Why Should You Be a Personal Soul-Winner?

scpSoul Winning, Uncategorized

“Say not ye, There are yet four months, and then cometh harvest? behold, I say unto you, Lift up your eyes, and look on the fields; for they are white already to harvest. And he that reapeth receiveth wages, and gathereth fruit unto life eternal: that both he that soweth and he that reapeth may rejoice together. And herein is that saying true, One soweth, and another reapeth. I sent you to reap that whereon ye bestowed no labour: other men laboured, and ye are entered into their labours.” (John 4:35-38).

Jesus has returned to His Heavenly Father! He is interceding for God’s people. He is seated at the right hand of our Heavenly Father. “For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.” (I Timothy 2:5).

“When Jesus therefore had received the vinegar, he said, It is finished: and he bowed his head, and gave up the ghost.” (John 19:30). Jesus had finished this phase of His life and now proceeded to go to Heaven as our High Priest sprinkling His own blood on the Mercy Seat in Heaven. He then approaches the Father on the behalf of God’s children.

“For I have given unto them the words which thou gavest me; and they have received them, and have known surely that I came out from thee, and they have believed that thou didst send me. I pray for them: I pray not for the world…” (John 17:9). Jesus is not praying for the world He is praying for the saved. He is praying for us as we go in His stead to the lost of this world. “Then said Jesus to them again, Peace be unto you: as my Father hath sent me, even so send I you.” (John 20:20). 

Why should we take some time out of our 168 hours in any given week to take the Gospel to a lost and dying world who are headed toward Hell? Virus or no virus you can still get the gospel to your neighborhood.

WHY? BECAUSE JESUS ACTUALLY SAVES SINNERS

Just because there is a Covid-19 Pandemic does not mean that soul winning is not a command. With or without this virus it is still a command to go soul winning.

Just a few minutes ago I was able to lead a dad and daughter to Christ at my front door. He did some tree trimming for us and it gave me an opportunity to give them the gospel.

Because of this virus and many cancellations of my preaching schedule I have been able to win sous going about my daily business. People are open to the gospel and God has gotten their attention. Take advantage of it.

You may not obey and go, but that doesn’t mean that others are not obeying, while you are disobeying the command to take the Gospel to the world. While you are staying home others are going and they are seeing Jesus work in the lives of the lost. Be soul conscious.

If you backslide for some selfish reason and are upset about something down at the church house, or in your life, it doesn’t stop the command to spread the gospel.

Someone somewhere went soul winning this week. Someone somewhere witnessed for Christ this week. Someone somewhere saw conviction come from the Holy Spirit come on some unsaved person and they witnessed that person bowing their head and trusting Christ to save them.

When you doubt soul-winning stories of soul winners you are basically telling off on yourself. The longer it has been since you witnessed someone trusting Christ is reflected in your faith in personal soul winning. The longer the lapse of time there is since the last time you led someone to Christ the less faith you have in personal soul winning. The shorter the period of time the greater the faith in personal soul winning.

WHY? BECAUSE JESUS KEEPS SAVED SINNERS SAVED

I would not walk across the street to tell someone how to be saved if I thought they would lose their salvation before I came back from across the same street. How foolish to think that God does not have the power to keep us saved. If you are a question mark on this issue of going to Heaven instead of an exclamation point you will never be used to spread the gospel.

“Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God’s elect? It is God that justifieth. Who is h that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written, For thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter. Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come. Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 8:33-39). 

“Who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.” (I Peter 1:5). 

“Now unto him that is able to keep you from falling, and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy,” (Jude 24). 

“To deliver such as one unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.” (I Corinthians 5:5). 

“Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ:” (Philippians 1:6). 

“In whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation: in whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise, Which is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, unto the praise of his glory.” (Ephesians 1:13-14). 

“And grieve not the holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption.” (Ephesians 4:30). 

“Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life.” (John 5:24). 

“Labour not for the meat which perisheth, but for that meat which endureth unto everlasting life, which the Son of man shall give unto you: for him hath God the Father sealed.” (John 6:27). 

Sometimes people say to me, “What about where the Bible talks about falling from grace?” In the first place anytime you desire to extract a doctrine from the Scriptures you must weave content with context.

Let me illustrate! Suppose I was single and I were engaged to a girl named Grace. I love Grace and we had a date set for our wedding day. However, I just can’t wait for that day to arrive. So, I decide to pack my suitcase and grab a ladder to go to Grace’s house. I am going to talk her into running off with me and elope in order to be married now!

I find her house and place the ladder up against her house just under her window. I pitch a few stones up against her window. After a few minutes she comes to the window. She opens the window. I loudly whisper, “Grace I can’t wait for our wedding day I want you to elope with me and get married!”

I start to climb up the ladder. I finally arrive at her window. The window is opened. I await her coming to the window to come down the ladder with me to elope with me. She approaches the window. My heart is beating with excitement.

She reached the window. She takes her foot and pushes the ladder away from her window. I am now falling from Grace. I never got to Grace. I never took Grace down the aisle. I never married Grace. I came short of having Grace. Get it? Almost thou persuaded me.

WHY? BECAUSE JESUS USES SAVED SINNERS TO SAVE SINNERS

Mark 16:15 is preceded by verse fourteen. In verse fifteen, you have what is referred to as The Great Commission. Verse fourteen tells us to whom The Great Commission was given. “Afterward he appeared unto the eleven as they sat at meat, and upbraided them with their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they believed not them which had seen him after he was risen.”

Jesus was giving them a scolding. To what was he referring to in this scolding? He mentions their “unbelief” and “hardness of heart.” He was letting them know that they were backslide and that the answer for that backslidden state was to go soul winning.

If you are waiting to be prayed up and perfectly right with God to go soul winning then you will never go. You will never be prayed up until you awake in His likeness. You will never be perfectly right with God until you awake in His likeness.

You do not save anyone anyway! You “lead” them to the Saviour and He does the saving of the soul. You “win” them over to the Saviour and He does the saving of the soul.

In John chapter four, the woman at Sychar’s well had been married five times and was shacked up in adultery when she went to town and brought all those men back to Christ for salvation.

By the way, this is the same town where the disciples had already been. They bought meat for Jesus to eat but Jesus said, “I have meat to eat that ye know not of”. They missed out on why Jesus said to them in John 4:4, “And he must needs go through Samaria.”

Angels will not be going soul winning this week in your town. Angels peer into God’s house and wonder at humans who shout amen and the joy they express. They have not experienced salvation nor will they experience salvation.

Everything that has happened in your life has happened on purpose in order for you to give the gospel to someone who is headed for a devil’s Hell.

WHY? BECAUSE JESUS HAS SOMEONE WAITING FOR YOU TO GIVE THEM THE GOSPEL

“For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them. (Ephesians 2:10). 

Where you were born, where you work, where you live, what you have been through, and what your loved ones have been through are all for the furtherance of the gospel. These are not uh ohs with God!

“But I would ye should understand, brethren, that the things which happened unto me have fallen out rather unto the furtherance of the gospel;” (Philippians 1:12). 

Look at the appointments in the Scriptures. The Philippian jailer, Lydia, the thief on the cross, and the woman at Sychar’s well are only a view examples. God did not make a mistake in your life. Romans 8:28-29 explains that things are never changed for us, but they change us in order to be conformed to the image of Jesus Christ.

When God says “ordained” He is saying “planned” or a “blueprint”. The whole idea of life on planet earth is NOT for things to evolve around us, but for us to be used of God to spread the gospel to man so that man can once again be in fellowship with God.

WHY? SO LOCAL CHURCHES WILL HAVE PERPETUITY

“And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” (Matthew 16:18). This conversation is not declaring Peter to be the Pope. First of all Peter was married. Second of all he never did make it to Rome. Third Jesus refers him to as being a “pebble” in comparison to Jesus Himself referring to Himself as a “rock”.

The teaching here is that the gates of Hell will not prevail against a local church that is attacking the gates of Hell. Only when a church quits chasing sinners to give the gospel to them will the gates prevail. Gates attack no one! If Hell prevails it will be because a local church did not attack the gates of Hell.

When you say, “I sure do love my church! I hope our church is around for our grandchildren.” If that be true then you should go soul winning! Because that will help guarantee that your church will not lose her candlestick.

To the church at Ephesus the Scripture says in Revelation chapter two and verse five, “Remember therefore from whence thou art fallen, and repent, and do the first works; or else, I will come unto thee quickly, and will remove thy candlestick out of his place, except thou repent.”

“Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me.” (Revelation 3:20). This verse is often quoted while soul winning. It is not wrong to do so, but it is not the primary application of this verse.

Jesus is standing at the door of the worst of the churches in Revelation chapters two and three. He is saying if there is just one man who will let me come in I will come into that local church. One church member going soul winning can open the door for Jesus to enter.

“I say unto you, that likewise joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, more than over ninety and nine just persons, which need no repentance. Likewise, I say unto you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth.” (Luke 15:7,10).

WHY? BECAUSE JESUS PROMISES PROTECTION TO THE SOUL WINNER

“And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature. They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover.” (Mark 16:15,18). 

This chapter is not about proving if you have the power of God by drinking poison or playing with snakes. It is a chapter of protection for those who go soul winning.

A lady thinks, “I can’t go out there at night someone will probably snatch me.” No, if they do and they get you under a light they’ll send you home!

Everyone has to die! I would rather die soul winning than sitting in my bathtub trying to outwit a tornado! Can you imagine walking around Heaven and someone asks you how did you die? You fumble and bumble around and finally spit it out. “I got mine while hiding in my bathtub!” I rather die while out soul winning.

While I pastored Longview Baptist Temple of Longview, Texas, I kept track of what I called man-hours out on the streets. Have you ever seen a sign outside of a work place that gave the number of accident free workdays? Well, I have good news for you. We had twenty-nine and a half years of accident free soul winning nights. Why? Mark chapter sixteen!

WHY? BECAUSE JESUS PROMISES TO ANSWER THE SOUL WINNERS’ PRAYERS

Why should you go soul winning? Well one good reason is found in John 15:16, “Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, and ordained you, that ye should go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain: that whatsoever ye shall ask of the Father in my name, he may give it you.”

There are many doors to gaining answered prayer. There is fasting and prayer. Personally I don’t prefer this one! There is all night prayer. There is prayer in supplication or prayer with sweat. Many doors and one of those doors is the soul winners’ door where God promises, according to John 15:16, to answer the soul winner’s prayer if the request is in agreement with Scriptures.

If it is a constitutional issue you can cause the U.S. Supreme Court to hear your plea. “And this is the confidence that we have in him, that, if we ask any thing 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.” (I John 5:14-15). 

WHY? BECAUSE IT WILL CAUSE THE RAPTURE OF THE SAINTS

Romans 11:25 says, “…until the fulness of the Gentiles be come…” One of these days there will be a trumpet sound and a shout that cause the dead in Christ to come out of their graves to be raptured. Those who have trusted Christ and are alive at the rapture will then be taken up into the air to be with the Lord forever (I Thessalonians 4:16-17).

One of these days a soul winner is going to extend his hand out to an unsaved person and that lost person is going to take that hand of the soul winner. Then he or she will pray the sinner’s prayer to receive Christ as payment for their sins then God the Father is going to say to Jesus it is time to go and bring home our children.

Only God the Father knows the number needed in order to trigger the rapture. The truth is I would like to be the one that wins that last one!

Don’t tell everyone you are sick and tired of this old sin sick world while you stay home trying to hide from the Covid virus! The truth is you ought to help speed the rapture up by going soul winning! Take advantage of being quarantined and reach your neighborhood with the Gospel.

I have a home bound wife who lives in constant pain. She recently fell and broke both of her legs. She has had fifty surgeries in the past forty years. I have a grandson, R. G., who has a lot of physical problems at age twenty-nine. Do you think for a second that I do not want the rapture? I do so much so that I am not going to go soul winning. No! I will take advantage of this stay at home rule.

In 1918, the Spanish Flu caused the death of one million souls around the world. C. H Spurgeon cancelled his preaching engagements. He stayed in London and lead his members to win souls and care for the needs of those suffering in London. There is no reason to let those around you die and go to Hell.