gender stripes. Don't let some foolish person derail you from the gospel with stupid questions that have nothing to do with the gospel. You want to keep that person's mind focused on what matters. Getting saved. OK, you could just say things like, hey, I'll address that in a minute or, you know, that's really not important to this conversation. You could be really direct with them. And oftentimes they'll just be like, all right, they'll just listen. But you don't want to engage in foolish and unlearned questions. Verse twenty four. 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. OK, you're not there to, you know, show off or make them feel even dumber than they already are. Honestly, you should feel pity for them because there's 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. That's you should actually have love in your heart for that person. Go to Romans 12, Romans chapter number 12. The fourth person that I want to talk about that you're going to 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 or 17 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 him. 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 want to see you get angry. They want to see you get riled up. They want to see that you're getting at them. And what they hate is when you just have no reaction. You're just like, OK, 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 want to make sure that person knows that we're better, smarter, whatever you think you are in your flesh. That's what we want to 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 had 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, you know, 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, you know, 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. OK, 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 and 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 thou turn not thou away. Ye have heard that it have 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 a time to love that person and give that person mercy and grace. That's what Jesus taught. Look at verse 45. That you 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 you love them which love you, what reward have you? Do not even the publicans the same. And if you salute your brethren only, what do you more than others? Do not even the publican. So be ye therefore perfect, even as your father, which is in heaven, is perfect. You know, we're not going to 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 imprecatory prayers against the person that cussed you out while he was drunk on a Sunday afternoon. 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 could actually get saved. You know, if Stephen could pray as he's being said, as he's being stoned, not to have that the sin of those people laid to their charge. You know, we can forgive people outsole 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 outsole winning. And here's one thing I've noticed. And this could be a tip for you. This doesn't work 100 percent of the time. But I've noticed that the number of people that are rude to you that will cuss you out, that will say mean things to you, goes down dramatically when you're sole 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 outsole 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 happened goes down dramatically. Now, there's exceptions to that because that exception happened tonight, I was told, outsole winning. But in general, that is something that happens less. So I would encourage you, you know, to take your family outsole winning, take your children outsole winning. And you probably have a better experience most of the time. The fifth group of people we're going to talk about is the scorner, Proverbs one, Proverbs chapter number one. The scorner. This is one of the worst group of people to deal with. Proverbs one, verse twenty two says this. How long you simple ones will you 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 froward, someone who is contrarian. They are just going to speak against whatever you're saying. They're going to resist your words. They're going to 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 going to 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 froward contrarian person and you're not going to 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 because 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 to be a scorner. OK. And I showed her this. John, 5, 18, or I told her about this, I should say, John 5, 18. 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 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. OK, let me review Colossians 2 16. I also told her about this. Let no man therefore judge you in meat or in drink or in respect of a holy day or of the new moon or of the Sabbath days. 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 has 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, shame, shame, shame or something like that. 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, OK, 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 the. I'm sorry, the froward person. Yeah, the scorner Proverbs three thirty two 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 blesseth 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? Outselling someone wants to be a scorner. Someone wants to just be a jerk and not an act like they know the Bible so much more. 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 nine seven Pro Proverbs nine seven. 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 nine seven says he that reproveth a scorner get it 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 rebuketh a wicked man getteth himself a blot. Notice verse eight. 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 soloing 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 so 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, OK, 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 he doesn't want to be reproved. He doesn't want to actually know what the Bible says. He just wants to look smart. Proverbs 13, verse one. Proverbs 13, verse one. You say, I don't know. I still think I should rebuke a scorner. OK. 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 going to 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 going to 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? 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. You know, 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 is an 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 themselves 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 you 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 to 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. You know, we're going to get to talk 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. 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 than 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 he ever received, let him be accursed. Again, I'm going to 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 going to talk about is what I call the distractor, the distractor. You know, we definitely if you've gone soul winning, 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 Ilimas, 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 could 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. Let's talk about the Nephilim. OK, let's talk about the Flat Earth. All right. OK, Joe Biden, the hologram. Let's talk about it, man. And just like 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, I hear he's calling upon the name of Lord Jesus name. I pray. Amen. All right, let's go. You 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 pull cover in other times. And again, like I said, you want to be as nice as possible outsole winning as much as you possible 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 is also called Paul, filled with the Holy Ghost. So what he's about to do is write, set his eyes on him and said, oh, full of all subtlety and all mischief. Thou child of the devil, thou enemy of all righteousness, wilt thou not cease to pervert the right ways of the Lord? And now behold, the hand of the Lord is upon me 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 of 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, 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're 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. There's like, you know, this is our person. We're here to visit this person, 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? OK, he's 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. You know, 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 that 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 forces answer not a fool according to his folly. Right. We already talked about that. There is 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 you tell me, I 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 reason with themselves, saying, If we shall say from heaven, he will say unto us, Why did you 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 asked 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. You know, 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 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? You know, 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 a 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. OK, stay there. First Timothy one seven 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. You know, 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 is going to say, wow, this person actually knows what he's talking about. And this person doesn't. Well, this person is 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've 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? 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. OK. 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 for the rich Caputo. It's that fast Baptist church. I was soloing 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 handed 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 one. 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 could 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 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 doing this. We're not breaking the law or anything like that. And just let them call the cops. And we're gonna 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 you shall speak, for it shall be given you in that same hour what you shall speak. For it is not you that speak, but the spirit of your father would speak of 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 you 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, you 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, OK, 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 outsole winning. I was 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 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 of 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 thou fake spiritual stance where they're just, you know, sitting there fighting a cop, going back and forth with a 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. It 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 can 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. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Alright, for our last hymn this evening, turn if you would to number 427, We Three Kings of Orientar. Four hundred twenty-seven. Four to seven. We Three Kings will sing their starting on the first. We three kings of Orientar, bearing gifts we traverse afar, Field and fountain, moor and mountain, following yonder star. 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, gold I bring to crown him again, King forever ceasing, never over us all too late. Oh, star of wonder, star of night, star with royal beauty bright, Westward leading, still proceeding, guide us to thy perfect light. Break this sense to offer have I, innocence owns a deity nigh, Prayer and raising, hope and raising, worshiping 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, breathes a life of gathering gloom, Starving, stying, bleeding, 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. Warriors now behold him arise, king and god and sacrifice, Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Heals 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.