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In Jesus' name, amen. Amen. Okay, so keep a finger in Acts chapter 4 and turn to Ephesians chapter 6, please. So keep a finger there in Acts 4 or a bulletin or a ribbon or something or other and then turn over to Ephesians, the book of Ephesians in chapter 6. The book of Ephesians in chapter 6. And we're going to look from verse 10. So Ephesians chapter 6 and verse 10, which is a passage we've looked at a lot several weeks back. We went through a series on the whole armour of God. Look from verse 10 just to remind you of this passage where it reads, Ephesians 6 and verse 10, Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of his might. Put on the whole armour of God that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. Wherefore take unto you the whole armour of God that you may be able to withstand an evil day, and having done all, to stand. Stand therefore, having your loins girt about with truth, and having on the breastplate of righteousness, and your feet shoddered with the preparation of the gospel of peace. Above all, take the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked. And take the helmet of salvation, the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints. And for me, that utterance may be given unto me, that I may open my mouth boldly to make known the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in bonds, that therein I may speak boldly as I ought to speak. And the title of my sermon this morning is The Key to Effective Soul Winning. The Key to Effective Soul Winning. I'd like to pray before we continue. Father, thank you for your word. Thank you for these great passages of scripture that we've just gone through. And Lord, just how much we can learn from them. Please help me to just teach this message. Preach this message, Lord, that you've laid on my heart just clearly and in a way that everyone's going to really take from it and hopefully go away and apply it to their lives, to their soul-winning lives, especially, Lord. Please just fill me with boldness. Fill me with the Holy Spirit, Lord, and help me to just preach clearly, accurately, in a way that's edifying. In Jesus' name, we pray. Amen. Okay, so here in Ephesians chapter 6, the apostle Paul warns us that our fight isn't with flesh and blood but is a spiritual battle. And that can seem strange, can't it? When you have flesh and blood, individual people attacking you in some way or other to hinder God's word, which everyone here will have experienced. But whether it's a false prophet or the problem colleague and family member or the weirdo out soul-winning, they definitely seem pretty flesh and blood to me, right? Okay, they don't seem like ghosts or anything else. But the reality of it is that it's often the devils in them that are the adversary. Okay, that's the truth of it. They're just a useful vessel of sinfulness. Okay, that's how it works a lot of the time. Their pride, their maliciousness, their envy, their hatred of God, all of it is used by spiritual wickedness. He goes on to show us how to win that battle, doesn't he, with the whole armour of God, the belt of truth, the breastplate of righteousness, the shield of faith, the helmet of salvation, the sword of the Spirit. I missed one. What did I miss? Verse 15, Part of your armour is your footwear and in the spiritual war, it's going out to preach the gospel. Okay, that's part of your spiritual armour, it's going out to preach the gospel. That's a big part of our attack plan, isn't it? That's part of our battle plan. We go out and preach the gospel and if you're saved, this is written to you. Okay, because there's a lot of falsehoods out there, a lot of lies out there in Christianity about who should be preaching the gospel. Ephesians 1-1 says, So this letter is written to the saints, which is, by the way, not some, you know, people at the Catholic Church who have given special names to, that's everyone that's saved, to the faithful in Christ Jesus. They're people saved in church. Preaching the gospel isn't just reserved for those in the ministry or for those with the gift of evangelism. You ever heard people come out with that one, well, I just don't have the gift of evangelism. No, it's for everyone. Okay, this letter is written to everyone and there's many other places in the Bible where we can see that as well. When speaking to the saints, the saved, like we said, the faithful church members here, Paul told them to put on the whole armour of God, didn't he? He said put on the whole armour of God and part of that is your feet shod or shooed with the preparation of the gospel of peace. And by the way, going out and preaching the gospel includes just being a silent partner. You are part of a pair. We go out in pairs. Jesus Christ sent them out in pairs. For us, there's many good reasons for that aside from the fact, the most important one is that Jesus Christ sent out the disciples in pairs to preach the gospel and if you're a silent partner in a pair, you're half a pair preaching the gospel. Okay, so look, it's all the same. So if you're sitting there going, yeah, but I just don't know, you know, I don't know if this is me, I don't know if I could do that, go out as a silent partner. Great, we've got half a pair. For me, look, there really is no excuse. However, with that as well, you can go too far with that. If you're a new Christian or you're new to this sort of church, this sort of preaching because sadly most churches aren't preaching this, then look, as long as you're on the right run, you're on the right way and you're thinking, okay, one day in the future, maybe you want to grow and get to that point. Great, we don't want to put you off. We're not going to force anyone to do it. However, preaching the gospel is a command to all Christians. Okay, it is a command to all Christians. However, for many, it doesn't come naturally, does it? Some people it does. Okay, some people are those sorts of people, but for many, it doesn't. For many, knocking on a stranger's door or stopping a stranger in the street to see if they want to hear the gospel, it doesn't sound like much fun. That's the truth, isn't it? For many, they don't go, that just sounds amazing. Well, great fun knocking on some random person's door in often rough neighbourhoods and places like that and offering to preach the gospel. It can sound scary, can't it? And do you want to know another fact, yeah? A lot of the minority of Christians that actually go soul winning haven't actually conquered that fear yet. Did you know that? Just because they go doesn't mean they've actually conquered the fear. Okay, it means that they're able to go, that they're going out and something is inspiring them or convicting them or whatever it is to go. It doesn't mean that they've conquered the fear. And the ones that have, by the way, that have conquered the fear, at least at times, or maybe today, they might not have fear, will possibly have times in the future when they do have the fear. There will be places, there will be times, there will be reasons why they get a bit fearful going out, they get a bit anxious or something else. And guess who's waiting to capitalise on that? Guess who's waiting? Those principalities, powers, those rulers of the darkness of this world, that spiritual wickedness in high places. Whether it's the news stories popping up about violent assaults on so-called Christians standing on their soapboxes in the high street, usually preach repent of your sins or something else, yeah? Whether it's stories about that or the devil that just belittles you on that first door, you knock. You ever had that? First door, you knock. And it's just someone that just puts you straight down, just makes you feel just completely like you're something they've just trodden in. And it can affect people, can't it? And suddenly you're on a kind of downer for the rest of that soul winning. But guess what? You're not alone, okay? You're really not. If that's you, if you're there going, no, I find it hard, yeah, I got soul winning. I find it tough, I feel a bit anxious, I feel nervous, I feel scared, I regularly get that feeling, I don't feel bold when I'm soul winning. You're not alone. All of us have times that we need more courage, more strength. When we need boldness, Paul told them to put on the whole armour of God, he then said to pray. And he said this, he said, Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the spirit, and watching thee unto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints, and for me, that utterance may be given unto me, that I may open my mouth boldly to make known the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in bonds that therein I may speak boldly, as I ought to speak. You know what Paul's saying? He's saying, while you're at it, yeah, please pray for me. He said, please pray for me. Pray that I'll have the word to say, that I'll open my mouth boldly to preach the gospel. That's what he's saying, isn't he? He said, I'm an ambassador, but I need your prayers. I need your prayers. Paul needed people's prayers, okay? He wasn't just, yeah, well, the apostle, the apostle Paul was a great man of God, wasn't he? He still needed people to pray for his boldness. And we're all ambassadors here, and we need each other's prayers, don't we? We all need the same. Anyone think they're better than the apostle Paul? Because I know I'm not. We all need prayers for boldness. He said, I need prayers that I may speak boldly, as I ought to speak. Yeah, we should have the boldness. We should speak the gospel boldly. We ought to do that. However, we're all sinful flesh, and we're all going to have times when we find that hard. The title is The Key to Effective Soul Winning. And that key for me is boldness. That's the key to effective soul winning, okay? For many years of soul winning now, and being around people's soul winning, and many different types of people's soul winning, for me, the key is boldness. It's not about how eloquent you are. It really isn't. It's not about how good your analogies are. I mean, we've had people here in the past, I mean, they had all sorts of amazing analogies, but that's not what it's about. It's not about how obscure the verses are that you've managed to find that no one else is going to use, yeah? It's not any of that. The key is boldness. It really is. But before we continue, let's just caveat this quickly, because you always have to do this with things like that. There's boldness, and then there's also arrogance, okay? There's also bullying on the door, bullying off the door, bullying in parks, bullying children and everything else, okay? And there's a difference. Boldness is confidence in the message, yeah? The message that you're preaching, as opposed to arrogance about the way you preach it, okay? There's a difference, isn't there? I'm bold in the message of Jesus Christ, but what I shouldn't be is arrogant about the way I preach that message, yeah? Okay, and there's a difference there. Boldness is confidence that there are people that want to hear it, rather than forcing people to hear it. Again, there's a difference, yeah? It should be bold that, yeah, there's going to be someone out there, when I go knocking today, that wants to hear something, yeah? There's a boldness in that, but that's not by just making everyone I come across hear me preach the gospel to them, okay? Boldness is being willing to explain the reality of eternity, yeah? You've got to be willing to do that. That could be uncomfortable. Not telling the uninterested that they're going to help, okay? That's not the boldness we're talking about, okay? Somebody who doesn't want to hear the gospel, you don't have to start shouting them, they're going to hell or anything else. Move on and find someone that does. Paul requested prayers for his boldness. He said in verse 19, And for me the utterance may be given unto me that I may open my mouth boldly to make known the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in bonds that layer in I may speak boldly, as I ought to speak. We ought to be bold when we preach the gospel. We're bringing the gospel, which is the power of God, unto salvation, isn't it? Okay? There's nothing to be ashamed of there. We have the words of eternal life, the knowledge of the truth, there is nothing to be embarrassed about, is there? There shouldn't be. So why did the great apostle Paul need prayers then? Because the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak. Okay? Because what should be the case isn't therefore the case when you're dealing with sinful flesh. Because part of the spiritual battle, by the way, is to stop you being bold. Did you know that? Part of the battle that we're all dealing with is to stop us being bold. The video game numbers, for example, is to make you feel like you're lacking. Now, the way that the devil will use that in those wicked people, well, they'll just use their pride, their ego, their boastfulness, their heady high-mindedness and all that stuff, and they'll just be five, six, seven, everything else. They're bullying and everything else to get those numbers up, because sometimes they're genuine people that prayed. Yeah? However, what's the effect on a lot of people in the church? I just can't match up to these people. Wow. The people who are conned by it are just going, wow, what an amazing soul winner. I'm just no good. It's probably better that they go out and preach the gospel. It's probably better I'm just a silent partner when I'm with them, because they're amazing. I don't want to hinder salvations. But how many? And then what happens? No one's getting saved. Just a load of people are getting bullied into praying, right? The stories of liberals attacking old preachers in the high street is to make you scared. Did you know that? And look, whether it's, you're going, yeah, but I didn't see it on Sky News. It must be genuine, you know? Maybe it is genuine, but a lot of the time when you read those stories, or sometimes even have a video, and then you just see this obnoxious, repent of your sins preacher, rowing with someone about something just completely pointless, and they could have dealt with it so much better, and they probably wouldn't have got arrested, you know? But the point of that and then being pushed around and everywhere, and people, you know, in the algorithms on your phone, making it coming up, videos of preachers getting arrested and beaten up and stuff like that, and attacked by, you know, verbally by Muslims, and they can't seem to win the argument and everything else. It's to scare you. Do you know that's what it's for? It's to make, it's to put you in fear. It's to stop you being bold. And here's the thing, the did they really get saved? And many of us have been in church to that, yeah? Did they really get saved? You know, the works follow salvation whispers, yeah? Well, if they come to church, then they must have been saved. That type of thing. What's that for? That's just to demoralise you. It's to put you off. It's to make you doubt your soul, isn't it? It's to make you doubt the simplicity of the gospel. It's to make you think, well, maybe they did need a 10-week course, you know, which no one seems to turn up on, you know? Maybe they just, no, no. Because getting saved and serving the Lord are two completely separate things. But it's to demoralise you. Because when we're bold, we're mighty, aren't we? Yeah, we're a force to be reckoned with. We're effective soul winners when we're bold. We really are. Go back to Acts 4. Here's another way that the bold soul winner is influenced, okay? But by the scared of his own shadow, wouldn't it say Boo to a goose caricature of how a Christian should be? That's another way we're influenced, because we start to mimic what we think a Christian should be like. That's what people do. So you're constantly being told, this is how you should be as a Christian. So then you're going out, you know, sort of very, you know, meek and mild-mannered and everything, and look, we should be meek, we should be humble, right? But the rest of it, when you should be bold in the truth though, you should still be bold in the Word of God. You should be humble, but you should be bold in the Word of God, shouldn't you? Okay, and then this kind of caricature of a Christian does affect people. So then they're not willing to just be bold and just be out there, have your back straight and go, I'm preaching the Gospel to you. So, oh well, whatever you say is okay as well. We have respect for all religions. Is that what Jesus Christ said though? That's not what Jesus Christ said. They tried to pretend that Jesus Christ was everyone's best friend. He was like somehow cuddling false prophets. You know, just had his arm around a false prophet and just said, you know, you're all the Son of God, you know, and everything else. Saying respect, you know, and love the false way. That's what people believe out there, don't they? And we can be influenced by that. But do you know what those introduced them? Your turn to Acts 4, or back to Acts 4. Do you know what those introduced them said of Jesus in John 7 26? They said, but lo, he speaketh boldly. They said, he speaketh boldly and they say nothing unto him. Do the rulers know indeed that this is the very Christ? Jesus Christ's boldness made them take note, didn't it? And Jesus Christ was bold. Okay, and you want to be more Christ-like, you better start speaking the things of God boldly. And you know what? And then people will take notice. Now, that doesn't mean you're going to come back with ten salvations every week. You know, you might not come back with salvations, but you know what you'll come back with? You'll come back with people that maybe listen to a verse. You'll come back with people that have at least heard a little bit. You'll come back with people that say that, no, I will have a look. I will want, I'm going to at least look at what you're saying. And praise God that we live in a day and age right now, where we're going out with the gospel. And when people don't want to hear, there's still a chance they'll go away and look at a gospel presentation and look at a video that most people are able to access. Now, in Acts 4, Peter and John have gone to the temple. They've healed this lame guy. They're preaching the gospel. And then the bad guys turn up, the false prophets that have recently pretty much been responsible for Jesus Christ being put to death. Look at verse 1, it says, And as they spake unto the people, the priests and the captains of the temple, and the Sadducees came upon them, being grieved that they taught the people and preached through Jesus the resurrection from the dead. Now, remember that the Sadducees are the liberal Bible denier types who don't believe in the resurrection. That's why they're angry here. And they laid hands on them and put them in hold until the next day, for it was now eventide. Howbeit many of them which heard the word believed, and the number of the men was about 5,000. Okay, that's a lot of people, yeah. And it came to pass in Amor that their rulers and elders and scribes and Annas the high priest and Caiaphas and John and Alexander and as many as were of the kindred of the high priest were gathered together at Jerusalem. So you've got more bad guys now, okay? And when they had set them in the midst, they asked, By what power or by what name have ye done this? Then Peter, filled with the Holy Ghost, said unto them, Ye rulers of the people and elders of Israel, if we this day be examined of the good deed done to the impotent man, by what means he is made whole, be it known unto you all and to all the people of Israel that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom ye crucified, whom God raised from the dead, even by him doth this man stand here before you whole. This is the stone which was set at naught of you builders, which is become the head of the corner. Neither is there salvation in any other, for there is none other name under heaven, given among men, whereby we must be saved. Now, when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were unlearned and ignorant men, they marveled and they took knowledge of them that they had been with Jesus. Do you know what happened when they saw the boldness in these regular guys? Not what happened when they heard them parroting intellectuals to sound learned, not them telling them to listen to some atheist debater because he comes from the intellectual angle, okay? That's not what happened. No, when they saw the boldness of unlearned and ignorant men, they marveled and took knowledge of them. Marveled, they were, wow. Well, look at the boldness of these people that aren't the so-called intellectual type. They're unlearned and ignorant in their eyes. They took knowledge of them that they had been with Jesus. And if you wanted people to take knowledge of you, whether it's to then hear the gospel, or like I said, just to want to hear a verse, or to go away and say, okay, I'm busy now, but you know what, I'm going to go away and listen to at least something you've told me to listen to. You need boldness, okay? You really do need boldness. Well, one of the hardest parts of soul is getting someone past the icebreaker, isn't it? That's the hardest part, isn't it? Is to get them past the knock on the door and the first start of the conversation to actually hearing the gospel. That's the difficult bit. Once they want to hear, then you're like, okay, we've got a good chance now, okay? But getting them past that first bit. And with that, if you're not confident, you're not feeling it, maybe it can be a good idea. And hopefully at the end of this sermon, you're going to feel more bold and more confident, find ways to do that. But maybe you'd be better to say to your partner, maybe you'll be silent. Do you know that? If you go out and you're just not feeling at all, you don't have to preach the gospel. We've got plenty of people here that could preach the gospel, okay? We're not lacking people that will talk. Often we're lacking silent partners. If you're not there yet, just go and listen. If you have a day where you're just not feeling it for one reason or another, there's nothing wrong with just saying, look, I'm going to be silent today and let you preach. Because what's our goal? Is our goal to look as mature a Christian as possible? No, our goal is to get people saved, okay? And if you're not feeling that, then there's no shame in going, okay, I'm going to wait and let you do that, right? And you could say that to the captain. If you're feeling that day, you're just not feeling bold. And sometimes it just takes you to get going. I have that even now. Some days I'll go out, I'll go to preach the gospel, especially sometimes when it's not very receptive areas. And the first couple of doors, you can't have a bit, and then you get in the zone, you know? But if you really, and you're not finding that, you find that you're not getting in the zone, you're not kind of getting that boldness and strength even after a couple of doors, maybe that's a good time to, maybe you need to say to a captain, look, can I just go with someone that's a confident speaker? I don't know if I'm going to be talking today. There's nothing wrong with that because our goal is to get salvations. But again, okay, just that caveat again, okay? Forcing verses, forcing conversation with someone that isn't interested isn't boldness, okay? And people try and push that on you. Oh, you know, you could have said this, could have said that. It's like the person clearly wasn't interested. I want to get to the person that wants to hear it, okay? I don't want to stand there trying to force a verse to someone who's not interested at all. But I don't want to get them, especially I don't want to force them to hear the gospel because they just couldn't get rid of me and because I'm so persuasive, so on their case, and I don't want to hear it, I want to find someone that wants to because that is a complete waste of my time. And I've seen that so many times out there, okay? It's time wasting, it's a waste of time. But the boldness is important, it really is. And we're going to look at a couple of verses to show you that in a minute. But how do you work on getting that boldness then, okay? Because we need boldness, don't we? We need boldness to preach the gospel, preach it effectively, get people that want to hear us, not to just force people to hear us. And there are a few lessons in this chapter for us for me. So look at verse seven. It says here in Acts four and verse seven, and when they had set them in the midst, they asked, by what power or by what name have you done this? Then Peter, filled with the Holy Ghost, said unto them, ye rulers of the people and elders of Israel. The key to effective soul winning, boldness, and number one is by being in the spirit, okay? By being in the spirit. This is the most important one, okay? You need to be in the spirit when you're out soul winning. Peter was filled with the Holy Ghost and they saw his boldness. Turn over to 2 Timothy, okay, 2 Timothy and chapter one. A spirit-filled man of God isn't tiptoeing around, sneaking around avoiding people. He's walking up the front path with purpose, okay? A spirit-filled lady of God is walking up that front path with purpose. I'm going to find someone that wants to hear the gospel, okay? I'm going out that path to find someone that wants to hear the gospel. 2 Timothy and chapter one and verse seven says this, 2 Timothy 1-7 says, For God hath not given us the spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind. If you're in fear, you're not in the spirit, okay? Look, that's clearly evident from the Bible, isn't it, okay? He's not given us the spirit of fear. If you're in fear, you're clearly not in the spirit. Now, you can get in the spirit, okay? Don't get me wrong. It's not like a time limit on it, okay? Done for a week now. I got fearful, okay? Look, you can quickly get in the spirit, but they won't go hand in hand, okay? You need to cut out the fear. When you're in the spirit, there's power. There's a sound mind, but there's also love. There's also love. So again, you're not in the spirit if you're going to doors just to be antagonistic. Now look, sometimes we can all get in the flesh. We can end up saying something and saying something a bit cutting to someone who's just really tried to be rude to you or something else. However, we're not in the spirit when we're doing that, are we? Okay, now don't get me wrong. That changes when it's someone who clearly is a God hater. It's clearly just some wicked reprobate false prophet or something else. I'm a pastor of the whatever church. I'm a pastor of, you know, the Pentecostal church around the corner, and I'm preaching, you know, work salvation. Look, you don't have to be, oh, put your arm around them. I just really wanted to show you the gospel, okay? However, that's not that common, is it? Okay, there's a few of those places around, but it's not that common. People preaching, preaching a false gospel aren't that common. Reprobate still, fortunately, aren't that common, okay? And often, people, it's just trying to cuss someone out, trying to be rude to someone, everything else. That's not, you're not in the spirit, are you? Okay, he's not giving us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind. And if you're in the spirit, you won't therefore be embarrassed to preach the gospel. He said in verse 8, Be not thou therefore ashamed of the testament of our Lord, nor of me as prisoner, but be thou partaker of the afflictions of the gospel according to the power of God. Okay, so how do you get in the spirit, though? Because clearly, being in the spirit, the spirit is not a fear. Bits of power and of love and of a sound mind. Boldness, we see, is a fruit of the spirit. How do you get in the spirit? Well, the simple way is just denying the flesh, okay? If we just simplify, you deny the flesh, okay? Turn to Galatians 5, because although there's a spiritual battle out there, and some people like to blame everything on the spiritual battle, there's also the internal battle, okay? And the internal battle is between the Holy Spirit inside you and your sinful flesh, the old man, okay? That's the internal battle that you're dealing with on a daily basis. You're turning to Galatians 5 and verse 16. Galatians 5 and verse 16, which says, This I say then, walk in the spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh. For the flesh lusteth against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh, and these are contrary the one to the other. So you cannot do the things that you would. But if you be led of the spirit, you're not under the law. Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these. So these are the things to avoid, okay? The works of the flesh, the things that you're trying to deny. Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, okay? That's talking about sexual uncleanness, lasciviousness, which is basically a regular indulgence of animal desires, okay? It's just, you can't control yourself. You just indulge in anything you want. Idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations. Variance is seeking disagreement, basically. You're constantly just, you know, looking for some disagreement with everyone. Emulations is basically being overly competitive, okay? It's one thing to, look, some people have a bit of competitiveness. Another thing where you're just so, like, just gripped by competitiveness. So it's emulations. Wrath, strife, seditions, that's rebellion. Heresies, envyings, murders, drunkenness, revelings, and such like. Look, this is an exhaustive list, okay? And such like. Of the witch, I tell you before, as I've told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God. Now, this is talking about the unsaved. How this stuff is all sin, okay? You're saved if you put your faith in Jesus Christ. So here, the unsaved will not inherit the kingdom of God. This is the behaviour of the unsaved. We shouldn't behave like this. So avoid the sinful stuff and then seek the fruits of the spirit, which verse 22 says, So eternally speaking, okay, those sins have been nailed to the cross when he bear our sins in his own body on the tree, okay? Verse 25 says if we live in the spirit, so if you're saved, let us also walk in the spirit. There's an exhortation for a reason because it's not automatic. If we live in the spirit, let us also walk in the spirit. If you're saved, walk in the spirit now, because it's not automatic, okay? You need to make the effort to do that, to deny the flesh and walk in the spirit. Otherwise, I've heard people trying to say this stuff is automatic. I mean, that's rank heresy. That's damnable heresy. There is no automatic giving up of sin. Otherwise, basically everyone here is going to hell because everyone here is sinful, okay? It's complete nonsense, okay? And people try and come out with that, and obviously false prophets come out with that stuff, but that would disqualify half the Bible because what's the whole New Testament constantly trying to tell us to do? Exalting, encouraging us to live right, encouraging us to give up the old man, encouraging us to live right, to do things for God. It's not automatic. Otherwise, why have the Bible? Why have all of that in the Bible? It's a load of nonsense, that. Don't get conned by that. And of course, you're not going to get conned into doubting your salvation, hopefully, but at least you can get your head turned. Start to worry, start to wonder. But he said, let us not be desirous of vainglory, provoking one another, envying one another. If you're out soul winning for vainglory, you're definitely not in the spirit too, by the way. So if when you're out soul winning, you're just like, yeah, if only I could come back and tell so and so about this. Again, you're not in the spirit. OK, go back to Acts chapter four. The reality is, is that there's a bit of a vicious circle. OK, that's the reality, though. So these are all good ways of getting in the spirit, denying all those things of the flesh, getting in the spirit. And there's other ways as well, you know, speak to yourself in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord. There's all those great ways that you can get in the spirit, being in church, being in your Bible reading, being in prayer, all that stuff. But you need to deny the flesh as well. OK, you need to deny the flesh to be in the spirit. But there is a vicious circle. You can get a bit fearful, a bit anxious, lose confidence before you go out soul winning, which then makes it difficult to be in the spirit because you kind of you're already getting that fear and then that starts to manifest. And it's hard to kind of get in the spirit then, yeah. Verse eight, back in Acts four said, then Peter, filled with the Holy Ghost, said unto them, he was filled with the Holy Ghost, right? Said unto them, which basically means that he was in the spirit, OK? He was in the spirit at this point. The spirit is at least guiding him as much as possible here. He's filled with the Holy Ghost, the Holy Spirit. Ye rollers of the people and elders of Israel, if we this day be examined of the good deed done to the impotent man by what means he has made whole, be it known unto you all and to all the people of Israel, that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom ye crucified him, God raised the dead, even by him doth this man stand here before you whole. This is the stone which was set at naught of you builders, which has become the head of the corner. Neither is there salvation in any other, for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved. How are we saved? By the Lord Jesus Christ, not by your own works. There's one name we're saved by, not you. You're not, I'm not saved by Ian Tavenner, OK? You're not saved by your own names. No, there's one name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved. Now, when they saw the boldness of Peter and John and perceived that they were unlearned and ignorant men, they marveled and they took knowledge of them, they had been with Jesus. The key to effective soul winning is boldness. And number one is by being in the Spirit. And number two is by being prepared, OK? By being prepared. Peter's preaching Christ, OK? In verse 11, he's referring these who claim to believe the Old Testament to Psalm 118, verse 22. That's what he's alluding to where he says, where it says in Psalm 118 in verse 22, the stone which the builders refused has become the headstone of the corner. OK, so he's referring them to Old Testament scripture. He's preaching the gospel in verse 12. And then in verse 13, it says, now, when they saw the boldness of Peter and John and perceived that they were unlearned and ignorant men, they marveled and they took knowledge of them that they had been with Jesus. They took knowledge of them that they had been with Jesus, didn't they? They took knowledge of them that they had been with Jesus. You want boldness, yeah? You want to be in the Spirit. You need to be prepared. You need to spend time with Jesus, OK? You need to spend time with Jesus. Turn to Ecclesiastes chapter 8. You need to read his word. You need to study his word. 1 Peter 3.15, where you turn to Ecclesiastes 8 says, but sanctify the Lord God in your hearts and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness in fear. Meekness is humility, by the way, OK? You can still be bold and still be humble at the same time. We should be ready to give an answer, shouldn't we? Now, you want to be ready to give an answer, ready to preach the gospel, ready to explain the gospel, OK? You need to be prepared. Ecclesiastes chapter 8 and verse 1. Ecclesiastes 8.1 says, who is this a wise man? And who knoweth the interpretation of a thing? A man's wisdom maketh his face to shine and the boldness of his face shall be changed. Where does wisdom come from? The word of wisdom, yeah? First, it's the fear of God, OK? That you aren't saved. You ain't going to get the wisdom of the Bible, but you get saved and then you start reading the Bible, you're going to get wisdom and that wisdom will make your face to shine. Did you know that? That's what it says here. Who knoweth the interpretation of a thing? A man's wisdom maketh his face to shine and the boldness of his face shall be changed. Your countenance will change to a bold one. And there is a difference. There really is a difference between someone that walks up to a door, walks up to a person in the street, wherever it is with a boldness in their face, a boldness of knowing that what I'm preaching you is correct, that I'm ready to answer any of your questions, I'm ready to answer any of your so-called hamstringing, you know, attempts to criticise the Bible, the Gospel or anything else. I'm ready for you. I'm bold because I'm wise from the word of God. And there's a difference in your face when you do that. When you go soul-winning, unsure how to answer this or that question, when that's in your mind, yeah, I just hope they don't ask me this, unsure about explaining something, I hope they don't come up with this argument or they say this, you know what, that face isn't showing boldness. It isn't. You go up and you have doubts about how you're going to deal with this or deal with that or how to explain this or how to explain that. What you're going to do, you're not walking up to that door showing boldness. OK? And those minute differences I think people can see. OK, we pick up on stuff, don't we? Look, some people are more perceptive than others. Maybe the raging drunk at the door might not notice that, you know, but other people will, OK, other people will. A man's wisdom maketh his face to shine and the boldness of his face shall be changed. And believe me, it does make a difference. It really does. And how we're prepared, if we're ready, if we're reading our Bibles, we're in the word, we know we're just confident in the word of God, we're confident in being able to explain the word of God. We know where to go and what to do. And also, look, just again, another caveat on that, OK? You don't have to study every single argument to every single false religion and false doctrine and everything else out there. What you need to be able to do is explain the correct doctrine. OK? And there's a slight difference there. You don't have to go into all sorts of apologetics or everything. What you need to be able to do is explain why the Gospel is what it is, why it's true and be able to explain those verses clearly. And yeah, it's handy to know some of those kind of those so-called work salvation scriptures, those one-off random scriptures taken out of context, which apparently disprove all the clear salvation scriptures and how to answer those. But a lot of the time we answer that by just showing them clear scripture. Clear scripture. For by grace you save through faith and that not of yourselves it is a gift of God, not of works any man should boast. And having the boldness, the confidence to show that, to be clear and say, but the Bible says this, a verse in James chapter two talking about how you appear to other men, OK, doesn't somehow disqualify all the many places in the Bible where it says it's not of works, where it says, but to him that worketh not, but believeth in him that justifieth the ungodly. His faith is counted for righteousness, et cetera. But you know what can be happy is to have some of those verses ready for yourself as well. And you don't have to you don't have to go to every single one in your gospel presentation. Another another area people make as well when they're out soul winning is to think. And there's a difference here. There's a difference between being thorough and basically trying to manipulate someone into not being able to forget what you've told them. They're two different ways of soul winning. OK, we want them we want them to believe the gospel. OK, and someone can believe the gospel in a fairly short amount of time. If they're getting what you're saying and they're agreeing and they're not arguing with it, you don't have to just keep getting them repeat after me, repeat after me, believe, believe, repeat after me, repeat after me, believe, believe. Yeah, sure, that person will go away saying the right things, but they really get saved. Yeah, they'll go away going. Yeah, that's yeah. Yeah, I know what I meant to say. That doesn't mean they got saved. OK, you don't have to. And there are other people that will just completely just lose concentration when you get up to the 20, 30 foot. But most people can't even look at a 10 minute video. Without needing some sort of break and popcorn in the middle. OK, attention spans are terrible now, aren't they? That's the world we live in. So you go into the 30, 40 minute mark, 45, 50. Sometimes you need to. OK, I get it. OK, but a lot of the time you don't. With someone who's just low hanging feet, you don't have to go to 45 minutes preaching the gospel. OK, and what happens when you go to that is I think for some, they just get to a point where I just say what he wants me to say. Just say he wants me to say I need to go and have like my fix of like, you know, some sort of screen or something else. Just say, you know, whatever it is, just say what he wants me to say. So, OK, that's not preaching the gospel. OK, preaching the gospel is getting them to understand and put their faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Yeah, yeah. So, OK, and another way, another way so that we that we can prepare. OK, aside from reading and learning the word, learning to explain what we believe, what we do, et cetera, is by preparing how to explain the gospel. OK, and when I say that is look is to have like have an order, guys. Yeah, have like have a way you do it. Now, don't get me wrong. I will alter that sometimes when I'm preaching the gospel, depending. For example, maybe if I've just preached to someone on the door. This happened recently, I think, in when we did our recent soul winning marathon. I preached on the door to someone and then then they brought out, I think, maybe another child came out afterwards. So then I went to alternative verses because the first verse is listening as well. And I thought, well, rather than them just hearing it carbon copy, I'm going to now explain to explain it with some alternative verses. OK, sometimes someone maybe for whatever reason, maybe I feel and I might be wrong, but maybe I feel led by the spirit to maybe go to a different verse. Some of you might feel that at times. However, have a system, guys. Yeah, OK, don't try and just wing it. Look, many men of God, OK, throughout many, many years now have been using a pretty solid system and seeing many people saved. Many people here were saved through someone going through just a clear system of showing people that they're sinners, showing what the punishment of sin is, showing eternal hell. Yeah, because sadly, that's being attacked now as well. The eternity in hell. You need to make sure they agree that hell is eternal. Otherwise, are they really being saved? If they think they're being saved from, you know, a quick dip, they're being saved from separation from God. Is that really debatable that, isn't it? I would say it's probably worse than debatable. They ain't getting saved unless they believe they're getting saved from hell. Eternal hell, eternal damnation. OK, number three with that as well is after you've shown that, they need to look and you don't have to go into an hour on, you know, the deity of Christ and the Trinity and everything else, but they need to just accept that Jesus Christ is the son of God. He's God in effect. He'll accept the Trinity. OK, most people do, don't they? Most people just go, yeah, yeah, get it. OK. But look, hit that. And I think that's it. Look, for me and most people that will go through that order, sin. Yeah, you're a sinner. The wages of sin is death. Yeah, spiritual death in a place called hell for eternity. OK, number three, Jesus Christ is God in the flesh. He's the son of God. He is the son of God. God, the son of the Trinity. One God, three persons. Now, if you can't explain that, you better learn how to explain that as well. OK, make sure you know how to explain. And there's a very simple way. I just explain like this. I don't go to eggs. OK, I don't go to eggs, wedding cakes or anything like that. OK, it's just there's one God, but there are three persons that are all one God. God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Ghost. OK, God the Father isn't God the Son. God the Son isn't God the Holy Ghost. But all three are one God. OK, Jesus Christ is God the Son. He's the son of God. Got it? Yeah, OK, let's move on. Now, we'll show a couple of verses. 1 John 5.7 usually does it. Maybe I'll go to John 1.1. Maybe John 1.3. Maybe go to John 1.14 to show who the word is. If they're still a bit, they've had some false doctrine. They'll be unsure. But most people just get it, don't they? OK, after that, it's good to then go to just... You've shown that. You've shown that Jesus is the son of God. Show the Gospel. Yeah, make sure you... I've been with people before that have even forgotten to talk about the Gospel. They just talk about believing. But what are they believing in? Yeah, show them the Gospel. Explain the Gospel. Then show them the only thing you have to do to be saved is to believe on or believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. I like to show like, you know, a few verses with that because, you know, and again, look, they need to obviously believe the word of God. But it's good to show those because that's the thing. That's the one, isn't it? Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. Then that's the one that really is the opposite to what everyone's teaching you, isn't it? Whosoever believe in... All the works salvationists are telling you, repent of your sins, repent in the, you know, future sin. You know, you can give back, et cetera. That's the one. And I like to go to a couple, three or so different verses just to show, look. And you could go to a lot of verses, couldn't you? To show it's whosoever believeth in him in various spaces. But like, make sure you've got a system, yeah? Then I like to explain it's a gift, okay? I think that's a great analogy that hasn't failed me and many people here. Just showing it's a gift, showing how clear a gift is. You know, it's not an Ephesians 2, 8 and 9, it's just such a great couple of verses to show. And then I like to talk about just what happens then when you are. Again, people need to understand that because they're going to get attacked with that as well. Even if it's just to make them doubt afterwards, just to explain about chastisement, just to explain about the fact that you become a child of God, et cetera, okay? And, you know, there are obvious verses to go with that. Obviously, you know, in Hebrews 12, middle of verse 5 onwards, you know, and showing that you're a son of God. Galatians 3, 26, John 1, 12 are great verses for that. And after you've done that, just make it really, just hammer home eternal security, you know? And that's a pretty good system. Now, some people I know, Passimenez, for example, has a great sowing seminar and his order is that he'll show the gift before he shows, you know, it shows the gospel, you know? Shows what a gift is, it's a gift. And then shows that is, look, that's up to you, you know? And if you prefer that and that works for you better, great. But you better show those clear points, right? Because if you don't and you're kind of a bit, well, I'll just do a bit of this and a bit of that and a bit of this, I think you're not going to be as bold either. You know, if you're prepared, a prepared person is usually bolder, aren't they? And be bold, and also when you're bold, talk up as well. Because the other thing is, look, if people are asking, what did you say, what did you say, what did you say? You know, after a few times, they'll stop saying, what did you say? And they'll just smile and go and just nod and agree like they did hear what you said. And then it's like, what do you want me to do at the end? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, I believe, yeah, let's see if I can answer this. I've got a 50-50 chance of getting this right. And then at the end, I'm going to play with you. Did they really understand it? Did they really get saved? The people are polite. In England, you know, there's still some manners here, you know, it's kind of going, but it used to be a bit of a thing that the English were famed for, you know, it's being polite. They just be polite. They just start agreeing with you. Just start going, yeah, whatever, you know, I don't want to upset this lovely fellow on my door. You know, this lovely gentleman, I don't want to say, what are you saying, young man? So they just start agreeing. Some of them do do that. I can't hear you, you know, or something else. He just starts shouting at you. Okay, but a lot of the time they won't. And look, be bold, bold, strong. You know, tell them what it is and have a prepared way of giving a gospel. I believe you'll be much more confident and bold if you have that map out in your Bible, if you need to, you know, have some alternatives. I have in my soul winning Bible, I've just got like some alternative verse if I need to, you know, and sometimes you forget and the heat of the moment, sometimes you forget and it's like, it's good to go. Okay, this is a good alternative verse to show this or to show that, right? Okay, be prepared and you might just be more confident, more spirit filled and more bold, right? And if there was, and I've said this many times, is there anything else in the world as a soul winning Christian more important to spend some time preparing than your gospel presentation? I mean, or do you not believe that it's a difference between heaven and hell, getting someone saved? It is a difference, like that's something you can practice, that's something you can work on, you can spend your time doing that, better spending your spare time doing that than the many, many other ways people spend their spare time, yeah? And again, if you're sitting here, you go, I don't even know, do we have to go somewhere? Look, that's how people get saved. The only way people get saved is by someone preaching them the gospel. Yeah, we live in an age where some people might get saved online, but you know, a lot of people won't. A lot of people, as we've seen in this church, a couple of thousand plus people have got saved on the doorstep or in the streets or in the highways and hedges by a sole winner from this church, approached them, asked them if they'd like to know how to receive that gift of eternal life or something along those lines, okay? And that's how people get saved. So it's worth being prepared for it, isn't it? We said in Acts 4, verse 23, well, here they get threatened, okay, just before that. They say, we're still preaching, eventually they're let go, and it says in verse 23, and being let go, they went to their own company and reported all that the chief priests and elders had said unto them. And when they had heard that, they lifted up their voice to God. What are they doing? They're praying, yeah? With one accord and said, Lord, thou art God, which has made heaven and earth and the sea and all that in them is, who by the mouth of thy servant David has said, why did the heathen rage and the people imagine vain things? The kings of the earth stood up and the rulers were gathered together against the Lord and against his Christ, for of a truth against thy holy child Jesus, whom thou has anointed both Herod and Pontius Pilate with the Gentiles and the people of Israel were gathered together, for to do whatsoever thy hand and thy counsel determined before to be done. And now, Lord, behold their threatenings and grant unto thy servants that with all boldness they may speak thy word. That's the prayer, isn't it? All boldness by stretching forth thine hand to heal and that signs and wonders may be done by the name of the holy child Jesus. And when they had prayed, the place was shaken when they were assembled together and they were all filled with the Holy Ghost and they spake the word of God with boldness. And a multitude of them that believe were of one heart and of one soul, neither said any of them that ought of the things which he possessed was his own, but they had all things common. And with great power gave the apostles witness of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus and great grace was upon them all. Why? Because they're going out and preaching the gospel, okay? They got grace from the Lord Jesus Christ because that's what we're told to do, Christian. The key to effective soul winning, boldness. Number one, by being in the spirit. Number two, by being prepared. And number three, by being in prayer. By being in prayer. In verse 24, they lifted up their voice to God. In verse 29, they asked for boldness, but was it to put down the weirdos? Was that what the boldness was for? To look good to others? No. It says in verse 29, now, Lord, behold their threatenings and grant unto thy servants that with all boldness they may speak thy word. That's what the boldness is for, to speak the word of God. What was the reason? What was the result of that prayer? And when they had prayed, the place was shaken when they were assembled together and they were all filled with the Holy Ghost and they spake the word of God with boldness. They prayed for it and were given it because God wants us to boldly speak the word of God. God wants you to boldly, everyone here, God's will is that you boldly speak the word of God to get people saved. Where are we starting? Ephesians 6, you don't have to turn there, Paul asked others to pray for his boldness, didn't he? Okay, he wanted others to pray for his boldness. And do you think he then said, now I don't have to pray for it? Do you know what? I bet he was praying for it as well, wasn't he? And asking others to pray for it as well. That's a prayer, look, that should be a regular prayer. That's a prayer that I pray pretty much every time I go. So any anyone that's been with me, we'll do a quick prayer before we get out and knock doors and I'll pray for us to have boldness. I'll pray for the group to have boldness. It's an important prayer, isn't it? Yeah, maybe it's something we should add in on a Wednesday night as well, okay? Just to add in for something we should maybe add for just everyone. I'll pray for just everyone's boldness because it is something that we're going to be attacked on. It's something that's going to, you know, it's going to flutter at times. And I reckon it's even a prayer that you can make during soul winning, okay? And I've done that before, where maybe I'm feeling a little bit, for whatever reason, a bit unconfident or something, I just pray for God to give me boldness. And it's something, here's the thing, it's a good thing for a silent partner to pray for. Sometimes you can be a bit like, well, you know, praying this person gets saved, maybe praying for no distractions, pray for the boldness of the person preaching because they will notice that difference. Before, you know, you sometimes get that time in soul winning when you see the eyes go, you're like, this person's getting saved, yeah? Okay, but sometimes before that point, maybe that's a good time because they're still picking up on body signals and everything else, aren't they? And maybe you're next to your silent partner and they're not looking very bold. And you pray for that, pray for their boldness. So maybe, look, maybe they'll get that boldness, the Holy Spirit's gonna fill them a bit more and they're just gonna get that boldness because God will answer that prayer, won't he? Because it's in his will. Turn to 1 John 5. Prayer isn't just a fallback plan, okay? Some people treat it as a fallback plan, all else has gone wrong, well, I might as well resort to praying now. It's not something that we just do on the off chance that it might be answered either, okay? It's not like, well, I pray, you never know. You never know if it's gonna work out. Well, 1 John 5.14 says, and this is the confidence that we have in him, that if we ask anything according to his will, he heareth us. And if we know that he hear us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we desired of him. So you could be confident or bold in the answer to that prayer too, by the way. Be bold that when you're praying, you're gonna get that prayer answered if it's according to his will. Is it God's will that with all boldness we may speak his word? It sure is. That's God's will for you, that with all boldness you may speak his word. So pray for it and whilst you're praying, you're more likely, by the way, to be in the spirit too, aren't you? If you're praying, you're praying to God, you're more likely to be in the spirit than if you're not because it's a spiritual thing, praying rather than one of the many fleshly things you could be thinking about or doing. Now turn to Proverbs 28 for a verse I'd like to end this message on. So Proverbs chapter 28. We've looked at the key to effective soul winning, being boldness. How to get that boldness? By being in the spirit, okay? Soul winning is a spiritual exercise, right? You need to be in the spirit soul winning to be effective. Like I said, that's not necessarily to come back with the numbers, but it's to have effect when you're soul winning. It might be someone that gets saved 10 years down the line, but you sowed that seed with strength, with boldness in there. It might be someone that goes away and gets saved having looked at something else. It might be someone that does hear the gospel. It might be just the boldness to convict someone that whatever they're doing is wrong and maybe they'll go and look at it and it might be the boldness to convict someone that's on their way to reprobation, finally that they're just choosing that false way, yeah? There's many effects to going out soul winning and for me, you need to be bold for it. You're bold by being in the spirit. Number two, by being prepared, okay? Be prepared going out soul winning. Please be prepared going out soul winning. Number three, by being in prayer, okay? By being in prayer. Proverbs 28 and verse one says, the wicked flee when no man pursueth, but the righteous are bold as a lion. And there's two types of righteous. I don't think because you got saved, you're automatically righteous, but if you're living righteously, you're more likely to be filled with the spirit. If you're living righteously, you're gonna be out soul winning and if you're living righteously, you're more likely to be as bold as a lion, yeah? We wanna be bold, don't we? We wanna be bold and ultimately, why? Because we're gonna get more people saved. That's our goal as a church, isn't it? That's our ministry as a church. Our ministry, we're in the business of soul winning, yeah? That's our ministry. That's our number one ministry at this church is going out and preaching the gospel to every creature because that's what the Bible commands us to do, okay? It doesn't command us to invite people that refuse to work, drug addicts and bums into our church, to feed them up and send them off to go and do more drugs and not have to leave anything aside for food. That's not our ministry, okay? People that refuse to work, if any man would not work, neither should he eat, yeah? That's what the Bible says. Our ministry isn't getting in the unsaved to rock concerts and everything else to somehow get him into church and they might consider staying a bit longer. That's not the ministry that God's called us to be told is not to be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, yeah? And look, all those other things, and look, there are some good things, you know? There are some things that you can do that might be effective, but the number one ministry has to be soul winning. That's our number one ministry at this church, which therefore means that we want everyone to be as effective as possible with it. And for me, the key to that is boldness, is boldness. On that, we're going to finish the word of prayer. Holy Father, thank you for your word. Thank you for the ministry of reconciliation that you've given every single one of us here, Lord, that we are ambassadors of Christ, Lord, and it's by us that people are saved. Help us to take that responsibility seriously, Lord, to want to be those bold soul winners that you want us to be, Lord. Help us to not only understand, you know, what a difference it makes to have that bold countenance, to go out boldly preaching your word, Lord, but then to work on ways of being bold and through, you know, being filled with the spirit by denying the flesh, Lord, by also, you know, not just being filled with the spirit, but also being in prayer, Lord, and also being prepared. Just help us to work on these things. Help us not to just kind of listen to this message and then just kind of go back to our normal ways. Help us to all just want to be bolder, more confident soul winners, every single one of us here. Help us to work on that, Lord. Help us to start that by going out this afternoon and just preaching boldly to those out there, Lord, and help us to, you know, get many people safe, Lord. To return for this evening's service, in Jesus' name, for all this. Amen.