(Disclaimer: This transcript is auto-generated and may contain mistakes.)

Matthew Stuckey here and I want to give you another soul winning tip and in this video I wanted to explain that when we're soul winning it is meant to be a conversation and not a lecture. So in the previous video I talked about the importance of controlling the conversation and that's an important thing to understand before you watch this video. However we do need to keep in mind that it is not a lecture. Yes we are the ones that are doing the teaching but in the Bible you actually see that there is a conversation going on whenever the gospel is preached and so I'm just going to give you several several references here during soul winning conversations in the Bible. In John 3 verse 4 it says, Nicodemus saith unto him, How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter the second time into his mother's womb and be born? Then in verse 9 of the same chapter, Nicodemus answered and said unto him, How can these things be? Now it's very clear in John 3 that Jesus is controlling the conversation. He is doing the majority of the talking. He is explaining and finding out if Nicodemus believes these things but at the same time he's not just giving him a lecture and not giving Nicodemus a chance to tell him what he actually believes. Jesus is finding out what Nicodemus actually believes because it's a conversation that you're having. It's a conversation you control but it's not a 100% lecture. It says in Luke 18 verse 21, And he said, All these have I kept from my youth up. And so there's an example where Jesus is preaching the gospel to an arrogant person who is is not ready to even admit that he's guilty and that he deserves hell. And you see that Jesus doesn't move past that point of the gospel presentation because he realizes that this rich young ruler is basically arrogant. He's self-righteous. He thinks that he has earned his way to heaven. He thinks he deserves to go to heaven. He thinks you can be good enough to go to heaven. And the reason why Jesus does not waste his time for another 20 minutes and explain the entire gospel is he already realizes that this man is just not ready to even admit that he's guilty which is the first thing he needs to understand. Here's the thing, if you're just having a lecture and not finding out what this person believes, if Jesus just was having a lecture to this person then he would have wasted 20 minutes but he finds out very early on that this person is not ready to receive the first point that he needs to realizing that he needs a Savior. That's why it's important to have a conversation and not just a lecture because there's really no way to tell what they actually believe if you're just preaching a 20-minute sermon to them without even finding out at all what they believe. One more example is when Paul's preaching the gospel and it says in Acts 26 verses 27 and 28, King Agrippa, believeth thou the prophets? I know that thou believeth. And so Paul is asking Agrippa if he believes and he's saying, do you believe this? I know you believe. He's very hopeful that he believes. Verse 28, then Agrippa said on to Paul, almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian. Obviously Paul could tell that Agrippa was listening to the gospel and he was hopeful that he was ready to put his full faith on Jesus but Agrippa does not quite get there. He says, almost thou persuadest me. And so here's the thing, why is it that we're having a conversation and not a lecture? Well a couple quick things, when you're giving a lecture inevitably people are gonna lose their focus. Think about being in school and the math teacher is giving you this complicated problem. I got a math degree in school. I used to be a teacher and at the same time when I was in college and I had math classes, the teacher is putting all these letters up in this complicated problem and then inevitably you're like and then you fall asleep or you lose focus, you get bored. And so if it's just a lecture people are gonna basically lose their focus and not only that but what can often happen in a one hour lecture on this long problem is a person can get stumped or confused on the way and then the person who's actually teaching unless they stop to find out you know if people are understanding this then they're not gonna be able to know that. Now of course the teacher in school is often teaching to 20, 30, if it's a college class sometimes hundreds of students at one time. They might not actually be able to stop and they might have to just give a lecture and then some people get it and some don't. But when we're preaching the gospel we're usually not preaching to a large amount of people. We're usually preaching to one or two or three people or something like that. Now let me say as a side point that although the the most successful conversations are when you're talking to a very small group of people or even just one person because you can find out what they believe and spend the appropriate time with whatever they're stumped by, by all means if you get a chance to preach at a wedding or funeral or special event or a large gathering, by all means preach at those large events and in those situations you might have to just give a lecture. You might not be able to just stop and ask people questions because then you could lose control of the conversation if you just open it up for a free-for-all of people of every religion to give their opinion. By all means you know you should take those opportunities and it might end up being a lecture but that is a less effective way to preach the gospel and when we're talking to someone one-on-one we don't want to just give them a lecture. Of course you need to do that with large groups. There's no other way around it usually. However when you're talking to one or two or three people you should make it a conversation and not just a lecture. By all means control the conversation and if you can't control it you need to take control or you're gonna just be wasting your time. However it should still be a conversation where you're finding out what they believe and what they're confused on rather than just being a lecture. Anyways thank you and God bless.